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Daniel Kotz <br /> <br />Young Daniel Kotz, also known lovingly as “Dannie Boy”, was known in town as a boy that <br />when not working the farm would walk around barefoot in town. Shoes in those early years, <br />along with other necessities and comforts, were likely challenging to provide. <br /> <br />Daniel, along with his brothers and sisters, only went to school three months per year as <br />the school house was staffed seasonally by a part-time volunteer. Daniel loved to read, <br />however books were rare. Whatever he could get ahold of to read, he did. But overall, it <br />was hard work on the farm that consumed the vast majority of his time. But when the rains <br />came, such that made working the farm impossible, Daniel would take to sketching the <br />landscapes he so loved around him on the Kotz Family Farm. <br /> <br />Daniel’s early interest in painting was spawned by frequent visits to the Barrett Jewelry <br />Store located on North Michigan Street, where in a street-side display window, the young, <br />barefoot, Daniel Kotz, was frequently seen entranced, as he gazed upon a watercolor <br />painting exhibited there for hours at a time. The painting displayed in that street-side <br />window was a watercolor by John Schmit-Meyer, a locally famed painter, of which the <br />subject matter was a building with a number of boys and girls playing about.