MHS “Volunteer of the Year” Honorees

2023 – Wes Licht

In 2023, we honored Wes Licht as our very worthy Volunteer of the Year. Wes has served on the board of directors for nearly twenty years. His many talents and interests have been used to further the mission of our organization. Wes initiated the tradition of creating lobby displays, designing most of them himself and assisting others in putting them together. He also designed and helped build the recent window displays for the museum.

Wes has long organized the 3rd grade tours and lined up the necessary tour guides. He has given horse-drawn carriage rides for the museum and made lovely succulent arrangements for sale at the Larson House. Wes gathered stories, old photos and artifacts from local residents and developed the extensive Early Farming display in our Annex building. He helped other men on the board of directors to restore the Norwegian Log Cabin and beautify the strip of land next to it with a rustic fence.

It was Wes’s suggestion to build an addition to the museum as a place to restore and display the double-pointed rowboat used at early resorts on Lake Waubesa. Wes organized work crews to do the time-consuming restoration work. Wes designed and helped create William McFarland’s Parlor, the McFarland State Bank display and renovate others. It was his suggestion to make the walls permanent between Pete Nelson’s Shoe Shop, the Child’s bedroom and the early Norwegian kitchen and upgrade those displays.

Wes often contributes information and Ole and Lena jokes at the Society’s annual meetings. Wes is also active in McFarland Lutheran Church, singing in the choir, serving on the Care of Creation Committee, working in the church garden where produce is given to the food pantry, and championing solar panels for the church. Wes volunteers his time to teach children at Waubesa Intermediate School about native prairies. He is the official “horse whisperer” of McFarland, teaching horsemanship to generations of youngsters over the years. We give a big thanks to Wes for his many contributions to the Society and our community.

2022 – Kathy Krusiec

Kathy Krusiec is a cherished friend and passionate community volunteer. Formerly head of the Dane County Department of Emergency Management, she continues to serve others. Kathy serves on the Village of McFarland Landmarks Commission. Kathy and her husband Norbert have grown tons of garden produce on their farm and donated most of it to the Food Pantry. Kathy and Norb planted prairie flowers on their farm to encourage native birds, butterflies and bees. Kathy is active in the League of Women Voters that encourages people to become informed voters.

Kathy is passionate about preserving local history and the Larson House Museum.  Kathy’s organizing talents were evident when she served on the Chocolate Fest fundraiser. Kathy suggested trying a new fundraiser: the Ladies’ Afternoon Tea.  Kathy planned, organized and supervised this very elegant event first in 2014. Kathy assigned sweet and savory recipes to her volunteers. These items would have been served with a proper English tea. The long buffet table was filled with delectable scones, cookies, cakes, tiny sandwiches, soft cheeses, dips and Devonshire cream. All of the 60 chairs were filled with ladies buying a Tea ticket.  Kathy dressed properly for the event and explained the history of tea etiquette in English society. The tables were set according to Kathy’s precise directions.  For the 2015 Ladies Afternoon Tea, Kathy added a sale table to increase profits for the Larson House. Cold beverages were offered under the backyard pergola.  Kathy graciously provided answers to questions from the participating ladies. As her friends will tell you, Kathy is a joy to work with on special events.

In 2014, Kathy took charge of decorating for our Very Victorian Christmas at the Larson House.  She organized breakfast strategy meetings with volunteer decorators, and she continued leading this activity for eight years. Crews of decorators worked on a Friday, and another crew worked on a Saturday in late November.  High School students were invited to help and often decorated the outside of the Larson House. It was a labor-intensive project, but everyone had fun and appreciated the results.  Kathy watched for special holiday items for sale at thrift stores and donated them to the Larson House as added room decorations. She called upon an artistic friend to make wreaths for each room.

The tree in each room has a special theme such as the angel tree in the entryway, the traditional tree in the living room and the music tree in the parlor.  Kathy often helped decorate the “flocked” tree in the office with the theme a “partridge in a pear tree.” One of Kathy’s inspirations was to suspend a wreath from the chandelier in the dining room – just as the Victorians did. Visitors flock to the Larson House in December to see the decorations. Kathy enlisted husband Norb to read “The Night Before Christmas” to visiting youngsters.

For many years, Kathy and a crew of talented ladies prepared gift baskets for sale at the Larson House during the month of December.  The lovely gift baskets were set throughout the house. This proved to be an excellent fundraiser.  Another one of Kathy’s ideas was to sell beeswax candles in fancy teacups. Kathy used the money from the fundraisers to purchase new lighted trees and large, sturdy bags for tree storage.

We thank you, Kathy Krusiec for your inspired service to the McFarland Historical Society and this community.

2021 – (No award due to COVID pandemic)

2020 – Ginny Dodson

Ginny Dodson was our McFarland Historical Society Volunteer of the Year for 2020. As those of you who know her, Ginny is a force of nature – a strong-willed, intelligent and caring woman who once she puts her mind to something, there is no stopping her. Friends also appreciate Ginny’s intellect, competence, and sense of humor.

