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Alan PapePresident
Alan was born in Milwaukee and as a kid spent many hours at the old Milwaukee Natural History Museum and at the Milwaukee Boys Club where he discovered the fascinating world of log buildings. He participated in the Club’s “Tour Camping” programs where he visited every state park and nearly every roadside historical marker in Wisconsin. He received his degree in landscape architecture from the University of Wisconsin specializing in Historic Preservation. He was an employee of the Wisconsin Historical Society for 15 years while helping to build Old World Wisconsin. He was also the Site Manager for the Wade House historic site in Greenbush for four years. Alan spent 20 years in private historic restoration consulting practice and helped save and restore more than 100 buildings. For five years the Pape’s operated their own historic building recycling business called “Adaptive Restoration. He received the Governor’s Historic Preservation Award in 1994 and was on the original Board of the Wisconsin Trust for Historic Preservation. In 1973, Alan and his wife Marilyn purchased a 40-acre Finnish immigrants farm in Upper Michigan containing seven original log buildings. They organized a nonprofit organization, and through the help of local volunteers, restored the entire farm on its original site. For the last 35 years it has been open to the public as a 1920 Finnish Pioneer Homestead Museum. In 1987 the Pape’s brought down from that same area an 1896 Finnish log house and barn and converted them into their home just south of Greenbush. For three years, Alan was the executive director of Wisconsin’s Ethnic Settlement Trail a 12 county State of Wisconsin Heritage Tourism Project and is currently helping to restore and activate an 1855 Saxon German Inn and brewery in Fillmore, Wisconsin. Alan and his wife of 54 years visited Norway last summer where they reconnected with three of Marilyn’s accessorial farms and families and finally got to see the real Norwegian log buildings that he had been reading about since college.
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Frederik August KlessigVice President
Fred is a retired firefighter /paramedic, who lives in Chicago with his wife, Young. His love of nature was cultivated on Saxon Homestead Farm in Cleveland, Wisconsin, where he grew up. Fred is a member of Open Lands, and a certified tree keeper, working to help local park districts care for their trees in small ways. He works with local businesses and neighbors to plant oak trees around his neighborhood. His love of nature extends to his children, whom he named Lake and Tree in Korean. He loves creating, fixing, and tinkering with things, and enjoys woodworking. As a family historian, Fred has worked to archive hundreds of photos and videos for future generations. He passed a for sale sign on the Saxonia House lawn in 1997, which brought him in contact with other preservationists in his extended family, an inspired group that would form the nucleus of the Friends of the Saxonia house. |
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Greg ZahnTreasurer, Communications
Greg Zahn is a retired LEED certified architect who practiced in Washington DC. Greg’s interests in sustainability lead him to pursue his Master Naturalist Certification and Graduate Certificate in Environmental Policy. Involvement in Permaculture, natural building and sustainable agriculture followed. Greg is currently working with a number of farming groups in Kenya. Since 2014, Greg has been involved with the Lutze house barn which is located very close to the Klessig Old Saxon Farm. Following the Zahn Pomeranian roots, Greg acquired a set of 19th century Pomeranian farm buildings including half-timber house and summer kitchen and has begun to reconstruct them on family land in Manitowoc County. Greg has been Treasurer for Friends of Saxonia House since 2018. RHONDA HARE Secretary
Rhonda Hare is a 5th generation native to the Saxonia House area. Rhonda’s interests include cultural history, art, and gardening. She is a former school principal and founder of a Wisconsin charter school specializing in environmental science and fine arts, and is currently working as a reading tutor. Rhonda also operates Saxony Farm Studio, a seasonal shop for garden and vintage curiosities, which features the work of local artisans and proudly supports the Friends of the Saxonia House and the Farmington Historical Society. Rhonda became a F.O.S.H. Board member in January 2023. |
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Jim DieringerFacilities Manager
Jim Dieringer and his family moved across the street from the Saxonia House in 1964. When Friends of the Saxonia House founder, Mary Williams, purchased the Saxonia House property in 1997, she tapped Jim to serve on the Board. Jim leads tours of the Saxonia House and beer cave, makes repairs, and caringly tends to the lawn. Born and raised in Wisconsin to a farming family, Jim chose to work in metal fabrication and sales. He volunteered as a fireman in Fillmore, WI for 38 years, and If you are lucky enough, you might catch Jim at the West Bend Knights of Columbus Friday fish fry, where he serves and socializes twice a month. |
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Edward RitgerEd Ritger, board member, was born in Hartford, Wisconsin, and grew up on a nearby dairy farm where he gained an appreciation for nature and growing things. He was also exposed to immigrant German history and culture with his parents and their generation frequently speaking a German dialect.
He obtained a degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a law degree from Marquette University and has been a “country lawyer” in Random Lake, Sheboygan County, for more than 43 years representing farmers and other local citizens in a wide variety of legal matters, including real estate, business, tax, and many others. Right after college, Ed and his wife Stephenie had the good fortune to acquire a rundown farmstead on a tributary of the Milwaukee River in southwest Sheboygan County. They have lived there as their home for the past 50+ years. He and his family continued to pursue interests in history and early settlement because their property was once a logging yard and sawmill site and the property contains many historic artifacts. Ed’s interest in history followed him in his law practice where he often had an opportunity to sell historic buildings and utilized the expertise of Alan Pape to educate others about the potential of such properties. He also became involved with the formation of the Random Lake Area Historical Society and worked on the restoration of Random Lake’s oldest residence being a small timber frame cabin that was built by a German immigrant carpenter about the time of the Civil War. |
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Alison Witt-JanssenEvents and Membership
Alison has lived in the Chicago area most of her life but visited the Wisconsin relatives often throughout her youth. Her father, Donald W. Witt, was born and raised in Fredonia, Wisconsin and mentioned the Saxonia House often. Alison is a descendant of Ernst Klessig, who operated the Saxonia House as an inn, social gathering place, dance hall, and brewery. An oil painting of the Saxonia House hung in her childhood home. Interest in her German family heritage, rural architecture, and a wish to connect with people of the region motivated her to join the FOSH Board in late 2020 as Membership Chair and Events organizer. She operates a landscape and garden arts business in Evanston, IL. |
Board affiliates
Robert Teske
Robert received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard University in 1970, and a Master’s degree and Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972 and 1974 respectively. Teske served as an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Wayne State University in Detroit from 1974 to 1977 and as an Associate Professor in the Folk Studies Department at Western Kentucky University from 1977 to 1979. From 1979 to 1985, he served as an Arts Specialist with the Folk Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. In 1985, Teske returned to his native Wisconsin to assume the position of Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan. He subsequently served as the Executive Director of the Cedarburg Cultural Center (1988 – 1998) and of the Milwaukee County Historical Society (1998-2010). In 1998, Teske and the Cedarburg Cultural Center received the Governor’s Award in Support of the Arts from the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts and the Reuben Gold Thwaites Trophy from the Wisconsin Historical Society for the traveling exhibition Wisconsin Folk Art: A Sesquicentennial Celebration. Now semi-retired, Teske continues to write grants for museums and historical societies through Professional Grant Writing Services which he established in 2013.