‘It was polka music, or it was nothing’

Luverne Wanous was an entertainer to the very end.

“To the last day he was alive,” said Nancy Vroman, the youngest of his four daughters.

That means their father, who was 89 when he died Aug. 2, spent nearly 85 years making people happy.

“It’s funny how many stories are out there that we don’t even know about,” Vroman said, “but we heard a lot of them. It was a wonderful visitation and funeral, to hear all of those.”

“They were all so kind, too,” said Jane Spatenka, Wanous’s second daughter. “They just couldn’t wait to tell a story – and everybody had one.”

The beginner

Luverne Wanous’s own entertainment story begins when he was 5.

That’s when his father Harold taught him how to play the accordion. His first paying job was to perform three songs for the Steele County Cattlemen’s Association. He earned 50 cents for the performance.

Young Luverne soon turned his attention to the concertina – differentiated by its more compact size and buttons on both ends, instead of a keyboard – and taught himself how to play.

It becomes even more impressive: Wanous did not know how to read music – he never did learn – and played every song by ear.

Within a few years, an uncle, Chic Racek, invited his young nephew to play with his band at the Monterey Ballroom and the rest, his family said, is entertainment history.

After graduating from Owatonna High School in 1954, Wanous joined the Army and was stationed in Germany.

While there, Spatenka said, “he was bored, so he had my mom send his concertina so he could entertain people over there.”

Marilyn Wanous did, and her husband added it to his harmonica and bass drum to win a talent show with his one-man-band.

Second job

When Wanous returned from the Army, he and Marilyn settled on the family farm, the fourth generation to do so.

A farmer at heart, he also knew he wanted to make music. In 1960, Wanous formed his own group: Luverne’s Concertina Band, ranging from his solo act to a seven-piece ensemble, depending on the occasion.

“He was a farmer first, then he played,” Spatenka said.

“Back then, the dance jobs were from 9 to 1 (a.m.), so he’d get home – by the time people left, and they always wanted to visit, then the band would pack up and drive, because it was always out of town – it was 3:00 in the morning,” Vroman said.

“He’d sleep a little bit, then get up and go farm, and probably have to play again the next night,” she said. “He was gone every weekend; he never missed a dance job. Ever.”

His daughters had a job, too:

“We had to be out of the bathroom,” Spatenka laughed.

“We lived in a one-bathroom house,” Vroman explained, “and we had to be out of the bathroom and out of Dad’s way at 6:00 if he had to play. He had 10 minutes to take a shower, 10 minutes to eat, then he was on the road” to entertain after a day of farming.

“He loved it, and wouldn’t have had it any other way,” she said.

There were other roles: Lyrics transcribers and Dad-catchers.

Wanous, remember, wasn’t a music reader, so “if he wanted the words, he’d buy the record, and we’d sit in front of the stereo and listen to the record over and over and over again, and write down the words so he could memorize them,” Vroman said.

In the days before cell phones or answering machines, “there was the buffet, with the band book in the top drawer and the phone on the wall right there,” Spatenka said.

When someone called to book a gig, “we had to run and find him, wherever he may have been” on the farm, Vroman said. “And if he was in stinky clothes from being in the steer lot, Dad would stand on the porch outside and Mom would hand him the phone with the cord through the door.”

There were a lot of calls, they said.

“Back then, everybody had a barn party, everybody had a shed party, a wedding,” Vroman said. “If it was something we could go to, we went. It depended on the type of party.

“We got to know his friends, and we all know how to dance the polka,” she said.

Did their father teach them?

“Oh, no,” Spatenka said, “his friends did, and we were best of friends with his band members’ children.”

“He didn’t have time for that,” Vroman agreed. “He played, so his friends took over and taught us how to polka.”

That includes their sister, MaryAnn Wanous, who has Down syndrome.

“She knows how to polka – and she’s good at it, too,” Vroman said. “She’s the one who’s teaching other people how.”

A music legacy

Directors at the Steele County Free Fair were able to count on huge crowds for 62 years – the number of years Wanous performed on the grounds.

It was also the birthplace of what would become his most requested song.

“Dad would play in the old KRFO (radio station) tent with Todd Hale a couple times a week,” Vroman said.

Perhaps it was the setting; perhaps it was the entertainer in Wanous. Either way, he worked up his own rendition of “Old McDonald Had a Farm,” and was going to try it out – on live radio.

“Mom was at home recording it,” Vroman said, a natural occurrence in the late 1960s and 1970s.

“She stayed home and listened to the radio and would do the reel-to-reel tapes, to record it, so Dad would know what it sounded like on the other end,” she said. “He wanted to make sure it sounded good, and he knew what to adjust.”

Wanous played his version, doing all of the farm animal sounds – loudly and fairly realistically clucking, mooing and oinking – “to the point where he would lose his voice, because he would take it to the next level,” Vroman said.

“It was the most requested song ever, and he did it to the fullest, every single time,” she said, for more than 50 years, “because that’s what people wanted. He was an entertainer.”

Though he eventually had to limit it to once every performance in order to preserve his vocal cords, “people could not wait to hear that song, from here to Texas,” Spatenka said.

“Those noises were loud,” she laughed, “and just think about watching your dad do that…”

Hale “was rolling on the ground, laughing,” Vroman said. “Dad never made fun of anybody; he just had fun. ‘I’m here for the people’ is what he always said.”

That included annual gigs at United Prairie Bank’s customer appreciation event, as well as Christmas performances at Cedar Valley Services, the community where MaryAnn lives.

