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)

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.

Superior Heritage: The Marquette Trilogy, Book Three covers the history of Marquette from 1952-1999.

The first weekend of January, Tom Vandelaare was convinced the three feet of snow on his roof, and the several more feet still to come before winter ended, were certain to bring the ceiling crashing down, burying his family under a blanket of snow and ice. After days of hemming, hawing, and hoping for a warm day to melt the snow, he resigned himself to shoveling off the roof.

“John, you want to come up and help your dad?” Tom asked at breakfast.

“No.”

“Come on, be a nice boy and help Dad.”

“I’d probably fall off the roof,” John said.

“No, you won’t. Not if you’re careful.”

“I can’t, Dad. I don’t think I’m coordinated enough to keep my balance.”

“Chad, will you help me?”

“No,” said Chad. “You always yell when I help you. Besides, I have to go to work.”

Chad worked at the NMU cafeteria. John had a job as a tutor at the campus Writing Center, but he could not use work as an excuse today.

“It wouldn’t hurt you boys to help your father,” said Tom.

“Tom,” said Ellen, “they don’t need to go up there. I wouldn’t risk breaking my neck up there either. If you don’t think you can clean the roof off on your own, we’ll hire somebody.”

“The neighbor’s son goes up on the roof to help his dad. I’ve even seen him up there shoveling by himself,” said Tom as he put on his boots. No one replied until he had gone out and slammed the door.

“Maybe I should help him,” said John.

“Just ignore him,” Ellen replied. “If you don’t think you can keep your balance, you shouldn’t go up there. I don’t need two of you falling off.”

“Well, it’s a big job,” said John, “and Dad’ll wear himself out doing it alone.”

“You’ll just fall off because you’re so uncoordinated,” said Chad, putting on his coat and kissing his mother goodbye.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ellen said. “Your father’s a fanatic about cleaning snow. He wouldn’t even clean it today if he had someone to go ice fishing with.”

John helped his mother clear the breakfast table. When she started the dishes, he went in his room. He tried to work on his novel since it was the last day of Christmas vacation and tomorrow he would be busy with school. He had wanted to write all during vacation, but instead he had spent his time doing genealogy and watching movies. He sat down at his desk, turned on the computer and waited for it to boot up. He found himself staring out the window as shovelfuls of snow were thrown off the roof. He could hear his father stamping his feet so no one would forget he was up there working. If Tom had to clean off the roof, no one else would be able to concentrate on anything until he was done.

“Negative attention, that’s all he wants,” John thought. He opened the document that contained his novel, rewrote a paragraph, then found himself staring out the window again.

“Darn it,” he thought. “Why do I always have to feel guilty?”

“Where are you going?” Ellen asked when he passed through the kitchen in his winter jacket.

“To help Dad.”

“Oh, John, just ignore your father. He doesn’t need your help.”

“It’ll take hours to shovel off all that snow. It won’t hurt me to help him for an hour.”

“Well, just be careful,” said Ellen.

“Dad, I’m coming up!” John shouted once he was outside, shovel in hand.

“Okay, I’ll hold the ladder for you,” Tom shouted down.

John had expected at least a “Thank you” for his help, but he should have known better. Now wishing he had stayed inside, he climbed up the ladder, careful not to let his feet slide off the slippery rungs. Soon he lifted one foot onto the roof.

“Be careful,” his dad warned.

For a minute, John imagined himself falling backward, plummeting into a five foot snowbank, but once his feet were planted on the roof and he stepped away from the edge, he felt secure.

“Start shoveling there,” said Tom. “Try to throw the snow as far as you can so it doesn’t land on the bushes beside the house.”

John only partly listened. He gaped at all the snow. He wondered how long this job would take; he imagined it would be time consuming if the roof were slippery. He wished there were a way to bring the snowblower up here.

“Don’t worry about getting close to the edge,” Tom said. “I’ll do that since I’m more steady on my feet up here.”

“All right,” said John, stepping only where snow on the shingles gave him traction. He had expected to have trouble balancing himself, but other than shoveling on a slope, he did not feel as endangered as he had expected. The work was tiring, but he did not mind. He stopped every few minutes to catch his breath and to watch his father work like a machine. Tom liked to complain about work, but he was only happy when he was occupied.

