On Saturday, November 1, Friends of the Old School held its third Owen Stories program, this time featuring the Mauel and Milliren stories.
John Mauel said his ancestors came from Germany and lived in a tent the first year. Henry Mauel Sr. took a short dairy course at Madison, graduating in 1914. He married in 1916.
Henry came to Colby, where he built his first factory.
In 1919, he got the Spanish Flu and almost died. After that, he decided he wasn’t making cheese anymore. The train stopped in Owen and he built the original Mauel’s Dairy on the corner of County D and 6th Street.
Mauel’s has been here over 100 years. They used metal containers for their ice cream when John’s dad was a kid. They dealt in bottled milk and made ice cream and cheese.
John’s dad, Henry Jr., went to Japan during the war. While he was gone, Henry Sr. sold everything except the ice cream equipment. Initially they sold ice cream to farmers door to door.
John’s mother, Amy, was from Withee and worked at Western Condensing. Henry Jr. and Amy met at a dance hall in Longwood or so the story goes.
When they began making ice cream, they got their milk from the County Farm (Clark County Rehab & Living Center today). They could take as much as they needed. They bought eggs from the Millirens. The yolks were used in the ice cream and the whites went to the bakery in town.
Everyone in the family was expected to help.
In 1960, they built the new plant on West 3rd Street. They ran two ice cream routes to farmers and a milk route. They had another truck that delivered to grocery stores.
The biggest day for ice cream, before refrigeration, was the 4th of July.
In the 1930s, they used local flavoring. Maple nut ice cream used maple syrup and cherry vanilla ice cream used Door County cherries.
The farthest away they have sold ice cream is in Florida. Today, they deliver more ice cream to fairs than in the past.
John noted that his dad started driving the ice cream route when he was 14. There were not enough drivers because of the war.
Charlie Milliren and Theresa Milliren Schindler talked about the Milliren family.
Their dad, Claire, grew up in Arkansaw, WI. He was almost done with his studies to be a teacher when he was drafted. He became part of the Army Air Corp. His future wife Lois was in Colorado doing USO dances when Claire was in training there.
Claire became a bombardier stationed in England and flew 30 missions during the war.
He and Lois were married in Colorado after the war. Claire finished his teaching degree and got a job in Owen, a place they grew to love.
In addition to teaching, Claire helped start the Owen Jr. Fair and he had a chicken farm.
The chicken house was 90 feet long and they raised the chickens from chicks. Eventually, it was just as cheap to buy the chickens for egg laying purposes. They purchased them 2,000-3,000 at a time. The boys did all the manure hauling by hand, while the girls helped with the eggs. All the kids were expected to do chores, they didn’t really get an allowance.
The chickens would lay good for about 1½ years, then they would get rid of them over the course of a month and the process would start all over again. They learned how to wash, candle and grade the eggs. The eggs were sold in cardboard boxes back then or you could buy a crate of 15 dozen or a case of 30 dozen. Any eggs not sold locally would be picked up by a truck once a week. Friday night was egg delivery night.
In 1960 the average prize of eggs was 39 cents per dozen. They got rid of the farm in the early 1970s. Until then the egg money the kids received was used to pay for their school lunches.
Chickens were buttered in the fall.
In addition to all this, Claire did some accounting for farmers, while Lois worked for the telephone company back in the days of party lines.