Archive for the ‘Historical Feature’ Category
Thursday, August 11th, 2011
 By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
Sun seekers tanning their hides on Empire beach were suddenly transported back in history on the afternoon of Sunday, July 31, when the Saginaw Voyageurs arrived in a birch bark replica canoe. The Voyageurs wore costumes to resemble the pre-American Revolution French fur traders, who opened up trade routes between Great Lakes Native American communities and Montreal. They were concluding the first day of a weeklong journey that began in Frankfort and ended on Aug. 6 in Traverse City.
The Saginaw Voyageurs are based out of the Castle Museum in Saginaw, Mich., and since 1986, have paddled over 4,000 miles during annual reenactment tours on the Great Lakes. According to brochures the Voyageurs distributed upon arriving at Empire beach, “The purpose of these trips is to better understand the historic Great Lakes Fur Trade, the life of the Voyageurs, and the role Saginaw played as a fur trade center for central-lower Michigan.”
“The Great Lakes fur trade opened the interior of America to the Europeans. The Indians wanted iron and cloth, the Europeans wanted furs, thus a fair trade exchange was established. The prime fur areas were crisscrossed from coast to coast by a chain of navigable rivers and lakes. Navigable, that is, by the unique birch-bark canoes of the Indians.”
According to the brochure, the original canoes were made from cedar with a birch bark skin attached with the white bark on the inside and the “olive” colored part showing on the outside. The craft were sturdy but light and could be carried on portage around obstacles, such as river rapids or waterfalls. Today’s Voyageur canoe is a fiber-glass replica of the birch bark Montreal Canoe. The fiber-glass gives safety with increased strength and durability, it weighs more than 600 pounds. The canoe is 34 feet long, 5 feet wide and is paddled by 11 to 16 men. The canoe travels very fast in the water with the men paddling 60 strokes per minute for about 20 minute stretches. They then take a “pipe” break to rest while the canoe drifts dead in the water. The men sing traditional Voyageur songs to keep their rhythm while paddling.
Over the last quarter century, the Voyageurs have canoed the entire water highway between Green Bay, Wis., and Montreal, across the northern coast of Lake Michigan, through the Straits of Mackinac and the northern channel of Lake Huron, the French River, Lake Nipissing and down the Mattawa and Ottawa Rivers to the original fur trade warehouse at LaChine near Montreal. This year’s “Leelanau Brigade” consisted of 15 voyageurs, most from mid-Michigan and ranging in occupation from retired autoworkers to attorneys to college professors to contractors and maintenance men.
For more information about the Saginaw Voyageurs, visit the Saginaw Historical Society’s website at www.castlemuseum.org.
Tags: Empire beach, Empire Michigan, Saginaw Voyaguers
Posted in Historical Feature, Sports/Adventure | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
 From staff reports
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (National Lakeshore) Superintendent Dusty Shultz is pleased to announce that the 10th annual Port Oneida Rural Arts and Culture Fair will be held Aug. 12 and 13 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. In addition to the many popular demonstrations, animals and exhibits, the fair will be a zero-waste event, will feature a chicken dinner on Friday, and will end with an astronomy party on Saturday night to celebrate the milestone 10th year.
Each August, amid the pastoral setting of meadows, maples, barns, farmhouses and corncribs, the Port Oneida Rural Historic District awakens from its peaceful slumber and comes alive with activity true to the period when it was a community of robust farms. Once again, visitors are invited to step back in time at the two-day Port Oneida Fair on Friday and Saturday to experience life as it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Visitors can take the shuttle, drive, hike, or bike to the six unique historic sites where a variety of activities take place. One can almost imagine the life of these farm families as the clip-clop of horse and wagon is heard toting visitors down Port Oneida Road on a scenic drive-by of the community’s historic homes, schoolhouse, barns and outbuildings. Timber framers, candle makers and basket weavers will be demonstrating their crafts. Potters and blacksmiths will be hard at work. And oxen will be cutting hay in the fields.
Additionally, children can try their hand at the crosscut saw and other farm tools. Do not miss the displays of wind-up musical instruments, flour sack dresses, and quilts, too. Learn about knitting, soap-making, butter-churning, spinning, bee keeping and honey production. Satisfy your curiosity and walk through many of the historic farmhouses and barns that will be open for tours.
Interpreting the history of the Port Oneida Community and its settlers is an important aspect of the fair. Who were the families that lived on these farms? How did they live? What did they do? Park Rangers and families of Port Oneida residents will share these stories at various farm sites. Food will be available for purchase or you may pack a picnic lunch to eat on the trail or in a farm meadow.
By partnering with Bay Area Recycling for Charities, the National Lakeshore will be going “green” and composting or recycling all materials possible throughout the fair. The goal is to have a 95 percent recycle and compost rate. Special bins will be placed at each site. In order to reduce what is being put into a landfill, compostable service ware will be used. These items (cups, plates, and utensils) are made from plant based materials and will break down in a compost pile within weeks, as opposed to plastics and paper material that would take generations to decompose in a landfill.
Also new this year, on Friday, Aug. 12, starting at 5 p.m., Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear will present the Port Oneida Picnic; a chicken dinner for only $12. Tickets need to be purchased in advance. There will be music and activities to accompany dinner at the Olsen Farm. Please contact Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear for ticket information at www.phsb.org.
To close out the two-day fair, there will be a Star Party on Saturday, Aug. 13, starting at 9:30 p.m. at the Thoreson Farm. Join Park Rangers and the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society (GTAS) to experience a form of recreation that has been enjoyed by many generations and continues today. GTAS members share their telescopes and knowledge while viewing the sunset, Saturn, and the full moon. Learn about astronomy as it was in the 1900s. Remember to bring a flashlight for the walk back to your car.
