The Nankin Township Historical Society

  This is a great item available on eBay from the Esquire Motel in Inkster from the 1960s or so. 10 sheets of stationary with the masthead and information on the Quality Courts property. There were 30 units with all the amenities of the motels of that time. The Esquire's address was 25911 Michigan Avenue and the phone number LOgan 3-4401. The property is now occupied by the Rodeway Inn & Suites. I'm including a postcard of the establishment as well.

The Border City Star , November 2, 1928 It looks like I'm not quite ready to give up on Halloween yet. After finding a book today at the thrift store called Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween by David J. Skal it reinvigorated me to forsake seances for old Samhain (pronounced sow-win). Pranks are more of a tradition on Halloween than is trick-or-treat. Such was the case in 1928 when 9-year-old (according to the Freep) Tommy Evans, his father John of the Clover Leaf Milling Co., older brother James and some friends bounded through the Palmer Park neighborhood of Detroit in search of mischief.  Tommy knocked on the wrong door at 18264 Parkland. A woman answered and Tommy asked for some seasonal gifts. The woman told him to wait a minute and went to find the homeowner Murray Jackman, who along with his chauffeur, bounded around the back of the house and pounced upon the boy. Other boys at the scene alerted James and he attempted to defend his brother but was ...

Keeping with the Halloween theme here is the 1944 October cover of The Fluoroscope , the magazine for patients at the Maybury Sanatorium and the Herman Keifer Hospital. More local subjects which I have neglected because I'm not a very mindful robot. But it's in my collection of two bound volumes as well as some loose, incomplete issues. I'll never get to all of this stuff but I'll lie and swear that it's all coming VERY SOON.

I've crossed out the name of this 18-year-old kid because he had all sorts of problems going on. I'm assuming that Gundella crossed out the rest to use on one of the shows she regularly appeared on not to mention that most of it is negative. But that's mere speculation. Said kid had no job but he apparently had money to buy grimoires. He l aso had some good questions and information, not to mention grammatical and letter writing skills. Hartford Courant , November 1, 1995 If I knew the answer to such questions as "why the Witches insist on keeping 'The Goddess's' name secret?" I'd have written a book on the good witch herself. The subject of witchcraft itself seems like a several decade study to even attain a novice working understanding of it. The Billings Gazette , October 30, 1972 Anyway, Bill Kennedy is a familiar name so I'll skip to Dr. Martello's "Witch-In" on Halloween afternoon in NYC's Central Park. 25 years lat...

We're approaching Halloween night so I'll stick to an appropriate subject: Gundella the Witch. In this letter from a young new witch named Marlene the woman asks for a spell to break the bad luck which she incurred since taking initiation via the so-called "Full Moon Ring Method". She goes into some detail about both the initiation as well as the bad experiences. Gundella gives her a jinx breaking spell and instructs her to destroy the ring if she felt t hat it was the cause of her problems. She also adds in a rebuke-sales pitch by suggesting that if she'd like to learn about real witchcraft then she ought to buy her record "Hour of the Witch."

Stroh's drinking hooligans vandalized the Romulus Cemetery just before Christmas of 1956. Some of the vandalized stones traced back more than 100 years. If followed a vandalism spree that struck both the post office and some parking meters in Romulus, along with an incident of a thrown mailbox from one vehicle that hit another. Obviously, post war small town America wasn't always so picturesque. It took me a few hours to piece the oversized and multiple scan front page together. The original pastiche is posted directly below. I did lighten it considerably in the scan below since there were so many clear lines of noticeable demarcation. I won't be scanning many more of these unless I get one of those industrial f latbed scanners. A readable version can be viewed here .

It took me long enough to find a pill bottle from Wayne County General Hospital and it's in a pitiful way but is a relic just the same. Eventually, I'll find the motherlode of these but until then I have this placeholder. See, it was worth not sleeping in on a Sunday in the midst of working 8 straight days. As for the prescription: "Stelazine (trifluoperazine hydrochloride) is an anti-psychotic medication in a group of drugs called phenothiazines used to treat anxiety or psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. The brand name Stelazine is discontinued. This medication is available in generic form only."

