Anyone wanting the inside scoop about residents of Pulaski and what they like to do had an opportunity Sept. 27-28 to go around the village and find out themselves during the first Sharing of Our Stories.
More than a dozen venues hosted people and organizations over a two-day period that make a difference not only for the collective community but for individuals craving something positive in their lives. From school choirs to local historians, stories were told to keep the flow of knowledge going.
Dawn Seiltz sat in the Pulaski Adult Activity Center with her sewing machine working on her latest quilt project. Nearby were several large quilts she’d completed.
“I started doing this 40-plus years ago, when my kids were babies, and then life got in the way,” Seiltz said. “My second daughter got me back into quilting 13 years ago, and then I found this community of like women, with the same hobby I do.”
Seiltz said she used to craft her quilts to benefit her family, but now she makes them for charity.
“I keep those I like and give away those that someone else could use,” she said.
Smaller quilts can take Seiltz about a week to complete, while some of the larger ones require about a month. She noted that she’s not focusing all the time on quilting, but when she does get behind the sewing machine to work, she has a talent for speedy concentration.
“I sew when I can, try to sew an hour every day,” Seiltz said. “That’s my down time, and the senior center has quilting on Wednesdays, so I try to come on Wednesdays and quilt with the ladies.”
One of the ladies Seiltz quilts with is Judy Schroeder. She displayed quilts of a variety of sizes and noted that not all quilts need to be the size of a bed. She showed off one quilted item with Green Bay Packers imagery that’s used to hold hot bowls in the microwave.
“You can make placemats. You can make lap quilts. You can make wall hangings. You can make kennel quilts for the pets,” Schroeder said. “It’s kind of to bridge the gap there. For a beginner, looking at a king-sized quilt, it’s pretty ‘Oh my God, I could never do that.’ Yes, you could. You could start as small as a pot holder or a cup holder and learn as you go.”
Schroeder developed an interest in quilting more than 20 years ago, after her children had all left home for college. She said she met other quilters in Pulaski while taking classes, and together they started a quilting guild.
“Quilting, I run on color,” Schroeder said. “If I feel like working on naturals one day, I’ll find something in a natural color. If I want something with lots of colors, I work on color, whatever excites my mind that day.”
While the ladies worked on their quilts, over on the other side of the village, Officer Hunter Micolichek with the Pulaski Police Department introduced police station visitors to Blu, an Aussie labradoodle that serves as a therapy dog.
“We brought Blu home almost a year ago,” Micolichek said, noting Blu came from Blueberry Cottage Labradoodles in Osseo. “He’s assigned with me in our schools and for community stuff. He’s made a pretty significant impact already in the one year. People love this dog. Kids will chant his name and everything.”
Micolichek said he loves seeing children’s reactions when Blu struts into the room. He said the dog helps the community to get to know the police department in a way other than when a crime has been committed.
“People are open to come and talk to cops and law enforcement more because they can pet a dog,” Micolichek said. “He could have 40, 50 kids surrounding him, and it doesn’t bother him at all.”
Blu only gets tired when he’s actively working with Micolichek. The officer noted he could be running around the yard or at home and not get tuckered out.
While many of the stories told in Sharing of Our Stories were singular in nature, some stops on the tour had multiple stories. Matt Clausen with Discount Appliance on South St. Augustine Street set up a pair of tables inside with dozens of ball caps, and each one had its own story as to where it came from.
“I think, as a kid, once I found out I could (collect them), it just went off from there,” Clausen said. “Every hat has a story or a good memory.”
Of the 280 hats Clausen has, many of them display pride in the Green Bay Packers. He said he has set a goal to eventually collect 365, one for every day of the year.
Clausen has a Pulaski Fire Department hat that he’s owned for nine years, getting it after working as a firefighter. Another one for The Pancake Place holds the memory of where he went as a kid for breakfast, and now he takes his children there. His late grandfather was a truck driver and had a McDonald’s racing hat, so Clausen got it after he passed.
“It just continued to grow,” Clausen said. “Once people knew I liked them, many of them would give them to me.”
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
