Mary Hilfiker’s eyes light up as she turns the corner and sees the copper kettle. “Oh, my, there it is!” she says with a big smile. “This is wonderful.”
To most people, the large kettle, about waist-high and five feet in diameter, would be just another historical artifact among thousands inside the State Archive Preservation Facility in Madison, home of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s world-class collections. For Hilfiker, it is personal. She sees her parents, Ernest and Hulda. She sees her twin sister, Alice, and siblings Ruth, Ann and Ray.
She sees her family history.
It was Hilfiker who donated the kettle to the Society in 2004. Surprised to discover that the Society did not already have one like it, the retired educator was happy to fill the gap.
This particular kettle, made around 1910, was used for over four decades at her parents’ Tuscobia Cheese Factory near Rice Lake. It once held about 2,500 pounds of milk, or enough to make a 200-pound wheel of Swiss cheese.
It still holds countless memories for Hilfiker.
“My dad came to America with $18,” Hilfiker says. “The dream for him and my mom was that their children would not need to work the long and difficult hours they did. That little cheese factory allowed them to put five children through college.”
Memories of a family businessErnest Hilfiker was born in Switzerland in 1905, became an apprentice cheesemaker by age 15, and emigrated to the United States in 1924. He eventually settled in Monroe and in 1937 married Hulda Roelli of Darlington, whose Swiss immigrant parents owned a cheese factory. (Today, Roelli Cheese is operated by a fourth generation.)
In 1942, Ernest and Hulda purchased the Tuscobia factory, which remained in the family until 1984. All five children had roles in the operation, which included a retail cheese store that also sold local products. Hulda helped in sales and bookkeeping and was deeply involved in the community.
Hilfiker, a Rice Lake native who lives in St. Paul, had not laid eyes on the copper kettle since the day she helped load it on a truck bound for the Society.
“Alice and I would sit on the metal steps that connected our family living area to the manufacturing area,” Hilfiker recalls.
“We loved hearing the sounds of milk cans clanging as neighboring farmers loaded them onto rolling conveyors. From that vantage point, we watched our dad seine the Swiss cheese curds from the bottom of the kettle with cheese cloth. As children, we thought the full cheese cloth looked like a man with a fat belly, so we would laugh and loudly sing a ‘fat belly’ song that we made up.”
The kettle is one of many cheesemaking objects that Hilfiker and her siblings donated to the Society in the decades since both parents died in 1993. Among them are wooden and stainless-steel cheese molds, milk cans, marking stencils, cheese harps used for cutting curds into smaller pieces, a stirrer and curd scooper, and even cow bells once used to decorate the store.
“Mary and her siblings have created a deep collection to commemorate their parents’ legacy,” said Dave Driscoll, the Society’s Curator of Economic History, who facilitated the donations. “They tell stories of their parents’ skill, hard work, the bygone crossroads cheese factory era of Wisconsin dairying, and the ability of that way of life to produce competent, educated, successful citizens and community members.”
After graduating from UW-Eau Claire in 1967, Hilfiker worked as a social studies and English teacher at Madison East Junior High School before becoming a guidance counselor on the Hopi/Navajo reservation in Arizona and in Sitka, Alaska. She also worked at a men’s prison in Kenai, Alaska, and with the U.S. Army in South Korea, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. She retired from the Bureau of Indian Education and then UW-Madison after coordinating education efforts between states, tribes and the federal government.
Excited for a new History CenterHilfiker is honored to know that the kettle and items from her family will be part of a cheesemaking exhibit in the new Wisconsin History Center that the Society plans to open in 2027 on Capitol Square. She was so moved, in fact, that she donated $1 million to the Wisconsin Historical Foundation’s history center fundraising campaign.
“I was pleased to give to a project that would have meant so much to my parents,” Hilfiker says.
“We are truly honored by Mary’s trust and confidence in making such a significant and personally meaningful gift,” Foundation Executive Director Julie Lussier said. “Her example of generosity in honoring her parents will be admired and appreciated by generations of visitors to the history center.”
Hilfiker encourages others to follow her lead by donating to the campaign.
“The time is now,” Hilfiker says. “We need to seize the opportunity to make this a world-class museum. Wisconsin is a can-do, forward-thinking state and we all can do our part at whatever level is possible. I trust donors will step forward to preserve the value of history and I know the Society will use my funds with care.”
Appreciation for the SocietyAn avid adventurer who has visited all seven continents, every U.S. national park and countless state parks, Hilfiker spent her summer of 2023 traveling across Wisconsin to every Society historic site and museum. She says she enjoyed getting her Society membership “Pastport” stamped at all 11 locations.
“I was impressed with the hands-on approach and how fun it can be,” she says. “It helped to make history come alive.”
Hilfiker says it feels wonderful to support an organization as respected as the Society.
“It’s the right thing to do for someone who values history and how it shapes us,” she says.
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