It is the mission of the Port Oneida Rural Arts and Culture Fair to promote the preservation of rural traditional skills, crafts, landscapes, and communities of the Upper Great Lakes Region through education, artistic expression and the development of a coalition of community organizations. Port Oneida is the largest intact historic agricultural district in the United States that is fully protected within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. It is historically significant because it conveys the land use practices, architecture, and evolution of agricultural technology common to subsistent farms of the upper Great Lakes region. The Port Oneida Rural Historic District contains 19 historic farms (four privately owned), more than 300 buildings, and over 3,000 acres of land. In addition to the farmhouses, barns, and wonderful variety of specialized outbuildings, the historic district contains the fields, orchards, fence rows, roads, cemetery, forest and other elements that make up the historic landscape.
All events are free after visitors purchase and display the National Lakeshore pass on their vehicles. For more information and a schedule of events, please visit the park’s website at www.nps.gov/slbe or call the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Visitor Center at (231) 326-5134. Also, check out their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/sbdnl.
Tags: Dusty Shultz, Glen Arbor, Glen Arbor Michigan, Port Oneida, Port Oneida Fair, Port Oneida Rural Historic District, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
Posted in Historical Feature, Upcoming Event | No Comments »
Monday, August 1st, 2011
 By Barbara Kelly
Sun contributor
All the hot weather we’ve had led me to re-read the 19th century Boizard letters written during the winter time in Glen Arbor. Exploring how some early white settlers got through the cold, snowy winters here offered an instructive perspective on the heat. I also wanted to continue to mine the letters for references to the Civil War, as the Boizard letters offer many informative first-hand descriptions. How did people deal with Glen Arbor winters in the 1860s? What was it like to be without a steady source of affordable groceries and supplies for up to half a year, particularly when it was bitterly cold with high snow? Is this how the phrase, “cabin fever” came to be?
I focused on the letters from the winter months of the 1860s that J. Oliver Boizard, Eleanor Boizard and their daughter, Marietta, wrote back and forth while Oliver was stationed in Chicago and Eleanor and Marietta were settling into Glen Arbor. These letters were kept, treasured and preserved by the Boizard family and their descendants, and then much later found and published. The Boizard letters offer a unique window into life in early Glen Arbor. At the same time, these letters open out to the larger world, including national events of the period. As we mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War we are very fortunate that the Boizard letters begin in the run-up to the war and continue through the 1870s, with many references to the war as well as to the quality of life in Glen Arbor soon after the town was established in 1856.
I began with the letters from November 1864, which was Eleanor and Marietta’s first winter in Glen Arbor. Eleanor was 36 years old at the time and Marietta was 12. In a letter dated November 11, just after she told her dad, “don’t be frightened because we [ask] for so much as we can’t get anything more until the first of May [six months later],” Marietta wrote, “Now for the village news. They have been drafting. Dorsey is drafted and Parker and I don’t know how many more. They have to go to Traverse [City] on the 16th.” According to the Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War, “Under the Union draft act men faced the possibility of conscription in July 1863 and in March, July, and December, 1864.” It is probable that these Glen Arbor men, who were being drafted in November, as reported by Marietta Boizard, may have been included in that December, 1864 conscription.
As winters go in Glen Arbor, the winter of 1864-65 apparently was a mild one. On Dec. 14, 1864, reporting on their new house in the woods, Marietta Boizard wrote to her father: “Dear Papa, There is about one foot of snow. You asked if the snow blew in the house. It don’t and the house is quite comfortable considering as there is no carpet on the floor.” A few months later, on Feb. 2, 1865, she wrote, “I go to school and the weather is very mild.” That same week in February 1865, Oliver vividly wrote to his wife about the possible end of the war, which finally came about two months later with General Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865. Oliver wrote, “There are negotiations now for peace and it is hoped that it will be satisfactory. General Sherman is moving on to Charleston, S.C., and likely there will be heavy fighting in the course of [the next] two weeks. General Lee is still [in] Richmond and Grant is watching him.”
The next mention in a Boizard letter to national events is not to the surrender of Lee’s army to Ulysses Grant but to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, which occurred a mere five days after Confederacy surrender. Great Lakes shipping had just opened again after the winter and Oliver Boizard included a letter to his wife, dated April 16, 1865, along with much needed supplies of flour and a large box of groceries, all taken by boat to one of the Glen Arbor docks. He called the news of the assassination “deplorable,” and informed Eleanor that “the whole country is placed in Solemnity.” All the buildings in Chicago were “decorated in black crepe.”
Their next winter — that of 1865-66 — was much rougher than the previous one and the Glen Arbor Boizards often expressed their intense loneliness to Oliver. On Dec. 29, 1865, Eleanor and Marietta wrote, “We never spent such a poor Christmas as this Christmas was.” Toward the end of the next month, on Jan. 26, 1866, Marietta told her dad, “The weather is very cold and the snow is so deep it covers a barrel standing on end. It is very lonesome here. I have not been out since New Years’ and I hardly ever see anyone this winter.” By the next March (1866), they wrote again, “It is dreadfully lonesome. If it were not for a party occasionally we would not know what to do.”
Perhaps all this isolation and loneliness took their toll. Eleanor and Marietta spent the winter of 1867 with Oliver in Chicago. This separation from their Glen Arbor friends occasions some wonderful letters between Marietta and her boyfriend and future husband, Charles A. Fisher, son of the founders of Glen Arbor, John and Harriet. It is to these letters that we will turn in our next installment in this series of Looking for The Boizards.
Read more installments of Barbara Kelly’s series on the Boizards online here.
Tags: Boizard letters, Civil War, Glen Arbor, Glen Arbor Michigan
Posted in Historical Feature, Local Personality | No Comments »
Thursday, July 28th, 2011
 By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor
If a tree could be a person, then the mulberry tree shading the grassy bank behind Riverfront Pizza & Specialties in Glen Arbor would be a kindly grandmother, offering shelter beneath her outstretched arms, inviting children to climb in her lap, and giving treats to her visitors — at least for a couple of weeks each year.
“It was there when I was a kid,” said Glen Arbor resident Leonard Thoreson, 84. Thoreson’s parents lived briefly in the house that eventually became home to Riverfront. Though Thoreson, himself, never lived there, he recalls his children climbing the mulberry tree and playing in the nearby Crystal River.
