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UNCLE BILL LEE was a friend of mine, and he passed away recently after a courageous battle against a body that had served him well for over 81 years, but now finally gave out…
Having had some time to prepare, I can write these words with less tears and more happiness for the times we had together on the Mellen area rivers and lakes that we both called home.
There will be more words in the future that will tell the story of Bill’s life, but for today I wanted to just add my humble words about a man I came to admire for a lot of reasons. For one, he was my late Mother’s brother, for another, he liked to fish — really liked to fish.
And he knew fishing is more than just catching fish, it’s the chance to view nature in all her glory, while swapping a few fish stories among friends who don’t really mind a “fish tale” as long as it’s not overly embellished.
I will leave readers with these few words today about an experience that created a deeper bond between us. Perhaps Bill’s favorite passion was fishing the waters in the summer, on a stretch of river that is mixture of pure wilderness and some damn fine trout, walleye and musky fishing.
This particular day started off fine, late-June with temperatures in the low 70’s, light breeze from the south (hook ‘em in the mouth), when Bill picked me up near Mellen with boat, motor and associated fishing gear in tow.
We put in at our usually location on the river, I got the gear positioned while Bill started the “drama” of cranking up the old 5-horsepower Mercury outboard, a motor that often seemed less dependable than today’s stock market.
Amazingly enough, the little devil started and we began our journey up the river, which always for some reason reminded me of a scene out of “The African Queen,” which featured Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn taking turns at saving each other’s lives.
Not that the characters in that movie exactly reminded me of our trips, it was the “adventure” around each bend of the wild river that always made my heart beat a little faster. Adventure - big word.
Would there be a dead-head log ahead, submerged rock to hit the motor’s already beaten and nicked propeller, a fallen tree blocking our path? You get the point – river’s change, just like people, every day it seems.
After reaching what Bill always called, “A fine hole for fishing walleye and musky,” we pulled the 14-foot aluminum boat to shore and set about catching the “whopper” that every fisher dreams about, but so seldom brings home.
Fishermen I have known can stretch the truth, but not Bill, he didn’t have to, I was witness to some fine trout, walleye and musky that were fooled by his “fishing technique,” which changed as often as the weather in Wisconsin.
“Have to read the water,” he would say. “Run the boat thru this hole a few times and wake up the fish.” O.K., seemed reasonable, I certainly wouldn’t be out of bed at this time of day.
On this outing, not terribly unlike some other fishing adventures I’ve had, fishing took a back seat to good old Mother Nature. Within a matter of minutes the wind had abruptly switched to the north, bringing with it an artic blast (yes, even in June) that brought a mixture of rain and sleet, along with a spectacular thunder and lightening show, better than fireworks on Thee Fourth of July.
The kind of electrical storm that makes you wonder why any fool would be holding a graphite fishing pole in his hands in an upright position towards the heavens; but I’ve never claimed that “all fishermen” were smart — I am evidence of that fact.
Well any other time the storm wouldn’t have been a big deal, except for one important fact: I forgot all my rain gear and thermal clothing right where I had set it out for the trip, on the kitchen table back home.
“Uncle, Bill,” I said slightly embarrassed and a little bit stressed. “I forgot my damn rain gear and I am going to freeze to death.”
Might as well face facts head on…
“Yes, I can see that,” Bill mumbled, knowing that fishing was done on this day, but he surprised me and said no more on the subject. Perhaps, he had been in the same situation a time or two…do you think?
End of story — Bill shared his parka until the worst of the storm had passed, I wrapped myself in some dirty old tarp that was in the bottom of the boat, and we went home the same way we came…fishermen to the end.
Slightly battered, but never beaten. There were other days we would fish the mystic waters that have almost timelessly etched formations on the boulders in the streams and lakes created during the bedrock of time.
I would later call Bill, or he would call me, “Hey, wanna go fishing? Looks like a good day.”
“Thanks, Uncle Bill, those times were indeed the very best… ( Now let me tell you about the Gold Mine Creek episode, nope, another time, maybe) … hope to see you around the next bend in the river…”
Jeff Peters
Note: If anyone would like to share a story about Bill Lee, please email me at peters@ceas.coop and I will post it on The ECHO website for his friends and family to read.
I Hiked to Potato River Falls with Bill once. I loved his stories and the attentive brightness about everything. He had a very loong stride. — Dave Strzok
A long time friend and former teacher, Dave Strzok, once told me, “The loss of an elderly person is equal to losing an encyclopedia.” How true! It is one of the main reasons I started The ECHO, so people like Bob Dahl, Helen Chapple, Bob Mackreth and Mike Brecke, and so many more can record the important memories from their past. Winston Churchill perhaps said it best: “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.” Bill Lee could see a long way back…I can only add “embrace” your heritage. It’s the fabric of our lives. — Jeff Peters, publisher of The ECHO
“Walleye Willy, my Dad’s uncle, made the best pancakes in the world,” — Jill Anne Peters
“I knew Bill primarily as Commander of the Mellen VFW. In 10 years, we did ceremonies together 20 or 25 times. My image of Bill is as a tall, handsome man with the bearing of the ex-Marine, former Ashland County Sheriff that he was. He looked the commander part, but he always had a twinkle in his eye, a good sense of humor and some great stories.
