One recent Sunday, on a bluff overlooking a Lake Michigan that reflected the dark rain clouds passing above, a uniquely American thing happened. This community of about 1,500 people 25 miles north of Milwaukee celebrated both its immigrant ancestry and the promise of a better life that has drawn so many newcomers to this nation.
On that bluff a crowd faced a building built in 1860 and constructed of the cream-colored brick made in Milwaukee brickyards and used throughout this area. All eyes looked to the top of the building.
There stood a restored light tower, the cause for this celebration. As France gave America the Statue of Liberty, Port Washington was given the restored tower by the tiny (smaller than Rhode Island) Duchy of Luxembourg.
Here’s why.
Beginning in 1845 and continuing until World War I, the minute monarchy lying between France, Germany and Belgium suffered a prolonged economic depression that offered few jobs and little food. Something like 70,000 residents, a fourth of the nation’s population, fled the country for new lives in the United States.
Most of them settled in a swath of America stretching from Chicago to Green Bay that their descendents call “The Green Heart of Luxembourg in Wisconsin,” — although most of the rest of us think of it as the space separating ancient NFL rivals.
Ties to the old country remain especially strong in Ozaukee County, whose county seat is Port Washington. The nearby town of Belgium has a Luxembourg festival each August. And diminutive Waubeka has preserved a historic one-room schoolhouse where, in 1886, a teacher who was the son of Luxembourg immigrants began a campaign to have June 14 recognized as Flag Day across America. After 30 years of bending the ear of any potentially influential person, the teacher, Bernard Cigrand, won.
The Historical Society of Port Washington has been similarly dogged in the pursuit of its dream to restore the Civil War-era tower that long topped the light station on St. Mary’s Hill. From that high perch, a light shone out as much as 18 miles into the lake. Fishermen and the captains of freighters and passenger ships relied on the guidance of that beacon as they made their way along the shoreline to the Port Washington harbor.
Over time, the station’s function was taken over by other, newer lights. In 1903, the St. Mary’s Hill light was extinguished. Then the tower came down in 1934. The building beneath it provided housing for a few Coast Guard families until 1993 when the structure was turned over to the city, which now leases it to the historical society for $1 a year.
On a visit to the U.S., Georges Calteaux, Luxembourg’s director of Monuments and Historic Sites, met with members of the society and was told of its aspirations. Soon, Calteaux got back to them with a promise that craftsmen in Luxembourg, working from the original blueprints, would re-create the tower, the lantern room, even the copper lightning rod on top.
More help
Then Kathleen O’Donnell, a Chicago architect who specializes in architectural restoration (with projects such as the renovation of Chicago’s Water Tower on her resume), heard about the Port Washington tower from Calteaux, a distant cousin. She called the society and offered to help, and to waive a portion of her fees.
Craftsmen from Luxembourg flew to Wisconsin in June 2001 to take measurements. About nine months later, the parts were completed and were shipped in five containers via Lux Cargo and FedEx (both companies donated their services). On April 21, six of the artisans arrived in Port Washington to assemble the tower.
When they heard the tower would actually happen, historical society members shifted into high gear to raise some $350,000. The money was to restore the rest of the building to receive the tower and to prepare it to become a museum showing what life was like for lighthouse keepers in the latter 1800s. The cost would have been far greater except for many donations of materials and services. For instance, members of a newly formed chapter of Habitat for Humanity put on the red roof as a way of honing their house-building skills.
Four days after the Luxembourg craftsmen arrived, they were finished. “The pieces were so precisely made,” said Nancy Mersereau, treasurer of the society and chairman of the dedication committee, “they went together like Legos.”
Up on the hill, on the lighthouse lawn, the red, white and blue U.S. flag fluttered in the light breeze as did the red, white and light blue flag of Luxembourg. The Ozaukee Big Band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and many sang along. When the Troaterbattien, a 28-piece band from Luxembourg, played “Ons Heemecht,” many who had sung the American anthem now joined in singing their ancestral anthem. They sang in Luxembourgish, the language of everyday life — and a basically Germanic tongue with a few words in French (the country’s official language) thrown in.
Then the dedication — and the rain — began.
Lighthouse junkies
A few hundred people had gathered. Some wore Packers caps; some were in the cardinal and white colors of the University of Wisconsin; many older ladies were clad in what seemed to be handmade sweaters with lighthouse themes — one even had lighthouse buttons. Some in the crowd wore T-shirts depicting lighthouses elsewhere indicating that, joining the local folks and a few visitors, were lighthouse junkies.
One man stood in an immaculate tuxedo jacket and shirt, a waiter it seemed until the crowd parted enough to show that he was wearing kilts and holding bagpipes under one arm.
