Midwest Guest

Michigan's Port Sanilac Lighthouse lights Lake Huron's southwestern coastline

The Port Sanilac Lighthouse is one of the few lighthouses I've found in Michigan that is privately owned, yet still operating as an active navigational aid.

You can find plenty of great vantage points from which to see this lighthouse, even though you can't enter the grounds or take a tour of the interior. The lighthouse sits behind a short wooden fence along a side street in this small town along Lake Huron, and you can get nice views from behind the lighthouse and tower by walking out on the breakwater near the town's marina.

Port Sanilac began as a lumbering community named Bark Shanty Point during the 1830s. Folks shortened the name to Bark Shanty, eventually changing it to Port Sanilac in 1857.

Port Sanilac sat between the Fort Gratiot Lighthouse at the south end of the lake and the Point Aux Barques Lighthouse at the tip of Michigan's Thumb. The Lake Huron coastline between these two lights could be dangerous because of shallow water, sandbanks, and lack of lights guiding the way. Maritime traffic often ran the 40-mile stretch between the ranges of the two lights blind.

Traffic increased in the area during the 1860s after opening the locks at Sault Ste. Marie in 1853 extended shipping routes all the way into Lake Superior.

The U.S. Lighthouse Board lobbied for money to build a lighthouse somewhere along this stretch of coastline starting in 1868. The board requested a $30,000 appropriation for the project, increasing the request to $40,000 in 1873. Congress turned down the requests.

Establishing a small light at Harbor Beach in 1875 failed to fully address the situation, leaving as much as 30 miles of still unlit coastline in the area.

In 1885, Congress finally appropriated $20,000 to build another lighthouse along this stretch of coastline. Construction started on the lighthouse at Port Sanilac in June of 1886.

The Port Sanilac light tower's octagonal shape with a bit of an hourglass silhouette is rare among Great Lakes lights. Only one other light tower, Ile Aux Galets, at the north end of Lake Michigan has the same architecture.

The 59-foot-tall light tower is 14 feet in diameter at its base, and tapers to a 9-foot diameter below the lantern gallery. A unique brick base in a reverse stair design with four windows cut into it is a watch room and support for the octagonal lantern room of cast iron.

The Fourth Order Fresnel lens installed atop the tower and first lit in October of 1886 is one of a handful of such lenses still in service today along the Great Lakes.

Keepers lived in a two-story home attached to the tower by a passageway that was the entrance for both structures.

In 1889, the site got a small brick oil storage building. A wooden outhouse and wooden covered well were also built.

Electricity came to the Port Sanilac Lighthouse in 1924, and helped increase the light's visibility to 16 miles from its original 13-mile range.

Port Sanilac's last keeper was Grace Holmes, the widow of long-time light keeper William Holmes. Grace became light keeper at William's death in 1926. Electrification of the light made a full-time keeper unnecessary and Grace saw her job as keeper abolished in 1928.

The lighthouse came into private ownership sometime later, and the Coast Guard still maintains the light.

Check out my story about the Pointe Aux Barques Lighthouse at the tip of Michigan's Thumb.

The Port Sanilac Lighthouse can be a little tough to photograph because of limits on access to the grounds and neighborhood obstructions like light poles and street signs, but you can find a few tips about photographing this lighthouse in The Photographer's Guide to Great Lakes Lighthouses by Richard Edington.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Port Huron

Go wild in Ohio

We've visited a number of Ohio parks, nature centers and wildlife preserves during our travels, and I've often picked up an issue of Ohio Division of Wildlife's magazine when we've stopped by a park or nature center office.

But did you know that you can download PDF versions of the magazine, as well as access a treasure trove of other free goodies online at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources site?

Taking photos along the Magee Marsh boardwalk

There is something at the site for everyone, from parents looking for activities and study materials for their young children, to lifelong birders, hunters and fishers, or cooks.

Wild Ohio Magazine publishes quarterly in March, June, September and December and is available at the site as PDF files going all the way back to 2006.

The Spring 2011 issue is already online and includes stories about the rejuvenation of the Cuyahoga River, hunting for arrowheads and other artifacts in Ohio, visiting cemeteries to observe migrant birds and learn a little history of an area, and recipes for walleye and turkey stir fry dinners.

There is also a yearly version of Wild Ohio for Kids magazine geared to younger grade school children. The most recent edition (2010) focuses on wildlife journaling activities and includes instructions for starting a wildlife life list (where you record all of the species of wildlife you see throughout the years), a feature on worms and building a Worm Hotel to observe the worms' role in decomposition, as well as a few wildlife photography tips and other wildlife watching activities.

