Fritz and Mary Schuler have spent the past half-century performing music and selling or repairing musical instruments at their store, called Golden Ring Music and Folklore Center.
During an interview with the Schuler’s at their 1003 Washington Street location, Fritz explained they started their journey in the summer of 1972 while he was an elementary school teacher in Kewaunee.
“I started teaching guitar on the side and it got to the point where I was teaching school all day, coming home and then teaching guitar until 8:30 or 9:00 at night every night,” he explained. “And, I figured one of these has gotta go.”
He figured out that moving back to Manitowoc where they both grew up would work, so they opened a store in their home on Washington Street to do what they really enjoyed.
When asked how they arrived at the business name, Mary and Fritz told us they listened to a lot of folk music in the early 70s.
Original Golden Ring Storefront
She told us there was a group of “Musicians who played solo or duet, but also once a year they would get together and just play as friends and musicians. They titled their album the Golden Ring of Friends, which is how they looked at themselves, as a golden circle of friends who played music. And, that was such a neat concept to us.”
As for encounters with famous people in the store, Fritz recalled one such experience in 1994.
“Bob Dylan was playing in Green Bay and while Bob never showed up, his band spent two days in the store playing just about everything we had,” he recalled. “We had a lot of fun with them and one of them bought a guitar, an old Hawaiian-style oahu guitar.”
And, Mary remembered a visit from a famous singer/songwriter who was performing at the Capitol Civic Center that night.
Fritz and Mary in the 1970s
“I was up at the front counter when this gentleman walked in,” she reminisced. “And, like I always do, I said hi and asked if there was anything we could help you with? He answered, no I’m just looking around. Well, we have out in the store a lot of framed pictures of famous folk artists and he was really looking at those pictures. I just saw him from the side and said to myself ‘My gosh! Is that John Prine?’ And I said to him, ‘By any chance are you John Prine?’ He said, ‘Yes I am.’”
Prine’s first songbook came out in 1972 and she felt good about telling him in person that because of the popularity of his music they have to keep that book in stock after all these years.
Fritz Schuler told us they’ve had three moves in the same building at South 10th and Washington and quipped “it has to be some weird record, somewhere.”
When we asked if retirement was in the near future, Fritz said he knows there will be a time when they’ll no longer be able to do what they doing.
Mary added they have cut back on hours and days of operation, but the couple still truly enjoys being in business and satisfying their customers.
