According to a press release sent by Mayor Paul Schreiber this morning, Schreiber did not give any reason for the resignation but did thank Hansen for his service.

City Clerk Frances McMullan will become the city manager until council hires a new or interim manager.

It was our first visit to the Ladies’ Literary Club building on Washington, and a talk was scheduled here tonight. Under darkening indigo clouds and sheltered from a chilling wind, attendees would learn about vanished gardens of Ypsilanti’s past.

After chatting a bit with the speaker, James Mann, we greeted the three or four people who had already arrived and wandered off to explore the home’s first floor.

Once a private family home belonging to the Grant family, James explained, the paterfamilias had willed it to his son provided that he never marry during his mother’s lifetime. The son never did. Neither did he ever gain his father’s skill in real estate, James continued, but squandered money on “good living and bad investments.” After the mother died, the son was reduced to selling off the furniture piece by piece. He also dressed daily in formal tails and was known to hang around downtown on Michigan Avenue. He’d stare into a store window, James continued, for a good fifteen minutes, motionless, then move on to the next one. Eventually the son moved to a small second-story Michigan Avenue flat. He sold the house in 1913—luckily, the Ladies’ Literary Society bought it, thus helping to preserve the building to the present day.

The home’s caretaker, a cheerful, friendly woman, moved the coat rack blocking the stairway and said we could look around upstairs. We peered into a small bedroom and a larger one facing Washington, passing two locked doors.

Everywhere in the house, fancy woodwork bordered doors and windows, complemented by ornate plaster coronas of scrolling leaves around the bases of ceiling light fixtures. Money had been lavished on the interior in subtle ways: the slight zigzag in the carved window molding, the curious and dainty wooden vertical blinds, the generously wide stairway. From the outside, the home was simple, even austere. In the interior, however, no expense had been spared to create subtly luxurious surroundings.

James began his talk on vanished local gardens by discussing the gardens that once graced the city jail, now an artist’s studio, at 6 Cross Street. At one time the garden land sloped down to the river from behind the small jail building, but much of it was washed away in a 1905 flood, said James.

Mention of these gardens reminded me of a memoir, recently unearthed in the Archives, written by George Jackson’s granddaughter Minnie Lewis. She wrote, “No. 6 Cross Street was a show place all the years that Grandpa lived there. Its long flight of stairs lead down the east side of the building to a garden so pretty and old-fashioned that passers-by would pause, lean on the sidewalk railing, and admire his several flower-beds of multicolored varieties . . . his own make of lawn furniture, including two hammocks and swings seemed to invite the town folk to rest a spell, which many did.”

James turned to the well-trod territory of the gardens that once bordered the eastern side of the tracks near the Depot. They were the creation of onetime Scottish-born gardener John Laidlaw. Laidlaw created such floral extravaganzas as a replica of the battleship “Maine,” a log cabin rendered in sod, and a model of a locomotive crossing a bridge over Niagara Falls—with even the surging falls recreated in waves of flowers. James said that Laidlaw maintained all of the station gardens up and down the railroad in other towns and that Laidlaw’s Ypsi greenhouse harbored all of the plants required for every other station.

Neither claim is correct. Railroad gardens were maintained locally in each town. Niles, in particular, had gardens far more extensive than Ypsilanti’s, with a series of greenhouses maintained by its own gardener John Gipner. It is also clear to anyone with any gardening experience that Laidlaw’s lone greenhouse is not large enough to supply plants for any garden other than the one in Ypsilanti.

The Ypsi greenhouse stood until the 1950s, said James, when it was either torn down or disassembled. “The foundation is still there,” he added.

James last addressed the onetime science gardens on the grounds of EMU, in which students received their own plot for botanical experimentation. The gardens were later covered by the erection of Hover Hall. Next mentioned was the onetime EMU fountain that stood near Cross Street within sight of the Water Tower. This ornate iron creation, said James, was the gift of the class of 1888 (actually 1898), and was removed in 1961 to a fate unknown. James showed a photo of onetime natural sciences professor and garden director William Scherzer standing in front of a bank of spiky flowers. Whispers of “iris—those are iris” wafted among audience members.

Soon the talk was over, and the audience rose to chat in clusters and move to the refreshment area set up in the home’s vast dining room. Outside lay the cold March darkness. Long gone were the railroad gardens, the campus garden, and the riverbank garden behind the old City Hall. Yet walking back to the car, in a yard dimly lit by a pink-orange streetlight, I glimpsed a clutch of stubby pointed shoots of tulip.

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives” and the upcoming “Hidden Ypsilanti.”

“Now, sir, what would you say if I told you that these here seeds in this little vial could get you ten dollars a bushel? I know. Sounds ridiculous. Twenty, thirty cents a bushel for oats is the norm around here. But this here seed is that new strain of oats—maybe you’ve heard of them–Bohemian Oats.

“Now, I ain’t about to sell you no junk. These oats are serious business. Lotta farmers got rich on these. Take a look at these testimonials. Here, take a look at this contract. Got your official notarized gold seal right there. You can see for yourself what it says. I do hereby agree to purchase, next fall, the crop of Bohemian Oats you raise, and pay ten dollars a bushel, minus a 25 per cent service charge. Yes sir, we’re talking ten good American dollars. What do you say? From the looks of your fine farm here, I’m sure you have an extra acre or two to try it. You can’t lose—anything you grow I’ll buy for ten bucks a bushel. OK, sign right here.”

In the 1870s and 1880s, numerous Michigan farmers fell for the Bohemian Oat swindle. Silver-tongued salesmen singled out the area’s leading farmers and approached them to extol the merits of the miraculous oat.

The swindle was elaborate, stretching over two years. After securing a signature on a contract, the salesman gave the farmer a supply of Bohemian oat seeds to plant.

The following fall, the salesman came back to buy, as promised, the farmer’s crop of Bohemian oats at the fabulous price of ten dollars a bushel—minus the salesman’s cut.

Except that by this time, the farmer’s neighbors, perhaps less successful and eyeing the money, clamored to buy the crop as seed for their own lucrative crop of Bohemian oats.

The salesman agreed. A flurry of fancy contracts, signatures, and the entire crop was sold, doled out in small portions to the farmer’s neighbors, who anticipated huge profits when the salesman came back next fall.

The salesman thanked the new farmer-investors, pocketed his bankroll, and hightailed it to the nearest depot, to hop on the next train.

He never came back the following fall.

One of the many Bohemian Oat companies was incorporated in 1884 and headquartered in Ypsilanti. At least, it claimed it was based here. It never had a brick and mortar office downtown. Nor did it advertise in local papers. In fact it appeared to be a rather vaporous concern until its president was arraigned on charges of fraud, as documented in the December 15, 1887 Pinckney Dispatch.

“The first conviction in Michigan of a Bohemian oats agent, for obtaining a signature to a promissory note, under false pretences, occurred in the circuit court, for Genesee county . . .” said the paper. “The case was that of the people vs. Alfred W. Hamner, representing the Bohemian oats and cereal company of Ypsilanti. The complaining witness was Abram Tittsworth, a well-known and well-to-do farmer of Atlas township. The case occupied two days in trial and excited widespread interest . . .”

This Ypsilanti company did not limit itself to fleecing Michigan farmers, but ventured far afield, as far as New York State. “A curious case of speculation has been brought to light here by the arrival in the city of W. H. Clark, a wealthy farmer of Groveland, Mich,” reported the December 1, 1886 edition of The American Florist, reprinting a Rochester, New York newspaper article. “Clark, it appears, was induced to enter with others into a large grain speculation two years ago, buying a large quantity of oats of an agent of a concern calling itself the Bohemian Oat and Cereal company, located at Ypsilanti. The agent sold the grain to Clark for $10 per bushel, and gave him a bond that the company would this year sell for him double the quantity he purchased at the same price per bushel. About a month ago the agent appeared and sold the double quantity to other farmers. The company cleared 33 and 1/3 per cent, profit in cash, and Clark was given notes which he has found to be nearly worthless. Clark pursued the officers of the company to this city, and intends bringing the matter into the criminal court. The same scheme has been worked extensively in western New York, and interesting developments are expected. The company cleared over $100,000 by its scheme in Michigan.”

“The farmer is induced to buy ten bushels of the oats for one hundred dollars, by the hope of selling twenty bushels for two hundred dollars,” reported the March, 1886 issue of the American Agriculturalist magazine, “and he thinks that this is guaranteed to him by a ‘bond,’ given him by the seller. This ‘Bond,” in spite of its abundance of green and red inks, its very broad seal (intended to look like gold, but is only Dutch metal), and the bold signature of a secretary, this ‘bond,’ so-called, has no more binding effect than a mere memorandum.”

Coverage of the Bohemian Oat swindle began surfacing in numerous other agricultural journals in the late 1880s, with exhortations to area farmers to eschew the golden promise of the miraculous oat and its accompanying fancy contracts and gilded promises.

Bohemian Oats even surfaced in Michigan Supreme Court proceedings in 1890. The complicated case centered on the issue of fraud surrounding the issue of notes, the then-equivalent of checks. Boiled down into a nutshell for the sake of sparing the kind reader the dizzying particulars, the whole Bohemian Oats scheme failed the smell test, and the lucrative scam died away.

By the turn of the century, the Bohemian Oats scam was extinct. Plenty a smooth-talking sharper had made his pile and disappeared, and plenty a greedy farmer had fallen for the swindle. But what was true in the 1880s is no less true today—there’s no free lunch. Reader, if some honey-tongued salesman leans over your fence and promises you an exorbitant return with a miracle seed, and flaunts some fancy-looking contracts with gleaming golden seals, you’d be best off sending that con man down the road on his merry way.

Don’t fall for those old Bohemian Oats.

The Ark stood across the street from the present-day Deja Vu.

Think back for a moment to the long-ago days of Sunday school. Quiz: Name a large and ancient wooden structure that had something to do with water, that contained extremely varied contents, and that moved from one place to another. It ended up on higher ground than its starting point. Near the end of its journey, it served as a launch pad for exploratory birds.

This description applies to the Biblical boat you thought of and to the huge onetime secondhand store at Washington and Pearl called, by weirdest coincidence, “The Ark.”

The Ark was built in 1837, the same year Michigan became a state. Its original site was on the now-vanished Water Street just east of the river. It was originally intended to serve as a tannery, where cowhides could be processed into leather.

Its site was in those days well removed from the few buildings that would grow to become downtown Ypsilanti. The site was likely chosen on purpose. Tanneries were smelly places, where piles of cow skins were scraped of their remaining flesh and soaked in vats of chemicals in order to process them into leather. A location downstream from downtown meant that meat scraps and used-up chemicals could be drained into the river without creating a stench in the stretch of river traveling through town.

In the mid-1800s, John Howland opened another tannery on the northwest side of the intersection of Forest Avenue and the railroad bridge, today the site of the Farm Bureau silo. Like the Water Street tannery, it was located on the fringe of settlement, for good reason. “The stench around [Howland’s] tanneries was terrible,” reads an undated local newspaper article from the Archives. “The odor often penetrated into the district surrounding Forest Avenue.” Howland’s tannery began producing leather goods in the 1870s, notes the article, up until 1918, when the Farm Bureau took over the site.

It may be that How land’s tannery siphoned business away from the Water Street site, or it may just be that the Water Street site never became fully operational. Perhaps the financial troubles of “The Panic of 1837” played a role. In either case, sometime before 1851 the building was disassembled, moved into the downtown area, and reassembled on the southeast corner of Pearl and Washington.

Shortly after its move and reassembly, the huge fire of 1851 swept through downtown Ypsilanti. “The city made heroic efforts to stay the flames,” wrote Harvery Colburn in his “Story of Ypsilanti.” “Ropes were fastened to the building known as ‘The Ark’ on the southeast corner of Washington and pearl, and futile efforts were made to pull it down. The fire, however, did not reach the building.”

The Ark stayed in business for the next 70 years. For a while it served as a blacksmith shop. Eventually it became what it is remembered for, a secondhand shop selling furniture, household goods, and a wide variety of other items.

The century turned and the Ark still stood in its historic spot. By now it was looking a bit decrepit, with ill-fitting window frames, missing panes of glass, uneven siding, and shreds of old posters dangling from its exterior. On the front of the building near the roof, a mannequin of a man dangled, wearing a sign advertising Smith Brothers’ cough drops. The Ark’s day was almost over.

