Kinexxions ~ Tales from the Life of Hazlette Brubaker

Kinexxions

~ Tales from the Life of Hazlette Brubaker ~

Part 3 ~ Traverse City, Michigan

TO TRAVERSE CITY
We left Fort Wayne on the G R & I, and in Grand Rapids we changed for Traverse City. The train from there on was old and very slow, stopping often. A foreign (to us) family on the train was kind to us and gave us things to eat. I remember cookies with caraway seeds, the first caraway seeds I had ever eaten. Well, Jane and I were very "car" sick, and kept Mama and several friendly women busy caring for us. Billy slept through it all. It must have been terrible for Mama; I know it was for me!

Our first home was on Peninsula Avenue, facing the Grand Traverse Bay. I thought it was wonderful. The water has always fascinated me and this seemed so wonderful to me. This was the happiest time of our lives as a family.

I was in the second grade and my teacher, Miss Stevenson, had been to Yellowstone National Park the summer before. She talked about this all the school year and told us many things about the park that winter. I always wanted to see the wonders of the Park, and finally, when I was 64 years old and married to Fergie, we went there. It was just as my old teacher had told, it almost seemed as if I had been there before and I sure enjoyed it.

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS IN TRAVERSE CITY
The first Christmas that we spent in Traverse City Papa and I went out into the forest, which at that time came close to town, and he cut a beautiful Christmas tree and began to drag it home. It was quite large. A man on a bobsled came by and we rode home dragging the tree behind us. Then Papa decorated it with real candles, popcorn that Mama and us kids strung on thread, and some cranberries, also strung on thread. I thought it was beautiful. This was a beautiful time. Our house faced the bay and I remember how cold it looked in winter and how we all loved it so. The air was so pure and one morning Mama sent us outside to play. A neighbor came over and said it was 20 degrees below zero so we had to stay inside. But we were never uncomfortably cold; it was a wonderful climate.

FRIENDS COME TO VISIT
Mama and Papa had friends here from Whitley County, Lulu Eisaman and Elmer Arnold. We called them Aunt and Uncle and loved them as much as if they had been relatives. Aunt Lulu had taken a baby girl to raise and they came to our place for Christmas. While the grownups got ready for Santa, we children went next door to the Wade's and looked at Magic Lantern slides. This was wonderful entertainment, and then we went back home to receive our gifts, which Santa had left under the tree. This little girl that Aunt Lulu had later died and in due time she adopted a little baby boy, named Paul, and he was a real son to them.

WHAT PAPA DID FOR A LIVING
I know that Papa worked at different things while we were there. He was very mechanically inclined and could do almost anything. Papa worked in an Oval Dish Factory. They made the little wooden dishes that were used to put lard, peanut butter, etc. in at the grocery stores. He received $1.00 per day and worked six days a week, twelve hours a day. In fact, we hardly ever saw him except on Sundays. Uncle Elmer worked in a foundry and one Sunday morning Papa took me there to see him. Of course there was no fire going on Sunday, but he was making molds, or something like that and it was just a very black hole of a place. A foundry is still a bad place to work, but then it was terrible. Uncle Elmer died a few years later.

Papa left the Oval Dish factory after a time and worked for the City Transportation. They had purchased some kind of streetcars and Papa operated one of them. It was just a big automobile like affair with seats, something like the first school busses. Papa was a good mechanic and liked this job. He also worked at the Yacht Club repairing motors in the launches for a time; I think he was doing this when we left.

SOME THINGS WE DID ~ GOOD TIMES
I must tell of the things we did here. In the spring we went to the woods for Arbutus. This fragrant little flower would bloom while some snow was still on the ground, under the oak leaves. We would turn the leaves back and there were the lovely little wax white flowers. They have a beautiful scent and I'd love to see some of them once more. In the summer we gathered wild strawberries and later, ground huckleberries (wild blueberries) all so good and fun to pick. In the fall there were many small puffball mushrooms, which I loved to gather and the family liked to eat. The wintergreen berries were nice in the fall; we loved to nibble them.

One thing I remember is still a mystery to me. We had moved to another house in Traverse City and one of our neighbors was Catholic. They had a baby about eight months old and probably I had been with him a lot. One day Mama dressed me up in my best clothes and I went to this home. I was the only "outsider" there and a priest came and baptized the baby. I sat beside them, the baby and the priest, and watched this in wonder. I still wonder why I was there for I was only seven or eight years old. And I wonder if the little fellow was sick, but I'll never know.

