Advertisement Why? These early-80s ladies believe in together-Ness, sprinkled with a good deal of gabbi-Ness that might border on gossip with classi-Ness. And they pull it off with fi-Nesse. Enough about Ness? Not quite. A classmate, Dorothy Gofus of Onalaska, Wis., was born a Ness.
It was a pleasure to visit with this “let’s do lunch quarterly” group on May 20 at Ciatti’s in Onalaska, Wis. Twenty-one showed, down from the usual 30 to 35 due largely to late snow-bird returnees and an illness in a family or two that required classmates’ attention.
They’ve known each other for more than 75 years, and boast of La Crosse schooling at Holy Trinity, St. James, St. Wenceslaus and St. John’s Catholic campuses before being united at Aquinas. After Aquinas, their lives took different paths.
About 14 years ago Dorothy (Potaracke) Kracklauer of La Crosse had a birthday party and invited her Holy Trinity classmates — about seven of them. “We continued to meet, and in time we decided ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to add others (from Aquinas) to our get-togethers?’ We just kept growing,” Kracklauer said,
Those who have birthdays during a three-month period have the responsibility of planning the gathering for that quarter. And it works. Today many 1945 grads are brought to the lunch table four times a year at various area restaurants.
Interesting, I thought, that distance doesn’t seem to stop them. Carol (Bruha) Kachel of Fitchburg, Wis., travels five hours round-trip to make the luncheons. “But I don’t care. I love these events.” And there’s Jean (Papenfuss) Haugen of Loves Park, Ill., 200 miles away. She drives to them in her 1990 Plymouth Laser “that has a lot of zip and operates wonderfully. I hate to miss any of these gatherings.”
Oh what fun they have! The room is filled with chatter from three or four tables to which attendees are assigned seats. No table group is the same from one get-together to the next. It is a way to — over many get-togethers — endear each person to the entire lunching group.
A gracious Kathy (Lepsch) Michel of La Crescent, Minn., says: “Everyone is always so happy. I think we have the nicest class there ever was at Aquinas.” Alice (Bagniefski) Nicholson of Onalaska adds: “We learn so much from each other, recall lots of good times … and we hear about our aches and pains even though we all are fairly healthy.”
Elaine (Schoger) Schnedecker and Beverly (Meuetze) Fredrickson of La Crosse remind others that they were together from kindergarten through high school. Fredrickson jogs memories when recalling that often classmates would take the streetcar from the North Side of La Crosse to Aquinas, or they would hitchhike.
At another table, Margaret (Schmitt) Schaefer of La Crosse spills the beans that there could be a slip of high school protocol even more than 60 years ago. “I was home with the mumps on a day that there was a retreat at our school. During retreats, we weren’t supposed to talk. Well, I got a lot of phone calls from classmates who weren’t supposed to be talking.”
Others at Ciatti’s were: Mary Ann (Hess) Rogers of Barre Mills, Wis.; Marie (Giblin) Brzowski, Madonna (Haggerty) Pervisky, Pat Kimball, Fran (Stuber) Smith, Beverly (Ehrsam) Kearns, Rita (Baeuer) Helfrich, Dona (Hansen) Michel and Betty (Dusso) Riley of La Crosse; and Irene (Soller) Wing, Irene (Roth) Pierce and Helen (Wurzel) Semb of Onalaska.
With all the fun reminiscing about such things as grade-school boy crushes and high school antics, this group has a serious side that bodes well for today.
Semb, among original organizers in reuniting Aquinas Class of ’45 members and head planner for the May gathering, explains this best: “We play together and we pray together, we laugh together — and cry together. We are there for one another whether it’s a glad day or a sad day.”
Eliot Ness would be so proud!
Larry Olson can be reached at larry.olson@lacrossetribune.com or address mail to him at La Crosse Tribune, 401 N. Third St., La Crosse, WI 54601.
