I like watching fishing on TV, you ever?
That'll make you worry about yourself.
You ever watch fishing on TV for like 15 minutes
and then just go, well, I better get a life.
I'm watching fishing.
I'm not even fishing. I'm watching fishing.
Too lazy to fish.
I'm taping fishing.
To watch again later.
Come on over, I got a fishing tape.
No, no one.
And at the end of the fishing show, they roll credits.
There are like 90 people involved with the two guys fishing.
What are they all doing?
And one of the credits is film editor, this poor guy.
He's got to watch all the footage.
It's not exciting enough to make it into that final show.
My baby, he don't talk sweet.
He ain't got much to say.
Run the movie Footloose.
Let's hear it for the boy.
Denise Williams, 707 at WRGN Radio.
Old Town Radio, refreshed.
Rain, it's no less than a half an inch expected today
behind her 37 drizzle.
And 36 degrees right now.
Derek Cole.
I've been practicing this, all practicing this all week.
Carl Walsky.
Am I right, Jerry?
You're right.
Good, I got it.
I got it.
Okay, so hearing received the city of receiving just rain.
It's just wet.
And you're out in Union Grove.
What's it like out there?
It's just raining.
Yeah, just unique.
It's no plow from scratching down the rainy highway here.
Why don't get it?
Yeah, why would they bother?
I know.
They do it a lot.
Jerry is the guys want the overtime, I guess.
You know, they were just told to plow.
Yep.
Just plow what's there.
That's it.
All right.
Jerry is the owner of Oak Clearing Farm.
He's out in Union Grove.
I've been there.
And a couple of times a year, they open it up to the public.
And it's like the history of rescuing from the 1800s on up.
And is this just stuff you collected?
Or is this just happened to be there when you bought the place?
No.
I was collecting Racine objects all the way back to 1970.
And I was living in Racine.
And then I had this major collection.
I started with finding some old bottles.
And then I just grew from there.
But in 1988, I moved out to the farm here.
And we had this big old barn and an old greenery and that.
And we just converted it to an open air type museum.
And it's worked out pretty good.
You know, between 88 and 98, I was really busy here.
But then in 98, it just kind of drifted off.
The school kids, the teachers weren't shutting up field trips
to come here and that anymore.
And so we kind of shut it down for 10 years in 98.
But this packer Frank, a friend of mine, he's passed away now.
From Union Grove, just kept bugging me and bugging me.
You got to open that back up again, Jerry.
You got to open it back up again.
I told him, we'll make an agreement.
If you become my blacksmith, I will open.
And that's what he did.
He became my blacksmith in 2008.
And he did that job wonderfully until he passed away.
And it was really great.
2017 was the big deal with the American pickers.
It was an interesting experience.
We'll get to that in a second.
I'm going to talk about the history of what you've got there.
And by the way, Frank Lamping, who you mentioned,
did pass away.
He was a big historian for Union Grove.
And I mentioned to you, this is just a side.
He is buried in Union Grove Cemetery,
not the veteran cemetery, but Union Grove Memorial Cemetery.
And my plot is right behind his about two steps away.
And you can always find his because he's in the Green Bay Packer fan hall of fame.
Yep.
And all this Green Bay Packer stuff is all over his gravesite.
So he's very easy to spot from a distance.
So if someday if you want to visit me, go to his gravesite,
take two steps back, four steps to the left, and you'll find me.
Anyway, in case anybody's going to be looking.
So I went there, I guess I must have gone,
I don't know if I went in the spring or fall,
but I went there one time.
It was very crowded.
And you do have a lot of parking on the phone.
Okay.
Yeah.
That particular day.
We had over 700 people come through.
Yeah.
It was crowded.
Yeah.
You know, most people just come through.
It takes them 20 minutes, 30 minutes.
They just kind of take a walk through.
Other people stop and talk with everybody and things like that.
They spend maybe an hour or something like that.
But we had a girl.
