Empire Area Historical Group celebrates 40 years

By F. Josephine Arrowood
Sun contributor

What do a horsehide sleigh blanket, Liz Shimek’s basketball jersey, a Civil War sword and scabbard, and an entire one-room schoolhouse all have in common? All have a story to tell of their time and place in southern Leelanau’s collective past, and all form just a fraction of the collection of the Empire Area Heritage Group, now celebrating its 40th year.

Spokesperson Dave Taghon is a gregarious man with a ready smile and an encyclopedic knowledge of the region’s people and events. Yet he seemed surprised to note that four decades have passed since the group’s first meeting in July of 1972. Clearly, this labor of love is also a very fun gig for him, as well as for the rest of the dedicated cadre of volunteers who act as stewards of the historical abundance.

Everything from hollyhock flower seeds, potato mashers, doll parts, a gasoline-powered clothes iron, sheet music, deeds and maps, clothing from all walks of life, photographs and family Bibles, to horse-drawn wagons, vintage snowmobiles, numerous other vehicles, the entire restored wooden bar from Roen’s Saloon — and much, much more — is housed at the Empire Area Historical Museum on LaCore St. The four-building compound (including the school house, originally a small chapel that had served the Springdale School near the present-day intersection of M-22 and M-109 in the 1930s) acts as the rich repository of nearly a century and a half of memories and sociocultural artifacts, donated by descendants, or gathered by the heritage group’s members for the express purpose of keeping the community’s history alive.

Only a few of the original 16 members of the former “Empire Township Heritage Group” are still alive, including Taghon, his wife Diane (nee Novak), and Fran Pendleton. Julia Dickinson, Jo Bolton, Leota Nowicki, John and Ethel Stormer, Ferna Walls, Gertrude Coppens, Lelah Shalda, Dorothy Tietz, Marian Manning, Hilda Joy, Gladys Ocker, and Phil Payment all played key roles in establishing the group’s direction and expansion, especially in its first 15 years. Other contributors in the group’s early days included Elsie Clagett, Norman, Louise, and Ray Welch, M. Baatz, Jack and Maude Lambkin, Dorothy Fradd, Sally Majszak, and the Charters and Lawford-Krawczak families.

Most of these, according to Taghon, “were natives of the area, and they contributed many of their childhood memories and articles to get the organization started … I did a lot of historical interviews with Hilda Joy, Sarah Jasin, and Phil Payment back then. Between them, that’s where I got the most information from.”

The Taghons got involved about 1975, when Dave was working on a scale model with the Boy Scouts. He went to Leota Nowicki to borrow some old photos, and as she handed him the box, she said, “You are now in charge of Empire history!” The rest, as the saying goes, is also history.

Julia Dickinson and Jo Bolton found an intense mutual interest in the old dumping grounds of Norway Town, a mill village that housed the workers of T. Wilce’s lumbering operation, south of present-day Empire Beach. As Taghon recalls it, the dump was “considered unusable land at the time. They’d throw trash over the top of the embankment toward the lake. [As a child], we’d build our forts in there; it was all laced with cedar trees over the bank. We’d see parts of wheels, bolts, all rusted in there. We didn’t know what it was.”

“Julia and Jo — they were very inquisitive, they got the idea of digging there. They’d even go down there in the winter, when it was all frozen. They’d sit on it to warm it up — then they’d dig. Talk about hatching an idea!” He laughs. “After that, for the rest of their lives, they were inseparable.” Some of their many treasures included canning jars, crockery, glass salt cellars, wooden utensils, and an iron tea kettle.

Beginning in 1973, the group put on displays of the pair’s findings, as well as other historical items, in the lower level of the Masonic Temple. But it was clear that they needed a more permanent space, and in 1975, they received permission from the village to use half of the fire department’s old “Hose House” as a museum.

“That Jo — she could be very persuasive! She’d say, ‘Come on, Dave, we need more space!’ Our group went from 20 by 20 [feet] in the south half of the Hose House, to 20 by 40, then 40 by 80 when we built the museum in 1986. As soon as we’d got that building down, she’d say, ‘You know, we need a school house.’ And so, we went looking for one. We’d go all over. We got kicked out of one in Benzie County. … Turned out, it was private property. That humbled us a little bit.”

The group eventually received a building, the old Springdale chapel, from Hazel Ely, which had been moved to the corner of Fowler and Indian Hill Rd south of Empire. They moved it once more in 1989, this time to the museum property on LaCore St, which had been donated by Paul and Frances Johnson in 1985, and dedicated on June 27, 1987.

When the two elderly Roen brothers died suddenly in 1985, the museum worked hard to raise funds to buy many of the items from their estate; the siblings had been compulsive hoarders of a rich trove of Empire family and historical objects, documents, and more. The bar from the Roen Saloon, discovered in the brothers’ barn and now restored, is perhaps the most remarkable item in the museum’s collection, and stands as an impressive centerpiece of rural community life from the 1890s to the 1930s. The story is available on DVD from the museum, as is Empire writer Anne-Marie Oomen’s 2009 play, Whaddaya Give? about the Roen estate’s three-day auction.

