Post # 97  July 29, 2024

Quote for the Day: "If any person, or persons, shall exhibit any puppet show, wire dancing, or tumbling, juggling or sleight of hand, within this territory, and shall ask or receive any pay exhibiting same, such person or persons, shall for every offense pay a fine not less than ten nor exceeding twenty dollars." Michigan Territorial law, enacted on April 13, 1827.

Reviews

The Burden of Sparrows by Debra Payne

Buddy Robertson is one of the most interesting and memorable characters I've had the good fortune of meeting in recent fiction. He has been a school custodian in the Kalkaska area for 25 years. He's lived a simple life with his common law wife Mags in an old house that's a constant mess and in need of repairs. He lives somewhere below the financially comfortable, but that was alright because even as a kid he knew, "he wasn't going to be blessed with greatness." He just "wanted to be blessed with an absence of trauma." From his childhood through late teens Buddy suffered from chronic emotional, physical, and sexual abuse that is fully examined and would have have destroyed most children. He has never told a living soul what he endured. The only healing he finds is in nature, gardening, and the unusual relationship with Mags.

His history of abuse has made him sensitive in recognizing others who have or are currently suffering from the same. A boy in his elementary school gives off strong signs of being a victim. Buddy's attempt to help the boy draws a rebuke from the principle which increases after it becomes known there will be legal proceedings brought against a person who sexually abused the boy. If Buddy reaches out to help the boy deal with describing in court what he has suffered, and convincing him he is not at fault, Buddy will have to reveal his own tragic history of abuse. What Buddy doesn't know is the profound and positive effect it will have on his life when he decides to help the boy.

This assured, realistic and sensitive portrayal of Buddy's deeply troubled life, his relationship with the natural world, and the finely drawn minor characters make it hard to believe this is the author's first novel. In an afterword the author states Buddy the character, "has been in my mind and heart for years." On finishing this novel I thought I'd be at a loss for words in describing what a deeply emotional and moving novel I'd just read and how Buddy and this novel would stay with me for a long time. My former publisher once told me an author should never be at a loss for words. I hope I've done justice to this extraordinarily fine novel. 

The Burden of Sparrows by Debra Payne. Mission Point Press, 2024, 283p., $17.95.

Old Victoria: A Copper Mining Ghost Town in Ontonagon County by Mikel B. Classen

This is the first volume in the Yooper History Hunter Series in which each installment will explore the history of a specific, and often overlooked aspect or subject of U.P. history. Based on the first in the series, each volume will be composed of numerous historic photographs interspersed with contemporary, full-color images that compliment a precise, fact-fill historical narrative that is fascinating without wasting a word.   

The author couldn't have chosen a more interesting subject for the inaugural volume than the ghost town of Victoria. In spite of being listed in the National Register of Historic Places it is probably one of the fewest visited or even generally known historic sites in the Ontonagon area. The village rests atop a mountain within the spectacular Ontonagon River Gorge in the rugged Gogebic Mineral Range. The last couple of miles to the village is up a bone-jarring rock-strewn road.  To call Victoria remote is a grand understatement.

Copper was discovered here in the 1600s but for 200 years it couldn't be profitably mined. Then came Thomas Hooper who built a Taylor Hydraulic Air Compressor by digging three 400-feet-deep shafts into which the Ontonagon River and air were directed. The result (somehow) was compressed air that powered the entire mining operation and even a locomotive powered by compressed air. Mining became profitable, the village grew and prospered. The author covers working conditions (one in seven miners died in the mine) and the social and living conditions in the village. The mine closed in 1917. The village emptied, and the buildings fell victim to time and neglect until the Society for the Restoration of Old Victoria was founded and began restoring the village. This is a pure and highly polished nugget of Michigan history. 

Old Victoria: A Copper Mining Ghost Town Ontonagon County by Mikel B. Classen. Modern History Press, 2024, 27p., $14,95

Make It Goo... In The Snow: People and Ideas in the History of Snowmobiles by Larry Jorgensen

Michigan plays a minor yet important part in this detailed history of snowmobiles. The first snowmobile was created in 1913 by a Ford dealer in New Hampshire. He took the rear wheels off a Model T and replaced them with dual wheels covered by tracks and replaced the front wheels with skis. He patented his invention and called it a snowmobile. A company later bought the patent and made 3,500 kits a year. 

