John J. Mutter, Jr.

     He was born in Racine, Wisconsin in 1943.  He's called the Shawano Wisconsin area his home since age five.  John attended a one-room school for seven years and had an unusual near-death drowning experience at age eleven.  After high school graduation, he served three years in the U.S. Navy as a Personnelman and made one, six month cruise to the Mediterranean Sea.  He served on two different Navy ships and was stationed on shore duty for one year at Patuxent River, Maryland.

     After his Navy time he craved for more adventure and experience in life.  From 1964 to 1982, he worked in thirty different jobs.  Sometimes he would go for a long period without a job and then sometimes he worked two jobs at once.  John worked accumulatively, about five years in the Merchant Marines.  One season was spent working on the Great Lakes and the balance of the five years was on the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans.  He visited many foreign countries, while working as either Fireman or Oiler, on ten different vessels.  In 1969, the ship that he was on made three trips to South Vietnam.  His last ship, in 1977, took him to Antarctica.

     John has been published in many newspapers and magazines.  In 1991, he received the Mel Ellis/Dion Henderson Outdoor Writing Award, from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.  In 2000, he received the "Buzzard Buster Writers Award," from the Wolf Watershed Educational Project and in 2002, he won an award in the 50^thAnniversary of the Bo Carter Memorial Contest, sponsored by the Waukesha Writers.  In 2002 John did some writing and donated his time co-editing a
book for Shawano County.  "Shawano County Sesquicentennial 1853 - 2003,"
was published by Shawano County and it was released in August of 2002.  On May 1, 2004, he received 2nd place in the Al P. Nelson Feature Writing contest, through the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association.  John J. Mutter, Jr., has been profiled in Marquis Who's Who in America ® since 2005.

     In 2000 he formed Burstone, LLC and self-published, "To Slay a Giant," subtitled: The Fight to Protect the Wolf River From the Proposed Crandon Copper Mine.  In 2001, John's Burstone company published, "The Hobo Poet" by Burnette Mutter.  In 2005, John published "Out in the Country," a collection of 33 stories about nature and rural living.  Three of the stories in this book have won awards.

     In 2001, John took early retirement from the State of Wisconsin to devote more time to his book and his writing projects.  He has a deep-seated love for nature and sees a great need for the "Environmental Movement," worldwide.  He is opposed to the proposed "Arrowhead-Weston Transmission Line" and supports a PCB-free Fox River, by the year 2007.  Locally, in Shawano County, he is opposed to the clear-cutting of thousands of oak trees in the Navarino Wildlife Area, over 1,300 acres cut to date.

Burnette Veronika Mutter

   From 1933 to 1939, she worked as a nanny in Chicago.  She also worked for one year as a waitress at "Dan's Barbecue," a restaurant that was located on Highway 41 in southern Wisconsin.

   In 1940 she married John Mutter of Racine, Wisconsin.  They operated a rented tavern that was located on Highway 100, "Mutter's Gutter," for two years in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

   In 1948, Burnette, John, and their two young boys moved from Racine to rural Shawano, Wisconsin.  They purchased a small country store and tavern, which they operated until 1980, when they retired.

   Inspired by poet, E. A. Guest, who wrote "A Mother's Way," Burnette began writing poetry in the early 1960's.  Many of her poems were printed in local newsletters and the Shawano newspaper.  Some were published in distant publications such as the Milwaukee Journal newspaper; New Earth Review, Murfreesboro, North Carolina; Women's Household, Seabrook, New Jersey; and Good Reading; Litchfield, Illinois.

   Burnette received very little money for her work.  A few poems afforded her $5.00.  In 1992, The Mature Times, northeastern Wisconsin's senior monthly magazine, picked her poem, "Happy Holidays" (page 32 of the book) as an award-winning entry in their contest.  The real reward for her talent came from people who put her poems in scrapbooks, or, as one lady did, hung it on her refrigerator with a magnet until it became so faded she could hardly read it

   Burnette offered the poem "The Country School" to the Shawano County Historical Society where they displayed it on the wall.  So many people asked if they could write the poem on a sheet of paper that the Society received permission to make copies available for those who requested them.

   She admits that her life was somewhat unorthodox and when asked how she wanted to be remembered, she softly replied, "as a hobo poet.".