200 E. Ridge ~ The Burt and Adams Home

The following is an excerpt from my book My Marquette:

Directly across from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church is the Burt house, more commonly known as the Adams Home. The Burt family is one of the most significant in Upper Michigan history beginning with William Austin Burt who discovered iron ore in Marquette County, thus leading to the building of the mines and Marquette as a harbor town. This home was built by William Austin Burt’s grandson, Hiram Burt. Hiram and his wife fell in love with a house in France while traveling there in the 1870s, and they decided to build a replica in Marquette. Hiram owned the Burt Freestone Quarry and used its own brownstone to build his home. It included a Mansard roof with Gothic gables, and a gabled tower. Behind the house, on the sloping hill down to the lake, numerous terraces were built for gardens and a place to hold parties. Hiram Burt decided to sell the house to Sidney Adams, and then he moved to 351 E. Ridge Street.

The Adams home today. The upper floor has been removed and it is currently the Terrace Apartments.

Sidney Adams, the house’s second owner, arrived in Marquette in 1850 with only a dollar to his name, but he bought an ax for fifty cents and set out to become a woodsman. He soon could afford to buy a wagon and oxen to deliver wood to his customers. Besides starting a side business as a potato farmer, he received a contract to haul iron ore in his wagons from the mines to Marquette in the years before the first railroad arrived. He also went on to own a sawmill and to invest significantly in land.

When he bought the Burt house, Adams indulged in designing terraces on the hill behind the house and filling them with fruit and vegetables, as well as bridges for people to walk on. He extended the terraces not only behind his property but behind many more houses extending eastward along Ridge Street. Adams also reputedly built an underground tunnel that ran from his house across the street to the Episcopal Church so his invalid adopted son, William Sidney Adams, could attend church without going outside.

Will Adams, the adopted son, was born in 1878 to Detroit parents who died while he was an infant. In his youth, Will was a soloist in the boys choir at school and church and enjoyed athletic pursuits, but a baseball injury resulted in soft tissue becoming hard until eventually he ossified into a living statue. By his mid-teens he was confined to a portable couch and only his face remained mobile. By sheer willpower, Will survived to the age of thirty-two. No longer able to perform athletics, he became one of Marquette’s first literary figures, starting his own magazine business. His family hired him an attendant to whom he could dictate his magazine. He named his magazine CHIPS. Besides his own text, he included political cartoons and even caricatures of such town leaders as Peter White, Nathan Kaufman, and John M. Longyear. The paper was largely supported by advertising, so a phone was installed in the Adams home, and his attendant would hold the phone to Will’s mouth so he could talk up his bi-monthly magazine to prospective advertisers.

Will also composed an opera with his childhood friend, Norma Ross, then the directress of the Marquette schools’ music program. Will hummed melodies and Ross wrote them down. Their end result was the production of Miss D. Q. Pons an opera which premiered at the Marquette Opera House on July 3, 1905 with Ross in the title role. Will viewed the opera from the wing in his portable bed, and when its success led to the troupe traveling for sellout performances in Ishpeming, Hancock, Calumet, and Sault Ste. Marie, Will traveled with them by train. In 1906, Will also founded another newspaper, the Marquette Chronicle to which he contributed an original article each day. He died on August 10, 1909, preceded by his adopted father, Sidney Adams in 1906. Will once joked about his literary efforts, “Every specimen of writ is a silent story of how the author was saved from cerrebrius combustion.”

After her parents and adopted brother’s death, Bertha Adams remained in the house for many years, but as time went on, her father’s terraces fell into disrepair and the gardens became overgrown. When the house was sold in 1946, only slight vestiges of the gardens and terraces remained. After the house was sold, the gabled tower was removed, and the house broken up into the aptly named Terrace Apartments, which it remains today.

(photos of the terraced gardens are included in My Marquette)

The Peter White Home – 460 E. Ridge, Marquette

The following is from my book My Marquette. Photos of the Peter White Home are included in the book:

In 1867, Peter White was the first person to build his home on Ridge Street and he lived there until his death in 1908. The home was inherited by his daughter, Frances P. White, and her husband, George Shiras III. George Shiras III was the son of Supreme Court Justice, George Shiras II and his wife, Lillie, another of the Kennedy sisters. George Shiras III would be famous as a naturalist who engineered the ability to photograph wildlife at night. At the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, his work took first prize. Shiras Hills, Shiras Pointe Condominiums, and Shiras Pool at Presque Isle are named for him, but I think he would have been most pleased to be remembered with Shiras Zoo at Presque Isle. George Shiras III would also become a congressman for Pennsylvania and become a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt, having a major influence on Roosevelt’s conservation efforts. Roosevelt would stay at the Shiras home when he visited Marquette, most notably in 1913 during his famous trial at the Marquette County Courthouse. George Shiras III died in 1942 and was buried in Marquette. The Shirases would have two children, George Shiras IV and Ellen Shiras. Ellen would marry Frank Russell Sr., owner of The Mining Journal.

The Frazier Home stands where formerly the Peter White Home stood

The historic Peter White home was torn down by the family in the late 1940s because it was considered too expensive to heat. The current home was built in 1949 by Lincoln and Ann Frazier. Ann Reynolds Frazier was a cousin of the Shiras family and the daughter of Maxwell Kennedy Reynolds and Frances Q. Jopling (Frances’ mother was Mary White, Peter White’s daughter). This new home was the first Ranch style home in the historical residential district of Marquette, which makes it historic in its own right despite its looking out of place among its neighbors. The house was featured in Home and Garden as a model modern home. The entire home is built on one level—no upstairs, no basement—and provides spectacular views of the lake from several rooms. Behind it is the original carriage house and Peter White’s terraced gardens. One can imagine Peter White entertaining his guests there with his famous Peter White punch. Today, the home is owned by Lincoln and Ann Frazier’s son Peter White Frazier and his wife, Peggy.