John threw the snow onto the already imposing banks. Soon his back hurt from his crooked stance and the repetitive movement of shoveling. The snow was coming down lightly, but it was a warm winter day, nearly twenty-five degrees. The constant movement kept John warm, and he enjoyed the cool air; he had nearly forgotten how fresh air tasted after two months of being cooped up in the stale house.

Father and son stopped a moment to watch an air force jet fly overhead.

“They can make planes fly and send men to the moon,” said Tom, “but they won’t heat our highways in winter or find ways to make the snow melt off our roofs. The government sure has its priorities messed up.”

John ignored his father’s complaints. He wondered where the plane was going and what it felt like to fly one. He decided it was worthwhile to help his dad, if only to see the snow covered trees stretching in all directions and the chimneys peeking out of snowcovered roofs. He could even see Marquette Mountain’s ski hill and the edge of town where the trees ended. Up here, he realized how small Marquette was—only a little clearing in a giant northern forest; it had grown from a village of a hundred people to over twenty-thousand, but when compared to the size of the forests, it had grown little. All the snow burying the houses reminded John how insignificant people were beside the power of Nature. All people could do was to build shelter for protection, to claim a piece of land for a little while, maybe a few generations, a piece of land that would remain long after its owners were gone. Yet John was descended from the rugged pioneers of Upper Michigan, and here he wanted to stay. John had not traveled much—he wanted to see the land of English literature, and Ireland, India and the pyramids of Egypt, and the Netherlands where his father’s father had come from, but wherever life might lead him, he knew he would always come home to his snowy little town on Lake Superior.

Margaret woke up early to start the coffee. Christmas Day was just about the longest day of the year for her because of all the work she had to do. But it was also the only day she had the entire family gathered under one roof—well, almost all the family. Roy would not be home—he was somewhere in France she believed. And Bill—she had no idea where he was, only that he was sailing on the U.S.S.—-; she imagined the ship was somewhere in the Pacific. She hoped it would not be too melancholy a holiday for her boys; this was the third Christmas they would be away from home. Even the joy of her grandchildren could not remove the worry from her heart. She hoped next year this damn war would finally be over. For a moment, she chided herself for thinking the word “damn”, but then she told the kitchen stove, “It is a damn war,” and for the thousandth time, she wondered why God allowed it.

The kitchen clock said it was seven-thirty. Henry’s family would be over for breakfast in an hour. She wished she had stayed in bed another half hour—she could use the extra sleep, especially after being at church late last night, and then staying up to finish wrapping all the packages. But she was up now. She turned the radio on to keep her awake, then started the coffee. She hoped some Christmas music would get her in the spirit, and then she would go get dressed. She would have preferred to get dressed first, but that would have woken Will, and then he would have been cranky if the coffee were not made when he came downstairs.

The Queen City: The Marquette Trilogy, Book Two

Her heart lightened a bit as “White Christmas” came over the radio; she had first heard the song last year. It always reminded her of when her parents had been alive and living in California and writing home that they missed the snow in Marquette. That was two more people—her mother and father—who would not be here for Christmas dinner. Six years now they had been gone, yet she still missed them everyday.

Twelve cups should be enough for breakfast. She could always make another pot later. Before getting dressed, she had better put the children’s presents under the tree in case they arrived early—she hoped she had not forgotten anything. She had presents hidden all over the house, but trying to remember where, and how many she had bought, and who was to get what was becoming a problem. She would have to plan better next year, especially if she kept having more grandchildren.

She put the coffee pot on the stove, wiped her hands on the dishtowel and headed toward the stairs.

Then the radio stopped her.

“This just in. The U.S.S.—- has been sunk in the Pacific by a German submarine. Further details will be forthcoming.”

Margaret froze. She must have heard wrong. It couldn’t be. Didn’t they notify families before broadcasting this kind of news? Maybe she had heard the ship’s name wrong. Why didn’t they repeat it? No, instead they were playing “Silent Night” and at this hour of the morning! Oh Bill. And she had just been wondering how he would spend today, all the while not knowing the truth. It had probably happened hours ago, and now the news was just broadcasting it. Imagine, to have slept soundly all night, not knowing. How could a mother not have felt it?

