Profile of Pulaski, "Wisconsin Communities"

ANNOUNCER: This is a program about people, real people. You know lots of folks say, "People are no good;" "They've made a mess of things here on earth. They're not smart enough to live here happily together." Some say it's all bad. They say we're going to rack and ruin. "We'd better dig down deep and hang on tight and maybe do or die." That's not much consolation. But there's an atom of truth in what they say. So, what do we do? Well, most folks are digging down and hanging on to what they've got in their corner of the earth. Around here they call it the "American way of life." We'd like to tell the world about it, about the real people of the U.S.A. We've got a sample of these people, just a few hundred of them, living in a village where two state highways meet in their 00:01:00wanderings through farmlands. We want you to know these people, how it is for them living on Main Street of a real American town in this troubled year of 1950. Here it is for the record: what they believe, what they're doing about it, what makes them think maybe folks can live happily together. We give you the people of Pulaski, Wisconsin, 900 strong, a case in point of the "American way of life."

ANNOUNCER: The State Radio Council presents the documentary story of "Wisconsin Communities," an actual record of life in the cities and crossroads of our state, prepared from tape recordings made on the spot, to bring you the real sounds and voices of our neighbors at work and at play. Now with narrator, Ray Stanley, we travel to Pulaski, Wisconsin, a village founded on the marshlands of Brown County years ago, twenty miles northwest from Green Bay. We find it on Highway 32.

[accordion music]

STANLEY: That's Jim Brusky, young fellow playing the accordion; he plays the Polish songs strong and gay. That one's [Polish title], a rich mouthful of Polish K's. And look at the names along the highway, Polish names on the billboards and the mailboxes, names like Czybowski, Goska, Karcz, Czezinsky, Kubiak, and Nievzwiecki . Take that one, Nievzwiecki, spell it--N-i-e-v-z-w-i-e-c-k-i. What's that you say--strange--it's foreign? Sorry, friend, you're wrong, it's strictly U.S.A. What are any of us here but a family tree transplanted from a foreign soil. The only names of pure American origin in Wisconsin sound like "Potawatomi," or "Sissabagama", and there's a mouthful for you. But the names on the mailboxes in Pulaski tell the story of the village and the family tree transplanted to this soil.

FULGENZ: We've often been asked why Pulaski, Wisconsin is called Pulaski. It seems to have been because Mr. John Hoff, the real estate man, wanted to get Poles to settle in this neighborhood, and so he put pinpoints on the maps that he used as advertisement and he named one Sobieski, and one Kosciusko, and of course the third one, a very large dot, was Pulaski.

STANLEY: That's the voice of the village historian, a young man in the brown robe of a Franciscan monk, Father Fulgenz, staff member of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Monastery, O.F.M., Order of Friars Minor. Father Fulgenz presents the record, the first beginnings of Pulaski, a large pinpoint on the real estate dealer's map.

FULGENZ: And because Mr. Hoff was a businessman who knew that whenever there was a church in a community of Poles, that community would grow rapidly, he advertised in Chicago and Milwaukee newspapers, and also in papers further east for a religious community to come to this community of Pulaski.

STANLEY: How long ago was this?

FULGENZ: This is exactly sixty-seven years ago, sixty-seven to seventy. At any rate, he offered an inducement of 120 acres free to any community that would come to Pulaski and establish a church. And our founder, Brother Augustine Zeitz, was enticed by that inducement. He came to Pulaski and then decided to build, first of all, a monastery, then to build a church, and in that way to give the foundation for our present very thriving community.

[choir singing]

STANLEY: So it was, then, that the village began. It began with a Franciscan monk who came to Pulaski and founded there a monastery and a church, even according to the gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 00:05:00God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men."

[choir singing]

STANLEY: Those are the voices of the monastery choir directed by Father Kalinovsky: a choir of boys, young men eighteen, nineteen years old, serving as novices in the monastery which was founded alone in the lonely wilderness, before the people came. Because the church was here, the people followed, God-fearing people who wanted their church. That was the beginning of the American way of life. "In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men, the true Light which lighteth every man that comes into the world."

[choir singing]

STANLEY: But back to our historian. Father Fulgenz is speaking to us in the printing plant of the monastery, a large well-equipped printer, publishing a wide range of church literature, and offering apprenticeships to boys who want to learn the printing trade. Father Fulgenz is busy, but not too busy to tell us this story of how Pulaski began.

FULGENZ: Well, as soon as they heard that there would be a church in Pulaski, they moved over from Hofa Park to Pulaski proper.

STANLEY: It was a hard road from the little farms of Hofa Park down through the wilderness to the church, tough going without horses, tough trees to clear for homes, tough land to clear for farming. A man had only his own two hands, a broad back, and a stout heart. Folks in the town now still remember how it was. Val Biawaszynski remembers the story of his father's coming, how his father came 00:07:00to survey the land, how he brought his wife and household goods to make a home in the timberland.