In 1990, a local man died and left his modest estate to the group. They were able to build the Billy Beeman Barn in his honor with some of the proceeds, and add much-needed reserves to their fund.

“Most of it is display area, including a 1911 school bus on sleighs that was built in Cedar, MI. It was found in Tony Rosinski’s barn next to the Isadore church [Holy Rosary], and has the maker’s name, ‘Pelky and Champlain,’ on it. The nephew, Phil Pelky, had a picture of the inside of the blacksmith shop that was right next to where Stachnik Floral is now in Cedar — the picture shows the blacksmith making a ski exactly like the one on the bus!”

In 1995, the organization’s first museum home, the old Hose House on Front St, became available when the Glen Lake Community Library decided to expand with a new building. With much fanfare, the historic structure was moved in 1996, and currently displays firehouse artifacts and stores the group’s records.

The museum stands not only as a monument to the foresight of the region’s descendants who formed the original group, but also to its present community of dedicated volunteers, many of whom have retired to the Glen Lake area from elsewhere.

Taghon says, “I can’t emphasize enough the volunteers that go to work for us! It’s not the natives, mostly, even though some of them are still in the area and some still help [support the group’s efforts]. About 75 to 80 percent of our volunteers are retirees from outside the area, sustaining this great project. We’re still always short on volunteers; still can always use more.” He estimates “about 60 volunteers this year, which is wonderful, really, especially when you pick up husband and wife, where both have the interest.”

He ought to know: his own wife, Diane, has been a stalwart companion on the journey, creating the original numbering system for the group’s accessions, and contributing countless hours to cataloging, cleaning, cooking, filing, typing, and supporting her husband’s demanding schedule as a speaker, organizer, and now producer of the organization’s educational and entertaining DVDs.

At the annual spring cleanup, “We have a work bee, we do everything: inside, outside, grounds, windows. People bring rakes, hoes, dust mops. The ladies go upstairs, the boys go downstairs – it works out real well, we get a lot done.”

For the upcoming Anchor Day on Saturday, July 21, the heritage group’s plans call for “nothing serious. We usually take the old stagecoach and drive it in the parade, and the museum is open regular hours, 1 to 4 p.m. — we’ll get quite a large number of people through, about several hundred,” he explains.

Empire Heritage Day, held the second Saturday in October, also draws quite a crowd, many of whom see it as part of an annual homecoming. A docent at the schoolhouse during the 2011 event noted multiple generations of families wandering in, the elders pointing to the class photographs hanging on the walls and exclaiming, “That was me!” to their young relatives. They tried out the child sized, well-scarred desks, listened to a restored pump organ at the classroom’s front, and leafed through old textbooks and primers with such titles as The Rudiments of Written Arithmetic, published in 1883, a 1925 Winston dictionary, and Hillbilly Antics by Bill Weston. Clearly, history was and is a vital touchstone between past and present for many visitors.

For now, Taghon says, the group has no further plans for site expansion, but they still have many projects in the works. The Hose House will soon need new vinyl siding, a new metal roof, and renovations to recreate the smaller door that originally was sized for the firehouse’s hose cart. They also hope to improve the grounds, especially since three ash trees were recently removed near the schoolhouse.

Inside, “Our big challenge is to maintain and display the collection,” he explains, “and keep our history alive. We’re putting the pictures [from the collection] to work,” in a continuing series of DVDs he is producing, with all proceeds funding the EAHG’s efforts.

The latest features the famous Dunemobile rides, which operated from 1935 to 1978. The brainchild of Louie Warnes and his wife Marian Day Warnes, the enterprise, as described by Taghon, were “very instrumental in developing northern Michigan as a tourist destination. It was the state’s number one attraction!” Footage includes snippets of video from the 1950s as well as the last Dunemobile ride in 1978, recorded by Taghon himself on 8mm film. An actual 1948 Ford Dunemobile, now owned by Frank Hagerty, headed the recent Fourth of July Parade in Glen Arbor (see the story in the Sun’s June 28 issue). Taghon hopes it will make at least one more appearance this year at one of his educational programs on the Dunemobile era.

A website is also “a work in progress, and hopefully will be up and running by mid-August,” he says. Meanwhile, those wanting to become involved can call the museum’s phone number — “or better yet, just give ‘em my number, since the museum will just forward it anyway,” the steward of all things Empire jokes.

He reflects on the past 40 years with typical understatement: “It’s been fun, a really great project. We get just the right people at just the right time.”

To become a part of the Empire Area Heritage Group or volunteer at the Historical Museum, call (231) 326-5568 or email empiremuseum(AT)centurytel.net. Hours are daily 1 to 4 p.m., closed on Wednesdays, donations accepted.