Historian the driving force behind Webster House
By Tyler Lamb
Editor
Nestled among the quiet, unassuming neighborhood of East Rockwell Street, stands a white Greek Revival House where Joseph Philibrick Webster once resided. Webster, composer of several popular hymns such as “In the Sweet By and By,” lived in Elkhorn from 1857 until his death in 1875, at the age of 56.
For resident Doris Reinke, preserving the city’s lush history has been a prevailing interest since her days on the Elkhorn History Club, which dissolved in 1993 after 100 years of service. Reinke presently serves as president of the Walworth County Historical Society, a post she has proudly held several times before.
However, her passion for people and places of yesteryear stretches back to the tender days of her youth in Delavan.
“My love for history goes back to the very beginning,” Reinke reflected. “When I went to college in Milwaukee I thought I would like to be a history teacher, but back then kindergarten teachers were getting jobs much faster.
“So I switched to kindergarten, but even in kindergarten I always loved days like Washington’s Birthday. Armistice Day. That way I could bring in some history,” she continued.
Reinke, now retired from 41 years as an educator, has been the compelling force behind historical preservation in the city as well as the county.
“When I retired, I found I really had time to devote to history,” she said. “The history club itself had helped with the historical society. Then, after I retired, I took a more active part in it.
“I had a really great mentor, Jackie Walbrandt,” Reinke continued. “She was the one who really got the society re-awakened.”
Reinke can recite facts about Webster and his house as if it were her own family’s history.
According to Reinke, the vast majority of Webster’s 1,000 songs were penned at the house located at 9 E. Rockwell St. In 1857, the prolific composer penned “Lorena,” which was based on Webster’s fond memories of an Ohio girl named Ella Blocksom.
The musician’s family lived in the house until the 1950s, according to Reinke. Following the passing of Webster’s last descendant, the house was sold to the county to serve as a museum.
The Webster House is loaded with Webster’s compositions, notes, songbooks, 1880s period instruments and his famed rosewood piano.
Cultural center
When the local historian isn’t giving tours of the ornate artifacts at the Webster House or lending a hand at the historical society, she can be found working inside a building, which bears her designation – the Doris M. Reinke Cultural Center.
When asked to reflect on her name being associated with the building Reinke gushed.
“It feels great, and we save so many things that are being thrown away,” she chuckled.
The resource center contains a myriad of information on Walworth County, as well as books, maps, images, atlases, genealogies, diaries and archival material.
“It’s fun to see families come in turn through the big pages of all the back copies of the Elkhorn Independent, which run from the 1850s on,” Reinke said.
Webster Notes
For those avid readers of the Independent, Reinke’s name should by familiar. Her byline has graced the pages of the Elkhorn Independent for more than three decades.
“I started writing a column for the Independent in the late 1980s,” she said. “ … One day, via the grapevine, I heard the Independent was looking to run a history column, so I walked in said I would like to write. They asked if I had a title for it, and I said ‘Webster Notes.’
“That was how it started,” Reinke continued. “At first I wrote every week, but I kind of ran out of ideas eventually.”
Gateway to the past
It has often been stated history is a cyclical poem written by time upon the memories of man.
For her part, Reinke offers this message to the future stewards of antiquity:
“If you don’t know about history then I guess you don’t know how to react to what is going on,” she said. “So often history repeats itself. The period you live in influences you. I was influenced by the great depression because my father was a building contractor and the housing industry is the first to go and the last to recover.
“It was a very stressful time,” she continued. “I became a saver and a person who believes in paying cash. People, like 20 years ago, who thought it was great to take out the biggest mortgage possible on a house, are no realizing the mortgage is maybe bigger than what the house is worth. That is what we went through in the 1930s.”
More
For more information on the Webster House or the cultural center, visit walcohistory.org.
