This statue of a woman in a Victorian era dress stands next to the library in Big Rapids. It is of Anna Howard Shaw who was born in England on February 14, 1847. At the age of four, her family immigrated to America. In 1859, her father moved the family to a wilderness tract just north of Big Rapids, Michigan. He mother envisioned an idyllic farm but it was a log cabin in a rustic and remote wilderness. Her father soon returned east with two of his sons, leaving behind his wife and four younger children to endure extreme hardship on their 360-acre claim. Forced to take on traditionally male roles to survive, Anna believed women were equal to men. She attended school in Big Rapids and became a teacher at age 15. in 1873, she enrolled in Albion College in Albion, Michigan.
In 1876, Shaw entered the School of Theology at Boston University and studied to be a minister. She was the only woman in a class of 42 men and she became the first fully ordained woman minister in the history of the Methodist Church. While engaged in an active ministry at two churches, she graduated from Boston University School of Medicine in 1885.
Shaw was a popular lecturer for the temperance movement and for the cause of women’s suffrage fighting for the right for women to vote. She became Susan B. Anthony’s chief lieutenant in the National American Woman Suffrage Association and succeeded her as president of the Association in 1904. In 1917, she was appointed as chair of the Women’s Committee of the Council of National Defense. As a result of her work on the Council, she became the first woman ever to receive the Distinguished Service Medal, which bestowed upon her by President Woodrow Wilson. Anna Howard Shaw died in 1919 while on a lecture tour for world peace. Her death came just a year before ratification of the 19th Amendment, for which she had labored most of her adult life. Her remains were cremated and the ashes given to her family. The statue in Big Rapids stands as a reminder of the remarkable woman that grew up in the Michigan wilderness.

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The VA hospital in Saginaw is the only one in the Unites States of America named in honor of a woman, and that would be the Aleda E. Lutz V.A. Medical Center. Born in 1915 in Freeland. a graduate of the Saginaw General Nursing School, she enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) in November 1941, and was one of the most celebrated flight nurses of World War II, 1st Lt. Aleda E. Lutz flew 196 missions and evacuated over 3,500 men. In November 1944. She came into many combat zones while evacuating wounded troops. While overseas, she was active in European, African, and Italian battlefields. Several times she helped to evacuate wounded soldiers from the Anzio Beachhead, which was under fire from the German Army.

During an evacuation flight from the front lines near Lyons, Italy, her C-47 crashed killing all aboard, and she was buried with full military honors in an American Cemetery in France. Lt Lutz was the first American woman who died in action during World War II. Lieutenant Lutz had five battle stars: Tunisia, Sicily, South Italy, Central Italy, and South France. She was Awarded the Air Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters, she posthumously received the Distinguished Flying Cross the second woman to receive the decoration after Amelia Earhart.

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Michigan does not have the military bases it once did. Many have closed over the years and have been repurposed into other uses. I don’t see a lot of active military personnel on a daily bases like people who live near an active military base. We designate a day in November to thank the people that swore an oath to protect the constitution and serve the great nation.

Thank you to the men and women who risk their lives protecting us and there to help in times of peril. I have not served in the military myself, but have many relatives and friends that have and continue to serve. I have been able to visit a few active military bases and it always impresses me the honor and dedication in which the people I have meet perform their duties to the United States of America.

Thank you to all of our veterans and their families for the sacrifices you have made for our freedom.

A historical marker stands in a small park next to the library in downtown Ypsilanti. It stands in memorial of a African American engineer that created a memorable idiom for something genuine.

Elijah McCoy was trained as a mechanical engineer and the son of former slaves. He made his living as a fireman stoking fires and oiling engines for the Michigan Central Railroad. McCoy sought to end the delays caused by frequent oil stops. In his Ypsilanti workshop he developed a lubricating cup that continuously fed oil to steam engines. His device automated steam engine maintenance that was previously done by hand and he patented an automatic lubricator in 1872. By 1926 he had patented more than forty lubricating devices used internationally on trains and boats and in factories. Other people and companies began “knocking off” his invention with inferior products. McCoy began marketing his oil cups as “The Real McCoy” to separate his products from poor quality imposters. As steam engines faded in use the oil cups did too, but they saying “The Real McCoy” has remained and it all began with an engineer from Ypsilanti.

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If you have ever visited Silver Lake State Park you have probably driven through the small town of Mears. You may have seen the life size bronze statue of a man wearing a bowler hat which is usually adorned with a red necktie. It is a statue of Swift Lathers, a newspaper publisher known for wearing a blue shirt with a red tie who lived and worked in the small town of Mears. When I say “newspaper publisher” I am not referring to someone like William Randolf Hearst, who ran the largest newspaper chain in the nation. Rather, Swift Lathers ran what he himself claimed was the smallest newspaper in the world. He wrote, edited and printed it from his West-Michgian home.

Swift was born in 1889 and grew up near Detroit. His mother, an english teacher, taught young Swift at home for many years. He went on to graduate as a teacher from Michigan State Normal School which eventually became Eastern Michigan University. He also graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, but never took the bar exam or practiced law. He worked for a few years as a journalist in Dearborn before moving to the small town of Mears, located on the west side of the state between Ludington and Muskegon.

In 1914, Swift started his newspaper, printing it on a manual foot operated printing press. It was a small paper in physical size, only about five by seven inches. Originally he called it the Mears News but he changed the name to Mears Newz. When he first began circulating his newspaper he sold it for twenty five cents and was told that it would not last six months. A yearly subscription to the Mears Newz was fifty cents or one dollar for six months. He personally delivered his paper to local residents and mailed them to customers who lived further away. Eventually there were almost three thousand subscribers in several states, some as far away as Colorado.

At one point he was not able to keep up with circulation so he took his alphabetized list of subscribers and cut off everyone above the letter D and below the letter S. Swift was a rather eccentric person but also extremely intelligent and a master of the English language. He wrote many editorials speaking out for individual rights, the support of rural schools, and many other social causes. Charges were filed against him a few times to suppress what he published, but he successfully defended himself and the freedom of the press. One of the cases went all the way to the State Supreme Court in which he successfully argued in his defense. He published his paper for fifty six years until his death in 1970. The whole time he kept his annual subscription price to fifty cents. His home in Mears is now a museum.

Reminder: I will be at Charlin’s Book Nook in Frankenmuth on Sunday April 2nd from 1-4 signing books. I hope you can stop by and say hello. 

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