Thirty years ago, current owner Tim Nichols transformed the former rental house into a popular place for take-out pizzas and submarines. The tree was mature even then, and used to offer a level branch several feet from the ground that was a particular climbing favorite of the kids. The limb eventually grew so large that it cracked and had to be removed.
Despite the loss, Tim said kids still love the tree and eat the ripe fruit. Anyone with a bit of balance can easily negotiate the tree’s most memorable feature — a trunk (actually, two) that travels along the ground and rises gently before angling upward, toward the sunlight. This is a common attribute of the Red Mulberry (morus rubra, a.k.a. “Moral”), a native species used by first peoples not only for food but also for garments. Bark fibers were dyed, spun and woven to make cloaks. Spanish explorers also used the fibers to make ships’ ropes before sailing the Mississippi.
The Red or American variety of the tree is hardy, surviving pollution, poor or sandy soil and drought. In rich soil, however, the tree can grow to heights of 70 feet and live up to 75 years. They prefer full sun and plenty of space, with at least 15 feet between trees. They also defy wind and work well as vegetative breaks, proving themselves on the windswept Great Plains. Since the trees can spring spontaneously from seeds dropped by birds or critters, the mulberry has a reputation as a “weed” tree or, in the case of unpruned branches, a bush. For this reason, the tree isn’t mentioned in Empire resident Stella Otto’s two indispensable guides to cultivars, The Backyard Orchardist or The Backyard Berry Book.
“They show up wild, as opposed to a cultivated tree, in most people’s yards,” she explained. “Everybody lets them go and do their thing … Back in the day, before we had easier berries, they were popular on old-fashioned farmsteads because they were easy (growing). We’re more spoiled (today), with easy cultivars like strawberries and raspberries.”
Mulberry memories
The fruit is as fragile as the trees are hardy. Mulberries aren’t true berries but aggregate fruit (think blackberries) having many seeds — each inside a self-contained, bead-like chamber or drupelet — which cling to a central stalk. While blackberries are tough, ripe mulberries are soft and easily damaged.
Lynette Grimes is Director of Sales and Marketing for Food for Thought, a local company offering organic, wild-crafted and organic canned foods. She explained that wild harvesting mulberries presents a number of problems for commercial production. Most grow in “somebody’s backyard,” fine for picking and eating raw but not so easy for gathering. The fruit ripens over a series of days, instead of at once, which complicates the canning process. They can be found occasionally in area farmers’ markets, but never in great quantity. The fruit’s fragileness is the clincher, though.
“The fact that you don’t see them that much is kind of (a result of) our industrial agriculture, because they’re not made for shipping,” she noted. “They can’t bounce at 50 mph and not crack, like tomatoes we ship. They’re treated almost like an heirloom fruit — viable for neighborhood markets, not supermarkets.”
The ripe, dark-purple mulberries, reaching 9-percent sugar content, are a beacon for birds. Tim’s wife, Sue, loves the Cedar Waxwings that flock to the trees when it’s mulberry feasting time. In-between preparing specialty sandwiches, salads, soups and desserts for Riverfront’s western annex, she catches glimpses of the birds as they flit between bushes and trees she’s planted, including two mulberries. (A third tree seeded itself.)
Grimes, a Manistee native who moved to Benzonia six years ago, described her mulberry harvesting method: she and her friends gather at night to shake the mulberry trees growing in their neighborhood. Some folks stretch sheets across the ground to catch the fruit, but not her group.
“We’re like little birds with our mouths open,” she explained, with a laugh. “I like when they’re ripe enough to fall off the branch.”
Grimes waxes a bit sentimental about the fruit. The first time she ate them, she was camping in Tennessee with her husband. The pair followed a path to a waterfall and discovered a mulberry tree ready for harvest. They gorged on sweet, tasty mulberries and “savored that moment” as one of the unplanned gems that can happen during a trip.
Back in Glen Arbor, it’s grounds-keeping time for Tim Nichols and his crew. Ripe mulberries are falling from the tree every day. Though it’s a temporary nuisance, he would never consider removing the old girl.
“It’s a neat tree,” he said. “It has a lot of character to it; it’s like part of the area.”
Mulberry information supplied by Fandex Family Field Guide to Trees and the California Rare Fruit Growers. Riverfront Pizza & Specialties is located at 6281 W. Western Ave., near the river bend, east of Oak St. Call (231) 334-3876 for information.
Tags: Backyard Berry Book, Crystal River, Food for Thought, Glen Arbor, Glen Arbor Michigan, Leelanau County, Lynette Grimes, mulberry tree, Riverfront Pizza, Sue Nichols, Tim Nichols
Posted in Business Feature, Historical Feature | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
 By Barbara Kelly
Sun contributor
Marietta Boizard, March 2, 1868, visiting Chicago, to Charles Fisher, her future husband, in Glen Arbor: “I have received Five very Pretty Valentines this year, but not one of them came from Glen Arbor.”
Charles Fisher, March 18, 1868, Glen Arbor, to Marietta: “My Dear, you spoke about getting some Valentines but not one of them came from Glen [Arbor.] I feel ashamed to ask you to Excuse me but there was not a Valentine to be got in the County nor at Traverse [City]…”
As we commemorate the 150 anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War I have been writing a series of articles about life and events in Glen Arbor during that period of time. The information I have been presenting comes from letters which were written by early white settlers of this town, especially those written by the three members of the Boizard family, but also including the couple who could be considered the mother and father of Glen Arbor: Harriett and John Fisher. These articles began in 2006 with a whimsical piece entitled “Looking for Mrs. Boizard,” in which I tried to marry history with imaginative story telling. That title, as well as the titles of the articles which followed, “Still Looking for Mrs. Boizard,” (June 16, 2011) and “Looking for Mr. Boizard,” (June 30, 2011), were intended to convey the joy of looking for — and delight in finding – signs of early life here.
Reading the Boizard letters from the mid- to late-1800s, it certainly becomes clear how the ways we live now are different from then, but there is also a realization that how we human beings live and love are remarkably the same over time, as the quote above may show. My hope is to infect you with the same joy in looking at Glen Arbor through the eyes of its early history.