Cedar Falls at Hocking Hills

There are tons of other free resources at the site. Check out a few that I found during a recent search:

• Do you want to learn more about that opossum you saw last night? The site has a three-page pamphlet that describes the animal, its habitat, habits, characteristics, and viewing opportunities throughout Ohio. Check out the Wildlife Publications section for informational guides about the opossum and many other animals indigenous to Ohio.
• The Wildlife Publications section also includes identification guides, an A-Z species guide (where many of the articles include enlargeable pictures of the animals' tracks), as well as maps, hunting and fishing information, and wildlife management brochures.
• Check the Photo Gallery section where you'll find a list of tips for taking great wildlife photos from your own home by Ohio Division of Wildlife staff photographer Tim Daniel and a small collection of free desktop wallpapers and a screensaver. The meadowlark wallpaper is currently gracing my desktop as I write this.
• Interested in a wildlife career? The site has plenty of information about careers in the field and requirements for various positions.
• Check out the Wild Ohio Cookbook for hundreds of wild game recipes (there are nearly 60 recipes in the fish section alone).
• Get a close-up view of a falcon's nest on the ledge of a 41st floor window at a building in downtown Columbus with the site's Falcon Cam links to streaming video or frequently refreshed still photos.
• You could literally spend hours checking out the site, but why not click on the Calendar of Events link for a lengthy list of outdoor-related events and get outside!

You can also find the Ohio Division of Wildlife on Twitter and Facebook.

Nature trail at Maumee Bay State Park

The Ohio DNR site is such a great resource, even for those of us who do not live in Ohio, that I had to share it here. Check it out!

Also, be sure to check out my previous stories about visiting some of Ohio's premiere birding areas at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge and Magee Marsh, walking the nature trail at Maumee Bay State Park, and hiking and photographing at Hocking Hills State Park.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

The Root Beer Lady of Ely, Minnesota

Ely, Minnesota, seems remote to many visitors, but I'm guessing Dorothy Molter viewed it as a bustling metropolis when she canoed there to pick up supplies for her Knife Lake resort and home during the busy summer season.

Dorothy's resort went out of business after the U.S. government declared her property part of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) and initiated condemnation proceedings against her in 1964, but the efforts of her friends resulted in a lifetime tenancy that allowed her to live there for another 22 years. Many of those same friends painstakingly dismantled her homestead and reassembled a couple of her cabins as a museum and tribute to the legacy of the woman many of them fondly remembered as "The Root Beer Lady".

Ely reminds me a bit of the fictional Cicely, Alaska, from Northern Exposure. Dorothy's rustic cabin sits just blocks from a more modern museum, the International Wolf Center, and downtown Ely, where outfitters and other businesses serve visitors coming here for a taste of the wilderness, as well as perhaps a taste of Dorothy's fabled root beer.

Dorothy was born on May 7, 1907 in Arnold, Pennsylvania, as one of the six children of Mattie and John "Cap" Molter. Dorothy was 7 when her mother died, and her father placed his children in a Cincinnati orphanage until he remarried in 1919.

By 1927, Dorothy lived in Chicago and enrolled to train as a nurse at Auburn Park Hospital.

Dorothy first visited Knife Lake in 1930 and moved there permanently in 1934 to care for Bob Berglund who owned the tiny Isle of Pines Resort. After that, Dorothy only left Knife Lake to visit family in Chicago or for training to maintain her nursing certification.

In 1948, Berglund died and left Dorothy the resort, a few rustic cabins on a couple of islands just yards from the Canadian border. The nearest town was 36 miles away.

At that time, you could only reach the area by seaplanes or by boat (if you were willing to portage over land several times during the journey). The invention of snowmobiles later made it feasible to travel to town in the winter as well.

Dorothy lived in a cabin in the winter, moving into a tent in warmer weather so she could rent her cabin.

She hauled in top soil so she could plant flowers and enclosed her yard with a fence made of broken canoe paddles donated by visitors.

Dorothy had no electricity, phone service, or other utilities, so she used fire for heating and most cooking. She occasionally cooked with propane and used a battery-powered radio.

Dorothy kept busy in winter by brewing her own root beer. She used hand-cut ice from the lake in an old-fashioned ice house to keep the root beer cold throughout the year and sold it to thirsty canoeists each summer.

Dorothy didn't lack company during the warmer weather. As many as 7,000 visitors showed up each year, and she sold more than 11,000 bottles of root beer annually.

In 1964, passage of the Federal Wilderness Act meant Dorothy faced losing her business and her home. Friends mobilized to petition the government to allow her to remain at Knife Lake. In 1975, they won her the right to continue to live in her home, although she could no longer operate the resort as a business.

Dorothy continued to offer her many summer visitors cold root beer, although she could no longer sell it. She supported herself with the help of those who donated money for the root beer.