SOME BAD TIMES
There were bad times there too. Papa and Jack Smith came home one night, late and intoxicated. Sometimes Papa became very abusive to Mama when he was drunk. And this was the very worst time of all. I ran across the street and told Mr. Giadop that my Papa was sick and to please go to him. I guess he really settled him down, Papa walked all night. When he came home there was a bad mark on his head where I had hit him with a stove poker, but he never knew that I had done it. It hadn't helped at all and it always hurt me to know that I'd injured my beloved Papa.

A CIVIL WAR VET VISITS
The Jack Smith I tell you about was an old Civil War Veteran from Columbia City. He had never married and had no relatives, at least not close enough to care for him, so he came to Traverse City to be with us. He rented a room there and every Pension Day he would take one of us kids to the movie (5 cents) and buy us a small gift and candy. How we all loved Jack, and when we came back home he did too and we always visited him whenever we went to town.

A NEW HOME
After we had been in Traverse City some time the folks bought a house at 838 State Street. This was a nice little house, about one block from the Bay, near the school and Jane went to kindergarten.

There was no church near our neighborhood but on the way to school I saw that there was a Missionary Church in an old store building. So I started going there for Sunday school. I had been steeped in religion thru Grandma Brubaker and Grandpa Wise. They both said grace at every meal and Grandpa would sing old hymns to us as he rocked us in his rocking chair. I also had gone to church with Grandma Brubaker many times so I was very religious as a small child. My Sunday school teacher said once that if a child died without baptism, he would go to Hell. I always remembered this but it never worried me because I believed so much in the gentle Jesus and knew he would never harm a small child. So I guess I began to form my own opinions at an early age - I was thirteen years old before I was baptized.

MORE FUN TIMES
Some of this time Mama sold magazine subscriptions. She had a lot of samples and we kids loved to cut out the dolls, etc. which McCall’s always had. Other children learned about this and we sold these to the other kids. I don't remember how much we charged, probably pennies, but we felt like we were rich merchants.

We often had pennies to spend, and boy, what fun you could have with a penny. Even little penny dolls could be purchased and I bought many of these. Also long licorice whips; those were my favorites. Once Chloie Davis (Papa's cousin) and her husband came to visit us. He gave us each a dime to spend and we were millionaires for a short time.

One time a schoolmate asked me to a picnic. There were about seven of us kids and the picnic was in a woods near the school. We had bananas and cookies and a lot of candy. Later we learned that the boy, our host, had used his grandmother's charge account and had thrown this party without the knowledge of any grownup. This was really bad and all of us kids were questioned.

We were all happy in Traverse City. Mama and Papa had a good social life here. They joined the Spanish American War Vets and Auxiliary. And though Papa became intoxicated several times and this was always bad, still, they made up afterwards and were very happy.

THE TELEGRAM ~ BAD NEWS ~ BACK TO INDIANA
One night in mid-December 1910 a telegram came that changed all our lives. Uncle Hale, Papa's only brother, had died of pneumonia in New York City where he was attending Columbia University. He had only a few months to go before getting his degree and being admitted to the bar as an attorney. This death was a terrible shock and grief to my parents as they both loved him so much. He was a genius and widely known and loved. Papa and Mama were both terribly grieved.

In the morning following the receipt of the telegram I went to school for my books and we took the first train for home. I remember that the neighbors helped finish dresses for us girls and did many things to help Mama get us ready to leave. Only a few miles from Traverse City our train was stuck in the snow and before we resumed our journey our car was very cold. But we were finally on our way and arrived in Columbia City about 4:00 A.M. the next day. We had traveled from Fort Wayne on the same train as Uncle Hale's body. Papa took us to Aunt Betty's house and then rode with the hearse out to Grandpa's home at the farm.

This was a terribly sad time for everyone. There were so many people and there were so many floral gifts. One was a beautiful wreath of Magnolia Leaves from Thomas R. Marshall and his wife. Uncle Hale had been a protégé of his. And there were gifts of wreaths from New York and Washington as well as those from many local friends.

Papa never went back to Michigan. Several weeks later Mama went to Traverse City, settled affairs there and packed our household goods and had them shipped to Columbia City. Papa picked them up in a dray (horse and wagon) and we got settled back on the farm where we were determined to stay for several years.

I think of this more and more and really wonder about it. Several beds and bedding, a set of "Mission Furniture" in the living room, such kitchen ware that only Walter Mitchell would appreciate, a cook stove with a front apron - an antique when I was born. Freight must have been rather cheap at that time for surely the things were not worth much.

A RETURN VISIT TO TRAVERSE CITY 40 YEARS LATER
Forty years later I returned to Traverse City. The schoolhouse where I had spent many happy hours and the place on the Bay that I had often taken a book and spent an afternoon seemed to be much the same. Except the town was more a resort place with the lakefront built up and many summer homes there.

Part 3 ~ Traverse City, Michigan

Tales from the Life of Hazlette Brubaker