Community Corner
Bully! TR's Lips Touched This Tosa Teacup
What brought future President Teddy Roosevelt and a tea set now in Wauwatosa together? Connections, my daughter – political connections.
As the Wauwatosa Historical Society prepares for this weekend's signature event, the Firefly Art Fair, curators have developed a theme for the Kneeland-Walker House, where the fair is held.
Tea sets. The grand old Victorian home at 7406 Hillcrest Drive that is headquarters to the society is full of tea sets, put out on view for the throngs who tour not only the art exhibits and gardens but the house as well.
Every one of those tea sets is handsome and interesting, and some have a history just in having been owned by some old-line Wauwatosa mover and shaker.
But one set stands out with an almost Smithsonian edge: Tea was taken from it by a sitting U.S. president, another president to-be, and Wisconsin's most famous governor to-be – albeit not while it was cupboarded in Wauwatosa at the time.
The set is owned by Jill Gaertner, who lives in Tosa with husband Tom. It is Limoges china from the late 19th Century, a fine marque and worthy of admiration for its pedigree alone. It was originally purchased by – or perhaps for – her great-grandmother, Clara Froehlich.
But, Jill told the Historical Society, history also touched it. Clara's husband, Jill's great-grandfather William Froehlich, was Wisconsin's secretary of state from 1899-1903. He and his family lived in Madison and would occasionally host dinners for traveling politicians.
Jill recalls her grandmother, Minnie, telling the story of one evening she and her siblings were sent up to their bedrooms so as not to be underfoot.
"Kids being kids," Jill says, "they snuck down the stairs and watched the proceedings through the spindles of the staircase."
There, in their sitting room, were Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, along with President William McKinley, running for a second term, and his vice presidential running mate Teddy Roosevelt, in town on a campaign whistle-stop.
They were taking tea from the family's Limoges set.
"The year was 1900," Jill says. "Minnie was 4 years old."
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LaFollette would win the governorship, and McKinley the presidency – but six months into his second term, McKinley would be dead from an assassin's bullet. Roosevelt would ascend to the presidency, and together he and LaFollette, both Republicans, would become the leaders of a national Progressive movement that challenged the power of corporate barons and promoted the rights of the working class.
Teacups can't talk, and none of the Froehlich kids likely understood or remembered what they might have heard. If they did, they apparently didn't record it.
Did "Fighting Bob," McKinley and TR's conversation that night set a course that would change U.S. history? Or did they just engage in friendly chat?
Knowing the characters of LaFollette and Roosevelt, it seems unlikely that they could have helped themselves from doing some serious strategizing. McKinley was not one to publicly rock the boat, but who knows where his inner compass might have taken him in a full second term, with Roosevelt at his side?
It may be that more than idle talk transpired over Jill Gaertner's tea set, but we'll never know for sure.
What is for sure is that you can take a close look at this silent witness to history at the Kneeland-Walker House when it opens up for the Firefly Art Fair, which runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday with 90 exhibitors of arts and crafts on the grounds – and dozens of tea sets inside.
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