“He’d bring them cookies,” Spatenka said. “He called them ‘the kids.’”

MaryAnn, they said, “just beamed. She was so proud.”

Wanous “would just go off to the nursing homes and do his little show, too,” Spatenka said, because it was meaningful to him.

“There were people that would rarely move, and then he’d come in, and they’d start tapping their foot or their hand, or open their eyes and look at him, and that was payment for him,” she said. “The residents would find out he was coming, and they’d be right there; nobody was in their room. That’s what it was about.”

Wanous traveled to nursing homes and other facilities in Owatonna, Blooming Prairie, Austin and surrounding communities – and “probably 10 different states,” Vroman said.

“It’s a dying art, unfortunately, so they just loved it,” she said.

Their father was given the opportunity to play professionally, “but he wanted to farm, and he wanted to do things on his own terms,” Vroman said. “He wanted to be fun and do what he wanted to do.”

The honors

Wanous was obviously good – and the experts knew it.

In 2019, he was inducted into the World Concertina Congress Hall of Fame, which recognizes musicians whose contributions are vital to the instrument’s survival. Wanous was the first person from Steele County to earn the distinction.

“He was honored,” Spatenka said.

The induction ceremony took place in New Prague; Wanous’s family was there to celebrate with him.

“Then they had all these concertina guys there, and they all started playing in the room – it was so cool,” said Vroman.

“Some of them were playing from music, and Dad was just joined in,” playing by ear, Spatenka said.

Still, it was the hometown things that made him proudest, they said, like having a pilsner beer named after him at Mineral Springs Brewery in Owatonna.

Though Wanous “retired” from playing the bigger shows at the SCFF in 2014, “it was important to him to draw a crowd,” Vroman said. “The bigger the crowd, the more fun he had, and he knew everybody by name.

“When he (played) the beer garden, he was very proud of having the most beer tickets sold” during his performance, she laughed. “That was a highlight of his life.”

When Wanous first talked about retiring from the fair, “I knew, deep down, he wasn’t done with the fair,” Vroman said, but he stopped playing at the beer garden, in the hog barns and on the Music Mobile, which were huge undertakings.

Wanous came back, though, alternating locations with Hans Hohrman at the two main doors of the Four Seasons Centre.

“He loved that, and he did that as long as he could.”

His last performance at the SCFF was in 2022.

“Luverne was on our fairgrounds, playing here for 62 years,” said Dan Deml, president of the SCFF Board of Directors. “The fair was really a big part of his life; the award we gave him back in 2014” was displayed at Wanous’s visitation.

“His family said it was the highlight all year, when he could play here,” Deml said.

In Heaven, there is no beer

The stories of Wanous’s music-making go on and on; his daughters talk about trying to get out of the fair after their father had played:

“Everybody wanted to buy him a beer, shake his hand, visit with him,” Vroman said.

“Somebody said he either raised his eyebrows or waved his foot (while playing), then you knew that he’d seen you and was glad you were there,” Spatenka said.

There wasn’t much music at home, though: None of the girls picked up the instrument, and “none of us have the music bug,” except for Spatenka’s son.

“He was always the entertainer,” Vroman said of her dad. “That never quit, but he didn’t have to play music for that. You couldn’t take the entertainer out of him, but he never brought out the concertina to family things – because he had usually just played the night before. He was probably tired.”

“But he never complained that he was tired, ever,” Spatenka said. “These old farmers are a breed of their own.”

Wanous had three concertinas; the song choice determined which he would play. He sold them all as his health declined.

“It’s something you have to keep up,” Vroman said, “and he wanted his concertina to be taken care of and to be enjoyed by somebody else that can play for people.

“It was his decision,” she said. “We wanted him to do that for himself, as hard as it was.”

They know, too, that behind every successful musician is a supportive spouse. Marilyn Wanous was a stay-at-home mom who always had a hot meal ready not only for her husband, but for farm hands and Sunday guests.

Even after Marilyn’s death in 2010, Wanous “never turned down a dance job,” Vroman said.

“He was very proud that he played for generations of families, for their birthday shed parties to their weddings, anniversaries, their kids’ weddings, their grandkids’ weddings, their funerals…” she said.

Funerals?

“He was requested all the time,” Vroman said. “People were like, I want Luverne (to play) at my funeral, and we’re like, how do you plan that? He’d change things around then, to play for them, and it meant so much to him to be requested.”

That begs the question: What music was played at Luverne’s visitation and funeral?

“His,” both women said.

Wanous had made a CD of his own music and made sure his daughters knew it was to be played.

“Why would you do anything else?” Vroman asked. “If it wasn’t polka music, it was nothing.”

After the funeral, the family held a reception at the VFW in Owatonna. Rodney Krell, of Blooming Prairie, played a few songs on his concertina in honor of Wanous – who had taught him how to play.

“And we had a few beers,” Vroman said, “because in Heaven…

“He accomplished a lot with the talent and the gift that he had, and he shared it with everybody,” she said.

Well, not everybody.

Vroman laughs as she tells the story of her son, who was visiting a friend whose grandparents were having a party in their shed.

“My son walked into the shed and said, ‘hey, that’s my grandpa.’ And the family was just amazed,” she said.

“Old time music isn’t their thing,” Vroman said of the generation, “but they think it’s cool that he was so well-loved and so popular.

“Once they know who they are, they’re proud to say, ‘that’s my grandpa.’"