Jacob John Menn NORWALK - Jacob John Menn, 101, passed away on August 23, 2024. Born in Sheldon Township, Monroe County, outside Norwalk, Wisconsin, Jacob John Menn arrived on September 29, 1922, in the family's farmhouse. The third of Benjamin and Tony Menn's four children, Jake grew up on the Jersey Vale Farm where he was born.
He helped milk the dairy herd by hand and machine, gathered eggs, and helped in the garden which provided food to put up for the long Wisconsin winters. In the summers he especially loved playing in Morris Creek, fishing, swimming, and rafting. And his favorite food was homemade ice cream since he got to lick the dasher as the smallest participant in making it.
As he grew, his favorite farm work was silo filling and threshing. He attended Spring Valley Schoolhouse through 8th grade and then attended the High School in Norwalk. He graduated in 1940, the salutatorian of his class, and headed to the University of Wisconsin in Madison to study chemistry.
As a child he had suffered osteomyelitis, nearly losing a leg; as a result, he was classified 4F, so he could not fight in WW2. Instead, he left Madison and returned to Norwalk to work on the farm during the war. When he went back to college, he resumed his studies in chemistry and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree.
There he met Anna Katherine Fletcher, the great love of his life whom he married on December 27, 1947. Jake and Katherine then headed to the San Francisco area of California for his.