Michigan's Lower Peninsula - continued
(Sightseeing and genealogical research)
September 26, 2017 - October 10, 2017
Wow - it's after Thanksgiving and I'm way behind on reporting our travels. I have to admit writing this feels more and more like a job so I find it hard to sit down and get on with it. Then time flies by and I find I'm two months behind. So here goes with the 3rd installment of Michigan travel.
We left off in Holland, Michigan. From there we drove to Marshall, Michigan were we camped at the site of the Calhoun County Fair. My goal here was to visit two cousins I had never met although we had talked on the phone a few times. On our trip to this area back in 2003 we had stopped at a cemetery in Ceresco, Michigan to find my Grandmother's grave. We easily found it along with several other members of the family including my great-grandparents. I was surprised to find geraniums growing in a pot and some evidence of bearded irises having recently bloomed. That led me to the conclusion that someone was tending the graves. I wrote a note, placed it in a plastic bag and taped it to my grandmother's headstone. At some point after we had left the area, I got a call from Georgia Holcomb Hammons, the daughter of my grandmother's youngest sister. That would make her my first cousin once removed. She and her husband were indeed tending to the graves. We had a nice conversation which led to finding out her father had been interested in genealogy and done some extensive work on the family. She gave me the name and number of her brother David who had all the material. When I called him I discovered he wasn't the least bit interested in the stuff his father had collected and would happily send it to me just to be rid of it. I, of course, accepted. Fast forward to September 2017 and I was on a mission to meet and talk with both of them. I spent several delightful hours with each of them, learning a bit more about our joint family and their lives.
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| David Holcomb |
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| Georgia and Bill Hammonds |
We next drove to Lansing, the capital of Michigan where the Michigan Library and Archives are located. The library has an enormous collection of Michigan City Directories as well as microfilm of the various newspapers published throughout Michigan through the years. The archives hold a wide variety of materials from vital records to state census materials to the records of Michigan based companies. Happily I had quite a lot of research success in both places.
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| A tree struggles to grow out of another! |
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| The lake at our campground in Lansing. |
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| Fall colors beginning to show in the sumac leaves |
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| Old weeping willow in our campground. |
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| The other side of the trunk of the old weeping willow. How it continues to stand up is beyond me. |
From Lansing we drove over in the direction of the "Thumb" area of the state to Frankenmuth, a town known primarily for having the "World's Largest Christmas Store," Bronner's Christmas Wonderland. We had been told repeatedly we should see it so we camped as close as possible to Frankenmuth and went. You can't possibly walk in this store and not have your jaw drop. It is HUGE! When you think huge, multiply that by 4 or 5. Supposedly there are 27 acres of floorspace!!!! It's open all year and they sell only Christmas related items. Here is a small sample of pictures to show you how overwhelming it was.
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| They have nativity figures from large to small. |
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| The have ornaments for every conceivable subject. |
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| They have trees, garlands, lights, ribbons, ... |
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| They have glass workers creating ornaments right before your eyes! |
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| They have nutcrackers from small to ... |
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| ... huge! |
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| The main entrance to the store. |
We left the store exhausted!
Having never visited the "Thumb" area of Michigan we drove to it's tip on the shores of Lake Huron to check it out. I also had a mission to find out if my grandparents owned some land there. I had found the picture below and when I asked my mom about it she said it was taken somewhere on the shore line of the thumb where her parents had owned some property. That was news to me so I wanted to see if I could find any land records there.
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| My mom (on the right) and her sister Barbara at Lake Huron in the thumb area? |
Before I could get into the county seat, a town called Bad Axe, we explored around the area and found no sign of any kind of a rocky prominence. Virtually everything we could get to in the area ended up being a sandy beach. I was sure I was going to be disappointed. I called my mom and asked her again about where she though the property might be. I had to laugh at her answer! "Somewhere along Lake Huron" she said. That left me with a "needle in the haystack" problem. Michigan has a very long coastline with Lake Huron and we were more than halfway down the state at that point. I went into the courthouse in Bad Axe anyway just to satisfy my curiosity. Looking for land records is always fun, especially in small counties where they haven't microfilmed things. You have to pull out these wonderful big grantor and grantee books from ages ago and search for the names you're trying to find. It took me awhile but I finally found the sale of the property in December 1940 when my mom was 16 years old and her sister was 20. I think that's about how old they look in the picture so perhaps it was a last goodbye to a spot they had enjoyed as they grew up. I worked my way backward in the grantee books and finally found the purchase in September 1927. Both deeds described the land as being in "Broken Rocks" but I could not find any such designation on the map in the deed office. I asked one of the clerks and she told me it was just west of Port Austin which is right at the tip of the thumb.
As I drove back to our campground I drove through Port Austin and found a sort of unobtrusive area we hadn't noticed in our previous explorations. Luckily it was public access! When I got out and looked west there was a rocky prominence!
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| Broken Rocks area of the "thumb." |
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| Broken rocks area with telephoto lens. You can see from the whitecaps that it was windy that day. |
The area is all built up now, complete with "private drive" signs, etc. but at least I confirmed that my grandparents once did own land here and found where it was located. Sure wish we still had the land in our family. Wouldn't that be a wonderful place to hang out in the summer?
Here are some pictures of areas we explored while looking for a rocky area.
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| State park area with grassy dunes and sandy beaches. |
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| Same state park area but looking the other way. |
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| Laura looking for "that special rock!" |
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| Marina in Port Austin. It looks to me like this is probably a lively place in the summer! |
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Marina off Grindstone City, Michigan. In the past they made grinding stones in this area and apparently they
had a lot of them left over because they were all over the place, often used to mark driveways, stores, parking spaces, etc. |
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| More sandy beaches. I wonder why we never came here as a kid? (Actually I know the answer to that question.) |
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| The Garfield Inn in Port Austin. A favorite vacation place of President Garfield who was friends with the owners. |
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Just loved this old house in Port Austin. That wrap-around porch makes it look so pleasing and laid back.
It turned out the home is now an assisted living center. Seems like it would be a nice place to live. |
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| Here you can see an addition which allows for an increased number of clients. |
More of the mitten to follow as we head to the SE section of the state where I was born and grew up.