BIAWASZYNSKI: My dad, he was one of the first pioneers that came here to Pulaski. He had tough going for a while, like all the rest of the beginners. It was not like nowadays, that you get your stuff through the rails or with the cars. My dad, when he moved, he got married, he carried his kitchen stove two miles in parts on his back and all the supplies. What they need had to be carried from the closest grocery store two miles away. And all the clearing of the land, that was all done by hand; there was no tractors at that time or even horses--they used oxen and stumps. I still remember how they pulled them with those stump pullers that were drawn by one horse, and now how they're turning 00:08:00those stumps out. And some of them big pine stumps took them three one day to pull one stump out and clear. So that was hard work.

STANLEY: Boy and man, they came to farm. And still alive today is one today, who came, a man not grown to farm, but ready to set up the first business enterprise in Pulaski. He's John Paplinski, pioneer.

PAPLINSKI: This was wild country. This was nothing but brush and no roads, even, nothing until the monastery started to build a convent here, and they used to have a logging road come through--

STANLEY: Can you catch the words? They're worn with the years, more than half a century of remembering; but here they are for the record, and we young ones must listen carefully to catch the voices of our pioneers before they fade and are gone. Let's have John Paplinski tell us again.

PAPLINSKI: This was wild country. This was nothing but brush and no roads, even, nothing.

STANLEY: Thank you John. You were the pioneer storekeeper--groceries and farm implements, and more than storekeeper and country merchant, you were a builder.

PAPLINSKI: I organized a telephone line here, and I built a line from here to Pul--to Angelica, three and a half mile, myself.

STANLEY: That's the American way. Want things done? Do it yourself. One man can rig a telephone line. That line is still owned and run by an independent telephone man now. You, John, you went on to more business enterprises.

PAPLINSKI: I built a cheese factory, and the cheese factory, afterwards I moved it away from here, from the corners, and I sold it afterwards. And now it's a big factory and running big and over 30,000 pounds of milk comes there. Yeah, really. 1908 we organized the bank and we had, but we didn't start in business. We waited till a year later because it was hard to get money then. Those were hard times and the year later we opened up the bank. We opened up in $16,000 at the house 'cause we didn't have no other building, so we built the teller in the 00:10:00front room of the house.

STANLEY: More of the American way, Wisconsin brand. A cheese factory and a market for the farmers around the town. As for the bank, no man doubted his money was safe with John Paplinski in the front room office at his house. Now that bank is worth three million dollars and John, well, we interrupted John on his way out to an auction, going out to look over some property the bank is handling. He's a busy man still, no longer running the hardware store, but on the go every day.

PAPLINSKI: I'm retired from the business, but I'm yet working for the bank. I like to be busy. I always like to do something, 'cause when I do something, I feel better.

STANLEY: How old are you now, sir?

PAPLINSKI: I'll be eighty years on the tenth of June.

[accordion music]

WISKINSKY: The sales for the fiscal year of 1949 was $622,219, with net earnings of $37,600, and today the fixed assets are $85,500, and the total assets are $247,000.

STANLEY: The sound you heard in the back of those statistics is the sound of the cash register ringing up a sale in the Pulaski Chase Cooperative Store. Don't bother to remember the figures, but let them remind you that farming is big business in the life around Pulaski. From a small outfit in 1928, the Farmer's Co-Op has grown to--but here's the Farm Store manager, Henry Wisinsky--let him tell you.

WISKINSKY: Today the Pulaski Chase Co-Op can full most of the needs of the farmers, and it handles a complete line of farm machinery, parts, feeds, seeds, fertilizer, cements, oils and gasoline, locker service, and repairs of farm machinery.

STANLEY: Where does all the money come from? Not wheat, not corn, not even apple or cherry orchards. The money walks around on four legs in the shape of livestock: dairy cows, beef, hogs, and sheep. The market for livestock is twenty miles to the southeast and down state highway 32, the trucks are rolling every day of the week. One of those trucks carries Pulaski livestock to Green Bay. It belongs to the Shipping Association, another cooperative service to farmers, to market their goods straight to the packing plants without cutting profits with the middleman. Ask Mike Powers of the shipping association what it means to the farmers.

POWERS: Whatever livestock he has is picked up and brought into Green Bay and sold, and the farmer gets exactly just what is brought on the market. There's no buyer getting any profit on that. Whatever the price is, that's what he gets. There's just a small charge of trucking it in. We've paid out to the farmers, after their expense was off, $403,652.18.

