This picture was captioned “Howie.” Mr. Zillmer had a truck, was from Pewaukee, Wisconsin, owned a 1930s-era Chevrolet truck, and was friends with the photographer of this album. That’s about all we know — and with this magic of the internet, can anything more be discovered? Not as much as you might think — Howie could certainly be “Howard Zillmer” — the internet brings us a flyer from a church in Florida that lists Zillmer’s birthday as January third — Florida’s quite a ways away from Wisconsin, though. 2003 brought us the obituary of a Howard Zillmer’s mother, Augusta, who had been born in 1910 and lived in Pewaukee. Howard E Zillmer enlisted in the military in Milwaukee shortly after World War II broke out, but — also in Milwaukee — Howard R Zillmer held out until ’43. Our photogenic Howard, however, looks older than any of the possible Howards on the internet. If internet archives have slowly reached back to the ’40s, maybe eventually we’ll be able to find Howie. Until then, he’s remembered for driving his grain truck past Ruth.
