| Additional Information: | This two-story, American Foursquare house rises from a block foundation and is sheathed with clapboard. The hipped roof features modestly overhanging eaves and carries a single hipped-roof dormer along its south elevation. An enclosed, flat-roofed porch fronts the house on the east, while a two-story, hipped-roof porch extends from the rear (west). Windows throughout the house are generally regularly placed and include a combination of double-hung sash and fixed examples.
Built in 1913, this house was originally owned by Casper & Margaret Remel. Born in Germany in 1848, Casper came to the United States with his family in 1856. They settled at Neosho in Dodge County, Wisconsin, where Casper’s father Jacob worked as a cabinetmaker. Casper lived with and worked for his father until the age of twenty-four when he married Margaret Fox. Three years later (1875), they moved to Dunn County, purchased 160 acres in Section 26 of Red Cedar Township and engaged in farming. Casper would eventually expand his acreage to 320 acres and improve his property with flower gardens. In 1913-14, Remel retired from farming and moved into the City of Menomonie. It was there that he purchased four lots from Peter & Eliza Schellhouse at the corner of 13th Street SE and 4th Avenue E/Stout Road and built the subject house. Casper died in 1928 and, soon thereafter, the house was converted for use as a maternity hospital, which was run by Remel’s daughter, Elizabeth Molitor.
Elizabeth was born in 1884 and married William Molitor who appears to have worked for the railroad. Available information suggests that they resided together, with the children, in Michigan as of 1918. But as of the 1920 census, Elizabeth and the girls were enumerated as living with her parents in the subject home and she continues to be identified as married. By 1930, however, her status is listed as widowed and her occupation is recorded as a nurse in private homes. Although no official start date was identified, it was at some point in the 1930s that the home began to function as the Molitor Maternity Hospital, as a number of 1930s-era births are noted in the local newspaper as having occurred at the Molitor Hospital or the Molitor Maternity Hospital. And, as of the 1940 census, Elizabeth’s occupation is recorded as matron of a private hospital. By 1942, a newspaper article identifies the hospital as the “former Molitor maternity hospital,” and a local organization urged the city’s purchase of the home to assist with the then-existing crowded conditions in the city hospital and for it to, again, serve as a maternity hospital. That clearly never came to fruition, as the home was sold by the heirs of Casper Remel to Marjorie Kraft for $5,500; days later it was sold to Richard & Jane Lambert. Elizabeth Molitor died in 1964.
In 2003, the house was again utilized as a birthing center, following its purchase by midwife Paula Bernini-Feigal. Known as the Morning Star Women’s Health Center, it continued as such through at least 2008, but has since returned to use as a private residence. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Citations for Survey Recommendation Write-Up below: Peter and Eliza Schellhouse to Casper Remel, Warranty Deed (s. and r. 15 May 1913), 79/629, #117027; Curtiss-Wedge and Jones, eds., History of Dunn County, 789-90; U.S. Federal Census, Population, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940. The biographical sketch for Casper Remel indicates that the Remels moved to Menomonie in 1914. Deeds clearly indicate that the property was purchased in 1913; however, it is possible that the house was not completed until 1914.
U.S. Federal Census, Population, 1900, 1920, 1930, 1940; “Rotary Club Urges City Maternity Home,” Eau Claire Telegram, 26 September 1942, 2/-3; Pamela Powers, “Menomonie Birthing Center Moves to New Home,” Eau Claire Telegram, 13 November 2003, 8A/1-5, 9A/5-6; Casper Remel (heirs) to Marjorie Kraft, Trustees Deed (signed 27 June 1944, recorded 30 June 1944), 136/217, #210843; Marjorie Kraft to Richard & Jane Lambert, Warranty Deed, (s. 10 July 1944, r. 2 August 1944), 135/433, #211102; Mrs. Elizabeth Molitor, obituary, Dunn County News, 12 August 1964, 3/5.
Jodi Stebleton, “Morning Star Women’s Heath & Birth Center,” in My Healthy Beginning (Vol. III, Issue III), September 2008, 20-21. |
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