Helen Hullberg, a Library employee for 38 years, passed away on September 30, 2024. To help us honor Helen, Margo Hecker, a local writer, graciously donated her time to write about Helen’s life.
Helen Anita Hullberg
Editor’s note: Menomonie Public Library Director Joleen Sterk and Margo Hecker interviewed Helen Hullberg twice in September 2024 shortly before her death. This article also quotes information gathered and written by library employee Lisa Murray, who talked with Helen on Sept. 27, 2023.
By MARGO HECKER
There is an invisible thread that runs between the two libraries that have served the city of Menomonie, Wis., over the years, the Mabel Tainter Memorial and Menomonie Public Library.
That thread is a woman, Helen Hullberg, who died Oct. 1, 2024, at Dove Healthcare-West in Eau Claire. Helen started working on April 1, 1974 at the library when it was still located in the Mabel Tainter Memorial.
Elizabeth Pinkepank was library director; her sister, Mae, was assistant director. The Pinkepanks worked at the Mabel Tainter Memorial from the 1920s to 1930s until they retired in 1977. The Pinkepank family was originally from Menomonie; their house was located on Sixth Street. The women were “totally devoted” to the library, Helen recalled. “Mae could be the strong leader,” Helen said. “I think Elizabeth got what she wanted, but in a different way.”
Lumber baron Andrew Tainter had the memorial, located on Main Street in downtown Menomonie, built in memory of his daughter Mabel, several years after her death. The Menomonie Chamber of Commerce also was located in the Mabel Tainter Memorial until 1979.
Helen worked at the memorial a total of 12 ½ years. She loved being a librarian, the interactions with the customers, the books and the numerous complexities a library contains within its stacks, staff and patrons. “Once I got into it, I thought, ‘Oh, I love this.’”
Helen said that she used to wear high heels every day to work when she first started. She also wore slacks, as she needed to climb the moving ladders at the Mabel to get down. Helen would often climb the pipes and walk along the thin shelving edge, as it was easier than moving the rolling ladder down the narrow aisles.
The Mabel Tainter Library budget totaled $186,157 for 1981-82. The city provided $99,725; Dunn County provided $44,877. The balance of the budget came from rents, fines and interest. Assets in July 1982 totaled $374,675. Of the 5,389 borrowers, 3,108 were city residents, and 2,281 were rural, or 42%.
Menomonie Public Library, located on Wolske Bay Road on the shores of Lake Menomin, was completed in 1986. The library has its own detailed and interesting history.
Building a new library on the shores of Lake Menomin was contentious to some Menomonie residents, Helen said. Some opponents maintained that the Mabel Tainter library had enough space for books, although it had reached capacity. Computers were starting to be used by library staff and patrons, but there wasn’t enough room for an up-to-date system in the memorial. Due to the stone work in the memorial’s construction, it was impossible to place the wiring inside the walls, which is standard in current construction.
Helen said she was in favor of the new library, and she stayed out of the political discussion about it.
As part of the staff, Helen helped move the library’s books and materials from the Mabel Tainter to the new library, where there was far more room. Thanks to sufficient funding, it was possible to install a new, state-of-the-art computer system for the library and its patrons.
Library staff moved the big books, Helen told Lisa. “We’d put the books into baskets and roll them up the conveyor into the trucks.” Once, a rack tipped over in transit from the memorial on Main Street to the new library next to Lake Menomin on Wolske Bay Road. The workers needed to very carefully tip the book rack upright.
When she moved to the new library, Helen started wearing skirts and pantyhose. That changed shortly after she found herself crawling under desks at circulation, reference and the computers used by the public. “In a lot of minds, it’s still the New Library,” she said.
Barbara Bush, wife to then U.S. Vice President George Bush, attended the library’s grand opening in 1986. Accompanied by her U.S. Secret Service detail, Mrs. Bush attended a meet-and-greet event at the Mabel Tainter Memorial. A UW-Stout student who had opposed the new library and served on the Menomonie City Council approached Mrs. Bush in such a way that Secret Service employees quickly surrounded him, Helen recalled. Men in boats on Lake Menomin were likely Secret Service agents.
Eldora Ondrus’ class sang at the library’s grand opening and introduced Mrs. Bush. Background checks of library employees were completed before Mrs. Bush arrived for the grand opening, Helen said she learned later. A squirrel got loose in the library that day; the children chased it around.
In the new library, the computer system’s construction diagram was not very good. When workers ran lines for the first network, trays were installed where they were supposed to connect, but didn’t. An Apple IIe in the basement was the first
addition. The second computer network was put into the ceiling, where it was easily found. As technology and demands on the computer system became more complex, Helen helped move the computer system four times within the library. The library system in 2024 is on a fiberoptic network with the University of Wisconsin-Stout and the Mayo Medical System.
