Michael J. Anuta - Early Scouting

Excerpt from Michael J. Anuta: an Autobiography

Privately published, c2006

Used by permission of the editor, Janet Anuta Dalquist

The program known as Scouting was conceived by great men to be used by leaders and followers to provide a program of activities for the in-spiration and growth of boys to become the highest examples of men. Scouting was a significant experience in my life. Having had a background of isolated country life, it filled a deep void. It brought me out of a class of country bumpkin to live on a level with my peers. I found that growth was possible through applying a pattern of activity with achievement. Scouting’s philosophic ideals and program, commencing with the obligation, the Scout oath, the twelve Scout laws, and the simple daily good turn spurring the merit badge program, laid out a pattern in many areas of life. One had duty to God and his country, to humanity, to keep himself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight–obligations which can be applied uniformly in all directions. It certainly was applicable in my employment, law practice, judicial service, service as a prosecuting attorney, in my memberships in Rotary International and the Civil Air Patrol. Rotary International’s motto, “Service above Self” and its objectives of international friendship, good will, and world understanding easily associate with the Scouting promise. Likewise, my thirty-six years in the Civil Air Patrol of the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary, as a volunteer pilot helping those who were lost or in distress, supported the twelve Scout laws and the daily good turn. My Scouting principles were deeply applicable in my Masonic Lodge memberships – brotherly love, relief work, and truth. I indeed found much in the growth of my religious faith where an orderly life program meant added value and meaning.

In October of 1913, when my family moved to Milwaukee, the change in life style was most dramatic for a country boy. In elementary school I had known nothing of any youth program. But in the first three months in Milwaukee I thought I might become a newsboy in addition to my Madison Street school work. I was sent some papers by William D. Boyce, publisher of the Chicago Ledger and Toledo Blade. Milwaukee at that time had a full complement of daily newspapers. There were the Milwaukee Journal, Milwaukee Sentinal, The Daily Free Press, and German and Polish newspapers. Milwaukeans preferred to read their own newspapers. The newspapers William D. Boyce sent me did not sell at all. However, I examined them and happened to find an article on the organization of the Lone Scouts of America. This activity especially appealed to a lone farm boy, and I eagerly applied for membership. I became a member sometime in 1915.

When our family moved to the Ellen Street house in Bay View I ob-served some boys engaged in activities on a vacant lot nearby. They were Boy Scouts of Troop 26 of the Milwaukee Council of Boy Scouts of America under Scoutmaster Fred W. Apel, a family neighbor. I became a member of that troop as a Tenderfoot on April 18, 1917.

I participated in all of the troop activities in our meeting room at the Dover Street school, including rallies and camps such as Camp Owl and Camp Clovernook. I competed with other troops in signaling and other activities. In 1917, 1918, and 1919 I marched in the July Fourth parades with our troop down Grand Avenue from Fourteenth Street to the U.S. Post Office on East Wisconsin, in addition to celebrations of the Armistice in November 1918. During World War I, under an order of President Wilson, I was a “dispatch bearer” in the war effort. Scoutmaster Apel saved my life by getting me out of the way of a charging automobile on the street where we were assembling for a parade. We were lifelong friends to his death at the age of 105.

All Scouting tests are taken before certified examiners and become official records of the Boy Scouts of America. I took my tests before Scoutmaster Fred W. Apel, Walter H. Roloff, a Field Executive, and before William L. Davidson, the Scout Executive whose office was in the First Wisconsin National Bank Building on East Water Street. My first-aid test was taken before a Civil War veteran, Dr. William J. Cronyn, who was a most thorough instructor and examiner, and I will never forget what constitutes a compound comminuted fracture!

I advanced through Second and First Class, Star Scout and Life Scout ranks and earned twelve merit badges toward my Eagle rank but, as a working boy, I did not have the time to complete my advancement to that rank. I sought employment and began educational programs. This kept me from becoming an Eagle Scout, however, I kept my interest by assisting the troop in Neenah-Menasha and also after Marianne and I moved to Menominee and our children began to attend school.

Michael J. Anuta - Early Troops in Menominee

Excerpt from Michael J. Anuta: an Autobiography

Privately published, c2006.