Holly Wilson – Marquette Author of The Hundred Steps

Everyone who knows anything about Marquette fiction knows the name of Carroll Watson Rankin, but do you know about Holly Wilson, author of The Hundred Steps?

Holly Wilson in 1966. The photo is taken from a Ferris State University yearbook. Wilson taught in the English Department at Ferris State.

Author Holly Wilson (Helen Finnegan Wilson)  was born in Duluth, Minnesota, but after her father died, her mother, sister, she came to Marquette to live with her grandmother at 328 E. Arch Street. Wilson grew up ice skating on Lake Superior, playing on Arch Street, and devouring books at the Peter White Public Library. She stated, “I began writing as soon as I knew what a pencil and paper were for.” While a college student, she wrote an adult novel The King Pin, which received the highest award in the Avery and Julie Hopwood Awards Contest in fiction.

Wilson married her husband, psychiatrist Frederic W. Wilson, while they were students at the University of Michigan. After her daughters Mary and Anne were born, she continued to write when they napped, and when they were older, she often took them to Marquette to visit their grandmother. While they explored the lakeshore and bluff, Holly Wilson entertained her daughters with stories about her childhood on Arch Street which resulted in her writing her young adult novel Deborah Todd (1955) about the title character and her friends who make up the Arch Street gang. The novel is set in Henry’s Bend, a fictional and thinly-disguised version of Marquette which also makes mention of the Hundred Steps.

Finding that she preferred to write for children and teenagers, Wilson was inspired to write several more young adult novels set throughout Michigan. Her next novel Caroline, the Unconquered (1956) is also set in Henry’s Bend, but in 1853. Clues to its being a fictional Marquette include the village burning down, a reference to Marquette’s 1868 fire. The title character travels across the Great Lakes on the Fur Trader and Siskiwit, schooners that sailed into Marquette in the 1850s. Clara, the Unconquered was the first novel to depict Marquette’s early years. Wilson said she wrote the novel because “I grew up in northern Michigan and all my life I have been fascinated by the courage and endurance of the pioneers who went there when that country was an unknown wilderness….The people who went there during the early days of the iron industry were so possessed by a desire to set down roots that, in spite of the almost unbelievable hardships they had to endure, they refused to be defeated.”

Snowbound in Hidden Valley (1957) was written because Wilson explained, “When I was a little girl in northern Michigan, we once had a Big Blizzard that we talked about for years. The entire Upper Peninsula of Michigan was snowed under and we were cut off from civilization for more than a week.” Although not a sequel, the main character, Jo Shannon, just happens to live next door to Doc Todd, father to Deborah Todd, the title character of Wilson’s earlier novel. Jo befriends Onota Leroy, an Indian classmate, and while visiting her in Hidden Valley, she not only learns Chippewa customs but ends up being lost in a blizzard. The novel represents Wilson’s social conscience—the female main characters are friends despite their racial and ethnic differences. Similarly, in The Hundred Steps (1958) Wilson breaks down social class distinctions to show the goodness of all the townspeople. Oddly, Wilson decided in The Hundred Steps to name the town Clifton, despite the Hundred Steps having been mentioned earlier in Deborah Todd where the town is Henry’s Bend. Wilson would write several more novels including Singamon and Always Anne.The novels are today out-of-print, but they retain their charm and most of them are available to be checked out at the Peter White Public Library.

Double Heritage, Holly Wilson’s last novel, was published in 1971 and tells the story of eighteen-year-old Emily, whose Indian heritage, the Black Hawk War, and a cholera epidemic seem destined to prevent her marriage to the son of one of Detroit’s aristocratic French families.

Wilson was honored in 1965 by attending a dinner for Michigan Artists and Writers hosted by Governor Romney. In 1967, she received the University of Michigan Sesquicentennial Award for her contributions to children’s literature. By 1970, she was an assistant professor of English at Ferris State in Big Rapids, Michigan. Her last book, Double Heritage, was published in 1971.

Her husband’s career as a psychiatrist would result in Holly Wilson living in Kansas, Pennsylvania, and New York as well as Traverse City, Michigan, but she always remained close to Marquette as did her children. Her daughter, Dr. Mary Helen Martin and her husband Willard Martin, would return to Marquette to live in the family home. Dr. Martin served as the Director of Mental Health at Marquette General Hospital for over thirty years. She died in 2009.

The Finnegan home where author Holly Wilson grew up at 328 E. Arch St in Marquette

More information about other Marquette authors and historical homes can be found in my book My Marquette, available at www.MarquetteFiction.com.

My Newest Book: Creating a Local Historical Book

Modern History Press just published this short 40 page book based on two interviews I did with Authors Access (www.AuthorsAccess.com) about how I researched and wrote my historical novels as well as my history book My Marquette.

The book is now for sale at my website www.MarquetteFiction.com and at other online bookstores. The ebook versions should be available by the middle of October 2012.

Following is a description of the book from the back cover. You can also view a few sample pages of the book at my website:

Does Your City or Region Have a Fascinating Story that needs to be told before it’s forgotten?

Yes, it does, and you can be the person to write it.

In this short book, Tyler Tichelaar, author of My Marquette and The Marquette Trilogy, talks in an interview format about how he became interested in writing both local history and regional and historical fiction and his research and writing process to bring his books to fruition.