She caught sight of the Christmas tree. She should turn on its lights before Henry’s family arrived. She would turn on the lights in a minute, but she felt too dizzy right now. She told herself not to faint. No, better stay seated and take it in. If it were true, she would have felt it. She knew she would have. She would have woken up in the middle of the night feeling upset or odd at least. It must be a mistake. Not her Bill. And why today, Christmas—what timing. She must have heard wrong. Why didn’t they quit playing that damn “Silent Night” and broadcast more news? If she hadn’t heard wrong—she’d have to tell Will. How could she? But she would have to. And then Henry and Beth would have to be told, and then Eleanor and Ada and—oh, the poor grandchildren—they were all too young to understand—they scarcely remembered Uncle Bill from before he left for the war, and now their Christmas was ruined.

She just couldn’t tell everyone. Not today. She would keep it to herself—so everyone could still have a Merry Christmas—if Bill were gone, what difference would it make to tell them tomorrow?

The radio paused. She waited for another announcement. She could hear the water on the stove boiling. The coffee must be almost done. Another Christmas song started to play. Coffee would help her nerves, distract her attention and give her another minute to compose herself before going upstairs. She trembled as she walked back into the kitchen. She found a cup and filled it, putting in a teaspoon of sugar and a drop of milk, then another spoonful of sugar, too distracted to remember the first one; then she sat back down at the dining room table. She tried to listen to the radio, but instead, she heard Will coming downstairs. What would she say? How could she possibly tell him?

“Maggie, I thought you’d wake me up. It’s eight o’clock already.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how late it was. I was just enjoying the Christmas music. I better go put the rest of the presents under the tree. Grab your cup of coffee and then you better get dressed before Henry’s family arrives.”

“Yeah, all right,” muttered Will, not much of a talker before his morning coffee.

The radio kept playing Christmas music. Margaret went upstairs to find the children’s presents. What if the radio repeated the announcement while she was gone? Then Will would hear it. What a way for him to find out, but at least then she would not have to tell him. She did not know if she could. Bill was his namesake—the baby of the family.

“I can’t obsess about it now,” she said, opening the bedroom closet and digging into its hidden recesses to discover where she had stuffed away her grandchildren’s gifts. As she found them, she piled them on the bed. Then she took off her nightgown and quickly put on her slip and dress. As she buttoned the dress, a weakness overcame her and she sat down. Then the tears came. She grabbed a pillow and covered her face so Will would not hear her sobbing. After a couple minutes, she still ached, but the sobs had helped her regain her self-control.

She was still not sure whether what she had heard was true, or whether she had heard it right. If it were true, wouldn’t she have received a telegram? Didn’t the government always notify the family before making a public announcement? But maybe the telegram was lost, or maybe the government accidentally forgot to send one. She might have been overlooked—after all, there must have been hundreds of men on that ship, and the ship might have sunk days ago, and its loss was only now being announced after the families were contacted. But that she had not received a telegram might also be a sign that she had heard the news wrong.

She heard Will’s step coming upstairs; quickly she jumped up, set down the pillow and started to make the bed. His step sounded slow—had he heard the news? Her heart nearly stopped as he entered the room. But his face looked composed—he must not have heard anything.

“You better get dressed,” she told him. “Henry’s family will be here any minute.”

Will said nothing to her as she left the room—that seemed strange—could he have heard, and not knowing she already knew, he did not know how to tell her? But after forty years of marriage, they often did not speak to each other—what was there left to say when they understood each other so well? Will had never been talkative, the direct opposite of her, but even she did not talk that much around him anymore. Funny, none of the children seemed very talkative. They must all take after their father that way. Roy was so moody and quiet, and Henry always seemed just silently content. And Bill was—

Poor Bill—how could she even for a few seconds be thinking of something so stupid as how much people talked when her son might be dead? But for those seconds, there had been no fear in her heart. She would have to think of other things if she were to get through this day—she could not tell Will yet, not moments before the family came over. She did not want the family depressed on Christmas morning.

____________________________________________

To find out what happens, read The Queen City, available at www.MarquetteFiction.com

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.

“Why, Pa!” Edna then perked up. “I had forgotten it was Halloween. You should tell us one of your ghost stories.”

“Oh no, your mother wouldn’t like that,” he replied.

   “I bet you could tell us one before she even finishes cleaning up.”