And real Racine had a slip that, you know,
you had to put down where you're from and how many in your group.
And I had a woman that was going around and making sure almost everybody was kind of logged in
so we know how many people had come.
You know, it was kind of cute because I took the slips to real Racine.
And a little while later Dave Blank called me up and he says,
can you do this again?
I said, well, sure.
You know, and then he said we had 60 sites open.
1100 people signed in at 60 sites.
And over 700 is on your sheets.
This is amazing.
And it actually was.
And it was a real thrill.
But they just came out to see the goofy guy and Union Grove collect stuff.
No, they can't.
They can't to see the history that the goofy guy put together.
It was a fun project.
It's you and your wife Marie, right?
You and your wife with us together.
Yeah.
Now, when I went in, just walk us through, give us like a visual tour,
an audio tour of what we see when we go through there.
And these are barns and buildings we're going through on the property.
Give us kind of a walking tour of what we see.
Well, now we put in three new displays.
And now you'd park in the back a lot.
And you'd go into a fanning mill building.
A fanning mills were grain cleaning machines.
Racine had about 12 companies that manufactured them.
And we have a whole line of these grain cleaning machines
that things related to cleaning grain.
That was the fanning mill museum.
Then we have another old tools and merchandise building.
Full of old hand tools and all kinds of different merchandise.
You know, I hung up signs from like Snyder's Variety Store on Taylor Avenue.
And these different things I hung them on the wall in there.
And it's interesting.
Then you go over to the pink house.
And the pink house is like a pioneer cottage.
And it has a rope bed, the pot belly stove.
And the girls are all dressed up in costume.
And they tell you all the story about the...
Some of the story about the farm.
And then you get to see these old things that, you know, pot belly stoves,
rope beds, things that you normally don't see every day.
And then it'll walk down the path.
You go past this little woodworking shop.
That one doesn't have anything going on with it.
But it's got all kinds of antique tools and things also.
Then you go to the blacksmith shop.
That actually is the anchor, the anchor.
That alone would be interesting for a person to see.
Because it's a complete blacksmith shop.
It's like a Cadillac.
It's got everything in it.
It's not a put together deal.
It was a whole shop.
I bought it in 1988.
It's lock, stock, and barrel.
It took two weeks to move all the equipment and everything over here to the farm.
And then we adjusted the area to fit it.
And then this year, or this last year, we added a bottom museum.
Finally, the thing that started my whole career in local history,
I finally put them on display again.
And I have a major collection of racing bottles.
And brewery bottles, drugstore bottles, milk bottles, soda bottles.
Everything you could take off.
Dr. Schoep's medicines.
And I put about 70% of the collection on display.
And yeah, through the years, it's been wonderful.
I started it in 1988.
You know, we're looking back.
That's quite a few years.
I first got involved with the Historical Society.
And then I was on the board of trustees and vice president.
But then I outgrew it.
And I had all of these things.
And then when they moved out to the farm, I had a place to put them.
And I continued to buy these things, you know, almost every day.
I buy something off eBay.
It might just be a matchbook or something for brave feed.
But I, you know, I don't know if it's a habit or a bad vice or whatever.
But a couple of dollars here and there, it doesn't kill me, you know.
Well, let me ask you, what's the earliest dated piece of artifact or item you have there?
How far back can you date some of these items?
Well, the oldest, one of the oldest items, well, I got a prehistoric, a few prehistoric things, you know, related to Indians.
But I've got books from the 1600s.
Oh, really?
Okay.
And the 1600s, 1700s.
And we have a very good library here in archives.
And I started putting this together 50 years ago.
I've got a 20, 2500 postcards, a thousand matchbook covers related to Racine and Racine County, you know.
We have a manuscript filed with like old case company catalogs and Harvey Spring catalogs, things like that, old letters, documents.
We have letterhead and bill, head files of all these different companies all through the years going back to the 1840s.
The earliest one in there, I think it's 1841.
