Local Author Brings Historic Manitowoc County Back to Life at Manitowoc Public Library

The following article was written by award winning local author, Corey Geiger.

In the hit song, “The House That Built Me,” country music singer, Miranda Lambert, shares a story of returning for one final time to her childhood home. While her family no longer owns that house, the home once again comes to life as Lambert instantly returns to her upbringing, walking its hallways and recalling the moments in time that created the woman she has become today.

Unlike that house featured in that song, our house and farm nestled in Manitowoc County remain in the family some six generations later. However, just like Lambert’s song, our house and farm literally built our entire family, including yours truly.

This revelation didn’t immediately come to me as a young person. Until my senior year in high school, I had only left Wisconsin for one daytrip. After enrolling in the dairy science and agricultural economics program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the world opened before my eyes. Upon graduation, I joined the editorial team of Hoard’s Dairyman magazine and eventually traveled to 48 states, 6 Canadian provinces, and 12 countries on three additional continents to cover the dairy industry and all of agriculture. Despite all these incredible experiences, my heart remained rooted in Manitowoc County.

Then came the revelation.

There’s an age-old saying among dairy farmers that goes like this: “The grass is greener on the other side of the fence.” This saying goes back to a time when most dairy cows grazed on pastures and cows would get their head and neck stretched through a fence for a bite of the very best grass. Unlike those cows, however, I finally learned that the grass—my life experiences growing up in Manitowoc County—was actually greener on my side of the fence. In other words, I didn’t need to reach for stories.

And so, I embarked upon writing two books that have now won four national writing awards and have sold copies to all 50 states. On March 13, from 6-7:30 PM in the Balkansky Community Room, I will bring those stories to life with my lively storytelling at Manitowoc County Library.

To be certain, these are not my stories, but stories of those who have gone before me.

My first book, On a Wisconsin Family Farm, flings the barn doors wide open to a cast of characters that built America’s Dairyland. A maternal maverick, Anna Satorie, my great grandmother, went against cultural norms and became the sole owner of her family’s homestead in 1905. The next year, Anna married John Burich, and the couple went about building a thrifty family farm.

Pioneer life was fraught with trials and tribulations as polio and tuberculosis claimed loved ones and the fabricated death of a bootlegging brother turned gangsters away from the farm. There are tales of “Copper Cows” who were the most profitable cows. It was an era where neighbors pitched in as members of the immigrant class and aided one another to construct farmsteads and support one another through unsanctioned bank loans, daring dynamite work, and barn raisings.

The journey continues in The Wisconsin Farm They Built. After his mother Anna was killed by a train, Elmer Pritzl was thrown into adulthood at the tender age of sixteen. A clever and crafty fellow, Elmer quickly found work at the local foundry. Promoted to foreman by age eighteen, he began supervising men double and even triple his age during the depths of the Great Depression. However, that professional career track ended abruptly five years later when Elmer fell in love with a farmer’s daughter, Julia Burich. Six months after their wedding, Julia’s father passed away, and with no living male relatives left in her life, Julia’s mother, Anna Burich, asked, “Elmer, will you run my farm?” So, Elmer, born a city boy, transformed his life and began a love affair with a Wisconsin family farm.

To bring their stories to life, I use narrative nonfiction to share historical events of Wisconsin, the United States, and the world that were also taking place. Anna, John, Elmer, Julia, and a host of relatives are characters in some good tales that unfolded in real life. Those oral histories are revealed in my books. I hope that you’ll be able to join me for the telling of these stories at Manitowoc Public Library on March 13, from 6-7:30 PM.