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Category Archives: people

The Heroic Flight Nurse

Posted on May 22, 2024 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in people .

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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The Ice Fisherman’s Harrowing Ordeal

Posted on January 31, 2024 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Lighthouses, people .

The tallest lighthouse on the Great Lakes is the White Shoal Lighthouse on the western end of the Straits of Mackinac. The tower was completed in 1910 and is 121 feet tall. During a winter storm in 1929, a fifty-four-year-old ice fisherman ended up at White Shoal Lighthouse seeking refuge. Lewis Sweet and a couple buddies came up from the Petoskey area to ice fish near Waugoshance Point. After each one of them cut a large hole in the ice, they set up their ice shanty and used spears to stab any trout that swam past. The prevailing wind blew from the west and kept the ice on Lake Michigan pushed up along the shoreline. The men knew that if the wind shifted to the east, it could drive the ice away from land. After fishing most of the day, the men noticed a storm off in the distance. The two other fishermen Sweet had been fishing with headed back for shore.

Lewis decided he wanted to fish for a few more minutes. After trying to spear one more trout, Lewis grabbed his trout and the axe he used for chopping a hole in the ice and headed back to shore. Lewis heard a thunderous sound echoing across the ice, and he knew instantly that the ice had cracked. He ran as fast as he could in the snow, but when he got to the crack, it was already too wide for him to jump across. He headed back toward his shanty as the snow began to fall. It came down so heavy that he was not able to see far and could not find his shanty. He knew he needed protection from the wind, so he built a wall from the hard packed snow and lay behind it to block the wind. He got up every few minutes and moved around to keep his body warm. He heard another crack and knew the large chuck of ice that kept him out of the freezing cold water was slowly breaking up.

He continued toward what he thought was the center of the ice floe and built another snow wall for shelter. He drifted on the disintegrating hunk of ice throughout the night. By the next morning, the ice had drifted into the twelve-story-tall White Shoal Lighthouse. The ladder used by the keepers to climb the twenty feet to the cribbing was covered in a thick coating of ice. Sweet used his axe to chop through the thick ice that had coated the ladder. He spent hours chopping, only to reveal about half of the ladder. He then got the idea to stack up the chunks of ice that had broken up when the flow slammed into the lighthouse. He finally made it to the base of the tower. The door was unlocked, and he took refuge in the relative safety of the lighthouse. Inside the lighthouse, Lewis found kerosene and a heater along with some food he could eat. He finally managed to get warmed up. His feet and hands were blistered and frostbitten from the cold. He could hear an airplane flying overhead. By the time he climbed the stairs on his injured feet to signal the plane, it was already out of sight. He had enough rations in the lighthouse to keep him alive for over a month, but he knew he needed to seek medical attention for his feet. After a few days, Lake Michigan had once again frozen over. He was not sure if he could make it back to shore, but Sweet took the chance anyways. He grabbed some rations for the trip, which included a can of condensed milk. He used a rope to lower himself down to the frozen surface of the lake.

In agony, he trekked across the ice back to land. He had managed to hike nearly twenty miles when he made landfall near Cross Village, where he found an old hunting cabin. He built a fire in the stove and found some leftover coffee and brewed himself a cup where he poured in some of his condensed milk. After drinking his coffee, he lay down to rest. He woke up to terrible pains in his stomach and wondered if the condensed milk had gone bad. He spent the next day recouping from whatever ailed him and finally was healthy enough to search for civilization. He hiked through the snow towards Cross Village, where some Native American girls spotted him stumbling out of the forest. Scared, the girls quickly ran home, and someone finally came out to get Lewis Sweet. He was taken by dog sled to the nearby town of Levering and then driven by car to the hospital in Petoskey. All of his toes were amputated and most of his fingers. He was in the hospital for ten weeks. Limited in what he could do for work, his story was published in a book with the proceeds going to support him and his family.

If you love lighthouses I hope you will take a look at my new Lighthouse book HERE

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The Tunnel Explosion

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Historic Places, people .

On December 11, 1971 an explosion ripped through a tunnel being constructed under Lake Huron. 21 men were killed instantly and one worker died ten months later. The tunnel was being dug under Lake Huron for a new water source for Detroit. The tunnel stretched out 5 miles from the shore near Fort Gratiot a few miles north of Port Huron. During the digging the crew struck a pocket of methane gas and was ignited by a spark.