Dorothy died in December 1986 as the last year-round resident of the BWCAW.

Friends transported the pieces of her cabin by canoe, snowmobile, and dog sled to Ely for reassembling as the museum after her death.

Museum visitors can still get a bottle of root beer made from Dorothy's original recipe or, as we did, buy a six pack to take home.

I liked folk-art vibe of the museum with its chainsaw carving of Dorothy and canoe paddle fence. I think the museum, even though it isn't at Knife Lake, captures a bit of the spirit of this uniquely self-reliant woman and the little piece of wilderness paradise she loved.

Want to learn more? Check out Root Beer Lady: The Story of Dorothy Molter by Bob Cary or the upcoming Dorothy Molter: The Root Beer Lady of Knife Lake by Sarah Guy-Levar and Terri Schocke.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Ely

Where I live: 2010 Wildlife Photographer of the Year runs through May 1 at Detroit Zoo

Spring made an early appearance last week, and the sunny day inspired a trek to the Detroit Zoo to see this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.

I've written about this exhibition several times in the past, but it's always inspiring to visit if you're at all interested in photography, wildlife, or the issues surrounding our relationship with nature and the wildlife inhabiting it.

We're fortunate here in Detroit as our zoo began hosting this show six years ago. Detroit is, again, the North American premiere of the show and, according to the exhibition's site, the sole U.S. stop for the tour this year. The Natural History Museum in London and the BBC Wildlife Magazine own this competition, the world's largest and most prestigious wildlife photography competition.

Showing the images as illuminated, large-format transparencies gives the colors a particular depth and beauty that gives each image an intimate quality and draws viewers into the stories of the subjects portrayed.

As always, many of the images are simply beautiful scenes of nature and wildlife, although there are always at least a few photos that highlight more disturbing or provocative images.

This year is no different.

A small section of images are behind curtains with the warning that the subjects portrayed may upset particularly sensitive or young viewers. The images largely came from the photojournalism and One Earth category, which focuses on conservation issues or the interactions between humans and the natural world that sometimes have cruel consequences for the animals involved.

I've seen photos in prior years' shows that seemed every bit as shocking as this year's images, yet no one cordoned them off behind curtains. The images this year are thought-provoking for sure, yet the act of hiding them behind the curtains takes a bit of the impact away from them because viewers closeted in with the photos can't stand back to take them in and you lose a lot of the gallery's excellent lighting.

The show, established 46 years ago, drew more than 31,000 entries from 84 different countries for the 2010 competition. This exhibition showcases 118 winning images from those among those photographers.

Some of my favorite images from this year's show include, in no particular order: Pickings from puffins by Marcello Calandrini; A carcass-eye view by Jürgen Ross; Paris Life by Laurent Geslin; Back in, front out by Esa Mälkönen; Predatory steps by Erick Grønningsæter; The house in the woods portfolio by Kai Fagerström; and The frozen moment by Fergus Gill, the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year overall winner.

The exhibit runs at the Detroit Zoo's Ford Educational Center now until May 1, 2011 and is free with regular admission to the zoo.

We love the photo portfolio book published each year for this show, and find ourselves often browsing through books from past years. The books include each image in color with the photographers' notes about it and the photographic equipment used to make the imagers.

The gift store at the zoo sold out its stock of books and should get some more in later, but you can also order it online.

So, go see this show. I'm sure it will give you plenty to think about, and it will inspire you to take a walk about the zoo with your own camera!

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Michigan's Grindstone City as Grindstone Capital of the World

My dad often brought spent grinding wheels home from the shop to use as planters or flower bed borders when I was a kid, so Michigan's Grindstone City and the large grindstones decorating the yards of homes there always held a certain fascination for me.

Grindstone City's heyday as supplier of grindstones for customers around the world may be long gone, but there is still of evidence of the once flourishing industry in this tiny town at the tip of Michigan's Thumb.

A nice history of Grindstone City and the industry compiled for a geology class at Michigan State University quotes a newspaper as saying that most Michigan natives know about Grindstone City's historical importance and place in the grindstone industry. I'm not sure I agree with that assessment as few people I know seem to be aware of the town, let alone visit it or be aware of its history.

Today, Grindstone City is primarily a small collection of homes and a few businesses clustered around a crescent-shaped harbor a bit off of the beaten path of M-25 as it traces its way around Michigan's Thumb. Check out Grindstone City's Facebook page to see a couple of nice aerial photos of the harbor.

This natural harbor drew Captain Aaron Peer to Grindstone City in 1834 when his schooner, the Rip Van Winkle, found safe harbor here during a storm on Lake Huron. The ship's crew went ashore to explore the wooded wilderness and found some unusual flat stones along the waterfront.