Readers of Creating a Local Historical Book will learn:

• What kind of research is required
• What counts as research
• Where to do research
• How to organize that research into a book
• How not to go overboard with details
• Finding images and gaining usage permission
• How to make your book stand out from others
• Tips on marketing your history book

“Our committee would like to honor Tyler with this award in honor of his meticulous research, his enlightened and personal testimony about Marquette and his educational contributions to the preservation of Marquette’s history.”

– The Marquette Beautification & Restoration Committee, presenting Tyler with the Barbara H. Kelly Historic Preservation Award

“Tyler Tichelaar speaks from the heart about his love affair with the town of his birth. Join him on a nostalgic tour of one of the great small cities of America.”

— Karl Bohnak, author of So Cold a Sky: Upper Michigan Weather Stories

Nathan Kaufman and the Breitung Family

The following passage is taken from my book My Marquette:

The Breitung home, previously at 334 E. Ridge in Marquette, is no longer standing, but its history provides an interesting look into the lives of its owners. The house was built by Edward Breitung and his wife, Mary. Breitung, the son of a Lutheran minister, was born in 1831 in the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen in Germany. He attended the College of Mining in Meiningen, and then in 1849, immigrated to the United States and settled in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. He moved to Detroit in 1851 and became a clerk in a mercantile house. His mining and mercantile background led him to Marquette and later Negaunee where he continued his mercantile business. By 1864, he completely transitioned into iron mining. He located several profitable mines in Marquette and Menominee Counties, and later became involved with gold and silver mining in Colorado. Breitung Township in Minnesota is named after him for his work in developing its Soudan Mine in the 1880s. Breitung Township in Dickinson County, Michigan is also named for him.

Edward Breitung became involved in politics and was elected to the Michigan State House of Representatives in 1873 and 1874. He served as a Michigan State Senator in 1877 and 1878. He was Negaunee’s mayor in 1879, 1880, and 1882, and from 1883-1885, he was in the United States House of Representatives for Michigan’s 11th congressional district.

Mr. Breitung met his wife, Mary, in a boarding house in Republic, Michigan where he often ate when in town on business and where she worked as a chambermaid. They would have two children, William, who died young, and Edward N. Breitung who was fifteen at the time of his father’s death in 1887. Breitung built this home just before his death.

Six years after Mr. Breitung’s death, Mary Breitung married Nathan Kaufman, whom her husband had relied on to handle many business details for him. The marriage created gossip that Mary and Nathan had been seeing each other before Mr. Breitung’s death, but considering they waited six years to marry, that seems unlikely. The gossip was more due to people disliking Nathan Kaufman and being jealous of how the Kaufman family’s social position rose as a result of this marriage. In the 1890s, Nathan Kaufman would serve as mayor, be responsible for building the city hall, be involved in starting the Marquette Street Railway, and would help to establish and become president of the Savings Bank.

The Breitung Mausoleum, Park Cemetery, Marquette

Meanwhile, Edward N. Breitung reached adulthood and married his stepfather’s younger sister Charlotte Graveraet Kaufman. Nathan Kaufman would continue to oversee operation of the Breitung money and businesses until his death in 1918.

When Nathan Kaufman died, his will left everything to the Kaufman rather than Breitung side of the family. When his wife, Mary Breitung Kaufman, went to court to break the will it resulted in a trial where so many unsavory details came out about Nathan that Mary decided to divorce him posthumously.

About the same time, Nathan’s younger brother, Louis Kaufman, built the impressive Kaufman Mausoleum in Park Cemetery—a scaled-down replica of the Parthenon in Greece and said to cost about three million dollars. To be buried in the marvelous marble mausoleum was not good enough reason for Mary to stay married to her deceased second husband. Today she is buried in the smaller Breitung mausoleum built of sandstone.

As for Mary’s son Edward Breitung who married Nathan Kaufman’s sister, they had their own fascinating family scandals, which you can read more about in my book My Marquette, available at www.MarquetteFiction.com

Summer Memories: Remembering the Hot Pond

The following post is taken from my book My Marquette. Unfortunately, I could not find a photo of the Hot Pond when writing my book.

When I was a kid in the early 1980s, the Hot Pond was the place to swim rather than the Shiras Pool. The Hot Pond existed for a short time because the Dead River wound its way under the bridge north toward the ore dock, cutting through the land, thereby creating a warm swimming hole between two beaches. People would often float down the Hot Pond on inflatable rafts and inner tubes, and it was perfect for swimming since it was no more than five feet deep in the middle so parents felt their children were safe swimming there. But rivers flow as they will, and soon a hard winter changed the river’s flow back into a relatively straight line under the bridge into Lake Superior. The Hot Pond was no more.

Had winter not changed the river’s course, doubtless the Flood of 2003 would have. In May 2003, heavy spring rain and rapidly melting snow caused water levels in the Dead River to rise, and the water pressure from the current became too strong for the Silver Basin Dam to withstand. The dam broke, releasing some 90 billion gallons of water. Not only did the river overflow its banks, but trees and boats plummeted downstream. The Dead River flows through the Silver Basin to the Hoist Dam. Fear that the Hoist would also break as water poured over its top caused the evacuation of homes from the Silver Basin and McClure Basin and all along the river. The Dead River flows just north of Marquette’s Wright Street along the Holy Cross Cemetery and then under the Dead River Bridge out into Lake Superior, so that meant all of Marquette north of Wright Street was evacuated—two thousand people total.

