Bio: Opelt’s Opulent Table (Many Meals - 1978)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Opelt

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 2/02/1978

Opelt’s Opulent Table (Many Meals - 1978)

“We didn’t have a dumpling left,” Millie Opelt said after finishing an annual event for the Neillsville area that is becoming an institution of eating delight.

What Millie was talking about was the efforts of she and her husband, Carl, their children and in-laws in promoting a little rural hospitality………on a grand scale.

Several years ago, Carl and Millie figured that it would be a nice gesture if they invited snowmobilers into their home for a bite to eat. The Opelts live in the Town of Levis, and their former farm and present home is only a stone’s toss from the now ice covered Black River. From their windows, they could watch the winter highway as snowmobilers made their way from Neillsville to points south.

The Opelt family also like to snowmobile and that also says a lot. The Opelt family, stemming from Carl and Millie, now numbers in the hundreds, counting all the children, their spouses, grandchildren and mates and great-grandchildren. Even if only half the Opelt clan snowmobiled, the number would probably be larger than many counties have snowmobilers.

Carl and Millie couldn’t just have a table of appetizers to satiate the appetites of the snowmobilers passing the window. Nothing would suffice except a full scale meal. This year was no different with 83 people making their way to the remote home to savor sauerkraut, homemade dumplings and spareribs.

The usual procedure has been to just put a sign or a flag in the ice flows of the river, telling of the Opelt welcome for dinner. Word of mouth also spread. This year there were more cars parked outside the family home than there were snowmobiles.

A total of 83 people was served dinner this past Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 2;30 p.m., when son Bob filled the last place setting with the steaming food.

Millie stated that about a bushel of potatoes had been peeled the previous day and five packages of spareribs had also be readied for the arrival of the winter hungry eaters. Many of her children worked hard in the days previous to Sunday in getting ready all of the food.

The table was filled with platters of ribs, bowls of dumplings and sauerkraut and potatoes. Joining them were bowls of gravy, all types of greens and plate upon plate of Jello salads and rich desserts.

The Opelt home is an average style ranch home. As one enters the house, the kitchen is the first room in view. Stream bubbled from the kitchen where Millie and the others kept the food cooking and dumplings fresh. Several other of the family took on the responsibility to keep the flow of people moving to and from the table, cleaning the dirty dishes, replacing them with new setting and making sure that everybody got as much as they wanted to eat.

(In the short 45 minutes that this writer was there, he as asked five times by five different people if he had eaten, wanted to eat, wanted a place at the table, wanted dessert and wanted to nibble on something.)

This is the fourth year of the mass feed. The first year, pancakes and sausage were served. The second, barbecue’s filled the menu and last year it was Polish Sausage and sauerkraut. Millie wasn’t too sure what would be on the menu next year for the once in twelve month feed.

The Opelt house was continually filled with people. Some were in the living room, others were downstairs and the dining room table, complete with ten spaces was continually full….as one person was filled to the limit and finished his dessert, another would take up the void.

And the best part of the affair was the noise produced by the gathering. There were children ‘debating’ who was going to drive the snowmobile and where it was to go. There were the cooks, including Millie, who were busy clanging pots and pans, dropping dumplings into the boiling water and refilling platters with the best of home cooking. There were the people who had either finished eating or were getting ready to chow-down, all talking gossip, snowmobiling or marveling at the Opelt planned feast.

And there were the eaters. Ten of them at the table. The only sound was the occasional bumping of fast bending elbows, the tinkle of silverware and the urging of the food serves to take “just a little bit more.”

Carl and Millie Opelt are well-known and well-liked in the Neillsville area. Millie’s cooking can’t hurt that image one little bit.

“Ah, come on, you can have one more dumpling, can’t you?”… “If not, how about another piece of Chocolate Cake?”