"Church custodian Mel Peterson a walking history of Door county" from the October 25, 1979 Door County Advocate
By ROSEMARY HINTZ
Church custodian Mel Peterson a walking history of Door county
By ROSEMARY HINTZ
It isn't until Monday but the United Methodist church will help Mel Peterson celebrate his 86th birthday next Sunday. Mel spends a lot of time over at the church on the corner of Ninth and Michigan. He vacuums the carpet, empties the trash and keeps the place ship-shape. He is also a walking history of Door County.
He began taking care of the church almost 20 years ago after his wife died in 1960. "It was good therapy for me then," Mel said. And it still is.
At that time the church occupied the building on the corner of Fifth and Kentucky, which is now Tower Apartments. Things have changed since then, from a church of many steps to one with no steps and from a little carpeting around the altar to carpeting on all floors.
Mel had been custodian for 10 years when the United Methodists built the new church. He thought it was time to retire. At age 75 many would feel they had earned the right to loaf a bit. Rev. Don Stannard, the minister at that time, had different ideas and told Mel the church needed him. Mel protested. "I don't know how to take care of carpeting and that fancy new boiler for the heating system is beyond my comprehension," he said.
"The heating system takes care of itself, and all you need for the carpet is a good vacuum cleaner," Rev. Stannard told him. So Mel agreed and helped move the congregation to the new building on Palm Sunday, 1970.
Today, almost 10 years later; he continues to take good care of the church. You can find him over there most any time vacuuming, picking up and putting away, but he always has time for a visit. If the right questions are asked Mel will share some of the history of Door County.
Mel's Swedish parents settled on a farm near what is now the Clearing at Ellison Bay. Mel was a boy of six at the turn of the century and worked on the farm along with his parents and brother George. His father died in 1900 after he fell while leading a team of horses. The newspaper article reporting his death said, "He had not been well and the shock of the fall caused dissolution." Mrs. Peterson and the boys continued to farm and the boys learned what hard work was.
Their mother took them to church at the Trinity Lutheran church at Ellison Bay. She taught them by example, to care for others. During the diphtheria epidemic in the 1900s she nursed sick neighbors. She worried about the family catching the disease and was careful to change clothes when she went to care for the patients. She changed again and washed her hands when she returned home.
The boys did the usual farm chores at the time but Mel said, "I never milked the cows. Wasn't much good at it. They were always hitting you in the face with their tail, kicking or putting their foot in the bucket." His mother and brother took care of milking the half dozen cows. There were other chores for Mel, such as carrying hay, cleaning. the barn and in winter shoveling a path from the house to the barn through deep snow drifts.
The task of turning the crank on the cream separator was Mel's. The separator had a big metal bowl where the milk was poured, then it fell to the kids to turn the crank, the milk would go through a mechanism which spun it around and the cream came out one spout and the milk out another. "I've turned that crank for a good many hours," Mel said, rubbing away the memory of painful muscles in his arm.
The cream was churned into butter, then carried to town with the milk and eggs and traded for flour, sugar, clothes or whatever was needed. "We always walked in those days," Mel said. "There were no cars and the horses had to be saved for farm work.
"We walked about a mile and a quarter to Ellison Bay to school. In winter we'd go across the farmers fields on top of the stone fences. There would be less snow there than in the roads. The farmers built fences along the roads and the snow would collect between them and get neck deep."
The kids at that time had fun on the hills near Ellison Bay. A neighbor, Elda Jacobson Christianson, tells how the neighbor kids would get together and pull the bobsled to the top of the hill on her father's farm, then they would get on using the pole used to hitch up the horses to steer with as they slid down the hill. "The only trouble," Elda said, "was when we got to the bottom of the hill we had to pull that heavy bobsled back to the top of the hill again. But kids were strong from hard work and hard play."
Most travel was done by boat then. The Goodrich Steam ship line came from Chicago, bringing people from the city for vacations in the north county. As soon as school was out in the spring and women and children would come from the cities and stay all summer. Usually they stayed with relatives but many farm wives made extra money in summer renting rooms and cooking meals for the vacationing city folk.
