LeRoy B. Schwan

 

LeRoy Schwan is the Polk County Historical Society’s “in house” artist and we are very thankful for his help through the years.  LeRoy is best known for his drawings of local buildings of interests: churches, schools, farms and homes.  He has donated over 150 of these prints to the historical society.  He has also been a great help by making the labels that we use on exhibits.

 

LeRoy was born to Dorothy Papenfuss in 1932.  The Papenfuss family was LeRoy’s home for the first nine years of his life.  In 1941, LeRoy’s mother, Dorothy married Joseph Schwan and LeRoy joined his mother and new dad on the Schwan farm in Farmington Township, Polk County, WI.  LeRoy helped with the farm chores until April of 1946 when his dad purchased the Farmington Cheese Factory and the family moved to the living quarters above the cheese factory.  The factory was changed into a garage called “Schwan’s Super Service”.  LeRoy lived with his family here from 1946 until his graduation from high school.  LeRoy described the convinces of the factory;  “We had no biffy.  However we did have a shower downstairs in what had been the boiler room.  I made the shower walls out of the wooden crate our 1946 Wards refrigerator came in.  The water ran into the back yard, as did mother’s laundry water.  We used the shower every summer, otherwise I showered at school during the sports season.”

 

In LeRoy’s  recent book, he sums his life as following:  “My mother and dad loved each other and anyone could see by the many ways it was shown that they did.  They disagreed on some things but I always saw them come to an agreement soon after.  I had a great deal of freedom to choose when I was a teenager, including whether or not to go to high school.  I took the subjects I wanted, studied what I thought was important and was never criticized for grades I brought home.  My parents never gossiped about anyone.  They would mention the problems people had, but never made judgments about them.”

 

We have appreciated LeRoy’s wisdom in our board meetings through the years.  He is a retired teacher/professor of art education.  He taught in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois.  His students ranged from pre-school and mentally handicapped to junior and senior high school students, as well as graduate and undergraduate students.  He is the author of a design test, and art activity book and two poetry books.