Mr. Whitman raised his eyebrows to suggest Edna should be helping her mother, but she said, “Mother told me to come in here and entertain the Miss Traugotts, but your stories are far more entertaining than my conversation, and it is Halloween, Pa.”

“Very well,” he said. He had filled his pipe with tobacco as his daughter spoke. Now he lit it, took a good puff, and exhaled enough smoke to raise a sinister fog along the New England coast where his tale took place.

“Now this story,” he began, “was told to me by my Grandfather Whitman when I was young. It dates back to the beginning of this century, and every word of it is true. It concerns a young man named Enoch, and Sabrina, the pretty young girl who had the misfortune to love him. They had grown up in the same little seaside town—known each other since birth in fact, and gone to school together—and when they came of age, they fell in love, and there was talk of their marrying.

“Now Enoch was by no means a handsome boy, and he was not strong or athletic like most of the other young men, but he had a tall figure that stood out in a crowd, and his hard features suggested a determination not really there. Some say he had a little scar over his lip where his older brother had once struck him with a rock when he was a boy—I don’t know whether that’s true or not, since I was not there, but what is true—and you can verify this in the town’s records—is that his older brother went missing for several days, and when his body was found, it was lying on some rocks along a cliff above the sea. The townsfolk whispered that Enoch had murdered his brother to get revenge for that scar, but it’s just as likely his brother’s death was an accident and no fault of Enoch’s.

“Sabrina paid no heed to any ill rumors about the young man. She had her heart set on Enoch, and he had his heart set on her, and none of their parents was opposed to the match. But that spring, Enoch’s mother and father both died of the diphtheria, and then that summer, a terrible drought struck. Now Enoch had been raised a farmer, but his father had done all the hard work on the farm, and with his parents no longer there to keep a steady eye on him, he did not care for the crops as he should. The long and the short of it is that his crops failed, and ultimately, he knew he could not make a go of the farm. Plenty of other farmers had a hard time that year, but they struggled and got by, while the determination that appeared on Enoch’s brow did not compensate for the weakness of his character and his lack of backbone. Finally, he confessed to Sabrina that he wanted nothing to do with hard dirty work like farming, so he was going to sell the farm and seek his fortune elsewhere.

“Sabrina’s parents were beside themselves with dread when they heard this, for they did not know how Enoch would support their daughter. They had two sons of their own who were to split the farm between them, so Sabrina was expected to find a husband to care for her. When her parents considered breaking off the engagement, Sabrina flew into a fury, declaring if she could not marry Enoch, she would marry no man but throw herself off the same cliff that had caused the death of Enoch’s brother so the ocean would swallow her body for all time.

“As you can imagine, Sabrina’s parents were frightened by her outburst, for they truly believed their daughter meant to destroy herself if they did not let her wed Enoch. They told themselves the boy was young and foolish, but he came from a good family, and in time, he would settle down; they would do what they could for the young couple in the meantime.

“And so one day in early spring, Sabrina and Enoch were married, and a few weeks later, he went off to sea. He promised Sabrina he would make his fortune and come home with enough money to buy ten farms, or better yet, they might start up a tavern in the town, or even their own shipping business. Sabrina, because of the great love she bore for Enoch, allowed her soul to be fed on such dreams, while her parents worried their daughter and her unsteady husband would starve after they had gone to their reward.

“Well, Enoch’s ship sailed off—out to the South Seas it was. The summer and the autumn passed and then the winter came. An entire year went by, and in that time, not one letter came home from Enoch. You can imagine Sabrina’s anxiety and excitement when the ship finally sailed back into the harbor, but I don’t think any of us can imagine her disappointment when all the other sailors disembarked from the ship, yet no Enoch appeared.

“One young man on the ship was a couple of years older than Enoch and had known him since their schooldays. When Enoch’s brother had died, this young man had taken it upon himself to look after Enoch; it was said when one of the other boys at school had called Enoch a murderer because of his dead brother, this older boy had thrashed the accuser so hard no one else ever dared whisper such a rumor again. This young man was the last to come off the ship that day, and when he saw Sabrina standing on the dock, her eyes welling up with tears, he hated to be the one to tell her, but he felt it was his duty.

“‘Enoch decided to leave us,’ he told Sabrina, ‘in a foreign port’—I forget the name of it now—‘he…’ and then the man paused, trying to find words to soften the blow, but Sabrina could not bear the silence, and suddenly, everyone on the dock heard her shout out, ‘Why? Why? Where’s my Enoch?’