And, uh, or 43.
Well, anyways.
But, uh, yeah, and it's been getting catalogued. It's amazing.
I'm getting a catalog.
And in our photo collections, I have, uh, I bought out home studio, which was a studio that operated on high street.
And, uh, there's thousands of photographs, mostly portraits.
I had initially bought the negatives because they were from the early 1900s.
And he was just playing around with his camera.
And he took pictures of like Douglass and high street and churches and schools and fire stations, things like that.
But then the lady, his daughter, she says, what about all these other ones?
So, here I bought thousands of negatives from 1916 to 1964.
Hold it right there, Jerry. Hold it right there. I gotta take quick break.
Okay.
Jerry Kowalski of, uh, Oak Clearing Farm in Union Grove.
We're coming up for talking about the history of rescuing at 719, WRJ and Radio.
Well, I've been waiting, waiting here so far.
But thinking nothing, nothing good wrong.
Well, now I know she has a built-in ability to get within your seas.
And now she's falling, falling, falling, falling.
It's 720 at WRJ and Radio.
Thank you for joining us here on this Tuesday morning, my guest, Jerry Kowalski of Oak Clearing Farm in Union Grove.
He's got the history of rescuing and the county, right at his farm.
We're going to talk about how you can go to see it for yourself coming up in just a moment.
Plus, we'll talk about American pickers who are out there.
Jerry, you left off about getting some pictures and negatives from the early 1900s.
Yeah, that was the home studio collection.
Well, you know, when I bought that, then I started calling up old photographers, Gus Malmy,
and these different photographers asking if they had any of them early glass plate negatives and things.
And then a really cool situation happened.
I went to an antique bottle show up in Milwaukee, and a local racing dealer said,
hey, I've got all these glass plate negatives.
You should buy them.
And at the time, I thought, what would I, I knew nothing about photography.
And what would I do with them, you know?
And then he, each time I went up there, he bugged me that I should buy them.
And then one day I came to work, and I was talking to one of the guys at the lunch table,
and he says, well, you ought to buy them, you know?
I'll show you what a print them out, you know?
That's all you need is a light chemicals in a dark room.
Oh, okay.
So then I bought them.
I bought 250 glass plates.
And this is from Wilford Marshall.
And Wilford Marshall was an amateur photographer that started taking pictures in racing about 1899.
And he ended up living there be 99 and 10 months old.
And he took pictures his entire life here in racing.
But these were early glass plates that he took all around the city of bridges, buildings, hotels,
everything you could think of.
A lot of groups, family gatherings, and 50th anniversary pictures, and things like that.
And these are all from like 1900 and 1996, 1910 in that time period.
Then the next time I went up to the show, he says, oh, you should buy the rest of them.
I ended up buying the rest of them in a thousand glass plates.
Now that was back in 1982, okay?
So it took me 41 years.
And I finally printed a book with 420 of them glass plates.
And it's a beautiful book through the eyes of Wilford Marshall.
You know?
And it's just like a documentation of the city.
It's about him.
And it has all these beautiful news.
20 multi-mule team borax teams coming through town.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
It's a great book.
And can I tell you where you can buy it?
Sure.
Absolutely.
In racing, the only place you can buy it in racing is at the artist's gallery at 4th and main.
And it's also on eBay.
You know, it'd be under through the eyes of Wilford Marshall.
And it hit racing and racing book probably comes up.
You know, I'm not, you know, I love history.
And I play with that all the time, but I'm not a good marketer or anything like that.
Let me tell you something.
My wife just texted me.
She says, I want that book.
Okay.
So one more time.
The name of the book is, because they're going to write it down here.
The name of the book is through the eyes of Wilford Marshall.
Through the eyes of Wilford Marshall.
And it's available at 4th and main.
What was the name of the book store again?
Artist gallery.
I'm writing this all down.
I know what somebody's getting for their birthday.
Okay.
So she said she wanted that book.
And that's got to be magnificent to look through.
