Why is Montello, Wisconsin so mean? (Sheboygan, Kronenwetter: broker, school, to live)

[scoop89]

Well said, Drover! End the annual advertising campaigns if you do not want tourists. But in what other state can you find a house on a rock, or legalized cat hunting?

[DeLaSalle]

Originally Posted by heartbroken2004

We bought a house in Montello and found the people of the town so hateful and so nasty to us that we sold our house there and moved away.

Has anyone else had experience with the meanness of the people of Montello?

That's terrible...

[MysticWisconsin]

Small towns in Wisconsin... there's a concept I'm familiar with. My grandma (Dehn) grew up in Green Lake County, more specifically a small town in Brooklyn. Not to mention her family stayed in that area as well as Berlin. Sometimes you don't need a lot to get by. Sometimes that's just what appeals more. Less really can be more.

[Monkeyclaude]

I've been reading the posts on here and have seen that no one has written in a while, but I will put my two cents worth in. I come from a smaller town than Montello, it is still in WI and is about a 2 1/2hour drive north of here. When I lived up there we had to put up with all the Illinois people going up there for hunting, we even got half days on the Friday before deer hunting because our school was right on the highway and there was so much traffic the cop had to stop it so we could get out. Then we had the week of hunting off because it didn't pay to have school when most of the kids were out in the fields. Now that to me is small town living. I moved out of there to better my education, and I moved to Sun Prairie, WI, hell of a lot bigger town than what I was used to. Then I met my now husband and moved to DeForest, even worse yet. Met some people who were selling their house in Montello saw it, loved it and bought it. The first weekend we had that house is when Father Marquette days were going on at the city park. Went to see what was going on and people were nice to us. We have been here 11 yrs. now and though we are both shy people, we have met many of the locals, who grew up here, and are friends with them. I learned that if you are shy and don't talk to anyone, anywhere for that matter, you aren't going to make friends easily. We have 4 kids, 3 of which attend the school here and I am happy that the friends they have are good kids and that I know who their parents are. I wouldn't get that in the cities we used to live in. I'm happy to say that I live here, pretty much all of the people here are friendly and others (who aren't from here) have to learn to open up and be friendly back. I guess that is all for now. Thank you!

[northernchick]

Well twenty years ago I moved to Montello and thought the same thing. People were rude to transplants. I thought is was because the locals thought these people would take away the few jobs that were available locally. My husband did not have the same problem because he commuted to outside of town for a job. Over the past twenty years there have been many transplants moving into the area I thought it had gotten much better. I thought maybe I just tried to hard with people at the beginning so then I tried the other method of not talking to them and that did not work either. Somewhere It just happened and one friend lead to another but it takes a long time. Best friend found in a class that I took in Portage and she also lived in Montello and was also a transplant. Jobs are still hard to come by in Montello unless you lived here all your life or know someone who has, to help you along. But it is a beautiful small town atmosphere that attracts you here. Too bad the locals do not support the small town business and that is what makes it hard for any small local business to make it. The ones who work in town do not support those businesses. That is what the chamber has their problems with. But yet those same locals come to businesses for donations all the time.

[heartbroken2004]

Originally Posted by northernchick

Well twenty years ago I moved to Montello and thought the same thing. People were rude to transplants. I thought is was because the locals thought these people would take away the few jobs that were available locally. My husband did not have the same problem because he commuted to outside of town for a job. Over the past twenty years there have been many transplants moving into the area I thought it had gotten much better. I thought maybe I just tried to hard with people at the beginning so then I tried the other method of not talking to them and that did not work either. Somewhere It just happened and one friend lead to another but it takes a long time. Best friend found in a class that I took in Portage and she also lived in Montello and was also a transplant. Jobs are still hard to come by in Montello unless you lived here all your life or know someone who has, to help you along. But it is a beautiful small town atmosphere that attracts you here. Too bad the locals do not support the small town business and that is what makes it hard for any small local business to make it. The ones who work in town do not support those businesses. That is what the chamber has their problems with. But yet those same locals come to businesses for donations all the time.

I was glad to see someone else mention that the local residents do not support the local businesses in Montello. It's as if someone is forbidding them to shop in those businesses. I saw that when I lived there, and now, when we drive through the area it seems to me that the businesses downtown are sinking into the marsh, they're so forlorn.

I used to live in Montello, and I'm so glad we got out. I was the original post, "Why is Montello, Wisconsin So Mean?" Life is good now. I live in a small town that doesn't have the sickness that Montello has. The town leaders here are elected and actually lead. In Montello it doesn't matter who is elected, because they're not gonna lead. They're going to do what they're told by a bunch of tired old men who never say anything in public, but by quiet intimidation make sure that no one gets ahead of them in status, business, finance, or anything else of value.

While I'm at it I'd like to mention that Montello is in the area of Wisconsin where the Amish are persecuted. Go to Fall, 2003 Newsletter. There was, in fact, about ten years ago a crime where four people from Montello burned down an Amish buggy. I thought it was very fitting that, after we were gone, Montello had both a tornado and a flood within a few weeks of each other! I laughed the first time we drove through there after it happened, when I saw the trees ripped out of the ground. Used to be a nice shady little town; now it's dried out by the sun and you can still see ugly roots from uprooted trees all over the town. No one seems to want to clean them up.