STANLEY: And just for the record, the Pulaski Shipping Association is the fifth largest in the state of Wisconsin, period. But one thing leads to another. Old hands at cooperating, these same farmers join hands in still another farm organization with mutual benefits.

ZIEBARTH: We started a little farm bureau of our own down here at Pulaski, comprising four townships; organized in Pulaski what is known as the Pulaski Farm Bureau, first of its kind in the United states, that is, with the setup that we have. They're ordinarily set up in counties, and our counties around here were not organized, so we set it up here of our own in four townships with three different counties. On a local basis we have set up services for the members, more or less cooperatively, all of it. We set up automobile insurance. We set up farm supply. We've got our own fire and wind insurance today, our health and accident insurance, and we have our own--our own life insurance 00:14:00company now.

STANLEY: That was Bill Ziebarth, president of the Farm Bureau. Sound good to you? Too good perhaps? Is this still the American way of life--farmers and neighbors pooling their affairs in cooperatives? What does that business do to the merchants, the retailers, the commercial life of Pulaski? We put the question to Ed Malczewski, one of the big farm leaders.

MALCZEWSKI: Years ago we had some--we thought--some of them thought that, for instance, that the co-ops would ruin business, but the facts are not such. The facts are that, on account of the great expansion that the co-ops did for this community, it also increased the business for the whole village, and I think any businessman here today has more business than he would have had if we still had the little town that we had before.

STANLEY: Well, let's ask any businessman. Let's ask the town's first storekeeper, the head of the family of businessmen, the town's banker, John Paplinski, the fine old pioneer we've met already. John, how are things between 00:15:00the farmers and the village?

PAPLINSKI: Well, the village and the farmers are very good--very good, and everything works hand in hand. We've never had any trouble or nothing. They're very good to the village and so we are good to the farmers, because we make our living out of the farmers. That's the only way we make a living here. It's the farmers what's makes it, and when the farmers make good, we make good too.

STANLEY: Thank you, John. That bears repeating. "When the farmers make good, we make good too."

[organ interlude]

STANLEY: But did you ever hear of a fly in the ointment, a monkey wrench in the works, something rotten in Denmark, and if it's a rotten apple that can spoil the whole bushel? Let's take off our rosy glasses and take a hard look at Pulaski. There she lies, a trading center at the crossroads encircled no longer 00:16:00by marshlands, the wilderness gone, erased by rich farm lands. But a village can die, like a man, in the midst of plenty. Like a man with a sickness wasting away in spite of sunshine, shelter, and sustenance, so a village may shrink and shrivel away. The cold winds of commerce blow past it to larger centers. The life blood of population grow thin and spiritless. You've seen them, the ghost towns, dead but not resting in peace, a wide spot in the road where the traffic whizzes by, the speeding wheels not pausing on their way to Big Town beyond. Only the gas station does a steady business, and the dust settles on the storefronts and on the counters and shelves. The old folks still live in the scraggly line of houses, but the young folks move away and the screened-in front porches droop with the memory. Yes, a village can die in the midst of plenty, in the midst of plenty on the farms around it, and in the 1930s, the village of 00:17:00Pulaski looked its death warrant in the face.

JOSWICK: In 1937, we took a survey of all our high school graduates since 1923, and we found out where they were and what they were doing, and to our surprise, they weren't farming. Only 15 to 20 percent of them were farming and staying in a small town. Seventy-five to eighty percent of them went to Chicago and Milwaukee and California and Oregon and Washington to find jobs. No community can continue to exist if it loses its best human resource.

STANLEY: That's Frank Joswick talking; he's the principal of Pulaski High School.

JOSWICK: Another thing that our social science survey found out is that these young people have left town, and we have asked them why they have left town, and there were three or four main answers, and one of them was because the community doesn't furnish enough recreational facilities, and then these young people in our survey told us that our community lacks community services, such as water works, sewer service, some professional services, and some business services 00:18:00that were lacking in our small village of a thousand people. And above all, these young people almost to a one--eighty-five to ninety percent of them that were questioned, and by the way we questioned about seven or eight hundred of them, almost eighty-five percent of them answered, "I would have stayed in Pulaski if there were jobs available in that town." And then on top of that we sent 400 questionnaires , again our social science classes did that, to the boys in the Armed Forces, and they came back with the same answers. 280 of them answered, "We'll come back to Pulaski if there is employment, if there are jobs."

STANLEY: Those were the facts, the fatal facts, and they looked at you with the eyes of a ghost town. But you don't face facts and then fold your hands. You don't say, "I'm sick," and then lie down to die. You get a diagnosis, find out causes, and then get busy on the cure. Throw behind it every ounce of your will to live. The folks at Pulaski had the will, and they found the cure.