Fortunately, the Hoist Dam withstood the flooding and no one in Marquette lost a home, but the flood did wipe out the Dead River Bridge, making Presque Isle inaccessible. The Presque Isle Power Plant was out of commission, resulting in power to the mines being shut down—it would be a month before it was operating again at full capacity. All residents north of Marquette including Big Bay lost power. Marquette’s Tourist Park’s dam and levee just a mile west of the river’s mouth also failed. The Tourist Park’s landscape would forever be changed—the water from the small lake where so many people swam flowed down the river, leaving behind naked land that had once been underwater. The park has never been the same.

Flooding in Upper Michigan is not uncommon in the spring due to melting snow and rain, but the 2003 Dead River Flood holds the record for being the most traumatic ever seen in Marquette County. The damage was estimated at $100 million. Hopefully, the flood’s like will never be seen again.

Blueberry Picking Season – 1920 Style

I just had a wonderful piece of blueberry pie, so in tribute to my favorite pie, favorite berry, and an occupation I find quite relaxing, I am posting a scene from my novel The Queen City that takes place in 1920 and depicts some of my characters taking the blueberry train north of Marquette to go blueberry picking.

Enjoy, and may you have blueberry pie sometime in your near future.

 

1920

            On this beautiful August morning, Kathy McCarey felt all was finally right again with the world. This time two years ago, the war had still been raging, but now some good might be detected as having resulted from it. She would never cease missing Frank, but the worst pain of his loss had been dealt with, and while a day never passed without her thinking of him, she found life remained abundant about her. Jeremy had come home from the war, and a year ago, he had married. Now Kathy and Patrick were expecting their first grandchild. Jeremy had met his bride, Caroline, while training downstate at Fort Custer; after the war, he had gone back to Battle Creek to visit her family and bring her home to be his wife. Caroline missed her family downstate, but Kathy felt once the baby was born, her daughter-in-law would adjust to the change of location and feel her life was complete, just as Kathy had felt when her first child, Frank, had been born. She had become a mother so many years ago, yet Kathy found it hard to believe that only her baby, Beth, was still at home. And now Beth was a big girl of ten and would be running off to get married before she knew it, but by that time, Kathy imagined she would have Jeremy’s children to spoil.

The Queen City: The Marquette Trilogy, Book One

            “Mama, hurry, or we’ll be late!” Beth shouted.

The girl had learned to yell for her mother’s attention, and usually Kathy heard her. At first, the deafness had been difficult for Kathy, but she soon found she knew her family so well, she could guess what each one wanted even if she only caught a couple words. She had become very good at reading lips, especially when speaking to people outside of her family. At other times, her family might speak loudly to her, but because she was not facing them, she pretended she did not hear them; she had found that a little exaggeration of her deafness helped to prevent many unnecessary family conflicts.

“Thelma’s already waiting outside,” Beth continued to holler.

Thelma was making her annual summer visit. Kathy felt the girl was a good companion for Beth, old enough to watch over her, yet young enough to play with her. That Thelma was a bit slow for her years made the two girls all the more compatible. Kathy had often feared Beth would become a tomboy because she only had older brothers to model herself after, but Thelma was decidedly feminine with her fancy white gloves, expensive dresses, and refined taste in music. And Thelma had not yet acquired any of those silly notions about boys that so many young women had these days. Kathy had been married at Thelma’s age, but Thelma was a late bloomer, and Kathy was thankful because then Beth was less likely to get any ideas while so young. Thelma’s eccentricities actually dissuaded several young men who might otherwise seek her hand solely from interest in her father’s wealth.

“Mama!” Beth hollered again.

“I’m coming,” Kathy called. She had promised to take the girls blueberry picking. Last year a huge forest fire near Birch and Big Bay had resulted in this summer’s mammoth blueberry crop. A “blueberry train” had been organized to take people to the berry fields north of Marquette so they could spend the day filling their pails. When Kathy heard reports that people were returning with tubs full of berries, she was determined to go; she just hoped the fields were not completely picked over; she longed for blueberry pie and did not want to disappoint the girls.

Kathy, Beth, and Thelma soon walked to the train at the depot with a few dozen Marquette residents, all fiercely intent upon blueberry picking, and even more intent on having a good time. Smiles and general gaiety marked the group, for it was a pleasant summer day, with a slight breeze to cool them from the sun’s rays, and the low humidity meant the woods would not be stiflingly hot. True Marquettians are always ready for an excuse to get out of town, no matter how much they love their distinguished city of sandstone and scenic views; they have an innate desire to get lost among trees, to forget civilization’s existence, to renew their spirits amid Nature’s serenity.

The train trip was uneventful, but all the more pleasant for it. Quiet yet eager conversations filled the railway car, and Kathy found herself surrounded by several of her acquaintances. Marquette’s population now surpassed ten thousand, but it remained small enough that if everyone did not know everyone else, people were sure to have mutual friends and acquaintances. Because she could read lips, Kathy could better converse on a noisy train than most of her neighbors with perfect hearing. She felt she hadn’t known such fun since long before the war. Thelma and Beth occupied themselves by looking out the windows. Beth tried to count the birch trees, but she soon gave up—they flew past so rapidly. Thelma willingly entertained her younger cousin, pointing out pretty little meadows or oddly shaped trees. They spotted a few deer, including a princely young fawn. The morning sun glistened through the trees, casting a medley of sunshine rays through the train windows. The ride felt all too short on such a glorious morning, but after a long day of berry picking, they knew they would all appreciate the shortest return trip possible.

When the train stopped at the berry fields, the passengers scurried across the meadows and copses, laying claim to large shady trees under which they could leave their excess belongings until lunchtime. Several people had brought multiple buckets, one even brought a small washtub. People went off with one pail, returned to place it under their claimed spot, set off into the fields to fill a second, and then started on a third. Little fear existed of anyone stealing berries amid such a multitude of overflowing bushes.

