There are people in West Milford who remember accepting an invitation from Lou Wallisch to stop at his Lincoln Avenue office for a holiday visit.
Those who visited were greeted by numerous wind-up toys that Lou enjoyed sending across the floor every Christmas. The visitors often included township officials and Board of Education members.
More often than not, Lou would give away some of the toys after he joyfully demonstrated them.
Each year, he sent Christmas cards that usually featured a photograph he took of buildings or scenery on the 99-acre Wallisch farm. In 1993, he sent a photo of himself in a holiday hat. The photo probably was taken by his brother John.
The main Wallisch family home with Lou’s law office was in Passaic; he initially opening his West Milford office on weekends for local clients.
His father, Louis Wallisch Sr., created the Wallisch Estates community. Gradually, the family spent more and more time in West Milford, and Lou and John lived there permanently after the other family members died.
Lou became the attorney for both the Township Council and school board.
New Year’s Day was an important day for him. Before recent years, all area municipalities held their reorganization meetings then. In West Milford, the usual time was noon, followed by a 4 p.m. reorganization meeting for Ringwood Borough.
Lou was the municipal attorney for both towns. After the Ringwood meeting, some officials from West Milford and Ringwood met in Ringwood to exchange greetings. They drank eggnog together and had some food in the Ringwood Borough Hall.
Under the form of West Milford government in place in 1965, there was a five-man committee that voted to seat one of their group as chairperson. The people did not vote directly for their mayor. The person chosen by the committee automatically was referred to as mayor.
There was 3-2 Republican control that year. In those days, politics ruled at their best. Last-minute changes in planned and expected appointments were seen often.
In 1965, newly elected GOP Committeeman Wilbur Fredericks was chosen as mayor by a vote of his colleagues when Republican Chairman W. Albert Moody declined the nomination. Moody said he did so because of his engineering business responsibilities and required out-of-state trips.
The Township Committee, along party lines, chose Fredericks to replace Mayor Warren Brogan, a Democrat. Fredericks took his oath of office as mayor only minutes after he was sworn in for his first term.
The return of Lou Wallisch as township attorney was loudly applauded by the audience that filled the town hall meeting room to capacity. After serving as township attorney for more than 20 years, Wallisch was dumped by the Democrats in 1964 and replaced by William Johnson.
The Democrats questioned the wisdom of the Republicans in their move to replace auditor Walter Walsh with Louis Korb. Brogan said Walsh was a local resident “who served with distinction under both the Republican and Democratic parties.”
Walsh was the original developer of Lake Melody before it was purchased by Dick and Connie Nobis, who came to town with their children, Rick and Melody. It may come as a surprise to some readers that Lake Melody was not named for Melody Nobis and that the lake had the name before the Nobis family bought it.
This was the year (1965) that Fredericks and Mollie McFarland (the first woman council member) replaced Republican Bob Little and Democrat Charles Salem, who was elected to serve as a Passaic County Freeholder (now called Passaic County commissioner).
Fredericks promised a year of austerity with economy practices expected in all departments. He said the “new look” would hold municipal expenses to the bone but not to the point where services would be hampered. The 1965 budget was aimed at keeping taxes low.
Fredericks promised workshop meetings would not be held behind closed doors. He said police protection would continue on a high level and that the administration would continue the street sign program, institute a house numbering program and build a municipal garage so that work on equipment could be done indoors.
In keeping with their promise to cut expenses, the Republicans planned to have Arie Zwart of Sparta as part-time engineer, replacing Anthony Buzzoni, who the Democrats appointed during the previous year after G. Waldo Rude resigned. They saved $600 by not having a mayor’s secretary. Fredericks said he would do his own typing.