The Trustees of the Foundation have selected Al and Jeanette Lahmayer as recipients of this year’s Special People Award. Al and Jeanette have been true partners in their life journey, their personal lives, in part of Al’s professional career, and in their community endeavors. We thought you would enjoy learning about their life history in Black River Falls.
Now in their tenth decade, Al and Jeanette’s early years saw them entering the age of self-awareness in the great depression of the thirties, Jeanette in Kentucky Appalachia and Al in Milwaukee. Their lives were much impacted by WWII. Al was inducted into the Army in the later stages of the War, and Jeanette went to work as a clerk typist on an Army base in Indianapolis. It was at that Army base that Al met his blue-eyed Kentucky Wonder Woman!
Their courtship lasted several years, while Al pursued first his college degree and then graduate school in Optometry. Together, their life ambition was a modest one. Marriage, a family, and a nice home – the American dream. Al had chosen Optometry as a career, because he could be a solo practitioner in a small town, something that appealed to both he and Jeanette. “I often say, I’ve done two small things in my early life that were the key to everything, I chose Optometry for a career, and I asked Jeanette to be my wife and partner.”
In the rest of this article, Al shares their story and reminisces about their community involvement over the years.
We got married midway through Optometry school in Chicago. After graduation, my first job offer arrived in the form of a phone call from Dr. Robert Krohn in Black River Falls. We took the “400” train to Merrillan where we were met by a group including Dr. Bob and Tom Mills. A bit of Kentucky drawl and a smile from Jeanette, and they hired both of us. Jeanette as a secretary, and me as the guy who was with her.
Ten years later, the Krohn Clinic reorganized, forming a medical partnership. I purchased the eye care portion of the practice and began my independent practice. I built my first Eye Clinic on the corner of 2nd and Main Streets. Thirty years later, I had the same architect design the Eye Clinic next to the Hospital for myself and my son, Bruce, who was now my partner. Sixteen years later, after forty-six years of practice, I retired. Later, Dr. Bruce merged the practice with the Gundersen Clinic and just recently began a well-earned retirement himself.
When asked to be an officer in the Wisconsin Optometric Association, I saw an opportunity to repay something to Optometry, which had done a lot for me. In 1973, Optometrists were not yet allowed to use drugs in their practices. This was handicapping our ability to diagnose pathology, and went against the public’s best interest. Along with other doctors, we began the effort to change this Wisconsin law. It took five years. In 1978, the Governor signed a Bill rectifying this situation at our convention. Also that year, I had the honor of being President of our Association and being recognized as “Optometrist of the Year”.
In 1952, we were blessed with our first son, Bruce. In 1953, Mark joined our family and in 1960, our daughter, Ruth Ellen, completed our dream team. Our second son, Mark, was a beautiful baby, but when he was about six months old, we noticed his motor development was behind schedule. This is when we learned that Mark would be a special needs child. Since that day, a portion of our life has been involved with the field of people with disabilities. At the time, there were no services to help these folks. Wisconsin had no chapter of laws that covered disabled citizens, and Jeanette and I were asked to do a survey about the needs of the disabled in Jackson County. It wasn’t until 1960 when John F. Kennedy, who had a developmentally disabled sister, was elected President that national attention began to focus on the matter.
Jeanette and I wanted to get our kids out into the country, so in 1965 we sold our home in town and moved to a 180-acre farm. Two years later, Jeanette thought it was time to replace our decrepit farm house. She picked a quiet, private spot with a beautiful view for our new home. The site was some distance from the main road and our driveway cost more than the original farm did! We designed our dream home and as with the Eye Clinic, I was the general contractor. This was our home for over fifty years until we recently moved into Spaulding Place. In addition to the Eye Clinics and our home, Jeanette and I built a number of other buildings together including a small apartment building, and did several renovation projects together.
When Mark was nine years old, he had not yet been to school, as special education did not exist at that time. Jeanette took it upon herself to meet with then school Superintendent, Mel Schmallenberg about the situation. Mel knew Mark and believed he was certainly trainable and most likely educable. Superintendent Schmallenberg stated “We should have a class for these kids”. In 1962, a class was started and taught by a former one-room school teacher, who did a marvelous job. Mark was the classes first pupil. This was the beginning of Special Ed in the Black River Falls school district and eventually led to the Special Ed teachers and classes we know today. More than fifty years later, Jeanette and I honored Mr. Schmallenberg’s foresight by donating $50,000 to a designated sub- fund of the BRF Education Enrichment Fund, managed by the BRF Area Foundation.