Kathy selected a spot for lunch while Thelma led Beth across the berry patches; Beth anxiously followed her cousin, but her enthusiasm was not bound to last.

After fifteen minutes of berry picking, Beth was tired enough to want a break. Thelma, too focused on picking berries to bake a pie for her father’s visit next weekend, ignored her cousin’s complaints.

Seeing that Thelma wasn’t paying attention, and that her mother was across the field, Beth decided to quit picking and go for a walk by herself. As she crossed the fields, she spotted another girl close to her age. She did not recognize the girl from Bishop Baraga School, but that did not matter. Beth went over to introduce herself; in a few minutes, the two girls were best friends, chasing each other and playing hide-and-go-seek among the trees; they completely neglected the blueberries, save for trampling over some of the bushes.

When Kathy looked up, she was concerned not to see her daughter near Thelma, but after a minute, she saw Beth and the other little girl. Having known Beth’s work ethic would not last long, she smiled to see her daughter had found a friend. Kathy returned to berry picking until Thelma had picked her way in the same direction. When the two were close enough, they started to chat and momentarily forgot about Beth until Thelma heard her scream from across the meadow.

Thelma told her aunt what she had heard, and then Kathy, who had not heard anything, quickly looked about for the source of her daughter’s cries. Then Beth came running toward her mother, her dress ripped, her eyes filled with tears, clutching the handle of her berry pail, only half connected to its handle so that the berries were haphazardly plunking from the bucket to the ground as she ran.

“Beth, what’s wrong?” asked Kathy, rushing to take her girl in her arms.

“I saw a snake! I nearly stepped on it before I saw it,” she said between sobs. “And that girl, Amy—I hate her—she just laughed, and she picked up the snake and shoved it at me; it hissed and tried to bite me!”

“There, there, dear. There aren’t any poisonous snakes around here. What color was it?”

“Green, and it was really big, like this.” Beth held up her hands to indicate a foot and a half.

“Ha,” laughed Thelma. “It was just a little garter snake. It won’t hurt you. I know a boy back in Calumet who keeps a half dozen of them as pets.”

Rather than be consoled, this news ran shivers up Beth’s spine.

“There, dear, it’s okay,” said Kathy. “It wasn’t nice of Amy to do that, but it didn’t hurt you any. Now tell me, how did you rip your dress?”

“Oh,” said Beth, forgetting she had intended to carry her pail in front of the rip so her mother would not see it. The snake ordeal had broken her cunning, so she had to confess. “I tore it on a branch while Amy and I were climbing a tree.”

“Well,” said Kathy, “it’s one of your older dresses, and I imagined you’d end up with berry stains on it, but I wish you wouldn’t climb trees.”

The mention of berries made Beth look to see how many she had picked. Then she discovered her bucket handle had broken. The bucket hung down at a forty-five degree angle. Inside, only six berries and some blueberry leaves were to be found.

“I lost all my berries!” she cried.

Twenty feet away, a young boy heard the lament. He had witnessed the snake incident and been unable to restrain from silent laughter, but now he felt sorry when Beth looked devastated by the lost blueberries.

“Come, dear,” said Kathy. “Let’s have lunch, and then we’ll fix your pail so you can still fill it this afternoon.”

“But I had it almost full,” sobbed Beth. “I wanted to pick two pails worth.”

In truth, the pail had barely been a quarter full, but Beth exaggerated her loss so her mother would not chide her for slacking in her berry picking.

Kathy and Thelma continued to console Beth as they found their shady tree and set up lunch. While they unfolded the picnic cloth, the young man who had witnessed Beth’s tragic scene approached. He waited to be noticed, then said hello.

“I saw you spill your berries,” he told Beth. “You can have my pail full if you want. I don’t really need so many.”

“Oh no, we couldn’t,” said Kathy.

“I insist,” he said, turning to Kathy. “It didn’t take me long to pick them, and I already filled two other pails this morning. I have all afternoon to pick, and I know little kids get tired quicker, so now she won’t have to pick all afternoon to make up her loss.”

Kathy was going to object again, but the young man said, “Please. I really do insist.”

“What do you say, Beth?”

“Okay,” Beth agreed, too surprised by such kindness to remember her manners.

“We thank you, Mr.—”

“I’m Henry,” he replied, although pleased to be called “Mister” when he was only fifteen.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Henry,” said Thelma, holding out her hand. “Would you like to have lunch with us?”

Henry did not wish to impose. He waited for permission from the adult.

“There’s plenty of food,” Thelma said. “Isn’t there, Aunt Kathy?”

Kathy smiled. “We have more than enough. Please join us.”

Henry accepted by sitting down. Thelma introduced everyone, explained that she was visiting her relatives in Marquette, then launched into her life story, which despite her short lifespan she described in enough detail that it could have rivaled War and Peace if written down. Beth sat quietly, too shy to say anything, but she adored the kind young man. Kathy emptied the picnic basket and spread out everything while Thelma continued to chatter.

“Henry, are you here by yourself?” asked Kathy, breaking in as Thelma paused before beginning to describe her life at age nine. Kathy was surprised the boy did not eat with his own family or friends.

“Yes, my pa is working for the Kaufmans over at Granot Loma. I usually work with him, but today there wasn’t much I could do, so he suggested I pick berries, and I’ll meet him when he’s ready to head home.”

“Oh, you’ve seen Granot Loma!” squealed Thelma, although less interested in Granot Loma than in gaining the boy’s attention. He was younger than her, but boys rarely spoke to her, so she was not choosy.

“Yes, it’s incredible. It’s so big, and it’s progressing beautifully.”

“What is your father doing there?” asked Kathy.