Its swan song came in the form of pigeons.

“Joe Sim of 364 16^th Street, Detroit, is interested in carrier pigeons,” said the June 19, 1911 Ypsilanti Daily Press.

“To teach them to fly long distances and return to their home, he brings a basket full of them, about 20, out to Ypsilanti, and lets them loose,” continued the paper. “Several people were seen Sunday morning standing by the ‘Ark’ intently looking up into the ethereal blue. It was about 8 o’clock. The pigeons were circling higher and higher above the city. They refused to light on the ‘Ark’ or return to it. These sensible birds, Joe says, will take about fifteen minutes to get their bearings. They were released at 7:45 and sure enough at 8 o’clock Joe announced, ‘They’re off, they will be home by 9.’”

Just a year after the pigeons’ departure, the Ark was torn down and a new building was built on its site. One of the city’s longest-surviving buildings was no more.

The west side of North Huron, 1893.

Could we time-travel to 1892 Ypsilanti and stroll around town, we’d notice differences in the streetscape and in the fashions. But the single largest difference would be in the sphere of work.

For example, almost no one commuted out of the city limits to their job each day. The majority of men and women with a job walked a few blocks or just across town to reach their place of employment. Many went home for lunch.

Another major work-related difference was the number of manufactories in town. These included four boot and shoe makers, three bakeries, a book bindery, a box factory, a stone carver, and a foundry.

Also included were makers of gasoline furnaces, painted portraits, cabinets, furniture, harnesses, copperware, carriages, clothing, wagons, cigars, candies, dresses, saddles, tinware, carpets, dress stays, handles, guns, hats, and beer.

Yet another thing we’d notice on an 1892 walk around town would be the number and nature of full-time jobs that have vanished.

Starting our walk at River and Forest Avenue, one can see the large malt-house next to the ornate red brick home of Frederick Swaine, maltster. In the malt-house, Frederick soaked grains in water, preparing them for conversion into alcohol. Today the malt-house is gone, but the Swaine home remains, rescued from demolition some decades ago.

Walking west on Forest and crossing the river, the little brick structure housing the city’s electric company comes into view (today the office of Ypsilanti’s Department of Public Works.). The building has a row of windows along either side. Peeking in, one can see an enormous metal frame supporting a huge circular structure. This is the dynamo that creates the city’s limited electricity supply. And peering at a control panel is a man in work clothes. It’s Charles Hyzer, the dynamo tender.

Born in New York, Charles moved to Ypsi with his parents sometime before the late 1880s. He lived alone at 24 East Michigan Avenue but moved in with his family by 1900. Single at 43 that year, he shared a home with his 69-year-old father Joseph, a teamster, and 66-year-old mother Martha on Olive Street.

Charles walked the short distance from Olive to the dynamo-house each day. Sometimes the neighborhood kids would come by to visit him and press their pocket knives on the dynamo to make them magnetic.

Leaving the dynamo-house and heading to Huron, the giant knitting mill and underwear factory on the left is impossible to miss. Just southwest of the Forest Avenue bridge, the mill employs dozens of women, most of them in charge of one large floor-mounted knitting machine.

Heading south on Huron, one passes Cross Street, where lives the city’s only female mail carrier, Miss Nannie Sewell at 215 East Cross. Continuing on, Pearl Street comes into view. At 517 Pearl is the home of 63-year-old city watchman Henry Boutell. A former farmer and a Civil War veteran who was wounded in battle, Boutell was promoted to brevet captain before mustering out in 1865. He lives with his son Henry from his first marriage, his second wife Catherine, his father-in-law Horace, and a servant, Rickie Frick.

In his patrols around the downtown area, Henry regularly passes the Dress Stay Manufacturing Company at 101-105 Huron just north of Pearl. The company made thin steel rods ranging from a few inches to a yard long, tucked into fabric sleeves and sold to be sewn into dresses to give them shape.

Hattie Allen was one of the 1892 workers at the factory, walking to it each morning from her home at 230 Grove Road. She lived on Grove with her parents Hiram and Elizabeth, her sister Jessie and Jessie’s husband Adam, and the couple’s daughter Lyleth. After the dress stay factory closed shortly after the turn of the century, Hattie remained in the family home. Her parents and brother-in-law died. By 1920, only Hattie, 50 and unemployed, lived there with Jessie and Lyleth. One of Hattie’s near neighbors was DeWitt Matthews at 159 South Grove, a successful apiarist and gardener who sold honey, fruit, and beekeeping supplies.

While passing the dress stay factory and heading towards Michigan Avenue, a man walks by with large papers rolled under his arm and carrying a bucket containing a brush. His clothes look old and worn. It’s Charles Bowerman, local bill poster. His job was to glue up posters and notices around town.

Charles’ pay was meager, and he shared a home with his father David, stepmother Kaziah, and David’s adopted daughter Etta. David worked odd jobs, Kaziah took in washing, and at age 15 Etta cut tags at the Scharf Tag, Label, and Box Company. The family scrimped to get by.

Turning east on Michigan, a clanging sound grows louder. It’s from John Lang’s blacksmith shop at 25 East Michigan Avenue. Just around the corner is his home at 9 River, not far from his neighbor Alexander Fee, a worker at the short-lived Ypsilanti Condiment Company in Depot Town.

Born in Germany in 1847, Lang emigrated in 1853, married fellow emigrant Jane, and had 4 children. At his shop, John worked iron and made horseshoes, and nailed them on his customers’ horses.

But he seems busy at the moment—though he won’t be for much longer—so we’ll leave him for now, after this short glimpse at the vanished jobs of 1892.

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives.” Have an idea for a story? Contact her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

Perhaps too much independence, at least by her father’s standards.

The store, on the east side of Huron just north of the present-day Dalat, was managed by 32-year-old Andrew Pastorino, who had immigrated from Italy in 1902. A short man of medium build with brown eyes and black hair, Andrew rented rooms above the store. He shared them with his 21-year-old nephew Salviatra Annrelare, who’d immigrated in 1908, and his 18-year-old niece Mary Annrelare, who’d come the year after Salviatra.

Andrew appreciated his clerk Carrie. As time passed, he began to find her attractive. Soon he was thinking of her after hours, in his rooms upstairs. He was in love.

Although she was roughly half his age, Carrie was aware of and reciprocated his feelings. She knew her family wouldn’t approve. Andrew and Carrie’s feelings for each other deepened. They made a decision: they would elope.

The couple discussed how to sneak out of town for a Detroit wedding. Carrie would board the eastbound interurban at the downtown waiting room at 13-15 North Washington a block from the candy store (site of the recently-closed Pub 13). Further east on Michigan Avenue, Andrew would board the car at the car barns just east of the river. Then the couple would travel on to Detroit and the clandestine wedding.

Carrie’s father had other plans.

On the morning of February 8, 1911, Carrie waited nervously in the interurban waiting room for the 8:45. She spotted city policeman Officer Pierce, who on seeing her, abruptly strode off.

Carrie’s father had come to town early that day, hitching his horse at the Hawkins House hotel at 216 West Michigan Avenue. He was keeping an eye on the departing cars to see if his daughter would show up to board one.

Now here he came into the waiting room with Officer Pierce.

“‘Why, hello, Daddy!’” Carrie said, as quoted in the February 8, 1911 Ypsilanti Daily Press. “‘I’m just going to the grocery store!’” The paper continued, “[She] hurriedly made for the Huron Street crossing thinking that she could avoid her father and yet catch the car. But her father overtook her at about the middle of the block and the car passed on. The groom was seen getting on at the car barns but alas, as the story goes the trip was made alone . . .”

Carrie was whisked home in her father’s buggy.

The next day, Andrew was behind the counter at the candy shop after his lonely ride home on the interurban. He was on the phone, and nearby customers eavesdropped. One of more of those customers would later phone or scurry to the Ypsilanti Daily Press around the corner at 301 West Michigan Avenue and dispense a tidbit of gossip regarding the candy-man’s telephone conversation. The paper ran another story on the thwarted couple.

“‘You can’t see me.’ ‘But I must see you. ‘No, I tell you, you can’t see me; if you come out here father will shoot you.’”

The February 9, 1911 paper continued, “It was at a candy kitchen on Huron street that one part of this conversation is reported to have been overheard this morning. The assurances pro and con came and went over the telephone to the amusement of the parties who chanced to be present . . .”

The paper went on to say, “The distracting experience of boarding a limited D. J. & C. car on which he had so fondly hoped to find a pretty fiancée and being forced to ride some distance alone on account of the unforeseen appearance and intervention of the fair maiden’s papa, seemingly proved a painful event for the candy manufacturer and the telephone was the best medium of consolation to which he could resort. Just what the next step will be is a difficult problem to solve but friends say that neither of the interested parties are of the disposition to give up easily and further interesting developments are still expected.”

“Father seems to have a gun and according to gossip, would be quite inclined to use it, so that the poor merchant’s position is apt to be either sad or perilous, or possibly it may be both.”

The Press was not finished with this story. On the following day, it published a third article about the affair which included responses from Carrie’s father, Allen Stewart. Allen claimed that he’d been in town that fateful morning just by coincidence. He denied that he knew of any business with Andrew, and denied he had a gun. He told the Press “[N]othing was really said about shooting.”

Carrie never came back to the candy store.

But Andrew’s broken engagement would not leave him a bachelor long. In about a year’s time, he married one Evelyn. Carrie also married soon after. The candy-store romance with its attempted elopement was over, though it was likely, by either Carrie or Andrew, not forgotten.

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales of the Ypsilanti Archives.” Contact her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

In 1933, the city’s municipal Welfare League and the Red Cross provided needy families with food, stove fuel, small emergency stipends, ready-made clothing, and cloth yardage with which to sew clothes. Occasional shipments of federal flour arrived, and many area farmers donated surplus produce to the “city barn” behind the then-City Hall at 206 North Huron (the Showerman/Quirk residence). But the assistance, though sincere, was ad hoc–and the supplies unpredictable.

It would be two years before Franklin Roosevelt created federal welfare programs, including assistance to children. However, the government did have a Children’s Bureau, headed by social worker Grace Abbott. She estimated that in 1933, 20 percent of the country’s children suffered from inadequate medical care, housing, and food.

When cases of rickets began appearing in Ypsilanti children that year, it was clear an extra effort was needed.

Rickets is a dietary disease caused by a vitamin D deficiency which inhibits calcium absorption by bones. Children with rickets can develop a bow-legged look due to weakened leg bones. Left untreated, rickets can lead to permanent bow-leggedness, an increased risk of bone fractures, and even seizures and breathing difficulties in severe cases.

On February 7, 1933, the Ypsilanti Welfare League took out a large ad in the Ypsilanti Daily Press. It featured an image of two disconsolate children superimposed with the words “Gee, I’m hungry.” The ad said that of 425 children of city welfare families, 150 were preschoolers. The ad also said, “Several cases of Ricketts [sic] have been reported to health authorities in the city because of undernourishment.”

The Welfare League’s plan was to stage a night of fundraising carnivals held at local schools. Admission was to be 25 cents [$4.10 today]. The money would be pooled to purchase milk from local dairies to supply to needy children. Vitamin D-enriched milk had been available on the market beginning in 1931.

Participating schools included Roosevelt High School (now EMU’s Roosevelt Hall), Prospect School (now Adams Elementary), Central High School (now Cross Street Village), Harriet School (now the Perry Child Development Center) and the stately Woodruff School (now demolished).

Each school planned a different program of entertainment. After paying admission, attendees could visit multiple venues, not unlike Ypsilanti’s onetime New Year’s Jubilee festival.

“Prospect School’s program will be in the form of a Depression masquerade,” said a February 13 Ypsilanti Daily Press article. “Old time and modern dancing will be provided” to live orchestra music, with prizes for best mask.

Roosevelt School also planned a program of modern and old-timey dancing to live music, the paper said, as well as an additional performance by acrobats.

Harriet School planned a musical program with performances by the Harriet School band, the Golden Leaf Jubilee Singers, and the Charles Hughes Tap Dancers and Musical Revue. There would also be a minstrel show. Other performances among the schools included comedy skits, vocal soloists, and accordion music.