You have 400 of the plates you had made for that book.
Yeah.
And I mean, they're crystal clear to pictures that are mostly five, about five by seven inches.
It's a big coffee table book.
They're crystal clear.
And it covers a lot of beautiful things that happened right there, right after the turn of the century.
You know, and that.
But anyways, you know, I'll tell you, this career here, I found some old bottles.
Then I'm talking to all my friends about old bottles, right?
And somebody says you should write a book.
So okay, 1976, I start writing a little book on regime bottles.
You know, and that.
And they put a thing in a newspaper that I was looking for pictures and things for the book.
And so then teachers start calling me up.
Could you come and talk about bottles that are classic?
Yeah, okay.
So I go to these classes at Fratt School.
And take a couple of bottles and talk to the kids about bottles.
And then the teacher says, you know, you ought to do a regular program on this.
You know, this is really cool.
So then I turn around and I get a slight projector.
Some friends help me make sight and have a camera.
A friend took pictures of my bottles and that.
And then I decided to expand it because I was doing all this research on the book.
And I was finding all these great historical things, you know.
I had never known about the city and everything.
And so I put a slide show together about the history of Racine.
This is in 1979.
And it was Racine in history.
And for 1979, well, until the 90s and even almost 2000,
I was still doing slide presentations of, you know, the history of Racine.
And the neat thing about it was starting in 1979 in 1983 and 1984.
My calendar almost every night of the week.
I had to go and do a church group, real estate people group.
You know, all these different groups because it was the chess quesentennial year,
the 150th anniversary of Racine.
And the timing was perfect.
Here I had this show and everybody was thinking history.
And I do slide shows all over the city.
Somewhat like what's going on now with Jim Mercer and Carol.
You know, they'll be in here next week.
Yeah.
And the thing is that, see, I only had a slide projector in a screen.
Now we have all these different things.
You know, you got PowerPoint.
You got all the different things which makes it so much easier, you know.
And that.
And so I hit it at the right time, you know, because it was just everybody was thinking history at that type.
You know, one of the other things I was thinking of is how did I actually get started in thinking of history.
And that happened in the fourth grade at Garfield School.
A man, a gentleman, a old teacher called Pop Sanders,
substituted in our class and the whole day was spent on local history.
And it was fast, maybe.
This little man was up there telling us things that we never dreamed up.
And the other thing was in 1956.
Jerry, Jerry, hold on there.
In 1956 is where we're going to pick up on it just a few months.
Hold on.
729 at WRGN Radio, a civic media station.
All-town radio.
We're fresh.
We're with Jerry from Oak Clearing Farm and Union Grove coming up in just a moment.
Stay with us.
I'm going to stand on the corner midnight.
Trying to get my courage up.
There was this long, lovely dancer, little club downtown.
I love to watch you do her stuff.
Through the long, lonely nights, she filled my sleep.
By the softness swaying to that smoky beat, down on mainstream.
Good morning.
735.
I'm Don Rose in WRGN Radio.
Very lucky to have our special guest, Jerry.
Carwowski here from Oak Clearing Farm in Union Grove.
He's got the history of recene located right at his farm.
And we left off at what, 1956?
I forgot what year it was we left off at.
Yeah, 1956.
Okay, go ahead.
You were saying something.
Well, in 1956, the journal claims was celebrating their 100th anniversary.
And they had special editions every week.
And they're suddenly bulletin.
Just loaded with local history all the way back and continuing on.
And one of the things is they published it in book form.
It was so popular.
They took them newspaper issues and published them in a book form.
And I had gotten one from the Uptown Public Library.
That's history now, too.
The public library in Uptown.
And she says, well, I'm not supposed to let it out.
But for you, I'm going to let it out.
So she made it a special thing that I could take the book out.
And it was just fascinating.
I was more and more local history was just pouring out of it.
It was just wonderful.
You know, getting back to doing these programs now.
