Click on the following link to watch a slide show of Frank's life.  

https://youtu.be/yzyW6afvPAs
Click on the following link to watch Frank's funeral service.

https://youtu.be/pd4gSiVi3mU

     FRANK A. PAKIZ, 100, of Neillsville, WI, formerly of Greenwood, WI, passed away on October 17, 2021, at Riverside Assisted Living in Neillsville.  Funeral services will be held at 10am on Saturday, October 23, 2021 at Cuddie Funeral Home in Greenwood.  Rev. Leo Johnson will officiate and burial will follow in Holy Family Cemetery in Willard, WI.  Pallbearers are: Becky Hinds, Mike Pakiz, Troy Pakiz, Todd Pakiz, Nicole Pline and Andy Pakiz.  Visitation will be held at Cuddie Funeral Home on Friday, October 22, 2021 from 4pm to 8pm, and again on Saturday, at the funeral home, from 9:30am until time of service.

     Frank Anton Pakiz was born July 2, 1921 in Willard, WI, the second child of Vladimir “Mirko” and Olga (Tiran) Pakiz.  He was raised on the family farm, received his education at Willard Grade School and graduated from Greenwood High School in 1938.  He continued to work on the family farm until his marriage to Rosaline Plautz on November 30, 1946 at Holy Family Rectory in Willard.  They farmed together southwest of Greenwood, raised their family and retired in 1980.  Frank and Rose built their retirement home a short distance up the road and continued to live there until Rose’s passing in 2014.  He then resided at Black River Apartments in Greenwood until 2017 before moving to Riverside Assisted Living in Neillsville.

     Frank had many talents but especially music, getting his first accordion at about age 15.  He played for many decades at countless wedding dances and parties in the area.  He was instrumental in the formation of the “Slovenska Druzba” club where the Slovenian music and culture was enjoyed by many.  He was also a key contributor to the book “Spominska Zgodovina”, Historical Memories of the Slovenian settlers in Willard.  Frank was a charter member of the Clark County Male Chorus for over 40 years.  He also served on the Midland Co-op Board and was a member of the Lions Club.  He was an avid woodworker in retirement and crafted many fine quality furniture projects for family and friends.  Frank and Rose also loved to travel, making 7 trips to Slovenia to connect with relatives and friends.  They traveled widely to all parts of the US and Canada.

     He will be greatly missed by his children: Larry (Sue) Pakiz of Greenwood, Dave (Betty) Pakiz of Huntley, IL, Patrice Pakiz (Alton Accola) of Apple Valley, MN; 6 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren: Becky (Tim) Hinds, Jack, Abigail, and Theodore of Queen Creek, AZ; Mike (Tara) Pakiz and Logan of Destin, FL; Troy (Jennifer) Pakiz, Amelia, Malia and Brody of Fayetteville, GA; Todd (Kaysie) Pakiz, Brayden and Addison Rose of New Prague, MN; Nicole (Tim) Pline, Ethan and Isaac, Chesapeake, VA; Andy Pakiz and Gavin of Fort Collins, CO; one sister, Marie Kuznacic of Sheboygan; a sister-in-law, Marge Plautz of Chippewa Falls; many nieces, nephews and other relatives and friends.

     He was preceded in death by his parents; his wife, Rose; one son, Dennis; his brother, Gilbert; one great granddaughter, Caroline Pakiz, and numerous brothers and sisters-in-law.

     The family wishes to thank Riverside Assisted Living and especially Kati Kunhart for the gentle and compassionate care Dad received in his final months.  Also, thanks to St. Croix Hospice for their comfort and assistance.

     Because of Frank's love for reading, his family asks that donations be given in his name to the Greenwood Public Library.


Frank Pakiz – A Brief History
 
Born in Willard July 2, 1921
 
FIRST MEMORY
My first memory of being alive is 1926 when my parents decided to build a new barn.  Otto Roesler of Greenwood was the builder.  “Happy” Routar made the stone wall.  Matt Bomback finished the floor and Tony Trunkel furnished 12 stanchions and a calf pen and bull pen. Someone put me on the unnailed hay mow floor and I was very scared! 
 
My brother who was 13 months older than me, but we started school the same year together.  Neither of us spoke any English! 
 
