History Lesson at the Library

About once a month, the Neenah Library and the Neenah Historical Society host a program revolving about some aspect of Neenah history. This month was a talk about the Galloway Company and the Neenah Dairy Queen. As a fan of the Neenah Dairy Queen, this one was one I really wanted to go to and the hubby decided it was something he was interested too.

Because I was already in Neenah for Art After Dark, I met the hubby at the library. The program started at 7 and went to save us seats around 6:35. I got one of the last 2 seats aisle seats towards the back. By the time the program started, it was a full house with standing room only... and most of the people were twice our age.

The program was quite interesting. It expanded on what I already knew of the Galloway Company and gave me the history of the Reiser Dairy Queen. Not only that, Jim Reiser, of Neenah Dairy Queen, and Tim Galloway, of the Galloway Company, talked about the partnership between the two companies and the company.

I learned a lot from Tim and Jim. Both men were very good speakers and even mixed humor into their presentation. It was funny to see Tim give his presentation without notes while Jim had to read from his notebook -- to make sure he didn't forget anything.

Besides supplying Dairy Queen with their "ice milk" mixture, if your dessert and/or candy bar is made with sweetened condensed milk or caramel, chances are that sweetened condensed milk was made in Neenah at Galloway. Those Rum Chatas and other cream liqueuer bases that you like to consume probably came from Neenah, Wisconsin. Galloway is much more than the family dairy that it started off as back in the late 1800s.

Dairy Queens were banned in Wisconsin until the legislature allowed ice milk in Wisconsin. Because of some law on the books, all ice cream had to be at least 10% milk fat... and Dairy Queen used ice milk which was only 5% ice milk. Jim Reiser's dad was involved in getting that changed... I just don't remember how anymore.

The Reisers and the Galloways forged a friendship that benefited both their business and personal lives not to mention the community. Although the Neenah Dairy is no longer owned by the Reisers and the Galloway Company has it's first non-family member president, they are both still big contributors to the community.

It was a great program that both of enjoyed tremendously. I will continue to seek out other history lessons at the library that we both are interested in.

Oh....

And the best part...

Free Dilly Bars.

I wish all library programs end with free dilly bars.