“He’s a carpenter, just like me,” Henry replied.

“You’re not old enough to work,” said Beth. “Don’t you go to school?”

“I did until this year, but from now on, I’m going to work with my Pa to help out the family. I have four younger brothers and sisters; the youngest one, Bill, is just two months old, so we need all the money we can get.”

Kathy smiled. She believed in the importance of education, but Henry seemed intelligent from his manner and speech, and a boy who helped his family was often of better character than one who received honors at school. It was unfortunate he knew tough times at his young age, but she suspected he might persevere all the more because of it.

“You look familiar,” she said. “Who are your parents?”

“My pa is Will Whitman, and my ma is Margaret. She was a Dalrymple.”

“I used to know Jacob Whitman and his wife Agnes. Are you related to them?”

“They were my grandparents.”

Then the names clicked in Kathy’s head. So this was Will’s son—Jacob and Agnes’s grandson. She had not seen Will in years—would not recognize him if she did see him. He must be middle-aged now, although she could only picture him as the little boy she had once gone sledding with. That meant, if Will were Henry’s father, then Sylvia Cumming was Henry’s aunt. Well, she mustn’t hold that against him.

“I remember your father when he was just a baby,” said Kathy. “When I was a girl, my mother was good friends with your family, especially with your grandma, and I think your great-grandparents. When your Grandpa Whitman moved the family out to his farm, though, we didn’t see much of them after that.”

“My pa did grow up on a farm,” Henry said. “But I never knew my grandparents; they died before I was born.”

“Mine and Beth’s grandparents are dead too,” said Thelma. “Grandpa and Grandma Bergmann I mean. We never knew our grandpa, but our grandma only died a few years ago.”

“Tell us more about Granot Loma,” said Kathy. She did not want to talk more about Henry’s family; his connection to the Cummings reminded her that Sylvia’s sons had come home from the war while Frank had been killed in France.

“Is Granot Loma as grand as everyone says?” asked Thelma. “It sounds like a castle in the wilderness.”

“Sort of is, like a castle masquerading as a log cabin,” laughed Henry.

He launched into a description of the Kaufman family’s magnificent mansion on the shore of Lake Superior. Intended as a summer home, it far outrivaled any cabin in the great North Woods, even those at the exclusive Huron Mountain Club. The Kaufmans had named the cabin for their children by using the first two letters of each of their children’s names to spell out Granot Loma. The famous architect, Marshall Fox, had been hired with several assisting architects to design the monstrous getaway. The main sitting room alone was to be a tremendous eighty feet long, forty feet wide, and thirty-six feet high. Henry did not know all the details, but he remembered those dimensions because they were so unfathomable. His parents’ entire house could fit into that one room. Stonemasons, plumbers, electricians, all were working constantly, yet completion of the building, already begun a year earlier, was estimated to take another five years. Rumor said the Kaufmans would build several smaller yet ornate cabins in the surrounding woods, one for each of their children, locally known as the “million dollar babies”.

“I just can’t imagine anything so grand in Upper Michigan,” said Thelma, jealous that despite her father’s own lumberjack prosperity, he would never be able to afford anything a quarter so splendid.

“Oh, great homes have been built here before,” said Kathy. “You’re all too young to remember the Longyear mansion, but it was a marvel in its day.”

“My pa told me about that,” said Henry. “He and my Grandpa Dalrymple were among those hired to take it apart.”

“It must have been quite a job,” said Kathy. “It was so enormous it filled an entire city block, and when the Longyears decided to move, the whole house was taken apart and shipped out East on railway cars.”

“My ma,” said Henry, “went inside it one day when my grandpa was working there. She got lost in it, it was that big.”

“It must be grand to be so rich,” said Thelma, although she had far more than most young ladies.

“Well,” said Kathy, “let’s have our cake and then get back to berry picking. I spied a good patch just before lunch, and I don’t want anyone to snatch it up.”

When the cake was gone, Henry thanked Kathy and the girls for their hospitality, then said, “I better get back to work. I promised to bring my ma back enough berries for two pies, and I want to bring some home for my grandparents too.”

“We’re glad you could join us,” Thelma said. She was sorry he was leaving; he was a cute boy; she wondered what chance she had to see him again.

Beth was more forward than her cousin. “Henry,” she asked, “can I go pick berries with you?”

“No, Beth, you stay with me,” said Kathy, not wanting to impose on the young man’s kindness.

“But Henry might know where the best berries are,” Beth said.

“She can come with me if she wants to,” said Henry. “I won’t mind.”

“I’m afraid she’ll be a trouble to you,” said Kathy.

“Oh, no,” he replied.

Kathy suspected he was only being kind, but she gave in. “All right, if you’re sure. Beth, you mind your manners, and be back in a couple hours so I don’t have to go looking for you and then miss the train.”

“Yes, Mama,” said Beth, clutching her berry pail, then disappearing with Henry.

Thelma looked after them, wishing she could go along, but she dared not ask—she knew she was no longer a cute little girl who could get away with joining a handsome boy. She stayed behind to help her aunt clean up the picnic.

“Don’t you want to go with them, Thelma?” asked her aunt.

“No, it wouldn’t be fair to leave you alone, aunt,” she said. She was embarrassed that her aunt should ask. She wanted to pick berries with Henry, but having Beth along would just spoil it anyway.

Kathy was pleased such polite young people existed as Henry and her niece, who was always attentive to her. It made her hopeful for the future. The war had not destroyed everything, not when such a beautiful day existed for berry picking, and when grand homes like Granot Loma were being built right here in Upper Michigan. She could not imagine having enough wealth to build such a home. But she was here to collect berries, not dollars, and if she wanted to make those pies, she had better get back to work.

