A Decoy Corner Article
By Bruce Urben, WWA President
All photos courtesy Wisconsin Sporting Collectibles
Sometimes, people are hesitant to leave the area where they were born and raised. Is it a fear of the unknown or simply a matter of familiarity and family ties? This is true of the carver, who was born in Milwaukee in 1904 and refused to leave.
John Joseph Treutelaar was a self-educated engineer and draftsman. After graduating from high school, he worked at the Sterling Motor Truck Co. in Milwaukee. He worked there until the Company was sold to another Company in Ohio. He refused to leave Milwaukee and stayed behind, mainly because of his family’s duck hunting area on big Muskego lake, about 15 miles southwest of Milwaukee. John’s father and a few of his hunting buddies had a duck Club on Big Muskego lake, and at that time, it was a hotbed for waterfowl hunting. When John married, he bought a home on Big Muskego, which just happened to be across from the Duck Club. He was in his glory.
John’s first duck hunting rig was comprised of Mason and Evans Decoys. John decided he wanted something better, so in late 1940, he began carving his decoys.
Treutelaar modified decoy patterns that he obtained from Roy Discher, which were distributed as part of the Milwaukee Museum’s “School” to promote carving. John made his first rig of decoys, which included canvasbacks, mallards, pintails, over 50 coots, and a few Canada geese. Collectors agree that his pintails are his finest carvings.
Treutelaar decoy bodies were oversized and made from a series of 3/4-inch pine boards stacked together, with the inside hollowed out. He attached the boards with glue and then carved the profile of a duck. John’s total decoy production was 100 decoys or fewer, all of which he used on Big Muskego. He never sold any of his decoys, but his family acquired the majority of them upon his death. This explains why so few of his decoys appear on the secondary market.
John was an avid waterfowler. When he retired in 1974 at the age of seventy, he hunted every day of the season with his longtime hunting partner. In 1994, John Joseph Treutelaar died of a massive heart attack during a severe cold snap on Big Muskego. John passed within a week of the death of his hunting partner!
As you would expect, Treutelaar decoys are in high demand by collectors. Due to his limited output, his decoys are highly valued.
John Joseph Treutelaar, an avid waterfowler and talented decoy carver from Milwaukee, is another Wisconsin original!
