The story behind longtime treasurer Terry Gretzema
By Linda Alice Dewey
Sun contributor
Terry Gretzema stepped down in March after serving as Glen Arbor Township’s Treasurer for 15 years. Did you know that he served on a military missile strike unit, then served as director of international sales for a huge corporation, or that his wife was once a flight attendant? Before they move away, here are a few tales from our former township treasurer.
Chicago’s Terry Gretzema first came to this area by train with his family when he was five years old in 1948 and returned every summer through his childhood.
“In 1960-61 I went to school at Southern Illinois University, then went into a military assignment for two years of active duty at a Nike Hercules Missile unit, part of NORAD [the anti-nuclear defense system during the Cold War], says Gretzema. “I was an administrator trained as a missile launch crewman, but I ended up mostly [in the office].”
“Immediately after that, I went to work for Rustoleum in Evanston.” He began in international sales and ended up director of international sales and marketing for about 20 years. Gretzema worked with contacts in “30 to 35 different countries over the years, setting up distribution and agents mostly in Central and South America, Australia, and the Far East.”
When he was about 50, Terry switched gears, and became a self-employed consultant. “I kind of reversed what I had been doing.” He helped his international contacts set up distribution in the United States.
From Chicago to Up North
Terry met his wife, Linda, through a Glen Lake buddy, who was now his roommate in Des Plains. “He said, ‘Gee, there’s four more flight attendants: why don’t you come along?’” recalls Gretzema. “We got married in February of 1970 after five months. She had to quit flying—you couldn’t be married and fly—so I got her an administrative job at Rustoleum.
When their two children were older, Linda opened a store in Libertyville that she ran for 20 years. The family vacationed at his parents’ place here until they sold the cottage in 1983. “They had 100 feet of frontage, and a very nice cottage. It sold for $125,000, and we still couldn’t afford it,” he laments. “But it was in our blood.”
In 1999, Linda and Terry, at ages 54 and 59 and semi-retired, were ready for something new. Linda sold the store. Then, having long ago made plans to retire in Glen Arbor, they bought a small cottage that had once served as a chicken coop on the Keith and Mary Brammer farm. Wanting to see if they could live here year-round, they shifted from life in the Chicago suburbs to living in this 500 square-foot cottage on a back road in 2001.
Once they moved here, Terry and Linda made a concerted effort toward getting to know people in town. They renewed old friendships from Terry’s childhood summers, joined organizations, and spent mornings at the coffee shop.
The plan worked. “We made a lot of friends, tore that down, and built this [their current home].”
That wasn’t all. “We knew we had to do something to keep ourselves busy, so we became partners with Paul and Marcia (Walters), and started the athletic club.” They located the Glen Arbor Athletic Club in the old Glen Arbor schoolhouse and ran it for five years. (Terry knew Marcia from the good old days.)
Terry also got to know township supervisor John Soderholm, who came into the coffee shop from time to time. “We got to talking. He approached me, and said, ‘We have two open positions: would you consider ESAC [Emergency Services] or planning?’” And so, in 2002, Terry took the planning and zoning commission position, which began a long stint in township government.
Township treasurer
“In 2004, there was an election. John Soderholm asked me, ‘Would you consider running?’
“I did. I ran against Deb Warnes. Running against a Warnes in Glen Arbor was like running against a Kennedy.” The vote was extremely close. “I won by 18 or 20 votes.”
For more than a decade to come, Gretzema and Soderholm would inhabit that little office at the town hall nearly every business day—and then some, along with Bonnie Quick (town clerk since the late 80s) and Dottie Thompson, whom Gretzema hired part-time as deputy treasurer.
“That was a great combination,” he says. “We worked well together. The beautiful part of it is that we all did get along, and we would joke. It was a light-hearted atmosphere. We weren’t wasting time, but we could say anything to one another and get away with it.”
They worked hard. “We each had our roles and got them down pretty pat the first five years. The last five years were pretty automatic for us.”
“Over time,” he continues, “I took an interest in some of the other projects.” Those include major “rehabbing” of the town hall—starting with the “dungeon” basement, to the kitchen, office, floors, furnaces, and moving the septic system.