I've posted several photos previously concerning Fellrath's Lumber in Inkster and came across more today. Shopping fatigue likely kept me from finding these months ago since I have searched the same vendor's booth before and came out with other photos from Fellraths but somehow skipped past the others. This photo shows the company truck parked in front of the office or outbuildings on Inkster Rd. between Michigan and Carlysle. I'm horrible at determining automobile models but I'm assuming that its current to the year the photo was taken give or take a few years.

On the day that Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in prison Libertarian candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Harry Browne, was interviewed by Detroit's WXYT talk show host Mark Scott in the 11 o'clock hour of his 9-Noon slot. Subjects included in the interview were the size of government, GATT, free trade and Michigan Senate hopeful Jon Coon, whose candidacy in 1994 failed to garner the requisite 5% to get the party on the next ballot. The sloppy writing on the cassette is that of a young radical named me! I was a liberal for about 2 weeks before I started listening to talk radio and was easily convinced on the insolvency of leftist idealism. 100 years of Progressivism in America has turned us into a second-rate country in a world of third world hellholes. Scott, as some of you might know, was controversial for his various stances including support for fired Detroit police officers Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn in the beating death of Malice Green, his scathing criti...

Halloween in Detroit is synonymous with Harry Houdini and the séance due to his death in an area hospital in 1926. I'm guessing that most people know that Houdini died from appendicitis after taking a flurry of punches from a student and failing to get immediate treatment. His wife and he had a death pact whereby he would contact her from beyond the grave. She attempted to each Halloween for a decade after his death with varying results according to which source one consults.

Here's a Haunted Houses of Metro Detroit advertisement from the WRIF's Inside Out magazine Halloween edition in 1990. I picked this up somewhere for a buck since that's what written at the first page. The listed attractions were as follows: WRIF Haunted House (Farmington Jaycees), Brighton Haunted Barn, Barnstormer Dungeon of Doom (Whitmore Lake), Bloomer Haunted Forest Walk (West Bloomfield), Haunted Museum (Toledo), Haunted House (Hazel Park), House of Nightmares (Warren), Haunted Barn (Wayne), Mutillation Mansion, Warren Goodfellows Haunted House, Vampire Vault (Taylor), Spooktacular (Utica?). More highlights to come from the magazine.

Detroit Free Press , October 28, 1963 I'm not going to venture a guess at what became of Hubert Jackson of 32762 Missaukee in Nankin but if he took many more risks like the one he took in late October of 1963 he probably didn't live a very fortuitous life. That risk being dropping a lit match into the gas tank of an abandoned truck in the woods at the corner of Venoy and Glenwood. The truck exploded giving him facial burns and causing his younger brother Gary to require first aid. A friend, Terry Coffey, 10, also of 32873 Mecosta, Nankin, was unhurt. Hubert was taken to Wayne County General Hospital for treatment.

I found this booklet at a Farmington estate sale a week or two ago. There were 3 scattered among the house and at one point I had all of them but acquiesced to sanity on this one occasion and put them back for others to collect. If you've been around newspapers, especially the Detroit dailies, and books long enough you know the name Lilian Jackson Braun. She of the long-running mystery series The Cat Who... which I never read a page of but have sold many a copy. She was also th e Good Living section editor for the Freep for 30 years while writing columns as well. This booklet appeared in that paper, likely in segments. I'm dating it to 1966 or so based on the information in the booklet. It states she had been there 17 years at the time of its publication and had published two novels.She started in 1948 and published her third novel in 1968. Anyway, here are the covers and first 4 pages.

Detroit Free Press , June 21, 1832 Since I've only recently even heard of Schwarzburg a few days back I'll type this snippet out verbatim: By Mr. Torrey, A bill to establish a certain Territorial Road, in the town of Nankin, county of Wayne, and to abolish so much of the Territorial Road in said town, as lies between Benajah Holbrook's sign post in Schwarzburg and the dwelling house of J. J. Andrews.