Now, I met a lot of really lovely, friendly people in Montello. But I also met some nasty little people with nasty little agendas. And the nice people of Montello are very afraid of these people. Everyone in Montello knows who these people are. I apologize to all the wonderful people of Montello, I mean them no harm. As far as these silent, corrupt and petty little "leaders" are concerned, I'm glad I don't have to think about you anymore. It's on your conscience that Montello is destitute and dying. Put this is your pipe and smoke it!

[Drover]

It's kind of sick to laugh at other peoples' misfortunes, even if you didn't like them or get along with them. Just hope that if something like a tornado or flood sweeps through your town that people help instead of laugh. I'd like to think someone capable of laughing at something like tornadoes and floods affecting people's lives and wrecking the landscape wouldn't be welcome in my community either.

[gameroom]

I'm kinda shocked. Whenever my family goes home to visit my extended family in Eau Claire, WI, everyone comments how "NICE" everyone is. In the stores, the restraunts, the mall etc. I'm not sure exactly where Montello is but I guess like anywhere, there are "bad" neighbors, and "good" neighbors. You maybe just got in the wrong neighborhood. And I'm not referring to bad in the sense of economics, or being run down. I've had some really bad weird neighbors everywhere I guess.....even in WI. My sister's husband got transferred to Buffalo New York - not anywhere near as small as Montello, WI, and she said it was the worst place she has ever lived. In fact, she demanded that her husband do whatever he could to get them out of there. They only stayed a little over a year. Keep in mind this is a family who has lived all over the US, due to work transfers. Their daughter was treated HORRIBLE. She was one of very few blonde hair blue eyed girls in her school. Although she was the reason they won some baseball championship (she was the pitcher), all the other girls snubbed her. She wasn't ever invited to parties, or included in anything. She was very pretty, and obviously they were very jealous. My sister said it was the most unfriendly place she had ever lived. BTW, she said the most friendly place was in southern Alabama....and she has lived in about 15 states. In Las Vegas, and California alot of New Yorkers complain that they HATE Californians. They say its because they treat them so bad. Some people can't tolerate people that are different than themselves. Perhaps you were too "different" for little Montello.

[heartbroken2004]

Originally Posted by Drover

It's kind of sick to laugh at other peoples' misfortunes, even if you didn't like them or get along with them. Just hope that if something like a tornado or flood sweeps through your town that people help instead of laugh. I'd like to think someone capable of laughing at something like tornadoes and floods affecting people's lives and wrecking the landscape wouldn't be welcome in my community either.

I should have made myself clearer. I ALWAYS help my neighbor. I always helped my neighbors in Montello, and I help them here in our new town. In my comments about the flood and tornado in Montello I was expressing amusement that Montello, with all its hidden motives and secrets, should be swept clean by nature itself. I agree that it is sick laughing at tornado and flood damage. But the amusement I felt about Montello was particular to that scenario alone: there was very little actual damage, no fatalities, few homes were even harmed. There was merely a grand, grand sweep of high wind and water to metaphorally clear away the places the the "leaders" of Montello could hide their secrets. When I afterwards visited the friends I had made there, they too were laughing at some of the people who suffered landscape damages, and how they "had it coming." These were some of the nice people, who lived quietly but saw over and over what went on in that city. Then, after these catastrophes it appears there was no money (or inclination) to clear away the debris, and Montello no longer looks like the sweet, tree-lined community I thought it was years ago when we moved there. It's open and naked for God and man to see it. It's laughable that the "powers" who run the town can't get enough cash together to clean up a simple municipal mess.

Perhaps, Drover, you should have read between the lines and seen the pain that this experience caused me and my family. Perhaps you shouldn't have just taken one sentence out of context and condemned me as someone who wouldn't be welcome in "your" community. Perhaps you should have surmised the heartache it would take to cause someone to sell a house, losing money on realtor fees, losing "sweat equity," changing schools and starting over somewhere else.

Lastly, you mentioned that you'd like to think someone (who laughed at tornados, etc., like I did) wouldn't be welcome in your community. You didn't get the whole point. NO ONE is welcome in Montello, not laughers at tornadoes, not people who want to join in a community and offer their hearts, NO ONE. As another post in this forum said, regarding the people of Montello, "they just aren't fond of newcomers and tourists." Those two categories sum up the entire population of the rest of the planet outside of Montello. When you have lived in Montello for awhile, you come back on this forum and we'll discuss Montello intelligently and thoroughly. I have not told the half of what evils I know about Montello.

[Drover]

You know what? I don't want to talk about Montello with you. I've lived in sucky places before, but for Godsake, I got over it and got on with my life instead of letting it traumatize me for years. In fact I make a concerted effort not to badmouth those places on these forums out of respect for the people that still live in those places and like where they live. I don't like it when people run down where I live so I try not to do the same to other places no matter how much I dislike them. I will still share my honest opinions on those places but I try to be diplomatic about it. And I sure wouldn't start a thread specifically to whine about what a terrible place it is. I'm sorry you had a bad experience in Montello, but your inability to let go and move on suggests that it had less to do with the city itself than you're willing to admit.