In this article I will begin a series in which I bring into view the daughter of J. Oliver Boizard and Eleanor Boizard, who first moved to Glen Arbor for a short time around 1859. Until recently I hadn’t spent as much time over the years “looking for Miss Boizard” as I have in looking for her parents, but that may be because Marietta Boizard was there all along. Eleanor Boizard was not able to read or write until much later in her life, whereas Marietta was schooled and able to both read and write from an early age. From around the age of 11 or 12 Marietta becomes the writer of most of the Boizard correspondence, taking dictation from her mother — and frequently inserting her own first-person editorializing, such as when she wrote to her father that she no longer wanted to attend school as it was a three-mile walk one way! In later articles I will focus on what we know of Marietta as discovered in her correspondence with her friends and with a couple of men who are courting her, including her future husband, Charles A. Fisher, the hapless, Valentine-less, remorseful guy we met above.
Marietta Boizard was born in 1852 in Pittsburgh, Penn., and was nine years old when the Civil War began. This also makes her four years older than Glen Arbor itself, which was established in 1856. At the age of 12, in 1864, she and her mother located to Glen Arbor to live here full time. Oliver, who served three years in the Civil War and who met the gregarious John Fisher through their time of military service, continued to live in Chicago where he was able to earn a living mustering soldiers out of duty once the war ended and, later, by working for a paint company on LaSalle Street, Heath & Milligan Co. Oliver was enthusiastically persuaded by John Fisher to move to Glen Arbor and acquire property here. He decided to send his wife and young daughter to Glen Arbor in the hopes that he would be able to soon secure employment here and join them in short order. As it turns out, this never happened. For the rest of his life until his death in 1870, Oliver Boizard lived and worked in Chicago, often just barely scraping by and sending what supplies, groceries and spare money he could to support Eleanor and Marietta in Glen Arbor.
In fact, most of the Boizard letters are filled with the details of his wife’s and daughter’s needs during this primitive time in Glen Arbor’s history and his efforts to supply them from Chicago. As an example, in a letter dated November 4, 1864, Oliver wrote:
“I send you by the propeller [boat] Empire the following articles of provisions: 20 lbs. of Butter, 20 lbs. Lard, 3 lbs. Candles, 1 lb Yarn, 1 Shovel, 1 Rake, 2 yds. Flannel, 2 Cakes Chocolate, 1 dz. Extract Coffee, 1 Bll. Flour, 1 Bll. Corn Meal, 1 Broom, 100 lbs Pig Feed, 1 Hind Quarter Fresh Beef. You will also please find enclosed the sum of $10 Dollars, which will probably do for November. The boats are not insured for running later than November 15.”
This letter has an interesting clue about boats not being insured after November 15, when presumably a ship embarked on a Great Lakes voyage at her own peril. During the late spring into late fall, when the shipping season was open on Lake Michigan, all the Boizard correspondence and other items travelled by boats between Chicago and one of the several docks which were on the Sleeping Bear Bay, both in Glen Arbor as well as in Glen Haven (you can still see the remains of the dock pilings quite clearly in Glen Haven, as well as on a calm day in Glen Arbor, if you walk a bit to the left from the end of Manitou Street along the beach).
During the winter months, however, mail traveled by roads. It seems that it was not possible to send supplies to Glen Arbor over land however, or it was prohibitively expensive, as the Boizards mention not being able to receive goods from Chicago during this time. As Marietta wrote to her father in a letter dated November 11, 1864: “Mama says don’t be frightened because we ask for so much as we can’t get anything more until the first of May.” And on December 1, 1864, her father wrote: “Now the Boats stop. I will not be able to send you any more provisions, except your monthly amount of money.”
At the time Oliver sent all the supplies mentioned above, Eleanor and Marietta had just moved from a house they were renting from John Fisher near the intersection of what is now M-22 and County Road 675, near Fisher’s sawmill on the Crystal River, to a newly built 12-by 24-foot “log shanty,” as they called it, in the woods off of 675 about three miles east of town. (The sawmill was across from the Brammer gristmill on the M-22 bridge north of Glen Arbor. The gristmill is still standing.) As Eleanor and Marietta prepared for their first winter in their new home, and the closing of the shipping season, Oliver wrote to them on December 1, 1864: “I see the last boat started yesterday, the ‘City of New York.’ I sent you Apples and a Box of Sundries on the ‘Empire’ with a letter and Ettie’s [Marietta’s] thimble enclosed. I hope you will have enough provisions for Winter. The weather here [in Chicago] is very mild …”
As for the frequency of the mail in Glen Arbor during the winters of the mid-1860s, Marietta writes her father on January 20 of 1865: “The mail only goes out once every week and we write every other mail [once every two weeks].”
In future articles in this series I will continue to “look” for Miss Boizard through reading her correspondence to her father, friends, and to a couple of men she seems to have played off of each other for their affections. By the time 1868 rolls around, when Marietta is a ripe 16, a couple of her letters get downright steamy, at least to my old eyes! Stay tuned.
I am grateful for the three primary sources for these articles. First, the Boizard collection of letters and other items itself which were found in Marietta’s granddaughter’s house in Glen Arbor before it was demolished in the 1970s, and which has been preserved and kept at the Empire Area Heritage Museum, a wonderful public resource, curated by the generous, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic historian, David Taghon. If anyone will get you excited about history it is Dave. Please visit and contribute to this treasure of a museum.
Additionally, the letters I’ve cited were edited and published in two books: The Boizard Letters: Letters from a Pioneer Homestead and Long Distance Love: 1855-1870: 257 Letters from a Pioneer Homestead. Both books can be purchased at the Empire Area Heritage Museum in Empire or at the Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor.
