“fine presidential dining”

In 1996 President Bill Clinton met German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Milwaukee.  The two ate at Miss Katie’s Diner.   Last night Latif had to pick me up from the Mill Road Branch Library and, in typical Latif fashion, chose a route that led us far afield from what any logical person would think of as a route home.  So since we were in the neighborhood of “fine presidential dinning,” and Latif after some dental work needs to eat soft foods, and the fact that I’ve never been to this iconic Milwaukee eating establishment, we figured why not,  Let’s eat at Miss Katie’s Diner. 

In all Christian charity I’m going to assume that in the last 22 years standards have slipped and perhaps when the historic meeting happened (still commemorated with a now grubby sign suspended from the ceiling of dirty water stained panels above the table with fishing line) the food was not so bad. But let us just say the meal was not enjoyed by either of us.  The malted milk shake advertised on the menu as the best in Milwaukee came with unmixed powered that stuck to the spoon and made grit in the glass.  The pancakes made Latif sick and the tuna melt reminded me of my mother’s “creamed tuna on toast” in both taste and quite frankly texture.   The fries were soggy, greasy, and tasted like they had freezer burn.  Even the water tasted funny.  Truly a disappointing meal.   What is great is that we can both laugh about it.  There is no one I would rather be with for a truly bad meal because there is no one else with whom I think I could laugh as hard about it afterwards.  

Miss Katie’s Diner will now be the standard by which all bad restaurant experiences will be measured. 

“Weitzels excel in every form of track and field work”

I was at loose ends at work on Saturday and was playing around with the Access Newspapers Archive database offered through Badger Link—While access to some Wisconsin papers is frustratingly limited—River Falls for instance only has coverage from 1850-1861,about 100 years too early to do me any good.  Winnipeg has a wealth of fully scanned papers going almost all the way up to the present.  

In doing searches on my Grandparent’s names I discovered that my Grandma Schaefer’s younger sisters,  Elsie and Emma Weitzel were track stars in the late 1930s.  I found 4 stories in 1937 & 1938 reporting the results of various Track meets. 

In a 1937 story In the Winnipeg Evening Tribune Emma even gets her picture in the paper.  

Results from that meet as posted in the Winnipeg Free Press:

The most details about my great aunts was reported in this one from the From Winnipeg Free Press June 2,  1938. I’ve transcribed below for reading ease:

Winnipeg’s representatives at the high school meet in Portage have been decided and although some came as surprises nevertheless they well deserved their victories.  The outstanding performers at the local inter-high meet Thursday and Friday were the Weitzel sisters from St. Johns.  Emma and Elsie each copped a first and second and showed that the Weitzels excel in every form of track and field work.  The A and B class jumps went to these two St Johnions and to demonstrate they could do more than jump, Emma chased Lil Davies home in the B sprint for a place position, and Elsie gave Jean Finch some anxious moments the way she was tossing the ball, but Joan won out in the A class ball throw, with Elsie second.  The easiest winner in the sprints was Lil Davies of Kelvin, who took her race with plenty to spare.  Lil was really running like a veteran, and looks to be a very promising sprinter.  Margaret Orr was also having her innings Friday when she captured the D sprint and then a third in the jump.  The D sprint was rather an upset with Eleanor Sullivan, Manitoba junior sprint champ, not even in the first three.  Whether it was Sullie’s unlucky day or not, Margaret certainly gave her no chance to think about it but went right out all the way.  She earned a well-deserved victory.  The A classer did have to break a record to beat the Kelvin girls.  Elsie Weitzel is the new record holder and a very good one at that.  Evelyn Young and Sheila Coupar of Kelvin both jumped well, but Elsie was just a little better.  Allson Fink, of course came though to win in the B class ball throw, also making a record, but Margret Hughs failed to throw as well as she has and had to be satisfied with second behind Ellie Wail of St. John. Ettie was the only other record breaker.

The style of writing cracks me up.  In other stories they use phrases like “carried off the laurals” to report that someone had won a race. 

Ironically I was going to go back and get the headline for the above story and had plans to look for other things in the index regarding fur companies that my Grandfather worked for, only to discover that Badger-link did not include access to this particular database in their contract and free access was discontinued starting on Monday  the 16^th.  I really hope the city of Milwaukee will get it back at some point,  because I’ve had a lot of fun playing with it.   As it is now, I can search the index, but I can’t look at the actual scanned pages.  I guess just like in the 75 yard dash, timing is everything.

Alien landing 60 years ago--as discovered at my local public library

I was going to write about this more than a week ago, but it was sixty years ago this summer that my father-in-law listed as “stateless,” left the Port of Southampton in England aboard the Queen Elizabeth, and 10 days later arrived in New York City.

How do I know this?  Citizens of Milwaukee have access to the library edition of ancestry.com at any City of Milwaukee library location.  I was having fun looking up people I know as a way of getting familiar with this resource, and found his ship’s manifest. 

I also found his petition for naturalization.