“So the young man quickly put his arm around her and led her from the crowd, and then to calm her, he said, ‘Enoch has great prospects. He believes he can make his fortune in that place, and—’

“‘How?’ she demanded, for in her heart, Sabrina had begun to doubt Enoch’s fidelity.

“‘He has a plan,’ said the young man. ‘He thought he’d start up a plantation there—pineapples and bananas—and he’ll make a great deal of money. He’s just starting out now, so he told me to give you all his love, and to ask you to be patient. He’s going to send for you to come to him just as soon as he can. He kept asking me to tell you that he loves you very much.’

“Sabrina tried to find comfort in these words. She let the young man walk her home to her parents’ house, and there he told the same story again, and her family politely thanked him and then let him go home to his own folks.

“But Sabrina’s family was not pleased. ‘Who does Enoch think he is to expect our sister to live in the wild with him?’ and ‘I don’t believe any of it—it’s all lies,’ said her brothers, and her mother confessed, ‘I always did fear that boy would come to no good.’ But her father only put his arm around Sabrina and consoled her by saying, ‘We can’t say whether his plans are right or wrong until we know more. We’ll just have to wait for word from him.’

“They waited all that next spring, and that summer, and into the autumn, and when winter came again, and they knew no word could reach them in those months because of the storms at sea, all their spirits fell, and in her heart, Sabrina began to doubt Enoch would return—she feared he might have died—that’s what she told herself—that’s what she almost hoped had happened, for the other possibility would have been just too much for her to bear.

“Now the other sailors who had been on Enoch’s ship had gone out again that spring, but when the next winter came and ice froze along the shores so it was not safe for ships to sail, the sailors had nothing better to do but drink in the tavern, drink and talk, and the drink loosened their tongues so that they said things perhaps they should not have. That’s when it came out—rumors that Enoch had gone native. When Sabrina’s brothers heard these stories, they feared they must be true because Enoch’s friend would have spoken out against such rumors if they were not, and soon Enoch’s friend quit coming to the tavern, ashamed perhaps to have been friends with such a one as Enoch.”

“What do you mean by ‘gone native’?” Adele interrupted Mr. Whitman.

“Well,” giggled Mr. Whitman. “I don’t know whether I should say in front of young ladies—but I guess I mean he went to live with the natives and follow their ways.”

“You mean with the savages?” asked one of the shopgirls.

“I don’t know whether they were savages or not,” said Mr. Whitman, “but the rumors were that he had gone to live among them, and some even said that he had taken a woman from among them.”

“Oh my!” said Adele.

My sense of propriety at that moment made me want to get up and leave the room; I would have expected Mr. Whitman to have a better sense of decorum, but I also perversely found myself wanting to know what had happened to the poor Sabrina.

“The brothers kept all these rumors from their sister,” Mr. Whitman said, “but I imagine some of the sailors told their own wives and fiancées, and you know how women talk, and so I’m sure if these rumors never actually reached Sabrina’s ears, she sensed the rest of the town knew Enoch had done something disgraceful, and her heart broke over it.

“The years passed, and Sabrina’s parents died. Her brothers married and started families of their own, and they prospered enough to build their own homes while Sabrina continued to live alone in her parents’ house. Her brothers begged her to come live with them, but she refused. She could no longer find joy in human companionship. Her house was near the ocean, and so she had a widow’s walk built upon the roof, and they say in the evenings at dusk, she could be seen pacing about there; sometimes she would walk the entire night while the rest of the town slept, for she craved no human company save that of her Enoch, and he was absent. Those children who dared creep near the house at night to catch a glimpse of the mysterious solitary woman said they heard her weeping and begging God to bring back her lover. That is when the story began to grow truly strange.

“The young man who had been Enoch’s friend had grown to love Sabrina, perhaps out of compassion for her pain, perhaps because he had always loved her, but he had been too loyal a friend to Enoch to speak earlier. Finally, he went to Sabrina and explained to her how unlikely it was that Enoch would ever return, that enough time had passed to presume Enoch was dead, and that if Sabrina would have him, he would be honored to marry her and care for her the rest of their days.