Tags: Boizard letters, Chicago, Civil War, Glen Arbor, Glen Arbor Michigan, Leelanau County
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Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
 From staff reports
Many years have passed since Glen Arbor had antiques and collectibles available in town. But they will be back for one day, Saturday, Jul 23, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at The Cottage Antique Market. Midwest dealers from Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa and Illinois will sell their antique and vintage goods in the Pine Patch at The Cottage Book Shop, 5989 Lake Street between Arts Tavern and Cherry Republic. Exhibitors will bring: vintage linens and quilts, antique and vintage jewelry and art, Victorian, mid-century modern, reupholstered and shabby chic furniture, pillows, unique home and garden pieces, taxidermy items, walking sticks, pottery and china, and unique items for cottage and home décor.
The Market is co-hosted by the book shop and Vintage Cottage, the new antique shop in Leland’s Courtyard Building. Owner Barb Rozner organized antique markets in suburban Chicago where she also ran a shop. She is devoted to providing Leelanau County with quality antiques and her market dealers are excited to be included in her first Leelanau Cottage Antique Market. Barbara Siepker of The Cottage Book Shop is pleased that the Pine Patch, which traditionally hosts twice weekly story hours and summer book signings, will be hosting these exhibitors.
The event benefits The Leelanau Press, a nonprofit publisher of Leelanau County history, authors and artists. They have published: Historic Cottages of Glen Lake (Barbara Siepker), Mapping the Grand Traverse Indian Country (Helen Hornbeck Tanner), and Glen Arbor Pioneers: John LaRue, John Dorsey and John Fisher, (Jim Tozer). In lieu of an admission charge, donations will be accepted.
Refreshments include an all-day old fashioned pie booth provided by Covered Wagon Bakery. Mark your calendars and come early for the best choice and the chance to enjoy the day as an American Picker.
Tags: antiques, Cottage Book Shop, Glen Arbor, Glen Arbor Michigan, Glen Arbor Pioneers, Historic Cottages of Glen Lake, Leelanau Cottage Antique Market, Leelanau County, Leelanau Press, Mapping the Grand Traverse Indian Country
Posted in Historical Feature, Upcoming Event | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
 The Glen Arbor Women's Club Smorgasbord in 1962 By F. Josephine Arrowood
Sun contributor
They don’t wear their sparkly Wonder Woman suits out in public, or leap tall buildings in a single bound, but the members of southern Leelanau County’s two well-known service clubs are definitely community superheroes. Both the Glen Lake Woman’s Club (GLWC) and the Glen Arbor Women’s Club offer a warm welcome to new members who are seasonal or year-round residents, provide community fellowship and enjoyable social and civic activities that greatly enhance the quality of life for the people of the Glen Lake area as a whole. Their many decades of service have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship money to young people seeking higher education, beautified or parks, bolstered music programs, fed the poor, and helped create the Glen Lakes area arts mecca that draws tourists, residents and economic prosperity.
Although each club operates independently, the two groups share a long common history, when the GLWC formed in 1937 with 16 charter members bearing such familiar Leelanau surnames as Dumbrille, Egeler, Tobin, Westcott and Andreson. Their slogan, “If you wish to live in a better place, better the place in which you live,” reflected a common theme of service groups throughout the country in the early part of the 20th century, from men’s mutual aid societies like the Odd Fellows to the growing social work movement led by women such as Jane Addams and Frances Perkins. In the pre-World War II era, when most women’s work still centered around family, their clubs provided a means for influence in the greater societal issues of the day, as well as opportunities to gather for social enjoyment.
But by no means should the women be thought of as a gaggle of housewives, interested only in their offspring, flowers, fashions and the social pecking order.
Longtime member Jeanine Wessinger Dean, who had been a summer resident since 1945, says, “My first degree was in business administration; I worked in San Francisco in the design department of several major women’s clothing stores such as Gantner’s of California.
“I later got my master’s in teaching, and taught third grade for 12 years,” before moving full-time to Glen Lake in the 1970s. She brought her business and organizational acumen to the chairmanship of the Art Fair in the 1980s, helping to transform it from a quiet “village fair” tucked away inside the town hall to the current bustling, daylong indoor-outdoor spectacle of arts, crafts, bake sale, raffle, and musical entertainment every third Wednesday in July (July 20 this year), and the major fundraising event for the club’s civic projects.
Other members bring their formidable skills from diverse walks of life to the group as well, including education, theater arts, psychology, business, the health professions, and the arts. Their focus continues to be the betterment of the Glen Lake community, through “improvement and beautification of the Old Settlers grounds and Chapel,” as well as the Fourth of July flag-raising ceremony there; support for the Glen Lake Library; a holiday party for the residents of the Maple Valley Nursing Home (in the early years of the GLWC, this was the county poor farm and later the county “infirmary”); music scholarships to summer camp at Blue Lake; and especially, scholarships to Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) for Glen Lake High School students.
Scholarship chair Janice Freeman, who has chaired the committee for five years, says, “Last year, we had such a good fair that this year, we were able to give out nine scholarships to Glen Lake seniors, and for the first time, one scholarship renewal to a student entering her second year at NMC. In the past, we’ve picked children that were learning disabled, children that have had horrible family problems, or [students] that others wouldn’t have looked at,” as obvious scholarship material. “They don’t often have a lot and it’s very difficult for young people to make it. I have wonderful stories about some of these kids, what they’ve accomplished, what they’re going to do.”
She sings the praises of club members who work so hard to boost young people’s chances of success in the larger world.
“They are so active! They’re giving back. When I worked [downstate], I could never volunteer, I was too busy! This was all totally new to me, and fun to be able to give out about $19,000 in scholarships this year. We have 100 involvement during the fair from our members,” and husbands and other family members often contribute, as well as scholarship recipients, who work during the fair, which draws about 90 participating artists from all over the country, and over 2,000 visitors to the village of Glen Arbor.
By the early 1960s, women found greater choices (as well as necessity) for work outside the domestic sphere, and the GLWC’s members reflected this trend. At about this time, some members of the group, who worked outside the home, had small children, or felt the need to change direction, hived off from the established group. In 1962, the new group, then known as the Glen Arbor Junior Women’s Club, joined the Michigan Federation of Women’s Clubs, and it is believed this was the approximate time of the separation from the Glen Lake Woman’s Club. Their motto at this time became, “Unity in Diversity.”