Back, back years ago, I would come in and do programs with Bob Cook.
This is ancient history.
I remember I worked here with both guys.
Okay.
Yeah, I was doing this 40 years ago.
I was doing a case of programs on local history back then, 40 years ago.
You know, so I've been in this a long time.
Now, here's a, this question may sound kind of odd in off-putting.
But what happens someday when you're not around
to all this stuff you gathered and curated,
what happens to it all?
Okay.
Because it's a private collection owned by me and my,
but owned by me.
Right.
You know, we have a family trust that everything goes to my children.
And I have three daughters and two of my extremely interested
in the artifacts and the different things.
And we're not talking about a few artifacts here, Don.
I have probably 100,000 items here.
Now, that, that isn't all hard, you know, artifacts.
But postcards, when you add up the postcards, the photographs,
all the other different things, the books and documents and everything.
There's probably 100,000 pieces here.
And your children take care of it, right?
They're going to be stuck with it.
And, you know, I've got boxes where this is not to be sold.
I put tags in it.
This is not to be sold.
Because primarily, them were gifts to me.
I haven't been gifted a lot of things.
But people have gifted me things.
And with those types of things, especially when they're like a family collection
of photographs and things, I put a note in that box
that this is, you know, not to be sold.
And that, that would be passed on to maybe part side
or the public library or something like that, you know.
Well, yeah.
I was on a much smaller scale.
I have my dad's, my dad was a tail gunner for four years
during World War II.
He was a Navy tail gunner.
And I have his dress uniform.
I have all his medals.
I have his commendations from the Navy from the, from World War II.
I've got all that stuff.
And what's going to happen when I'm not around anymore?
Well, my nephew said to me, I want it.
And so he's going to take it and hopefully,
leave it to someone else because I don't want them thrown in the garbage.
You might, my father's daughter, Navy dress uniform from World War II.
And all his medals and commendations, I don't want them thrown out.
Also, I have the flag that they folded into a triangle.
He had died with, he was buried with the Navy honors.
Some's got to be happy to this stuff like you.
You've got to put it in the trust and leave it for somebody
because you don't want this stuff being thrown in the garbage.
It's history.
And it's got to be saved.
You know, I work, I work for the village of Yorkville recycling
and collection center where they can bring their garbage and things.
And you would be amazed at what people throw away.
But me being there, and they know my interest in local history
and preserving things, most of the people just handed up to me.
You have any use for this cherry?
Or I hope this is something that you would want.
And it happens all the time.
And then it's really nice.
And you know, I've got family histories, I've got boxes
with their birth certificates, their pictures, their graduation certificates and that.
And they had no children, no children at all.
And I'm the keeper of the flame for them.
You know, I found a whole bunch of yearbooks, high school yearbooks,
and a trash can once.
I forget where I was, where I found, I didn't know dumpster diving,
but I found it.
And I called the high school in Illinois and they said,
we would love to have that because we don't have that year.
It was from the mid or early 1900s.
We don't have that year.
So I sent it to them and they were very grateful.
Send me a very nice letter back saying it's a nice addition to their library.
Somebody tossed it.
I guess somebody passed away and they tossed it.
Along with all the tax returns from this person,
but the yearbooks were valuable to somebody and it would just happen to be in the garbage pale.
And I forget where I found it.
Hey, Jerry, you need to talk about American Pickers.
I got to get that into the TV show, American Pickers,
came to your farm to do a pick.
Tell us about that whole process.
I got to tell you, every, ever since they started,
I got a phone call and I talked to a producer.
And almost every time it's, oh yeah, that's real interesting.
We may call you back.
And then they never call back.
And this went on for years.
And my daughter said to me, she said,
the next time in her in the area, don't you answer the phone,
you let me deal with this.
Because you talk them right out of it.
So I turned around, okay, I won't answer the phone.
And then I did get a couple phone calls.
And I didn't answer the phone.
But what she did is she had some of her friends call them.