Used by permission of the editor, Janet Anuta Dalquist

We joined the Boswell school Parent Teacher Association which was an active one. We were invited to attend their meetings and on about the second year of our membership I was elected president. Having continued my interest in Scouting and, having determined that there were no active troops in Menominee, I asked our PTA to sponsor a troop. Approval was obtained from Miss Mary Powers, the school principal, and from John L. Silvernale, the superintendent of schools. We formed a committee and called on Theodore A. Meyer, one of our high school teachers living in our district, to be our Scoutmaster. He accepted and became one of our great Scout leaders for many years.

When Troop No. 1 was chartered in 1931, I approached the Roosevelt Parent Teacher Association to sponsor a troop for that district. Mr. Auldin J. Smith, another high school teacher, accepted, and he, too, became one of Menominee’s great Scout leaders. I followed the same procedure in the Lincoln, Grant, and Washington schools, and thus we had a registered Boy Scout Troop and leader in all five of our Menominee grade schools.

When we moved from Stephenson Avenue to Holmes Avenue and then to Michigan Avenue we had to rearrange where our children attended school and this also affected the Scout District we were in. However, I continued my committee status on the Boswell troop. I served on the Examining Committee and as District Scout Commissioner. Then I became active on the council and became first a council commissioner, then vice-president and in 1945-1946 was elected president of the Nicolet Area Council. Our Scout executive was Edwin A. Schwechel and with his wife, Margaret, we became wonderful personal friends. He was eventually transferred to the North Chicago Council.

We had a wonderful camping program. However, we had no council camp. We tried a number of camping grounds–Sturgeon Bay, Brown County, Oconto County, Marinette County and Menominee County. Camp Bird in Marinette County was used for two years. It was in control of the County Board of Supervisors and they had many groups seeking to use the camp. We could not depend on any camping dates and, in fact, we were advised that we would not be able to use it for a coming summer. We transferred our council camp to the J. W. Wells State Park campgrounds and called it Camp Monomee. It was a good camp with some usable camp buildings, but the State of Michigan imposed a per person charge on all users even though the Boy Scouts were specifically given preferential use of the camp in the Deed of Gift of the land to the State.

One of our very successful annual Scouting events in Menominee for some years was the annual Scout Troop pot-luck dinner and competition. Each troop planned their own pot-luck dinner. We met in the Menominee high school gymnasium and began with the singing of the national anthem and a prayer and then had our dinners. Each troop would then engage in the competition which included such things as starting fire by friction, lashing together a framework for a lean-to, first aid techniques such as putting on a splint, rope-climbing and knot-tying. Friends and families viewed the competition from the gymnasium balcony and cheered on their troop. We would then have some community singing and a short speech. The session would close with the singing of “Taps.” Upwards of 300 people would attend. It was a great fellowship event in Menominee Scouting.
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Michael J. Anuta - Nicolet Area Council President

Excerpt from Michael J. Anuta: an Autobiography

Privately published, c2006.

Used by permission of the editor, Janet Anuta Dalquist

In 1945 when I became president of the council I learned that the Oconto company which had formerly operated a large sawmill in Oconto had a very nice camp for sale with considerable forest acreage. It was called Bear Paw Camp. The council staff inspected the site and I took Roland Odgers, president of the First National Bank of Menominee and a member of the Menominee Rotary club to see it. We drove to Mountain, Wisconsin on a wet, muddy, disagreeable April day. We found a beautiful lake with some high shore and a considerable area of woodland around it. It had one disadvantage–the lake had public access on about ten percent of its shore-line but almost all on the opposite shore of the camp. However, we were in such dire need of a campground that we felt that the public access would not hinder our Scouting program. We returned to Menominee and proceeded to make arrangements for its purchase. Thus, Nicolet Area Council acquired a permanent council camp of its own. We immediately set to work to raise the money, and plans were prepared to use the camp that summer. Bear Paw Camp has become one of the fine camps of the Boy Scouts of America in Wisconsin and the nation.