“Sabrina thanked him, but she refused his offer. She continued to live in that house alone, and after a few years, the young man gave up waiting for her and married another. He became a good husband and father, but the townsfolk whispered it was always Sabrina whom he truly loved.

“And then one night, many years after the day Enoch had sailed away, when Sabrina’s beauty had begun to fade, and she had shut herself up so that scarcely anyone ever saw her, the townsfolk heard a piercing scream coming from her house. When they ran and knocked on her door, there was no answer, but the screaming continued until finally, Sabrina’s brothers broke in through a window and went upstairs. They found their sister sitting up in bed, her hair turned gray overnight, her face pale with horror, blood soaking through all her bed sheets. She stood staring out the window, shrieking so that her brothers could barely stand it, and it took them several minutes before they could shake her enough to bring her to her senses.

“Some said she had tried to kill herself—to slit her wrists—though her brothers refused to let a doctor see her. I don’t know why they didn’t send for the doctor, but people say it was because they were afraid to know the truth about what had happened to her; others say she had not hurt herself, for there was a woman who came to clean for her, and she told everyone she had seen no scars on Sabrina’s wrists the next day.

“I hesitate to mention this part, but Sabrina was clearly mad after that night, such that her brothers ordered her tied to her bed so she would not hurt herself, and often she would thrash about in the bed, screaming out Enoch’s name. Most frightening of all, some say she went mad because her prayers had been answered—that Enoch had returned to her—only it was not the flesh and blood Enoch, but his ghost—come back to claim his wife in their bed.

“Really, Father!” said Edna, but I could see a smirk of pleasure on her face.

“Now, I’m only repeating the story the way my grandfather told it to me, and whether it is true, who is to say,” Mr. Whitman replied. “Anyway, after that, Sabrina grew weaker and weaker, and though she thrashed about in the bed for several more nights, soon she wasted away until she died before the year was out.

“Her brothers boarded up the house after she died, for they could not bear to go near it, their pain was so great, and they were too sentimental to sell or tear down their childhood home.

“And it is still said that to this day, Sabrina’s steps can be heard at night, pacing up and down the widow’s walk, and sometimes, a scream is heard in the night, and while some say it is just the wind during a storm at sea, no one can prove that it is not Sabrina, crying for her demon lover.”

Everyone was silent after Mr. Whitman finished his tale. I thought it completely distasteful and wanted to go upstairs to bed all the more now except that Mrs. Whitman had still not come in with the pie and coffee.

After a couple of minutes, Edna said, “It’s such a sad story.”

“Rather freakish,” laughed Mr. Wainscott. “I mean, especially that a dead man would come back to torture his wife like that.”

“I don’t believe it would have happened that way,” Adele said. “I can believe part of it—that Enoch might have come back to her, or that her ghost haunts the house because she still longs for him—I believe people can love like that, but I don’t believe he would return as her demon lover. If anything, I think he would have come back, repentant for deserting her, and if she saw his ghost, it would only show how great love is, that whatever our sins, we can make peace with one another after death.”

“What a romantic idea,” Edna said. “It’s like something out of a Brontë novel.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say the whole story was ridiculous when Mrs. Whitman appeared with the coffee. She handed me my cup first, then gave a cup to one of the shopgirls, who rather than thanking her, said, “Mr. Whitman has been frightening us with ghost stories, so it won’t be the coffee that keeps me awake tonight.”

“Nathaniel, you and your ghosts,” Mrs. Whitman frowned.

“What? It’s Halloween after all,” he said.

“That any Christian man would find pleasure on the devil’s day,” his wife scolded. “And these poor young ladies mourning their uncle—you’ll have them so frightened they won’t dare go live in the woods, though perhaps that would be a good thing.”

“It really wasn’t that frightening,” Adele said. “It was more of a love story.”

“Well, I don’t know whether that makes it any better or any more true,” Mrs. Whitman replied. “Those love stories are all make-believe and can do a great deal of harm.”
For more about Spirit of the North: a paranormal romance, visit www.MarquetteFiction.com

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

Superior Heritage: The Marquette Trilogy, Book Three covers the history of Marquette from 1952-1999.

