If you’ve traveled the streets of Milwaukee between the 1980s and the late 2010s, you were sure to encounter a character named Brother Ron, who drove a station wagon some referred to as the “Holy Roller” or the “Jesus-mobile.” But Brother Ron did not have a message of neighborly love, choosing instead to loudly warn of hellfire and damnation.
Loudspeakers mounted to the roof of his car broadcasted a tinny, muddled recording of a sermon, and every inch of his car was scrawled with chicken scratch lettering spelling out Bible verses and a long list of those bound for hell.
Now you have a chance to own a Brother Ron rant of your own, because Cream City Clean Out, the business cleaning out his house, will auction off the artifacts they’ve found inside. The auction opens at 6 p.m. today and lasts 24 hours, being held on the company’s Facebook page. Bids are made in increments of $10. Shipping, paid by the buyer, is possible for the lower 48 states.
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Some viewed him as a hateful, mobile piece of urban blight, but like him or not, he was a unique fixture of Milwaukee’s landscape. Seen slowly cruising the streets of downtown, the East Side, and wherever else his righteous rage led him.
“Many people over the years have assumed Brother Ron passed due to his lack of appearance throughout the city,” says Colleen Hittman, who has operated Cream City Clean Out with her husband Zak for a little over ten years.
They handle estate transitions with a mission of “preserving people’s stories,” after seeing heartbreaking cases of people’s art and personal items being tossed in dumpsters.
“Essentially, we try to be a one stop shop for clients in need of downsizing or clearing out a property. The goal is always to preserve as much as we reasonably can through sale, donation, free giveaways and of course, some things join our own collection,” Hittman says. She notes that Brother Ron is still alive, but recently had to leave his home.
“From what we understand, his car broke down in the late 2010s and from what neighbors said, it sounds like his porch became one of his main gospel stages,” Hittman notes. “We were invited in to salvage whatever contents we were able to and did our best to save what we could.”
Brother Ron left behind a much quieter neighborhood and a house filled with what might be considered outsider art.
The items being auctioned include signs, a beat-up plywood replica of the Ten Commandment tablets, a cross and a cabinet that held literature for passersby in front of his house. There’s also a creepy, red-eyed rocking horse of the apocalypse that used to be attached to his car with the words “DEATH- FAMINE- HELL” painted across it, and even the sermon-spewing bullhorns attached to his car.
“The response has been overwhelming, we weren’t sure what to expect but it’s been interesting to hear people’s stories, which is great since that’s what our business is built on,” said Hittman. “The original post has now been viewed almost 60,000 times and continues to get traction; the messages coming in asking to acquire a piece haven’t stopped.”