On the night of Monday, February 13, Ypsilantians flocked to the schools, with quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies in hand. “There was a generous response Monday evening to the call of [the] Ypsilanti welfare committee,” said a February 14 Ypsilanti Daily Press article. The paper noted that many people unable to attend had nevertheless bought tickets, to aid the effort.

The milk fund drive was a success, raising $315.91 [$5,200 today]. The Welfare League met and “arrangements were completed to immediately begin distribution among undernourished children of the city over 5,300 quarts of milk,” said a February 18, Ypsilanti Daily Press article.

The article said that city welfare director Fred Older, city nurse Helen Firestein, and city social worker Inez Graves would be in charge of arranging the milk purchase. “Several milk dealers in Ypsilanti have already declared their willingness to sell the regular standard grade of milk and deliver it in bottles for six cents a quart . . . exceptional care will be exercised in making up the list inasmuch as the fund must be made to reach as far as possible.”

At six cents a quart, 5,265 quarts could be purchased (1,316 gallons), close to the Welfare League’s estimate of “over 5,300 quarts.” If the milk was distributed only to the 425 welfare family children mentioned in the Welfare League’s initial ad, each child would receive about three gallons.

For some children, the milk’s arrival may have been too late to arrest or ameliorate their rickets. For others, it was the first sip of milk they’d had in over four months–and, when the 3 gallons was gone, their last, perhaps until spring. That was when the Welfare League planned another fundraising event, one that would again reveal the milk of human kindness.

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales of the Ypsilanti Archives.” Have an old-time story to share? Contact her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

Right before Thanksgiving Forrest and I sat down and discussed what to do with the café, and with tears in our eyes, we decided it was finally time to close our doors. It was an extremely hard decision to make. When we looked at the numbers our sales were up about 25% over last year. Our new Taco Bar and Soup Bar were doing really well and the breakfast menu was finally taking off. So with everything going well, why would we close? Well the final straw ended up being internal theft. From the time our last manager left in August to the end of November, employees had stolen over twenty thousand dollars in cash and inventory. It isn’t unusual for us to get really tight as the end of ice cream season hits, but with this much theft, there was no way we could get out of the hole we were in without closing and selling the assets to pay off our debts. It was an incredibly sad decision to make. My goal was always to turn this business over to Forrest and let him run it. He truly loved the café and we put our hearts and souls into. All it took was a couple of greedy employees with no conscience to ruin our dream and destroy six years of hard work.

There is no doubt that the main thing we will miss about the café is our customers. We really have had the best customers a business could have. In all our years there, the one thing I have noticed is how few irrational customers we have encountered. Having someone get upset and angry about anything at the café is such a rare occurrence, that it really is a novelty when it happens.  Our regulars have supported us through thick and thin, and Forrest and I have made so many friends through the café. Even when a customer would get bad service, I would usually get an email that would explaining the problem and making suggestions. I never got any that said they wouldn’t come back. It was always people trying to help and give constructive comments. I can’t imagine a community anywhere like the one we have in Ypsilanti. Every year we have local people putting in efforts to get people to shop local and help the independent businesses. With community support like that, it makes running a business so much more satisfying. Forrest and I are going to miss sitting in the dining room having conversations with customers and friends. The café has been such a great place to hang out. We really want to thank all of our customers and friends for their support over the years. You have made our live so rich.

For almost six years Forrest and I ran this café, and we have had a lot of good employees, and our fair share of ones that weren’t. We have never shown a profit, and after the sale we will have lost over a quarter million dollars. Our first four years were almost impossible because we bought equipment from the Operations Manager of Washtenaw Dairy that was supposed to be installed in the summer of 2006 that he never installed. Instead after three years of hearing promise after promise to install the equipment, I ended up having to pay for the installation again through other sources. This killed us financially and made it impossible to make the changes we needed to our business. When we finally got all of the equipment installed in September of 2009, the day we announced our new menu and hung a fancy banner on the front awning, the Thompson Block burned and traffic into Depot Town was blocked off until late in the spring. When our lease was up in February 2010, we almost threw in the towel, but everyone in the neighborhood begged us to stay, so we decided we would give it one more year. It seemed like everything that could go wrong already had, so we were determined to make this our year.

This summer we changed our format. We switched to table service adding servers and cooks to our staff. This change allowed us to cut our labor costs and improve customer service all at the same time. By the time the fall came, our lunch business had increased significantly. Then we added our taco bar and soup bar which both have done well. Our weekend breakfast buffet has always been a hit, and when Forrest took over as the cook, it improved even more. If you had asked me in August how things were going, I would have told you were are on the right track and this is definitely going to be our year, finally.

In August we lost our manager because she moved out of state, and for the next three months we tried to find a replacement, but we couldn’t find anyone we could trust. With me working another job in Detroit and Forrest going back to high school, the employees were left to manage themselves on the busiest shift during the week. We tried making people team leaders, but none of them took on the responsibility. Soon after, we started seeing shortages in the registers on a daily bases. Then inventory started disappearing out the back door. At one point we had almost $500 in coffee disappear, along with cases of other food items. We had three slabs of corned beef stolen after they were cooked and left cooling in the walk-in. When the day shift came in the next day, we were out of corned beef to slice. Then there was all the waste that we started going through. Everyday people would burn trays of cookies. Some cooks would put turkey or roast beef in the oven just to leave at the end of their shift without telling anyone, and I would come in from Detroit to close and find almost of hundred dollars worth of meat smoldering in the oven.

Throughout our years in business, we have always had week staff members, and we have had thefts before, but they were usually twenty dollars here and twenty dollars there, not hundreds of dollars a day. And when we did have a bad apple, we had enough good staff that would point it out and we could get them out pretty quickly. Over the years I have had some really amazing employees, and there are a number of them that I think about and miss on a daily basis. Our original staff from our first year in business was incredible, and this core group stayed with us for several years until finally they had all graduated and moved away. We still had generations of employees after the first group that were great. When we had a solid core, they looked out for us and made sure other employees didn’t take advantage of us because they loved the business and wanted it to succeed. We all had fun working at the café and when it was busy, we were happy because it meant we were doing things right. Forrest and I both have a soft spot in our hearts for a large number of our previous staff and will remember them fondly. When we had a solid staff combined with great customers, there was no place I would rather be than at the café.

Running this business was never about the money for me. In the end that is was killed us, but that was just because it was so much so fast that was stolen. We have always lost money and as long as I kept my job in Detroit, we were able to keep the doors open. Forrest and I have pretty much lived at the café all these years. We were a part of the community and got to know so many people in town. It has always been so nice to chat with regular customers or neighboring business owners and local politicians. This was more than a business, it was a community meeting place. Forrest grew up here. Just walk through the dining room and you will see the growth marks on the wall from when Forrest was 10 all the way to 16 years old. People in town have called Forrest “Mr. Mayor” for years because he is always around and involved in everything going on in Depot Town and even Downtown. Going back to being just normal residents is going to be quite an adjustment for both of us. I think  Forrest is going to have a much harder time adjusting to the change than I will.

Owning the café has definitely been a learning experience as well. I have always worked in corporate settings with knowledge workers. Having a staff of laborers is totally different. There is no doubt that our failure is due to the fact that I cannot manage employees at this level. To be an effective manager in the service industry really means that you have to be a micromanager this is contradictory to the way you manage projects in a technical environment. I am not the type to continually hound employees to get to work or speed things up. I have always wanted employees who were smart enough to do that on their own. That is what I was used to in my background. Forrest is much better at dealing with people than I am. In all the years that I have had employees, I have never had one that could compare to Forrest. I am not sure what he is going to do now, but I know he will do something positive with his life. He has a work ethic that doesn’t exist anymore. He takes pride in his work and always gives 100% when needed. When he took over cooking the breakfast buffet, he gave up getting paid as a waiter. There was no money to pay him out of the business and all my paycheck from Detroit was going to try to cover bills. Forrest showed up at the café every weekend at 5:30am both Saturday and Sunday and made sure the buffet not only got out on time, but looked perfect. His quiches were better than any cook we have ever had before or since. He did all this until we closed without any pay even knowing that we were going to close, he still gave it his all and always took pride in his work. In all the years that we owned the café, Forrest worked more hours with less complaints than did any of the other employees. He would get there at 5:30 in the morning on a Saturday to start the buffet and still be there at 10:00 at night to help close the register, and he did it because he really loved the place. It breaks my heart to see him lose his dream because of a few lowlife employees.

As I sit here writing this goodbye letter, I keep thinking what could we have done differently. Obviously we made mistakes. We knew there were problems with the staff, but we really didn’t have the time to keep hiring, training, firing over and over until we got a solid core again. It costs a lot of money to train new employees and it also has a negative effect on customer service when you are trying to train new people how to do things the right way. We could waste time focusing on the mistakes we made, and I have done a lot of that. No matter what at the end of the day, the failure of the business is my fault. Everything is a result of choices I made either in hiring and firing, trusting certain people over others, not training people enough, etc. I can take the blame for the mistakes because I can also hold my head high and say we never cut corners on quality. I have never ever taken advantage of a customer or cheated anyone in any way. I have treated all my employees fairly, and I have done my best to make working for me as positive an experience as possible. I donated to local charities and events every time they came to the door. When other businesses were hurting, I worked on ideas to bring people to town. I headed events like the “Stuff Your Stocking”, “Depot Town Chili Challenge & Chili Day Bike Ride”, and  “The St. Pawdy’s Day Parade” to name a few. If someone didn’t like their meal there was never an argument about it. We would remake it and give them a scoop of ice cream or cookies to make up for our error. I always insisted that the customer be treated the way I wanted to be treated. The food we served was always home cooked. We never used pre-made salads or soups. There were very few items in the store that were served directly. Meaning if you saw a can of something, it was part of a recipe, never the final product. In all the years we were in business, we had very few complaints about the quality of our food, the biggest complaint was that our service was slow, and we finally fixed a lot of that by adding servers. So in the end, I may be a lousy businessman, but I ran a really good business.

This letter really is meant as an explanation of why we closed and a remembrance of what we had. When Forrest and I look back on the years of our life with the café, the past three months will fade and we will be left with a lot of positive memories. There is no doubt that this will be the hardest I have ever worked and probably will never put in this many hours into anything else again. I can’t say whether that will be true for Forrest. At this point he still loves this business and wants to continue in food service. His goal is to go to school for Hotel and Restaurant Management, so he may be doing this for a long time. I definitely loved working with him. I can’t imagine what our life would have been like if we hadn’t been working together. We had great times at the café. Our busiest coffee day every years was Memorial Day. Every Memorial Day we would take over the coffee station because none of the employees could keep up with us making espressos. During the Chili Challenge, Forrest and I would literally be running circles around employees serving chili from the kitchen making jokes at each other as we ran by. No one could ever keep up with either of us scooping ice cream during the Heritage Festival or the Thursday night Cruise Nights. Forrest has always been the face of the business, and I have always been Forrest’s dad. We were always a team and even in the toughest times we worked together to keep the place running. Whenever there was maintenance that had to be done on a Holiday, Forrest was there with me. One Easter the two of us worked from 9am Easter morning straight through till 11am on the following Monday putting a new floor in the kitchen. Last New Year’s we spent the day building a wall around the grill line so we could add a hand sink. I have always loved working with my son and I with treasure the opportunity I have had. Our customers have watched Forrest grow up and me grow older, and we have loved being here.

There is no doubt that we have worked a ton of hours at the café, but it hasn’t always been work. We have played a lot in town too. Forrest got into cycling as a result of being a part of the community. He loved riding with Bike Ypsi and made a lot of really good friends through the group. In the summer time it wasn’t uncommon to see the two of us riding our long boards in the back alley during the slow periods. We even got to ride them down Cross St. a couple of times after the Heritage Festival ended and the streets were still closed for cleaning. Many of our customers got to know Forrest at the Corner Brewery. When he was younger we would go there after we closed to wind down, but Forrest enjoyed helping out by picking up glasses and doing dishes. Often on Saturday nights you would see him picking up glasses and rolling through the place on his healies. When the owners of the brewery decided not to allow children after 9:00 pm, the employees specifically asked if that included Forrest, and he was immediately exempted from the rules. It funny to watch Forrest go to the brewery any time they have a new door person and they will stop him at the door, and he will just say, but I am Forrest, then a nod from the bartender gets him in every time. You might think that owning a restaurant, we wouldn’t ever go out to eat, but I can tell you after eating sandwiches for years, we are happy to go out to other places. When we go out, we spend most of our time at other local restaurants, and I am sure that will continue after the close. We love going out to eat together, so you will still see us around town.