It's a, hey, you know about that guy Jerry out there in Union Grove.
Oh yeah, we heard something about it.
And then she called it.
And said, you know, you ever see Jerry out there in Union Grove.
He's got a real nice collection of stuff.
And they said, oh yeah, we heard about it.
Well, I can answer your questions.
I'm his daughter, you know.
So she worked four months, four months with producers in that.
And then finally, they told me that they wanted to Skype with me.
You know, and I told her, no, I don't even want to deal with them people.
No, I'm nothing to do it.
And I've had enough, you know.
She said, dad, they want to really talk to you.
I don't want nothing to do it.
And then she stormed out of here because I wasn't going along with what she wanted.
My other daughter called up and dad.
They really want to talk to you.
Can't you just take a few minutes and talk to them?
Yeah, okay.
You know, so we get on Skype and it's the same thing talking to a producer.
And she said the same thing that it sounds very interesting.
We'll take a look and give you a call, you know.
And then they were putting the webcam away in a phone ring.
American pickers.
And the producers, you know, telling me, will you be home tomorrow?
This is not a Thursday.
And they came on a Friday.
Will you be home tomorrow at 10 o'clock?
I said, I can be.
And how many people would be there?
If there's a crowd of people there, we're going to turn around and drive back out, you know.
And that don't clean anything.
Don't move anything out that you think they'd want to see.
They like to just go around with their flashlights and look at things.
So, you know, then I, you know, go to bed next morning.
I'm sitting here just like this morning looking at the clock, seven o'clock, you know.
I'm looking down the driveway and all of the sun trucks start coming in.
And that, and I thought, oh my god, it wasn't a dream, you know.
So the producers came around and looked around.
And that, and opened this door, opened that door, and that type of thing.
And that, I wasn't directed to say anything except when they came up to the blacksmith shop,
I was supposed to come out and say hi.
And honest to God, I screwed that up.
They had it tough.
You had one word and you screwed that up.
Yeah.
Well, really, because they said, Daniel talked to you.
And in that few seconds, I'm thinking, I didn't talk to Daniel.
You know.
And, and I was blank until they had a, they had a dub that is, you know, it was kind of neat.
But I wondered what word I remember.
They didn't tell me anything.
Nothing was staged at all.
Not a thing.
So how long did it take him to pick and film and do all that kind of stuff?
Nine hours.
They were here for nine hours.
Now, I remember when I went through your farm, I remember you saying or somebody told me that
they buy stuff for themselves and they buy stuff for the show.
It's done separately, right?
Absolutely.
How does that work?
Okay.
They, they, they separated.
Everything was, they knew exactly what they were going to put on the show when they left here.
Because they were, they were watching it on monitors and everything.
The whole thing and deciding what parts are better than the other parts and this and that.
But there were, you know, Frank bought a number of toys that weren't on the program.
Mike bought a number of things too also that weren't on the program for themselves.
Now, these guys got it made.
They got it made.
They got a, they got a company that pays them to go around and do this.
And, and then they got first pick and they can make these side deals and buy stuff for themselves.
I mean, it's a, it's a win-win situation.
You know, when American pickers first came out, I met the, I met the dump there, the collection site.
And the guys were joking like the dickens about you got it better than they do.
The stuff just comes to you.
You don't even have to go out and look for it.
Now, what kind of truck do they have to haul this stuff away?
The American pickers truck you see on the program.
They got it all fit in there.
Well, they didn't buy anything real big.
If they bought a boat or something like that, then they have a box trucker or semi-comfort.
But all the things they bought for me, they could get on that truck.
They bought some bicycles.
I only have one regret.
Well, I actually, too.
But the major regret was I sold them something that I should have sold because it was a really good,
richine artifact.
And it was a salesman sample for teleoptic lights and recene.
And I threw out a big number and he kind of laughed about it.
But he ended up paying $575.
Yeah, but you know what?
If I went to an antique shop up in Oshkosh and that was there, I'd pay $1,000 for it.
