‘One last run’
Little Switzerland was her life, so owner’s urn gets final torch-lit trip down slope, along with Scotch toast
Even death could not keep Jane Herte off the ski hill at her beloved Little Switzerland. An urn containing her ashes was taken for a torch-lit last run to conclude a memorial service Tuesday evening at the place first opened by her father in 1941 when Jane was a girl.
“We closed the hill down at 9:30, and then they shut down the lights and our ski patrol took Jane up to the top and they did a final run for her,” said Jen Gilmore, who works in group sales at the Slinger ski area.
Surrounded by 20 skiers with torches, patrol director Kevin Ketter held the black and gold urn in both hands as he descended the hill. This was Jane’s favorite run among the 18 at Little Switzerland and one that was named for her, Jane’s Deal, a couple years ago.
Kevin could feel Jane’s ghostly exhilaration of doing what she loved one last time.
“It was moving. I hadn’t done anything like that before,” he said. “The scary part was dropping her. It was my biggest fear.” (He didn’t, I’m relieved to report.)
No one could remember a postdeath schuss like this one ever happening before at Little Switzerland. Jane had not specifically asked for it, but it would be hard to imagine a more fitting sendoff.
“The importance of the hill to her and her love for the sport and the business itself, we knew that was extremely important to her,” said Jon Finck, mountain manager.
“She always said, ‘I wish I could take one last run,’” said close friend and ski hill restaurant worker Stacey Burns.
Jane died Jan. 30 at her home on the edge of Little Switzerland. She was 84.
Her parents, Ed and Harriet Herte, turned a 200-foot-high glacial bump in Washington County into a popular attraction, opening the very day Pearl Harbor was bombed. Ed was a lawyer who decided he preferred the hill to the courtroom.
The original rope tows were fueled by the engine and transmission of an old truck. Eventually, an unusual chairlift that stretches up and over the hilltop was added. Ed installed rudimentary snow-making equipment in 1955, an operation that’s now computerized.
An observation tower was added in 1983 just because he thought it was fun.
In an interview with The Milwaukee Journal in 1991, Jane said at least halfseriously that her dad had fired her eight times. Once she went to work at Boston Store instead.
“I kept coming back though,” she told reporter Catherine Johnson. “I think I was an awful lot like him. I love this business. I love the country, and I love the sport.”
After Ed died in 1985, Jane and her son, Jay, continued operating the business.
She closed it in 2007 and the hill was quiet for five seasons. The current operators reopened it 2012. Jane became a silent partner and was often hanging around.
The hill was never far from her thoughts or from the view out the living room window of her home.
“This was everything to her,” Finck said. “She would often call me when we were making snow over the past several years and comment how beautiful it was to see the snow in the air, and how it gave her such joy to see the hill lit up and the aura of the snow blowing.”
Jane continued to ski until she was 76 and developed health problems. She considered the people working at Little Switzerland as family.
Bathed in a red glow, Jane’s final run down the hill stopped at the lodge’s outdoor deck where people gathered for the ceremony toasted her memory with Dewar’s Scotch, a favorite drink.
They may want to return in summer when the snow is gone and Jane’s ashes are scattered forever among the evergreens.
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com.
Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl
In an interview with The Milwaukee Journal in 1991, Jane said at least half-seriously that her dad had fired her eight times. Once she went to work at Boston Store instead. “I kept coming back though,” she told reporter Catherine Johnson. “I think I was an awful lot like him. I love this business. I love the country, and I love the sport.”