The Glen Arbor Women’s Club (GAWC) met one evening a month, and their projects — according to 1962 press clippings of the club’s activities loaned from member Dottie Thompson — seemed to focus on societal issues and events beyond the Glen Lake area (although they maintained local projects as well, such as volunteer support at Camp Roy-el at Twin Lakes in Traverse City, for “handicamper” children).
In 1964 they donated to the Salk Institute (remember polio?), the S.S. Hope (a “relief ship” for whom members made stuffed animals), and a program called “Stamps for the Wounded” (soldiers in Vietnam?). Speakers from around the world came and presented programs on the Peace Corps, the Common Market, and similar subjects; they issued policy statements against the formation of the dunes as a national park as early as 1963. More lighthearted projects included an annual fashion show and luncheon — still presented today — and the beloved October smorgasbord at the Glen Arbor Town Hall, which was their main fundraiser until about six years ago.
Gwen Baxter, who chaired that event for over 20 years, explained that, “In the earlier days, we had members who signed up to bring three dishes each that would feed 12 people. My husband did smoked fish that he and his friends had caught — we would get pumpkins and apples donated, I would even pick potatoes! We had groups that would come to a member’s house, peel apples and make applesauce. The Leelanau School would cook all our meat for us, restaurants gave.”
The fundraiser, in short, was a lot of hard work done behind the scenes, but was born in an era when many women did stay at home, cooked a lot of food on a regular basis, and saw the smorgasbord preparation as a time to enjoy each others’ company, while working for good causes, primarily scholarships and charitable donations.
“But then,” says Gwen, “we had one period where we didn’t have a lot of members, and it took about 50 people to do it. And” she laughs, ”women didn’t want to cook anymore!” This was about six years ago, and times had definitely changed for busy working families. Gwen hung up her apron, and the GAWC came up with the idea of a 5K run to raise money.
Everyone credits member Carole Becker with the idea; the seasonal resident had recently retired as a teacher from Ann Arbor, where one of her schools had organized a similar run. She changed the date of the new fundraiser from October to July, when many more people visit Glen Arbor, and suggested it be held on a Tuesday morning, a seemingly counterintuitive move that has generated huge crowds of participants looking for a fun, family-oriented weekday activity.
Community merchants donate prizes, time, and money to the effort as well, and the GAWC members all participate, helping to fund significant scholarships for college and Blue Lake Arts Camp, the Glen Lake/Empire Area Food Pantry, Traverse City Community Health Clinic, Glen Lake Schools programs such as Big Pals, the music department, and the ninth graders’ Leadership Retreat. This year, four Glen Lake seniors were each awarded $2,000 scholarships to the school of their choice. One of these scholarships, the Extraordinary Achievement Award, honors a student who has made the most outstanding efforts in self-improvement (not necessarily the highest GPA) in this or her high school career.
Both the Glen Lake Woman’s Club and the Glen Arbor Women’s Club continue to lead by example, supporting the growth of the region, and contributing to its quality of life. So many of the women contribute their time, skills, and money that it would be impossible to name them all without slight, but the works of their hands and hearts and minds speak for themselves.
Unlike the “olden days,” when members were restricted by age (under age 35? Junior member or senior member?), or had to receive a personal invitation to join, today’s groups are open to all, and many Glen Lake area women are members of both.
The GLWC’s 40th Annual Art Fair will be held on Wednesday, July 20 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call (231) 326-6087 or 620-7223. The GAWC’s 5th Annual Running Bear 5K will be held on Tuesday, July 26 at 9 a.m. For more information, visit www.runningbearrun.com or call (231) 334-7363.
Tags: Glen Arbor, Glen Arbor Art Fair, Glen Arbor Michigan, Glen Arbor Womens Club, Glen Lake, Glen Lake Library, Glen Lake School, Glen Lake Womans Club, Leelanau County, Leelanau School, Maple Valley Nursing Home, Northwestern Michigan College, Running Bear 5K
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Monday, July 4th, 2011
 By Barbara Kelly
Sun contributor
Mr. J. Oliver Boizard, Chicago, May 18, 1864: “About the beginning of next month I will try to send you some Mackrel. There has been terrible fightings between the Two Armies, and I suppose they will fight terribly at the taking of the Rebel Capital (Richmond).”
Marietta Boizard (his daughter), Glen Arbor, May 21, 1864: “Momma says you had better send her a table and an oil cloth instead of a fish.”
Mr. Boizard, Chicago, June 3, 1864: “I sent you by Propeller Granite State your table and oil cloth. Cost $8.50…”
In this article I will continue to examine life during the Civil War through the first-hand accounts found in the fascinating Boizard letters, written between 1855-1888, and found in an old house in Glen Arbor. My focus here is on the letters written to and from Mr. John Oliver Boizard, who lived in Chicago from 1864 until his death in 1870, while his wife, Eleanor, and daughter, Marietta, lived in the woods across from the northern shore of Fisher Lake. The letters were preserved over the decades and have been published in two terrific books: The Boizard Letters: Letters from a Pioneer Homestead (TBL) and Long Distance Love 1855-1870 (LDL). The former book contains beautiful pen and ink sketches by the talented Grace Dickinson Johnson (visit her photography gallery next to Art’s), while the latter book is a more complete set of letters. Both books are available for purchase at the Cottage Book Shop.
By focusing on Mr. Boizard, I bring into view the early Chicago-Glen Arbor connection, an element of which is still with us today. Just as Mr. Boizard earned his living in Chicago and then sent money to support Mrs. Boizard in Glen Arbor, many of our seasonal residents earn their money in Chicago (or places like it) only to spend it here in Glen Arbor each summer. This makes Mr. Boizard a sympathetic figure.
