STEVENS POINT, Wis. – It all began with a newspaper ad, which led to an unexpected friendship, which led to a heated fight to keep a 130-year-old historical building from a date with a wrecking ball, which led, naturally, to ice cream.

It all makes perfect sense. Trust me.  

Let’s begin with Vicki Stone-Guyette, who answered the ad because she grew tired of lugging 50-pound feed sacks out to pasture to feed her chickens. She was getting up in years and her organic farming business was starting to feel more like a job than a passion.

And then, there it was. Ministry Living Well was looking for caregivers. No experience necessary.

“So I said, ‘OK, I can do that,’’’ said Stone-Guyette.

She was hired, and one of the first clients she was given was a woman named Betsy Altenburg.

Peanut butter, meet jelly.

“That’s what I’ve always told people; somehow you just click with a person,’’ said Stone-Guyette of their initial meeting in April of 2017. “We have very similar interests and similar experiences. She was older than me, but it still felt like we could talk about things from a similar viewpoint and she was just the most darling person, so it was very easy to fall in love with her basically. And that’s what happened.”

“They were just like two peas in a pod,’’ said Jim Altenburg, Betsy’s husband.

But a year later, Ministry Living Well decided to end the supportive care arm of its business. Stone-Guyette was told she’d be out of a job and Betsy Altenburg was told she’d have to find a new caregiver.

Neither thought that was a good idea.

“So, what I did then, and because I had been a farmer and ran my own business for all those years, I just formed my own personal care agency,’’ said Stone-Guyette. “And I hired a few of the caregivers who were also losing their jobs that were working with Betsy, and so I just stayed with her then.”

Betsy Altenburg, who was suffering from Parkinson’s, used to run a popular ice cream shop in town – Altenburg Dairy Ice Cream Parlor – which was attached to her husband’s business, Altenburg Dairy.

And it was around this time, when Vicki started as Betsy’s caregiver, when Jim and his four kids started kicking around the idea of bringing back the ice cream parlor – which had closed nearly a quarter century earlier – to honor Betsy and keep her endearing spirit and memory alive.

It was a heartwarming idea, but with one main problem. Jim was in his late 70s and still working at the dairy, and only one of Betsy’s four children lived in Wisconsin, and he was in Milwaukee.

Hello, Vicki.

****

Jim loves to tell the story of when people would ask him back in the day if Betsy’s ice cream business was profitable.

It never changes.

“I said, ‘Well, it was for her because I paid for the ice cream and she kept the money,’’’ said Jim.

“I was in the process of developing the food service division at that time and basically what it was – and don’t take this wrong – it just got her out of my hair you might say. That was her baby.”

And this baby quickly became one that had the ability to put a smile on everyone’s face.

“Any success Betsy had was strictly because of Betsy,’’ said Jim. “She had a personality that could …”

Yes, make a statue smile.

“She was always good for doing things for kids, and many people have voiced to me how they enjoyed seeing her talk to their kids,’’ Stone-Guyette said of Betsy. “She was just sweet to the children.”

Stone-Guyette and Betsy’s friendship grew so strong, Stone-Guyette was invited to spend a month with the family in Alabama in January of 2018.

It turned into a 31-day girls’ night out.

“When we were down there, she and I, it was so much fun,’’ said Stone-Guyette. “Going shopping, and going out to eat, and being on vacation together, and staying up late. She was someone who needed help getting to bed; she was dependent on caregivers to get to bed and she often had to go to bed before she really wanted to because she needed that help.

“But down there we just stayed up until we didn’t want to stay up anymore, watching TV and doing stuff together. So, it was a very cool experience for me and that just made us that much closer.”

Plans for the parlor’s reopening were also beginning to speed up and Altenburg approached the city to see what would be required for them to get the business back up and running.

But when the city responded, it was a gut punch.

They essentially put a pink slip on the building, informing Altenburg the entire building needed to be repaired and, if not, the city would issue a raze order.

“Very honestly, my experience with the city was very contentious for a long time,’’ Altenburg said.

In August of 2018 Betsy Altenburg passed away, and the hopes of reopening her ice cream parlor appeared very much in doubt.

****

It was a local food fair where the idea was hatched, and it was brought to two other men, including Altenburg.

The result was the forming of a cooperative, where the Altenburg Dairy building would house local food production and retail sales, making it the only one of its kind in central Wisconsin.

And that’s when Oren Jakobson, owner of Upstream Cider, got involved.