Peer took stone samples to Detroit where officials found it superior to Ohio flagstone they originally planned to use to pave a small section of Jefferson and Woodward Avenues. Detroit ordered enough rock for the paving from Peer.

Peer's sailors rigged up one of the stones to use for sharpening their tools, and Peer decided the stones would make excellent grindstones.

In 1836, he purchased 400 acres of land, becoming the first person to locate land in Huron County, to establish a grindstone quarrying and manufacturing operation.

The outcropping of Marshall Sandstone that Peer discovered was an abrasive stone with a very fine grit unique to Grindstone City and perfect for grindstones, scythe stones and hones. Worldwide demand soon earned the town the nickname of Grindstone Capital of the World.

The town became largely a company-built town, with homes, a grist mill, wharfs, and a booming industry with two quarries. A salt mining operation produced 125 barrels of salt each day during the 1870s, and the first railroad built into Grindstone City began transporting the stones by rail in the 1890s.

About 80 men worked at the quarries by 1870. By 1888, the Cleveland Stone Company bought property owned by other companies to become the sole quarry and grindstone company in town, employing about 150 men and manufacturing 35 to 40 tons of grindstones each day.

Grindstones varied from about 2-1/2 pounds to behemoths weighing more than two tons, ranging from about 6 inches in diameter to diameters as long as 6 feet. The largest grindstone turned at Grindstone City weighed more than 6,660 pounds.

Quarrying and manufacturing grindstones was extremely labor-intensive. Much of the work involved hand tools, and perhaps a few steam operated engines, derricks or horse-drawn vehicles.

You can find some interesting vintage photos of the operations at the Facebook page and this Grindstone City Web site.

Sharpening materials like carborundum became popular during World War I. Natural grindstones produced a finer edge, but inexpensive carborundum ultimately replaced the natural stones.

The grindstone industry at Grindstone City died in 1929. The town platted the area and sold the property mostly for summer or retirement homes.

Today, the few traces left of the grindstone industry here are some of the large grindstones used as decor for private homes or piled, seeming nonchalantly, at places like the town's free public lake access and boat launch park.

We checked out a few of the grindstones scattered around town on a rainy day this past summer as we drove the narrow roads snaking past vacation trailer communities and small homes on the way to the harbor.

There are a few charter fishing businesses and a bar at the harbor, and I hear a nearby general store is the place to go for oversized ice cream cones. The ice cream sounds like a good reason to stop by Grindstone City when I'm up that way this summer!

See my story about this nearby attraction, Point aux Barques Lighthouse stands tall at the tip of Michigan's Thumb on Lake Huron.

Want to learn more? Check out Huron County Michigan by the Huron County Historical Society.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Port Austin

The story of Laura Mae Corrigan, a Cleveland melodrama turned heroine's tale

The marker in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery at the grave of Laura Mae Corrigan and her husband, multi-millionaire steel company owner James Corrigan, gives no clue about the couple's scandal-pocked life, Laura's improbable rise to the top of London society, or her highly decorated relief work during World War II in Europe. The couple's story, though, certainly rivals any fictional soap opera with its hints of scandal, financial intrigue, and wartime sacrifice.

Laura, the daughter of handyman Charles and Emma Whitlock, was born near Stevens Point, Wisconsin, on January 2, 1879.

She worked as a waitress in Chicago as a teenager, where she met her first husband, physician Duncan R. MacMartin.

Meanwhile, James William Corrigan, was born on April 7, 1880, the only son of James C. Corrigan, founder of one of Cleveland's major steel companies.

The elder Corrigan partnered with John D. Rockefeller's brother Frank to purchase iron ore fields. John loaned the pair money by taking a mortgage on the land, then foreclosing on it and selling the land himself for good money. The experience ruined Corrigan financially, but he soon started a steel company with Judge Stevenson Burke.

Tragedy struck in 1900 when the elder Corrigan's wife Ida, their three daughters, and a grandchild died the when their yacht sank in Lake Erie.

Young Jim became an idle playboy, so his father made his bookkeeper Price McKinney partner in the newly renamed Corrigan-McKinney Steel Company.

The elder Corrigan died in 1908, and his son Jim received just $15,000 in unrestricted money. The father's 40 percent share of the steel company went into trust for the younger Corrigan until he turned 40, with the Price McKinney as the trustee.

Young James postponed his planned wedding to a Pittsburgh woman after his father's death and eventually refused to marry her. She sued him for $50,000 and breach of promise.

Laura met James when she attended one of his parties with her husband in 1913. She divorced MacMartin and secretly married Corrigan on December 2, 1916.

