Quote for the Day: "In these days when patriotic chambers of commerce label every whistle-stop the gateway to something or other, St. Ignace is with daring originality hailed as the 'Gateway to the North.' " John Voelker. The Troubler-shooter. 1943.
Reviews
The Unsolved Mysteries of Father Marquette's Many Graves by Jennifer S. McGraw
The last time I was in St. Ignace I stood in front of a monument marking Father Marquette's final resting place. After reading this book it seems doubtful the remains of the famous Jesuit explorer and missionary were under the monument.
It is pretty much an indisputable fact that Father Marquette, on returning from exploring the Mississippi River with Louis Joliet, died near present day Ludington on May 18, 1675, and was buried there with a wooden cross marking his grave. Two years later a group of Native Americans dug up his bones and carried them to St. Ignace where they were laid to rest under the St. Ignace de Michilimackinac mission church. In 1877 a wealthy St. Ignace landowner while clearing a piece of his property of brush and trees exposed what turned out to be the foundation of an ancient building as well as evidence of early French occupation including Jesuit rings. More digging unearthed birch bark pieces and bone fragments. It was assumed Father Marquette's tomb had been discovered. News spread and it became open season for anyone to dig in the area. One man came across 39 bone fragments and turned them over to the Catholic priest who was charged with determining if Father Marquette's burial site had been discovered. Ultimately it was decided it was Marquette's grave. Some of the bones were buried once again, others were sent to Marquette University and some were even given away to individuals.
A hundred years later archeologists studying St. Ignace's early French period and digging near the Jesuit mission church area concluded the bones under the monument site were not Marquette's they weren't even human. They were animal bones. The author has done a fine job of describing the the efforts in 1877 to determine if indeed Father Marquette's burial site had been discovered, and the scientific tools and methods used by archeologists a century later to conclude his grave had yet to be discovered. This slim book presents a concise and absorbing account of Father Marquette's extraordinary life and travels in the Great Lakes and the current confusion and debate over his final resting place. The book also contains a brief but fascinating history of the Jesuit missionaries in the Midwest. This is a great little book on early Michigan history and was picked as a U. P. Notable Book.
The Unsolved Mysteries of Father Marquette's Many Graves by Jennifer S. McGraw. Pine Stump Publications, 2022, 137p., $16.95.
Victorian Southwest Michigan True Crime by Michael Delaware
This collection of true stories of murder and mayhem from the southwestern corner of the state during the Victorian Era reveals an entirely different side of what is generally considered a genteel and refined society. But maybe I've been brainwashed by two seasons of the Gilded Age on HBO. The often astonishing murders recounted in this book and the obvious absence of morality are chilling.
There is the mother of three who poisoned her children because the man she wanted to marry didn't want the burden of caring for children. Then there's the twice divorced man who who went to a state home for orphans and adopted a ten-year-old girl who he planned to marry when she was old enough. On the way home with his newly adopted daughter he realized the impossibility of marry a young woman the public would come to know as his daughter so he killed and raped her before reaching home. The author thoroughly but concisely covers the main and most interesting aspects of the murder from introducing the major characters, the police investigation, the trial and imprisonment. The book provides an interesting glimpse into the darker side of Victorian life and the customs and living conditions of the ordinary Michigan citizen during the era. Arsenic proved to be a popular mode of dispatching victims. Fathering a illegitimate child was known as Bastardy and living with a lover and not being married was call "improper intimacy." The condition, treatment, and protection in which orphans were treated was shocking.
Photographs and maps enhance the well-written narrative. Aficionados of true crime books or those interested in the darker side of Michigan history will devour this book.
Victorian Southwest Michigan True Crime by Michael Delaware. History Press, 2024, 188p., $24.95.
yooper poetry: On Experiencing Michigan's Upper Peninsula edited by Raymond Luczak
When creating this blog it never crossed my mind I would have to read and review poetry. A high school English class taught me to avoid poetry. This sixteen-year-old was presented with and graded on poems so far over my head they could have been commercial airlines at cruising altitude. They left a contrail as they passed overhead but I could only guess at their destinations. It is through this blog and books of poetry like this wonderful collection of poems by Yoopers that has created an appreciation for poetry.
First, kudos to the editor for selecting strikingly unique poems from nineteen talented poets that together capture all aspects of living in the U.P. The poems describe the cultural uniqueness of the area as well as celebrating the remarkable landscape that help shape the culture. There are poems on copper and iron mining, towns and villages, crossing the Straits before Big Mac was built, education, and a bus ride through the U.P. with the driver singing an Iggy Pop song. Turning to the natural world poems describe the landscape, the changing of seasons, wildlife and all things U.P. including Rutabagas.
On my first thumbing through the book, I found it addictive. Who can resist reading poems entitled "Bigfoot and Jim Harrison Skinny Dip in Morgan Pond on Father's Day," or "Olson Bros. Waste Management," and "A Union Soldier Drifts in His Canoe Toward Lake Superior Shore," or its last sentence which reads, "He knows his prayer is only whiskey once drunk in a tin cup at Sharpsburg." And the title to end all titles, "Portrait of Virgin Mary as Skunk." As a collector of great sentences, I'm adding "She was pressed into a private school teaching Grammar, the sticky stuff of sentences," to my list. I could wear a trail on the pages as I read and reread these memorable poems about Michigan's peninsula north of the bridge.
yooper poetry: On Experiencing Michigan's Upper Peninsula edited by Raymond Luczak. Modern History Press, 2024, 155p., $19.95.
Lumberjack: Inside an Era in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan by William S. Crowe
Seventeen-year-old William Crowe stepped ashore in Manistique on May 29, 1893 at the height of lumbering in the U.P. He quickly found a job with a lumber company and lived the rest of his life in Manistique. In 1952 he published a book about his life in Manistique and described in colorful detail his eyewitness account of the white pine era of the late 1890s through the early 1900s in Manistique and the U.P. Two of his grand daughters have reprinted a 70th Anniversary edition of the book with the addition of many historic photographs, a short biography of their grandfather, and a glossary.
The book is a significant primary source of early Manistique history and captures in great detail the lumber industry and the life of lumberjacks at the height of lumbering in the U.P. The book is filled with simply staggering numbers. For instance, the mills in Manistique worked 24-hours a day and cut 100 million board feet of lumber a year. Or, logs cut in Seney, 125 miles by river from Manistique, could take as long as 3 - 5 years to reach the mills. In a year the mills produced $40 million worth of of lumber and $4 million worth of sawdust. The young man who stepped off the boat in 1893 landed an office job in a lumber company. The five workers in the office kept track of 1,500 employees on the payroll, kept the company's books, in addition to the books of the telephone and railroad company. And did it without carbon paper, card indexes, vertical files, or calculators. The author also wrote of the skills and dangerous work of the lumberjacks both out in the tall timber and driving the logs down river.
The book also offers an authentic portrait of life in Marquette in the Gay 90s. Crowe gives a virtual tour of 1893 Manistique as he remembers it. It is hard to believe that as late as the 1890s the town was cut off from the world for four months each winter, except for weekly mail that arrived by snowshoe from Escanaba. The author stresses it was the age of strong family life, a multitude of fraternal orders that were well attended, bicycling was highly popular, and cows were allowed to wander Manistique's streets. In the winter sleight rides and barn dances were popular.
This memoir is a significant contribution to the history of both Manistique and lumbering industry in the U.P
Lumberjack: Inside an Era in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan by William S. Crowe. Modern History Press, 2024, 131p., $21.95.
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