During my year as council president I considered the waterfront facilities available in the city of Menominee. In a two page letter I proposed to Arthur Lindgren, the Scout Executive, that we use this facility for an annual Scout rendevous to compete in swimming, canoeing, log rolling, boat handling, marching, and other Scout skills. The competition would include Scouts from the surrounding Great Lakes states. I suggested the name of “Rendezvous.” Mr. Lindgren took the plan to Chicago and came back with the name of “Bay Jammer.” I participated in the plans and named Mr. John Turner of Menominee, our former camping chairman, as the chairman of the Bay Jammer committee. He served in that capacity for fifteen or twenty years. Donald Payton also chaired the Bay Jammer for many years until his retirement in 1998. I visited the Bay Jammer annually for many years and have a fine collection of Bay Jammer patches. This program has been a great success for over fifty years with units competing from Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. It is one of the most popular of Scouting competitive events. [Ed. note: The first Bay Jammer was held in 1948. 56 years later, on July 16, 2004, at the age of 103 years and 5 ½ months, Michael Anuta, accompanied by his eldest son, was the first to register for the 2004 Bay Jammer.]

In addition to the Boy Scout troops, I assisted in the formation of a Sea Scout Troop. We were able to obtain the gift of a United States Coast Guard life boat from the Sturgeon Bay Coast Guard Station. One of our local Scouters made a contribution of a magnificent inboard motor for that boat. I served on that unit’s committee for some thirty or more years. We succeeded in getting a gift of a sailing vessel with an auxiliary inboard motor and later a motor cruiser was given to us from James Stang, one of our Scouts. We had wonderful leadership. I cannot remember the earlier ones, but James Vincent, son-in-law of Scoutmaster Marcus Kronauer, was one of the great Scoutmasters. He was a member of the Navy Reserve. We had wonderful Sea Scouting on all of these boats with wonderful skippers.

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Michael J. Anuta - National Council

Excerpt from Michael J. Anuta: an Autobiography

Privately published, c2006.

Used by permission of the editor, Janet Anuta Dalquist

After serving as president of the Nicolet Area Council I became a member-at-large of the National Council. I served in that capacity from 1946 until 1975. I was also named representative of the Nicolet Area Council to the National Council and served from 1946 to 1975. I was active in Region Seven for some twenty years. While working with that region I was asked to make an inspection of Camps Hiawatha and Gardner Dam for the National Camp committee.

I believe it was in 1975 that there was a reorganization of Scout councils in the United States. The Nicolet Area Council merged with several other councils and became the Bay Lakes Council of the Boy Scouts of America. I have served on the advisory board of that group since it was organized. I have known all five Scout executives, Messrs. Tarr, Bucklin, Olmstead, James D. Stone, and Ricky Williamson. In the Nicolet Area Council I recall Peter Norg, Edwin A. Schwechel, Hugh Sargent, Art Lindgren, Craig Uncapher, and James Gribble. Of course, there were others whose names I cannot recall. All these leaders laid the solid foundation of Scouting in this region.

I attended National Council meetings in Milwaukee, San Francisco and Detroit. At the forty-ninth annual meeting in San Francisco I saw James Stewart invested with the Silver Buffalo. I met Chief Scout James E. West in person at the Milwaukee meeting. I attended the fifty-first annual meet-ing in Milwaukee. We met with Commander Thomas J. Keene, head of our National Sea Scout program and were greatly inspired with his leadership. Mr. Urner Goodman of the national office visited us, and Marianne and I entertained him in our home on Michigan Avenue. We had a small dachshund at the time, and Mr. Goodman recited for us a bit of poetry about dachshunds:

“I had a little dachshund, one so long he had no notion
How long it took to tell his tail of his emotion,
So it was that though his eyes were full of woe and sadness
His little tail kept wagging on because of previous gladness.”

In about the year 1948 I had the privilege and honor of pinning the Eagle Scout badge on my nephew, Albert E. Anuta, Jr., son of my older brother, Albert, and his wife Alice Hunt Anuta. Albert had graduated from Pulaski high school in Milwaukee and attained his Eagle rank before entering Purdue University. Michael Andrew, son of our oldest boy, Michael John and his wife Elaine, became a Life Scout but was unable to progress further due to leadership problems. Our grandson Karl Gregory Anuta, son of Karl Frederick and Barbara, attained Life Scout and was elected to the Order of the Arrow. Our great grandson, Jeffrey Allen, son of Marianne Milidonis Simancek and her husband Jay, earned his Eagle rank and I had the honor of participating in his investiture. Both his parents were honored with Silver Beaver awards. The following year the two sons of our second oldest granddaughter, Madeline Milidonis Fritz and her husband Leonard, attained their Eagle rank. Both Leonard and Madeline were also honored with the Silver Beaver award. Lloyd Dalquist, the husband of our youngest daughter Janet, was the active leader of the Houghton-Hancock area Explorer Scout unit. Their son, Daniel Dalquist, became a well-known Scout leader as well as a nationally recognized member of the National Ski Patrol. Eric Dalquist, son of Dan and his wife, Bobbie, earned his Eagle rank in 1999. We had a private investiture in our retirement apartment as I could not attend his Court of Honor.