JOSWICK: And so let me tell you people, that we were so impressed with the statistics that we gathered, the surveys we have taken, and the questionnaires, and the opinions that were given to us, that the whole community started to work on these problems, and these were the problems of schoolchildren, of teachers, of everybody. And so our students went out with these stories to the Chamber of Commerce, and told them about it, to the American Legion, to church groups, to various organizations, to the village board members, and they told them just exactly what their findings were. People became conscious of the fact that what we need first of all is jobs, because that will keep young people at home. So we embarked upon the idea of attracting industry, and we did.

STANLEY: That's not the voice of a ghost town. Frank Joswick's is the voice of a town talking turkey, telling the world you can stay alive and prosper if everybody puts their shoulder to the wheel. They advertised throughout the state, contacted three young men who had the money to equip a shoe factory but not enough for a building. They told those young men, "We'll build you a 00:20:00building, you start that business." And they did: they organized, adopted the name "Pulaski Industries," sold shares at $100 apiece to finance the building the shoe factory needed to settle in the town.

LUNDKOWSKI: We organized a committee. Went out and got subscriptions.

STANLEY: From whom?

LUNDKOWSKI: From businessmen, from farmers, from laborers, and even some of the veterans as they came in, pitched in. We got a jackpot together of about $30,000.

STANLEY: That's Bernard Lundkowski, cashier of the bank, banker and bulwark of town affairs, businessman in a business suit. But under his coat are shirt sleeves ready to be rolled up for the job. And in the winter of 1945, the job was to get the factory building up.

LUNDKOWSKI: We had to have it up for them sometime early in the spring, spring 00:21:00of 1946. So we started in 1945, and a lot of that building was done in the wintertime. One of the funny things that happened there, for instance, was we were putting on a roof and it was just about dead winter. Mr. Joswick hired a stove to heat up asphalt, or this tar that they use on roofs, and it was necessary for him to be there about once each two hours to load the stove up with kerosene. So I don't know how many nights he'd come down to the factory throughout the night to load this stove up with this kerosene. Now that's just one of the incidents. You can imagine men who didn't have any training in building all pitching in to put this factory building up, fellows like Kubiak, 00:22:00who runs the garage, and Bill Schede, who's the contractor, Edward [List?], who's with the Standard Oil Company, fellows who you wouldn't expect anything like that from, to be in there digging away with a shovel, pick, and helping to move blocks--

STANLEY: In the dead of winter.

BERNARD: In the dead of winter.

STANLEY: How much did you say they got paid for it?

BERNARD: There was no pay. You did that for nothing, just to get this building up. Sometimes you wonder.

STANLEY: Yep, sometimes you wonder. You wonder if they're listening, the faint of heart, those who are afraid in 1950. You wonder if they get the big idea of what free men can do in a democracy. Do they understand this in all of the United States? In all hemispheres? In all the frightened corners of the earth, where men wring their hands and say, "We are little men; what can we do?" Have 00:23:00they tried this American way?

JOHNSON: The operation in the manufacture of shoes begins with the cutting. The skins are brought in to the cutters and the clickers are started to the left here. We cut these shoes with dies--

STANLEY: This is the shoe factory, men and women and machines at work. Lloyd Johnson, the plant superintendent, is showing us around.

JOHNSON:--then they go from the cutters to what they call the fitting department, where they strip and skive, and start assembling these pieces of various sizes. The sizes are stamped on them. We have about 125 or 130 girls that's in the department that does the sewing, stitching these shoes together.

STANLEY: If the machines were quieter, you could catch the sound of music in the background. For this is a cheerful factory, a friendly atmosphere with light and music to brighten the work day. The factory makes shoes for children, little 00:24:00folks up to the junior miss; miles of leather, black and brown, white leather for infants' shoes, and for youngsters' summer parties. We're no experts on the shoe business, but we like the looks of the finished products, the rows of shoes lined up here on the racks, ready for the retail stores. We take note of what the plant superintendent says about his crew, about the job of the workers here in the factory.

JOHNSON: Each operator in the factory has his own part to play in the manufacture of shoes. Each one has an operation to do. Every operator in here has to do their part, and their part that is done on the shoe, so it will be--so it will go--it will not damage the shoe. That's why it is important that we keep and maintain a good force at all times.

STANLEY: "Keep and maintain a good force at all times." Responsible workers, 00:25:00conscientious labor supply: that's one thing factory management looks for and must find before an industry can get started in a town. We want the rest of the picture, so we go to Paul Gilkerson in another part of the factory. Mr. Gilkerson is one of the three owners of the Northern Shoe Company, and we want him to tell us why he and his partners came to Pulaski to set up shop.