A couple of years ago I launched a search for signs of Mr. Boizard in Chicago, where I’m from, just as I had searched for Mrs. Boizard here in Glen Arbor, when I traipsed through mosquito-filled woods during several vacations to find the site of her log cabin. Because Mr. Boizard mentioned Chicago street addresses in his letters — for both his place of residence (on S. Canal Street) as well as employment (Washington near Dearborn, and later, LaSalle Street) — I thought my search would be easy. For one thing, I didn’t have to wander around in buggy woods to look for where he once lived and worked. I also figured that after a few Internet searches through Chicago records I’d be done. In fact, I was highly confident that “looking for Mr. Boizard” in Chicago would be much easier than “looking for Mrs. Boizard” in Glen Arbor. It turned out I was very wrong.
Two key events make looking for Mr. Boizard very difficult. One problem is that the city of Chicago has changed the way street addresses are numbered three times since its founding in 1833, with the last change occurring in 1909. If you think it’s easy to get lost in Chicago now, imagine what it was like the day after those street addresses changed! Lots of deep dish pizzas were probably delivered to the wrong houses.
The other intervening event was the Great Chicago fire of October, 1871. I’ve heard lots of statistics about that devastating fire over the years, but here’s one that I became very aware of when searching for Mr. Boizard, who died one year before the fire: no Chicago death certificates are available before late 1871, as the fire destroyed all county vital records (births, marriages, deaths) prior to that date. So even though I took a course to assist my Boizard search at the Newberry Library in Chicago called, “It Didn’t All Go Up In Flames: Researching Pre-Fire History,” it sort of seemed to me that it really did all go up in flames. I have not yet been able to find any record — other than the Boizard letters — of John Oliver Boizard in the City of Chicago.
This means that the letters written by Mr. Boizard to his family and friends in Glen Arbor offer a very rare and useful record of life in Chicago prior to the Great Fire. Even his Glen Arbor friends at the time thought so, well before the fire. In a letter sent to him from John and Harriett Fisher, the early Glen Arbor settlers, we read, “[We have] concluded that our newspaper news here is very imperfect, we would be very grateful for any information that is agreeable for you to give us, in fact the neighbors as well as ourselves Hail a letter from Mr. Boizard as a godsend in the way of news,” (January 31, 1862, LDL, p. 62).
An exceptional treasure of a letter is one Oliver wrote on April 16, 1865, to his wife, Eleanor, where he intersperses news of national importance with his efforts to support his family in Michigan:
“I send by the propeller ‘Maine’ 1 barrel of flour and a box of groceries … I also send you a copy of the News, [in] which you will find deplorable news as regards the murder of the President. The whole country is placed in solemnity. All buildings in the City of Chicago are decorated with Crepe. Old men weep in the streets; men appear to be infuriated at the dastardly act. J. Wilkes Booth, the actor, is supposed to be the murderer. I will write you again the 1st of May.” (TBL, p. 40).
This letter was written two days after the assassination of President Lincoln, and in it we get a remarkable first-person account of the response of people in Chicago to the event. Mrs. Boizard wrote back to Oliver on April 24, 1865, responding to the news and relaying her travails and needs closer to home, “There were three or four Propeller ships in yesterday at Mack’s Dock [McCarty’s Dock in Glen Haven]… and they brought the news of the assassination of President Lincoln. Now for domestic affairs, we are very glad the Lake is open so that the boats can run as we have to pay $2.00 for 8 pounds of meat … our tea is almost out … Please send Marietta a pair of shoes as hers is much worn out and she gets her feet wet every time she comes or goes through the swamp,” (LDL, p. 112).
On May 3, 1865, Mr. Boizard wrote to Mrs. Boizard, “Booth, the Murder, has been killed by a Sergeant of New York Calvary. They fired the barn … and exterminated the murderer. President Lincoln’s remains will reach here [Chicago] sometime on Monday, and all businesses will cease … Gen’l Johnson has surrendered all the forces of Georgia and South Carolina …” (TBL, p. 42). Disconsolate, but trying not to be too cranky, Mrs. Boizard responds, “We are out of flour and I baked the last baking … you did not send me in any onion sets. No more at present. But I remain your ever affectionate wife …” (May 12, 1865).
In the fall of the same year, 1865, Oliver Boizard was sent to Springfield, Illinois, the state capital, the home of the Abraham Lincoln family prior to his election as President, and the place where Lincoln was buried. On November 8, 1865, he wrote to Eleanor about visiting Lincoln’s tomb: “Last Sunday I went to Oak Ridge about 12 miles from town, and I saw the Vault of Mr. Lincoln … Four persons are allowed at a time to look at the Vault through the Iron Grating. The place is the most Beautiful I see. There are a squad of soldiers stationed there.” (TBL, p. 50).
Epilogue – Back to Looking For Mrs. Boizard: “I found her!” What happy words to hear from the young man who assisted me on a rainy, soggy evening last week as we both looked for yet one more sign of Eleanor Boizard in Glen Arbor. And just like he said, there she was, hanging out at the thirteenth hole of Mike and Becky Sutherland’s “The River at Crystal Bend” Putt-Putt Golf Course (if you don’t believe me, check her out for yourself), proving once again how much fun there is in searching for Mr. and Mrs. Boizard and reading history through the Boizard letters. Just ask the putt-putt golf course worker I recruited to help me look for Mrs. Boizard.
Tags: Boizard letters, Chicago, Civil War, Cottage Book Shop, Glen Arbor, Glen Arbor Michigan, Grace Dickinson Johnson, Great Chicago fire, John Oliver Boizard, John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln assassination, Mike Sutherland, Newberry Library, President Lincoln, River at Crystal Bend, Springfield Illinois
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Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
 By Barbara Kelly
Sun contributor
“There were 40 couples at the Fourth of July ball at McCarty’s house in town [Glen Arbor].” Boizard letter, July 6, 1863
Several years ago I wrote an article in this publication about my many years-long “search” for a woman who lived in Glen Arbor from around 1860 until her death in 1911 (see “Looking for Mrs. Boizard,” Glen Arbor Sun, August 2006). My enthrallment with Eleanor Boizard began after reading many of her handwritten letters which had been preserved over the years by family members, and then found in an old house in Glen Arbor which was about to be torn down following the death of one of her last descendants. This astonishing cache of letters spans the years 1855 to 1888 and were mostly written between Eleanor Boizard, living in Glen Arbor with their young daughter, Marietta, and her husband, Oliver, who had to stay behind in Chicago to earn a living.