In the spring of 1926 or 1927 I came down with pneumonia.  Dr. Boechman came every few days and tried to draw the fluid out, but it solidified.  He said I’d have to go to the Marshfield Hospital.  My parents didn’t have a car so about 8 am Dad carried me to Willard and Mr. John Zallar helped carry me to the Foster Train Station.  We changed to the Soo Line in Greenwood and it was getting dark when we arrived in Marshfield.  At the hospital they took a piece of rib out so they could put  a hose into my lung.  There were 2 one-gallon jars with corks by my bed. One had water in it and a hose to the second one.  Another hose went from the full jar to my mouth and I blew on it so the water was forced into the empty jar, and then reversed that many times every day.  No antibiotics!  That cleared my lungs.
 
My mother stayed with me for 3 weeks and our bill was, I think, $330.  I think Mr. Cesnik came after us.  My folks kept me in the same grade the following year because they felt I would be too frail to walk to school in bad weather.  It wasn’t too long after I returned from the hospital it was regular farm chores for me – milking, picking eggs, etc.
 
I liked horses and always wished for a pony, but never had one, nor did I have a bicycle.
 
I remember when we first had our mail delivered, 1926.  Our neighbor Mr. Hintz put up a post with a cross arm so there was room for 2 mailboxes.  Before that we all walked to Willard to get our mail, about ½ mile in our case.  We had no daily newspaper, only a weekly Slovenian paper.
 
We had a battery-operated radio “Atwater Kent” that ran on 2 “A” batteries, 1 “C” battery and 1 6-volt (either a “dry” or regular car battery that we took to the neighbors to “charge.”
 
Neighbors worked with neighbors for all occasions – threshing, corn harvesting, sawing firewood.  The ladies outdid themselves with meals.  I remember many times when we moved from one farm to another right after lunch my stomach ached so I had to stand on my toes on the middle of the wagon rack to lessen the jolting down the road on our steel wheeled wagon. 
 
We had corn husking “bees” where snapped ears were brought under cover and friends gathered in the evening to husk by the light of the kerosene lantern which ended with a feast.
 
My parents separated their milk for a time and sold it to the Weuthrich Creamery and used the skim milk for chicken feed.  Poultry was a big item in our lives.  Up to 400 laying hens and also “capons” were sold every year. I helped “caponize” hundreds of roosters.  I helped my father caponize around the neighborhood.  We mixed the dry feed with the skim milk and the capons loved it and grew fast and tender!
 
I rigged up an old car generator to the pump engine to “charge” an old car battery and so we had 2 “electric” lights in the barn!
 
Mr. Bombach made me a lathe that I belted to the pump engine.  I knew nothing about “turning” and after a few chunks of firewood flew out into “space” I abandoned it.
 
I sang in the all-male chorus my father organized and sang 1^st tenor to bass!
 
1935
As time went by, the neighbors started to farm with tractors, and horses seemed to be quite inadequate, so around 1936 or so Dad bought an old “Fordson” with what was called a “wheel-less” plough.  It was fully mounted!  Time was limited during my high school days, so I found a pair of “Buick” headlamps and fastend them to the fenders.  I put in “27 volt” bulbs so they operated from the magneto like on the Model T Ford cars.  They were very nice as long as the engine was “revved up”, but as it slowed down or stopped, the lights went out.  I did quite a lot of work after school!
 
In 1940 a new “Case” tractor with rubber tires was purchased. 
 
Dad was interested in music and tried to teach me to play the piano, but I never liked looking at that “big pile of lumber” and not seeing what was behind me!  So I asked if I could get an accordion and was granted my wish.  I ordered my first from Sears & Roebuck for $46 in the middle of winter.  As the mail came to Willard twice daily, and since the accordion didn’t come in the morning mail, I hitched the team to the sleigh and went to the post office to see if it was there and it was.  When I unpacked the box, I was very disappointed as no sound whosoever came out. 
 
I sent it back and wanted another.  That one came and again no sound on the other side! I sent that one back and wanted my money back.  I then ordered another from Montgomery Ward for $63!  That was a nice accordion and I used it for many years!
 
I sang in the all-male chorus my father organized and sang 1^st tenor to bass!
 
Life wasn’t always so tranquil!  I wasn’t too gung-ho in school – just enough to get by!  I was never in any “gang”, sports or “smoking!”  We played a little “ball” by the schoolhouse, but I was never good at it!  I liked to sit in the sun at recess and noon and just visit. 
 
I remember an incident when there was a problem with the “big kids” and the “little kids” throwing snowballs.  It was decided that the back of the school was for the big kids and the front was for the smaller ones.  One recess a couple of big girls stood on the “small kids” area and threw wet snowballs at a couple of us boys on the “big” side!  I wasn’t going to let them get away with that so I threw a good sized snowball back and hit one of the girls in her mid-section.  She went in and told our principal what happened and so I was to “stay in” every recess until I had written a sentence that I remember had seventeen words in it so many times.  So I went up to the principal and told him that it would be impossible to do that by the end of the school year!  He didn’t like that, so being a large husky person, he took a hold of the back of my shirt and marched me back to my seat and told me to get started!  He then went downstairs to load the furnace and I made a “beeline” for home!  I didn’t go back to school that year and it was my eighth grade!
 