There was no high school at that time so when Mel graduated from the eighth grade he helped out at the village store.
You had to know about four different languages to work at the store," Mel said. "People would come in and ask for something and if you couldn't understand them they'd get a little impatient with you.
Mel's nose wrinkled as he remembered. "They'd ask for a piece of salt pork, so I'd roll up my sleeve and put my hand into the brine in the pork barrel and bring up a piece. Then they'd say 'No, that's too big,' so I'd feel around in the brine until I found a smaller piece and bring that up. They'd usually say okay and I'd wipe my arm off on a piece of muslin kept near by.
"Everything came in barrels, crackers, pickles, syrup and molasses. Some of it came from the Carpenter Cook wholesale house in Marinette. Dry goods came from Laurman Brothers. I knew all about Laurman's but I've never been there."
Small boats such as the Sailor Boy and the Thistle sailed from Mr. Eliason's dock to Marinette and Menominee to carry garden and produce, eggs, butter and cheese to those cities and returned with supplies for the folks in the Door Peninsula. In winter teams of horses would pull large sleds across the ice.
It was more common to go to Marinette than to Sturgeon Bay. People in Ellison Bay didn't know much about Sturgeon Bay. The trip took all day by stage coach. In winter they'd leave Ellison Bay at four o'clock in the morning and get to Sturgeon Bay about six o'clock at night. The roads were bumpy and in the spring the horses would get stuck in the mud at Plum Bottom, just south of Egg Harbor. Later on they built Corduroy roads by cutting down the trees and laying them crosswise in the road. That was bumpy, too but at least they didn't get stuck in the mud. When the trees were cut down the water tended to dry up.
Mel also helped the fishermen in the area until he joined the Coast Guard and went to Plum Island with his friend Mathew Jacobson. "I didn't stay there too long," Mel said. "Just a few years. That was too solitary a life for a young fellow."
Mel Peterson was a member of the Plum Island coast guard when this picture was taken about the year 1912. Left to right, Fred Stahl, Dan Magnusson, Robert Gunderson, Wellington Lockart, Mathew Jacobson, Peterson and Richard Johnson.
Mel made the rounds of social life as a young man. He and his friends would walk five miles to Sister Bay to go to a dance. "We'd work all day, walk five miles, up hill and down, then dance all night and walk home again," Mel laughed. "One time we walked to a dance at Sister Bay on Friday night, on Saturday we took a team of horses and filled a wagon with about 15 young people and drove 15 miles to a dance at Baileys Harbor, then on Sunday I went to Washington Island. Not too many would go to the Island, just the more hardy young fellows. I once paid the postal carrier $1.50 to walk alongside his rig over the ice because he knew the safe route. Sometimes he'd go miles out of the way to get around a crack or a mushy spot in the ice."
When the automobiles came on the scene they caused a lot of trouble with the horse and carriage. Cars were so noisy when they came down the road the horses would bolt and run. They'd get off the road and run over stumps and brush and wreck the carriage.
Mel moved to Sturgeon Bay "to go where the action was." He went to work at Frank Moeller's garage and earned $57.50 every two weeks, which was good pay at that time.
In those days the Model T Fords came in by railroad. There would be six or seven chasis at one end of the box car, the bodies at the other end and the wheels, fenders, and running boards in the middle.
"On July 4, 1917 a box car full of Model Ts arrived early in the morning," Mel said, "Mr. Moeller asked me to come in and help put them together. By four o'clock that afternoon he had them all delivered," Mel said, "I remember because the next day was my wedding day."
Mel married Della Maples on July 5, 1917. A short time later he volunteered to join Company F of the National Guard and spent the next two years fighting World War I from Alsace Larraine to the Belgium Border. Of those years Mel says, "I'd just as soon forget them. You can read about that in the history books."
After the war Mel returned to his job at Moeller's garage. "I had said I wasn't going to work for a year after being through the war," Mel said, "And I hold a warm spot in my heart for Frank Moeller.