So what’s next for Forrest? Well he will be working on getting through high school. I have suggested that the new owners give him a part time job, but I am not sure if that will happen or not. Either way I am sure someone in town will give him a job. I am hoping that we both can spend more time doing cycling events with Bike Ypsi and getting involved in other community projects around town. Next summer we will probably do a lot of summer activities to make up for the past few years. Of course he has also mentioned that maybe we could try opening a skate shop in town. I told him to put together a business plan and we would see what we could come up with.

As for me, I plan to keep working as an Internet Architect in Detroit. My contract there limits me to 32 hours a week, so I think I will take some time enjoying three day weekends and eight hour days for a while. In the past 6 years I have had a total of 18 days off, and this year was the first time I actually had two days in a row one weekend in September, so I think I have earned a break. I have plenty of projects to work on around the house. While we owned the café, we pretty much only came home to sleep, so there has been a lot of neglect and a number of things that need fixing. Eventually I will probably start looking at getting into another business. Since I was 18 I have always been self employed, so being an entrepreneur is kind of in my blood. One of the things that I found while serving on the DDA is that there are a lot of web design companies around that focus on design, but very few that can do custom technical solutions. I might look for some partners to put together a tech company. That is something that I do have the skill set for and with the right balance of partners could probably build a successful IT firm. For now that is on the back burner. I am just going to take some time to relax and enjoy life for a bit. I might even take a real vacation for the first time in six years.

When we decided to sell the business, we really wanted the place to stay something like what it is now. Depot Town really needs a business like ours and I would hate to think of it being turned into something else. The location has been and Ice Cream store of some type for as long as I can remember, so I really wanted to find someone who would be willing to keep it that way. Fortunately I was able to find a couple, Mark and Danielle, who were looking for a place just like mine to buy. Danielle has been in the restaurant industry for over 18 years and she ran a Deli in Detroit for 8 years. Mark actually worked for me right at the end which is how we got together on a deal. Danielle is really interested in the ice cream part of the business and Mark likes the coffee side, so I think a lot things will remain the same. Mark is also vegan, so they will continue having a vegetarian / vegan friendly menu, and they both are concerned with buying locally and using environmentally sustainable products which falls inline with the principles we held in our café. They are probably going to scale back initially why they get their feet wet, and learn the business. I hope our customers will take the time to get to know Mark and Danielle and welcome them to the area. I really believe they have what it takes to take what we started and make it a profitable long lasting business in Depot Town. I am very happy that we were able to come to an agreement so the business doesn’t got vacant. As part of our agreement, they have agreed to honor all the gift certificates that were sold or donated by us.

Closing the café like this is definitely not what we wanted or hoped for. This was the last option we wanted to take, and making this decision really hurt. We were able to sell the assets to the new owners, and it looks like we are going to be able to walk away not owing very much. Still it is hard to think of all the time and money we put into this business just to sell what we built to cover the debts. To go from being optimistic about the year to out of business in just over three months is not something I thought was possible. We will miss being in Depot Town and miss seeing everyone at the café on a daily basis. Thank you to everyone who supported us for the past six years. It really was a great run.

Depot Town-area grocer George Neat's ad touted a variety of sugars and canned goods.

In the days before online people-finding search engines or even the yellow pages, yearly city directories offered information on business and residential addresses. For many years the Detroit-based firm of Polk’s compiled directories for Ypsilanti.

In 1883, however, a different company compiled the city directory—Coldwater-based Wendell Directory Company.

Unlike any of the Polk guides, the Wendell directory was prefaced by a poem about Ypsilanti that offers an outsider’s view of the city the company investigated.

Poets are numerous now-a-days, and so
It’s not surprising we should cut a caper
In noble verse; it don’t cost much you know,
For pens and ink are cheap and so is paper,
And even if we do hunt Webster thro’
What matters it if we can make it do? . . .

Ypsilanti has thriven, and is now a city,
Numbering about six thousand population—
(There should be ten, but is not more’s the pity—
A census always is an aggravation,
Which, instead of giving cities a fair showing,
Seems made on purpose to retard their growing!)

Many small local factories and mills of the day ran on hydropower. Wendell’s poem took note of that, and mentioned in passing the onetime strategy of dust control for the town’s many dirt roads. In later years, Ypsilanti’s dirt roads were treated with oil, in an effort to tamp down the ever-present dust.

Its greatest feature is its water power,
Which is magnificent and very fine.
And one that is as good and rich a dower
As nature could bequeath; it proves a mine
Of untold wealth, a bank that cannot “bust,”
And one effectual for laying dust!

The poet took note that local businesses were full of entrepreneurial vim.

Its merchants are most enterprising men,
And don’t believe in sticking in the mud;
Their maxin’s go ahead, excepting when
Being stationary does them the most good!
Taking them all in all they know their “biz,”
And never call things pop unless they fizz.

Such merchants in 1883 included the Huron Street Hardware store. Their November 10, 1883 ad touted the “Iron Acorn” stove, the “Union Churn,” and the “Bench Wringer” for wringing out freshly-washed clothes: “It makes the Wash Women Smile.”

According to another 1883 ad, the Ypsilanti Bazaar on North Huron offered tin and glassware, photo albums, lamps, ladies’ and gents’ underwear, hoopskirts, corsets, and stationery.

Down at the Depot, George Neat’s variety store sold sugar, tea, coffee, and canned goods that included vegetables, lobster, whitefish, trout, and mackerel.

Cleary’s school of penmanship downtown on Michigan Avenue offered “Superior Advantages to Gentlemen and Ladies who are desirous of acquiring a rapid, graceful style of writing, either for business advantages or for successfully teaching Spencerian and Ornamental Penmanship.”

On the present-day Water Street site, the onetime Parsons Brothers lumberyard advertised lumber, flooring, moldings, fencing, and “Scroll Sawing neatly done with our new Deflecting Scroll Saw.”

An 1883 ad for the Opera House invited patrons to see a spiritualist.

And the Opera House on Michigan Avenue advertised an evening with a spiritualist. “An evening in the Spirit World,” said the November 17 ad. “Prof. Chas. N. Stein will give a Religious Illustrated Lecture, assisted by the Empress of Mediums, Mrs. Martha E. Steen, Presenting the whole of Modern Spiritualism in open light. Is it true or false? Come and see.” Admission was 25 and 35 cents [$5.70 and $8 today].

Getting around to these and other places, however, wasn’t always easy for a directory-man trying to catalogue the city. Some of the outlying streets weren’t labeled with street signs, a condition that must have been frustrating to anyone attempting to collect addresses.

For instance, there are streets within the city
Unnamed, or if they are the name’s unknown,
Especially in the suburbs food for pity
In this particular. We all must own
There’s much occasion for a man to swear,
When hunting for a street which isn’t there!

Equally vexing to the directory-man was the somewhat haphazard house numbering system. Some years later downtown residence and business numbers were overhauled and renumbered in a more systematic fashion. In 1883, however, a random element made things difficult.

Again the numbers on the houses are
A little mixed, and no one can be sure
But what is “sixty” is a “forty-four,”
In fact it may be less, or may be more;
It isn’t nice to hunt for “nine” you see
And have ’em say, “why, this is fifty-three!”

Of course not, consequently we suggest
A revision of the system, all throughout it,
The cost is trifling, and it’s the best
To have a thing correct, when one’s about it,
And then, how nice, to feel securely sure,
That number forty-eight ain’t twenty-four.

As the directory man tramped through town, perplexed by absent street signs and mixed-up house numbers, his quest wasn’t made easier by the somewhat rough sidewalks.

There also are some sidewalks here and there
That somehow like to have you “take a seat,”
The trouble is, it looks so awful queer,
That no one cares to do it in the street;
Its not “in style,” and people have a passion For doing nothing but what’s “in the fashion.”

And so we think (we’re very fond of talking)
Another kind of walk would better please,
One that confines its usefulness for walking,
And not for sitting down, as some of these! Still, we can truly say there’s very few Bad sidewalks in the city, but one or two.

After the information had been laboriously collected and returned to Coldwater for printing and binding, the directory man in his poem bade farewell to Ypsilanti.

Just so. And now our book being ended,
There’s nothing left to do but bid good-bye,
With thanks to those who have our work befriended,
We take our leave with a regretful sigh,
And in the words of foreign lore—Au Revoir,
Because we hope again to meet your eye.

Have an old-time story to share? Contact Laura at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

Archibald's signature on his 1874 patent application for "McNicol Cement."

The Scottish-born immigrant contribution to 19th-century Ypsilanti life is undersung. Farmer-poet William Lambie published numerous poems in the Ypsilanti Commercial and shared a correspondence with Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Helen McAndrew was a doctor maintaining her own hospital in an era when few women worked outside the home. Archibald McNicol did not allow his humble occupation of cobbler to prevent him from becoming an inventor.

Born in Glasgow on February 8, 1839, Archibald apprenticed as a shoemaker. He emigrated at age 27 just after the American Civil War. After stints in Canada, Detroit, and Romeo, Michigan, he settled in Ypsilanti. He married Michigan-born Helen Treat in 1872 at age 33.

As a cobbler, Archibald spent his days cutting shapes from leather, stitching scraps together, and nailing on soles. However he had a creative and problem-solving mind. Two years after his marriage he filed a patent for an invention connected with his trade. He named his creation after himself.

“McNicol Cement” was compounded of India-rubber, gutta-percha, balata, and chloroform. The concoction was a glue for leather and a waterproofing agent.

The antique terms deserve explanation. “India rubber” is probably most familiar to old-timers as gum elastic, derived from a tropical tree and at one time common in pencil erasers. Gutta-percha and balata were other forms of rubber also derived from trees. The chloroform Archibald mixed into his concoction was likely purchased from a downtown drugstore.

“To cement pieces of leather together,” read Archibald’s patent description, “skive [pare down] each piece of leather to a wedge-like edge, apply the McNicol cement to both pieces, and after lapping them together pound slightly with a hammer or mallet to bring the pieces into close contact, and give ten minutes to thoroughly dry.” Skiving the edges of the leather before gluing them together increased the surface area and made for a smooth joint without a ridge.

McNicol Cement seems to have had some success. In his 1881 book “History of Washtenaw County,” Charles Chapman included mention of the cobbler-inventor. “In 1867 he came to Ypsilanti,” said Chapman, “and soon after invented the well-known McNicol cement, and traveled and sold the county and state rights for over 11 years.” However, Archibald did not abandon his occupation of shoemaker.

By 1880, Archibald and his one-month-older wife Helen were 41. They lived on Summit Street with their 7 year old daughter Jeanie and their 3 year old son. Helen’s 79 year old mother Sarah shared their home, as did a 28 year old apprentice shoemaker, Wentworth.

Archibald wasn’t through with inventing. In 1886, when he was 47, he filed a patent for a “door check,” a spring-loaded device that slowed the closure of the door upon which it was mounted, preventing it from slamming.

At the turn of the century, Archibald was 61. He continued to work as a shoemaker and along with his son, who worked as a grocer, supported an entire household that included Archibald’s wife Helen, his 23 year old son and his son’s wife Maud, Archibald’s 17 year old daughter Helen, and Maud’s 6 month old infant, also named Helen. Archibald owned the home, at 717 Congress Street.

He shared a shop downtown at 128 East Michigan Avenue with the candymakers Schiappacasse and Bullo and with insurance agent Edmund Hewitt. The shared shop’s neighbors included the F. C. Banghart meat market and the Senate Saloon.

In his 60s, Archibald was still not finished with inventing. In 1902, he filed for a patent for his improved hook and eye fastener, an intricate wire contraption that appears to have been intended for use on clothing, not shoes. Soon afterwards, Archibald turned 70. The art of shoemaking that he’d learned as a boy in Glasgow had enabled him to make a living, maintain a downtown shop, and successfully support a family in America for many decades.

Archibald’s wife Helen passed away and was buried in Highland Cemetery. Shortly after his 71st birthday, Archibald fell ill. He was taken to Ann Arbor’s Homeopathic Hospital and there died.

