This week’s story doesn’t have a beginning or an end. It’s just a story. One of those stories that needs to be recorded for the ages.
I’d like to begin by saying thank you Bob List. Thank you for leadership, for sharing, and for being a role model to preserve Owen-Withee local history.
Back in my high school days in the 1960s, I didn’t have any particular vision or insights into the past or the future. There was no such thing as the internet or cell phones or social media. We had TVs and radios and newspapers. In grade school we got news via “The Weekly Reader.” Occasionally the teacher would put up a motion picture newsreel with pre-recorded stories about world events. Movies in the local theater would sometimes show a five minute “newsreel” before the start of the latest motion picture. The pace of the world seemed to move slower in those days.
If you were around Owen-Withee in the mid-1960s, you might recognize the name Bob List. He’s a couple years older than me, but we are of the same generation. We were in junior high/high school when news of the day had events like the John F. Kennedy assassination, Lyndon Baines Johnson as President of the United States, Viet Nam War, Green Bay Packers, Super Bowl I, the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Mexico City and Innsbruck, Austria, Watergate, and Richard Nixon. Locally in Owen-Withee there were passenger trains, Amacher’s Trading Post, the old Withee Bank and “Uncle Miltie’s” Withee Drug Store.
Bob List is a proud alumnus of the Owen-Withee High School Class of 1966. Salutatorian of his class, and now married to Sharon Heideman, valedictorian of that same class. A class that included names like Judy Bakke, Betty Decker, Kurt Frederickson, Pat Kafka, Margaret Kitze, Allen Wagner, Sandy Zelm, Ann Westendorf, and others.
Bob List approached me a couple years ago in Owen and asked if I’d be interested in some of the old photos and memories that he held from Owen-Withee. In the years since then, Bob and I have crossed paths multiple times, mostly at the annual Owen Jr. Fair, and via correspondence. Bob is a great fan of local Owen-Withee history and loves to share with others.
The memories and photos that Bob has shared with me could easily fill a couple chapters in a history of Owen-Withee book. Bob’s dad Jim List was Terminal Manager at the former Western Condensing/Foremost Foods plant in Owen. His dad was also a noted gunsmith and well acquainted with Lew Bulgrin and Celand Melbinger at the former Badger Shooters in Owen.
Bob is a great storyteller, with one story leading to another, and weaving in local names from the pages of history. The pilots and the airplanes at the former Withee airport. Airplane rides to northern fishing and recreation. The early days of Western Condensing and Peebles dried whey products. Badger Shooters. Tennis Shoe Hill. Holy Rosary School. Bob has shared with me many stories and one-of-a-kind photos. A rare 1955 photo of the first all class photo of the students and staff of Holy Rosary school, with names. Several rare 1950s/1960s era photos of Western Condensing drivers and terminal crew members, with names.
Thank you, Bob. Very much appreciate the sharing of your memories and photos with the Owen-Withee History Center. A story with no beginning or ending.