As the author makes it abundantly clear, over the years backyard tinkerers, highschoolers, and just guys with a vision created snowmobiles of all shapes and sizes. There was the motorized toboggan, the propellor driven snow version of the swamp buggy, the Ford Motor Company converted a Fordson tractor with rear tracks and front skis, and then there's the screw-propelled snowmobiles featuring grooved rotating cylinders. The last is hard to imagine. As tired as I am of hearing it from wait staff to bank tellers -- "No Problem." The book is packed with photos that compliments a thorough narrative history of snow machines.

Of particular note to Michiganders, there is a full chapter on Marquette's Peninsula Pathfinders club. Their mission was to promote snowmobile touring and the encouragement of snowmobile trails.  To this end, in 1968 they made their first long distance ride, a 498 mile four-day jaunt across the U.P. The second year they snowmobiled from Copper Harbor to Green Bay, Wisconsin and in year three they were the first snowmobilers to cross Big Mac in a trip from Marquette to Cadillac. In 1972 they did what seemed impossible, driving snowmobiles from Marquette to Yellowstone National Park. Also of interest is a chapter devoted to homemade snowmobiles. Included is the story of three high schoolers from Calumet who salvaged an engine to which was attached a wooden propeller they made in shop class and away they flew. Then there's the man from Saginaw who built a small snowmobile to take him ice fishing. It earned the nickname the "Pizza Oven."  Photographs of both are included.

If you have any interest in snowmobiles you're going to ski-doo through this book. 

Make It Go... In The Snow: People and Ideas in the History of Snowmobiles by Larry Jorgensen. Modern History Press, 2024, 186p., $21.95

Michigan Indian Boarding School Survivors Speak: A Narrative History by Sharon Marie Brunner

The historical record of our country's shameful treatment of  Native Americans is well documented. One of the worst examples is the recently discontinued Native American boarding schools in which children were taken from their parents and sent to schools with the goal of stripping them of their culture. Michigan had three such schools and this book is a study of  the treatment, and their long term effects on students at the Mt Pleasant Boarding School and the Holy Childhood Boarding School of Jesus in Harbor Springs. The latter was the last of the schools to close in 1983. Much of the book is based on nine interviews of former students.

Students were forbidden to speak their native language and, in a country based on the principle of freedom of religion Native American religious beliefs were banned. In some severe cases it was beaten out of the children. The Mt Pleasant School concentrated on teaching students domestic and vocational skills. Like all the boarding schools it had very strict rules, but they seemed to be fairly enforced and some students forcibly removed from their parents appreciated being in a stable environment.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the Catholic run school in Harbor Springs. The goal of the Holy Childhood school clearly seemed to be the conversion of the children to Catholicism through cruelty and "humiliation." The children were told they were "evil, black savages, and heathens," and they had to become Christians or burn in hell. Physical punishment was common. If a child wet the bed, they were either beaten with a rubber hose, or were wrapped in the urine-soaked sheets and made to stand outside. And the above is far from the worst the children had to children endured. A former student said he knew, "a lot of [former students] still don't believe in God because every time they got hit, beat or whatever, it was in the name of the Lord." In one way or another the years at the boarding schools will always be with the children. It is remarkable as well as a testament to the human spirit so many of the children endured and survived this cruelty.

The book is infuriating, sad, and often difficult to read. But it is vitally important to pull aside the curtain and reveal yet another injustice imposed on the youngest Native Americans. I have only one issue with the book. It is subtitled "A Narrative History." The book is based on the author's master's thesis. It is a report. With subchapters entitled "Operational Definitions, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Standpoint Theory, and Implications for Further Research" it does not fit the format or read like a narrative history.  Calling the book a report rather than a narrative history reduces neither the impact or importance of the book.

Michigan Indian boarding School Survivors Speak Out: A Narrative History by Sharon Marie Brunner, MSW. Modern History Press, 2024, 166 p., $22.95