You know, I made a big mistake.
But you know, all the excitement, I mean, you know, I'm going to be on a TV show and all of that.
You get all excited.
Did they have a food truck there?
No.
Oh, okay.
They turned around and they said, where can we order good food?
They no longer with the restaurants because they could eat their meal.
Yeah, people come up to them, yeah.
Initially, when they first started, they'd go to a restaurant with people on the break or whatever.
Here, we ordered from Ralph 20.
Oh, yeah.
Right there on that way, 20, yeah.
Yeah.
They told Ralph 20 to keep it all secret, don't say nothing.
Hold on a second, Jerry.
Jerry Kowalski from Oak Clearing Farm is with us.
And I'm going to ask him when we get back, we're going to talk a little bit about more about American pickers.
But I'm going to ask him when you can go visit the farm.
It's up and only, I think, twice a year.
We'll talk to Jerry about that.
From Oak Clearing Farm, plus in case you missed the title of that book that he's got that my wife wants to get,
I will repeat that for you too.
749 at WRJN Radio, where hometown radio,
refreshed a civic media station.
We're talking to Jerry Kowalski from Oak Clearing Farm in Union Grove.
And let's finish up with American pickers here real quickly.
Now, when you saw this show, they were there for nine hours.
And how long was your segment on the show on TV?
We're talking to Jerry Kowalski from Oak Clearing Farm in Union Grove.
And let's finish up with American pickers here real quickly.
Now, when you saw this show, they were there for nine hours.
And how long was your segment on the show on TV?
30 minutes with advertisements.
Did they get you saying the word high?
They dubbed that in.
One word.
Yeah, I messed it up.
That's for sure.
That was great.
It was a fun time.
I want to tell you, you know, Mike Woff,
he, you know, in the breaks, he came in my living room,
kicked back in the recliner.
And it was just like I knew him for a hundred years,
like I knew him all my life.
He is so personable.
Frank, you know, he was fine,
but he would instead of kicking back and talking,
he'd wander off.
He was always looking at things, you know,
he would in the blacksmith's shop,
and he'd be looking around in there,
rather than being real social.
But Mike, my god, he was a social butterfly.
He had just unbelievable,
what we left and carry on.
And it was a real good time, you know.
Did those guys have a falling out?
I think so.
I believe so, you know.
I don't know, you know, there's all kinds of stories
about what might have happened or, you know,
illnesses and things like that.
You don't know.
They don't, they don't give you the whole story.
And you're not there to get the whole story.
You're there to help them out.
Hey, I got to ask you, we took a tour.
We take a lot of cemetery tours, my wife and I,
because there's so much history in a cemetery.
A lot of people don't think,
they just think of dead bodies in there,
but there's history there.
Oh, yeah.
Just recently, a couple of months ago,
we went to the Yorkville cemetery and you were there.
I helped out the tour.
Yeah.
I was Daniel Scuice,
a prominent farmer out here in the Yorkville area.
That was all decked out with my tuxedo and top hat.
You know, I had to be the acting or the president
of the old settler society for the 150th anniversary
of Union Grove.
So I needed an outfit.
So I went and bought an old tuxedo and a top hat and that,
and that's what I wore at the cemetery walk.
And occasionally, I'll put that on and people look at me like,
who's this crazy guy,
but it's real historical looking.
And let me tell you something.
We walked through cemeteries all across the country.
And my wife does a little research
before we go there to these cemeteries.
There's a cemetery just outside,
Metropolis, Illinois, at the bottom of the state.
It's the old dilapidated cemetery.
And in that cemetery is the gravesite of Robert Stroud.
You know, Robert Stroud is?
No.
No, a lot of people don't know him by that name.
He was the Birdman of Alcatraz.
Okay.
Robert Stroud.
He's buried there next to his mother in this old dilapidated cemetery.
Unless you looked it up and knew it, you would know it.
