Marcel A. Dandeneau

Dandeneau was the Racine-born teacher and Democrat who made Caledonia his adult political address—town board, Assembly seat, and the house where he died. He sat on the Caledonia town board from 1971 to 1977, returned in 1990, and chaired the town from 1992 to 1995. Parallel to local office he represented the 63rd Assembly District for two terms (1975–1979), then stayed in the Capitol as chief clerk of the Assembly from 1979 to 1981.

He was born in Racine on June 28, 1931, the eldest of six children of French-Canadian parents, and graduated from St. Catherine’s High School. He served as a rifle sergeant in Korea from 1951 to 1955, then earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Dominican College of Racine. From 1960 to 1989 he taught—first at Sturtevant Grade School, later English, history, and science at Mitchell Junior High—and after retiring at fifty-seven he kept substitute-teaching full days. A 1975 campaign-finance misdemeanor cost him a five-hundred-dollar fine; a 1976 felony misconduct charge was dismissed. He had beaten incumbent Republican Henry Rohner for the Assembly in 1974 and lost the seat to E. James Ladwig in 1978.

For more than twenty-seven years he held an informal Saturday breakfast at DeRango’s on Douglas Avenue, a standing date for politicians and businessmen with no agenda but the county. In 1982 he took 75,258 votes (9.24 percent) in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary against William Proxmire. An Honor Flight in 2016 carried him from the Korean War Memorial to Arlington. He died of cancer at his Caledonia home on February 9, 2017; Shirley Leach and six children survived him. Birth and schooling were Racine; the board, the chairmanship, and the deathbed were Caledonia.