Ginny and husband Stanley arrived in McFarland with their baby daughter Sarah in 1973 and moved into their home built in 1906 on Hough Street. Close friendships with neighbors and long-time village residents Charlotte Sullivan, Celia Thompson, and Nora Brickson deepened their appreciation for the history of McFarland.

Ginny joined the McFarland Historical Society board in the 1980’s and joined again after she retired from work as a computer programmer and trainer at American Family Insurance in 2007. Ginny has been active in the Larson House Museum through helping with restoration projects, naming the gardens for Stanley who died in 2009, and serving as chair of the Garden Committee.

Ginny’s other passions are playing the recorder with The Winds of Southern Wisconsin and practicing Tai Chi, but her heart condition curtailed these activities in 2019. Her top priority is visiting grandchildren Kate and Henry Wilson and their parents in Connecticut.

Thanks to Ginny for her amazing volunteer work on behalf of the historical society and this community.

2019 – Dale Marsden

Dale Marsden grew up working on the family dairy farm in Jefferson County that his great-great grandfather homesteaded after arriving from England in 1844.  He attended the one-room Busseyville School and Edgerton High School.

After graduating from the UW-Whitewater in 1969, he signed up with the Air Force and was trained as a navigator.  He flew bombing missions in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

Dale lived with his first wife and two sons in Rapid City, South Dakota until he left the Air Force in 1977.  Then the family moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where Dale worked as an industrial engineer.  He soon augmented his income with 50 hives of bees and joined the Air National Guard.  From 1980 to 1990, he was a lab assistant building parts for particle accelerators.

A couple years after his divorce, Dale met JoAnn Sorenson, a kindergarten teacher who was warm, witty, and shared interests with him.  They were married and purchased a home in the Town of Dunn in 1988.

In 1998, Dale served on the McFarland Historical Society board of directors, becoming president in 2001.  He helped build the center wall in the museum and prepared a large photographic mural of 1908 Main Street, McFarland. Dale helped establish a history room in the new McFarland Library. When the Society purchased the Larson House, Dale’s artistic and handyman abilities were put to use throughout the renovation of that building.  Dale took on major responsibility for the new addition to the museum in 2016.

As members of McFarland Lutheran Church, Dale and JoAnn chaired the Bhutanese Resettlement Committee that sponsored a family from the camps in Nepal to live in Madison. They got donations and provided lots of assistance. JoAnn and Dale adopted Faith, their foster child and provided the nurturing care to help her thrive.   Their five-acre property reflects Dale’s many interests – egg laying chickens, fruit trees, garden produce, a “honey hut” where Dale extracts honey, Dale’s watercolors, a large telescope and a rack of solar panels.  Dale is industrious, talented and civic-minded, generously sharing his time and resources. He is well deserving of this year’s Volunteer of the Year award!

2018 – Thelma Allen

If you stop by the Larson House on a summer morning, you are likely to find Thelma Allen pulling weeds or watering a flowerbed. As a member of the Larson House Garden Committee, she helped design, plant, and maintain the profusion of flowers that bloom all summer long.

Thelma is well known for her hospitality, and many work sessions have ended next door in her yard having tea at Thelma’s picnic table. She volunteered for many phases of the restoration of the Larson House, from the initial cleaning out, through wallpaper removal, woodwork cleaning, removing old paint from porch spandrels, and final clean up efforts.

Thelma assists with our special fund-raisers, including the Strawberry Shortcake Lawn Party, and the Chocolate Fest. She is a docent at the Larson House and participates in spring and fall housecleaning, as well as decorating the Larson House for our Victorian Christmas. When she is not volunteering for the McFarland Historical Society, Thelma enjoys quilting and working on her gourd art. A talented artist,Thelma exhibits her beautifully decorated gourds at various local art shows.

Congratulations, Thelma, on this well-deserved honor as Volunteer of the Year!

2017 – Ken Brost

Ken Brost has long been a very active member of the McFarland Historical Society.  For many years he called on members to host at the Museum on Main Street for each Sunday afternoon from Memorial Day through September.

Early on, Ken was concerned about the Larson House that was suffering obvious neglect.  He mowed the lawn for many summers and tried to work with the owner, the one grandson of John Larson who did not seem to care about that Victorian house that had been home to the Larson family for nearly 80 years.  Ken was delighted when the McFarland Historical Society bought the house.  Ken immediately set up work crews to take down the old garage on the property and clean out the basement.  Ken served on the Larson House planning committee where he explained that there was an extra wall in the entryway that was a relatively new addition and not part of the original architecture.  With their approval, Ken tore down the wall.