Mark lived at home until he was forty- two. He had seen his brother and sister leave to live their lives and he wanted to be on his own. At the same time, Jeanette and I had the concern universal to parents of children with disabilities, “Who will look after him when we are gone?” Jeanette and I developed a plan to build a special home for Mark and some of his friends where he could live permanently. The project involved many steps. (1) A non-profit organization called Halcyon (meaning tranquil or peaceful) Habitat was formed. (2) Application for IRS approval for a 501(c)3 designation was obtained. (3) Architect Curt Biggar, who had known Mark since his birth, donated his professional services. (4) The city of BRF donated the building site. (5) Jeanette and I funded the project with much of our retirement savings. In 1996, Halcyon House, 745 N. 8th Street was completed. Mark and his friends each have separate apartments, and the project was a huge success.
In the early years, while working at Krohn Clinic, I often went to Neillsville to play golf with then-Clinic Manager Bill Wilcox. When we began we were not very good at the game. We played for years and gradually we got worse! Bill and I were golf partners for fifty-eight years until Bill passed away. Over the years Bill and I talked about trying to start a golf course in Black River Falls. That idea was the seed that eventually grew into the Skyline Golf Course. Bill was President in 1956 during the construction of the course, and I was the President the following year when the course opened. Jeanette was secretary of the BRF Recreation Association when they donated the property for the golf course to the city and as an officer, her name
is on the original transfer deed. Today, Skyline is much more than a golf course. The beautiful clubhouse (for which Milt Lunda was a major donor) is a community center where we hold our celebrations, our wakes and many of the activities that make us a community.
In 1985, when Gil Homstad was President of the BRF Rotary Club, he suggested a project that is now a legend. Gil suggested BRF should have an Area Foundation. He asked myself and other Rotarian members to help him with this project. BRF became the smallest city in the U.S. to have such a Foundation! I served on the board of Trustees for nine years, and during that time noticed that many requests were from our school district, but demand far exceeded available grant funds. I had the idea to create a separate designated fund, as part of the Foundation, to be used only for the BRF School District. This fund became known as the BRF Education Enrichment Fund and is managed by the Foundation. The BRF-EEF has its own separate Board of Directors, manages its own fund- raising, and accepts and awards its own grant applications. This fund now has a balance of almost $500,000 and is a great help to our class room teachers.
Over the years, Jeanette and I have worked and donated to numerous community projects, and continue to do so. Two years ago, I gave a speech at the 20th anniversary of the Black River Correction Institution. I enjoyed telling the story of how a breakfast conversation, between Tom Mills and I at the Country Café, led, after several years, to the location of a medium security prison in BRF. This facility now provides good jobs for more than 300 residents of the area with no negative effect on our community.
Jeanette and I would like to sum it up this way; there is a great deal to like about this beautiful part of the “Driftless Area” we live in. It is enhanced by traditional community generosity led by several generous philanthropists among us. Jeanette and I just followed their lead in a much smaller way, as we were able to do, and as many in our community do. We came here in 1951 in a 1936 Plymouth with $500, a clock radio and ambition. We’ve lived the American dream, and as one of my old bridge club buddies said “You did it in spades.” Spades is always best.
Al provides a wonderful, colorful story of his and Jeanette’s lives in Black River Falls. However, when reviewing this article, Foundation Trustees felt Al was being very modest and had several additional comments to make.
- In addition to being one of the originators of the original nine-hole Skyline golf course, Al continues to support the golf course. Recently a major fund raising drive was held for the Skyline Golf Club. While the golf course itself was profitable, the clubhouse, used by organizations and individuals for hundreds of events each year, operated at a loss. When the Lahmayers were asked for a donation of $20,000 (the maximum being solicited), Al raised the ante by stating he and Jeanette would donate $50,000 if others would do the same! Others did, and the Lahmayers generous challenge resulted in $250,000 being donated by five families.
- In addition to Halycon House, the Lahmayers participated in MANY activities to assist those with disabilities, including both financial assistance and assistance with buildings to provide services for special needs individuals.
- When Al comments that the balance of the BRF-EEF fund is now close to $500,000, he fails to mention that this is in large part a result of the Lahmayer donation challenge done last year. Al and Jeanette generously donated $25,000 to the fund, with a challenge that they would donate an additional $25,000 if the community would match that amount. A tremendous fund raising effort was put forth and the community responded very generously, far exceeding the $25,000 goal.
- Al briefly alludes to his involvement in getting a correctional facility located in BRF. In reality, Al was one of three people responsible for bringing this facility and the subsequent jobs to our community. Al Lahmayer, Tom Mills and then-State Senator Rod Moen spearheaded this project and the results to our community have been immeasurable.
Thank you Al and Jeanette. Your bridge buddy is correct – YOU DID IT IN SPADES!