50 years of working on the parade
It’s probably just a coincidence that the Abbotsford Christmas Parade began in 1971, the same year my family and I moved to Abbotsford. It was the people already living here and those who have joined the community since then that made the first parade happen and have made it possible for the parade to be celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
From humble beginnings, that first parade consisted of a fire truck, Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman; the community support has made it the best Christmas parade in Wisconsin. The original people behind the parade were then businessman and mayor Steve Bezak, businessmen Walt Hopperdietzel and Jim Wulk, and the advertising representative from the Tribune-Phonograph, Ted Stroinski. I know Jim was Frosty the Snowman that year and Ted was Rudolph, but Santa has always been a mystery to me. As current parade chairman Kris O’Leary likes to say, ”I just call the North Pole, and Santa shows up for the parade.”
The first costumes were made by Ted’s mother, who lived in Thorp. The current costumes are the result of 50 years of ideas and dedicated designers. The second year of the parade was a much bigger event as several floats with animated animals, purchased by Abbotsford businesses, and The Little Train That Could, rented from a company in Minneapolis, were added to the lineup as were new costumed characters. The original “costume lady”, local artist Elsie Bremer, started making costumes and continued to add characters into the early 1990s.
After the committee rented the animated Little Train That Could for a couple of years, Walt decided the parade should have its own self-propelled train. That train is still a part of the parade thanks to Walt’s son, Joel, who rehabbed it following Walt’s death and renamed it The Hopperdietzel Express.
Financing the parade was then and continues to be mostly from local businesses. Early on, the businesses built and maintained their own floats, found spaces to store them, and found characters to ride or walk beside them. As the parade grew and more funds were needed, the costumed characters started making money at shopping malls in Eau Claire, Wausau and even Madison during the Christmas season. Today the parade is totally funded by the local businesses that furnish prizes for a raffle and buy advertising on the parade poster and those who purchase the raffle tickets. No advertising for any business is allowed in the parade; still, these businesses continue to support this annual event that brings joy to so many.
The parade has grown from three characters to over 250 and counting. The floats now number over 40 and have their own storage building, plus semi trailers to handle the overflow. The costumes, once stored at St. Bernard’s Church, now have their own home, which is also overfl owing. The float storage building was purchased through donations from businesses and has been added onto twice. The parade needs to come up with a way to pass the torch to young people with ideas on how to solve storage and repair needs to keep being the best for the next 50 years.
People who have made the parade what it is today include all those who have served as chairmen, which in the early years was the president of the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce. Many of these chairmen only served for one year, but did very lasting projects during that year.
Of course Puff the Magic Dragon heads that list. Designed by John Bremer, built at All Metal Stamping and upholstered by Elsie Bremer, Puff is everyone’s favorite. The Star Wars fighter plane joined the parade when Pat Galvin of Galvin International was chamber president. Jerry Wojner headed up the team constructing the plane, never imagining it would be such an iconic part of film history. The pirate ship was constructed by a group headed by Tom Giffen, who got to be Captain Hook until just a few years ago. Jim Melvin and Melvin Companies headed up the original Cinderella’s Coach, which went through many makeovers until it was replaced by an elegant white metal coach sometime in the past ten years. Dean Wiese has done a ton of frame work on many floats and made sure lights were working on every float.
Other people have made long-time contributions in both float construction and designing. It is hard to remember them all but current parade co-chairs Kris O’Leary and Kevin Flink have certainly put in the most consecutive years and steady improvements over the past couple of decades.
I initially got involved in the parade when my late husband Jay volunteered our family to dress up as characters to go to shopping malls. He was often Papa Bear, I was Mother Bear, our son Jeff was Baby Bear and daughter Kim was Goldie Locks. These kids are in their mid 50’s now. I don’t remember what Kris’s first character was, but she is Tigger now and claims him for herself every year. My costume career also came when Jay volunteered me to make heads for the Sesame Street float. The next year he had me making 11 costumes for the Star Wars characters, then on to the Alice in Wonderland characters.
It was after Sandy Albrecht was costume chairman and started renting the parade her Rent-A-Robe costumes that I moved on to more professional style heads made of foam and material. Remaking damaged heads and new characters became my hobby and almost fulltime job for the three months leading up to the parade every year. I took over the costume management from Brenda Wiese and, to make my life simpler, found a home for all the costumes across the street from our business.
One of the biggest sewing jobs for the parade was recovering Puff the Magic Dragon probably two decades ago. Figuring out how much material to order, cutting it and doing much of the sewing was not a job for one person. The original designer and seamstress, John and Elsie Bremer, were still around to give us some advice. We got some help cutting scales from ladies in the senior housing near the parade building, and about three of us sewed everything back together.
Puff is 45 feet long! That job gave me another facet of the parade to work on besides costumes. Whenever a float needs a material repair or new covering, I am called upon.
I have spent a lot of time with all these characters. I know they are not real, but for the past 50 years, just for a couple of hours, they do come to life. Thank you to everyone who has participated in any way to making this possible.
