West Bend

We left Eau Claire and headed south to the town of West Bend, WI. We parked at the Lake Lenwood Beach and Campground. Not a bad place to park the Busse Bus for a week:

We wanted to be in this area for four reasons:

I had a court date in downtown Chicago scheduled from Wednesday through Friday.
Katrina signed up for the Windy City Classic pickleball tournament.
We had a family reunion nearby on the mother’s side.
Most importantly we wanted to see our daughter Ariana and her husband, Matt.

After we got set up and took showers, we loaded up the truck and drove down to see Ariana and Matt. We were able to grab dinner (Portillo’s beef, of course) with them eating in their backyard while Bear and Kylo watched for squirrels.

Bear and I left to stay with my cousin, Pam Dammen and her husband, Don as we needed to be downtown Chicago the next morning. We are involved in a court case where the Village of Mount Prospect (VofMP) issued a “Adverse Possession” on a private alleyway in the “Busse Triangle” in Mt. Prospect. Apparently my great grandfather on the grandmother’s side owned the entire triangle and over the years his descendants sold off the property surrounding the private alley but never sold that piece of real estate. We found the Trust which my great grandfather, John Meyn, created in 1947 that proves that the estate continues to own the property. Long story short, the VofMP tried to take the land and our attorneys and case prevailed. The VofMP will now need to pay us for the land that they took and built a parking lot on. We now just need to agree upon fair market value – ours will be higher than theirs so I’m sure the saga will continue on – it’s already been over five years. The best news was that we completed the court appearance completely on Wednesday so no need to travel into the city the next two days. The three Trustees celebrated with some beer and deep dish pizza!

While staying with Pam in downtown Mt. Prospect, I had a chance to take some pictures:

As you can see, the Busse and Meyn families have had a lot of influence on the town. In fact, both were founding families of Mt. Prospect over 100 years ago.

Here’s a picture of the church that I was baptized in and Katrina’s and my first house:

The best part of my journey into Mt. Prospect was visiting the cemetery where my parents are buried:

What a wonderful trip down memory lane!

While I was taking care of family business, Katrina was able to spend time with Ariana and practicing pickleball with her doubles partner, Bev and her mixed doubles partner, Floyd. We will be back in this area for a long time in September as Ariana is due with her first child, a son; and our first grandchild. We are so excited!

I drove back up to West Bend with Bear and I had enough time to contact my cousins Barb (née Wilkens) and Bob Odell. We were able to meet up for dinner at a Wisconsin traditional supper club.

The place was called Wallace Lake Supper Club because it sat on Wallace Lake and it was a supper club.

If you are ever in Wisconsin, seek out a supper club for a unique dining experience. And don’t forget to order a Brandy Old Fashion before dinner and a grasshopper for after diner.

Both traditional Wisconsin drinks.

The following day I drove down to Highland Park, IL to watch Katrina and Bev in the Windy City Classic.

Ariana, her mother-in-law Cathy Krause and another friend of ours Kathy Jaroch all got to watch some of the matches. Katrina and Bev did great and took the Bronze Medal!

Congratulations women! We celebrated by going to one of our favorite restaurants, Uncle Julio’s, with Bev, Todd, their daughter, Elaine and Ari. Katrina and I both ordered the Carne Asada as it is delicious!

The next day Katrina played mixed doubles with Floyd, a person that Bev set her up with. Unfortunately, their division got absorbed with a younger and higher rated(5.0 pros) class of players and she didn’t fair as well as the day before or than she wanted. The good news was that we had enough time to go out for dinner with Todd and Bev at one of our favorite restaurants, Cluckers. Afterwards we spent some time with them at their house before traveling back to Lenwood.

The Seidemann reunion was held the next day at the Seideman Farms where it has been held for 90 years. 401 descendants attended this year.

We even found some old pictures with our kids:

Brats, beer, games, raffles, contests, and families catching up over the past year make this a fantastic annual event. In fact, the Seidemann Reunion is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest running reunion in the same location. And we continue to add to that record every single year. There is a debate of whether there is two “n’s” or one “n”.

After an afternoon of trying to remember people’s names, we went back to Barb and Bob’s place which my great grandparents moved into about 100+ years ago out of field stone.

Pictured from left to right:

Katrina, Ed, my sister Susan, her friend Joe, cousin Barb, her husband Bob, brother-in-law Steve, and my sister Janis.

We were happy to pick some of their cherries:

That’s my sister Janis holding the cup and her husband Steve picking on the ladder while Bob is shaking the branches hoping for cherries to fall from the tree.

I had to take this picture of Bob as I thought it was very funny:

The outhouse isn’t functional anymore (at least I didn’t try to use it) but it has a unique place in my heart. My mother, Ruth grew up in the stone house and they didn’t have water inside. When my father, Ed and her got married in Newburg, WI, my mom asked my grandfather to build a new outhouse for the reception. That’s a picture of that restored outhouse.

We had such a great time visiting with the immediate and extended family rehashing times of yore.

The following day Barb and Bob picked us up and we headed to the Cedar Valley Cheese Store for lunch.