On Archibald’s death certificate, the coroner wrote as cause of death “autointoxication.” The period term did not refer to alcohol but to a theory of the day that self-poisoning resulted from incorrect nutrition or malfunction of the digestive system. Archibald’s daughter Jean signed the death certificate.

Archibald was buried with Helen in block 54 of Highland Cemetery.

Have an old-time story to share? Drop Laura  a line at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

Next year’s class will include Chad Witkowski (Tampa, Fla.-Steinbrenner) and Ian Ham (Tampa, Fla.-Tampa Catholic) who hail from Tampa, Fla. and who Alexander feels will make an immediate impact at Eastern Michigan.

Witkowski was one of the top hitters and pitchers for Steinbrenner High School in 2010. He hit .481 with eight doubles, nine home runs, 24 RBI and 21 runs scored. On the mound, Witkowski was 8-1 with a slim 2.16 ERA, striking out 44 batters over 48 and two-thirds innings.

“He is a very good athlete with big time power potential at the college level,” Alexander said. “He can play numerous positions with a bat that must stay in the lineup.”

Ham was a Tampa Tribune All-Hillsborough County honorable mention selection as a junior for Tampa Catholic High School in 2010. He was also a member of the 2009 RBI World Series qualifying Tampa Rays, a member of the National Honor Society and made the Principal’s Honor Roll with a 3.78 weighted GPA.

“He is a 6-foot, 6-inch right-hander with a fastball that reaches in the upper 80’s,” Alexander said. “Ham is fierce competitor with serious power-pitching potential.”

Wikowski and Ham will join newcomer and sophomore Kristian Calibuso as natives of Florida on the EMU baseball team in 2012.

“Coach [Andrew] Maki did another great job bringing in players who fit our system,” Alexander said. “I am excited about Ian and Chad as they are great student-athletes with good GPA’s. They will make an immediate impact in our program on and off the field.”

Wiedman's Ford dealership stood in the downtown bus station parking lot on Pearl Street.

“Any prisoners confined in the jail on Thanksgiving Day will be served the usual menu of bologna and bread,” said the November 20, 1941 Ypsilanti Daily Press in an article about Thanksgiving Day menus in the city’s public institutions.

The article went on to say that Beyer Hospital, the Ypsilanti State Hospital southwest of town, and Leland Sanitarium north of town could expect the traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Beyer also planned to serve celery and pear pickles and Leland would serve tomato bouillon and celery hearts. At the State Hospital, staff received a turkey dinner but patients made do with pork chops and mashed potatoes.

But the austere jail repast, served only about two weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor, was an augury of rationed Thanksgiving meals to come.

Food was not the only item that people were asked to cut back on.

Sugar was the first food to be rationed in May of 1942, and would be the last item to leave the ration list in 1947. By the fall of 1942, the price of turkeys was soaring. “The housewife shopping for turkey and trimmings today is realizing the high cost of being thankful,” noted an article in the November 25, 1942 Ypsilanti Daily Press. “Turkeys are fine this year, but high! They’re also plentiful but not for civilians. The Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, WAACS and WAVES have gobbled up so many gobblers that many markets in the larger cities won’t have a turkey left on Thanksgiving eve.”

The article continued, “You can be thankful if you have coffee on hand otherwise tea will top off your meal as all coffee sales are frozen this week.” Three days later on November 28, 1942, coffee joined sugar on the ration list, to be purchased with stamps from one’s personal ration book.

The Ypsilanti Archives safeguards former Ypsilanti Press editor Eileen Harrison’s World War II ration books. At the time, Eileen was 40 years old, single, and living at 413 Washtenaw. The Archives contains her gas ration book, showing that she had an “A” rating for her 1935 coupe. This was the smallest ration (about 3 or 4 gallons a week) and was allotted to those whose driving was deemed nonessential to the war effort. “B” and “C” ratings offered greater amounts of gas, “T” was given to truckers, and “X,” the category allowing unlimited use of gas, was given to civil defense workers and public safety officials.

Eileen Harrison's food ration book

The Archives also contains Eileen’s ration book for food (at left), with an array of blue stamps used to buy processed and canned foods. Red stamps were used to buy meat. Stamps could not be saved up for a big Thanksgiving meal. Every week the Office of Price Administration in charge of the rationing program published lists of the specific stamp numbers that could be used that week and that week only to purchase specified quantities of food such as coffee. The office was trying to prevent hoarding.

“Enough coffee will be available during the life of the first coupon, but if everyone tries to redeem all of his stamps, the first day or the first week, there simply will not be enough to go around,” said an article in the November 28, 1942 Ypsilanti Daily Press. “Because of the perishable nature of the roasted and ground bean, the administration pointed out that excessively large household stocks would mean that people would be drinking stale coffee.”

On March 29, 1943 the rationed-foods list added many more foods, including cheese, butter, edible fats, canned fish and milk, processed foods, and just about every imaginable variety of fresh, frozen, smoked, canned, or preserved meat, including turkeys. The March 12, 1943 Ypsilanti Daily Press listed the new weekly limits per person:

“Meat—2 to 2 ¼ lbs.
Butter—4 ½ oz.
Lard—4 oz.
Margarine—1 1/3 oz.
Cheese—slightly less than 2 oz.
Shortening—3 oz.”

The paper pointed out that this was far more than was being rationed to the British, who could get only 1 ¼ pound of meat and 2 ounces of butter per week.

"Have you every seen a child of Hitler?" asked the ad. "They're thin, scrawny children . . ."

Ads in the Ypsilanti papers reflected food concerns. A March 12, 1943 ad for the Savage Community Store off Holmes Road says, “Don’t waste food: store it properly, prepare it carefully, buy it sensibly.” In the same edition, a Morton’s Salt ad proclaims, “Salt on grapefruit makes it sweeter.” A November 26, 1943 ad for Warner Dairy at 928 West Michigan Avenue said, “Hitler’s Children Don’t Get Milk Every Day—Be Thankful That You Do!”

Ypsilantians preparing for Thanksgiving that month were helped by an easing of meat point requirements. “Despite the fowl shortage,” said an article in the November 25, 1943 Ypsilanti Daily Press, “Ypsilanti’s soldiers and civilians apparently have not suffered and Thanksgiving menus today appear equal to those of previous years with roast turkey the favorite . . .”

It wouldn’t be until Thanksgiving of 1945, months after the surrender of German and Japanese forces, that the two-and-one-half-year federal rationing of meat ended, on November 24. For some Ypsilantians that post-war Thanksgiving was likely the first lavish meal in years.

At other homes, the feast table had empty chairs.

Ypsilanti merchants planned an end-of-November Christmas shopping event. “‘The lights will be on again’ marking the end of wartime restrictions,” said an article in the November 27, 1945 Ypsilanti Daily Press. “Ypsilanti merchants will do their utmost to make this a real old-time Christmas. Toys are here in profusion, and gifts for adults too, in such quantity and assortment as the limited market permits.” The event would feature strolling musicians, a performance by the Drum and Bugle Corps, the Boy Scout Drum Corps, and a torchlight parade to the Post Office where Santa would hold court.

After privation and sorrow, worry and loss, rations and restrictions, the city was thankful for peace.

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives.” Have a WWII story to share for a future column? Contact her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

Right after World War II, electric washing machines were an exciting new possibility for Ypsilanti families. Detroit Edison advertised them in its November 26, 1945 Ypsilanti Daily Press ad. Next to the image of a presumed housewife’s face, the ad copy read, “My electric life is wonderful—and it will be still better.”

The war was over. During it, production of consumer appliances had all but ceased, in favor of steering raw materials to bombers, tanks, and soldiers’ supplies. At war’s end, many of the appliances in Ypsilanti homes dated from the Depression, or earlier.

Factories reverted from wartime production to consumer goods. Metals, rubber, and other resources again became available to domestic manufacturers.

The washing machine in Detroit Edison’s Press ad resembled a barrel. “A peek into my basement,” reads the ‘housewife’s’ narration, “would reveal . . . an all-electric laundry that washes, rinses, and damp-dries [spins] my clothes . . .” Clothes still had to be hung on the clothesline or a rack to dry. But the electric washer was a big step up from hand-cranked wooden washing machines resembling a lidded half-barrel, such as the one in the Ypsilanti Historical Society’s kitchen.

Electric clothes driers, also from Detroit Edison, wouldn’t appear in Ypsilanti newspaper advertisements for another decade. “For the price of a laundry basket you can do 50 loads in your electric clothes dryer,” read a September 4, 1956 Ypsilanti Daily Press ad. “No more heavy clothes baskets to lug outdoors. Just turn the dial to get soft, fluffy laundry every time. No wonder smart homemakers say: ‘You can live Better . . . Electrically.’”

The electric washer wasn’t the only new postwar appliance advertised in the 1945 Detroit Edison ad. Another was a home freezer that offered “fresh foods at any season of the year,” as opposed to seasonal eating. Mention was also made of a “safe” refrigerator.

This echoes earlier ads for GE refrigerators, whose cylindrical compressors on top led to the public’s nicknaming them “Monitor Top,” due to the visual similarity to the famed Civil War ironclad vessel the “Monitor.” One 1927 Monitor Top ad read that it is now “safe to be hungry,” suggesting that food spoiled relatively quickly in old-fashioned iceboxes.

The other two appliances in the 1945 Detroit Edison ad are a “clean” electric range (as opposed to a sooty wood or coal stove) and an air conditioner that is the size of a modern fridge and dishwasher combined. The ad also read “No more worrying about hot water in the morning, for my husband’s shaving, or during the day for the hot water needed for a thousand and one chores, and at night for the refreshing baths we all look forward to so much.”

Reliable hot water that didn’t need to be heated on a stovetop was also a selling point for the Ypsilanti City Gas Department. The YCGD, headquartered at 111 Pearl Street (now the site of Congdon’s Hardware) also jumped into the postwar business of selling appliances. Its April 23, 1946 Ypsilanti Daily Press ad promises, “all the hot water you need from an automatic GAS water heater on 24-hour service for kitchen, laundry, bath.” This device was an early iteration of what is now known as a tankless water heater.

The gas company ad’s main selling point, however, was that the kitchen would be cooler without a cast iron stove.

The electric or gas range wasn’t new. As early as 1933 electric ranges were advertised in local papers. “Enjoy these advantages of Electric Cooking!” read one November 6, 1933 Detroit Edison Ad in the Press. The ad listed the five virtues of electric cooking. The first was “clean.” “There is no smoke or soot to blacken utensils or soil kitchen walls or curtains.” The next benefit was “waterless cooking.” “With your electric range you use no water for roasts and only half a cup for vegetables.” The remaining 3 virtues were “modern,” “healthful,” and “full flavored.” The ad offered a trial period of six months for a dollar a month, after which the user could buy the range or have it removed from the home at no expense.

Even earlier, in 1907 the Washtenaw Light and Power Company held its “Great Free Electric Cooking Demonstration” downtown, as noted in an article in the April 18, 1907 Ypsilanti Daily Press.

“The audience at the cooking demonstration grows larger with each succeeding day and each lady who has attended is greatly enthused over the wonderful things that are being accomplished with the agent electricity.”

The article continued, “The demonstration of cooking is made at a very attractive booth, and here also are exhibited and used the different utensils, such as combination liquid beaters, cereal cookers, coffee percolators, chafing dishes, broilers, frying pans, and ovens, all of which are extremely serviceable. A huge Japanese umbrella, studded with variously colored electric lights, is suspended above the booth, giving the display a brilliant appearance. Attendees sampled tomato rarebit, tapioca pudding, coffee, and cake.”

But electrical devices didn’t find widespread acceptance in town until the post-WWII period. Then, the new crop of mechanized household aids put money in Detroit Edison’s pocket and gave housewives some reprieve from long days of backbreaking labor.

It’s hard to imagine being grateful for laundry. But after the long desperation of the Depression and the food and fuel rationing and shortages of World War Two, the postwar tide of new home helpers gave new freedom to Ypsilanti housewives.

Something as prosaic as an electric washing machine was a miracle for which to be thankful.

Laura is the authos of “Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives.” Have an idea for a column? Contact Laura at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

One tiny item, so humble it never received an official patent, can be added to the wide range of inventions, agricultural implements, milling parts, paper, boxes, underwear, and other products once made in the city.

