4PeteSake announces date for day in the park and golf outing, new recipients

Lone Rock’s John Acker used to go a million miles an hour. A self-employed jack-of-all-trades since he was 18, John kept busy building, roofing, siding, doing car repairs – whatever someone needed – for almost 40 years. And then last August a fluke slip during a roofing job sent him tumbling 20 feet to the ground. He broke his femur and his pelvis; and shattered his wrist and several vertebrae. And just like that, a lifetime of activity came to a halt. Eager to recover after multiple surgeries and a month in the hospital, Acker worked hard at rehabbing his broken body. He had to relearn how to sit, to walk, to dress himself, and to shower – all while enduring excruciating pain. Nearly a year later, he’s learning that willpower alone isn’t always enough. He can get on his feet, but only for 20 minutes at a time. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve hit a wall,” he says. To keep busy, he dusts and vacuums, does the dishes, plants flowers, listens to ‘70s rock and roll, and minds his many bird feeders. “I’d make a very good wife,” he jokes. With John’s work future uncertain, he and his wife Tracy reached out to 4PeteSake. “They saved our house,” he says.

Donald and Jordean Grass are natives of the Driftless area who settled in Lone Rock in the early 2000s “for a change of life.” With health issues keeping them both from working, that life is a low-key one now filled with card games and trips to the store.

Good budgeting has kept the Grasses on top of their monthly bills, but when their trailer needed significant repairs earlier this year to meet the requirements of their lease, they realized they needed help. After seeing an article about 4PeteSake in the paper, they reached out. 4PeteSake was able to help the Grasses make the necessary repairs.

Born in Verona and raised in Mazo, David Ray Davenport spent 32 years operating a forklift at Norske Wood Works in Black Earth. He’s lived in Lone Rock since 1999.

Retired now and on a fixed income, Davenport reached out to 4PeteSake when his furnace needed replacing. While he waits for cool temps to return, Davenport plans to spend the summer scavenging garage sales for a bike to help him rehab an injured leg.

Natalie Nicoll is a fighter. She’d lost six siblings to cancer when she was diagnosed herself in 2014. She beat it. “The doctor came in and told me ‘you’re cancer-free.’ I couldn’t believe it.” But in August of last year, the cancer returned. “I turned 85 in March – and I want to take one more trip,” she says. Nicoll had an itinerant upbringing, moving from New York state as a child to places as far-flung as southern California, Waco, TX, Douglas, AZ, and Goldfield, NV (now one of the country’s most famous ghost towns). She settled with family in the River Valley in the early 70s. She currently lives in Lone Rock with her son, her daughter-in-law, and her five-year-old chihuahua Faun.

She has plans to visit family in Oregon this summer. 4PeteSake has been able to help with expenses while Nicoll undergoes treatment.

Caldwell and her family moved to Spring Green in 2019. They love it here. 8th grader Zach started a successful lawn and snow removal business. But then in April of last year, Caldwell’s husband David suffered a heart attack, requiring triple bypass surgery.

It sent the family reeling. Uninsured and without a steady source of income, Regina did what she could to keep the family of four fed and a roof over their head. She applied for loans and used the food pantry. But she was still falling behind. That was when someone suggested that Caldwell reach out to 4PeteSake. “If anyone out there needs help, they should apply,” says Caldwell. “They helped us so much.”

“The universe opened its helping hands for me,” says Spring Green’s Heloise Idstein. Idstein – a native of South Africa, who moved to the area in 2015 with her husband Frank Chaffee – received a cancer diagnosis in May of last year. She was uninsured. “It felt like the bottom had fallen out,” she says. Scared and anxious about the financial toll the diagnosis would take on her and Frank, she was also worried about not having a reliable vehicle to get her to treatments. She recalls running an errand to People’s Community Bank, where she was told: “There is help.” A day later, she got a call from River Valley Commons, who put her in touch with 4PeteSake. “The people in this community really help,” says Idstein. “They don’t just offer help, they jump right in.”

4PeteSake worked with Darlington’s Virtue Motors to get Idstein a car, which proved its reliability earlier this year when she experienced a medical emergency. “We could have taken an ambulance—or the car,” says Idstein. “We took the car.”

The Fromfelds and their 11-year-old twins were expecting 2020 to be a challenging year, but what they got was so much more than they anticipated. In November, 2019, Shawna was diagnosed with a brain tumor. In December, she learned that it wasn’t a single tumor—it was two. Surgery was scheduled for April, 2020, but when Covid hit, it was postponed. And that’s when the Plain family got more news: they were about to become foster parents. “We were approved to foster in early 2019 and had been waiting for a placement,” explains Shawna. “And just when my surgery got delayed, we learned we’d been selected.” Two brothers, 7 and 9, soon joined the Fromfeld household.

Shawna finally had her surgery in June, but remained out of work for months while she recovered. The family – now six – needed help. A school counselor referred them to 4PeteSake. “They understood that it wasn’t just the big things that we needed help with,” says Shawna. “It was the daily bills that can get overlooked when you’re focused on the biggies. They’re miracle workers.”

Spring Green’s Terri Pardee has to laugh so she won’t cry. “Andrew needs to stop being in the top ten percent of everything,” she says. Pardee’s son Andrew was the valedictorian of River Valley’s 2016 graduating class. He went on to graduate with highest honors at UW-La Crosse and just completed his first year of doctorate work with a 4.0. But then earlier this year, during a routine checkup, doctors discovered a pea-sized lump in Andrew’s neck. They said there was only a ten percent chance that it was cancerous. Soon, Andrew was being scheduled for surgery. He had Papillary Thyroid Cancer. While he takes radiation treatment and waits for the fall to find out if he’s cancerfree, Andrew continues working toward the career he’s been preparing for since he was in 4th grade: physical therapy. He’ll intern this summer in Reedsburg with fellow River Valley alum Dr. Craig Johnson. 4PeteSake was able to help the Pardees cover some medical expenses that weren’t covered by insurance.