GILKERSON: Well, the Northern Shoe Company was conceived in the minds of three people who wanted to go into the shoe business. Some of us were from Milwaukee and some from Chicago. Mr. Koppens was from Modern Shoe Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mr. Ludwig was an attorney in Milwaukee, and we decided to open this little factory early in 1945, and we decided we wanted to open it in Wisconsin, because that was our home state for the most part. We canvassed the state for a 00:26:00location, we came upon Pulaski, and we were quite impressed with Mr. Joswick's theories of balancing agricultural income with industrial income to give the farmers cash income. We chose a small town because we feel that you're closer to your people, your people understand your problem more, and the people themselves are more independent usually through their farm interests.

STANLEY: We talked to some of the employees, some of the factory workers. We get a line on what Mr. Gilkerson means on hiring farmers to work in industry.

BARANCZYK: In the morning I milk cows and clean the barn and do all the farm work and do most of the hard work, and then after work, then I do the rest.

STANLEY: I see. You pretty well take care of the farm yourself.

BARANCZYK: Well, quite a bit. My dad helps me and my wife helps me quite a bit, though, too.

STANLEY: That was Dick Baranczyk.

LEES: My name is Suzanne Lees. I am inspector, shoe inspector. I live out in the 00:27:00country. We are retired and we are working here in the shoe factory.

STANLEY: You are retired as far as the farm is concerned.

LEES: That's right, as far as the farm is concerned.

STANLEY: Does the farm operate at all?

LEES: Yes, it's operated by my son.

STANLEY: And another young farmer, Dominic Katzkevich.

KATZKEVICH: Well, I help out my dad on the farm here. We run a dairy in town. We just started our pasteurizing now. I get up around six o'clock and go to the barn, and do as much as I can, and then I come here to work. I put a full day of work in here, and come back home and get out to the barn, and help around with the chores in the barn, and take care of part of the milk crop. And Saturdays, if my dad needs me around, I deliver milk for him or help him out as much as possible.

STANLEY: What do you do for recreation?

KATZKEVICH: Oh, I do a lot of bowling, and summertime I play a lot of ball, especially softball, and we have been taking championships for three years.

STANLEY: Time and energy enough left over from work to take off with a championship ball team. That's something to remember in the spring of 1950, a footnote to add to the American way of life. It's not all work and no play. And for factory management too, there comes a time when business slacks off, seasonal slump of the year. We want to know the story here. And we ask Paul Gilkerson again.

GILKERSON: The worst part of our seasonal slump is--usually comes in October. Last August, Mr. Joswick brought to our attention the fact that there wasn't enough help available in the area to permit the local canning factory here to operate at a full crew, so that they could take in the farmers' crops in the immediate area. So it was suggested that we move our--that we voluntarily slow down our production during this period so some of our help would be available to 00:29:00help the canning factory. Now that's a situation that could only be found in a town of this size. I'm sure you couldn't find that degree of cooperation in a city.

STANLEY: Now here's the big question. Does it pay off, this rosy, cooperative, friendly industry in a farm village? Can you prove an ideal in dollars and cents? Can you balance it with business and keep it out of the red?

GILKERSON: Our business has grown to approximately twice the planned size of the business, and it's just a question of needing more space so we can make more shoes, and employ more people.

STANLEY: There's Paul Gilkerson's answer, a simple, dry, businesslike answer--American industry expanding, free enterprise. So Northern Shoe Company needs more space. That's Paul Gilkerson's current headache, a new building. And the townspeople figure it's their worry too. So now, as in the winter of '45 and 00:30:00'46, the folks of Pulaski are investing in industry, in their own jobs, in the future of their village. And Frank Joswick, the school principal, is in the thick of the drive.

JOSWICK: ... the Community Council for the purpose of expanding our industrial development. Right at the present time we're in the midst of a campaign to raise $35,000 for an addition to our present factory, but in addition to that we're also keeping in mind that one factory and one industry is not sufficient, although this one employs over three hundred people. To diversify, we plan on attracting other industries: small industries so as to give people an opportunity to use their various aptitudes and talents and abilities in other industries, and also for the purpose of providing a better and sounder tax base and community economy.

STANLEY: And speaking of tax base, let's pause here to say that in Pulaski as of now, the tax base has gone up from $800,000 to $3,000,000. Just thought you'd 00:31:00like to know. Pretty good for a village under a thousand population. And that annual American annoyance, paying taxes; well, Pulaski's tax rate is one of the lowest in the state. For the schools it is down from fifteen to ten mills. Ten mills of the tax dollar gets Pulaski one of the finest schools in Wisconsin. Here's the high school band in action, Jerry Parker directing.

[band playing]

STANLEY: If in the beginning publicity brought the church and the church brought people to Pulaski, now the high school carries Pulaski's name to fame in every 00:32:00corner of the state and nation. It's the largest rural high school in Wisconsin with a reputation as big as all outdoors.

