Funke's Easter Sweets Candy Box

Bed Hudrilik

Catalog Number: 1986.033.01

Easter is known for its many traditions, including the Easter Bunny, painting and hiding eggs, and searching for candy baskets. But how did all of these traditions start?

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

It’s thought that the tradition of the Easter Bunny came to the United States with German immigrants as early as the 1700s. These immigrants practiced having their children make a nest for a large mythical hare named Osterhase so he could come and lay his colorful eggs. The tradition soon spread across America, but it was not just German immigrants who influenced the Easter holiday.

Eggs have long been associated with Christ and springtime as symbols of rebirth and resurrection, but they also were used by pre-Christian religions as symbols of new life. The popular egg-rolling competition is now associated with the moving of the rock from Jesus’ tomb.

Decorating eggs goes back to 13th-century Europe, when people would give up eggs during Lent. Eggs often would be decorated but not eaten until Easter morning to mark the end of Lenten season.

Candy is a relatively new Easter tradition. The chocolate egg originated in France and Germany during the 19th century. Today, Easter is the second biggest holiday for candy sales in the United States. Chocolate is king, including in La Crosse.

Funke Candy Co. was once the largest confectioner in La Crosse, and it was open from 1890 to 1933. It was located at 101 State St., which today is the site of The Charmant Hotel.

Funke produced 160 types of chocolates and more than 500 types of candies. The confectioner had a reputation for still hand dipping chocolate at a time when its competitors were beginning to use machinery instead.

Funke candy was sold across the country, and the treats also were available on most major railways at a time when passenger cars were a popular form of transportation.

During the candy heyday, Funke had about 220 employees. It had offices, a salesroom, a stockroom and a shipping area on the first floor. The second floor was home to the chocolate department, the creamery was on the third, and hard candies were made on the fourth floor. The company was doing so well that in 1908 that it added on to the back of the building for more space.

The Great Depression hit in the late 1920s, causing the demise of candy factories such as Funke, which closed its doors in 1933.

Funke made the Easter Sweets candy box that is pictured here. The purple box features some of the newer Easter traditions we’re all familiar with, including lilies, bunnies, chicks and colorful eggs.

This artifact was donated by Elfrieda Jahnel, who ran a photography business from her studio at 107 N. Fifth St. She was born in 1919, which means she would have been a young girl and early teen during the Funke candy era. It’s possible she may have received this candy box as a gift one Easter morning.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on March 31, 2018.

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

Auto-Lite Union Book

Hailey Hudzinski

Catalog Number: 2017.071.36

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

You may recall the 2016 “Things That Matter” article about the Electric Auto-Lite picket stick that had been signed by 71 employees of the La Crosse Auto-Lite plant.

In January 1956, employees went on strike after the company proposed a policy change concerning the dismissal of employees. The strike resulted in workers and management having two meetings with the U.S. Mediation and Conciliation Service. An agreement was reached, and the strikers returned to work after 11 days.

Last year, the La Crosse County Historical Society received a donated Auto-Lite union book along with an I.D. card. The artifacts were donated by Marlin Schneider, who was a member of the Wisconsin Assembly and represented the 72nd District from 1970 to 2010. The union book and I.D. card belonged to his mother, Elva Schneider, who worked for Auto-Lite for 24 years.

Her donated I.D. card was issued in 1942; however, she already had worked there for several years before then and stayed with the company until it closed its La Crosse plant in 1959. During her time at Auto-Lite, Schneider worked in the voltage regulator department.

The Auto-Lite union book is dated Jan. 18, 1959. The book was issued to employees three years after the strike and contained information such as regulations, rules and guidelines. However, the union book’s use was short-lived, as news broke of the company’s plan to close the La Crosse plant in May 1959.

The company announced July 3 as the official date of closure for the La Crosse plant. The closure affected more than 1,200 hourly and salaried employees. At the time, Auto-Lite had been “the city’s second-leading employer, trailing only the Trane Co.,” according to a La Crosse Tribune article from May 9, 1959.

Auto-Lite assisted employees in finding new work by providing a placement bureau at the plant in the months before closure. After the plant’s closure, former employees found work in a variety of places in the city.

Some former employees chose to open their own businesses — one such business was La Cro, which was created in 1959 by several former Auto-Lite employees. The company is still in operation today as a custom wire and harness assembler. Other former employees, including Elva Schneider, found work in established businesses in La Crosse. Schneider was employed by Artmar Inc. in the 1970s and Community Health Options Inc. in the 1980s and 1990s.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on March 24, 2018.

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

Screen Play from Movie Director Nicholas Ray

Hailey Hudzinski

Catalog Number: 2018.002.01

Remember the hit movie “Rebel Without a Cause?” Odds are you do, or you’ve at least heard of it. The movie is most often remembered for being one of James Dean’s most famous performances. However, you may be surprised to learn that the director of the film, Nicholas Ray, was originally from La Crosse.

Copyright La Crosse County Historical Society

Nicholas Ray, born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle, was born in Galesville on August 7, 1911. His family moved to La Crosse in 1919, following the end of World War I. Ray spent his childhood in La Crosse and spent his teens between La Crosse and Chicago, where his older sister lived. He stayed in La Crosse his senior year and graduated from Central High School in 1929.

Ray then studied drama for two years at La Crosse State Teachers College (now the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse) before transferring to the University of Chicago in the fall of 1931. Ray’s time at the University of Chicago was short lived, and he quickly took an internship at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin School. There, he studied architecture and learned visual concepts, such as the horizontal line that would later influence his films.

Soon after, he moved to New York and became involved in a left-wing theater group, Theatre of Action.  It was there that Ray began to take an interest in directing and met people who would later help introduce him to filmmaking.

By 1944, Ray was living in Hollywood.  He started his work in movies as an assistant to director Elia Kazan (who Ray had met through Theatre of Action) on Kazan’s debut film, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” which came out in 1945.  Ray’s own debut film, “They Live By Night,” was released in 1948.

Ray’s most productive professional years were during the 1940s and 50s, with his most critically acclaimed films falling in between the years of 1952 and 1955.  These films included “The Lusty Men,” “Johnny Guitar,” and, of course, “Rebel Without a Cause.”

Ray continued directing films in his later years, but they were not as successful as his earlier work.  During the 1970s, Ray taught filmmaking at the State University of New York at Binghamton.  In his time as a professor, Ray took a hands-on approach to teaching and collaborated with his students on an experimental film entitled “We Can’t Go Home Again.” Ray continued to edit this film until his death in 1979.

Over the course of his career, Ray directed more than 20 feature films.

Throughout his career, Ray returned to La Crosse several times to visit family.

In 1951, Ray stood beside his mother and a Marine Corps color guard in a ceremony for the opening of his film “Flying Leathernecks” at the Rivoli Theater. During one of his visits to La Crosse, Ray filmed some scenes for a movie, which he referred to as “Project X” at the time.

The La Crosse County Historical Society recently received a donated screenplay for one of Ray’s first films, “Knock on Any Door,” which came out in 1949.  “Knock on Any Door” is a courtroom trial film, which starred Humphrey Bogart as the lawyer and helped launch the career of John Derek, who played the young man on trial for the murder of a police officer. The donated artifact is the final draft of the screenplay and is signed by members of the cast and crew, most notably John Derek. This item was donated to the La Crosse County Historical Society by Ray’s widow, Susan Ray, and the Nicholas Ray Foundation.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on March 17, 2018.

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