Bestselling author Wade Rouse, who writes under the pen name “Viola Shipman,” beat Cherry Republic owner Bob Sutherland in a pit-spitting competition at the Cherry Public House beer garden on June 23, following their conversation about Shipman’s newest novel “Famous in a Small Town,” which was inspired by Cherry Republic and Bob’s late mother, Mary Sutherland.
Part three of our Leelanau Farming Family Series, featuring Donny Herman, the descendent of German immigrants, building a life in Leelanau, and many euchre games. Read the first installment “Where are Herman’s trees?” and the second “Life on the Schaub Farm: Cocktail memories.”
Friday night art openings at Lake Street Studios Center Gallery were the ingenious creation of venerated Glen Arbor artist Suzanne Wilson who conceived of them back in 1990. Allison Stupka, Wilson’s daughter and owner of LSSCG, recalls that Glen Arbor based artist, Greg Sobran, was the very first artist ever featured at these summer openings. To commence the 2023 season, Northern Michigan artist Wendy McWhorter’s work will be on display from Friday, June 30 through Thursday, July 6. Her body of work is entitled: Lost and Found Landscapes which is comprised of 20 oil paintings of the Port Oneida Rural Historic District and the surrounding area. “These paintings portray my vision of what the original homesteaders planted, which no longer blooms, but through the poetry of painting is reimagined,” said McWhorter.
For more than 10 years, Wildsam has published books about great American places. The series delves into big cities, small towns, iconic American regions and cozier places better known to locals. Wildsam also hopes their field guides light up culture and history in ways that ring true in the places they cover. The series aims to celebrate landscapes that might surprise a few people with their cultural vitality and depth of heritage. Northern Michigan is Wildsam’s newest field guide. Contributors to this book include Glen Arbor Sun editor Jacob Wheeler and frequent writers, Anne-Marie Oomen and Mae Stier.
On calm days this spring when Sleeping Bear Bay resembled glass, some Glen Arbor residents with homes on Lake Michigan heard what they described as periodic burps, or the sounds of water gurgling in a pipe. On days with wind and waves, they heard nothing. The sound may have come from two “propane cannons” on the North Manitou Shoal Light Station, commonly called “the Crib” which lies 4 miles from Pyramid Point, the closest spot on the mainland. According to Dan Oginsky president of the North Manitou Light Keepers, which acquired the Crib from the federal government in 2016, the canisters are used to scare away cormorants, large aquatic birds that nested on the lighthouse and covered it with “guano” poop after it was decommissioned by the government and sat empty for decades.
From nearly abandoned and forgotten, the historic Katie Shepard Hotel, formerly known as “The Beeches,” on North Manitou Island is being preserved by Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear (PHSB). The hotel was constructed in 1895 and has been given a chance at a productive new life. The non-profit group, partner of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore since 1998, has been busy at the hotel preservation from 2009–2019, and returning this year to resume its work on this historic hotel. “It is our vision to reopen the hotel that drives our passion,” said PHSB executive director Susan Pocklington.
Broomstack Kitchen & Taphouse, the popular restaurant which shares a building with the Leelanau Curling Club, has new owners. The managing partners are: Alfiero Silveri, a restaurant veteran and sommelier who managed Trattoria Stella in Traverse City for more than 10 years; Stephen Brotschul, a former boarding school teacher who once worked at The Leelanau School (and is now president of the Glen Lake Chamber of Commerce), and Maria Leggett, an adjunct professor at Northwestern Michigan College’s Culinary Institute who runs the Grand Traverse Sauce Company. The group also hired Culinary Institute alum Rose Duggan as their executive chef.
John Arens, co-owner with his brother Steve of the Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company, reflects on 30 years of running their iconic business in Glen Arbor during a time of rapid growth and visibility. The Coffee Roasters will host a celebration on Saturday, June 24, in the closed-off parking lot in front of the café. Stop by for live music, coffee drinks and specials.
The historical and human significance of the presence of the Johnsons and other African-American families in the Empire and Glen Lake area cannot be overestimated. To be there they would have had to deal with all the exigencies of frontier life, mainly the constant hard work and the ability to maintain good cheer and endure isolation. In addition, to get there in the first place, they would’ve had to have survived slavery, including the physical brutality and the trauma of family members being sold. They would have needed to be diplomatic enough to circumvent the laws that made it illegal for slaves to learn to read, write or own property in order to acquire the skills and the goods they’d need if they were later to escape.
Mary Sutherland, the matriarch of a well-know Glen Arbor family who passed away in January at age 92—and who allegedly holds the record for pit spitting at Cherry Republic—inspired Viola Shipman’s latest book “Famous in a Small Town,” which has received accolades as one of the Best Summer Books of 2023 by the Good Morning America TV show, and Reader’s Digest. Wade Rouse, who uses the “Viola Shipman” pen name, will appear at Cherry Republic on June 23, from 4-5 pm in the Cherry Public House Beer Garden for a book signing and conversation with Bob Sutherland. “When I began writing fiction, I didn’t see many characters like my grandmother or my mom, or Mary Sutherland,” said Rouse.