There were financial accomplishments. “During the period of very low interest,” he explains, “we were able to save the township about $220,000,” more than four times what the township is usually able to accrue annually for road and capital improvements. It also took him years to clean up delinquent property taxes on businesses, some of which were 20 years old.
Gretzema’s participation in the development of the new park and Glen Arbor Garden were also key. Although he will tell you, correctly, that these projects involved a team of hard-working people, the garden actually might not exist if it weren’t for him. When he came into office, the prior board had just determined to sell the old fire station property. Terry asked them to reconsider. “I felt it was a valuable piece of property, much more valuable for general use versus another shop that may come and go over time.” As a result of that, and a lot of hard work from other people and organizations, Glen Arbor now has the lovely memorial garden and public restrooms.
The biggest challenge during his term, Terry says, was the August 2, 2015 storm. He points out how fortuitous it was that, the year before, the township bought a large generator system. The board had also reviewed emergency procedures and equipment with the Red Cross the year prior. So, when the emergency hit, they knew what to do. “Everybody kind of manned their stations,” he says.
Looking ahead
In late March this year, Terry stepped down from his position as treasurer after the annual township meeting. At the same time, Quick also retired from her position as clerk.
As he looks at the future of the township, Terry’s immediate concern is the learning curve ahead for the new township officers. He notes that it took him years to become comfortable in the job. However, he feels the new treasurer, Lee Houtteman, and the new clerk, Pam Laureto, are competent and organized. Terry is confident that, with the months of training they have, and with the proximity of Bonnie and the other trustees if there are questions, the township is in good hands.
“I’m confident that they’ll be good stewards and will participate in good discussions.” He adds that, “as long as I’m here,” he’ll be available too.
Linda and Terry plan to move to Holland when their home sells to be closer to family.
As he looks back, Terry says, “We’ve had a good run here—18 years. We never lived in one place longer than 10 years.”
One thing, though: Glen Arbor owns his heart. “This is where my ashes will be someday,” he says. “This will probably always be our spiritual home.”
He says this of, and for, the good people of Glen Arbor. “You couldn’t ask for more in a community—so many volunteers, so many people willing to help out. There are many things to get involved in here, if you want it. Be a volunteer or even take a job,” he advises.
“And the setting is magnificent.”
“It’s been the best part of our life, I would say,” he says, “and I think Linda would second that.”
Reminiscing Glen Arbor and Glen Lake in the good old days
By Linda Alice Dewey
Sun contributor
Glen Arbor’s Terry Gretzema just stepped down after serving 15 years as township treasurer. He began summering in Glen Arbor 70 years ago. Here, he shares what life as a kid on Glen Lake was like way back when…
The 50s at Glen Lake
“My first trip up here from Chicago was on a train in 1948,” says Gretzema. Sitting in his carpeted office at his home on Bay Lane, his mind travels back from this sun-dappled morning in early May to summers past.
When he was a child, Terry’s father worked in Chicago for Red Holden, a steamship agent who had been born in Empire. Holden, he says, “encouraged my dad to come up here.”
Back then, the family relied on public transportation. “At that point in time, my dad didn’t drive or even have a driver’s license. He traveled from the suburbs to Chicago on the train.” Theytook the train and headed north for their first vacation in a sleeper car.
“They would drop the sleeper cars off at the train station in Traverse, where the station is now. It would uncouple probably at about three in the morning. We would disembark at 7 or 7:30, and somebody would come from the place where we stayed to pick us up.”
The first few years, they lodged at Little Glen’s Log Cabins. These were, he explains, “Jeanette Miller’s cottages—Don Miller’s mother,” near what is now Funistrada. “They were just cabins—no heat, two lightbulbs. There was no running water; you had to go to the galley to shower. The community bathrooms and galley kitchen were in a separate building. The ice man brought ice for the ice chest; there were no refrigerators then.”
For five years they came annually. It was a three-week stay for the mother and children, while their father traveled back and forth for weekends at the lake. Then, “in 1955, my family built a cottage below the hill of Inspiration Point. That’s when I started to be up here almost full-time in the summer.”
