A former newspaper reporter who has lived in Franklin for nearly 40 years, Marjorie is active in several Franklin and Hales Corners organizations.
Tuesday mornings I usually find myself on the Whitnall Park golf course with a group of friends from Hales Corners Woman’s Club. I almost always walk, enjoying again and again the beautiful view as I push my cart down the fairway. Some of the trees are like old friends, and occasionally we’ll spot a deer or a fox disappearing into the woods. Some days, when the weather is idyllic, I feel like I’ve found a spot of Paradise on earth.
Contrary to popular opinion, women don’t always talk on the golf course. There are many glorious moments when the only sounds I hear are birds twirping in overhead trees, and I find myself quietly reflecting about things other than the present location of my golf ball. So there I was a couple of weeks ago, walking toward that stately oak tree in the middle of the fairway on the fourth hole, wondering to myself, “How did I get involved in this game?” And immediately I started thinking about Vivian Velser and the Southwest YWCA.
In 1970, when I was just becoming acquainted with the Franklin/Hales Corners neighborhood, I signed up for a series of indoor lessons hitting whiffle balls off bristly brown mats at the Southwest Center on Janesville Road. And then – thanks to Vivian and her innovative programs – I became part of a women’s golf group that played every Thursday at Whitnall Park. We were called the Y-Fores, and since we had more golfers than allotted tee times, we played every other week and were teamed up with a partner. My assigned partner, who soon became a good friend, was Carmen Kania, a French war bride who came to Franklin with her husband LeRoy, a Milwaukee County deputy sheriff. Carmen had a wonderful sense of humor, an infectious laugh and a delightful French accent. She played the entire game with her 5-iron except when she got near the green and she’d take out her pitching wedge to hit a “sheep” shot.
Carmen moved to Las Vegas when LeRoy retired, and I’ve lost touch with her. Vivian, also a longtime resident of Franklin, died of cancer in 2000, but I carried vivid images of these two women with me through the rest of the game. That’s the wonderful thing about memory: people no longer part of our lives come alive again.
At the Hales Corners Library I checked out a copy of the 1988 publication of the Hales Corners Historical Society, “A History in Celebration of 150 Years.” On page 133 there are six paragraphs which give a little history of the Southwest YWCA: “The Young Women’s Christian Association extended its outreach from Milwaukee to Hales Corners in 1960. At first they operated from a mobile unit in the village, located where Kohl’s is now.” (Let’s update that grocery store image to 2007, and make it Pick and Save.) Classes were “held all over the area, in churches and wherever they could find room.” The first YWCA building was in the Postal Plaza, and many classes were held there.
Dance instructor Jan Spiegel, a longtime friend of Vivian Velser, was one of those teachers as was Dora Jahnke, who taught preschool to 4-year-olds. The small quarters in the Postal Plaza couldn’t begin to accommodate the growing interest in the Y’s programs so, with Vivian at the helm, land was purchased on Janesville Road and a larger facility was built. Jan and Dora both continued teaching classes at the new YWCA, which opened in 1969 at 11111 W. Janesville Road. According to the Historical Society’s book, “Membership grew rapidly. Activities were for all ages and included exercise and dance classes, study groups, tours, numerous arts and crafts classes and a Senior Citizens’ Club.”
Dottie King remembers the aerobic exercise classes, taught by Jan Murry. In fact, she says, every time she attends a funeral at Hartson Funeral Home these days, she has to restrain herself from moving her legs in time to the well-remembered exercises. The quilting group that started at the “Y” still meets on Tuesday mornings in the W. Ben Hunt room at the library, Dottie told me.
I was part of a group called the “Y-Wives,” which held luncheons and programs. In 1981 we published a collection of favorite recipes – all typed out on a standard typewriter, since computers had not yet entered our lives. My children were part of Dora’s preschool classes. I even took an evening class in philosophy there, part of UWM’s community outreach program.
Through the years I came to know Vivian Velser not only at the “Y” but also through Woman’s Club and other community activities. Everyone I’ve talked to remembers Vivian for her friendlly outgoing nature, for her excellent leadership and management skills and for all she did to build up the Southwest YWCA. At the time the downtown office decided to close the Southwest center, membership was at 2,400. As part of the larger, non-profit organization, the Southwest center was financially stable, according to Jan Spiegel, and the income from Southwest programs helped keep the other centers in metropolitan Milwauk