Helen loved the variety of work at the library; she said she was never bored. She was highly regarded by her coworkers and the public. “To devote almost 40 years of your life to an institution, that’s institutional knowledge,” current Library Director Joleen Sterk said. “We were lucky to glean much of Helen’s institutional knowledge before she retired, and will carry it forward.”
Helen also trained Menomonie Public Library employees like Jodi Bird, who started working at the library in 1996, has worked various positions and uses the knowledge that Helen instilled into her every day; she continues to work at the library, which also continues its tradition of longtime employment.
You won’t find Helen Hullberg’s name on the list of library directors. She served under eight different library directors during her time at the library. Directors while Helen was an employee were, starting in 1974, Elizabeth Pinkepank until 1977; Barbara Knotts, 1977-81; Kathy Tietz, 1981-84; Deborah Paulsen 1984-86; Arnie Gutkowski, 1987-89; Dennis Olson, 1989-99; Anita Haller, 1999-2000; Dianne Lueder, 2001-2007; and Ted Stark., 2007-2021. Helen functioned as interim library director whenever the position was vacant. Joleen Sterk became library director in summer 2021, a position she continues to hold.
Helen never desired to be library director. She preferred hands-on, face-to-face work with library patrons over the library management and budgets that often occupy much of a library director’s time. Her work mainly involved working as business manager, library cataloger and information technology specialist.
Helen was the eldest of the seven Hullberg children. In her growing-up years, Helen lived with her family on a dairy farm near Wheeler; they typically had 30-32 cows. Milking time was strictly kept at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. The Hullberg children would carry the milk to the bulk tank. Chores for the children would vary by season.
At different times when he was farming, Helen’s dad also worked at the Farmers Union in Ridgeland and Sanna Dairy in Menomonie. Helen attended local rural schools. She was a 4-H mmber from sixth to eighth grade. Helen graduated from Menomonie High School in 1968. She was a member of the Honor Society, and especially enjoyed school dances and football games. “To me, it was just a normal thing,” she said.
A first generation college student, she received a bachelor of science degree in 1973 from UW-Eau Claire with a major in mathematics and a minor in biology and accounting. She had intended to be a mathematics teacher, but decided against that path after taking a course during college at Menomonie High School, where she learned of some rowdy students who had recently blown up a toilet in the high school. “So I kind of lost interest in that,” Helen said, her typical matter-of-fact approach to life and sense of humor obvious as she told the story.
Helen started working at the Mabel Tainter Memorial Library on April 1, 1974. She was filling a position that has been vacated by her cousin Jane Hullberg, who was moving to Florida and getting married. Helen also worked part time at Wally’s Chalet from her sophomore year at college until after graduation.
At the recommendation of the Pinkepanks, Helen returned to UW-Eau Claire part time to take classes for a library science minor, which completed somewhere between 1975 to 1977. She was certified as a Grade 2 librarian, which allowed her to become a library director in Wisconsin towns with populations of less than 8,500.
Helen then made another decision that even further defined her career path: She loved the variety of her work at the library and didn’t want to be a library director, which would primarily limit her to management roles. “I loved this job because it
was always changing,” she said.
After her retirement at age 62, Helen served terms on the Menomonie Library Foundation Board and the Menomonie Library Board of Trustees.
Helen continued to live after retirement at her home in east Menomonie, where she started living in the summer of 1969. She had lived one semester at the Governor’s Hall Dormitory at UW-Eau Claire while she was a student. The Hullberg house at 1720 Sixth St.E. was built in the heart of what is now UW-Stout student housing. Helen lived there first with her grandmother, then with her Aunt Lily, her dad’s sister, from 1969 to 1982. The house was built in 1920 and has been in the Hullberg family since 1957.
Of course, Helen had a life outside the library. She loved animals and had a favorite dog. She and her immediate family, although living in different parts of the United States, remained emotionally and socially connected, in the later years meeting over Zoom.
Helen and her cousin, Ardis Kyker, attended plays together since high school. Helen grew animated as she discussed this passion she shared with her cousin. They went to plays in the Twin Cities at the Ordway, State, Orpheum and Guthrie Theaters and at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. Her favorite plays were “Phantom of the Opera” and “Les Miserables.”
“People say, “Why didn’t you get married?’ I didn’t find the right man,” she said, although she dated.
“I’ve tried very hard to be a good person,” Helen said in an interview at the end of her life. After she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in mid-June 2024, “I got a little moist around the eyes, but I did not cry.”
Helen is survived by her siblings, Linda Thomas of Davenport, Fla.; John Hullberg of Menomonie; Deb Manske of Menomonie; Allen Hullberg of Lakeville, Minn.; Ardis Olson of Lakeland, Fla.; and niece Sara Barnes of Eau Claire. She is further survived by her uncle Charles Walikonis of Pecatonia, Ill., and many other relatives and friends.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Chester and Helen (Walikonis) Hullberg and a brother, Chester Hullberg Jr.