One of the Wauneta Public Library’s biggest benefactors doesn’t use it very often. But then, it’s hard to do that when you live over 1,000 miles away.
    Still, even though Pam Rietsch sort of married into Wauneta citizenship, her feelings for the town are as strong as those of any home-grown product.
     “I never [donated to the library] for accolades and stuff,” she said. “I did it because I love Wauneta, period. I’ve made so many friends.”
    Rietsch, 70, lives in Howell, Michigan, a rural area midway between Detroit and Lansing, Michigan. She grew up in Detroit and nearly 50 years ago, she married Wauneta native Donald Rietsch. “The minute I saw Donnie I said, ‘I’m going to marry that man.’”
    That meant spending many summers in the Wauneta area, where they still own land, visiting the in-laws.
    Wauneta reminded her of a small town in Pennsylvania she often visited as a child.
    “It reminds me a lot of this town, a little tiny town called Gerardville in Pennsylvania. People are always friendly and always helpful and you can make new friends so easily, unlike if you live in a city, where people are afraid to talk to strangers.”
 On trips to Wauneta, “whenever we would come out to the farm, Donnie would go out with his friends so I made my own friends,” she said, people she met at places like the library and grocery store. “I loved them to death, and of course, Mom and Dad Rietsch.”
    Her donations started 30 or 40 years ago, she said. “Being a historian, I believe places like Wauneta’s library should have the proper things to be able to learn about history. I came into some money and I bought them a microfilm reader and then blank film so if they wanted to make their own [reels]. It kind of grew. I remember we were cleaning out some things and we went through my Dad’s duffle bag or something and there was a whole batch of magazines. It was [from] when the Titanic went down and several other big events.”

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