Bio: Staszak, John (Tribute – 1979)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Staszak, Plonka, Kling, Schanen, Jelinek, Bloczynski, Teeples

----Source: Staszak Family Memoirs Collection by Agnes Staszak Schanen

Staszak, John (1979)

Dear Editor:

Hatfield is in mourning; it has lost another Hatfield native, John Staszak.

He was just plain “Johnny” to everyone. If anyone needed help of advice, he was right there to do what he could.  He was honest and considerate of others.  He was a devoted family man and took them on many hunting trips to Canada and many western states.

Johnny loved everything about the outdoors; he had a small orchard and loved to work in the garden.  He made several ponds in a field and was presently raising a flock of wild Canadian geese.

He was born in August, 1924, near Hatfield in a log cabin, to Joseph and Pauline (Plonka) Staszak. The cabin had been an Inn over a hundred years ago and was called “Smith’s Inn;” many people that traveled from Black River Falls to Neillsville stayed there overnight.

In 1958, he married Patricia Kling, another Hatfield resident.  They had three sons, Michael, 19, William, 18, and Randy, 15.  Johnny had one brother, Albert, who drowned during deer hunting in 1951 when he took a short cut across the backwater and went through the ice; he was ¼ mile from home.

He had three sisters, Agnes, (Mrs. Lawrence Schanen), Port Washington; Stella, (Mrs. Charles Jelinek), and (Mrs. Leo Bloczynski), both of Black River Falls.

Johnny held many interesting jobs before he became a self-employed woodsman and logger.  He had worked for the Green Bay and Western Railroad, and also worked for the Department of Natural Resources for fourteen years in the game division.  In 1966, he went into partnership with his brother-in-law, Leo Bloczynski, and named it Jackson Pulp, Inc.   Besides cutting timber, he hauled logs to Nekoosa, Consolidated Paper Mills and Wausau and many other mills, including the one near Cataract, where he was accidentally killed.

His son, “Billy” is going to take over his business with the help of his uncle, Leo Bloczynski.  Michael is going to a logging and saw-milling school in North Carolina and will help run the business when he comes home.  Randy is also going to help.

Johnny was the treasurer of the “Hatfield Chamber of Commerce,” also helped get the Hatfield firehouse built, and belonged to the Hatfield Sportsmans Club.

He took care of the Hatfield cemetery after his father passed away.  His father had taken care of it for many years.

Now, Johnny is buried in the Hatfield cemetery, surrounded by all of the things he loved, the woods, the water and all of the wild life.  It is only a mile from where he was born and where his wife, Pat and their three sons still live.

In closing I would like to say, “We miss you, Johnny.”

Sincerely, Vi Teeples, Hatfield