James' playboy reputation and marriage to a divorcee from a working class background led Cleveland's best families to shun the pair and Laura's efforts to enter society there.

The newlyweds didn't fare much better among the social elite in New York City, so they moved to Europe. Laura soon became one of the arbiters of London society.

Meanwhile, Price McKinney owned 30 percent of the steel company stock, and controlled Corrigan's 40 percent as trustee. He reorganized the company as a corporation and renamed it McKinney Steel.

Laura helped convince heirs of the elder Corrigan's original partner in the company, Stevenson Burke, to sell their shares to her husband.

Armed with that 13% in additional company stock, and somehow gaining control of his own stock, James returned to Cleveland in 1925 to see the company board oust McKinney and elect him as president.

Price McKinney committed suicide before the year was out.

The Corrigans only had a short time to enjoy their business triumph as James dropped dead at the doors of the Cleveland Athletic Club on January 23, 1928 after suffering a heart attack or cerebral hemorrhage.

Laura continued living in Europe with an annual income of $800,000 through most of the 1930s.

While Cleveland and New York society always ignored Laura, and she no longer had any use for them, she apparently always remembered central Wisconsin where she grew up.

In 1933, Laura wrote checks totaling $10,000 to civic and charitable groups in the Stevens Point, Wisconsin area, including: Methodist and Congregational Churches, South Wood County Chapter of the Red Cross, Riverview Hospital Association, the local Board of Education, T.B. Scott Library, the Woman's Federation Relief Fund, and Wisconsin Rapids Unemployment Relief Fund.

Laura was in Paris at the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and found herself on a $500-per-month allowance because the U.S. State Department restricted movement of money overseas.

The ever-resourceful Laura liquidated assets like jewelry, tapestries, furniture to finance wartime relief efforts, like organizing an aid group for soldiers and refugees called "La Bienvenue".

Dwindling finances sent the woman now known as "the American Angel" back to London in 1942, where she managed to establish the Wings Club for aviators.

After the war, the English recognized her with a King's Medal. The French awarded her the Croix de Guerre, Legion of Honor, and Croix de Combattant, the last a rare honor for a woman as it recognized service on the front lines.

Laura was visiting her sister in New York when she died on January 22, 1948.

Today, she rests in one of Cleveland's grandest cemeteries in the company of people like President James A. Garfield, the man who foreclosed on her father-in-law's first iron ore fields, John D. Rockefeller, and, I suspect, many of the Cleveland society types who originally shunned her.

Be sure to check out my stories Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, recalls grand European memorial gardens and Cleveland monument is lasting tribute to President James A. Garfield.

Curious to learn more? Check out Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery by Marian J. Morton.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Art Deco gems in Michigan City, Indiana

We visited Michigan City, Indiana, to see the lighthouse and lighthouse museum, but the city's Naval Armory building and bascule bridge with its geometric design details, also drew my attention.

I guessed both structures dated from the 1930s, and my research reveals that both were projects provided jobs for workers during the Great Depression of that decade.

The Michigan City harbor began taking shape as a recreational area during the 1890s when then-mayor Martin H. Krueger led efforts to rehabilitate it and establish Washington Park. A bathhouse, baseball field, dance hall, zoo, amusement park, and skating pavilion provided plenty of amenities for tourists drawn to the Hoosier Slide, a 200-foot-tall sand dune.

Many of the recreational facilities disappeared as the economic difficulties of the 1930s deepened, the Hoosier Slide disappeared because of sand mining, and the Northern Indiana Public Service Company purchased much of the park land.

The Works Projects Administration (later renamed the Works Progress Administration) created some jobs in Michigan City by having workers create stone benches and walkways for Washington Park. The Franklin Street Bridge and the Naval Armory were among the larger WPA construction projects benefitting Michigan City during the 1930s.

The year 1932 marked the bicentennial of President George Washington's birth, and a plaque identifies the Franklin Street Bridge, built that year, as the Washington Bi-Centennial Memorial Bridge.

Many WPA-built bridges featured quintessentially Art Deco design details like the geometric patterns incorporated into the Franklin Street Bridge's railings.

The 182-foot span over Trail Creek is the only historic movable, bascule-style lift bridges in Indiana. Unlike similar plate-girder bascule bridges in neighboring Michigan, it retains its original railings.

The bridge also has its original tender (operator) building at one end of the span, as you can see in my photos.

The nearby white stucco armory building was also a WPA project, featuring many Art Deco, or its Streamlined Moderne variant, style details. Geometric styling, triple entries with large glass windows, and the stark white-with-blue-accents color scheme make it a striking building.

The United States government allocated $25,501 to build the armory as a training center for the United States Naval Reserve, completing it after three years of work in 1939.

