Brookfield and Elm Grove

The old town of Brookfield provides an ethnic microcosm of what makes Wisconsin's settlement story so unique. As Native Americans, primarily the Potawatomi tribe, were forced out of the region, in came large numbers of Protestant farmers from New York State. A step and a half behind the New Yorkers came distinct colonies of families from western Europe--Catholics from near Nuremberg, Bavaria; Evangelical Lutherans from Canton Bern, Switzerland; Methodists from Lincolnshire, England; Zion Evangelicals from Sulzback, WAA1/4rttemberg; as well as Catholics from County Sligo, Ireland.

Thomas Ramstack teaches special education for Milwaukee Public Schools. He holds bachelor's degrees in history and psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, as well as a master's degree in special education from Cardinal Stritch University. As a child, his father took the time to tell personal tales, dating to the 1920s and 1930s, describing various neighbors he encountered as a boy while growing up in the then very rural communities of Elm Grove and Brookfield. Through these images, Ramstack hopes modern-day residents, too, might capture something of the life experiences of the town's earlier inhabitants.