Two berry picking hours later, Henry returned Beth to her mother. Then after saying goodbye, he started for the main road to meet his father and get a ride home.

“He’s so nice,” said Thelma, already starving for another look at the cute boy.

“Yes, the Whitmans were always good people,” said Kathy, thinking the Cummings did not count since they did not share the same name. Kathy thought Agnes would be pleased to know she had such a fine grandson. She wished Agnes could hear how beautifully Thelma played the piano. Agnes had taught Kathy to play and Kathy had first interested Thelma in the piano, and now Thelma was quite an accomplished pianist. Kathy wished Agnes knew how her influence lived on, although more than thirty years had passed since her death.

As they were stepping onto the train, Kathy’s thoughts were interrupted by Mrs. Quigley, whom Kathy knew from church.

“It’s a wonderful blueberry crop this year, isn’t it?” Mrs. Quigley said.

“Yes, I can’t get over how big the berries are,” Kathy replied.

“Listen to this,” said Mrs. Quigley. “I got me a cousin in Chicago, born there, lived there all her life. She called me up on the phone this mornin’ and when I told her I was goin’ to go pick blueberries, she asked whether I was bringin’ a ladder with me. ‘For what?’ I asked. ‘So you can reach them on the trees,’ she said. I said, ‘Blueberries don’t grow on trees, they grow on bushes.’ ‘Oh, I thought they was fruit,’ she says, ‘like oranges and apples.’ ‘They are,’ I says, ‘but lots of fruit grows on bushes.’ And then she got kinda mad at me and said ‘Well how was I to know?’ She ain’t never seen a blueberry bush in her life—only seen blueberries at the grocer’s. Can you imagine that?”

“How stupid she must be?” laughed Beth.

“Beth, we don’t use that word,” said Kathy.

“I’m not sure that she’s stupid,” said Mrs. Quigley, “but it goes to show you that livin’ in the city distorts a person. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere there wasn’t all these woods and open country as we have around here.”

“Chicago must be horrible!” said Thelma.

“Well, some must like it,” Mrs. Quigley replied, “else they wouldn’t live there.”

“People only live there to make money,” said Kathy. “But they don’t realize how little money is worth it. I wouldn’t live there for a million dollars.”

“Me neither,” said Beth.

“Well, I’ve been to Chicago a couple times,” said Mrs. Quigley, “and it’s a dirty, noisy place. It’s nothing compared to the fresh air and clean water we have here. And it’s too crowded, not quiet like here where you can at least hear yourself think.”

“That’s true,” Kathy nodded as the train started to chug down the track, leaving the blueberry meadows far behind.

“Looks like you all made out well,” said Mrs. Quigley. “Must be nice to have helpers. Couldn’t get any of my family to come out. My husband just wants to lay around the house. I’ve three big boys, but do you think I could get one of them to come? Not that they’ll argue when it comes time to eat the blueberry pie and muffins. But I shouldn’t complain. It was a nice quiet day for me. A woman needs a break now and then, especially when she lives with all men. Nice to be out in the woods like this.”

Kathy smiled in agreement. She felt her spirit refreshed by these beautiful dark woods.

Everyone on the train felt content. Bending down all day to pick berries was hard work, but everyone had a full bucket to make blueberry muffins, blueberry pie, blueberry pancakes, blueberry cookies, blueberry jam, blueberries on cereal and blueberries on ice cream. For the especially brave, there would be blueberry soup, that looked like paint and tasted worse, but even these people had to be admired for their blueberry passion. Yes, it had been a fine blueberry-picking day.

Ives Lake: Memories from My Childhood

The following post is taken from my book My Marquette and is preceded by a short history of Ives Lake and the Longyear family:

1970s photo of the caretaker house and red guest house at Ives Lake

From 1971-1976, my grandfather, Lester White, was the caretaker at Ives Lake. He and my grandmother would go up to the lake in the spring and stay through the summer, only coming home occasionally on a weekend. I can vividly remember riding in the car with my mom and brother when we would drive up to Ives Lake to visit my grandparents. We would sing “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” and any other songs my mother cared to teach us along the way. We would come to the gate where the gatekeeper would let us in because he knew us as part of my grandpa’s family.

My memories of Ives Lake are fragmented since I was only five when those years ended, but I can recall my cousins playing baseball on the large lawn, having big family picnics with all the cousins, great-aunts, and great-uncles there, swimming in the lake and my cousins collecting clams, and going fishing with my dad—I caught my first fish at Ives Lake. I remember my grandparents’ dog, Tramp, swimming in the river, and I remember going in the barn with my grandpa to see the barn swallows.

1970s photo of the Stone House

I distinctly remember my fifth birthday party was held here. I remember it mainly because I got a record player, an orange box that folded and locked up like a case. With the record player came several records made by the Peter Pan record company, including a book and record of “Little Red Riding Hood.” My cousin, Kenny White, who was born on July 4^th, also had his birthday party here one year.

The clearest memory I have is of walking with my grandpa and Great-Aunt Vi behind the barn to the chicken coop, and my brother and I pretending to be Peter Pan as I described in Superior Heritage. While I don’t remember it myself, my cousins, Leanne and Jaylyn White, who are several years older than me, remember Grandpa feeding Chucky the Woodchuck, whom I also depicted in my novel.

One time, Grandpa took my brother and me into the Stone House where one of the rooms had a table with numerous rocks on it that the geologists must have been studying. Grandpa told us we could each have one of the rocks. I still have mine today, a curious two shaded brown rock like none I have ever seen since. Someday I will find a geologist who will tell me what it is.

