The original George “Red” Semrow’s Beer Depot is now, 59 years after it first opened for business, under its fourth owner as J’s Liquor. Semrow had no competition in 1949 when he started, but there’s plenty today, including two supermarket franchises.
Red was born in 1916 and only attended grade school, the nearby Willow Spring Grade School.
The U.S. entered World War II in 1941 when he was 25 years old, but he was not inducted. He was too old for the first 18- to 21-year-old callup.
Then he was exempted as a farmboy, and later because he worked at the Wauwatosa Liberty (Grede) Foundry, an essential war production job. He continued to get older, too, reaching 29 by the time the war ended.
He raised rabbits during the war years in a house close to Willow Spring Mobile Home Park. Most meats were strictly rationed during the war, but rabbit meat wasn’t one of them.
In 1946, a year after the war ended, he married Dorothy Janke, a Granville woman, but not before she extracted a promise from him to get rid of the rabbits.
“I sold most of the rabbits,” Red recalled recently, “but I fooled her. Gradually I got the number back up. You know how rabbits multiply.”
Soon after they married, Red found out that the Lisbon Telephone Co. central office and its attached sheds were for sale. Dorothy was interested in the Main Street house that housed the telephone office, but Red was intrigued by the back shed, where he could really get his rabbit business going.
Before then, Bell Telephone had not extended its reach into rural communities such as Sussex, which had Lisbon Telephone Co., but now the big, nationwide telephone company started to acquire such rural phone businesses.
Red bought the property for $5,500. The deal included a kicker allowing Lisbon Telephone Co. to rent the front room for its central office for $25 a month, effectively eliminating Semrow’s mortgage payment for the first three years, after which the telephone company left.
Red retained his foundry job while his rabbit livestock boomed, but by now Dorothy saw the profit potential and started feeding and watering the animals and helping out as needed. Red favored New Zealand white rabbits.
He had about 1,000 rabbits in the sheds behind his downtown Sussex home. Red sold 200 rabbits per week to Soden’s Market in Milwaukee – most of them alive. He also brokered stock raised by other rabbit farmers.
Besides selling live rabbits, Red also butchered a lot of them, including any brokered rabbits that showed some color, because he only sold the “white” New Zealand variety.
While Soden’s Market took 90 percent of his stock, Ray Raddenback at the Sussex Brook Hotel and later Marian Donkle, who took over the hotel and renamed it Donkle’s Tap, bought most of the rest.
(All that remains of the old hotel is the clock in Sussex Square Park.)
By 1949, however, it was time to get out of the rabbit-raising business as Red’s customers could now get nonrationed beef and pork. It was time to find a new part-time job, and just before Christmas he hit upon the beer depot idea.
He cleaned out the sheds and remodeled them. Dorothy tended the business during the day while minding their growing family. (They ultimately had four children.)
It was all new to Red, determining what to order and how much. He started with a case of gin because it was Christmastime. “My money was limited,” Red said.
He also had a little problem with a local church group that wanted to shut it down. Taverns were bad enough – Sussex already had three of them, and Whiskey Corners was only a long mile away – the church people thought.
Red went to see Village President Charles Busse about the opposition, but no one followed through to stop him.
Semrow also kept his full-time job for 12 more years before he went full time at the beer depot.
Right next to the beer depot was the Sussex Fire Department garage, and in March 1953 Red joined up. Because he lived next door, he was often the first one there and would have the doors open as the other volunteer firemen arrived.
He remained a valued and active member for more than 20 years. His fellow volunteers elected him their steward (providing food and beverages after a practice or a fire call, conveniently from his business right next door), and he served in that position for many years.
Red and Dorothy sold their home and business to Pat and Dave Bartlett in May 1979. They retired to a summer property on Green Lake and to winter digs in Florida. He returned often to make the annual Fire Department Founders party for retired firefighters in February.
Red is buried in the front row of St. James Catholic Cemetery on Town Line Road.
March 17, 1992
Patricia Bartlett, 48, (Inc.)
Address:
W232-N6116 Waukesha Ave.
Date of Birth:
April 6, 1943
Occupation:
Liquor store owner
—
Feb 1, 1996
Patricia Bartlett, 52
Address, Time in District: N58-W24248 Clover Drive, 33 years
Date of Birth: April 6, 1943
Occupation: Partner in OldeCountry Spirits
—
Bartlett, David L.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI) – Sunday, October 14, 2012
Author: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Staff
Age 72 years. Of the Town of Waukesha. Formerly ofSussex . Born to Eternal Life Friday, October 12, 2012. Beloved wife of Patricia (nee Thelen). Loving father of Suzie (James) Ureda, Brett (Liz), Jeff (Linda) and Jason (Kathy) Bartlett. Proud Papa Dave of David, Samantha, Blake, Brooke, Brynn, Cameron, Morgan and Missy. Dear brother of Diane Maglio. Further survived by nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends.
The family will receive relatives and friends on Wednesday, Oct. 17, at the funeral home from 3:30 PM until time of Memorial Service at 5:30 PM. Private burial Oak Hill Cemetery, Brookfield. Dave was a resident of Sussex for 39 years and the former owner of Olde Country Spirits Liquor Store in Sussex . Dave also was a member of the Sussex Lions Club. In lieu of flowers, memorials to the Medical College of Wisconsin Division of Oncology, 9200 W. Wisconsin Ave., Wauwatosa, WI 53226.
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