"Ray Krause smiled every time Gunnerson sold an appliance" from the February 15, 1977 Door County Advocate
By JOHN ENIGL
By 1947, power poles had joined telephone lines on Washington Island.
Ray Krause smiled every time Gunnerson sold an appliance
By JOHN ENIGL
Dr. E C. Farmer was one innovative Washington Islander but other Islanders like the Dan Lindals provided their own electricity in the 1930's too.
"We had a 32 volt plant," Agnes remembers. "We had lights, of course, and a bathroom. The pump had a 32 volt motor. When the pressure was down, it would start just like any other, either from the storage batteries or from the generator."
Paul Goodman, who weekends on the Island, recalls that there were few bathrooms on the Island before the R.E.A. plant started its operations. Not everyone could afford even the 32 volt plants.
"For light most people used ordinary kerosene lamps or Aladdin kerosene lamps with the mantles that glowed white. Some had Coleman gasoline lanterns, the ones you pumped up. They gave off a powerful light but they were dangerous. Some had a piped Coleman gasoline system.
"I remember a fire we went to at Jake and Lars Bilton's," Goodman recalled. "Their Coleman system had leaked. We didn't think it would be anything to put out but the gasoline had leaked between the floorboards and when you'd put it out one place it would pop up somewhere else. The place burned to the ground."
The R.E.A. light plant virtually ended the use of non-electric sources of light, as nearly everyone hooked up to it.
"I knew the R.E.A. plant was coming, so I started up my hardware and appliance store in the summer of 1945," says Roger Gunnerson. "I picked out several reliable lines of appliances and stayed with them."
"Was Ray Krause worried about all those new appliances overloading his light plant's capacity?" I asked.
"No, not at all! " Roger replied. "He had a smile on his face every time I told him I had sold a new appliance! This just meant he would be eligible to apply for more federal help to improve the plant's capacity!"
The first efforts to increase tile plant's capacity were abortive, however, and resulted in the demise of a company.
Two highly recommended new Van Severin diesels were purchased. I remember visiting Ray at the R.E.A. plant in 1948 and seeing the brand-new engines torn down for repairs.
Ray told me, "They operate fine for awhile, then overheat and run tight. We have to tear them down to free the pistons. We think it may have to do with the wrong exhaust stack length."
"They never did find out what was wrong and Van Severin soon went out of business," recalls Roger Gunnerson. "Washington Island is what broke them."
The coming of the R.E.A. light brought changes in nearly every phase of Island life. It brought an end to the day of the icehouse, for example. The Island people were some of the last in the United States to cut ice in the winter and store it under sawdust for use in ice boxes to preserve food. New electric refrigeration equipment was a boom to the Island's commercial fishermen for making ice for shipping fish.
Andy Justinger, the Island's cheese maker, made full use of electric power in his cheese factory. His new walk-in cooler was a great help. The farms now could have lights and milking machines. The Jess mink farm bought electric motors to power meat grinders for mink food.
These and many others uses for electricity had been predicted by Ray Krause, but he could hardly anticipate the rapid increase in the use of electricity that followed World War II.
For example, automatic washers were virtually unheard of before the War. Only Bendix made them, beginning in 1939, and they required bolting to the floor, which slowed their acceptance by the public. By 1952, however, Kelvinator had an automatic washer so well designed it is still manufactured with few changes. About that time the Sears Kenmore automatic (made by R.C.A. Whirlpool) also came out and was a huge success. Roger Gunnerson had the first automatic washer on the Island. "I always wanted to make sure something worked before I sold it," says Roger.
Dryers, a tremendous current eater, also came about the same time to assist the housewife; deep freezers came too.
As noted in my previous article, I was principal of the Island grade school from 1947 to 1949; but I came up to the Island in the summer until 1952 to run a cherry orchard for Dr. McCoy. One of my closest friends was Royal Johnson. I can recall his mother, Mrs. Ben Johnson, saying, "If only I could live until I could see Jack Benny on television!"
Well, she did live to see Jack Benny on television many times, for television came to the Island in 1953, and she lived until just last year.
I asked Roger Gunnerson who had the first television set on the Island. "I can pretty well tell you that. Cecil Anderson had the first one (a used Admiral) and I had the first new one, a Hallicrafters. Cecil got the first one and his brother-in-law, Carl Johnson, put up the antenna."
Thus ended the days when you could forget about the rest of the world on Washington Island because when I was there we even had difficulty getting radio reception.
Television was responsible for the only visit I have made to the Island since 1952. I was there for a brief tour of television servicing in 1963 with Marvin Wilke. Other than that, my memories of the Island are those of the late Forties and early Fifties when the electric and electronic changes were first taking place.
"Ray Krause just celebrated his 80th birthday at a big party given by the Islanders. What does he do with his time now?" I asked Roger.
"I see his car up at the R.E A. plant just about every day, even though Irwing Nelson is now the manager. I guess he just can't get out of the habit," Roger replied.
And to tie the whole story together, Roger told me that he had heard that Iceland, the homeland of many an Islander's ancestor, and of Thordarson the electrical genius of Rock Island, is planning to sell electric power. Who are they going to sell it to? The eastern United States! How are they going to send it? Just as Thordarson said he could send it from Chicago to Washington Island. Through the air, by microwave!
But in the 32 years since Thordarson's death, Ray Krause has filled the vacuum and brought light to a generation and achieved a dream Thordarson could not make come true in his time. And all the Island is thankful.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
[The previous article which mentions how the author had been a principal is https://doorcounty.substack.com/p/washington-island-turned-on-lights
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22The+geothermal+Middle+East+of+the+North+Atlantic%22 describes a plan to use satellites to transport geothermal energy from Iceland to the eastern coast of the United States.]
Articles by John Enigl
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/john-enigl