While many onlookers squeezed into the tent seeking shelter from the fat, warm, intermittent raindrops, dignitaries surrounded the podium. The mayor was there and the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, and the county superintendent. Among the 50-member Luxembourg delegation was Madame Erna Hennicott-Schoepges, minister of Culture and Higher Education; Jean Asselborn, vice president of the Chamber of Deputies; Calteaux; Arlette Paccoud Comzemius, ambassador to the United States; Guy Dockendorf, counsel to Hennicott-Schoepges; Ferbard Pesch, administrator of the Ministry of Public Works; Paul Schmit, deputy chief of Missions from Washington; Georges Faber, consulgeneral of Luxembourg in New York; and Don Hansen, honorary consulate general of Luxembourg for Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin.
One wondered: Who’s minding the duchy?
The light station of 1860 was built atop — and incorporated pieces of — a light station dating to 1849, two years after the Port Washington Brewery was built at the base of the hill. For 100 years, the brewery was known for its Premo brand and for its slogan that tweaked another, better-known brand to the south. Premo, its brewers claimed, was “The Beer that Made Milwaukee Furious.”
Lt. Gov. Margaret Farrow thanked the Luxembourgers “for their wonderful generosity to the state of Wisconsin.” Hennicott-Schoepges said the contribution had been made because of the large population of Luxembourgers in the area and because her country sought to honor the 70,000 American troops that had liberated her country from the Nazis.
“Without the American liberation,” she said in lightly French-accented English, “it’s possible that we would no more exist as an independent country.” She concluded her remarks saying, “Let the light of the lighthouse guide us to better times.”
The sky’s the limit
After the speeches, a cherry picker mounted on a city fire truck lifted her, Calteaux, Mayor Mark Gottleib and Linda Nenn, a co-chair of the restoration committee, high against the sky so the ribbon around the tower could be cut. With an eye on the dark clouds above, Ann Flierl, president of the historical society, said into the mike, “I hope there are no thunder bumpers,” causing the dignitaries aloft to glance about nervously.
But everything went smoothly, and that left just “The Necktie Song.”
“The Necktie Song”?
It was announced that the song had been written in Luxembourgish and English especially for this occasion. But when the Troaterbattien struck up the tune, it turned out that the music had been lifted from an old New Orleans funeral procession song, “Just a Closer Walk With Thee.” It also became clear that the Troaterbattien (“big horn”) was capable of being one hot Dixieland band.
Earlier, neckties had been sold with the words and music printed on them upside down. The men wearing them could hold them up and sing from their ties. Hence, “The Necktie Song.”
To the strains of the bagpiper’s piping, the crowd dispersed, some to partake of the lighthouse-themed cake in the tent, some to peruse the not-quite-finished station building and some to take a historic tour of downtown Port Washington. A contingent also ventured down to Veterans Memorial Park at the lake shore. There, in a band shell with a huge American flag painted as a backdrop, the two bands performed a concert.In the school bus converted to shuttle bus for the day, the driver joked about putting magnets in the kids’ pants to keep them in their seats, and pointed out three deer on the lovely, twisting drive up from the lakefront to the parking lot. As he pulled into the lot, he said, “Don’t go telling your friends in Chicago about our peaceful little place here. We like to keep it that way.”
Oops.
– – –
Famous for being unfamous
A tongue-in-cheek description — posted on the Internet — of the perfect European, says he should be as “sober as an Irishman, talkative as a Finn, and organized as a Greek.” Also, as “famous as a Luxembourger.”
Evidently, citizens of the duchy are known for being unknown. Yet there are exceptions:
Famous Luxembourgers
– Edward Steichen, photographer, born in Luxembourg, though his career was in the U.S. He organized the “Family of Man” show.
– Good King Wenceslas, of the song of the same name.
Somewhat famous Luxembourgers
– Josy Barthel, the nation’s only Olympic gold medalist. The runner won the 1,500-meters in the 1952 summer games.
– Francois Faber, Nicholas Frantz and Charly Gaul, former winners of the Tour de France bicycle race.
– St. Willibrord, Luxembourg’s only saint, born 658, died 739.
– Henri Tudor, engineer and developer of the first functioning lead storage battery.
Descended from Luxembourgers
– Bernard Cigrand, father of the American Flag Day celebration.
– J. (Jean) Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives.
A famous almost-Luxembourger
– Karl Marx, born in Germany a mere eight miles from the Luxembourg border.
Most famous film shot in Luxembourg
– “An American Werewolf in Paris” (1997), starring Tom Everett Scott and Julie Delpy.
— Charles Leroux
