Anderson Funeral Home
Homeserving families for over 70 years
312 South Stone St.
Augusta, WI 54722
715-286-2222
George Meyer
George Alfred Meyer passed away at the age of 85 on the evening of Tuesday, January 23, 2024, surrounded by his family at his daughter’s home in Augusta, WI.
George was born in 1938 to Alfred and Ellen Meyer of Milwaukee’s Germantown area. He distinguished himself early as a talented mechanic by building a car that achieved 46 mpg and winning a national competition with it while attending Boys Technical High School, which led to an appointment to General Motors Training School where he graduated second highest in his class.
After graduation, George moved from the city to Dodgeville where he was employed as a mechanic for Cave Buick Company. He met Pamela Harris at a drive-in restaurant where she was employed at a summer job as a carhop. George continued to lunch daily at the drive-in and a romance flourished. For a time, George was employed as a farm worker on the Harris family’s farms, where Pam introduced him to Morgan horses. Interested in agriculture, George attended the University of Wisconsin Short Course.
George joined the US Navy as a Seabee equipment operator, becoming an expert with the Lorain Crane, and was deployed to continue construction of Naval Station Rota in Spain – the same base where his son Darren would serve as a US Navy C-130 In-Flight Technician/Radio Operator decades later.
George returned to Mineral Point after his tour of duty and married his sweetheart Pam. He took a job on a blasting team in the area’s lead and zinc mine. His artistic creativity led him to slip a few carefully selected sections of birch branch into his pockets as he headed into the mine so he could whittle amazingly delicate, graceful, stylized animals while he waited for the okay to set off the blasting charges. He mounted these carvings on pieces of galena (zinc ore) to create tiny scenes. The few surviving examples of George’s early artwork are treasured by his family.
When the mine closed, George joined Nelson Corporation as a welder at their Mineral Point muffler plant. He worked his way up from the shop floor to quality control to drafting. Always hungry to learn, he took advantage of every training opportunity and was eventually transferred to Nelson’s main office in Stoughton as the assistant quality control and safety program director for the entire firm.
George was promoted by Nelson to plant manager of the largest muffler plant in the company, located in Neillsville, WI. George and Pam purchased a wooded lot at the base of a spectacular nunatak called Neillsville Mound and built their dream house there. The family, now with 4 children, raised and showed Morgan horses and spent several summers canoeing and camping in the Boundary Waters. George was an avid hunter and a crack shot with rifle, pistol, shotgun, and bow. Each spring the family would make maple syrup using a stainless steel three-stage cooker designed and built by George.
George was moved to director of Machinery & Equipment where he oversaw the design and construction of two new plants. He was an early innovator in robotics and many of his ideas were patented by Nelson. He finished his career as plant engineer at Bloomer, where he retired after 33 years with Nelson when the firm was acquired by Cummins. During this period, George became fascinated with the history of the Great Lakes fur trade. He would take the kids to blackpowder rendezvous in the summer and built many, many muzzleloaders, tomahawks, and traditional sinew-backed bows in his home workshop, most of the guns decorated with unique carvings and some inlaid with silver wire filigree.
After George and Pam divorced, he spent the first few years of his retirement living a life of adventure travelling the US by motorcycle and motorhome before returning to Wisconsin. He eventually settled near his eldest son and daughters in Fairchild, where his daughter Melanie introduced him to Patti, the woman who would become his second wife. Patti and George moved to Webster where Patti accepted a position as head librarian and George became a volunteer at Forts Folle Avoine historical site and museum, where he constructed the replica log bunkhouse containing their lumber camp display. He also taught himself porcupine quillwork, a traditional First Nations decorative art, as well as 18th century colonial-style silversmithing, and built Patti’s dream house in the woods north of Webster.
George was an innovative but restless talent, constantly busy with multiple interests. He was always wildly enthusiastic for whatever project currently occupied him, but also impatient to “Get It Done!” George’s best work was done when someone else held him to his own initially high standards of workmanship throughout a project to its completion – whenever this occurred, his creations were invariably stunning.
George was both inspiring and frustrating, an extreme autodidact and unstoppable force of nature who HAD to do things his own way. He was also an astonishingly generous man who thought nothing of dropping everything to help someone with a project, even if the effort might take months or years and involve significant investment on his part. He inspired both admiration and puzzlement in his children and grandchildren, all of whom marveled at the man’s stamina and determination and sheer dumb luck when he would decide he needed to explore some new thing. For those who knew George well, the world is a less interesting place for his passing.
George was preceded in death by his parents, his younger brother Robert, and his beloved second wife Patty. He is survived by his four children Todd Meyer, Darren Meyer, Melanie Kiel, and Darcy Guntner, and his six grandchildren Pamela Kiel, Zachary Williams, Madeleine Meyer, Ismael Meyer, Cayden Guntner, and Zoey Guntner.
A memorial service for George Meyer will be held at the 2024 Great Forts Folle Avoine Fur Trade Rendezvous at 10am on Saturday, July 20. Forts Folle Avoine Historical Park is located on County Rd U just 3 miles west of State Rd 35, midway between Webster and Danbury Wisconsin.
There is a daily admission charge which will be covered for memorial attendees by George’s family; please tell the attendant that you are there for George Meyer’s memorial service.
Street address and contact info for Forts Folle Avoine:
8500 County Road U, Danbury, WI 54830
fahp@sirentel.net 715-349-8989
Online condolences can be left at www.andersonfhaugusta.com
