Joyce Peek named female 2015 Watonwan County Senior Volunteer of the Year
“Ma!”
When at Voss Park in Butterfield – everyone knows who will answer that call.
Joyce “Ma” Peek, campground manager at Butterfield’s Voss Park, has had that well-earned nickname for years, maybe, she reflects, back to the time a camper whose mother had died,asked if he could call her “Ma.” “Heck, yes, I said,” interjects Joyce.
And everybody and everything at that idyllic spot full of shade trees along the shores of Butterfield Lake is considered her family and home. (Over the past 23 winters, she calls New Ulm home, eagerly awaiting the spring thaw and signs of summer cycling in once again.)
Even if you have just met her for the first time – you’re already part of her extended family.
“And every building here is like my child. When the Threshing Bee started in 1967, there was nothing much here. The entire place grew up around me. That takes a lot of dedicated volunteers and a Butterfield Threshermen’s Association (BTA) Board with vision,” Joyce declares. “A lot of hard work back then – and still today in order to keep it a place in which to have pride.”
Peek received the female 2015 Watonwan County Senior Volunteer of the Year Award on Sunday afternoon, July 19, during a ceremony in the Entertainment Tent at the Watonwan County Fair.
Joyce’s personal story
Joyce, who will turn 86-years-old on September 12, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and raised in both South Dakota and Minnesota, depending upon where her stepfather, a minister, was serving a church. She initially came to Butterfield as a 15-year-old when her stepfather was the pastor at the former St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. He was at the church for four years, and by that time, an adult-age Joyce was living and working in Mankato. Little did she know then that she had not put Butterfield in her past.
“At that time, it was cheap to take a cab home from work,” reflects Joyce. “I soon noticed that every time I called for a cab – I had the same driver. Eventually, he asked me for a date to the carnival. It was then,” Joyce recalls with a chuckle,”that Art (her future husband) who was just discharged from the United States Army, serving during World War II and now a student at Mankato Teacher’s College (today Minnesota State University-Mankato) had told the dispatcher that every time a call came in from her – he wanted that run.”
Joyce and Art Peek were married in Mankato in a 1948 double wedding with Joyce’s sister, Sylvia, and her husband, Glenn Barnes, officiated at by Joyce and Sylvia’s stepfather.
Art went on to finish college and became a teacher. In an ironic twist, his first teaching job in 1952 took Joyce back to Butterfield. Art taught history and driver’s education at the high school for 33 years. Becoming part of the BTA and working with the Butterfield Threshing Bee was a natural segue for a man long interested in heritage and history – as well as for his wife. Art served on the BTA board, as well as its president for eight years, from 1978 to 1985. In addition, he was Butterfield’s mayor. At the first Bee ever, Joyce judged the men’s beards in the unique contest.
With Art teaching at the high school, Joyce was able to be a stay-at-home mom to the couple’s daughter and son, filling in occasionally at the local hardware store, lumber company and at Sparky’s Cafe. She is a charter member of the Butterfield Ladies Club Auxiliary and since its initiation, also works with July’s Butterfield Summer Sizzler – in addition to her 49 years (counting this year) with August’s Threshing Bee.
After Art’s death in 1985, she took care of many children in the Butterfield and St. James areas and in 1986, became co-manager of Voss Park campground with Mary Harris – and has been “home” at Voss Park ever since.
She and Art had two children, a daughter and son-in-law, Kathleen and Gary Leopold of Warrenton, Virginia and a son, the late Daniel Peek and daughter-in-law, JuLeen Peek of Litchfield. She also has five grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.
Camping, bonfires and good times
Peek has now been either a co-manager or manager at the Voss Park Campground for 29 years – on top of being associated with the Bee since its inception – arriving when the season shifts to summertime sunshine in May and leaving in September when the green leaves on the approximately 1,932 trees begin changing colors and there is a nip in the air. In between, she lives in a mobile home on the campground – spending most of her time on her large screened-in porch, though. She helps folks register for their campsites as well as being a human “Google” of information on most anything related to Voss Park or the annual Butterfield Threshing Bee (the 49th coming this August).
Her co-manager campground role with Mary Harris back in 1986 was a perfect fit for both women. Mary’s husband, Erv, had also passed away in 1985. Mary and Erv, who hailed from Minneapolis, were the campground managers and caretakers, staying for the season in their camper. The couple had their collection of vintage tractors on display at the Bee as well.
With both women widowed, Joyce contacted Mary to see if she wanted to pair with her in the campground position, the two working as a duo. She did – and the women held that position together side-by-side for eight years. After 1994, Joyce has been the manager by herself until this year, when Butterfield’s Rosie Simenson signed on to be co-manager with Joyce.
As campground manager, Joyce lives at the park 24/7 – always at the ready to answer the phone and questions, take campsite reservations, greet campers and drive her golf cart to the camping site and to get them settled in. She also takes care of the three picnic shelters at Voss Park, and is the contact person when someone needs access to a building. Joyce also makes her “rounds” around Voss Park and the nearby Pioneer Village, checking the doors and windows of the various buildings, making sure they remain secure. When severe weather threatens, Joyce jumps in car and begins a drive around the campground, honking her car horn to alert the campers and then leading them in their vehicles – much like a pied piper – to safety in either Butterfield City Hall, or the basement shelter of the nearby home of Jim and Donna Lepp. In her younger years, she even kept up both of the park’s bathrooms.