“We basically put together a cooperative of food businesses that all have synergistic infrastructure needs and we’ve redesigned the use of the building to match those needs and purposes,’’ said Jakobson, the first president of the co-op.

Getting businesses to join the co-op was only half the battle. The other was the building itself.

“We were all committed from the get-go to repair the building as is,’’ said Jakobson.“We were all committed from the get-go to repair the building as is,’’ said Jakobson.

Problem was, pretty much no one else agreed.

“When we went out and solicited bids for project management and engineering firms, almost everybody just said, ‘Tear the whole thing down and build a new metal building; that would be the best option,’’’ said Jakobson. “We just shopped around until we found someone to do the work that we wanted.’’

Even with that, there was still another mountain to climb. 

“In order to do this, we’ve even had to go out and create a new construction firm, start a cooperative construction company to do the project management because none of the project management firms that we looked to work with could do it in a price range that made sense to the businesses that own and hope and to use the building,’’ said Jakobson. “So, it’s been a journey.’’

The journey finally began to pay off on March 7 when a small ice cream parlor named “Heavens to Betsy” opened in the same spot it had years earlier. It was a name conjured up by Betsy’s daughter, Amy.

“When the ice cream parlor came back up the “Heavens to Betsy” name had just become a theme lately in all of our lives, so it felt like the perfect name and the perfect honor for her.”“I had a dear friend, also named Betsy, who died just a couple of years ago,’’ said Amy Bellhorn. “When the ice cream parlor came back up the “Heavens to Betsy” name had just become a theme lately in all of our lives, so it felt like the perfect name and the perfect honor for her.”

“Heavens to Betsy” will be joined in the co-op by the Stevens Point Area Co-op grocery store, which will use the building mostly for warehouse use storage space; Main Grain Bakery, which will use its space as its new headquarters; Siren Shrub, which creates sipping vinegars used primarily in gourmet cocktails; Tapped Maple Syrup, which makes maple syrup fused with an array of flavors; along with Upstream Cider, which plans to open a taproom on site.

Jakobson said three other businesses are also set to join the co-op, which to date has had 115 investors purchase stock.

“So this really makes this a community-supported and owned piece of real estate,’’ said Jakobson.

“It’s going to be a pretty unique place that’s full of character that I think people are really going to enjoy coming here for the bakery and the taproom for the experience and the ice cream, which is already open.”

****

One thing Stone-Guyette has learned is that every customer not only enters with a sweet tooth but a story.

“We’ve heard just multiple stories of people who said that they came there as kids, and also from older people who said they brought their kids there and now are bringing their grandchildren here,’’ said Stone-Guyette, whose menu has many similar items that were found on Betsy’s, like malted shakes and hand-made ice cream sandwiches. 

“Every time people come in they’ll tell me something,’’ she said. “I’m just so surprised that somebody always has a story to tell. Or if they don’t have a story to tell, they’ve heard our story and they are interested. They’ve heard our story and they are interested in supporting that and being part of like an institution in town.”

The four Altenburg children, along with Stone-Guyette, own the ice cream shop while Jim Altenburg serves as a mentor.

“Mr. Altenburg is a businessman of high caliber and he’s teaching me all kinds of stuff I never even realized that you had to know to run a business,’’ said Stone-Guyette. “I’m like, ‘Put the ice cream in the cabinet and start dipping it; that’s what you have to do to get an ice cream parlor going.’

“But there’s loads of stuff behind the scenes and he’s been very patient with me, very supportive and I don’t know, it’s been such an experience I can’t even describe it. It’s just something I never would have thought I would have been doing, and yet here I am.

“We’re successful and we have the support of our community and we have a good product and we have a lovely little ice cream parlor for people to come and in and sit down. So it’s very, very gratifying – very touching to my heart.’’

So the family who wanted to honor a wife and mother by re-opening the ice cream parlor she once ran, in the same building where she once ran it, who faced a threat by the city to raze the building if not repaired, who saw an idea formed at a local food fair turn into a cooperative, and that cooperative now has multiple businesses that banded together to find a way to refurbish the building, which would have not been possible without starting their own construction company, which rekindled the dream of the family to bring back the ice cream parlor, which opened earlier this year and is run by a woman who used to be their mom’s caregiver.

I know what you’re thinking – heavens to Betsy.

Story idea? You can contact Mike Woods at 920-262-6321 or at: michael.t.woods1@charter.com ​