My family has hundreds of photographs of summers spent at Ives Lake including fishing parties, picnics, and Grandpa and me on the riding lawn mower. The child’s mind is highly impressionable so perhaps that is why I remember this beautiful magical place so well.

My rock from the Stone House. I still have it but have never found out what kind of rock it is.

The visits to Ives Lake ended on a sad note when my mother received a phone call that her grandmother, Barbara McCombie White, had died. I remember I was coloring in a color-by-number book when the call arrived. I didn’t understand, but I remember my mother crying and her telling me to go back to my coloring while she got ready to go. We had to drive up to Ives Lake where my grandpa was—he had no phone there—so my mom could tell him his mother had died. The two events may not have been related, but my great-grandmother’s death seemed like the end of the Ives Lake summers to me. It was also the end of an era in another way—my great-grandmother would be the only person I would know who was born in the nineteenth century, 1885, to be exact, and being at Ives Lake was equally like being in another era.

Tyler with Grandpa on the riding lawnmower at Ives Lake about 1975.

 

Upcoming Marquette History Events

Meet at the Superior Dome for the North Marquette walking tour on July 12th at 6:30 p.m.

The Marquette Regional History Center continues to bring our past history to life this summer. Here are a couple of their upcoming events:

Marquette History Bus Tours:

July 11 @ 1pm, July 18 @ 6:30pm, July 25 @ 1pm, August 1 @ 1pm

These bus tours offer an innovative way of bringing Marquette’s history to people in a personal way. A bus tour is an entertaining, narrated journey filled with interest, history and beauty. Meet historic re-enactors and tour the lower and upper harbors, notable landmarks, Presque Isle and the city’s most distinct neighborhoods. Several well-known local people will be reenacting the roles of key personages from Marquette’s past, including Blaine Betts as J.M. Longyear, Vivian Lasich as Olive Harlow, Chet DeFonso as Captain Ripley, and Iris Katers and Fran Darling as friends of Mrs. Kaufman. Discover why Marquette is called the Queen City of the North as you ride in comfortable, climate controlled style on a Checker Bus.

All tours depart in front of the History Center. Allow 90 minutes for the tour. Tickets are $12 and are on sale now online at www.marquettehistory.org or at the museum store. Call 226-3571 for more information.

North Marquette Walking Tour: Back to the Swamp!

Thursday, July 12, 6:30pm
Meet at the Superior Dome
Explore one of Marquette’s most interesting and historic areas with Jim Koski. Includes the history of the Furnace Location, North Marquette School, Palestra and Cliffs Dow. $5 donation. I’ve been on several of Jim’s walking tours in the past of the downtown and South Marquette, so I know this will be a treat, and I always learn something new on the tours.

History on Two Wheels: A Biking Tour of Marquette’s Lake Superior Shore

Wednesday, August 8, 6-8pm
Meet at the MRHC
Hop on your bikes and pedal up and down Marquette’s lakeshore  bike path from Shiras Park to South Beach. Start the tour at any of the 6 stops and learn about how Lake Superior shaped the city’s history. $5 donation.

Dandelion Cottage at the Boathouse

Finally, although not sponsored by MRHC but rather the Lake Superior Theatre, don’t forget that Dandelion Cottage, the beloved classic children’s novel by Marquette’s own Carroll Watson Rankin, will be performed at the Boathouse July 18-22 and July 25-29. You can find out more at
http://www.lakesuperiortheatre.com/

Marquette’s history is alive and well, always surrounding and influencing us. Become a part of celebrating it!

Happy 100th Birthday to Presque Isle’s LS&I Ore Dock

2012 marks the 100th birthday of the Lake Superior & Ishpeming Railroad Ore Dock in Marquette’s Upper Harbor at Presque Isle Park. Cleveland-Cliffs has been airing a commercial commemorating its significant history, and on July 15th the tall ship the Niagara will be arriving to celebrate its birthday.

In honor of the ore dock’s birthday, I am posting the passage about it from my book My Marquette:

LS& I Ore Dock in winter – photo credit – Sonny Longtine

Then John took Wendy on a walking tour around Presque Isle. Luckily, an ore boat was in the harbor, so they walked out on the breakwall to watch the boat load its cargo from the pocket dock. — Superior Heritage, The Marquette Trilogy: Book Three

By the late nineteenth century, three ore docks operated in the Lower Harbor. Then in 1912, an ore dock was built in the Upper Harbor. Nearly a century later, it is Marquette’s only operating dock and nineteen years older than its Lower Harbor sister which sits silently.

The Upper Harbor’s LS&I Dock, belonging to the Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad, unloads ore from the mines onto ships bound for Canada and various ports in the Great Lakes. The dock stands seventy-five feet high and projects 1,200 feet into Lake Superior. Nearly 10,000 timber piles are driven twenty feet deep to support the dock’s size and weight. Workers must climb 103 steps to the dock’s top to help load the ore. Lucky tourists will see a ship along either side of the ore dock with the dock’s chutes open to load the ore, a process that can take several hours.

Marquette’s last remaining operating pocket dock is considered so important that following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the government was concerned it would be a target by terrorists to disrupt shipping on the Great Lakes.

The LS&I dock remains a testament to Marquette’s raison d’etre—to carry ore to industrial centers like Buffalo and Cleveland so it can be made into steel. Upper Michigan’s iron ore has played an integral part in the United States’ modernization from its use to build cannons and ships in the Civil War to over a century of constructing automobiles. As long as the mines operate and ore boats pull up to the LS&I dock, Marquette will remain connected to its past.

The LS&I Ore Dock in summer – Photo credit – Tyler Tichelaar