The item’s birthplace was the turn-of-the-century drugstore that once occupied the present-day space of the Rocket novelty store, on the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Huron.

David Morford and William Hyzer ran the City Drugstore. Hyzer had begun work there as a clerk after graduating Ypsilanti High School in 1881. David rented a room from a downtown family. Hyzer had married Mary Corkins two years earlier and lived at 417 Adams. In 1892, David was 26 and Hyzer 29.

That year, City Drug Store was one of five drugstores in the downtown area. The shops had different specialties. City Drug Store stocked drugs, perfumes, wallpaper, paint brushes, and varnishes. Another of the druggists, Fred Davis, stocked a wide range of patent medicines. He offered for sale such concoctions as “Johnson’s Magnetic Oil,” the “Japanese Pile Cure,” and “Dr. E. C. West’s Nerve and Brain Treatment.” It was a golden age of patent medicines, soon to come to an end under the Pure Food laws of 1906.

The other downtown druggists included Frank Smith, C. W. Rogers, and E. R. Beal. The five stores had a rotating agreement to cover Sundays. Only one shop stayed open all day. Cards in the other stores’ windows directed shoppers to the open shop, in case patrons desired a health-giving quaff of Sulphur Bitters, perhaps in the privacy of the backyard privy, on the Lord’s Day.

As well as cooperating, of course the five shops were in competition. In 1892 David and William dreamed up a new product that seemed to fill a niche and offer a panacea for winter weather. The partners mixed ingredients (using a recipe now lost to history) in the back of their shop. Finally they found the right combination. This new product, they hoped, would bring streams of new customers to the City Drug Store. David and William packed their creation into containers for sale, stocked it in their shop, and took out a large ad in the Ypsilanti Commercial.

The miracle product was Ypsalveo.

Likely pronounced “Ip-SAL-vee-oh,” the substance was a lip balm that also could be used as a skin cream. “YPSALVEO is very healing and softening,” says a November 11, 1892 Ypsilanti Commercial advertisement, “for use on lips, hands, and face. Will cure chapped lips and cold sores, or any irritation of the skin. Price 25 cents per box [$6 today].”

The ad was a large one, right next to fellow druggist Fred Davis’s even larger one advertising his dubious nostrums. The Ypsalveo ad continued to run for several more weeks, as David and William kept manufacturing the balm.

Ypsalveo could have joined the ranks of Atlantis mineral water or Ypsilanti Underwear as a famous city product. It’s conceivable that even today, instead of Chapstick and hand cream, Ypsalveo could have become a common household product. (Possible jingle: “For tender skin and lips aglow/Apply and try Ypsalveo!”)

But in a few weeks the Ypsalveo ads vanished from the pages of the Commercial.

Then a strange event in the shop seemed to presage disaster. In the summer of 1896, David and William found two partially burned boxes of matches in their shop. The partners “are congratulating themselves on a narrow escape from a conflagration,” said the August 10 issue of American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record. “They now devote their leisure time to speculating on the possible way in which the matches became ignited.”

Unfortunately, with the failure of Ypsalveo, the two had perhaps more leisure time than they needed. The days of the City Drugstore were near their end.

In 1896, Morford signed up to serve in the Spanish-American War. Joining Company G of the First Infantry, he was promoted to corporal, and reenlisted. He earned the ranks of sergeant, second lieutenant, and was honorably discharged as captain in 1901. He did not return to the drugstore.

Also in 1901, William sold his interest in the store to Hillsdale druggist F. A. Hodges. Hyzer soon moved with his wife Mary to York Township in western Washtenaw.

After his return from military service, the 35-year-old David rented a room in the Hamilton Street home of 45-year-old town grocer John Lamb, who lived there with his 35-year-old wife Minnie, his 54-year-old sister Jane, and his 6-year-old son Charles. David found a job as an insurance agent. The dream of owning his own store was gone.

The insurance agent job didn’t last. By 1903, David was working as a traveling salesman. He lost that job as well. Two years later, he was working as a common laborer, one of the lowest-status jobs then available. As a sign of the racism of the times, it was one of the very few jobs, along with barber, sign-painter, railroad worker, and junkman, that black men in the city could hold.

David then disappears from available records. Not even his death seems to be locally recorded.

The only apparent memorial to David and his ambitions, a humble one, is hidden: in a November Ypsilanti Commercial Ypsalveo ad, shrunken to a tiny size, halfway through a roll of microfilm stacked alongside other rolls in one drawer of one cabinet in the microfilm area on the third floor of Halle Library.

Ypsalveo!

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales of the Ypsilanti Archives.” Have an old-time story to share? Contact her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

It was a citywide blackout—on purpose. No cars moved on the streets. Homes and businesses were quiet. Families brought their newspapers, books, and sewing to their homes’ “blackout rooms,” whose windows were lined with heavy fabric to block any leaking light.

During World War II, Ypsilanti residents, like those in other Michigan cities, took precautions for hometown civil defense should enemy planes appear overhead. Of course the city seemed like an especially vulnerable target due to its nearby bomber plant.

Not long prior to the city’s first test blackout, the City Council had passed an ordinance detailing the rules relating to blackouts and air raid procedures. The ordinance specified that all lights within a home must be extinguished. It   also said that for any home displaying light under blackout conditions, police had the right to enter the home “using no more than reasonable and necessary force” in order to extinguish the illumination. Violators could be fined $100 [$1,300 today] or jailed for 90 days, or both.

Furthermore, citizens were barred from making any siren or horn sound similar to the air raid signal siren.

The main air raid siren stood on top of the Hotel Huron, now the Centennial Center at Pearl and Washington. It consisted of four large horns pointed in four different directions. The Hotel Huron’s horns were augmented by hand-operated mobile sirens at such outlying locations around the city as Prospect and Forest streets.
The air raid sirens sounded one of four signals as mandated by Michigan’s State Director of Civilian Defense.

The initial “Blue Warning,” signifying that an air raid was probable, consisted of a two-minute steady blast of horns, sirens, or whistles. Civilian defense personnel were mobilized, lights were turned out, and traffic switched to low-beam headlights.

Next could come the “Red Warning,” meaning that an air raid was imminent. The horn would sound a series of short blasts. All lights had to be extinguished, traffic except for emergency vehicles had to stop and turn off lights, and the public was to take shelter.

If the immediate danger was past, another alert, also confusingly named a “Blue Warning,” would be sounded. This signified that “Raiders May Return,” and although traffic was allowed to move again, with low-beam lights, homes and factories remained dark.

The all clear signal was three one-minute blasts, at which sound lights could be relit and normal conditions resumed.

For local Civil Defense workers, the U.S. Citizens Defense Corps of Michigan prepared a booklet of “Tactical Training Operations.” The work consists of sixteen scenarios involving war strikes in various parts of the city and were meant as mental training exercises. The apocalyptic scenarios likely approximated some city residents’ fears.

A crude hand-drawn map accompanied the first scenario.

It is 2:15 a.m. Ypsilanti is in blackout. The [pictured] map above shows the area which you are patrolling.

A bomb has exploded on the pavement of Woods Road at the corner or intersection of Summit Street, blocking Woods Road entirely. An incendiary bomb has started a fire at 117 Linden. A bomb exploded in the lawn beside Woods Road, where a party had been in progress. At least 20 people were known to [have been] in the house. A corner of the house is blown in. No fire. By the light of an incendiary burning on the street nearby you can see the building might collapse. Women scream behind the wreckage. You cannot tell if anyone is injured.

Another scenario reads,

A raid is in progress. It is 2 p.m. Traffic has stopped and the only people to be seen are two air raid wardens bravely making their rounds. One of then suddenly stops as a man calls to him from the doorway of 603 Emmet Street, shouting, “We’ve been gassed!”

A wind is blowing from the South. The warden notices a strong, very pleasant smell in the air, like the fragrance of green corn or new mown hay. Another man in the house begins vomiting. He appears dopey, and cannot tell what is the matter. A neighbor rushes up and offers the sick man a drink of whiskey as a stimulant.

A third reads,

Bombs exploding at the intersection of River and Cross Streets have demolished the building on the southwest corner. Rubble blocks the railroad tracks, a section of which is torn up. Windows are broken from the O. E. Thompson building and a small fire is starting at the bottom of the railroad watchman’s tower.

Each scenario ends with the question, “What would you do?”

On the night of Thursday, June 25, the city made a trial blackout run. The newspaper had run instructions the day before, including the warning to refrain from smoking a pipe, cigar, or cigarette where it could be seen from the air.

At 10:27 p.m. the initial signal sounded. Citizens had three minutes to make sure all was dark by 10:30. Drivers pulled over their cars and shut off their lights. Air raid wardens, who had met a half hour ago at the 20 air raid stations around the city, set off walking on inspection rounds to ensure compliance.

Finally, at the all-clear signal, cars were restarted and windows lit up. The sound of a radio came drifting through a screen door.

But for fifteen minutes, the city had been still and dark, practicing for the dread sound of approaching bombers in an enemy air raid which thankfully never came.

Have an old-time story to share? Contact Laura at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

As seen in this 1915 plat map, Belle Street began at the conjunction of Grove and Prospect roads.

On a chilly January day in the depths of the Depression, a macabre find by city sewer workers excited the curiosity of an entire city.

“Discovery of a human skeleton three feet below the surface of the ground on Bell Street this morning has given rise to numerous guesses as to how it came there,” read the January 17, 1933 Ypsilanti Daily Press.

Bell (earlier spelled “Belle Street”) was a onetime route wending east from the intersection of Grove and Prospect towards Belleville. Today the street is called Tyler Road. On a modern Ypsilanti map, it appears as three discrete sections, chopped into pieces over the years by the construction of I-94 and the Willow Run bomber plant. Bell Street first appears on 1864 Ypsilanti plat maps.

The paper continued, “The bones were of an adult person of large build and were discovered by a workman digging on the sewer. Tom Smith [found] the first bones and discovered they were in no order, skull and jaw bones lying next to those of the thigh and the legs.

“A box had evidently contained the remains at one time, as rotted fragments were uncovered around the bones. That burial had taken place not so many years ago was indicated by the fact that bits of rusted metal which appeared to be screws were found imbedded in the wood . . . although cavities were located in the teeth, no dental work was evident.”

The paper went on to say that the placement of the bones was all the more strange as a sewer main ran directly under them. Hadn’t the former sewer diggers found the grisly objects?

The find was the talk of the town. The following day’s paper suggested that the bones might not have been discovered by the former sewer diggers because they had used a tunneling technique that bored beneath the bones, leaving them undisturbed, instead of digging a ditch that might have uncovered the remains.

On January 19, an expert was called in to assess the site: U-M anthropology professor W. B. Hinsdale. Hinsdale was known for his 1927 book The Indians of Washtenaw County, Michigan in which he discussed area burial mounds and identified many Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti roads as onetime Indian trails.

The bones “are those of four persons, two men and a woman, and a child,” according to Hinsdale, reported the January 19 Ypsilanti Daily Press.

“No implements, jewelry, or other trinkets were found with the bones and their position in the earth led to the belief that the bodies may have been crowded into a small box in a cramped position and buried in that way.”

The paper continued, “Dr. Hinsdale states that the bones of several individual were frequently buried together by the Indians of this region, and only a few months ago a large quantity of bones of men, women, and children were discovered together on property near here owned by the Ford Motor Co. The presence of the fragments of board, however, is a disturbing element.”

Finally a local old-timer came forth to contribute information. “An explanation of the mystery of the bones in the box that has aroused local imagination since Tuesday was offered today by Robert Simons . . . The bones were placed where they were found on Bell St. by workmen about thirty-five years ago according to Mr. Simons. He stated that they were first found when the ditch for the water main was being dug . . .”

“Mr. Simons was foreman of this crew and said he thought the main was installed around 1896. There was something of a mystery about the discovery at that time, as the bones were found directly in the center of the road. Mr. Simons says that he had lived in Ypsilanti since shortly after 1860 and the road which is now Bell Street was there at this time.

The paper reported local residents’ speculation that the bones could be those from an Indian burial, but added “No trinkets, trophies, or weapons commonly associated with Indian burials were found in the grave.”

And then the story faded from the paper.

No further mention was made as to whether the bones had been collected, taken to U-M by Hinsdale, or reburied.