Another of her eclectic array of duties is serving as tour guide, providing campers, visitors, special groups and area school students with a look at the history of Butterfield that has been saved for posterity in the buildings of the Pioneer Village.
“The campground started in 1972, and folks then camped in tents or pop-up campers or campers on the back or a pickup. Now, recreational vehicles (RVs) run the gamut with air conditioning, satellite dishes, on-board facilities and four-to-five “slide-outs,’ making the total interior space significantly larger,” shares Joyce.
She adds, “A. R. Voss had such foresight to plant the trees that gave Voss Park its canopy. To this day, his granddaughter and her family drop in to visit.” That area was given to the city of Butterfield in 1942.
In July, until after the Threshing Bee, Dale and Carol Simonson of Phoenix, Arizona take over the management of the campground so that Joyce can focus on the Bee. She assists the BTA by folding, mailing out and putting up posters for the Threshing Bee and counts and packages the year’s Threshing Bee buttons into bags of 25. Additionally, she makes “button runs” to stores in Butterfield, Mountain Lake, Odin and St. James that offer them for sale. During the Bee itself, Joyce runs the General Store and Hollenitsch Drug Store – helping serve up ice cream cones from the drug store window on the Bee’s Saturday and Sunday afternoons following the parade.
Declares Joyce, “If I belong to an organization, I want to do my part.”
From around the world, and across the generations
“Today there are more families camping. Grandparents bringing their grandchildren,” notes Joyce.
Those campers come from across Minnesota, of course, as well as from 45 other states and foreign countries like Switzerland, Germany, England, Israel, Africa and Canada.
One of the tales Joyce likes to share is of a young Swiss couple who pitched their tent in the park. “The young man would go out into the alfalfa field, ” Joyce tells, “to play his bagpipes. He even played them around the campfire. The next day, a man from town was at my door, asking me to tell his daughter that he was not crazy – that he did hear bagpipes in Butterfield.”
Another story involves visitors from Germany. During their visit, Joyce regaled them with stories of the Threshing Bee and the history of the area. “The next day, one of the girls frantically asked me what it was that had flown at her and hit her chest while walking back from the rest room at night,” lays out Joyce. “I thought and thought, and came up with perhaps it was a June bug flying around that was the culprit. She was so relieved that it was not one of the ‘threshing bees’ (that could perhaps be of the killer bee type).”
Five years ago, a Montana woman riding around the country on horseback, Bernice Ende, was directed to Voss Park and the Livery in the Pioneer Village in which to bed her horses and replace a shoe.
“Don’t tell me that I have to go to New York or California to meet all kinds of interesting people,” Joyce declares. “They come here. Even Wally the Beerman of Minnesota Twins vendor fame camped here. Plus, there have been 14 weddings here.”
At Bee time, total campers at the campground can push past 300. This year is the busiest the campground has been this early in the season. Some folks bring their campers in and park them all summer. Other campers are locals, Others are strangers who stop. Joyce reflects that, “Some people come here to camp for a week. Then that week turns into a month. And then, it is for the whole summer. One of the things missed, though, since Highway #60 was moved outside the city, are those that used to swing in off the highway. If they know about us, though – they still come.”
Voss Park growth over the years has included the historic Pioneer Village buildings, the Engine House, Big Engine House, Auto Museum, shelter houses and stage, new playground equipment and the 1.5 mile Butterfield Lake Trail all around Butterfield Lake. Joyce emphasizes that the setting is perfect for family gatherings or other group camp-outs or get-togethers.
“When giving tours through the buildings, people often reminisce about the past – ‘My dad had this’ or ‘My grandma used that.’ People return to soak up the heritage; their connections to the past. Even my family has a special bond with Walt Bedford’s Barber Shop because it was there that myself, Art and our kids got hair cuts.
“It is so much fun to see second and third generations now coming to Voss Park,” acknowledges Joyce. “Campers comment they used to camp here with their grandparents and now they are bringing their own families. My favorite times are those spent around the nightly bonfires outside my campground home. New memories are made and special bonds are forged with strangers. And those bonds lead the strangers to become lifelong friends. We also have had many cookouts with all kinds of food like buffalo and salmon cooked over our fires. I often hear from campers throughout the year – and over the years.”
If not around the campfire, folks are gathered – 8-to-1o – in Joyce’s screen porch in the evenings to laugh, have fun and enjoy life.
Joyce’s screen porch is also filled with an array of decorative signs and artwork, a collection of birdhouses, signs honoring Voss Park or “Ma” Peek – even furniture. All of this is courtesy of friends, family and campers. And the treasures keep adding up each year. “I so love it when the little kids come in and I can share with them, oftentimes giving them a history lesson, too,” Joyce shares. “From my ‘dial telephone’ to one young boy questioning where was the ‘mouse’ for a manual typewriter. Then, they make me special things. Every one is precious.
“All of us have the ability to learn something new every day.”
Joyce plans on returning next year – a year that will feature the 50th anniversary of the Bee. “This place has so much meaning to me. It has been an important part of my life for so, so long,” reflects Joyce. “I have had a wonderful run.
“God has been good to me. If He wants me back for another year – I will be back.”
Because when “Ma” is in Voss Park – she is home – and all is well.