I visited him in the nursing home about a week before he died. He was tired and pale, but he still had that sense of humor and used his waning energy to tell a couple of stories. He let me know that he was ready to give up the struggle. The nurses fussed over him like he was their own dad. He had that effect on people.” — State Representative Gary Sherman, (D-Port Wing)
“Bill Lee was a very good friend, my brother-in-law, and some one I could always trust, because his word was his bond. My family will miss him a great deal.” – Howard Peters
MY MEMORIES OF A FATHER AND HIS SON – “Sunday summer afternoons in the early 60’s were deadly quiet at Bill Guerin’s Shell Station. Most often the entire town was at a baseball game, out at Copper Falls State Park having a picnic, or just taking it easy in a backyard or on a front porch.
I remember as if it were yesterday when he first appeared. I knew him by sight, a distant sight, because as a young child I received a severe scolding from my mother for going into the “pool hall” next to Block’s market. He was Mr. Lee or to some “Old Man Lee,” but to most he was just Mr. Lee.
That day I was sitting at the desk in the gas station and the doorway was suddenly darkened with his shape. He wasn’t tall but he always dressed in a suit, he always wore a hat and carried a cane. When he came in, I immediately jumped to my feet. He smiled and said something about it being a lazy day. He walked slowly by me and then sat at the chair at the desk where I stood next to, carefully removed a cigar from his inside coat pocket (a William Penn if I remember right), unwrapped it, and began to smoke.
He looked at me with that mystical and devilish twinkle in his eye and said, “You’re Marvin’s boy.” I acknowledged as how that was true. I remember his skin. It looked translucent, his blue veins stood out on his hands as he smoked. When the cigar was coming to the end of its life, he removed a toothpick from another pocket in his coat and slipped it into what was becoming a stub, and continued to smoke.
He didn’t tell many stories that day. But it seemed that it became a summer Sunday afternoon ritual for him to come to the gas station and sit and smoke. One day the stories began…. there were Mellen stories and Cozy Valley Stories and stories of his family and of people whose names I had only heard mentioned by other people in other stories.
There was always a twinkle in his eye and a smile playing delicately on his lips when he told these stories. His voice was no longer as strong as I imagined it once was, but there was such life in his words. His stories were compelling and I wish now that I had written them down. My favorites were Pool Hall Stories. He used to laugh softly as he remembered. Some times he would sip an ice-cold Coke or Dr. Pepper.
After a while, as a teenager with much to learn, I looked forward to these visits. When Mr. Lee didn’t come one a summer Sunday, I worried. When he returned I breathed a sigh of relief: Mr. Robert E. Lee was there again, smoking a cigar again, telling stories.
During those days when customers rang the bell I almost always ran to wait on them just so I could return to the world of words and memory that were mine when I stood by the desk at Bill Guerin’s Shell Station and listened to the man with the cigar remember his life.
And now his son has died. Bill Lee. Memories flood my heart and stir my soul…
Bill after the war in his uniform hanging out with my uncle Chuck Kaseno on the 4th of July in Mellen after the parade had passed in the early 1950’s. I remember they drank a few adult beverages and told stories and laughed, told more stories and laughed some more…
Bill Lee working so hard on baseball in Mellen. Working to see that we had a city team that would entertain us on Sunday afternoons in the summer months. Baseball and basketball were always important in my hometown. But baseball, there was always something special about Mellen and baseball.
I remember Bill in his Ashland County Sheriff’s uniform doing his job. Sometimes his work involved our family. It was Bill who came and brought the news of my Uncle Guy’s death. I remember him standing with my father in the backyard, watching facial expressions as the news was brought and our world was changed.
I remember Bill as Postmaster of Mellen. I remember him in Mary’s Beehive, drinking coffee, talking with Basil George Kennedy. Bill was always a part of Mellen life. I remember a fishing trip he took with my brother-in-law Jeff, me and my son. It was a trip up the Marengo River. A trip when we didn’t catch fish, but when we lived life and learned a great deal and swapped stories.
In recent years I remember Bill Lee as he walked in his last few 4th of July parades. He was a man who cared about his city and his state and his country, but most of all; I think he cared about people. Perhaps this is Bill’s greatest legacy: the lives he touched, the ballplayers he helped become men, the words he used when he was the law in our county.
When a person lives out his life in one place watching one generation flow into the next, he can change a community just by his presence and what he does with his own life.
I can picture the stories he might have heard from his dad, for I heard some of those stories at the now defunct Shell gas station. I also know some of the stories that Bill Lee wrote with his life, the rest I can only imagine.” – Mike Brecke
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