Miss Boizard Looks for Love
By Barbara Kelly
Sun contributor
A life without love is like a year without summer. – Swedish Proverb
Shall I compare thee with a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely … — Sonnet 18, Wm. Shakespeare.
With summer comes thoughts of romance. Those of us who have spent any time around Glen Arbor and Glen Lake during the summer can attest to the alchemy of sun, sand, water, hot days, warm nights, and gorgeous surroundings, all tossed together to yield the alluring gold of romance. You could say that Glen Arbor is the elixir of love.
But just how far back in time does this love potion go? Do we have any historical record of love’s ways in Leelanau County? In fact, we do, thanks to letters written 150 years ago between members of the Boizard family: Oliver, in Chicago, and Eleanor and their daughter Marietta, living in Glen Arbor. These letters also include the story of love which grew between Marietta and a young fellow with a well-known last name around here, Charlie Fisher. The Boizard letters were found in an old house in Glen Arbor and later published, which is how I came to know them.
Marietta Boizard (b. 1852) was brought here to live by her parents in 1864 when she was 12 years old. She lived in Glen Arbor until her death in 1935 at the age of 83. Charlie Fisher (b. 1849), three years Marietta’s senior, was brought here by his parents, John and Harriet, from Wisconsin in 1854 when he was five years old. The Fishers and the Boizards were next door neighbors and close friends.
I confess to feeling like a voyeur when reading someone else’s love letters. It certainly gives me pause to hold in my hand a letter, dated May 6, 1866, written by Marietta to Charlie with this written across the top: “Please don’t let any person see this.”
It seems that love began to grow between Marietta and her neighbor, Charlie, soon upon her arrival in Glen Arbor. The letter mentioned above contains a poem entitled “Love’s First Dream,” and is signed, “Yours until death, Miss Marietta Boizard.” On February 3, 1867, she wrote. “You spoke about me answering those questions. One is ‘will you marry me?’ The answer is, ‘Yes, my dear.’” She was 15 years old at the time and she signed the letter, “Ettie Fisher,” adding “don’t take my head off [for writing that].”
But their affair had its ups and downs. In a letter dated July 10, with no year given, Marietta wrote, “You must know I think something of you to give you the answer that I did when you asked me that question. I have always tried to keep my name untarnished. … I have had the Blues for two or three days past. I hope that you done as I requested about burning up that letter.” But Marietta has spunk. Her next words are, “Will you please come over tonight and stay all night … as my Mom is going up to Mr. McCarty’s dock [in Glen Haven].”
Marietta spent the winter/early spring of 1867-68 in Chicago with her father. This separation from Charlie revealed both her craftiness as well as insecurity. Marietta frequently accused him of inconstancy (“You say that I know that you never hug and kiss the girls. No, I don’t know what you did this winter as I am not present to know”), while teasing him with her own exploits (“I must tell you of a heavy crime I am guilty of and I do wish that you would tell me how to get out of it. I have broke a couple of young fellows hearts as they say. Please tell me what to do”). Marietta threatened to withhold a Valentine from Charlie (“I will send one to [your brother] but you are not deserving of any as you don’t write long enough letters, you scamp”), but sent one to Austin Newman, an older guy who was besotted with her and in whom she had no real interest except as a foil, it seems. Austin, ecstatic, replied on February 23, 1868, “[Your] Valentine makes me so love you that I don’t know what to say. Oh, if I was only where you are, would not I have some kisses! That Valentine is very suggestive Darling, the nice little church on one side and the nice little cottage on the other…”).
Finally, a few weeks before Marietta returned to Glen Arbor in April, 1868, after a six-month separation, Charlie sent her a very short letter: “I am so glad you overlooked these falsehoods [of mine]. Oh, my dear, if I could only see you to tell you how I felt. I can’t express my feelings with pen and ink.”
What was the upshot of all this storm, stress, and growing love? An entry in the Boizard family Bible lets us know that, “Mr. Charles A. Fisher was married to Miss Marietta Boizard on the 19th day, January, 1870.” They share a tombstone together in Maple Grove Cemetery, on the corner of M-109 and M-22 (just north of Empire), next to their first born son, John Edward Fisher, born October of the same year. So goes love in a small town.
This GlenArbor.com exclusive is sponsored by Resort Realty at The Homestead, a resort community located on about 350 acres of land with a mile of frontage on Lake Michigan, two more miles on the Crystal River.