Thankfully, the letters were found, collected, sorted, transcribed and then finally published in a 1993 book entitled The Boizard Letters: Letters From A Pioneer Homestead. The letter-finders, sorters and transcribers were the late Julia Dickinson and Jo Bolton. The book itself is still in print and has now been followed by an even more complete edition of the Boizard letters, edited by one of Mrs. Boizard’s descendants, Jodie Sewall, entitled Long Distance Love: 1855-1870. Both books are available at The Cottage Bookstore in Glen Arbor.
I am well aware that it is not possible to “find” a woman who has been dead 100 years. But when I titled my earlier essay “Looking for Mrs. Boizard,” I wasn’t only describing my literal years-long search for the site of her log cabin at the base of Miller Hill across from Fisher Lake. Reading Mrs. Boizard’s mail also served as a window through which I could look for glimpses of the thoughts, activities, relationships, commerce and struggles of people living in Glen Arbor just as the town became established in 1856. What we are shown when reading the Boizard letters is how some families lived and loved and partied and struggled 150 years ago in the very town we all love and visit or live in now. We also get a sense of how some things haven’t changed all that much in 150 years. As Eleanor writes to Oliver on Saturday, May 21, 1864 describing the large ships that arrived at docks in Glen Arbor from Chicago and elsewhere: “There is not hardly a boat but that they bring more settlers … there are so many Land lookers and families moving in.”
In addition to illustrations of life as it was in Glen Arbor in the 1860s and 1870s, it turns out that the Boizard letters offer a remarkable lens through which we can see the impact of the Civil War on the people living in Glen Arbor at the time. One of the most impressive of such letters, which will be featured in a subsequent article in this series, is one written by Mr. Boizard in April 1865, in which he gives a first-hand account of the impact on people in the streets of Chicago when they heard the news of the assassination of President Lincoln.
So now, in the 150th anniversary of the beginning of this country’s Civil War, it seems a good time to return to the Boizard letters. How incredible that in them we get a first-hand, tangible sense of daily life in Glen Arbor in the years during the Civil War, as written and recorded by Mr. and Mrs. Boizard and their friends.
For example, from Harriet Fisher, wife of one of the first Glen Arbor settlers, John Fisher, we learn in an 1863 letter to the Boizards that “Quite a number have enlisted [in the Civil War]…13, I think. So you see Glen Arbor has contributed her share towards putting down this rebellion and what a terrible war it is. So many lives lost. I wish it would end but not until the South is whipped.” And then, with astute insight, Mrs. Fisher adds this additional thought about the Civil War, “I always consider family fights the very worst, and that is what this is, but a family fight.”
In another letter sent to Mr. and Mrs. Boizard, written in 1863, John Fisher, Harriet’s husband, emphatically asserts: “Freedom to All. ALL, not part of the people. It is a truth, well known to all who have observed, that where Slavery exists at all, it to a certain degree enslaves the whole, it demoralizes the whole, but thank God the people of this land are beginning to see the value of full and unrestricted freedom and though the lesson is costing dear, very dear, yet I presume we could not have learned it at any other School.”
What I find striking about these expressions of passion for the Northern cause by John and Harriet Fisher, is that they are written by people who are apparently very well-informed about and thoughtfully engaged with events in the larger world beyond Glen Arbor. And yet, in the case of John, according to an 1863 letter by his wife to the Boizards, we see a person who is fully engaged in activities in Glen Arbor itself. At the same time that John Fisher served as Judge of Probate for Leelanau County, Town Supervisor, Justice of the Peace and School Trustee, he “Gets up at four in the morning, goes down to the Saw Mill before breakfast to oversee affairs, sometimes comes back to his breakfast but oftener I send it to him, and is generally not home until dark, then he is very tired…”
When Oliver Boizard writes his wife about the war, it is usually interspersed with the details of his ongoing efforts to support her in Glen Arbor, even while he is living in Chicago. In 1864 he writes from Chicago: “About the beginning of next month I will try to send you some Mackrel. There has been terrible fightings between the Two Armies, and I suppose they will fight terribly at the taking of the Rebel Capital (Richmond. You state that potatoes are $1.00 per bushel. I hope you will content yourself and keep your health.” To which their daughter, living with Eleanor in Glen Arbor, writes back: “Momma says you had better send her a table and an oil cloth instead of a fish (!)” a comment which launches a litany of Mrs. Boizard’s discontent toward Mr. Boizard, lasting for years, and which she expresses in letter after letter. It was probably not for nothing that Mrs. Boizard was described in her obituary as “a Great Sufferer.”
In subsequent articles in this series, we will continue to relate the reactions of Glen Arbor residents to the events of the Civil War as reflected in the vivid, first-hand accounts as found in the Boizard letters.
Tags: anti-slavery, Chicago, Civil War, Cottage Book Shop, Eleanor Boizard, Glen Arbor, Glen Arbor Michigan, Harriet Fisher, John Fisher, Michigan pioneer, Miller HIll, President Lincoln, slavery
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Thursday, May 26th, 2011
 From staff reports
On Friday, May 27 at 7 p.m. the program “The Coho Story: Gold Rush in Platte Bay,” will be presented at the Empire Township Hall. Learn about the most successful sport-fishing introduction in Great Lakes history and the Coho’s effects, including its triumphs and tragedies, on the Platte Bay area. Free popcorn will be served and donations are appreciated.
On Friday, June 3 at 7 p.m., the museum will share Empire’s little-known aviation history with a presentation titled “Airplanes and Empire,” also at Empire’s Town hall. The program includes gliders, P-51s and a memorable parachute jump.
For more information, contact Dave Taghon at (231) 326-5519.
Tags: Coho Salmon, Empire Historical Society, Empire Michigan, Lake Michigan, Platte Bay
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By Jacob Wheeler