A memorial stands in Fort Gratiot County Park and bears the names of the 22 men that died that tragic December day. The tragedy resulted in stronger mining safety regulations and enforcement. It was one of the deadliest industrial accidents in Michigan history. The project was eventually completed and supplied and the 80 miles of water mains supply Detroit with 400 million gallons of water per day.

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Thank You

Posted on November 10, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in people .

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.

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The Lonely Gravesite of Emma L. Northrup

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Cemetery, people .

This lonely tombstone stands in the northern Michigan woods near Kingsley. It is for Emma L. Northrup who died while traveling with her parents. Her family was traveling by horse and buggy in 1875 from New York. They were traveling to Michigan to start a new life farming when 6 year old Emma became ill and died. They laid her body to rest along the trail. A new marker replaced an older one and is located near Mayfield and Knight Roads. When I visited there were many trinkets left at little Emma’s grave. It is near an ORV trail and many riders stop at the grave to pay there respects to the little girl laid to rest in the woods.

P.S. Lost In Michigan wall calendars are ON SALE on Zazzle HERE.

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One Eye Pete

Posted on May 15, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Cemetery, people .

I was roaming around the Monroe Cemetery located north of Greenville. I saw a tombstone with the words ONE EYE PETE that caught my attention. On the other side is the name of Corp. Peter Nelson.

From what I could find on the internet Peter Nelson came to the United States from Denmark to avoid conscription into the Danish army. He ended up in the Civil War instead. He got the nickname One Eye Pete because he had lost an eye at a young age when a animal swiped at his face and damaged his eye with its claw.

As part of his severance pay from the military he was offered what he saw as swampland in Illinois. He felt you couldn’t grow anything there of he refused it. Today it is part of downtown Chicago, Il. He came to the Greenville area and died in 1904 and was laid to rest in the Monroe Cemetery.

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The Real McCoy

Posted on May 5, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in people .

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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Swift Lathers

Posted on March 31, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in people .

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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The Strange Story about The Rise and Fall of the House Of David

Posted on January 2, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Iconic Buildings, people .

Near Benton Harbor is this massive palatial looking building. It was part of the Israelite House Of David a religious commune that was started by Benjamin and Mary Purnell in 1903. The members of the commune were prohibited from alcohol, tobacco, meat, owning property, and having sex. Their belief in not cutting their hair made the members of the commune stand out with their long hair flowing down to their waist, including the men.

Members of the House Of David band

To occupy their time when they were not out working in the farm fields or doing chores they played music and sports and even built an amusement park called Eden Springs which was known for its miniature train. The House of David opened their park up to the community and became very popular with people traveling for miles to visit it. The members played a lot of baseball to occupy their time, and because of that, they excelled at the sport. The House of David baseball team began traveling the country playing teams in exhibition matches defeating some of the best teams in the country. They were never allowed into the major league because of the rule banning facial hair. Their musicians traveled the country playing music to audiences in the vaudeville circuit. By 1916 the commune had more than  1000 members and attracted over half a million visitors to their amusement park. The House of David owned over 1000 acres and they had their own hotel, cannery and operated a power plant to supply electricity.

The group became rather wealthy and well liked by the public until the 1920s when 13 young women confessed to having sex with the group’s leader Benjamin Purnell when they were minors. Purnell died in 1927 before he was convicted. The accusations caused the commune to split with Benjamin’s wife Mary Purnell taking half it’s members and creating a new commune down the street known as Mary’s City Of David. Over time the membership declined in both communes and the amusement park closed. Today there are a few members left. The Eden Springs Park has reopened restoring one of the trains. The park is not what it used to be but the train still gives rides to passengers.

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D-Day and Fishing in Michigan with Eisenhower

Posted on June 6, 2022 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in people .

Eisenhower michigan
On the eve of D-Day (June 6th 1944) general Eisenhower was talking to a group of paratroopers from the 101st Airborne, and an unknown army photographer captured this iconic image of the general talking with the Screaming Eagles.  It was not until 1984 that an employee at the war department saw the photo, and realized that the Lieutenant with the #23 was Wally Strobel from his hometown of Saginaw Michigan. ( My hometown too) When Mr. Strobel was asked about the photo, he said that the general asked him where he was from ” Michigan Sir” he replied, and Ike asked how the fishing was, “great sir” then the general said that Michigan was a beautiful state and reminisced about fishing in the state for a few minutes with the paratroopers. I guess now I know why “we like Ike”.

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