“Everyone who comes in the [Jewish Home and Care Center] building knows Louis M. Loeser,” said Jeri Stroiman, marketing manager of Chai Point, JHCC and the Sarah Chudnow Campus. “The first thing you notice about him is his infectious smile and his indomitable spirit.”
Even though Loeser is only 63 years old, he has been living at the Jewish Home and Care Center for three years. Before that, he “was in and out” of another health care center for a year and a half, he said in a recent interview at the JHCC.
“Around 1990 I started having heart problems,” said Loeser, known as Lou or Louie by everyone at the JHCC. In 1995, at 53, he had a heart operation involving six bypasses and then, in 1997, because of diabetes and bad circulation, he lost a leg. Three years later he lost the other leg.
But none of this has kept Loeser from getting around, meeting people and making himself useful.
“I was an office and mail clerk while I was on active duty [in the army reserve] and within 72 hours of coming here I talked to [former president] Nita [Corré] and asked if they had anyone who delivered mail,” said Loeser.
Now, Monday through Friday and occasionally on Sunday (“not Saturday; the rabbi [Shlomo Pontos] said, ‘No way!’), Loeser can be seen motoring through his one-and-a-half to two-hour route on his red scooter wearing a cardigan sweater vest— he has six or seven — and a hat.
The day of his interview with The Chronicle, Loeser sported a baseball-style cap, adorned with a multitude of pins, which said “Green Bay Packers” in Hebrew. This is just one from his hat collection he said.
Among his most interesting hats is an official vintage mailman’s hat from the Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear, according to Stroiman. Abe and Anita Chudnow presented it to him at a special Shabbat and Kiddush they sponsored at the JHCC recently to honor Louis and his good friend [and fellow JHCC resident] Tobi Friesler, she said.
According to Stroiman, “Louis [hasn’t taken his] responsibility lightly; he [has] turned mail delivery into an art form. Every day, per each resident’s request, he not only sorts through their mail, he delivers it exactly in the spot [in their room] they designate. He even reads the mail to those who request it.”
A native Milwaukeean, Loeser graduated from Whitefish Bay High School in 1960. Eventually he joined his family’s paper brokerage business at Lydell Ave. and Silver Spring Dr. in Whitefish Bay. He closed that business about two months ago, he said.
“I have a vice,” Louie confided. “Gambling.” He enjoys betting on almost anything, whether bingo, cards or the racetrack. “I’ve been to almost all the tracks,” he said, “and I will go again as soon as I get my legs back.”
For about seven months, Loeser has been unable to wear his prosthetic legs because of continuing health problems. But he expects to receive new prosthetic legs soon. It will take some time to work up to walking again and “Though I need help getting in and out [of my car], I can drive with legs.”
In the meantime, he will continue to live a full life, meeting Friesler for lunch nearly every day, helping Pontos with “miscellaneous things” and, of course — come rain or shine — delivering the mail.
Loeser doesn’t eat bagels because they “don’t agree with me,” so he enjoyed a Coke at the Kosher Oasis at the Jewish Home and Care Center.
By Andrea Waxman
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