Not once in this series of newspaper articles was there any mention that the Prospect and Grove intersection was the onetime site of Woodruff’s Grove, the original 1823 settlement that predated Ypsilanti. A plaque tucked within the intersection of the two streets marks the settlement’s approximate spot.

Woodruff’s Grove had its own small graveyard, on land later known as the Foerster Farm, overlooking the river. Several early Grove settlers succumbed to “chills and fever” or “fever and ague” (malaria) and other diseases and were buried there. The land lay just south of Bell Street and the intersection of Prospect and Grove, and extended to the riverbank. Many years later much of Foerster’s Farm was flooded by Henry Ford’s 1933 damming of the Huron leading to the creation of Ford Lake.

Were the Bell Street bones the remains of Woodruff’s Grove settlers? Perhaps those of Benjamin Woodruff himself? A grave marker stands for Woodruff in Ann Arbor’s Forest Hill Cemetery—but Woodruff died in 1837, long before Forest Hill was dedicated in 1859. There’s speculation that this grave marker is just a cenotaph, a memorial erected in honor of a deceased person whose remains lie elsewhere.

Do the aged Bell Street bones still lie beneath Tyler Road near the meeting-point of Prospect and Grove?

Ypsilanti may never know.

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales of the Ypsilanti Archives.” Have an idea for a column? Contact her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

A cartoon in the 1915 Aurora depicted boardinghouse "hash" as an appetizing blend of buttons, safety pins, and paper clips.

EMU students in 1907 didn’t have campus dorms, personal transportation, or on-campus meal plans. A humor article in the 1907 “Aurora” yearbook illustrates how different—and in some ways, how timelessly similar—were students’ lives.

“A Day at the Normal” [EMU was then known as Normal College] is a chronological account that kicks off in early morning.

6 A.M.: Loud ringing of alarm clocks.
6:05 A.M.: Yawns and groans.
6:10 A.M.: General getting up.
6:30 A.M.: Mad scrambling to get to the boarding-house.
6:35 A.M.: Waiting for breakfast.
6:40 A.M.: Waiter appears with a dish of sawdust in one hand and some chopped hay in the other.

By and large students rented rooms in family homes throughout the city for living quarters. The school coordinated the placement of students with homeowners willing to house a student or students of either gender—co-ed houses were not allowed (a rule that in later years was relaxed). School officials kept an eye on the homes in order to make any necessary changes to their “approved homes” list.

A few such private homes also provided meals, but most students subscribed to a meal plan at a separate boarding house, whose name derives from the “board,” or table. The term “boardinghouse reach” originates from this era, evoking a tableful of hungry diners but only one salt shaker. At this time, a week’s worth of three daily meals at a boarding house cost students around $2, about $50 today.

After leaving their rooming houses and eating breakfast at their boarding houses, students headed to school.

7:00 A.M. Seniors slowly amble towards the Library.
7:50: General evacuation of the Library. Many collisions in the hall. Great crowd of boys at the social corner causes traffic to cease for a time.
7:59: Empty corridors. Re-echoing footsteps in the distance.
8:05: Janitors sit down on the steps for an hour’s visit.
8:07: [Psychology] Prof. Laird: “I shall keep all these people who are late, after school.”
8:10: [French and German] Prof. Ford: “How many of you people have had your breakfast this morning?” (Half of the class look silly).

The Normal was a teacher training school with an on-site grade school where senior Normal students practiced teaching classes, under the eye of the dreaded supervising “Critic Teacher.”

8:50: Seniors rush to the Training School, pleasant (?) anticipation in every feature.
9:05: Critic teacher comes in, notebook in hand.
9:06: Courage flies out of the window.
9:30: Student teacher drops lifeless to the floor.
9:32: She is pushed out of the door to make way for another victim.

After morning classes came the mad scramble to return to the boarding house for lunch, with student couples tending to lag a bit behind. If lunch was eaten expeditiously, there might be time to enjoy another stroll back to school with one’s sweetheart.

11:50: Normal doors are burst open by vast crowds of students. They rush for the boarding houses at break-neck speed.
12: Grub.
12:30 P.M.: Groups of well-filled (?) students issue forth and go down the street in the following order: Miss Ronan and Mr. Engle; Miss Warren and Mr. Miller; Mr. Caswell and a bunch of seven or more; Hugo and Clara; Withenbury and Louise; Roy and Brice; C. P. and Anne; “Doc” and his pockets.

In the afternoon came class observation time for student teachers, and other classes that included music lessons and student teaching feedback critique sessions.

12:55 P.M.: The ‘one o’clock’ gong sounds. Groups of light-hearted [grade school] children skip toward the Training School, while here and there a solitary senior wends his weary way thither to “observe.”
1:30 P.M.: Unearthly screeches from the Conservatory denote the fact that someone is taking a lesson.
3 P.M.: Critic Meeting. Every one hustles to get there and learn how to receive the worst “slams” with a smiling countenance.

In the afternoon, sports practices began, occasionally interrupted by the diversion of a wondrous contraption then rare in the city.

4 P.M.: The Tennis Courts are full of people bobbing around picking up white balls. The baseball boys trot around after [Coach] Schulte.
4:15 P.M.: An automobile goes down Cross Street. All occupation ceases.
4:20 P.M.: Occupations are again resumed.
5:15 P.M.: “The studious people in the Library are requested to ‘bring books to the desk and get reserved books.”

The school day was over. Students could return to their boarding house for dinner.

5:30 P.M.: “Hash time” has arrived. The odors issuing forth from the doors and windows proclaim the ingredients.

Those ingredients were lambasted in a satirical “Menu from a Leading Boarding House” article, published in the 1918 Aurora’s jokes section.

BREAKFAST
Corn Flakes, Toasted
Diluted Fluid of Bovine
Encrusted Doughpiles, Browned
Meat, in absentia
Essence of H2O, Filtered
Mock Coffee, with condemned milk
Napkins

DINNER [Lunch]
Soup in bowls
Bread, individual slices
Vegetables sometimes
Roast Beef a la tuffo
Essence H2O refiltered
Mock Coffee heated
Pie Filet de Vacuum
Napkins, Folded

SUPPER [Dinner]
Beef, resurrected
Potatoes, with eyes
Hot Canines, deanimated
Aqua pura, in glasses
Mock Coffee again
Dried apricots, bonded vintage 1763
Cookies, a la hardtack from Plymouth
Napkins, Refolded

After dinner, the students’ evenings were free for study, or less scholastic pursuits.

6 P.M.: Pear [a joke on “pair,” or couple] time again.
6:30 P.M.: The beauties of the Huron are viewed by twilight.

Visiting another rooming house was allowed, but supervised. All too soon the rooming houses’ curfew of 10 P.M. would arrive, and visitors had to leave their charming companions. Tomorrow was another school day.

10 P.M.: Many doors are opened and young men come out.
11 P.M.: The streets are quiet. The High School clock and the moon keep a silent watch over the slumbering town.

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives,” available on Amazon. Have an idea for a column? Contact her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

Modern-day Ypsilanti was once the site of the intersection of several Indian trails, including the Great Sauk Trail (now Michigan Avenue). Four tribes are thought to have lived in the area: the Huron (also called Wyandot), Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potowatomi.

In 1927, Wilbert B. Hinsdale published his study of the area’s indigenous people, “The Indians of Washtenaw County Michigan.” A former U-M internal medicine professor and dean of the school’s Homeopathic Medical College, Hinsdale’s lifelong interest in archaeology led him into the field after his 1922 retirement from medicine. He was put in charge of U-M’s archaeological collections and eventually became known as the “Father of Michigan Archaeology.”

The 1927 Hinsdale map showed a burial site north of Washtenaw, marked by a circle with a cross.

“The Indians of Washtenaw County” contains a map indicating several burial sites in Washtenaw County that include Saline and Ypsilanti. The symbol for the Ypsilanti burial site on the small-scale map is placed north of Washtenaw within the westward curve of Huron Street as it turns to the northern edge of the EMU campus. This placement, if accurate, suggests that burial grounds extended further north along the river than the Riverside Park area, possibly into the modern-day EMU campus.

In 1970, onetime EMU student Edward Heyman wrote a one-page memoir, preserved in the Ypsilanti Archives, of his encounter with a purported Native American burial site. As a student, he volunteered to help with a 1920s pine tree planting program on the then-northwest corner of EMU’s campus (now the site of the Student Center). “I was interested in the area,” wrote Heyman, “and especially in the fact that Professor William H. Sherzer, head of the Department of Natural Science, told us that the area was the site of an early Indian cemetery.” The group planted what later became known as Pine Grove.

In the 1940s, when the university planned to cut down some of the pines in order to build the Pine Grove Terrace Apartments, alum Heyman returned to look at the site. “Seeing the pine trees, which I helped plant years before, being cut down and basements being dug, I walked over to the area to see what was happening. In the debris of the digging were a dozen of more old, old bones. The man in charge of the excavation said they were Indian bones, that the digging had uncovered remains of several graves.”

The Pine Grove Terrace apartments were demolished in the early 2000s to clear space for the Student Center. The Center’s Kiva Room rises over the approximate location of the onetime graves.

There’s other evidence that the burial sites were not confined to the Riverside Park area. In 1914, burial sites were discovered in the Water Street area, at Parsons and Lincoln streets. In 1914, the Westfield and Fall River Lumber company had a lumberyard there. Behind it lay a gravel pit, where the graves were discovered.

“Men who are drawing gravel from the pit on what is known as the Jan Williams place back of the [lumber yard] for the state road have come upon three Indian skeletons,” said the June 11, 1914 Ypsilanti Daily Press. “”Monday morning Mr. Platt, who is in charge of the work, found a large copper kettle which was filled with seeds resembling pumpkin seeds but upon trying to get the kettle from the ground it fell to pieces. “This morning the men found two more smaller kettles which were extremely heavy and a few minutes later they unearthed three skeletons deeply embedded in the sand.”

The term “kettle” refers not to a teakettle but to the wide-bottomed copper cooking bowls found in numerous indigenous burial sites in Michigan and throughout the Midwest and Northeast.

The paper continued, “Upon the bones of two of these they found two bracelets and in the graves they found small white beads which were still fastened to a loose woven cloth. These also fell to pieces. A large double cross and a smaller cross was found, also two silver ornaments which resembled a whisk broom holder, the large one with a picture and the words ‘King of Spain,’ a small brush which showed the trace of color upon it and many other small silver pieces with fancy ornaments upon them. A spoon was among the collection.

“One of the skeletons was in perfect condition and the workmen scraped the sand away but when they attempted to move it, it fell in a heap.

“Professor Jefferson from the Normal College was on the ground and made several photographs of the skeletons and the various ornaments.

The Water Street location corresponds with local onetime county surveyor Charles Woodard’s 1893 memoir, which includes his childhood recollection of Ypsilanti in the early 1830s.

“At times hundreds [of Indians],” he recalled, “might be seen camped out on the banks of the Huron near the East Public Square [a onetime city park on the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Park Street] but I do not remember ever hearing of anyone ever being molested by them or even troubled by their begging food. . . They were better off than their white brothers, being better hunters.”

The site was neither studied or preserved using modern archeological protocols.

“Early this morning students from the Normal College as well as others began to arrive on the scene to gather relics,” reported a front page story in the June 12 Ypsilanti Daily Press.

“One small boy had several teeth which he had taken from one of the skulls; another had a collar bone, and still another a piece of the spinal column. Bert Vealey, one of the workmen, decided that if there was to be anything left to show, it would be a wise idea to take steps to care for the bones so he procured a box and placed them in it, and took them to his home on South Street.

The paper continued, “Oscar Lawrence found three bracelets, a silver crown, a silver heart, and two copper kettles. Lewis Green found a whistle made from a buffalo horn. Frank Fletcher found a large cross made from silver about ten inches in length. James Carer found a bracelet [and] silver buckle. Verne Vealey found a knife handle made of bone, also some quill shields. Ben Singer found a breast pin with three crosses attached and ornamented with two small silver bells.”

Although the site was destroyed, a memorial remains to the onetime indigenous Ypsilantians whose graves were found in the gravel pit.

The gravel was used in 1914 to build the state road M-23. Later, this road was called US-112 and subsequently US-12, or Michigan Avenue.

