Whenever my wife (Kathy Feeley-Katzman ’72, MS’73) and I come to Madison, if the weather is anywhere near tolerable, one of our favorite outings is to walk in the Arboretum off of Monroe Street in the Ho-Nee-Um Pond area. The setting there is beautiful. Several pristine springs bubble forth from the ground and flow into Lake Wingra and in the spring, an incredible number of migratory warblers stop there to rest on their way north. Right by one of these springs is a group of stones in a circle about 40 feet in diameter and a plaque that reads ‘Kenneth Jensen Wheeler Memorial Council Circle: This council ring is dedicated by his parents to the ever-living spirit of Kenneth Jensen Wheeler, 1912–1935.’ I was wondering if you know any more about it … how he died, who he was and who his parents were.

Kenneth Jensen Wheeler was a UW student in the 1930s. A landscape architecture major and member of Sigma Phi fraternity, he died tragically of a brain aneurysm just before graduation.

Wheeler’s grandfather, the famous Danish-born landscape architect Jens Jensen, designed the Kenneth Jensen Wheeler Council Ring in the Arboretum. The council ring motif was important to Jensen as a symbol of American democracy, with ties to the ancient rings of his native Denmark and to American Indian council fires that embraced egalitarianism. Well-known for his park designs in Chicago, Jensen was a leader of the natural design movement.

Some say that the Civilian Conservation Corps built the Wheeler Council Ring after Jensen designed it — others give credit to Kenneth’s father, Harold Wheeler. Perhaps the young men in the CCC helped by quarrying the stone nearby. Jensen corresponded with William Longenecker, then director of the Arboretum, about the plants to be used around the ring and the type of ceremony that would dedicate it. He chose native plants such as hawthorns, crabapples and wild roses because they symbolized virtues that could be attributed to his grandson.