[band playing]

STANLEY: Everywhere in Wisconsin when teachers, school administrators meet, they say, "How about Pulaski, how does it work?" Across the state in the southwest at Platteville State Teachers College, I recently asked Frank Joswick to give the answers. Here's part of his speech to the Community Leaders Conference.

JOSWICK: The school and the community are inseparable. One of the important reasons why we have schools, and I think institutions such as churches, and 00:33:00organizations such as governments, is for the purpose of preserving civilization and improving it. And the school, therefore, ought to act as an agency in improving that civilization or that community, that particular area in which it serves. I don't believe that there is any reason why we should be a stove or a heating system in the house in the wintertime unless it generates some heat. For that same reason I don't believe that we should have any business having any kind of a school in a community unless it improves and preserves civilization in that community.

STANLEY: While their school principal was giving that Platteville speech, the kids back home in Pulaski were getting out their newspaper. It's the only local newspaper in the town, and senior high school kids in the journalism class do the reporting and writing, and the typing classes lend a hand. The boys and girls get advertising too, enough to cover the costs of printing. The happy subscribers who get the newspaper pay only a buck a year.

MARTIN: The Pulaski News as it is today was first published in August 1942, and was the outgrowth of the Pulaski High News, the official school paper which was started in 1937.

STANLEY: That's Larry Martin, a debater, boxer, member of FFA and the 4H Club, elected vice-president of the senior class and executive editor of the newspaper. Larry reads from the record.

MARTIN: From this very humble beginning, the 4-page paper with a circulation of only high school students grew into an 8-page paper with two thousand subscribers and serving the entire Pulaski community. Pulaski News has taken definite stands on several important issues and has helped to promote the municipal sewer and water system for the Village of Pulaski; bring in a new industry, the Northern Shoe Company; promote a recreation program for the community; and help with Red Cross and Community Chest Drives.

STANLEY: It's a woman's world too in the high school. Item in the Pulaski News about the home economics classes, quote:

BRYCZYNSKI: "The Home Ec. classes are studying about electricity. Electricity is of great importance to the homemaker, and if something goes wrong she might have to make her own repairs. Also the girls in the classes have been making floor plans of their homes, and remodeling them into better planned rooms.

STANLEY: That article was written by Betty Bryczynski, blond, blue-eyed senior, 5'4" tall. She and one hundred twenty other girls make up six daily classes in home economics, full of practical projects like electrical repairs and tasty jobs like preparing meals for adult visitors to the school. The girls' teacher is Miss Dorothy Keenan, who still has time to give to women in the community who come to the school for sewing classes at night. Teacher says it's all part of her job.

KEENAN: Well, most of these women haven't had the benefit of any organized instruction in sewing so they like information on some of the new techniques, like putting in zippers and using patterns and ways of finishing necklines and that's what I try to do mostly.

STANLEY: And the projects they work on are actual practical projects?

KEENAN: Yes, they sew clothes for themselves and a lot of them for their children. Many of them have small children and they're interested in making clothes for them.

[Girls' Glee Club singing]

STANLEY: Listen for a moment to the Girls' Glee Club.

[Girls' Glee Club singing]

STANLEY: Yes, it's a lullaby song by the Girls' Glee Club, forty strong, under the direction of Jerry Parker. But around the corner it's a man's job on the hammer and saw for high school boys in shop class. The boys are building a house, not a miniature model, a real house, a two-story house on an empty lot about a block away from the school. When it's finished, the highest bidder will get it at auction, and some lucky family will have the answer to the housing problem. Now the frame is up and the floor in, and we asked the boys to knock off work and tell us the story. Here's Eugene Naparella.

NAPARELLA: My name is Eugene Naparella. Well, right now we're putting in a furnace and it's a coal-burning forced-air furnace, and we're putting in the registers, both the hot and cold air, and then some of the other boys are 00:38:00putting in insulation.

STANLEY: And we climbed up to the second floor to get a word with Jerry Treskowski.

TRESKOWSKI: We're putting up insulation right now.

STANLEY: The insulation, what kind of insulation are you using?

TRESKOWSKI: Fiberglass blanket insulation.

STANLEY: What other work have you done on the house?

TRESKOWSKI: Well, we've put up, well, we've built the whole house from bottom to top almost.

STANLEY: I say we climbed up to get a word with him. Well, you don't get many words from teenage housebuilders, but the house speaks for itself and the boys' teacher, Mr. Eugene Wielgus, fills in the story.

WIELGUS: We try to work for three definite principles. We like the knowing angle, the doing angle and the being angle. Now usually the knowing angle is over-stressed, at least we feel so in Pulaski, and so we've been trying a little more on this line of doing, actual doing, bring out the art and the industry in the industrial arts picture.