Detroit Free Press , August 31, 1848 It appears that Schwarzburg, founded in 1825 by John E. Schwarz, was west of Perrinsville on the south branch of the Rouge in Nankin on the Livonia Township side. Which means almost nothing unless you're a cartographer. That would likely be in the Hines Dr. and Farmington Road area heading towards Wayne Road or thereabouts. Basically the Rouge River border area between Westland and Livonia more or less. No description really lays out the area save for a saw mill, a dam, a tavern and a schoolhouse. Not too many years later the town of Perrinville subsumed the population of Schwarzburg and made it obsolete. As for this article, it concerns a meeting for the repair of the mill-dam in Schwarzburg at which a vote was taken, presumably a straw poll for the Presidential Election, and Whig Party Zachary Taylor received 16 votes to Michigan's own Democratic Senator Lewis Cass. Taylor went on to win and died in office less than two years later.

As I've stated in other groups dealing with the dead, ghosts & other subjects of the macabre, the easiest funerary pieces to procure are remembrance cards. I likely found this in a book at the Farmington estate sale and tossed it into my pile of papers but don't remember. It's for Edward Franczek who died January 3, 1968. He was 40 years old, having been born on December 6, 1927, and is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery. I found an obituary in the Freep that states he lived in De troit at 4125 Lawndale and lists family members but no cause of death. His funeral was handled by the Edmund S. Lesney Funeral Home at 13201 W. Warren Avenue in Dearborn. The phone number was LU 1-0200. Detroit Free Press , January 5, 1968

I bought this photomatic snapshot at an estate sale in Westland a few years back, sat on it for a while, and when I finally searched the name of the man featured here found that a man by his name, Clarence Rehn, had died at Eloise in 1946 . Which dates to the era when the photomatic booths were popular. His age, 66, matches the man depicted as well. The photo is dated January 1941.   Seemingly clinching the matter is that his grandson and other family members were also featured in this and other photos purchased at the sale. The woman featured is Betty Rehn, whom a 1940 census record shows , is his daughter-in-law. 

I found this excellent mini menu from the Fellowcraft Club's First Anniversary Banquet in 1907 today at the Farmington estate sale that I went to yesterday but only made it into the garage. The skull and bones Prost cover won me over. It's vintage age and Detroit connection sealed the deal. Detroit Free Press , May 31, 1908 According to a feature in the Detroit Free Press from the year after this booklet the club was founded in the 1890s and seemingly persisted into the later middle 1940s. On the menu for the first banquet was blue points, celery, olives, fried frog legs, tartar sauce, sliced cucumbers, roast young chicken, brown sweet potatoes, combination salad, Budweiser and cigars. Members listed and those who autographed the menu included B. S. Tomlinson, H. Lelliott, Jas. Thompson, F. O'Hara, E. Schremser, F. van Amburgh, O. Till, Carl Haines, H. Komrofsky, Wm. Votruba, Wm. Maier, Thos. Bowler, Chas. Krejci, L. Motto,  Max Smith, Homer Grenier and Arthur May. A view ...

by Kathleen of the Alhambra Institute 1994 SIDE A: download Editor's note: I'm going to get verbose here so grab some Ritalin. Having the misfortune of being half Polish and being born under the astrological sign of Taurus (I don't believe in any of that bullshit) I am doubly-inclined to be stubborn. In my quest to find both an obscure cassette of ghost stories by the witch Gundella and also the psychic readings she was known for I have scoured through bin upon bin of AOR, religious and nature tapes at rummage sales, thrift store, garage sales and estate sales in my quest to find either. No such luck but I won't be deterred.  Back before there was eBay and you could just click and buy that which was desired you had to search ceaselessly for obscurities. I heard "The Motorcade Sped On" by Steinski & Mass Media on BBC Radio 1 late night sometime around 1990 and had to have it. Being that it was only available on a limited release 45 record as well as a Canad...

Here's a shoddily pieced together scan of a partial calendar from 1905 by the Detroit Journal . A newspaper that I had never heard of before finding this lone card stock poster at a Farmington estate sale the other day.

The Detroit Times , June 6, 1944 I would say that it's an almost statistical impossibility that I'd find two partial segments of the same newspaper years apart which weren't the front page of a major event but here we are. Since it's from World War II and there's a map of the Allied force's landing in Europe it makes it less impossible. Either way, it's an upgrade of an Eloise story which I've never found anything else about besides the peculiar surname of the two abandoned boys James and Robert Luyskx. I'm guessing that the two are from different editions of the paper since I recall the one with the crease in the middle to be more in the middle of the page while the other is in the right hand corner. Not that you're particularly concerned with that sort of minutia.