Over the last few months, Ray has been working with a new sister company in Eau Claire WI, which is the hometown of his mom. When Ray's family lived in Dallas, they would head north each summer to spend a week with both sets of grandparents, so Ray has many fond memories of Eau Claire and Superior from the 60's.
Ray's grandpa Milo Bergh on his mom's side, owned a vehicle repair shop on Water Street called Milo Bergh's Garage. Grampy Bergh would take Ray to the shop in the morning and have help fix cars, or at least clean up or "organize" things. They would then go across the street to the bakery for coffee and donuts mid morning. This meant chocolate milk and a chocolate covered donut for Ray.
The shop is now a bicycle store called Anybody's Bikeshop, selling new bikes and repairing old bikes. Walking into the store was a great experience, as much is still the same as it was back in the 60's, including the wooden floor, a patched area where they hydraulic lift used to come up from the basement, the large door and customer access from the back. The old back windows are filled in and the door now is a swing door rather than a full width slider, but the original openings are still there and visible.
Since I was in the market for a new bike, I decided it would be great to buy my new bike from from the new owner of Grampy's shop. I told Eric my story and he asked if I had any old photos from the shop, which I didn't, but knew I had seen some from my mom. I got some copies from some slides she had to bring over on my next visit, which is when I decided which bike I wanted and bought it.
One of the photos shows Grampy out back of the shop sitting in a Rolls Royce with the sign in the background. Customers brought their cars to the back for service, and that has not changed as customers still bring their bikes in the back for service.
A few weeks later, I had a dinner in Eau Claire with some out of town guests and had a little time to kill between work and dinner, so decided I could pick up a few geocaches. I looked up geocaches near the site of my great grandpa's house, the Ager house across from the former Luther hospital. The Ager House is a historical Eau Claire landmark with a rich history. I discovered that my great grandpa as the subject of a geocache. He is one of a series of caches about historical figures and places in Eau Claire.
Waldemar Ager was a journalist who settled in Eau Claire in 1892 and became the editor of The Reform, a temperance Norwegian newspaper. He was also a writer, storyteller and gave many speeches over the years. A complete bio and more history of the Ager House is available on the Ager House website at http://www.agerhouse.org/golden-age.htm
It is fun to go back and visit places with great memories, or links to family history. I'm sure I'll uncover a few more links to the past with the time I am spending in Eau Claire.
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