Men assigned to the armory right on Lake Michigan considered it "Shangri-La" according to a short video history of the building on the Indiana National Guard site.

Their subsequent assignments weren't always as idyllic.

Members of the 9th Naval Reserves departed from Michigan City aboard the USS Sacramento in August of 1941, bound for the Hawaiian Islands, making them among those stationed at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack that led to the United States' entry into World War II.

The Navy de-activated the armory in 1965, leasing it to the city until 1977, and later to a series of Army National Guard units. An Army National Guard unit currently occupies the building.

In 2007, volunteers cleaning up Trail Creek near the armory found several hundred pounds of World War II-era artillery shells.

The armory served as a gunnery school for the Navy during World War II. Army officials said many of the 160 shells were hollow or had holes drilled into them, so they posed no risk of explosion. They also suggested that the Navy possibly used them for practice rounds that never had any explosive charge to begin with.

The Defense Department recently classified the armory as excess, deciding to get rid of it.

However, Indiana ranks high among states in military recruitment and the department changed course, keeping the armory because of a strong record of recruitment at Michigan City.

The armory also sees other uses like serving as home to an Indiana Department of Natural Resources fisheries office and as a basketball practice venue for area schools.

See Visit the Old Lighthouse Museum at Michigan City, Indiana or Visit the East Pierhead Lighthouse at Michigan City, Indiana for more about our visit to this harbor. I also wrote about a notable WPA project in Michigan, Keweenaw Mountain Lodge: Legacy of hope in hard times, and a unique bascule bridge in Points of interest at Ashtabula, Ohio's Point Park.

Want to learn more? Check out Michigan City Marinas by Jonita Davis or Michigan City by Rose Anna Mueller. The Library of Congress volume, Bridges by Richard L. Cleary, is a sourcebook about the history, engineering, art, and design of American bridges.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Michigan City

Helen Steiner Rice: Ohio's "Ambassador of Sunshine"

I remember seeing gift books and greeting cards in card shops bearing the name of Helen Steiner Rice, and I remember seeing a few photos of her as an elderly lady who invariably wore a fancy hat.

I was surprised, though, to see her name on an Ohio historical marker in a Lorain, Ohio, park during our most recent trip along Lake Erie on Ohio's north coast.

Helen Elaine Steiner was born at Lorain on May 19, 1900.

Helen taught religion classes at her local Methodist Church, originally thinking she might like to be a preacher. She liked to write, and had some of her earliest poems published in her school newspapers.

Helen planned to attend Ohio Wesleyan College for a liberal arts degree, study at Ohio State to earn a law degree, and expressed a desire to become a Congresswoman, inspired, no doubt, by the election of Jeannette Rankin of Montana as the first female member of Congress in 1916.

Her father, a railroad worker for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, died during the influenza epidemic of 1918, and Helen gave up her college plans to work at the Lorain Electric Light & Power Company making decorative silk lampshades to support her family after her high school graduation that same year.

Company officials spotted promise in Helen and trained her as a bookkeeper, but her real talent was in marketing and speaking. She eventually became the company's advertising sales manager, which was a rare career for women in the 1920s.

Helen also was the electric company's spokeswoman and chair of Ohio's Women's Public Information Committee of the Electric Light Association. She became a nationally known speaker by age 25 and also used her speaking engagements to advocate improved working conditions and workplace rights for women.

In 1927, Helen started her own speakers bureau called Steiner Service.

Helen spoke at a bankers' convention in June of 1928 where she met Franklin Rice, vice president of Dayton Savings and Trust. She married him on January 30, 1929, and moved into Franklin's grand 14-room house in Dayton.

The stock market crash in October of 1929 cost Franklin his job, as well as his investments.

In 1931, Helen accepted a job with the Gibson Art Company of Cincinnati as a trouble shooter suggesting ways for the company to increase sales in its greeting card division.

Franklin refused to sell his home in Dayton, Ohio, so Helen lived in Cincinnati during the week, commuting back to Dayton on weekends.

Franklin became increasingly depressed about their financial difficulties and committed suicide on October 14, 1932.

Helen worked and lived in Cincinnati after Franklin's death, becoming one of America's leading greeting card writers by 1940.

Helen wrote "When I Must Leave You" when her mother died in 1945. The poem became a popular sympathy card for Gibson, and the company began publishing more of Helen's signed inspirational verses on greeting cards.

The popularity of Helen's inspirational verse soared after 1960 after a reading of one of her poems on the Lawrence Welk Show.

She authored ten books during her lifetime, usually sending her royalties to churches she attended in Lorain and Cincinnati.