STANLEY: And who pays the bills for the shop classes to build a house?

WIELGUS: The building itself is being financed through the school board as a regular school project, just as any other project would be financed: a small, 00:39:00say for instance an end-table or a desk or almost any other project which a person would be working on, a student that is.

STANLEY: But let's remember that Pulaski's a farm community and many boys here will grow up to be farmers. They're studying it now with Emil Vandermost, vocational agriculture instructor. He's on hand too, supervising the housebuilding project. But how does building a house tie in with vocational agriculture?

VANDERMOST: The boys get many variations in their work. They learn how to mix concrete, which is one of the things that I have to teach them. They have to know how to cut rafters before they leave the shop class, that is, they have to learn that at some time during the year. They have to know a little something, especially in this community, about laying concrete blocks. Well, all of those things tie in pretty well here with this project, building this house. One thing 00:40:00I stressed a lot this year was the milk testing program. The boys bring their samples of milk in from each cow and test the milk, and they actually figure out the records on their herd. That is, they have some idea of which are their good cows and which are their poor ones.

STANLEY: You have the testing equipment in the school?

VANDERMOST: That's right, we have a testing room that is pretty well equipped for doing that work. Along with the testing, I might mention the fact that we also have facilities there to test soil for the farmers in the community. We're getting, too, this time of the year we're going to do a lot of testing of soils. As soon as the frost gets out of the ground, the boys start bringing samples of soil in, and I might say that we'll be a pretty busy laboratory.

STANLEY: Well, the frost is coming out of the ground now, friend, and testing 00:41:00soil, breaking it with the plow; the spring planting time is upon us. Good things for American farm boys to be learning about in their school rooms. Better still in the spring of 1950 is the idea of youngsters learning what community life is all about. What goes on in their home town, and what job they can do in it. Forty boys and girls get high school credit for working part-time in offices and stores in town. Their school principal sets it up as give and take.

JOSWICK: We take a lot of interest in the community, the students and teachers. The community, however, reciprocates and takes a lot of interest in us. Our students, for instance, go uptown for various purposes. They visit stores. They visit factories. They visit farm organizations. Many of them attend the Village Board meetings. They write it up for their student newspaper by the way, which is the only newspaper in the community. We also invite people from the community to come into the school and visit the classes and talk to students, as resource 00:42:00leaders. We have a doctor this week, for instance. Last week we had a lawyer. The week before we had a social security expert, and we have a farmer. We have a banker on our programs. People from the community or from the surrounding area.

STANLEY: Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief. Oh yes, we ought to include the American athlete. There are plenty of them in Pulaski. Remember back in the survey where people said they wanted job opportunities and more recreation? Well they're breaking ground now for a new gym-auditorium at the high school, for grown-ups and youngsters to share alike. Already there's plenty of recreation on the old fair grounds. But before the warm summer breezes blow across the soft-ball field, and play around the picnic tables and the horseshoe pitching area, there are the long winter nights and the sound of bowling balls crashing down the alley at the Palace Recreation Hall. The wives of men on the bowling teams don't complain on tournament nights. The women have a chance at their own handicap sweepstakes. And we talked to a family man.

STANLEY: Married?

LUNDKOWSKI: I'm married.

STANLEY: Family?

LUNDKOWSKI: I have a girl in high school.

STANLEY: I see. Is it a good place for kids?

LUNDKOWSKI: Why, this is the best town in Wisconsin for youngsters.

STANLEY: The best town in Wisconsin for youngsters. That was Bernard Lundkowski. You remember him--cashier at the bank, he told us how the fellows all worked putting up the factory building in the dead of winter. Now meet another business man with a family, glad to make a living in Pulaski and enjoy some fun too. His name, Nat Kopreski.

KOPRESKI: I have a furniture store here in town. We're here going on the fifth year. Came from Chicago.

Stanley: Well, why did you come to Pulaski?

KOPRESKI: Because we thought a nice small town was the place to live, which we found out was really a nice place to live in and we enjoy life the way you should enjoy it.

Stanley: And you're happy here?

KOPRESKI: Very happy.

Stanley: You plan to move back to the big city at all?

KOPRESKI: Not unless you take a team of horses to drag us back there.

STANLEY: The fella's kid met when we asked him about his bowling. His team's in 00:44:00last place. Lucien Krowczyk's on the same team. He's president of the Chamber of Commerce and owns the Model Bakery and Grocery Store. Glad to be in Pulaski because:

KROWCZYK: Because it's one of the best communities in Wisconsin as far as business is concerned. The local trading area is very prosperous. Business is always good. When the farmers are doing good why we all do good.

STANLEY: Takes us back to John Paplinski, the sturdy pioneer. When the farmers do good we all do good.

