OSHKOSH, Wis. — Nancy L. Bartol, a longtime member of the Trains magazine editorial staff and later Kalmbach Publishing Co.’s librarian, died Dec. 29 at age 83.
With 43 years at Kalmbach, she was one of the longest-tenured employees in the company’s history, most of her career reporting directly to Trains Editor David P. Morgan. She was a colleague of other fondly remembered Trains figures, among them Managing Editor Rosemary Entringer, Art Director George A. Gloff, and Editor J. David Ingles.
Bartol was hired by Kalmbach in 1963 as the Trains editorial secretary, first appearing on the masthead in the September issue. She remained in the renamed editorial assistant post until 1977, when she was named copy editor in the wake of Entringer’s death, at which point Morgan referred to Bartol as “our schedule czar.” In November 1979 she was named production editor and served in that role until 1997, when she began to oversee the David P. Morgan Memorial Library, retiring at the end of 2006.
Bartol was born Aug. 30, 1941, in Princeton, Wis., a small town roughly 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee, on Chicago & North Western’s branch between Fond du Lac and Wisconsin Rapids. She graduated from Princeton High School in 1959 and later moved to Milwaukee.
Two generations of Trains staffers and contributors knew Nancy as a friendly, supportive colleague, but also as a no-nonsense taskmaster once she assumed the production editor role. It was in that job that her organization skills came to the fore, responsible as she was for policing deadlines, editing copy, and delivering the finished magazine to the Production Department. She later applied the same skills to the company’s library.
Bartol lived most of her years in a comfortable house on Milwaukee’s northwest side. In 2009, she donated the 35-foot-high Colorado spruce tree in her front yard to the city for use as Milwaukee’s official Christmas tree. It was displayed at downtown’s Red Arrow Park amid much news coverage.
In retirement, Nancy kept a full schedule of arts activities, volunteering as an usher for the Skylight Theater and regularly attending performances of the Milwaukee Ballet and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra as a season ticket holder. She was active in the Hart Park Senior Center choir as well as the Resurrection Choir at Mother of Good Counsel Parish in Milwaukee.
Nancy Bartol is survived by her sister, Ann Marie Froehlke of Oshkosh, as well as several cousins. A mass of Christian burial will be held Jan. 7, 2025, at 11 a.m. at St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church, 830 S. Westhaven Dr., Oshkosh, Wis., with visitation at 10 a.m. Burial will be private at a later date. The family suggests donations in Nancy’s honor to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society or the Rheumatoid Arthritis Foundation.
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