A lot of fellows returning from the war didn't have their jobs waiting for them, but Frank told me, the job was mine whenever I was ready to come back.
Later Frank Moeller moved the garage from the area where the Red Owl Store is now to the present location at the corner of Cedar and Garland, now Third and Jefferson. The building had been the Crystal Theater and Dance Hall. "I remember seeing the old Charlie Chaplin movies there," Mel said while imitating the Charlie Chaplin stiff legged walk of the early movies. "We paid a dime for an afternoon or evening at the movies. They used to hold dances upstairs until they decided the floor was too weak."
The- automobile business flourished during the 1920's and ship building became an important business in Sturgeon Bay. Fred Peterson Sr. started building small boats down where Peterson Builders is now. Hans Johnson built fish boats at the site of Palmer Johnson. Boatworks and Mr. Riebodt and Mr. Wolter started building ships in the area which is now Bay Shipbuilding. They both had big families and everybody worked. They were successful and built big houses near by and the city grew.
Mel moved three times in Sturgeon Bay, the third time to his present home on Fourth av. "Nobody thought much about moving in those days," Mel said. "You just put your few belongings in the drayman's truck and moved."
Walter Hoerres was the "Drayman". He hauled things all over the country. He also sold pure artesian well water to the people in town. Most well water at that time had to be boiled because of a typhoid epidemic. The artesian well water coming from deep in the earth was prized.
Mr. Hoerres called his water Puro and had this slogan painted on his truck, "A Little Puro now and then is relished by the best of men." The water sold in glass gallon jars for five cents and a large five gallon jar for office use sold for 25 cents.
During the '20s Mel and his brother George went into business for themselves and opened the Peterson Brothers garage on Court st., now Fourth av. George invented a stand to hold Model T engines while they were being repaired. The brothers manufactured them and sold them, until a large auto interest from Massachusetts bought the patent and hired George to travel around the country selling them and other auto accessories.
After George left Mel sold the garage and formed a new business with E. G. Bailey located on St. John's, st., now Kentucky st.
The auto business prospered during the '20s but struggled through the depression. Mel often took vegetables and eggs for work done on the cars. "Trouble was," said Mel. "We had to pay cash for the parts. Those were bad times. We got up one morning and learned the banks had closed. No warning at all. If you had money in the bank it was gone. You couldn't get it. There aren't too many around that remember that any more." Mel shook his head.
When World War II broke out it was impossible to get cars or parts so Mel went to work at the shipyard where he worked until he retired to be with his ailing wife.
- Mel Peterson today
Mel and Della had one son, George, who lives in Sturgeon Bay with his wife June. Their son Tom is the father of Mel's twin great grandsons. Mel's eyes light up as he tells about the great grandsons while tending to his chores at the church where he continues to take good care of things. He knows the building well. "The heating system doesn't really take care of itself," he'll confide and relate its idiosyncrasies. He works hard helping to set up for activities such as lumberjack suppers, bazaars or vacation church school. He disappears while the place is flooded with kids but when classes are over he is back, vacuuming, picking up, putting away and wiping millions of tiny finger prints off the glass doors.
Mel has an air of authority which he has earned through 85 years of accumulated knowledge, including the 20 years as church custodian: He has a good memory which includes the history of Door County and he knows where things are in the church. When . someone wants to know where something is they go to Mel and answer will come. 'Oh sure! that's in the box on the top shelf in the storeroom," or "under the table in the middle class room.
Mel is worth his weight in gold to the congregation and each year when someone mentions a raise in salary for Mel he quickly replies. "Oh no no! That's enough. I don't need any more." When they suggest his. work is worth much more he says, "Well, you can include a little in the budget for some help in case I need it sometime. So the church budget includes an item labeled "Help for Mel" but the fund has gone untouched for years.
"The job is worth a great deal to me," Mel says. "The church means a lot to me and this gives me something to do. I get to keep the place looking nice and it keeps me going. What would I do if I didn't have this?" He shakes his head and smiles. "I'm happy as long as you think I'm doing a good enough job."
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive