By Julie Huebel, Pierce County Historical Association
People all over the world witnessed a monumental event in medicine and a monumental event in local history back in 1983. A local man underwent open heart surgery on live television that was being broadcast to 90 US cities via their local public television stations and later continued to be shown on television all over the world. A 62-year-old retired insurance salesman, Bernard Schuler, underwent a triple bypass surgery by Dr. Edward Diethrich at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. This was the first open-heart surgery to be shown on live television. I watched an interview that the doctor and local television station did on the 30th anniversary of the surgery, they faced some backlash but still stood by their decision to televise the event to show people they didn’t need to be afraid of having this surgery. So, S is for Schuler.
Bernard “Bernie” Schuler was born in Elmwood in 1920 to Anthony Schuler and Mary Fesenmaier. He grew up in Elmwood, graduating from Elmwood High School in 1938. After school, he enlisted in the U.S. Marines and served in the Pacific Theater of WWII and was awarded two purple hearts. Upon returning to Elmwood, he and Virginia Traynor married in 1945. Bernie and Virgina had two sons, Dan and Jon. He passed away in 2012 at the age of 92, his wife “Ginnie” passing two years earlier.
Bernard’s father, Anthony, was born in Mound, Minnesota in 1885 to Peter, Sr. and Anna. Anthony and Mary married in Dunn County, Wisconsin in June of 1913. On the 1910 census, he was living in Seattle, Washington attending a business college there. He returned to the mid-west and operated the City Bakery in Durand by 1912, then he married, they went back and lived in Washington state for a time, they briefly had a restaurant in Elmwood in 1917, then later opened an insurance agency in Elmwood in 1918.
His first office in Elmwood was the old bank building that was moved to the back of the bank lot when the existing building that houses Citizen’s State Bank was built, he was there until 1921. The office was moved to a couple buildings on Main Street before locating to the building that most know as Schuler Insurance Agency in 1928. The Schuler family has sold the building in recent years with their office in Menmonie. Anthony was very civic-minded, serving on the boards of the: Elmwood School District, Village of Elmwood, Elmwood Fire Department, Elmwood’s Catholic Church, and on the Pierce County Board. He retired in 1953, passing away only two years later at age 69. He is buried in the Elmwood Catholic Cemetery at Farmhill. His son’s Bernard and Robert took over the family business.
Anthony’s father, Peter, was born in Pennsylvania about 1853. His parents were both from Germany and settled in Minnetrista Township, Hennepin County, MN. In 1870, he was 19 living in Minnetrista Township (near St. Bonifacius) with parents Lucas and Mary. He married Anna Feiereker the following year. Peter shows as owning land on the 1879 atlas. In 1880, Peter was farming and married with four of Anthony’s older siblings according to the federal census. On the 1898 atlas, Peter is farming on 231 acres in Minnetrista Township, just south of Whaletail Lake. The brick farmhouse still seems to be standing along with an older style barn.
Peter’s father, Lucas, was born in Germany in 1811, he married Anna Maria Altmeyer in 1846, about a year after her first husband died. They were living in Butler County, PA in 1850 farming. He died in 1892 at age 80 and is buried in Saint Bonifacius Catholic Cemetery in Hennepin County, MN.