[accordion playing folk song]

STANLEY: There's Jim Brusky on his accordion again, plays the Polish song strong and gay, clean cut American boy with a fine education, living in a good town--it's alive, prosperous. That's not enough. Not enough for kids growing up like Jim Brusky. Not enough for the Chamber of Commerce or the Farm Co-op, or 00:45:00the shoe industry. You don't take what you've got in your home territory and put a fence around it and say, "This is mine. This is my world." The song Jim played came from across the seas; so did the names on the mailboxes, so did the spirit that cleared the wilderness, so did the faith that built the church. The real substance of humanity that makes good living here is the birthright of all men in all corners of the earth. Citizens of Pulaski are also citizens of the world. We want you to know about that kind of citizenship. It means sticking your neck out of the little town where you were born; means doing a job wherever you're needed, where less fortunate people are in trouble.

[cow mooing]

STANLEY: Out at Ed Malczewski's barn at 7 'o clock in the morning, we talked to Ed about these things. Milking's over and Harry Loskowski, the hired man is cleaning up the barn. Ed tells us what the whole town already knows.

MALCZEWSKI: In 1945, when the United Nations, or rather the [unintelligible] Department needed people to go over there to Poland to do some work, I happened to be chosen. Of course, it is the University again, of Wisconsin, that recommended me over there, and they sent me over there, and I spent two years over there on the Agricultural Department. I had charge of the farm machinery. Our main object was there to bring production because there was millions of acres that were not touched over there, and of course over half of the horses, over a million and a half of the horses were destroyed, therefore them people had no power at all, so I done, principally I went up there with a tractor. I had eight thousand tractors over there working in that area to get them back into production.

STANLEY: Ed is sixty-two years old, has nine children. One of his boys is married and a student in the University. Ed was given the Master Farmer Award by the Wisconsin College of Agriculture a little while back. He was one of the 00:47:00original stockholders in Pulaski Industries, and he's just bought some more shares for the new building. You're right. You say Ed Malczewski's an exception. Not every farmer in America is apt to pull off to Europe and worry about folks in trouble over there. But hundreds of farmers everywhere are getting the same idea Ed did.

MALCZEWSKI: When I was over there I realized that millions of them people couldn't go back over there, and I felt that people in this country should, we should take our share of them, and so I felt I could use them on the farm, my farm, and therefore I took a family.

STANLEY: A mother, father, a family of five children. Ed Malczewski brought these displaced persons to Pulaski, got them on his farm and on jobs hired out to neighbors. Other new arrivals from Europe work in the shoe factory. Shirley Tim, high school senior recently, heard from her pen-pal in Austria, through the school letter exchange club. There's room, elbow room for world citizenship ideas. Nobody's put a fence around Pulaski.

[accordion playing]

STANLEY So it goes--life on Main Street in the spring of 1950.Oh yes, one more thing before we forget. A word from the man much concerned with life, with life and well-being from birth all down the long road. One of the three village doctors in Pulaski is Dr. McDermott. We found him in the prescription room of Ken Hendershot's drugstore. Dr. McDermott, what's the report on health?

MCDERMOTT: The health as a general picture is good. There have been no epidemics of any serious degree in the past few years. Polio cases have been few, many people in this area live to an advanced age, active into their late 80's. More 00:49:00so than many communities of this size. The mental health picture in this area is considerably better, I believe, than in larger communities. This may be held accountable to the fact that people in this area are active even in the older age groups. Small town life, life on the farm, while strenuous is not as nerve-racking. There is not as much tension and strain as in cities of larger population.

STANLEY: A long life and a healthy one. Thriving town at the cross¬roads, an airport, a railroad. No dust on the counters and shelves of Norbert Paplinski's hardware store. Traffic stops at Orville Kubiak's woodwork shop. Old John at the bank is ready to lend money to young folks who want to buy a house and settle down. Big Pfeiffer with his dry cleaning pick-up business services the community 00:50:00for sixty miles around. Miss Bremmer's going on her twenty-eighth year of teaching in the grade school; and Ed Johnson, the rural postman, has carried the mail for more than thirty years, knows all those names on the mailboxes we mentioned. It's a good life the way Pulaski folks live it. What they've built here, they've built with their own hands and a stout heart. Take it from Frank Joswick.

JOSWICK: I believe that this is a much better way than to look for handouts from Washington or even from Madison. I believe that this is the American way and that's God's way.

[male chorus singing]

[male chorus singing]

ANNOUNCER: Profile of Pulaski, Wisconsin. This has been the fourth in a series of documentary programs about the people and places of Wisconsin. Script by J. Helen Stanley. Your narrator-producer was Ray Stanley. Join us in two weeks for a Profile of the city of Eau Claire. This is the Wisconsin College of the Air.