Helen retired from full-time work at Gibson in 1971. Her health deteriorated during the 1970s, and she died on April 23, 1981. Her grave is in the Steiner family plot at Elmwood Cemetery in Lorain.

Helen wrote an estimated several million poems during her lifetime. Her poetry continues to sell well, and the foundation she established before her death donates money to a variety of charities helping those in need and the elderly primarily in the Lorain and Cincinnati area.

In 2002, Ohio installed the marker we saw in Lakeview Park commemorating the life of the woman many called the "Poet Laureate of Inspirational Verse" or the "Ambassador of Sunshine".

So, next time I see Helen's name on a sentimental greeting card, book mark, or gift book, I'll have a greater appreciation of her work and life as a tough-minded pioneering businesswoman who liked to wear fancy hats!

Want to learn more? Check out Helen Steiner Rice: Ambassador of Sunshine by Ronald Pollitt and Virginia Wiltse or A Portrait of Helen Steiner Rice by Mary Hilarie Tavenner. Some of the most recent releases of Helen's collected poetry and devotionals include A Celebration of God's Love, A Collection of Joy, A Celebration of Love.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Amherst

Things To Do
Elyria

Mystery, murder and other mayhem in Michigan

I've never been much of a reader of mysteries, although I often enjoy reading a decent true crime book. These days, however, I find myself reading a lot of both fictional mysteries and true crime books written by Michigan authors and/or set in the Great Lakes State.

So, whether you like escaping from the slush and cold by reading a chiller, or you're looking for a few good reads to pack into your beach bag in anticipation of summer, here are a few suggestions for books about Michigan mysteries, murder and other mayhem.

Taking a new look at cold cases always fascinates me, and I found Mardi Link's account of an officially unsolved northern Michigan crime dating to 1968, when an idyllic summer vacation home turned into a horrific murder scene where six members of the Robison family lost their lives, fascinating. Fans of the "Mad Men" television show should also enjoy reading about some real-life 1960s advertising types populating this story.

I saw Link at a book signing where I picked up her next true crime book about another northern Michigan case where she explores the long-held secrets about a nun's death in the tiny northern Michigan town of Isadore-a crime that the locals still only reluctantly, if at all, discuss.

Lest you think tragedies like Columbine and Virginia Tech, where one or two disturbed or disgruntled people take the lives of students as they set about their school day, are unique to our contemporary culture, Arnie Bernstein's book about America's first school bombing that took place in a mid-Michigan town on a spring day in 1927 will be a revelation. Readers learn how the bombing happened, but the reasons for the crime spree that resulted in the deaths nearly 40 people (including the bomber himself) remain shrouded in mystery.

I remember reading newspaper accounts about the deaths of two Detroit-area deer hunters who disappeared during a hunting trip in 1985, as well as the trial that exposed the secrets surrounding their deaths 18 years later. Tom Henderson's book, Darker than Night, is a compelling account of the crime and trial that even earned a 5-star review at Amazon from the prosecutor in the trial. Chapters are extremely short, which I found an effective device to keep me moving through the book as I'd always think I would read just one more chapter...and keep thinking that until I finished the book hours later. I look forward to reading Henderson's other true-crime books.

Richard Carson's book about the death of a 17-year-old girl from Michigan's Thumb area in 1974 is in my "to-read" pile. This case remained unsolved until a rookie detective began investigating it with the assistance of a psychic in 1982. I'm looking forward to reading about the crime, the subsequent trial, and the trial's aftermath.

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Bryan Gruley gave me the ultimate trifecta of reasons to read his first mystery novel when I saw that he set it in northern Michigan with a protagonist who played hockey and wrote for a weekly newspaper. I buzzed through Gruley's first book about Gus Carpenter and the northern Michigan town of Starvation Lake, both of which have seen better days, and immediately bought and read the next book in the series. There is a nice Q&A with Gruley at the Traverse City National Writers Series site (you can get to it by clicking on the story link in the "Meet the Writer" column or find it by entering "Bryan Gruley" in the site's search box).

And, of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention my friend Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli's Emily Kincaid Mysteries, where struggling writer, journalist and amateur sleuth Emily Kincaid teams up with her friend and small-town deputy, Dolly Wakowski, to solve mysterious cases in a small northern Michigan town.

Be sure to check out my Q&A with Elizabeth for some insight into her three published Emily Kincaid books and a sneak peek at Elizabeth's next mystery series.

Meanwhile, I'm anxiously awaiting the release of Elizabeth's fourth Emily Kincaid mystery, Dead Dogs and Englishmen, due out in July, 2011. Readers can meet Elizabeth in person on July 22 at a book launch and signing at Brilliant Books in Sutton's Bay, Michigan.

