Malone Area Heritage Museum

Malone Area Heritage Museum Hours: Thursdays 2-4, 2nd Sunday 11-4
A historical museum commemorating the Sheboygan Fond du Lac Railroad, the surrounding Holyland, and its people

Want to explore the museum more? There's so much to see!Were open from 2 until 4 every Thursday!
08/27/2026

Want to explore the museum more? There's so much to see!
Were open from 2 until 4 every Thursday!

WHAT. A. DAY!!!THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR ATTENDING! WE HAD A FABULOUS DAY CELEBRATING AMERICA!
08/24/2026

WHAT. A. DAY!!!
THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR ATTENDING! WE HAD A FABULOUS DAY CELEBRATING AMERICA!

Come on down to the museum today on this beautiful day. This is the best way to see the armor vehicle and police car.
08/23/2026

Come on down to the museum today
on this beautiful day.
This is the best way to see the armor vehicle and police car.

The stage is almost set, so see you tomorrow!!
08/23/2026

The stage is almost set, so see you tomorrow!!

If you smell heavenly aroma from the Holyland, it's just our museum ladies baking for our sale. See you Sunday!
08/21/2026

If you smell heavenly aroma from the Holyland, it's just our museum ladies baking for our sale. See you Sunday!

Throwback Thursday!Keeping the beat! A look at the career of Holylander Viola Schmitz...Viola Schmitz grew up in Mount ...
08/20/2026

Throwback Thursday!
Keeping the beat! A look at the career of Holylander Viola Schmitz...

Viola Schmitz grew up in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin with seven sisters and two brothers. All learned piano first, but only the girls were to be in an "all-girl" orchestra conceived by their father. Her parents operated a concert hall in Mount Calvary.

Career

In the 1920s and 1930s Smith played in the Schmitz Sisters Family Orchestra (later, Smith Sisters Orchestra) that her father founded in Wisconsin. Irene (Schmitz) Abler played trombone, Erma Schmitz on vibraphone, Edwina Schmitz on trumpet, Viola Schmitz on drums, Lila Schmitz on saxophone, Mildred (Schmitz) Bartash on bass violin, Loretta (Schmitz) Loehr on piano, and Sally (Schmitz) Ellenback on bass saxophone. They toured the Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) circuit of vaudeville and movie theaters on weekends and summer vacation while some of the sisters were still in school. According to her nephew, Dennis Bartash, playing with her sisters on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour radio show in the 1930s was her big break.

In 1938 Viola and Mildred started the Coquettes, an all-female orchestra, until 1942. Mildred Bartash played the clarinet and the saxophone. Smith penned an article in 1942 for Down Beat magazine titled "Give Girl Musicians a Break!" in which she argued that woman musicians could play just as well as men. She argued, "In these times of national emergency, many of the star instrumentalists of the big name bands are being drafted. Instead of replacing them with what may be mediocre talent, why not let some of the great girl musicians of the country take their place?''

In 1942, after Mildred got married, Smith moved to New York, was given handmade snare drums from one of her teachers, Billy Gladstone, received a summer scholarship to Juilliard and joined Phil Spitalny's Hour of Charm, a commercially-successful all-girl orchestra. Later she would play with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Her signature style of 13 drums, particularly, two 16 inch tom-toms at shoulder height, was never copied, however, Smith noted Louis Bellson using 2 bass drums after meeting and observing Smith with the tom-toms. During this time, Smith recorded music for the films When Johnny Comes Marching Home and Here Come the Co-Eds as a member of the National Symphony Orchestra, and even performed with Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb. She gained notoriety as the "female Gene Krupa" and the "fastest girl drummer." Smith performed at president Harry Truman's inauguration in 1949. She remained with the Hour of Charm orchestra until 1954.

After Hour of Charm disbanded, she led her own band, Viola and her Seventeen Drums. From 1966 to 1970 she played with the Kit Kat Band, which was part of the original 1960s Broadway production of Cabaret. Allegro Magazine Volume 113 Number 10, from November 10, 2013, featured Smith in the article "A Century of Swing 'Never lose your groove!'"

In 2016, she was reportedly still actively drumming at the age of 104 in a Costa Mesa band called Forever Young Band, as one of the oldest mainstream musicians still alive.

It's cleaning day at the museum! Getting ready for Sunday's company!See you then!The History of 'APRONS' I don't think o...
08/18/2026

It's cleaning day at the museum! Getting ready for Sunday's company!
See you then!

The History of 'APRONS'

I don't think our kids know what an apron is. The principle use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids..

And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.

Send this to those who would know (and love) the story about Grandma's aprons.

REMEMBER:

Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.

I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love...

Music MondaySo many fine musicians from our Holyland area... Here's another one to remember...Heinie Beau (March 8, 1911...
08/17/2026

Music Monday
So many fine musicians from our Holyland area...

Here's another one to remember...

Heinie Beau

(March 8, 1911, Mount Calvary, Wisconsin – April 18, 1987, Burbank, California) was an American jazz composer, arranger, saxophonist and clarinetist, most notable for his swing clarinet work and recordings done with Tommy Dorsey, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra and Red Nichols. Living in Hollywood, California, Beau worked as an arranger and musician on television, radio and recordings, including contributing classic charts to Sinatra's Capitol repertoire. Beau wrote the big band arrangement of Lean Baby, the first single Sinatra recorded for Capitol in 1953. Beau had also recorded extensively in Europe, touring areas such as London.

Beau came from a musical family – both parents and all eight siblings played various instruments. At the age of 15, while still in high school, he joined the family dance band, the Wally Beau Orchestra, which played at numerous venues in the Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s. Beau's brothers Wally and Harvey, along with sister Marie, were part of the group, along with other musicians such as Rollie Culver.

His work can be heard on an early Ella Fitzgerald recording of Would You Like to Take a Walk?, along with Dave Barbour and his Orchestra, on Decca from 1951. In 1959, he recorded Moviesville Jazz for Coral. Beau arranged and conducted for composer Wayne Shanklin on the 1959 hit The Big Hurt for Toni Fisher on Signet Records, arranged and conducted on Fisher's Signet LP, and released an English version of Marguerite Monot's famous Milord as Your Royal Majesty.

He ghost-arranged for Alex Stordahl and Billy May on Frank Sinatra recordings.

In 1980, he and his wife, Grace, formed their own label, Henri Records, and recorded three albums entitled Hollywood Jazz Quartet in 1980, Blues for Two with Eddie Miller in 1982 and Midnight Clarinet with Bob Havens in 1984.

See you next week!!
08/16/2026

See you next week!!

Address

N8791 County Road W
Malone, WI
53049

Telephone

(920) 579-2738

Website

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