Doerfler Pearl 01

Waupaca County Post

Prime Time

March 17, 2005

Doerfler has seen many changes in 103 years

By Angie Landsverk, Post Staff Writer

At 103 years old, Pearl Doerfler has seen her share of changes through the years.

“I think it’s changing – the country – very much,” she said as she recently shared stories about growing up outside of Iola and eventually moving to Waupaca. “I don’t like it in a lot of ways, but I have to live with it. I think that sometimes it’s the end of the world.”

The world is certainly different today for those who remember much simpler times.

The former Pearl Sether was one of eight children raised on a n 85-acre farm north of Iola.

She gets around today at Bethany Home with the help of a walker and is not one to miss out on activities.

Her daughter Dolores said her mother was always social. That characteristic, along with her sharp wit and memory, are big parts of Doerfler’s personality.

She is funny and enjoys being teased and remembers everything from the time of the teacher she had in the country school she attended to actors who were in television shows that she enjoyed watching in the past.

Her parents were immigrants. They came to the U.S. from Norway, first settling on a little farm in Scandinavia before buying a farm outside of Iola that reminded them of home. They lived in a shanty on that farm with the barn being built first and then the house.

Doerfler remembers laughing a lot when she was growing up but also remembers that her father was more strict.

“When we ate meals, there was no giggling or silliness,” she said.

Her father liked to work with wood and had horses but no tractor.

The 10-mile trip to Iola to go grocery shopping was on horses, and she said that trip took all day.

Doerfler remembers much about the days when she attended school.

“I went to a country school - a one-room school. I had a very nice teacher. I was 6 years old when I started school, and she was such a good teacher,” she said. “She had some big boys, too. My brothers were older and some neighbor boys. They loved that teacher. She had no trouble with them. I’ll never forget her. My teacher was kind and fair and got a lot out of the kids by being that way.”

Doerfler said she attended school through eighth grade and was then home with her mother to help out. As she talked about how children only went to school until about eighth grade in those days, she mentioned that she had a brother who was very bright and should have gone to college.

At home with her mother, Doerfler learned how to take care of and clean a house and alsohad catechism classes in Norwegian.

It was around 1920 when she began working in Waupaca. Her father took her and her other siblings from the farm to Iola where they caught the train to Waupaca.

It was about a 15-minute ride on the Green Bay Western. She stayed with her brother and sister-in-law, who already lived in Waupaca, during the week.

Doerfler worked at Star Bakery, which was one of several bakeries in town and was located on Main Street.

She met her husband , Frank, at Star Bakery. Frank’s brother Bill had worked for a baker in Appleton and later bought Star Bakery. Frank came to help his brother and never left.

On Doerfler’s first day of work, she went to the back door and it was Frank who opened it.

They went to many shows together during the two years they were dating, and Doerfler has fond memories of dancing.

Doerfler said she was a tomboy who loved to play baseball. But her favorite pastime was dancing.

“Frank was no dancer. He’d have been a cute dancer, too. All my children dance,” she said.

She remembers how they used to go out to the Veteran’s Home on a streetcar and how she especially like the many stores that were in Waupaca, such as Fair’s and Christy’s, where one could buy material and clothes.

“We thought Waupaca was great because we were brought up in the country,” she said.

When she and Frank married in the early 1920s, they settled on Center Street, and she stayed home with their three children – Everett, Dolores and Donna.

Doerfler never missed getting together with friends.

For entertainment, and much to the dismay of her husband, she and some of her friends watched when the Bible revivals came to town and set up their tents, wanting to see what they were all about.

While her father never owned a car, he drove the vehicles his sons eventually owned. He had no problem driving, but when he needed to stop he would talk to the car as if he were telling his horses to stop.

Doerfler will be the first one to admit that she was not a good driver. Her daughter Dolores smiled as she described her mother’s driving as having been “treacherous”.

While driving the children to school one morning, Doerfler was in a car accident, and when the children got out of the car they took off for school on foot instead.

“I drove a little bit but wasn’t really good,” she said. “Nowadays, kids learn in school. Frank wasn’t the best driver either. He was very sharp in arithmetic. But it isn’t arithmetic anymore. It’s math.”

Frank worked at the bakery until he retired, and then she joined him at a warehouse where they sorted potatoes.

They were married for more than 50 years He passed away 25 years ago.

As Doerfler shared some of her memories, she mentioned that Waupaca does not have some of the businesses that it used to have.

“There’s no bakery anymore. There were two bakeries in Waupaca at one time.”

She has seen the advent of the television and computer and says they are wonderful for young people. “I was just at the doctor, and it was all on computer,” she said.

For someone like Doerfler who always loved to dance, music was obviously a love as well, and she likes Lawrence Welk.

She still remembers where they were living when they got their first television.

“We lived on the corner of Franklin and Center when we got our first TV. It was not a very big one,” she said.

When her children were growing up, they often spent the evening listening to shows that were on the radio after they finished eating supper.

Doerfler lived on her own up until moving to Bethany six years ago and enjoys watching game shows today. “Jeopardy” and “Millionaire” are her favorites. In fact, she thinks it would be rather fun to win a million dollars herself.

What would she do with it?

“I would do good things with it – help people who need it and give it to my children,” she said.

In addition to her three children, Doerfler has six grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.

Her mother and a sister also had sharp memories. One sister lived to be 106.

When Doerfler turns 104 on June 18, she says she is not having a birthday party this time.

“Forget about it. I had a couple,” she said.

She plans to have dinner with her children on her birthday, and when it comes to dining, Doerfler goes out to eat every Friday evening.

“I like Johnson’s, and I like the struck stop. King’s Table is a good place, too. Those three. It isn’t called the truck stop anymore. It’s Three Squares,” she said.

She says she really isn’t a big eater and usually has soup and a sandwich for dinner. Her favorites for breakfast are pancakes and bacon.

Doerfler does not miss any activities at Bethany unless she is not feeling well, and in addition to watching her favorite game shows, she also likes to sleep.

She laughed when she said that, saying, “What else is there to do?”

It is obvious how much members of Bethany’s staff enjoy Doerfler. They often tease her about getting married, saying they are looking for someone who has lots of money.

Of course, that makes her laugh, too.

Doerfler says she is always busy thinking and that she has been lucky and has been healthy.

Showing that quick wit again, she says, “I think you’ve got enough about me.”