Local Celebrity Profile: Phil Deering of Empire

By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

To simply describe Phil Deering as a life-long local grocer and civic leader in Empire seems too matter-of-fact, too understated.. But that’s just the way this humble man would have it. Phil was born in 1947 and attended the old Empire school. His grandfather Mark Deering, Sr. had a farm and grocery/meat market in Empire before WWII. “Way back in the 30’s there were 3 meat stores and 2 general stores in Empire when the lumber companies were here,” Phil tells. “My uncle Warren had a grocery at the foot of Benzonia Trail” (Co. Rd. 677). Phil’s father Mark Jr. and uncle Warren built the current grocery and the bar (now the Friendly Tavern, owned by Kathleen Weisen and son Mike) when the two men returned from the war. “Mark and Warren used to sail over to the Manitou Islands to butcher the cattle for the farmers over there and then sail the meat back for their meat market,” Phil reports. “Imagine trying to unload beef quarters from a rocking boat onto a wet dock!” Mark, Warren and Tom Deering peddled beef to the resorts around the lake, and Phil remembers that when he was a kid Mark furnished the groceries to the Coast Guard guys who lived on the Crib. (The light and foghorn atop the two-story house in the middle of the Manitou passage between Pyramid Point and North Manitou Island.) “Some of those families lived in Empire,” recalls Phil. “There were 6 guys out there at a time, three weeks on and one week off. We drove the grocery van to the dock at Glen Haven and loaded them onto a boat.”
Besides helping at the grocery, Phil grew up raising cattle, hogs, chickens, geese, and horses just north of town on the family farm up Lacore St. He remembers baling hay every summer and tending to the family’s orchards in Empire and on Stormer Road. “There were at least as many Mexican migrant workers around here then as there were locals,” Phil remembers. “They lived in the migrant camps, picked the cherries, had their own dances and celebrations. Our population would explode every July. Business was good.” But when the cherry shaker was invented in SE Michigan in the late sixties, the need for cherry pickers disappeared, and one of a series of many transitions for the little grocery in Empire occurred. “The local economy changed and it hurt business,” Phil recalls. “But there were 50-60 families on the air base then, probably 150-200 people. When the base closed in the mid-seventies, there was another blow to the local economy and another transition for Empire.” When the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was established, more people were removed from the area as property and homes were taken over. But the growth since then has made up for those losses to the local economy. “We’re back to our previous numbers,” Phil says. “All the vacant lots along the lakes aren’t vacant anymore!”
A knack for quiet resilience and survival are pure Phil Deering characteristics. After attending Northwest Michigan College in Traverse City, Phil was drafted in 1967 and spent two years in Viet Nam with the Army’s First Division stationed north of Saigon. Says Phil, “I was a grunt in the jungle. I survived a year of that.” Of the 120 men sent to Nam in Phil’s company, only 20 returned together. The rest were killed or sent home wounded. “I ended up with 3 silver stars, 2 bronze stars, 2 purple hearts, and one Soldier’s Medal (for non-combat bravery),” Phil humbly told me. Not wanting to pick at old scabs, I nevertheless asked him what the awards were for. “The soldier’s medal was when a tank hit a mine, rolled over, and burst into flames. I just crawled in and pulled out two guys,” Phil said. “The silver stars were for pulling wounded guys out of fire fights, for taking over bunkers, for leading patrols” he continued. “The bronze stars are basically for surviving fights, just for surviving.” Phil recalled the worst battle was at Black Virgin Mountain in late ’67 or early ’68. “Too many guys died trying to climb a mountain. We had to leave our dead and go back the next day to get ’em.” Phil didn’t stop saving people when he returned from Viet Nam. He is currently an EMT and mans the ambulance for many calls out of Empire.
When he came home to Empire in ’68 Phil worked the grocery store so his father could run the cannery out at Triple-D orchards on Stormer Road. There the family canned Glen Lake apple juice and packed pie-ready tart cherries, black sweet cherries, apricots, asparagus and plums. Phil married his wife Gerrie in 1970. They have a son Ryan, 26, who works for the Village of Empire, and a daughter Kim, 27, who works for IRI in Chicago as an information specialist.
While managing a grocery store and raising a family, Phil Deering has been a busy servant of the community. He was fire chief for 20 years, a member of the village council for 10 years, a county commissioner for 8 years, and a member of the township board for the past 8 years.
Phil almost lost his fingers ten years ago. There had been a big July storm and a 3 day power outage. When electricity was restored the crew was cleaning up the store from 3 days of selling groceries in the dark when Phil picked up a spinning fan that had fallen off its hinges. His hands went through the grate, and the blades cut the fingers and tendons on both hands, almost cutting them off. But they were sewed back on, and Gerrie ran the place as well as tending to Phil’s bandages and driving him to daily therapy in Traverse City for 30 days. Still the survivor, Phil is lucky to have no loss of function and hardly any scars on his hands from the whole ordeal.
Phil’s future is pretty clear, especially if you look at the genetic pattern he has inherited with the grocery store. His grandfather Mark Sr. came to work there from 9 am to 5 pm for 6 days a week until his 100th birthday. “He came to work on his 100th birthday,” Phil chuckles, “and I said to him, ‘Grandpa, you’re 100 years old. Isn’t it time you took a day off and thought about retiring?’ Grandpa answered, ‘These young folks are too lazy. I’m doing too much of their work. I think I’ll stop now, but you gotta work ’em harder!'” Phil’s father Mark Deering Jr. was unloading a pallet and stocking produce on the shelves on the day I interviewed Phil for this article. He is 85 and still works everyday. “He’s like the energizer bunny,” one employee quipped. “What else would I do?” Mark asked. “Besides, you can’t get any work out of these young people. Somebody’s got to do it!”
“I get offers for this store all the time,” Phil says, “but I have no desire to sell. Empire is still going through transitions, and the big chains are indifferent. The store will only need to grow bigger if Empire grows bigger. If people build on all of the new lots that are for sale (the Empire Hills development has 53 units, and the proposed Nugent development off Fredrickson Road could have 155 units), it would double the size of the local population,” he says. “But if they’re not permanent families it won’t help our year ’round business much. We have to operate on a boom/bust basis. Boom in the summer, look for a job in the winter.” Phil continues, “Empire is turning into a retirement community. The town needs a boost, it has been sliding lately. The closing of the hardware store is the latest setback for our downtown business. Farming isn’t as viable anymore, so building is inevitable. Most of the development,” predicts Phil Deering, “will happen in bits and pieces.” You get the idea as Phil postulates the possible fates of Empire that he enjoys the prospect of new transitions, but that he doesn’t have any particular political axe to grind. He just wants to help make things work.
Mary Kate Chalup, one of the employees at Deering’s Market, says “Phil is one of the nicest people in Empire. He’s always there for people, day or night. He is a helper of families and kids. He’s family oriented and flexible as an employer, and he’s a kind of father-figure for this town. People bring their problems to him, and he helps them. Phil is a good mediator. As a sort of town social worker, Phil sees that people’s clothes and food needs get met.”
Phil prefers to deflect attention and praise, it embarrasses him. He’s just living his life, taking care of business, paying attention to his neighbors and to his community, his hometown. Many people want to live up here because of the natural beauty and what is abstractly called “the quality of life.” In Empire, the quality is in people like Phil Deering, who selflessly give us a way to measure virtue, and who show us that small towns still have heroes.