Eight decades of Wisconsin State Fair and 100-year-old woman still can't get enough of cream puffs

Meg Jones | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Show Caption Hide Caption 100-year-old makes her 80th State Fair visit with the help of Bell Ambulance 100-year-old makes her 80th State Fair visit with the help of Bell Ambulance

It's fair to say Catherine Krause would have won any prize she wanted at the "Guess Your Age" stand at the Wisconsin State Fair on Sunday.

As she passed by the spot on the fairway outside the livestock Coliseum where a man stood next to a large scale trying to guess ages and weights, Krause said, "They'll never guess I'm such an old lady."

Sure, age is relative. But by most standards, Krause would be considered an old lady. She turned 100 on April 16 — older than even the bonsai trees on display in the fair's horticulture building.

Krause loves the Wisconsin State Fair so much that for the last eight decades she's never missed a fair. And for the last 25 years, she's spent all 11 days at the fair each season.

But her streak was imperiled earlier this year when she injured her ankle the day after her centennial birthday party. Laid up at a nursing home while undergoing rehab, Krause figured that was it, she'd never get to the State Fair.

But her son, Robert Krause, owner of the south side restaurant that used to be called Robert's, knows Jim Lombardo, the owner of Bell Ambulance, and several days ago mentioned to Lombardo that he wished there was some way he could get his mother to the fair. Lombardo offered to send a Bell Ambulance crew to pick her up at her nursing home and bring her to the one place she thought she'd never get a chance to see again.

"I just think you can't beat the State Fair," said Krause, propped up on a pillow on a stretcher that had just been pulled out of the back of an ambulance.

Dressed in white slacks and a pretty red and white floral print short-sleeved shirt, Krause's eyes shone as she recounted her favorite fair memories: coming to the fair for the first time as a 17-year-old, drinking free milk, seeing singer Della Reese and getting her picture taken with the jazz chanteuse, winning blue ribbons for her liver pate and carrot cake.

"For the last 25 years, I've been coming every single day of the fair. I gave up this year because I couldn't walk and I figured I'd miss my State Fair," she said as her stretcher was loaded on to a smaller ambulance and driven down the fairway to her son's restaurant.

Bell Ambulance paramedics at State Fair handle a range of illnesses and injuries so it was a nice change of pace for them to ferry Krause from her nursing home to the fair and back, said Scott Mickelsen, director of client services for Bell Ambulance.

"It's nice for our crews," Mickelsen said. "Instead of being there for someone's worst day, we're here for someone's best day."

Krause's first fair was in 1935, back when a cream puff cost ... much less than the current price of $4. She always eats a cream puff, though admitted she thinks they tasted better years ago. She loves seeing all the animals, all the plants and all the people at the State Fair.

Krause worked a year and a half as a file clerk at Allis-Chalmers and then moved to the post office where she met her future husband, Ben, "between the sacks of mail. He was real flirty."

They married in 1940 and raised three children. Naturally, she brought her kids to the fair. Krause spent most of her career working at the post office but also spent time at the IRS. She has lived alone since Ben died in 1974, surrounded by lots of family and friends. And every August Krause's family knew just where she would be for 11 days — the State Fair.

Robert Krause remembers his mother entering baking and cooking contests at the fair, earning numerous blue ribbons. He bought his restaurant on South Howell Avenue, now called On The Clock Bar & Grill, 39 years ago and his mother worked in the kitchen for 25 years making all the fresh soups.

Until two years ago, she still drove a car and would drive to a park-and-ride lot to use the Milwaukee County Transit System State Fair buses. When she got off the bus at the end of a long day at the fair, Krause often had powdered sugar on the front of her shirt, said her son.

"I'm so happy she can make it to the fair," Robert Krause said as he showed his mom a box filled with cream puffs he had purchased for her. "I didn't think she'd get to come and I knew that's what bothered her the most."

So when Bell Ambulance volunteered to bring her, she did her hair, got dressed in a nice outfit and waited to get picked up for a fun day of memories. She smiled at fairgoers walking past stands selling deep-fried Snickers and drinks in hollowed-out pineapples while the ambulance drove from the entry gate to her son's restaurant.

Krause slowly got off the stretcher and sat in a chair, then greeted well-wishers, dug in to a plate of fried eggplant strips and posed for pictures.

"To think I could come on the last day of the fair, I can't tell you how thrilled I am," she said. "I don't know why they're making such a fuss out of a 100-year-old broad."