One of the kids Terry got to know on Glen Lake was Jim Dykstra, who today summers on Big Glen. Back then, Gretzema says, “we were interchangeable: people would call me Dykstra, and they would call him Gretzema. He had a runabout; I had a runabout. We’d race.” (That’s a boat, for those of you who are not nautical.) “We’d go 10 miles, and there wouldn’t be another boat. He was from the south side of Chicago; I was from north and west.We saw each other occasionally [back home].” Many years in the future, Gretzema would meet his wife through Dykstra.
When he was 17, Terry began workingfor Nellie Day, daughter-in-law of the great D.H. Day, at Glen Haven’s Sleeping Bear Inn. His duties? “Washing dishes, carrying suitcases, doing whatever needed to be done.” He wanted to be a dune driver, but you had to be 18 to qualify. “I didn’t turn 18 until late June. By then, all the drivers were hired. That was in ’60 to ’61, probably.
Glen Arbor, 1960-61
Gretzema paints a picture of Glen Arbor at that time.
“In those early days, there were far less tourists for short periods of time. There were rental cottages in that era—but not that many. The Homestead was not public. As I recall, the Leelanau School was a school, and a good school. Still is, in many respects, but it had a bigger population.
“The mix of the people here now is much different,” he observes. Back then, “most people knew each other here. There was not so much ‘walking around’ [for] people in Glen Arbor.
“Steffens (now Anderson’s IGA) had a wooden sidewalk you had to climb [stairs] to get to the door. The Totem Shop was owned by the Raders. That was always a fun place to go; we’d make our annual trip there to get our moccasins.
“I spent most of my years on the south side of Glen Lake before we could drive,” he continues. “I wasn’t that much a part of Glen Arbor until we got our drivers’ licenses.” That driver’s license changed everything. “Everybody would hang out at the Dinette, now the Cottonseed. It was a gas station/hamburger place.
“The big activity, when you were able to get there with a car, was the dances at the town hall for young people, where they had a live band two days a week, as I remember.”
There were other things to do in Glen Arbor. “We would rent [aluminum] canoes at Seeburgers (now the Crystal Harbor Marina) and traverse the whole river all the way to the Homestead. There were no kayaks.”
“There were a few new stores, nice developing stores—a clothing store; Coldwell Banker was Peppler Realty. In the early days, I think the Pepplers worked out of their home.”
Restaurants
“The Bourne family, Bob and Witt and their parents, had a restaurant down where LeBear sits [now]; it was just a cinderblock building with a stone path and seagrass around it. Art’s only served pickled eggs and things out of jars. It was truly a tavern; they didn’t have much to eat.
“We all went to the community church in Burdickville. After church, we would all go to Burry’s, where they had family-style dinner. Mrs. Burry was in the kitchen; Mr. Burry, a stocky guy, came out with all the food—there was no air conditioning—with perspiration on his brow.
“Mrs. Meadows [ran a restaurant] where La Becasse is now; chicken was her specialty.
“The trading post, owned by the Faulman family, was a grocery store, next to where Funistrada is now. You could get a hot fudge sundae there. Your parents would, at the beginning of the season, set up a charge account. We would be dispatched to go pick up this or that, and say, “Charge it.” Mr. Faulman kept a big tray of charge cards. We could charge ice cream there, too—a good thing.
“At the end, my father would say, “I have to go and straighten up” [the bill at Faulman’s].
“Funistrada was Alfano’s, and a German restaurant before that, but mostly a tavern. Folks would go play [table top] shuffleboard there. The elevated area in Funistrada was a bar.
“The Old Orchard Inn and Glen Eden were great eating places, too. My sister worked at Glen Eden. Her claim to legacy was that she hand-painted a sign on the cabin where the waitresses lived together called, the ‘Bug House.’ That was nice eating there. It was a beautiful old hotel.”
After 1961, Terry went to college, spent two years in the military, then traveled the world in an international career. But by then, Glen Arbor was in his blood, and he would always return.
