Norwalk — Jacob John Menn, 101, passed away on August 23, 2024. Born in Sheldon Township, Monroe County, outside Norwalk, Wisconsin, Jacob John Menn arrived on September 29, 1922, in the family’s farmhouse. The third of Benjamin and Tony Menn’s four children, Jake grew up on the Jersey Vale Farm where he was born. He helped milk the dairy herd by hand and machine, gathered eggs, and helped in the garden which provided food to put up for the long Wisconsin winters. In the summers he especially loved playing in Morris Creek, fishing, swimming, and rafting. And his favorite food was homemade ice cream since he got to lick the dasher as the smallest participant in making it. As he grew, his favorite farm work was silo filling and threshing.
He attended Spring Valley Schoolhouse through 8th grade and then attended the High School in Norwalk. He graduated in 1940, the salutatorian of his class, and headed to the University of Wisconsin in Madison to study chemistry. As a child he had suffered osteomyelitis, nearly losing a leg; as a result, he was classified 4F, so he could not fight in WW2. Instead, he left Madison and returned to Norwalk to work on the farm during the war. When he went back to college, he resumed his studies in chemistry and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. There he met Anna Katherine Fletcher, the great love of his life whom he married on December 27, 1947. Jake and Katherine then headed to the San Francisco area of California for his job with Shell Chemical Company as a chemist. In California he enjoyed rock collecting, singing in a barbershop quartet, and becoming a father. Their four children were all born there. Transferred to New York City, he started a garden at their new home in Suffern, NY, growing both food and flowers and sharing his love of gardening with his children. He made them a trapeze and swing for the apple tree in their yard, as well as a wagon all of wood, including the wheels. Both in Suffern and later in the St. Louis, Missouri area where they next lived, he became an innovative Sunday School teacher, widening youngsters’ perspectives and awareness of those living in radically different conditions.
His work at Shell shifted from chemistry to agricultural applications, and he was tasked with selling their products to the agricultural world. That led to long road trips. For driving breaks, he began to enjoy antiquing, appreciating the artistry of Victorian and other period furniture, cast iron work, indeed anything that reveals the human capacity for creating beauty, something he valued his entire life. All family vacations when he worked for Shell were taken on the farm where he was born.
Jake continued helping his father with the dairy and the beef herds during these times, and expanding the farm and ranch. When he retired from Shell at 55, he became a fulltime rancher, having named the Devil’s Hole Ranch after an expression of his great grandmother, a 19th century German immigrant, who had gone searching for lost cattle in one of the valleys one winter long ago. He enjoyed riding his favorite horse Jenny through the valleys and over the hills as he looked after the Angus cattle and saw the tall trees of the woods as cathedrals. He established a small vineyard and apple orchard to experiment with varieties that could thrive in this climate. The ranch had wonderful yearly round up parties involving the work of dealing with the cattle but also dancing, feasting, games for children and adults, and appreciating all who helped or cared. He and wife Katherine, a long-time teacher at Kickapoo High School, also enjoyed attending the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra, performances of “The Nutcracker” yearly in Milwaukee with children and grandchildren, and at Christmas becoming Santa and Mrs. Claus no matter where they were: traveling by air to visit family (in airports strangers asked for photo-ops as did TSA personnel), going shopping (especially on Black Friday when he was once taken from the line and then asked to hand out candy canes at the door –they set aside his Black Friday special for him). Come spring, Jake and Katherine would dress in wildly colorful, rather outlandish clothes and hats and go spread the happiness of the fresh season as they shopped or visited friends throughout the area. When Katherine retired and was ready to give up cooking, Jake took over and discovered he loved it as well as food shopping. That became a tradition of giving food to friends and family, especially in the autumn, his favorite season, when nature’s bounty is abundant. He would give fifty-pound bags of potatoes to family, friends and neighbors as a celebration of the season.
In his last years he still savored driving through the countryside, especially around the ranch, watching the crops grow in the fields and appreciating the beauty of the woods and sky. He remained to the end a raconteur, known especially for his humorous tales of the adventures Lonesome Jake and Pretty Kitty with which he regaled his children, grandchildren and guests at the farmhouse which for a number of years was Lonesome Jake’s Bed and Breakfast. He cooked breakfasts and served them with tales and chuckles. A repository of local lore, Jake recalled the story told him as a boy by settler Bill Faulke who saw one of the last Native American families of the area thankfully eating a deer all the way down to the intestines during a harsh winter when he went to give them food.
Advocating a strong work ethic, one of Jake’s favorite lines was “Go for it, kid!” His first grandchild at age two pronounced him “Big Jake!” a name that he went by in the family ever since. Jake was named after his grandfather, Jacob John Menn, of the Menn family who settled in the Monroe County part of the Driftless area in the 1850s. Jake’s own grandson, also named Jacob John Menn, sums him up thus: “Big Jake is a man of passions; for farming, gardening of fruits and flowers, for education and lifelong learning, for people of all kinds, for Beauty in all its forms, for culture, music and the arts, but most of all for his family and his pride in all of our diverse accomplishments and building upon the foundations laid down by those who’ve come before us.”
Jake was predeceased by his wife Katherine Menn; his parents Ben and Tony Menn; his brothers John Menn and James Menn; his sister Jean Stewart; as well as one granddaughter Heidi Putterill.
He is survived by his four children Jeffrey (Doc) Menn (Paula), Jessica Ambelang (Thomas), Jacqueline Erwin, Katherine (Twinky) Satterthwaite (Richard); 13 grandchildren; and 44 great grandchildren.
As Jake would sign off after a call, “May God bless you and keep you, and grant you a winning lottery ticket.”
Interment and a celebration of Jake’s life will be held at a later date. Online Condolences may be expressed at www.vossfh.com.