His senses had reawakened to the voices of birds and the wind, the beauty of leaves and the lake, the smell of snow and an approaching rain shower, the taste of blueberries, the bitter cold biting at his cheeks and fingertips. The singular elements of this land began to mold his imagination, to heighten his senses and his aesthetic appreciation. He had been isolated from Nature’s powerful influence while downstate. If he moved away again, he would not have this oneness with his environment that was so essential to his writing; he refused to let himself again forget these little details that made life so splendid. This land had shaped seven generations of his family, until it had seeped into his being, claiming him as its native son.

He began to make lists of his sensual memories—the feel of deer munching dandelion leaves from his hand at the Shiras Zoo, the smell of his Grandpa’s cheek when he kissed it, the ivory soap smell of Grandma’s bathroom, the glow of light streaming over Grandma’s lace tablecloth, the comforting dusty warmth of his grandparents’ old furnace turning itself on, of going sledding and then coming home with frozen fingers he had to thaw in hot water, his mother always baking until the house smelled perpetually of chocolate chip cookies, the texture of Aunt Eleanor’s crumby date bars, the festive wrapping paper on presents brought to him by Lucy and Maud. Memories came flooding back, one leading to another, and with them came back stories, memories of childhood, tales Grandpa had told him of his own grandparents and of his mother’s childhood, of Aunt Eleanor’s divorce, Grandpa and Grandma’s religious differences that had postponed their marriage, a hundred little family dramas. He quit worrying about writing—that would come. For now, he was cataloging memories. He began reading historical articles whenever they appeared in the Mining Journal, Marquette Monthly, and Marquette Magazine. He cut out articles and filed them, realizing the potential source of fiction in Marquette’s history, in the environment, the buildings, lake, trees, all of this land that had helped to form him.

A few days before Thanksgiving, he called Mr. O’Neill.

“I’ve begun to write again,” he said proudly. He asked whether he might come to lunch to discuss the novel he wanted to set in the Upper Peninsula. They set a date for the following week, by which time, John intended to have drafted a few chapters to show his prestigious mentor.

“Splendid,” said Mr. O’Neill. “I can’t wait to see it.”

For more information about Superior Heritage and all my books, visit www.MarquetteFiction.com

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

The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption by Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D.

Here is some information from the back cover about the book:

From the horrors of sixteenth century Italian castles to twenty-first century plagues, from the French Revolution to the liberation of Libya, Tyler R. Tichelaar takes readers on far more than a journey through literary history. The Gothic Wanderer is an exploration of man’s deepest fears, his efforts to rise above them for the last two centuries, and how he may be on the brink finally of succeeding. Whether it’s seeking immortal life, the fabulous philosopher’s stone that will change lead into gold, or human blood as a vampire, or coping with more common “transgressions” like being a woman in a patriarchal society, being a Jew in a Christian land, or simply being addicted to gambling, the Gothic wanderer’s journey toward damnation or redemption is never dull and always enlightening.

Tichelaar examines the figure of the Gothic wanderer in such well-known Gothic novels as The Mysteries of Udolpho, Frankenstein, and Dracula, as well as lesser known works like Fanny Burney’s The Wanderer, Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni. He also finds surprising Gothic elements in classics like Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes. From Matthew Lewis’ The Monk to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, Tichelaar explores a literary tradition whose characters reflect our greatest fears and deepest hopes. Readers will find here the revelation that not only are we all Gothic wanderers—but we are so only by our own choosing.

With the publication of The Gothic Wanderer, I have also launched a new website www.GothicWanderer.com, designed by my good friend Larry Alexander of Storyteller’s Friend. At this website, not only can you find more information about the book, but I will also be blogging about all things Gothic, and for those of you interested in the Arthurian legend and my blog at ChildrenofArthur.com, I’ll be tying the Gothic and the Arthurian legend together into my upcoming series of novels based on the Arthurian legend, so watch for many Gothic and Arthurian topics on both blogs.

The Gothic tradition greatly influenced the writing of my last novel Spirit of the North: a paranormal romance, and my readers might also be interested in knowing that I wrote the original dissertation that The Gothic Wanderer is based on from 1998-2000, while I began writing The Marquette Trilogy in 1999 so both works were really written simultaneously. And while the Gothic may seem like a subject removed from Marquette and its history, Marquette has its share of Gothic, paranormal, and supernatural places and connections, but perhaps that is another blog….

Please visit www.GothicWanderer.com – if you ever wondered about the story behind the story of great books like Dracula and Frankenstein, you won’t be disappointed.