Then there's a cemetery in Lincoln, Nebraska.
And a guy named Charles Starkweather is buried there.
There were three movies made about him.
One was called Natural Born Killers.
One was called California with Brad Pitt.
And the other one was called Badlands
with Sissy Spasic and Martin Sheen.
He was a killer, a serial killer.
Him and his teenage girlfriend just went around killing people
around Kansas.
And Nebraska should say Nebraska.
And he's buried there in that cemetery.
And right across from him are three of his victims facing him.
I mean, you know, and there's so much.
And I'm not going to go through all of them.
But if you go to Mount Carmel cemetery, you know,
I know that's where Al Capone and a lot of the mobsters are buried.
There's a story there.
I'll tell some time about this woman who passed away in 1900.
It's an amazing story.
But there's so much to be found in cemeteries.
And with that Yorkville cemetery was a wonderful tour.
And you got to go to the house across the street,
which was part of the town.
Yeah.
Beautiful restoration.
Now, do you do that every year?
Well, they did a Yorkville or Union Grove cemetery
where you're going to be.
They did one a few years ago.
Yeah, I went to that.
I went to that one, yeah.
Yeah.
And then they did this one.
We have other cemeteries in the area that they could do,
like Sylvania cemetery out there on the front of the road.
And things like that in the future.
Because that's in Yorkville also.
In Yorkville, we have the history seekers, Union Grove and Yorkville.
We have the history seekers.
And they're trying to interact with people and doing programs
and things for the community related to local history.
And a lot of the members are volunteers here at Oak Clearing's.
I am so fortunate over the years I've had
a wonderful group of volunteers.
And I mean, these people go out of their way
and they do a great job.
You know, when you got people that work together as a team
and they get things done, you can really accomplish nice things.
It isn't just me.
You know, I did the painting and the building and moving and decorating.
But they bring it to life.
They wear these outfits and that and they bring it to life.
And that is so cool.
You know, I got to notice here from Ron Helmick.
He said Frank Lamping died from Crohn's disease.
I guess that's what he gets sick from.
Frank Fritz.
Frank Fritz.
Oh, Frank Fritz, okay.
Yeah.
Okay, Frank Fritz.
From the American pickers.
Oh, okay.
That's who he's talking about.
Okay, Frank Fritz.
Got Crohn's disease.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I got it mixed up there.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I'm misunderstood.
That's why I hate text messaging because you can get things misconstrued.
Also, my wife said the reason we took those plots in Union Grove was because of that history
seekers event we went to.
And that's right because her dad is buried there.
Her mom and dad are buried there.
But we went to the history seekers event at Union Grove Memorial Cemetery and that's
the day we decided to kind of move in.
Save that way.
You know, we have four plots.
My brother and his wife are going to be buried there as well.
And I one day wanted it.
You know, so it's a real estate deal when you buy a cemetery plot.
That's basically what it is.
And I wanted to have a picnic on there.
Just put a sign future home of Don Rosen.
You know, right on the plot.
Hey, Jerry, give us a name of the book one more time.
Through the eyes of Wilford Marshall.
And it's available at the Art Artist Gallery fourth mail.
Fourth and main downtown receipt.
Yeah.
And my other book, Refine the Postcards book.
That's that Barnes and Noble.
That one.
I want to tell you something.
And in 2000, well, I went to Kenosha, the museum, historical museum.
Kenosha is fabulous.
You get a half to save that for next time.
We're out of time.
Oh, Jerry Carwalski, save it for next time.
Because I'll have you back, Jerry.
No problem.
Oh, Clarings Farm in Union Grove.
And what are the two times people can come there real quick?
Spring and fall.
Father's Day.
Father's Day is going to be the spring one.
Okay. Good.
Looking forward to that, Jerry.
I'll have you back just before that to remind people.
Okay.
I'm Don Rosen.
Jerry, hold on the line.
Don't go anywhere.
WRJN Radio.
Home Town Radio.