1936 Harley Davidson Party Shawano Wisconsin Herbs Book

[c.o.]

Bob!!! Great stuff man! Thanks for taking us along for the ride!!!

[Chuck#1848]

Thanks Bob,

Looks like the Dells have grown a bit since I was there in 95 for a sidecar rally oh........been a long time since I was at a "milk jug" party looks like a good time was had by all,thanks again

[HarleyCreation]

Herb,

It was 1934 that Grandpa Joe won the Badger Derby. I have three photos of him with his trophy, in two he is seated on his cycle. One photo is used as my avatar. I'm not an old bike expert yet, so I haven't been able to determine the exact model. I have the winning trophy, original score card and a 1934 license plate I'd like to be able to confirm was used on the cycle.

That one's easy. According to my notes, Joe was riding a 21-cu.in. side-valve Harley-Davidson Single model when he won the Badger Derby. For the FULL story you need to obtain a copy of the Sept. 1934 issue of the The H-D Enthusiast mag, pp.21-23: "Joe Dobner WINS 4th Annual Badger Derby." That's what my notes on Joe say.

I don't have the 1934 regs, but you can find that info on microfilm at the Historicial Society of Wisconsin in Madison.

I think that I mentioned previously that I also have a Carl Griesbacher 1939 Badger Derby winners trophy for the side car classification. My Dad, sister and I recently were in Milwaukee and paid our respects at Carl's grave site, he is buried at the same cemetery as my Grandpa Joe and Grandma Anne.

Where are they buried? Holy Cross? Lots of them are...

Griesbacher was a very active guy with the Milwaukee MC Club. Like your grandfather, he could have told us plenty.

Say, would your grandfather's stuff include an AMA competition rulebook from 1939, 1940, or 1941? I'm working on an article for our favorite mag and that period of Class C racing: WLDR and Sport Scout stuff.

[HarleyCreation]

Wow Herb, way to top off a great day. Giving me the original owner and address of my 36 motor. I am glad to find out that it is a Wisconsin original. I got it in a parts purchase almost 30 years ago in Appleton Wisconsin but never knew where it came from. I will be doing a little research on the original owner and the bike will be parked in front of that address sometime in the near future.

I had a great day riding through the areas from the 36 rally. I have rode these areas many times as I am only 12 miles from Shawano but this was special for me. Here are the links to the crappy videos I took today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPDq0BsCqBI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaA6yvqwFfI
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?...?v=WN9ATwBMZMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwMjsrpwIHU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUspZ7G6vDI[ATTACH=CONFIG]6778[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]6777[/ATTACH]

Unfortunately my old Mac doesn't do youtube videos. Got any more regular pix of your bike on the Shawano adventure?

Glad you like the original owner stuff. That always gives the iron a little more personality and life. After all, these things are almost alive in a certain respect.

Plesee is not a common name, so you might be able to track down relatives with photos of Frank with his 36EL and maybe find out who he was. That would be cool. Maybe he was pals with Dobner, Griesbacher, and the rest of the Milwaukee gang.

[bobphd]

Herb, I don't have much for pictures but I pulled a couple off the poor quality videos. One is of the Shawano Community Hall. According to the paper this is where all of the riders registered. It is across the street from the picture in your book of Hal Deckerts wife and bike. I assume that is why they were parked there.

Another is of the Shawano County Park Pavilion which is on the NW side of Shawano Lake. This is where a dance was held for the riders on Saturday night. There was also a fire and marshmallow roast on the beach there.

Another is at Lime Kiln Hill . I am not sure but this may be the area where the hill climbs were held.

The last is of a marker for Spirit Rock on Highway 55 on the Menominie Nation Reservation north of Shawano. There was a scenic ride for the riders through this area on Sunday morning. The marker was not there in 36 but the rock which is only a few feet from the road was.

Bob

[HarleyCreation]

Bob,

Thanks for the pix. I've done my own study of Indian "spirit" rocks up here. It's an interesting subject.

I looked up "Plesee" in an old Milwaukee city directory I have from the 1980s. No entry for that name, only "Plese" and "Plesec." I wonder if the spelling is wrong in the '36 regs?

[HarleyCreation]

AMA Rulebooks

Herb, that's great information. I will be looking for a Sept '34 edition of the Enthusiast. It comes with not much surprise to me that Grandpa Joe won the event on a Model B single, he was not a big sized man and I feel always had a liking for the smaller displacement cycles. He put a lot of work into the K Model and felt that he never got the recognition he deserved for the time and development he put into that project.

I added that part about Joe D. and K model to his notecard. Is there any more to the story? Do we have more details for his bio?

They are buried at Highland Memorial Park. I do have family buried at Holy Cross cemetery also and about 75 yards from Bill Harley.

75 yards from Bill Harley is good company indeed! We'd all like a plot there.

Sorry, no AMA competition rulebook in Grandpa Joe's collection.

Thanks.

These AMA rulebooks are sort of hard to find. I don't know if they are rare or just not sought after. But trying to figure out the truth about Class C racing in the 1939-41 period isn't easy without one.

Just what were the exact rules and what are the modern falsehoods? We need to know!

[bobphd]

Thanks Herb and everyone. I did a little online research and there was a Frank Plesec in Milwaukee. Born 10/13/11, enlisted in the Army 11/25/42, ( Thank You for your service ) and died 2/15/67 . He is buried in Saukville just north of Milwaukee. Good chance thats the guy. Plesee is a very rare name. I could only come up with 2 people. Plesec is also a rare name and I could find no other examples in Wisconsin. Now if I could only find where He stashed the rest of the bike !

Bob

[HarleyCreation]

You're right

Bob,

You''re right. I dug some more and the name "Plesee" in the '36 regs was a type. In the '38 regs its shown as Plesec. In my 1986 Milwaukee directory there are a couple Plesecs. If you could find some today in the Milwaukee area they would probably be relatives, maybe with an original photo of your motor (and its bike). It would be great to get another period photo of an original 1936 EL "61 OHV" for the collection.

[bobphd]

Thanks Herb. The only Plesec in Milwaukee I can find through a web search is John Plesec who is 101 years old. There are several in Ohio. I will do some more digging and try to get in touch with John Plecec in Milwaukee.

Bob

[pem]

It only took me a couple weeks to remember that I had an original ticket to the Shawano rally.
I dug it out and here it is. No idea what year it is though. I have some photos of some other Wisconsin
rallys and races from back in the day if you guys are interested.

Dick

[milw.pirates]

Please post always interested in Wisc. motorcycle history!

[pem]

Sorry Ken, I tried to scan them and it turned out pretty crappy. When I found these photos the owners were very leary
to let them out of their possession for any length of time so I just went to a photocopy store and lased copied them.
The copiees are good but when you scan them they are all full of lines. The photos were only 2"x3" to begin with. There are a lot of families with with cool photo albums that don't know what they have. Some of the families I contacted just threw away
their old albums.

Dick