Frankie’s Book

“A successful man is one who has learned to live content with what he can obtain honestly.” ~ Frank A. Schneider, c. 1930

These words were written by a 14-year-old Frank Schneider while a student at Milwaukee Vocational School. He had started at Messmer High but was forced to dropout because his parents, struggling to keep their meat market open during the Depression, couldn’t pay his tuition or spare him from the family business.

So, Schneider worked mornings and evenings, and compressed his classes at the vocational school into five hours. Despite his tough schedule, he excelled in school, becoming a counselor for other students and a Sergeant in the High School Secret Service. Schneider’s perseverance is one of many examples of his favorite exhortation, which is repeated several times throughout Frankie’s Book in capital letters, “NEVER GIVE UP.”

This wonderful collection of stories is subtitled “memories from Manitowoc to Door County, WI: via Hilbert, Milwaukee, Fox Point, Wausaukee, Port Washington, Brillion, Egg Harbor, Sturgeon Bay, Jacksonport.” Quite a travelogue, to be sure, but the list of towns is nothing compared to the variety of skilled work that Schneider mastered during his 87 years. His occupation titles included dairy farmer, revenue office bookkeeper, butcher errand boy, pipefitter, plate shop foreman in Leathem Smith’s shipbuilding during World War II, and supervisor at the Christy Corporation in the ‘50s (Schneider even chronicles his part in building the mighty Mackinac Bridge). Then, following a debilitating fall, he became a Fuller Brush Man and then grocery store manager and owner, ending his career as proprietor of Schneider’s “Big S” Food Market in Egg Harbor.

The book is a wondrous read – spanning the century and painting a picture of life in small-town Wisconsin, when people knew each other and depended on one another, and when hard times were met with collective effort.

Schneider arrived in Door County in 1936 near his 20th birthday. He and his wife Deloris were well known in Door County. They owned the grocery store in Egg Harbor from 1963 to 1970. Schneider taught confirmation classes at St. Mary’s in Baileys Harbor, was a square dance caller, and participated in local men’s clubs, including the Knights of Columbus.

The book is an inspiring and entertaining romp which takes the reader from Schneider’s early days on a farm in Manitowoc, where he was born in 1919 to the thrumming shipyards of Door County during World War II and the prosperous ‘50s.

“He was an historian,” says Vicki Progar, one of Schneider’s six children who now lives in the Jacksonport house that he and Deloris built. “He thought history was important, and he didn’t want people to forget.”

Schneider started writing down his memoirs in the mid-90s, “often at two in the morning,” says Progar. He died in 2003 before realizing his lifelong dream of being a published writer, but his seven children worked together to get the book in print. His youngest daughter, Cindy Knudson served as editor.

In addition to his long list of skills, it’s also clear that Schneider knew how to have a good time. He chronicles his teenage fascination with bodybuilding and his bowling career. Peppered throughout the book are stories about his family’s band, which performed seven nights a week during tourist season in Door County – an important source of income during his youth.

Frankie’s Book is also a love story. Schneider describes his blossoming love affair with Deloris Carmody, four years his junior and “understandably very popular. I had to reserve every other dance ahead, and when I had to play [in the family band] which was about every night during tourist season, I had to watch other guys dancing with my girl. It was not easy.” The couple met at Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Egg Harbor (most recently The Jersey Shore, which the Village of Egg Harbor just purchased). Schneider writes fondly of their courtship:

“The first time I took Deloris home with the Model-A pickup, I told her, ‘Some day you’re going to marry me.’ She was only 16 years old and of course, just laughed at me. But I was a gone goose. Completely twitterpated-madly in love without hope. And she did marry me after she turned 19 and I was 24, but I’ll get to that later.”

Wonderful anecdotes make the reader laugh out loud at simpler times, such as in this exchange headed “Learning to Drive in Wausaukee, Wisconsin – 1932” –

“My application for a driver’s license went like this:

Question: Can you drive?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How far have you driven?

Answer: About 50 miles

Question: Alone?

Answer: No, my mother rode with me.

Examiner: OK, sounds good.

I got my driver’s license.”

Of course, there was plenty of tragedy in Schneider’s life as well. He simply and powerfully recounts the day the Milwaukee bank that housed his savings failed. And early recollections of an outbreak of Black Diphtheria are equally spare and affecting. But daughters Progar and Knudson are both struck by the fact that their father didn’t dwell on the sad events of his life, making only a passing reference to the tragic deaths of his three sisters from tuberculosis.

“It was dad’s choice not to include that. I don’t know why,” says Knudson.

Schneider’s legacy is strong, both in his writing and through his family, now flung across the country but still united by his stories and the history they share. Although he died in 2003, his children, 19 grandchildren, and many great-grandchildren gather in Door County every year on the weekend of his birthday for an annual “Birthday Bash.” Perhaps one of those future birthday parties will include another editorial meeting.

According to Knudson, “This was intended by dad to be book one of two. There are a lot more stories.”

Frankie’s Book is currently available for loan from numerous Door County Libraries or can be purchased for $25 by calling 920.495.0218.