The Art of Woodworking

Natalie Van Dam

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

A craftsman’s tools were some of his most valuable possessions. Each one would have been carefully selected and made or modified to fit a specific need. They were highly personalized, and to the craftsmen, often priceless.

These tools — which include several types of rulers, glass cutters, blades, hammers, screwdrivers, saws and wrenches — are from the chest of Frank Roraff, a carpenter and woodworker for Hackner Altar, a company that played an important role in the history of La Crosse. The tools were passed along to Roraff’s son William and were eventually donated to the La Crosse County Historical Society by William’s wife.

Hackner Altar was founded by Egid Hackner, who was born in Bavaria in 1856. He migrated to the U.S. after receiving a letter from his brother encouraging him to join him in the Midwest. He established Hackner Altar in the 1880s, and many of the workers Hackner would hire were expert carvers who also emigrated from Europe.

All of the work done by the company until 1910 — everything from altars to stairs to pews — was done by hand. After Hackner retired, his children ran the company, which outlived its founder. Hackner died in 1952 at the age of 95. The company stayed in business until 1963.

Some of Hackner Altar’s most famous work was the main altar and baldachin at St. Benedict’s in Chicago, the main altar at the church of the Incarnation in Minneapolis, the Pieta altar and canopy at St. Mark’s church in Cincinnati, and the altar at St. Agnes Church in Buffalo, N.Y. The company’s work also can be found in La Crosse inside Mary of the Angels Chapel at St. Rose Convent.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on July 1, 2017.

This object can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.

Red and green applique quilt

Peggy Derrick

Catalog Number: 1965.001.0226

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

In 1953, Lilla Law Finch died at the age of 87 while residing in the old Hixon family home at 429 N. Seventh St. She was the daughter of a prominent lawyer and judge, and the widow of William Finch, a newspaper publisher. Shortly after their marriage in 1898, she moved with him to South America for eight years while he served as ambassador to Paraguay and Uruguay.

Lilla Finch was active in a variety of ladies’ organizations in La Crosse and was recognized as a member of “respectable” city society. But her husband was 20 years her senior and died in 1913. The childless Mrs. Finch spent 40 years of her life as a widow, and toward the end of her life was dependent on friends for support.

Alice Green Hixon offered her a home in the old Hixon family house where her husband, Frank, had grown up and which was unoccupied but still maintained by the family.

Through her long life, travels and later hardships, Finch treasured this quilt, and when she died, it remained in the Hixon home. We would assume it was a Hixon family heirloom if it weren’t for a very old note attached to it that reads: “L.L. Finch. This quilt is more than 100 years old.”

I don’t know who wrote the note. Lilla? A member of the Hixon family? I also don’t know when it was written, so I don’t know the starting point to count back the 100 years. So I have to look to the object itself for clues to questions of when, where and who.

Red and green applique quilts such as this one became popular in the 1830s and continued to be made through the end of the 19th century. This was an American quilt tradition, and a populist interpretation of the Romanticism of the first half of the 19th century. It emphasized imagination, beauty and natural forms. Romanticism has been described as a reaction to the stress from the Industrial Revolution and changes it brought to society.

But people responded to those changes by using tools and materials that, ironically perhaps, were provided by industrialization. High-quality cotton fabric, or “chintz,” colored with reliably fast dyes, allowed women to produce lavish bed covers such as this one. These fabrics would have been purchased new for the purpose.

The design of swirling roses is not done with patchwork, where bits of fabric are pieced together; instead, the motifs were cut out and meticulously hand-sewn to a solid background.

I wish I knew who made this quilt, and maybe, with further research, I can discover more clues. Lilla Finch might have made it, but there are reasons to think it was a family heirloom that she treasured. The romantic style of the quilt puts closer to the middle of the 19th century, and Lilla, born in 1865, would have been too young. The workmanship is that of a highly skilled hand sewer.

It may have been made in La Crosse but much more likely is that it was brought from the east by her family, who were early settlers.

I do think someone considered this her masterpiece — perhaps Lilla’s mother or grandmother, someone whose memory she treasured and whose artistic skill made her very proud.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on June 24, 2017.

This object can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.

Adolph Liesenfeld’s printing press

Bob Mullen

When Adolph Liesenfeld began his printing business as a young man in 1905, he probably wasn’t thinking about future owners of his new Chandler and Price printing press.

He set up shop at 209 Main St. that year, after learning the trade in several other printing offices in La Crosse. His new press weighed 1,200 pounds and was operated with a foot treadle propelling a 36-inch flywheel, and it was likely his only press at the time. Fifty years later, Liesenfeld’s business was still in the same location, and he was still printing on his 1905 Chandler and Price press.

During those 50 years, Liesenfeld purchased other presses and other equipment, and he hired several employees to assist him in the designing and printing of business forms, posters, flyers, invitations, business cards, newspapers, books and booklets using hand-set metal and wood type.

Liesenfeld advertised himself as an “art printer,” someone who spiced up orders with artistic flare. When old typefaces (now called fonts in computer jargon) went out of style, he purchased the latest type styles. He had a successful business, but Liesenfeld was an old-time printer, and he always loved his old Chandler and Price press.

His health began failing him in the mid-1950s, so he decided, reluctantly, to sell his shop. The new owner would be Gary Hantke, a Trane Co. engineer who loved printing as a hobby. He convinced Liesenfeld that he would take good care of the press, type and other equipment. He even brought his young daughter Carole to meet the aging printer and said that she would someday use the press.

Perhaps that was the argument that convinced Liesenfeld to sell to Hantke.

Now, 60 years later, the old machine is still pressing inked type onto paper. Gary Hantke died in 1990, but Carole and her husband, Bob, continue as hobby printers, creating cards, posters, booklets and other printed items using Liesenfeld’s press and some of his type in their basement studio in La Crosse.

The old cast-iron press shows no signs of ending its career, and it still turns out creative letterpress printed items regularly.

In 1905, Liesenfeld likely never thought about who would be using his new press 112 years later, but he would certainly be pleased to know that his beloved machine is still producing printed gems in 2017.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on June 17, 2017.