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Koltes Lumber Co.From left to right, standing:Edward M. Koltes, Harry J. Koltes* Seated: Florence Koltes (Harwood).The following is taken from a letter written by Florence Koltes Harwood in which she recalls the Koltes Lumber andRiphahn’s Store in the early 1900’s.lt;*By the time I began to remember, my father, Joseph H. koltes, and his sister’s husband, Uncle Pete Riphahn, had divided their lumber and merchantile partnership. My father now owned the lumber yard and Uncle Pete took over the store. They were always the best of friends but each had a special interest, so they felt the separation of the two types of business would be more satisfactory. Then my father had an office in a building between the lumbershed and the little building which later became the post office. His office consisted of one room with a stove in it and was at the front of the building. My little sister, Eleanor, who died about a month be-tore$me was three years old, and I, were sometimes allowed to walk uptown to visit ‘Pa’. There was no danger as there was only one car in town and we did not have to cross the railroad tracks. We would sflboll through the lumbershed and smell the delightful fragrance of cut wood. There was a little room toward the front of the shed on the east side. This had a wooden floor, and screened sides and ceiling. Barrels and sacks of Gold Medal flour were kept here safe from rats and mice.As for Uncle Pete’s store, that was also a lovely place, smelling of coffee, kerosene, groceries, some leather goods, and maybe of mail, because there was a post office sort of cage right in the center of the front of the store not. far from the front door. There was a little doorhigh up at the front of the cage where people asked for mail. Children could not reach that highso they had to go to the side of the cage to identify themselves. The lock boxes were at the front. Ours was number 10. I think there were mail sacks from half a dozen trains a day. On the east side of the store there were counters and shelves of groceries. There was a huge coffee grinder, red, I believe, with gold letters and a big wheel. The roasted coffee came out of a big burlap sack and smelted divine. There were five or six square boxes of cookies and the boxes had glass tops. I recall especially ‘Maryanne’ cookies and some round cookies with a bump ofmarshmallow andcocoanutontop.I would have traded one pound of my mother’s delicious cookies for just one of those atrocities! At the back of the store on the east side there was a chain pump for kerosene. I believe the kerosene was pumped , from a tank in the basement into the kerosene cans which we brought to be filled so we could fill our lamps at home. As I remember it, there was^a fat vinegar barrel with a spigot at the bottom and a strainer fastened to the spigot. This was to keep ‘mother’ out of the vinegar jugs and if you don’t know what mother is, you deserve toswallow a glop of it.Along the west side of the store the shelves contained pans and kettles, string coats to keep flies off of horses, hammers and nails and all kinds of hardware. Discretely displayed on an inconspicuous shelf were a few sets of bedroom china, each set consisting of a china water pitcher, a washbowl, a soapdish and halfhidden, a chamber. People averted their eyes when they passed this display. I never did see anyone buying a set so I think . the purchase might have been made in the dead of night. People were very modest in those good old days.”
Newspaper Details
Waunakee Tribune
Waunakee, Wisconsin, US
Thu, May 04, 1972
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Susan S.
USA 10 Jul 2020
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