03-28-25

Kansas Snapshots by Gloria Freeland - March 28, 2025

For the love of glass

If you're not a big fan of the Green Bay Packers, cheese, bratwurst, or cold winters, you may think you have no connection to Wisconsin. But you'd be wrong if you’ve ever reached for a Kleenex tissue or a sheet of Cottonelle toilet paper, trained a youngster using Huggies diapers, wiped up a mess with a Viva or Scott towel, or used a Kotex product. These are just a few of the recognizable names of a large Wisconsin-shaped industry based on a product largely taken for granted - paper.

With an abundance of water and trees, the state had hundreds of paper mills by the end of the 19th century. And for years, it was an industry that was largely recession-proof. A common expression was "whether you write with black ink or red ink, you still need the paper to write on." Husband Art's uncle was the president of a mill for a number of years.

This history became familiar to me after Art and I married 37 years ago and we began making frequent trips to the Badger State.

We were there just last week when a several-inch early-spring snow blanketed Art's hometown of Appleton. But it receded quickly when temperatures rose into the 40s the following day. We took advantage to explore a bit of the legacy of that paper-making industry.

Lake Winnebago is a 10-mile-wide by 30-mile-long body of water that begins at Appleton's southern extreme. We stopped to take some pictures on Neenah Point, a finger of land with a lighthouse that juts out into the lake. A plaque explained that the point had been deeded to the city of Neenah in 1929 for a public park. The donor was Helen Kimberly Stuart - as in the Kimberly-Clark company, the folks who manufacture all of those products previously mentioned. Her brother James Kimberly gave the lighthouse.

The white snow against a deep-blue sky and the even deeper-blue lake created a winter wonderland. It was cold, but people were jogging, walking their dogs, or just strolling along the shore's edge. The people in those climes seem to have thicker blood than I do.

About half a block from the tip in a perfect setting was a large Tudor home - now the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass.

We were wowed by the different varieties of glass art work - paperweights, Germanic drinking vessels, and Victorian-era-to-contemporary decorative sculptures. The sun streaming in the windows and the display lighting made the glass shimmer.

Among my favorites were the paperweights with dahlias, irises, poinsettias and other flowers. There were quirky ones too, including a cowboy on a horse and a blue frog. Art said he had no idea people could be so interested in paperweights.

It was one woman's love of them that led to the beautiful displays. Evangeline Hoysradt was born in 1872. The story goes that as a youngster, during summer visits to her grandmother's home, she was captivated by a paperweight on the parlor table. Her reward for practicing the piano or reciting a poem was to be able to look at the paperweight. After her grandmother died, Evangeline searched in vain for the paperweight as a remembrance. But she never forgot.

Evangeline met John Nelson Bergstrom while he attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. They married in 1901, and eventually settled in Neenah. In 1904, John and his father Dedric founded the Bergstrom Paper Company.

Evangeline as a child of 10

Evangeline frequently wintered in Florida. While there in 1935, she acquired what museum staff members believe was her first paperweight - one similar to her grandmother's. It was dated 1847 and had a "B," which stood for Baccarat, a well-known French crystal maker.

She soon became an expert in antique paperweights. Her collection was exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago in 1939 and at the Milwaukee Art Institute in 1940. She wrote a book, "Old Glass Paperweights," using information from her own collection and her research.

In 1914, scientist Ernst Mahler, who grew up in Vienna, Austria, emigrated to the U.S. and took a position with Kimberly-Clark Corporation in Neenah. He developed the process of making cellu-cotton, a material virtually identical to ordinary cotton, but made from processed wood. It was used in World War I bandages and later adapted to feminine hygiene products and disposable diapers.

But it was his purchase of a Germanic glass collection - known as the Kurz Collection - for his wife Carol that would be critical to the eventual formation of the glass museum

The Bergstroms had no children, so when John died in June 1951, he left a substantial sum of money to the City of Neenah to be used for a museum. Two years later, Evangeline gave the Tudor mansion they had built in 1929-‘30 to serve as a museum site. The Mahlers, having developed into enthusiastic supporters of glass figures, became board members of the glass museum. On April 5, 1959, the John Nelson Bergstrom Art Center opened to the public.

Today, the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass has more than 5,000 objects and is ranked as one of the top glass museums in the country, hosting more than 20,000 visitors annually.

It also has displays of tools and shows the processes used by glass artists of today and yesterday.

The museum isn't just a static display of old objects. A current exhibit is "Teen Voices in Glass," which features the work of students and their teachers from 15 area high schools. The museum also holds classes. According to glass studio manager Taylor Moeller-Roy, the museum provides workshops in glass fusing, flameworking, glass blowing, and other related specialties. She draws inspiration from various seasons and holidays, including hosting "Pride" flag classes in June, Christmas-in-July ornament classes, and summer workshops for garden/yard art.

The museum seamlessly connects the Bergstrom and Mahler families' role in Wisconsin's paper industry with their love of glass. It's well worth a visit - and the price is right - free.