I have received a Scouter’s key for training and was recognized with a Silver Beaver Award at the council level in 1940. On November 11, 1967, at the annual meeting of the Region Seven Council in Detroit I was honored with a Silver Antelope Award. In the year 2000 the Bay Lakes Council issued a proclamation naming me a Veteran Scout in honor of my achieving 77 years in Scouting. On May 16, 2000 Marianne and Jay Simancek had me named a James E. West Fellow by their Clinton Valley Council in Michigan and on October 9, 2001 the Executive Committee of the Bay Lakes Council conferred on me the honor of James E. West Fellow.

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Michael John Anuta

Michael John is the third child and first son of Michael Joseph.  As the Cub Scouts was growing at the time of Michael John youth, it was not available in Menominee at that time.  Michael John entered the Boy Scouts of America just before his 12th birthday, joining Troop 72, Menominee, Michigan in 1938

Michael recalls that his Scoutmaster was Aldin Smith, a High School manual training teacher and that there was only one Committee Man, Jack Smalter, who was a U. S. Postal worker. Troop 72 met in the basement of Roosevelt Elementary School at that time.

Michael John was the first Eagle Scout in our lineage.  In May of 1944, at the age of 17, Michael achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. In that same month, he enlisted in the army and served in World War II.  Due to his Basic Training,  Michael never had an Eagle Court of honor to be presented with his Eagle Scout Medal, it was mailed to him at basic training.

After the war, Michael came back to Menominee, Michigan.  He used his GI Bill to finish College and he served the Boy Scouts of America to help start an Explorer Post at the Presbyterian Church in Menominee. He served here as the Explorer Advisor.

Michael moved to West Grandville, Wisconsin in 1955 and started Troop 163 at the West Granville Presbyterian Church in 1967, which grew rapidly.  Here he held the position of Scoutmaster.  In the 1970's later moved to Burlington, Wisconsin and became involved at the District level as the Racine County Scouting District Chairman. Due to relocation's with his company and eventual retirement in Minnesota, Michael has not been active scouting for several years but remains a supporter of the Boy Scouts of America.

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Michael A. Anuta

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Karl Frederick Anuta

Karl Frederick was born on May 16, 1935. The youngest son of Michael Joseph, Karl joined Cub Scouts in 1944. He recalls that his mother Marianne Anuta, Michael Joseph’s wife, was his Den Mother. Though he no longer has his records, he does recall receiving all his awards in Cub Scouts.

Karl joined the Boy Scout Troop 72, Menominee, Michigan in 1947, with Don Gerber as the Scoutmaster. Don received his Eagle before World War II in a different troop where Michael J. had been the Scoutmaster. Michael Joseph pushed Don very hard to achieve the rank of Eagle, and Don took Karl aside to tell him that as his new Scoutmaster, he would also push Karl to receive his Eagle Rank.

Scoutmaster Don was successful in his task. In 1952, Karl earned his Eagle Scout Rank and remembers having 22 merit badges. Karl stated, “It taught me that in many cases one's own achievements are due to another person's encouragement and support.”

Karl also recalls his experiences at the 1950 National Scout Jamboree at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, noting it was a terrific experience. This was the first Jamboree that was held after World War II. At this Jamboree President Harry S. Truman spoke to all the Boy Scout and it was broadcast nationally.

As an adult, Karl has served on the Troop and Post committees. He aided on several camps with the Boy Scouts and was also involved with many merit badge exams. As a strong support of historical societies, Karl has since donated most of his scouting records and memorabilia to a local Scout Museum.