The road workers unwittingly commemorated in concrete the route that the Native Americans found in the Ypsilanti gravel pit may have traveled many times: the Great Sauk Trail.

Laura Bien is a local history writer. Have an idea for a column? Email her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

Brandy’s is located at 902 West Michigan Avenue and has been owned by the Cathy and Samir Hanna since 1999. Before then it was called Forbes Market.

The controversial store has had a long history of problems with the City and neighbors. The owners in 2009 signed a consent decree with the City to continue operations after the city filed suit declaring the property a nuisance. A report indicated the store had over 100 calls for service, twice as many calls for police service than any other store or location in the city. The two year consent order expired yesterday, September 1, 2010.

According to the Ypsilanti Police, YPD and Michigan Liquor Control Commission executed a search warrant at 11am today. The search warrant stemmed from several complaints that individuals inside the store were purchasing stolen items and illegally distributing tobacco products. During the month long investigation undercover officers sold numerous items requested by store staff and purchased tobacco that was illegaly sold.

In Michigan, tobacco products cannot be sold without a tax stamp, which precludes the selling of individual cigarettes. Brandy’s has been accused in the past of breaking apart packs of cigarettes and selling them as ’singles’. It is unclear if today’s search warrant alleges a similar charge.

During the search, police noted what appeared to be building code violations and called both the Ypsilanti Fire and Building departments to the scene. City inspectors found numerous health and safety concerns and the store was condemned and shuttered.

The liquor store across the street called Cal’s, was also condemned by the city in 2008. The owners of Brandy’s purchased Cal’s and the store has remained closed since it was sold. A quick check shows that Cal’s is still condemned thus preventing the owners of Brandy’s from re-opening across the street.

The case has been turned over to the County Prosecutor for review to determine what, if any, charges will be filed against the owners and employees.

William Cooper's device helped simulate a live frog swimming.

When in 1909 they read the will of Chicago businessman William Cooper, father to Ypsilanti photographer Charles Cooper, it turned out that Charles had inherited a dead frog.

Or, rather, the rights to William’s patent: a complicated bit of fishing tackle that pinned a frog in a lifelike pose.

The “Fisherman’s Friend,” as it was called, consisted of a trident-shaped bit of wire roughly four inches long. The dead frog rested on a little platform on the trident’s center wire, front legs dangling down. The two outer prongs of the trident held the frog’s legs extended backwards. A big hook curled up over the frog’s back. When the contraption was cast on a fishing line and reeled in, the frog would appear to be “swimming” through the water in a lifelike way, to tempt large game fish.

William Cooper had patented his invention in 1906. The patent application said that he had “invented certain new and useful improvements in Fishing-Hooks . . . the invention in this instance resides more particularly in the simplicity of the combination and construction, arrangement, and adaptation of the parts, with the added advantage of cheapness in the manufacture of the device.”

Though it seems a bit complicated, the three-year-old wire device was popular and already being sold around the country. In Ypsilanti, the “Fisherman’s Friend” was sold for fifteen cents [$3.50 today] at E. D. Carpenter’s hardware store at 124 Congress (Michigan Ave) and Shaefer Hardware at 23 Huron.

In 1909, Shaefer’s, on the west side of Huron, was just a few doors south of Cooper’s studio. Cooper’s photographic studio at 39 North Huron occupied the second floor of the onetime post office, at the southwest corner of Huron and Pearl streets. Cooper’s other neighbors on the west side of Huron included the cigar-maker Mathias Stein, the Weinmann-Matthews drugstore, the milliner Marian Clarke sharing a space with the dentist George Mills, and the offices of Ypsilanti physician Ellen Murray. Cooper’s studio was popular—there are many photographs in the Ypsilanti Archives that have the imprint of his name and business.

At his father’s death, Cooper moved all of the machinery used to manufacture the fishing device from Chicago to Ypsilanti, and installed it in the rear of his studio. He intended to carry on his father’s legacy. The local newspaper crowed about this exciting new Ypsilanti business in a front-page, above-the-fold story.

“Within a short time, the city of Ypsilanti will have added another industry,” said the April 27, 1909 Ypsilanti Daily Press.

“Mr. C. E. Cooper, the photographer whose place of business is situated over the post office was bequeathed a patent by his father and intends to start manufacturing on a large scale in the near future.”

Charles had reason to do so—the device was popular. The Press said, “Cooper’s patented snap swivel or the ‘Fisherman’s Friend’ as it is called, has been manufactured for the past three years in Chicago under the direction of Mr. Cooper’s father.”

The article continued, “The Sears-Roebuck Co., of Chicago, probably the largest mail order concern in the world, recently placed an order with Mr. Cooper for 400 gross.

“The Simmons Hardware Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, in a recent letter to Mr. Cooper declared that within a year, their corps of salesmen could handle the entire output of the Cooper company.

“The little contrivance has a decidedly bright future and Mr. Cooper intends to push it extensively within the next year [1910].”

At this dawning of Charles’ fishing tackle empire, tragedy struck.

Charles Cooper became ill in early March, 1911. The doctors summoned could not help him. He took to his bed for six weeks as his wife Matilda tried to help. It was no use. Charles Cooper died on April 18, 1911.

His death certificate says that Charles died of Bright’s disease, a onetime catchall term for several different kidney ailments. Charles was buried in Highland Cemetery.

His widow Matilda lived until 1931. She is buried with Charles in section 49 of Highland.

The cemetery overlooks the Huron River. It’s possible that long after Charles’ death, local fishermen were still enjoying the device patented by his father and sold in Ypsilanti, the “Fisherman’s Friend.”

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales of the Ypsilanti Archives.” Have an old-time Ypsilanti history story to share? Contact her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

With the Primary election on Tuesday, the Little Mayors are back. They are making a list and checking it twice.

The Ypsilanti Police took possession of a new Patrol Cart this afternoon. The cart will be used during festivals and special events.

It was a gift to the department from the Friends of the Ypsilanti Police.

Lula disappeared in the summer of 1905.

When Lula Kohlasch abandoned her husband and children in the summer of 1905, the only thing she left behind was her wheelchair.

The July 19, 1905 Ypsilanti Daily Press said, “If any question as to the metropolitan character of Ypsilanti is still entertained, it will promptly be set at rest by the discovery that the city has its sensations as well as the larger cities. All this came to light this morning by the report of Mr. Kohlasch, a respectable and hardworking man, whose wife, Mrs. Kohlasch, is and has been for some time an invalid and a cripple.”

Charles Kohlasch worked as a day laborer. In 1900, 40-year-old Kohlasch lived in Plymouth with his 24-year-old wife Lula. The Press spelled her name Lura, and on various other records it appears as Lola, Tola, Tula, and Jula. The couple lived with their 3-year-old son Walter and infant Rosella. They had married 4 years prior in nearby Northfield Township.

The family moved to Ypsilanti and by 1903 were renting a home at 438 Chidester Street, midway between Catherine and Spring streets. Two more children followed by 1905. Lula likely had a hard time caring for the 4 children ranging in age from 8 to 2.

Mr. Kohlasch, said the paper, had had difficulty securing household help. He eventually found a good candidate in Detroit, and the young woman began working in the house. Everything seemed fine until “a young fellow,” said the paper, “who makes his home on Forest Avenue at his brother’s, saw the girl for the first time, took her walking and the couple forgot to return. They claim that they expect to be married soon, although the ceremony has not yet taken place.”

Kohlasch was again without help. The Ypsilanti Daily Press said that he went to Ann Arbor to ask a young lady who’d previously worked in the house to return. He likely wanted to hire some help before leaving on a short trip that he and Lula had planned. He’d just been paid for the month–$16, or $380 today.

When Kohlasch returned home, his wife and the money were gone.

Also missing were some of her skirts, blouses, and shoes, as well as 13-year-old neighbor boy Carl Pepper, who had wheeled Lula around town in the past.

“Mr. Kohlasch has reported the matter to the police department,” said the Daily Press, “who are endeavoring to locate the couple. The husband is a hard-working man and is well liked by those who knew them. Mrs. Kohlasch has had every comfort lavished on her by her husband and no explanation of her absence can be offered.”

Lula’s wheelchair was found, said the following day’s Press, at John Schaff’s home at 113 Miles Street.

The paper continued, “Warrants which were sworn out by the father of the boy for truancy and for the woman for abandoning her children are still in the hands of the Ann Arbor officials, who have yet not been able to serve them.”

Gossip swirled around town. “Neighbors claim that Mrs. Kohlasch was not so ill as was supposed,” said the paper. “It is said that frequently on Sundays they would have a violin player at the house and dance at these times. Mr. Kohlasch would join in the merrymaking.”

The paper continued, “When asked about this the husband replied that his wife enjoyed the music as much as any one and sometimes would get up and step around to the music just as any one who is full of life.”

Lula, said her husband, “‘was getting to feel more like herself and had been able to do more than for some time.’”

Kohlasch was asked if the couple had had problems. He replied, said the Press, “‘No, we hadn’t any trouble lately; that is to say since I called her down for being too friendly with the boy, but I thought I had a perfect right to do that under the circumstances. She just laughed at me, but their actions worried me some. I hate to think of her leaving her children so and going off in that way.’”

Pepper was in his last week of summer grade school taught at the Normal College, said the paper.

The Press reported that Kohlasch had left the children with a neighbor. It continued, “When asked if he would take her back [he] replied that the matter was entirely out of his hands now, as he had gone before the prosecuting attorney and the crime for which the warrants were issued is punishable by not less than three years or more than ten.”

Town gossip intensified. “The report that Charles Kohlasch does not look after his children, which has been circulated in some quarters, is not true,” said the July 28, 1905 Ypsilanti Daily Press. “Mr. Kohlasch is a hard-working, industrious man, who bears a good reputation among his neighbors for sobriety and honesty.”

The paper continued, “Since the departure of his wife over a week ago in company with a 13-year-old boy, it has been something of a problem to the father to see how he could care for his motherless brood and at the same time earn money with which to feed and clothe them. Kindly neighbors, pitying the little family, came to the rescue and cared for them until the father could straighten out his affairs and find out what to do. At this point the usual busybodies interested themselves in the matter and applied to County Agent Childs to have them sent to the state public school at Coldwater.”

Agent Childs refused the request, said the Press, and when a local priest offered to place the children in a Catholic children’s home, Kohlasch expressed gratitude but said, as noted in the paper, that “he had made arrangements for a housekeeper to come next Monday and that he will try to keep the little family together.”

He succeeded. The couple eventually reunited.

The reasons for Lula’s disappearance remain unclear.

The family soon moved to Missouri, where son Frank was born, and then Kansas, where daughter Fern was born. Eventually Charles and Lula would return to Missouri, where a separation awaited the couple.

For the moment, however, Charles had succeeded in keeping his family together during a sad and difficult time in Ypsilanti.

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives.” Have an old-time Ypsilanti story to share? Contact her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

Angeline R. (Angie) Veigel p

She was an executive secretary to Local 252 I.B.E.W. and worked as a substitute teacher for Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor Public Schools and Washtenaw Community College. Angie served on the Washtenaw County Jury Board for 13 years. She was instrumental and initiated the Greek/American flags at the Statue of Demetrius in Ypsilanti.

Angie was a member of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and member of Philoptochos Society, Daughters of Penelope, Senior Citizens in Ypsilanti and the church where she held offices and was an active member. She was a lifetime member in the V.F.W. Women’s Auxiliary and a member of Lambda Chi Omega Sorority. Angie loved sports, golf, gardening, crocheting, knitting, music, dancing, traveling and acrobatics.

She is survived by her loving husband, Fred Veigel, her son, Dr. Michael (Jonna) Roopas and granddaughter Samantha; three step-children, Karen (Ron) Veigel-Coon, Teri Veigel-Nims and grandchildren, Travis and Crystal Nims and David Veigel as well as numerous nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by five siblings, John, George, Tony, Heidi and Kula.

Memorials:

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church
3109 Scio Church Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48103

Visitation:

2-4 p.m. and 6-8 p.m., Trisagion service at 7 p.m.
Sunday, July 25, 2010

Nie Family Funeral Home - Carpenter Rd. Chapel
2400 Carpenter Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48108

Service:

11:00 a.m.
Monday, July 26, 2010

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church
3109 Scio Church Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48103

Cemetery:

Bethlehem Cemetery
Ann Arbor, MI