Here are just a few of the other ways that Ken has helped out with MHS projects:

• Volunteered to help with the “Buy a Board” fundraiser.
• Marches in the Memorial Day Parade each year, getting word out about the Larson House.
• Worked with the Badger deck and Landscaping crew that re-landscaped the lawn at the Larson House.
• Ken and another crew of volunteers moved erosion socks on the edge of the property to prepare for the landscaping.  He and another crew removed the sock after the grass had grown enough to protect the soil.
•  Organized the first mowing crew that took turns mowing the lawn throughout the spring, summer and fall.  He also contacted volunteers to plow the snow from the driveway.
• Alerted the planning committee to dead and dying trees on the property.  He asked Dick Kohl to help, and they cut down a number of trees and removed them.  Ken often used his trusty little red truck to haul brush and junk away.
• On the designated day in November, Ken and others move the artificial Christmas trees from the basement to the first floor and from the attic to the second floor. At another designated day in January, they repeat the process in reverse.
• Together with three other volunteers, moved the 1920’s refrigerator from the History Museum on Main Street to its current location in the kitchen of the Larson House. Made of cast iron, it will likely never be moved again!
• After a new gas-burning furnace and humidifier were added in the basement, Ken located the correct filters for each and from 2013 to 2024, Ken faithfully replaced those filters annually.  In 2024, he finally passed the baton to Tim Mitchell who will be taking over that duty.

Ken cheerfully performs these activities and others for the community with a big, wide smile on his face.

2016 – Lee Ackley

Lee Ackley and his wife Cheryl are long time members of the McFarland Historical Society.

Lee Ackley was born in Madison in 1942, the oldest of five children.  He attended East High School, graduated from University of Wisconsin at Platteville and began teaching disadvantaged young people at Central High School in 1965.  Lee met his future wife Cheryl when she began clerical work at Central High in 1967.  They enjoyed the atmosphere there but the school closed in 1969.  Lee transferred to East High and Cheryl to West Junior High.   They stayed in touch and married in 1970.

Lee taught industrial arts for 25 years and then was a guidance counselor for ten. He loves fishing, hunting, coaching and woodworking.  Son James was born in 1971 and Paul in 1974.  The Ackley family moved to a small farm near McFarland in 1972 and joined McFarland Lutheran Church where they were very active over the years.

After retiring from teaching and coaching, Lee began spending time in his large workshop repairing, restoring and building just about anything made of wood.

In 2012, Cheryl encouraged Lee to join the Larson House Planning Committee.  Lee contributed his talents by providing his ideas and technical skills to the many restoration projects throughout the house. He  enjoyed the many challenges of restoration.  His handiwork is seen throughout the house, both inside and out.

Lee’s biggest projects were on the outside of the house where he set the original spool spindles, corner brackets and balusters into new frames to rebuild the railings and spandrels on the front and side porches. He restored one of the gable decorations and completely rebuilt the other. In addition, Lee:

• installed the newly painted cast iron floor grates.
• scraped wallpaper and helped build a new bathroom under the stairs.
• installed doors in the kitchen and entryway.
• constructed a new hand railing for the back stairway.
• rebuilt the top of one of the original vanities that now graces the children’s room.
• put a new piece of veneer on the front of a 1920’s side buffet in the dining room.
• worked with Dale Marsden to put a new wall and flooring in the small closet bathroom on the first floor.
• figured out how to make a new oak rim for the 1930’s claw-foot bathtub on the second floor in the Larson House.
• repaired and installed the doors and door hardware for the front double doors and side porch door.
• rebuilt a screen door for the side porch and recently repaired it when moisture caused it to swell.

For over a decade, Lee and Cheryl have also served as hosts at the Larson House on Sunday afternoons. Since her retirement, his wife Cheryl has also contributed by painting and cleaning.

Thanks to both, but especially to Lee, who has more than earned his Volunteer of the Year accolades!

2015 – Meg Nielsen

The recipient of our first Volunteer of the Year award was Meg Nielsen, for her work in founding and leading the Chocolate Fest fundraiser since 2010.

Meg (Funfar) Nielsen and her husband Glenn came to McFarland in 1971 when Glenn became the middle school band director, a position he held for 32 years. Meg found a job on the McFarland Community Life newspaper and in 1973 they moved into the historic “Evenson House” (circa 1915) at 5707 Wisconsin Street. There they raised their children, Jennifer, Daniel and Stephen. Like their parents who met there as students, all three Nielsen children attended Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. In 1975, Meg was one of three local women to write “City of the Second Lake, A History of McFarland Wisconsin,” which has become the go-to-book for an extensive history of the McFarland area and its inhabitants.

In the 1980’s, Meg served on the McFarland village board and the plan commission. In the 1990’s, Meg spearheaded fundraising for the first McFarland library building and she was selected as “Citizen of the Year” by the McFarland Chamber of Commerce.  She spent nine years working as Director of Family Ministry at McFarland Lutheran Church, and later served the Triangle Ministry.  Meg’s passion for what would become the Larson House Museum led her to initiate McFarland Historical Society’s Chocolate Fest that raised thousands of dollars for this house museum. Meg and Glenn volunteered many hours restoring the Larson House.

For winning “Volunteer of the Year,” Meg was awarded a Life Membership in the McFarland Historical Society. Congratulations, Meg, and thank you so much for your much-appreciated contributions!