I met the principal smoking in the store (he lived upstairs in Quasts’ Store) every once in a while.  I was hauling milk to the cheese factory every day and stopped to get whatever was needed at the time.  Toward the end of the year I was worried about getting my diploma!  I asked him when the final exams would be and he said he didn’t know.  I found out later they were the next day, so I never received my diploma!  I guessed I’d not be going to high school. 
 
Toward fall of that year our county superintendent Mr. Slock came out to the farm and wanted to know why I wasn’t going to go to high school.  I told him I didn’t have my eighth grade diploma.  He said, “Don’t let that stop you.”  We want you back in school, so on I went.  As it was, those following 2 years there were enough students in Willard to have ninth and tenth grades in Willard which was nice.
 
HIGH SCHOOL
 
In entered Greenwood High School in 1936 as a junior.  My brother was a senior.  We drove the Model “A” pickup to school.  I joined the band and knowing about music I was in the senior band by the end of the semester playing trombone.  By the end of my senior year, I was in a brass combo – cornet, sax, bass horn and drums, beside me on accordion and piano.  We played for a few engagements around the area.  One notable one was at the Loyal Theater on New Year’s Eve after the regular show.  It was 40 below zero on New Year’s Day.  We played ‘till around 4 AM!
 
One school day there was a bad snowstorm and we were able to get about halfway home.  It was beginning to get dark so we decided we’d better head back to town.  We asked Louie Kebl if we could stay in the shoe shop overnight.  I think I was with Ernie Arch and Fred Barr. We were marooned for 2 days until we found out County “G” was open to Willard.  By that time there were others wanting to get home.  Mille Podobnik was one.  We knew we could get to Willard so we all took off on Saturday morning.  When we got to Willard we saw the road was open beyond Willard to the first corner going east – Ernie and Millie both lived on that road.  They said they would walk the rest of the way – about 1-1/2 or 2 miles.  When we got to the corner we thought we saw car tracks coming from that direction.  IF they made it we should try.  Lo and behold we drove all the way to their homes and back on the TOP of the snow banks! 
 
AFTER HIGH SCHOOL 1938
Before the “30’s”, while Foster’s train still came through Willard, my folks had a small clientele of friends in Chicago and also New York who bought eggs and poultry regularly.  I remember walking to Willard pushing a 2-wheeled cart with egg crates.  Our parents didn’t have a pick-up until 1930.  They bought one then because Greenwood was the next depot.
 
After graduation I worked on the farm for my folks until 1946, after WWII, then was married. 
 
I remember hauling manure out to the fields on a “stone-boat” with the team in winter.  The snow was waist deep and one of the horses fell down and wouldn’t get up.  I had to shovel away all the snow and she finally got up.  I wasn’t cold then! 
After graduation our combo went our separate ways, but I continued playing for the house parties and a wedding once in awhile.  My first “gig” was for Janvid and Mary Staut’s wedding which was at the Volovsek farmhouse.  Playing around the neighborhood I was attracted to a pretty sharp young lady about my age and I thought about my mentality, so I kind of kept my eye on here and it turned out over five years later she became my wife and mother of our four children!
 
We had our work cut out for us, developing a rundown farm.  As the children grew they also were interested in music and they all played in the high school band.  Belonging to the 4-H Club they organized a “German” style band and entertained at 4-H doings.  As the years went by their accordion player got married and wasn’t interested in playing any more, so then I entered the picture and we continued playing for several years until they also went their own ways.  From then on I was again a “loner” except if any of them were around we would “wind it up” again!  I enjoyed going to our area nursing homes for many years and only the last few decided it was too much to hold that heavy “box” and think at the same time!
 
RETIREMENT
I always enjoyed working with wood and when we “retired” from farming in 1980 I spent considerable time in my “workshop” in the basement of our home. 
 
I am a charter member of the “Slovenska Druzba” formed in 1982, and had a hand in creating the Willard history book, “Spominska Zgodovina.”
 
Now at 90+ years of age things have slowed considerably!!!  I enjoy mostly relaxing in the “easy chair” and reading, plus taking turns with “Mom” going to the doctors!
 
(For additional info see “Spominska Zgodovina”)