Bio: Abitz, Henrietta Mrs. (84th Birthday - 1862-1946)
Transcriber: Stan
Surnames: Abitz, Mantik
----Source: Colby Phonograph (Colby, Clark County, Wis.) 03/14/1946
Abitz, Henrietta Mrs. (84th Birthday - 12 Mar. 1946)
Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Mantik and Rachel were Medford callers Wednesday and visited the former’s grandmother who celebrated her 84th birthday, Tuesday. She is the Mrs. Henrietta Abitz of Medford.
Bio: Mantik, Sally Kay (Birth - 1950)
Transcriber: Stan
Surnames: Mantik, Paulson
----Source: Abbotsford Tribune (Abbotsford, Clark County, Wis.) 10/12/1950
Mantik, Sally Kay (Birth - 6 Oct. 1950)
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Mantik, Route 1, Abbotsford, announce the birth of a daughter, at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Marshfield, Friday, Oct. 6. She weighed 10 pounds, one and one-half ounces and was named Sally Kay. Mother and baby came from the hospital Wednesday. The Mantiks have three other daughters and one son. Mrs. O. M. Paulson, of San Gabriel, California, mother of Mrs. Mantik, is helping at the Mantik home.
Bio: Graves,
Shirley - BPW “Woman of The Year” (1985)
Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail:
dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Graves, Meihack, Svetlik, Lauscher, Mackie
----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 9/12/1985
Graves. Mrs. Shirley-BPW “Woman of The Year” (1985)
When the Neillsville Business and Professional Women’s Club advertised for
nominees to be the 1985 Woman of the Year, it should have come as no surprise
that several people suggested Shirley Graves.
Graves served the residents for 23 years as a high school and elementary
secretary, prior to her retirement this past May. In that time she made
impression not only upon the administrators above her, but on the children
looking over the top of the office desk.
“We feel that under the circumstances, serving 23 years, she’s done an excellent
job,” noted Ruby Meihack, a member of the BPW’s selection committee.
Graves has been selected to be the BPW’s woman of the year and will be the guest
of honor at a banquet to be held this upcoming Tuesday, September 17. Tickets
for the event are available at local banking and lending institutions at a cost
of $9.00.
To hear Shirley tell it, with her infectious laugh, you probably would have paid
for the privilege of working with children.
Her original goals as a young lady were to enter a teaching profession, Graves
said. However, with her mother ill and many other family members away during
World War II, she felt her responsibilities were at home in Merrillan.
“Otherwise I would have went away to be a teacher,” she said.
After the war she and her late husband, Darwin, moved to Neillsville where she
began to work outside the home in places such as the Farmer’s Store and Harriet
Peterson’s shop.
“It wasn’t a case of just wanting to be away from home,” she noted. “We just had
a big family and needed to.”
It was Ann Svetlik, a friend who was leaving her secretarial position, that got
Graves a job with the school district in an off-handed way early in the 1960’s.
“She called me and said, ‘Don’t tell anyone, but there’s going to be a job
opening up at the school, and I thought you’d like it,’”
Shirley applied, even though she says she felt a little green with only her high
school education. But Supt. Ivan Lauscher must have seen something because he
hired her. Shirley began working half days in the old elementary school, then
scooting across town to take lunch tickets at the high school in the afternoon.
When the new elementary was built, she was given the choice of working in the
high school or the elementary, and chose the later because most of her children
were then of high school age. Although she was classified as a secretary, that
entailed different duties than today.
“When I started, we didn’t have teacher aids. The secretary did all the
duplicating and all the extra work that needed to be done.” She noted.
Neither were there the number of administrators and guidance counselors then and
a secretary might be called upon to fill those shoes. Graves recalled one little
kindergarten girl who would come to school crying and would not stop until she
had held her in her arms for 10 to 15 minutes.
“Finally I got it out of her that she was afraid that her mother would be lonely
when she was gone. So I had her call her mother, who told her she would be
alright and waiting for her at the end of the day. Everything was fine after
that,” Shirley said.
On another occasion, she was pressed into doctoring for a special education
youth who came to school with a large gash on his hand, evidently incurred in a
barn because it was heavy with dirt and manure. “He came in and said, ‘My mom
said you can fix this,’” Graves said. Fix it she did, washing it out thoroughly
and changing the dressing several times a day until it has healed.
“Now you can’t do anything. You just hand them a Bandaid. You can’t even give
them an aspirin if they have a headache,” she noted.
After the last of her children had graduated, Shirley decided to take a high
school job despite a warning from then Supt. Gerald Mackie that she would be
working for four different people. “I thought, Oh, if you only knew how many I
had already been working for already,” Graves said.
Graves said she always tried to make the office a pleasant environment for
children, saying good morning or hi to them and remembering them by names, even
those who got into trouble. “I didn’t have any reason to be angry with them, you
know. If they were sent to the office well okay, they were sent to the office.”
Perhaps for that reason, the announcement of Graves retirement was taken hard by
some students who regarded her as a surrogate grandparent. Now age 61, Graves
said she would have like to have waited at least one more year, but was forced
to retire because of recent cancer surgery and illness.
“I knew I couldn’t keep up with the pace I had been used to. I’m not the kind of
person that can go back and expect someone else to do my work,” she said.
“I miss the kids, but I don’t miss the work. When they go by my home, I wonder
what they’re going to do today, and which is going to get into mischief.”
Graves will also be leaving Neillsville soon, selling her home and moving in
with a daughter and her family outside of Merrillan.
Bio: Steiner,
Francis - Outstanding Vocational Instructor (1985)
Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail:
dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Steiner
----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 7/18/1985
Granton-Steiner, Francis-Outstanding Vocational Instructor (1985)
Francis Steiner, longtime instructor at the Granton High School, was named the
1985 outstanding vocational agriculture instructor and received recognition at
the annual banquet of agriculture instructors held last week at the University
of Wisconsin in Madison.
He was honored for his teaching successes in the classroom and at fairs and
contests. Over 90 FFA members at Granton have become Wisconsin State Farmers and
ten have gone on to become American Farmers. A year ago, Sperry New Holland farm
machinery selected him as on of the top six agricultural instructors in the
nation and flew him to California to pick up his award. He is a select member of
the Wisconsin Livestock Breeders Honoree Club. In 1976, he was selected with two
other educators to study the agricultural needs of Nicaragua.
The past month the Granton Chapter placed first in promotion of dairy activities
in the Wisconsin Junior Dairymen’s Association. This fall the Granton FFA will
travel to Kansas City to pick up two national awards for recognition in
community service and in chapter activities.
Bio: Timmler,
Tammy-Named 1985- 86 Miss Clark County (1985)
Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail:
dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: Timmler, Kaz, Ross, Strack, Scadden, Petryk, Hybben, Conrad
----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 8/15/1985
Timmler, Tammy-Named 1985-86 Miss Clark County (1985)
A 20-year-old Greenwood woman has been selected as the 1985-86 reigning Miss
Clark County.
Honored at a ceremony last Wednesday at the climax of the “Fairest of the Fair”
contest was Tammy Timmler, the daughter of Mr. a