American flag that draped Herman Schriock’s casket in place of honor on MLPS gym wall
It is one of the many significant accessories adorning the walls of the Mountain Lake Public School gymnasium.
It is the center of attention before the beginning of every sporting event held in the arena. When all is quiet, it is saluted with this nation’s National Anthem.
It is an extraordinary banner that pulls even “home” and “guest” together.
It is the American flag.
This year, during the winter sports season, a new American flag replaced the well-worn Stars-and-Stripes that had spread its red, white and blue across the bricks.
The flag was donated by the family of the late Mountain Lake native, Herman Schriock – his nieces, Kathy Mathistad and Bev Falk, both of Mountain Lake and his nephews, Jim Schriock of Overland Park, Kansas and Stan Schriock of Mankato.
Herman Schriock was born in Mountain Lake on May 10, 1919, where he was a proud resident of the area of the city known as “Dreispitz.” Dreispitz in Mountain Lake mirrored in shape the neighborhood German/Russian Lutheran immigrants left behind in South Russia to migrate to this area beginning in the early 1890s. In German, “Dreispitz” means three-sided – like a triangle. Indeed, these immigrants built their cluster of homes on the east side of town in an area whose boundaries defined its three sides. This triangle was formed by Highway #60 – today, Cottonwood County Road #27 – to the north, the railroad tracks to the south and the Mountain Lake city limits of that time to the west – today, Cottonwood County Road #1.
He was drafted into the United States Army during World War II, and, following his Honorable Discharge, moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he was employed as a metal worker and married his wife, Wilma. Schriock passed away 14 years ago, on July 4, 2002 at the age of 83.
Sergeant Herman Schriock also gets a mention in the 2004 book by Walter J. Eldredge, “Finding My Father’s Way: A Baby Boomer and the 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion in World War II.” In the book, Walter Eldredge researches information about the specific service of the mortar battalion, along with the experiences of his father, Lieutenant Paul Eldredge.
Herman Schriock appears in a section of the book entitled “The North Coast,” a chapter that shares about military actions taking place near Palermo, Sicily. Writes Eldredge on page 80, The infantry commanders found Jeeps and trailers to bring ammunition from the blown bridge, but the guns were using it faster than it could be supplied. Sometime in the wee hours, Sgt. Herman Schriock showed up at the bridge with a fully-loaded ammunition truck. He had driven all night to find the battalion ammo dump, loaded his truck, and made his way back. At a bend in the road before the blown bridge, an officer waved him down. The Germans had started shelling the bridge constantly, figuring it would be a pinch point where everything had to slow down. Nothing was going through. Schriock nosed off the road and down the slope around the bridge. Shells hit the bridge and the rocky creek bed in front of him. He slammed the big truck up one gear and gunned it forward. The next shells landed just behind him, and then he was roaring up the rocky slope on the other side and on down the road toward Petinneo. When he stopped, infantry and ammunition handlers swarmed onto the truck like ants. The guns kept firing.
When Wilma Schriock passed away on July 19, 2013, Kathy and Bev brought the flag – along with other family heirlooms – back with them from Milwaukee. The flag ended up in the Mountain Lake home of their mother, Grace Schriock, whose late husband, Jacob Schriock, was Herman Schriock’s brother. States the sisters, “Herman and Wilma did not have any children, so we made many trips back-and-forth to Milwaukee as we handled the couple’s home and estate.”
When Grace relocated from her home to the Good Samaritan Society of Mountain Lake-The Village this past winter, the two women were once again cleaning up a lifetime of memories. They rediscovered the flag, and, together with their brothers, believed there was a better use for it rather than folded and tucked into a box in the back of a closet.
Bev’s husband, Bruce Falk, a member of Mountain Lake American Legion Post #389, approached his fellow veterans in search of appropriate venues in which it could be flown or hung. Fellow Legion member, Jim Crawford, suggested that the flag hanging on the public school’s gym wall was showing its age and that, perhaps, the Schriock flag would be a perfect replacement. Details were worked out, the donation was made, and the new “Old Glory” – one that had honored the military service of Herman Schriock at his funeral – took up the notable spot.
And so, a part of Herman Schriock, a Mountain Lake native and proud “Dreispitzer,” has come back to the place of his birth. As fans and players salute the American flag – and with that the United States – they also recognize this return home.
