During high school I worked at Waukesha Memorial Hospital as an aide.  In 1966 I started at Waukesha Motors and stayed there for 30 years and guess who my head boss was—a classmate of ours, Pat Hess.  We bought property in Sugar Camp outside of Eagle River and on the other side was St. Germain.  I have a lovely home on the Sugar Camp Chain.  My husband built the home and on weekends the kids would come up and help whenever they could.  I have several neighbors from Waukesha, Dr. Bob Bantos and wife Carol, Chris Marksenham and wife Jackie, and Chris’s sister Ginny and Roy Newcomer.  We all neighbor back and forth and have dinners at each others house—and, yes, a few cocktails too.

I married Stanley Books July 19, 1958.  We had 3 sons and 1 daughter.  Lived at Pretty Lake for twenty years.  After 29 years of marriage we divorced and in 1987 I married my soul mate, Gib Gilbertson.  I lost my best friend, my husband, Oct 22^nd, 2006.

I do hope to sell next year and either move back to the area or to Florida where I have been spending my winters with my sister Roberta.

It’s been a joyous ride since June of 1958 with ups and downs but can’t believe that fifty years have gone by. 

Sincerely, Sharon Bickle Books Gilbertson

I graduated from UW-M in 1962 with a major in Lower Elementary Education and minors in psychology and zoology.

I taught for 32 years in the school districts of South Milwaukee, New Berlin, Kettle Moraine, and Mukwonago.  I retired from Mukwonago and 2000.

I was married to Thomas Glade in 1963.  I became widowed in 1995.

My daughter Kristine graduated from UW -- Madison Phi Beta Kappa.  I have two grandchildren, Sam and Jessica.

I'm enjoying my retirement by bike riding, volunteering, babysitting grandchildren, taking classes, antiquing, gardening, and home maintenance. In addition I like to travel.

Julia (Hamersmeier) Glade

Sharon Granzow (Hockett)

After graduating from high school, I moved to LaCrosse, Wisconsin and worked for International Harvester, got married and had two children.  In 1967, we decided my husband should continue his education and moved to Urbana, Illinois.   I worked for the University of Illinois Student Employment Office.  A short stay in Superior, Wisconsin and we were off to Salt Lake City, Utah.  There I worked for a large international corporation in the field of copper mining and data processing.

In 1971, we made our final move to Ames, Iowa to raise our children in the Midwest and to be closer to our families.  I worked as an Administrative Assistant to the Iowa State Athletic Director for eight exciting years and on to the Vice President for Student Affairs for a couple more years.  Wanting to work more independently, I went into real estate for the next 15 years.  In 1990, I retired from work and immediately plunged into volunteering, fund raising, problem solving on local, university and state boards.

All this, I attribute to the fine education received in the Waukesha school system and beyond.  Now, I have taken up weight lifting (earned two medals in state-wide competition) watercolor painting (blue ribbons), missionary work and being the best grandmother possible.  Oh, what a grand life!

After high school graduation I went to Deaconess Hospital School of Nursing in Milwaukee, graduating in 1961.  I had received a scholarship from Waukesha Memorial hospital and agreed to work back there for two years.

I married Tom Griswold on October 13^th, 1962.  In January 1963 we moved to Elgin Illinois were Tom worked as assistant mgr. on a big Guernsey Farm.  Our first and children, Tom Jr. 1963 Tim, 1965 were born there.  We moved back to Wisconsin in 1966 to manage another Guernsey Farm, and our third son, Kevin, was born.  In 1967 we bought our own dairy farm north of Ixonia Wisconsin.  In 1972 are daughter

Karie was born, and Scott was born in 1977.

I did work as an R.N. part-time from 1968 –1972 at Rogers Hospital and at Watertown Skilled Care.  But most of my life I was a farm wife and mother.  I was the calf raiser until 2003 when I tore my rotator cuff.

The family has grown.  Tom Jr. is on the Chicago Board of Trade.  He and Alexandra have two children.

Tim works for Monsanto and he and Jane have three children and own a small farm near Cross Plains Wisconsin.

Kevin married Chris and returned to the farm and now owns the business.  He currently milks 500 Holsteins. They have four children.

Karie lives near Platteville, is married to Mark Johnston and they have two little boys.  She is a manager at Lands End in Dodgeville.

Scott is unmarried and lives with us and works on the farm.

At present I am cooking lunch for part of the farm crew at noon and Tom is in charge of fieldwork.  We raise corn and alfalfa and some wheat on 950 acres.

We have been fortunate to be able to travel the past six years.  In February we and Harvey and Janice (Badinger) Buth went to Hawaii on an agriculture tour. The enclosed picture is of the four of us at Bubba Gump’s restaurant in Maui. L-R Harvey, Janice, Elaine, & Tom.

In 2006 Tom and I went to New Zealand to visit exchange students we had in the eighties.

It does not seem possible that we are having this event.  I remember my Mom going to her 50^th at Waukesha High.  How I thought that was ancient – but here we are!!  After graduation, it was off to Colorado to college; graduating with an A.A. from Colorado Woman’s College and then went on to the University of Denver for two more years to get my B.A. in Speech Pathology.  It was there that I met my husband, John.  We’ve been married 45 years and have 2 children.  Rees (38 – yes, that’s his name) is in Florida and Katy (36) is in Santa Fe, N.M.  She has 2 children which we get to see often and love it!  I worked as a speech therapist for the Public Schools in a suburb of Denver for a few years after college, but then we had a “bump in the road” as we found out I had a large brain tumor.  It was removed successfully with some complications but the blessings  have outnumbered any difficulties I have.  We were married 7 years before we had children and I decided to “retire” from work outside the home.  Instead I was very involved with the kids and did a great deal of entertaining for my husband’s  business.  He owned a number of Insurance Agencies around the country so we traveled quite a bit with that too.

We had done small-time cattle ranching since we were first married, but in the mid 90’s my husband sold his company and we looked for a ranch to work full-time.  We did this long-time friends.  Our search led us to South Dakota.  It was a wonderful ranch; almost 13,000 acres right between the Black Hills and the Badlands.  It sounds romantic but was a great deal of work.  I loved it!!!!  After about 5 years we found out that a R.R. was coming right through the middle of the ranch with 36 coal trains a day; and we found out my husband had Prostate Cancer (not too good for climbing fences and riding horses) so we decided to sell and move back to Denver.  Not that we a retired from life at all - as  it seems we are busier than ever.  I continue to help my husband with a number of things; and have hobbies of photography, gourmet cooking and  continue to be involved with the church.  I have been involved in a number of Bible Studies for years, but my joy right now is leading a study for young Moms.    

We look forward to seeing all of you and sharing that special weekend.