Jerome Nachreiner: A Tribute to the Watcher and the Watched
“Jerome, come and look! There’s a white deer out here!” So began Evelyn and Jerome Nachreiner’s history of watching the white deer that often came to their hillside home between Leland and Plain. Fourteen years later, they would still drop everything and go over to the window to look, no matter how many times the white deer appeared.
Whenever a car would drive by and stop on the nearby road, Evelyn and Jerome would always look outside because it meant there were white deer close by. The deer seemed to like the thick cover above their house and would often come under their bird feeder.
There were only two or three or four white deer at first, says Evelyn. Seven or eight years ago there were a lot more–we would see 7, 8, or 9 from our house. There aren’t as many now, Evelyn laments.
Jerome loved watching the white deer, especially as health problems kept him increasingly confined to his house. When Leland’s big white buck was shot in 2008, Jerome “thought that was not right” and attended meetings to advocate for their protection.
Health problems in 2014 finally forced Jerome into a nursing home in town, far from his beloved white deer. Evelyn says, “He truly enjoyed seeing them.” Jerome passed away on September 22 at the age of 87. His obituary reads:
Jerome enjoyed fishing, hunting, snowmobiling, the Milwaukee Brewers, and driving his 4-wheeler in his woods. He loved watching the white deer visit his property every day.
What more can a person say?
