REMEMBRANCES OF CHRISTMASES PAST: Long-time residents of Connorsville, Gary and Nilla Harnisch, reminisce about Christmas traditions
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
GARY & NILLA HARNISCH
By Renee Bettendorf
CONNORSVILLE – On a recent afternoon, long-time Connorsville residents, Gary and Nilla Harnisch, sat in their hunting cabin at Harnishch’s Buck-Hollow Ranch and reminisced about Christmases past.
“I’ve spent 80 years at the crossroads,” said Gary of his lifelong Connorsville address at the junction of highways 64 and 79.
He was born in Chimney Rock Valley in a small house on his grandparents, George and Minnie Kovacik’s, farm. That farm is located on a cut across road between county road O and highway 79 north of Boyceville and south of Connorsville.
He spent his early Christmases there as well. That side of his family is Slovak and they made many traditional foods from Slovakia during the holiday season. Including: kapustniky and kolache among others.
Kapustniky is a sweet bread stuffed with cabbage and kolache is similar to strudel in that it is a dough rolled with a filling. Generally the filling is poppy seed but it can be crushed nuts or fruit, especially apricot.
A type of dumpling, called haluski, was also served as well as loksa. Loksa is a dessert made from stale bread crumbs, poppy seeds and sugar with cream poured over the top.
“It was kinda clumpy,” said Nilla of loksa.
Nilla grew up in River Falls in a house with her parents, two sisters and two of her grandparents. She remembers lighting candles on Christmas Eve and singing carols. They would open their presents on Christmas morning after her dad got back from having coffee with nursing home residents.
Nilla’s family has Scandinavian roots and prepared oyster stew for Christmas. They served lutefisk on Christmas Eve.
“According to an old family recipe, you marinate the lutefisk in coke and then throw it out!” joked Nilla.
All joking aside, Nilla said that her family had a great recipe for preparing lutefisk. First they cooked it just right so it didn’t get mushy. Then they served it with black mustard sauce.
“The black mustard made it taste good,” she said.
Nilla and Gary met in River Falls while Gary was attending UW-River Falls and playing on the football team. During their early married years, they celebrated Christmas Eve at the Kovacik farm and Christmas Day in River Falls.
At the Christmas Eve celebrations there would be a small fresh cut Christmas tree and they would have chicken, brown gravy and potatoes for dinner. Gary’s uncle would come to the house dressed up as Santa with a gunny sack of presents to hand out.
“Our kids loved it, they would just squeal,” said Nilla of the Santa memory.
The Harnisches celebrated Christmas Eve on the Kovacik farm until the late 1960s. Then Gary’s mom hosted for several years and then Gary and Nilla started hosting. They would serve ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and creamed corn along with pie and Christmas cookies.
“It gets to be amazing how it all works out,” said Nilla of the planning it takes to celebrate Christmas.
Throughout all their Christmases the Harnischs have maintained a long tradition in the Christian faith and each year they celebrate that.
“We’re a Christian family and Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ,” said Gary.
Their faith is important in their daily lives too as is evident on the sign outside Harnisch’s Buck-Hollow Ranch which reads ‘we stand for the flag and kneel for the cross’.
Named for a big valley located near Seeley, WI where Gary used to hunt as a kid, Buck-Hollow Ranch is part of a piece of land that Gary and Nilla own just north of Connorsville. The acreage, which is landlocked and has no road leading to it, was homesteaded by a family that lived in a sod house and ran a small dairy farm.
Gary’s dad was a milk hauler and would drive through the woods to get to that farm to pick up their milk. In 1969, an employee of Gary’s purchased the property, then about five years later Gary and Nilla bought the place.
Buck-Hollow is part of about 400 acres of Harnisch family land. Currently they use it mostly for picnics, pheasant raising and deer hunting. But, they used to run cattle on it and at one point they had quite a lot of beef cattle and owned 11 farms.
In addition to beef farming Gary and Nilla helped out with and later owned, Harnisch Lumber Sales. At first they worked with Gary’s dad, Leonard, and then took over the operation in the 1970s and retired from it in 1992. Currently their son and grandson have the business.
Before Gary was employed in Connorsville, he was a student there. He attended the Connorsville schoolhouse from first to eighth grade. Olive Boda was his teacher.
“She was a super good teacher, many of her students went on to college,” said Gary.
Because the school did not have a stage, the Christmas programs were held in the Connorsville town hall. Gary remembers singing Christmas songs at the programs and one year he recited a poem about coon hunting.
After eighth grade, Gary went on to graduate from Boyceville High School. After attending high school in River Falls, Nilla helped with their business for years. Then at the age of 42 she went back to school at UW-Stout.
When she was 51 she graduated with a teaching degree. She then went on to teach young incarcerated people for 22 years. She currently is a K through 12 substitute teacher in the Boyceville school district.
“I love it,” said Nilla of her subbing job.
This year for Christmas Gary and Nilla will be celebrating at Gary’s sister’s place in Menomonie. They look forward to spending the holidays with their two children, 12 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
