| Notes |
- Rites Tueday for Wildenberg
Little Chute -- A concelebrated funeral mass will begin at 11 a.m. Tuesday at St. John Catholic church here for Chris Wildenberg, former owner and operator of Wildenberg's Quality Food Market.
Wildenberg, 66, 928 N. Depot St., died Saturday afternoon after a brief illness. The Little Chute native was a former member of the fire department and attained the rank of assistant chief. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus, in which he was a past Grand Knight, and a fourth degree knight in the Allouez council.
He was a member of the Catholic Order of Foresters, the Little Chute Businessmen's Association, a former Scout master and belonged to many archery associations.
He is survived by his widow, four daughters, two sons, a brother, four sisters and 2? grandchildren.
APPLETON POST CRESCENT
Monday, April 22, 1974
Chris Wildenberg
926 N. Depot St.
Little Chute
Age 66, passed away at 1 p.m. Saturday following a brief illness. He was born November 20, 1907 in Little Chute and was a former owner and operater of Wildenberg's Quality Food Market. He was a former member of the Little Chute Fire Department from March 1927 to January 1960, during which time he attained the rank of Assistant Chief. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus, the Kaukauna Council, in which he was a past Grand Knight, and a 4th Degree Knight in the Allouez Council. He was a member of the Catholic Order of Foresters, the Little Chute's Business Men's Association, a former Scout Master, and belonged to numberous archery associations, holding many offices.
Survivors include his wife, Monica Van Ryzin Wildenberg; four daughters, Mrs. Gerald [Barbara] Ferguson, North Fond du Lac; Mrs. Gerald [Mary] Schumacher, Kimberly; Mrs. Vernon [Monica] Muelemans, Wrightstown and Annie, at home; two sons, James, Green Bay; and Captain John, US Army at Fort Belvoir, Virginia; a brother, Joseph, Little Chute; four sisters, Sister Barbara OP, Osmond, Nebraska; Sister Catherine OP, Racine; Mrs. Hillary [Helen] Eckes, Little Chute; and Mrs. Louis [Josephine] Beyer, Cudahy; 28 grandchildren.
A Concelebrated Mass will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday from St. John Catholic Church, Little Chute, with interment in the parish cemetery. Friends may call at the Verkuilen Funeral after 3 p.m. Monday. There will be a prayer service at 7:30 Monday evening.
- Hello, my name is Christian Felix Wildenberg, better known as Chris. I was born on November 20, 1907 in Little Chute. My father is Henry Wildenberg, the village blacksmith and my mother is Kate Hartjes. I grew up in the home directly across the street from the cemetery in the former Heesakkers German House Tavern.
My education consisted of High School and 1 year of college. I graduated from St. John's grade school. I was the only boy in my high school graduation class. I attended one year of college in Milwaukee to study design building and construction. That was during the depression and it appeared that building and construction would be slow so I decided to return to Little Chute to my former job at George Looks meat market on Main Street. I married Monica VanRyzin from Appleton on June 14, 1934.
In 1945 I rented a store on Main Street from Zeke Weyenberg next to Duce's tavern. After three years in that building, I purchased the Ralph Lowell Drug Store across the street. I had the building moved back from the street to put a basement under the store and lowered the building to street level. On moving day, we used wheelbarrows to move the canned goods across the street to the new store. The phone wasn't hooked up so my daughter, Barbara stayed at the old location to take orders and run them across the street. I named the new store "Wildenberg's Quality Food Market". We provided home delivery service every Monday through Friday and twice on Saturday. I worked hard to build "Quality" into all my products. Through the years I developed 16 varieties of sausages including summer sausage, pork sausage, wieners and bologna and a large variety of luncheon meats. I also specialized in curing and smoking bacon, dried beef and Canadian bacon. I rendered my own lard and made bry from the cracklings. I designed a steel track to move meat from the cooler through the cutting room to the smoke house behind the building. One of the services I provided for my customer was to bone, bake and slice hams for $1.00 extra. My wife, Monica was kept busy at Holidays baking hams at home in an oven that could bake three hams at a time. As you can see, I have all my fingers. The secret is to keep your knives sharp. You don't cut yourself with sharp knives only dull knives. The store is truly a family business. My four daughters and two sons all work in the store. They start stocking shelves and worked their way up to waiting on customer, cutting meat, making sausage, and delivering groceries. Wednesday is butchering day in my garage on Depot Street. Chickens were butchered and dressed every Wednesday. I retired from the store in 1972. The store was sold to Joe Reynebeau and became the Hallmark Card Shop.
Over the year, I have been involved in many other activities. I was with the group of men who started boy scouts in Little Chute and was the first scout master. I am a long term member of the Kaukauna Knights of Columbus and served two terms as Grand Knight. I am a fourth degree knight. I am a 33 year veteran of the volunteer fire department and served as assistant fire chief.
My lifelong hobby has been the sport of archery. Most weekends included an archery event, either a tournament or a group of archers practicing in my yard ending with an outside barbecue. Archery tournaments are a family outing with the children also competing. At first I made most of the equipment, bows and arrows. The early bows were made of lemon wood reinforced with sinew from cow tendons. My bow making skills developed to making a laminated re-curve bows using a variety of woods and fiberglass. I am a friend of Fred Bear and we have many discussions on how to improve the design and quality of bows. I designed a reverse handle for the re-curve bow. I am not sure if I came up with the idea first, but Fred started designing and selling a similar design shortly after. In the late fifties, archery changed. We were required to declare whether we were going to compete as a professional or amateur. It all became too political for me. I decided to spend my time pursuing the sport of flight shooting. Flight shooting is a test of your bow making and arrow making skills. In flight shooting, the objective is to see how far you can shoot an arrow. I broke many flight bows trying to build the right bow. I was more successful in making flight arrows. Many hours were spent developing the perfect shape and balance for flight arrows. I was able to trade one dozen flight arrows for a flight bow from Harry Drake, a bow maker in California. Each year a small group of flight archers gather in Las Vegas to compete at the Ivanpath dry lake bed in the high desert of California. The temperature and humidity in the desert are perfect for flight shooting. Harry Drake was the first to break the one mile record in 1971 with one of my arrows. My wife Monica also competes in flight tournaments. One year she was the woman's flight champion.
I also enjoyed the hobby of lapidary and jewelry making. I learned how to make silver setting in a class at the technical school. I was fortunate to have a brother, Joe, who traveled the world in construction in the paper industry. He would bring rocks and semi precious stones from his travels. This gave me a good supply of raw material to work for my jewelry projects. My favorite stone is Opal.
I went to my heavenly reward on April 20, 1974 at the age of 66 and my wife Monica joined me on June 10, 2008 at the age of 96.
Jim Wildenberg, son of Chris Wildenberg
Little Chute Historical Society Cemetery Walk 2009
|
1907 - 1974 (66 years)