I also posted some more great Midwest reads late last year at Midwest books make for good reads and great gifts.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Pioneering Aviatrix Harriet Quimby flies into history from Michigan

Amelia Earhart and Sally Ride often come to mind when people think of female pioneers in flight, but few seem to remember Harriet Quimby.

I remember hearing that Harriet was an early aviatrix, but I didn't know that the first woman in the country to earn her pilot's license and the first female to pilot an airplane across the English Channel was born in northern Michigan.

We turned off of the main highway after spotting a small sign that said "historical marker" and drove for a couple of miles before finding this one in the middle of nowhere along a dirt road.

Arcadia marker

The sinking of the Titanic in April of 1912 blew news of Harriet's historic flight from England to France that same week off of the newspapers' front pages, plus there are few records of Harriet's years in Michigan. It's no surprise then that few people know of her today, let alone know of her Michigan background.

Two Michigan historical markers, 240 miles apart, claim to mark Harriet's birthplace.

Many believed that Kinderhook Township, in southern Michigan near Coldwater and just a few miles north of the Indiana border, was Harriet's birthplace.

Bonnie Hughes of Arcadia found evidence like census records, land abstracts, and financial papers placing Harriet's family in northern Michigan before her birth and during her childhood.

Michigan erected the marker near Arcadia in 2000.

Arcadia marker

The Coldwater marker, erected in 1988, still stands near Branch County Memorial Airport according a Michigan marker list.

Harriet's parents, William and Ursula, married at Ovid in 1859. Ursula also gave birth to the couple's first two children (a boy and a girl) in Branch County.

The Quimbys left Ovid in 1867 when William, a Civil War veteran, applied for 160 acres near Arcadia under the Homestead Act. Life was difficult in the sparsely settled area, and two of the couple's young children, Willie and Kate, died during the family's first years there.

Quimby farm near Arcadia, Michigan, as it appears today

Harriet was born in May of 1875. She had no birth certificate because an 1871 fire in Manistee destroyed the lighthouse, county courthouse, and much of the town. No one kept regular records of vital stats like births from then until Manistee County's rebuilt courthouse opened in 1880.

The Quimbys took out two mortgages on the farm: one for $300 that they paid off and one for $2,000 in 1887 that led to losing the farm to foreclosure and public auction.

The family moved to Arroyo Grande, California, in the late 1880s, then to San Francisco in 1893.

Harriet tried acting in San Francisco, meeting legendary silent film director D.W. Griffith, who later hired her to write screenplays for the Biograph movie company.

Harriet's journalism career began in San Francisco. She moved to New York City in 1903 to write for Leslie's Illustrated Weekly about subjects including theater, travel, household tips, and aviation.

In 1910, Harriet attended an aviation show on Long Island. Aviator John Moisant's performance there and a friendship with his sister Matilde inspired Harriet's ambition to fly.

Moisant and other aviators owned one of two flight schools in the country. The other school, run by Wilbur and Orville Wright, did not admit females. John Moisant died in a plane accident before the end of 1910, but Harriet and Matilde convinced his flight school to admit them.

Harriet became the first woman in the United States to earn her pilot's license on August 1, 1911. Matilde Moisant became the second licensed female pilot in United States on August 13, 1911.

Both women performed at shows in the United States and Mexico with the Moisant International Aviators.

Harriet, who had a dramatic flair, designed a hooded, purple-satin flight suit that became her trademark.

Matilde Moisant, born in 1878 in Indiana, soon announced her retirement from flying and scheduled her last flight for April 14, 1912, in Wichita Falls, Texas. A fuel leak caused her plane to catch fire upon landing. Rescuers pulled her from the wreck, and she recovered from her injuries. She died in 1964, and her grave is in North Hollywood, California.

Harriet, meanwhile, wanted to become the first woman to fly across the English Channel. The 59-minute, cross-channel flight on April 16, 1912 was a great moment for her, but her accomplishment got little attention from the press.

Harriet recorded one last first, becoming the first woman to die in an aviation meet.

On July 1, 1912, organizer of the Boston show William Willard joined Harriet in her two-passenger plane for a short flight before a crowd of 5,000 spectators. The plane suddenly dipped forward during the flight, and Willard fell out. Harriet appeared to be regaining control when the plane tipped again, and she also plummeted to her death.

Harriet Quimby's grave is in Valhalla, New York.

Want to learn more? Check out Harriet Quimby: America's First Lady of the Air by Anita P. Davis and Ed Y. Hall, The Magnificent Moisants: Champions of Early Flight by Doris L. Rich, or The Harriet Quimby Scrapbook: The Life of America's First Birdwoman by Giacinta Bradley Koontz, which includes samples of Harriet's writing and vintage newspaper stories about Harriet's flights.

© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Manistee