A total of 23 people showed up to the Alvin Mortenson room at the Stanley Area Historical Society on Sunday, Oct. 26, where author Betty Plombon shared her latest book, “Only in Stanley, Wisconsin.”
“I want you to know this is not a novel,” she told attendees of the book’s contents. Priced at $20 a copy with proceeds going to the Stanley Area Historical Society, “Only in Stanley, Wisconsin” tells a lesser known side of early Stanley history.
Documented and backed up with newspaper, court records and memories of ordinary people, the subject matter for “Only in Stanley, Wisconsin” includes several parts: why there was once two Catholic Churches in Stanley, prohibition, campaigns against Sunday movies and entertainment, the KKK, and more.
“I want to give you a background for what you’ll read in the book and why people acted the way they did,” Plombon said Sunday.
Key to the story are a fast growing settlement, churches, saloons, influx from new arrivals, and the newspaper, which helped record it, as well as give place for citizens to speak their minds.
The story begins in earnest with the arrival in 1900 of Father Felix Byrne, an Irish priest come to tend St. Mary’s, a church located on the South side.
Before long St. Mary’s is moved to the north where Father Byrne’s lodgings were, with 48 German families bolting to found St. Anne’s in protest. The controversy carried on for seven years, a new priest named Father Haas called from Thorp to serve the south side congregation. Thrown in the mix are items taken from daily life, with letter campaigns in the newspaper for and against liquor, as well as other vice.
The diary of Father Haas helps shed light on these early years, with other records filling in the names that made Stanley what it was then, for better or worse. From the theatre and opera house owners hauled to Chippewa Falls to answer for defying Sunday laws, to everyday life, “Only in Stanley, Wisconsin” chronicles the early years of a growing city in northwest Wisconsin, and what went into daily life.
“It’s not that our town was any worse than other towns, but it was kept quiet,” Plombon said of the goings on in early Stanley, composed at the time of seven churches (as well as missions) and 12 saloons, or 13 saloons if Hansy’s south of town is counted. The no movies campaign for Sunday resulted in the movie theater and opera house owners being hauled into court, the case remanded to Stanley from Chippewa Falls.
Filled with information one what used to be, “Only in Stanley, Wisconsin” can be purchased at the Stanley Area Historical Society on Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., with all proceeds going to the Stanley Area Historical Society. As for the KKK, Plombon has received feedback seeking another presentation on this aspect of Stanley history.
“Let me know that you would really like me to do it again,” she said of the presentation on the KKK as it existed locally from around 1923 to 1925, before disbanding.
Also taking place on Sunday, Oct. 26, meanwhile, was Quiet Reading Time, with music provided by Brady Booth. Started in New York City, Quiet Reading Time is a time to come together and read quietly, with interested parties instructed to get in contact Lia Campbell or Katie Burzynski.
As for Booth, he is scheduled to play Nov. 22 at the Early Bird in Thorp, Dec. 20 at Conley’s Hill House in Boyd, and on New Years at Reclaimed Tavern on New Years.