A Remembrance Card from Lynch and Sons Funeral Directors of Milford

I'm always quite proud of myself when I discover something in the ephemera world which relates to real-life experience. Being that this remembrance card sat on my kitchen table for who knows how long - and from where it came I remember not - and that it originated from the Lynch family funeral directors in Milford, it plays some significance in both the current and past.

Despite my laissez-faire anarchist leanings, I am well-immersed in the so-called arts without much tarnish to my own soul. The libertine lifestyle doesn't suit me in the least. Free love is a crutch for weak people and a permissive society to me is one on the verge of instantaneous death. Needless to say, such things were not indoctrinated into me by an union-president and stalwart Catholic parents. I thought what I must regardless of what I was taught and told.

To make a very long story short I began reading poesy in the late years of high school and my first poets became my philosophers. Haha. After high school I dated a wanton Catholic poetess who plagiarized T. S. Eliot more than T. S. Eliot plagiarized Ezra Pound. As such, I wound up at poetry readings scoffing at the so-called intelligentsia and post-modernists. I loathe the existences of such luminaries as Robert Creeley, Jorie Graham and the pederast Allen Ginsberg who openly supported NAMBLA and touted the fact that he had "sex" with single digit aged boys overseas. I was once tackled by said girlfriend at Rackham Hall because I loudly booed some poetasters who felt that art was art by the simple fact that they created it and called it as such. What I mean, is that I am not a civilized person.

Two of the better poets of the 90s era Michigan circuit were Richard Tillinghast and Thomas Lynch. The former for his more bombastic spoken word jazz-infused verse (something that I generally loathe but I found him to be excellent in his works when he was "on") and the latter for his solemn poetry that mirrored his profession as an undertaker. Here the twain meet. This woman (whom I shall remain nameless in this post and honor properly in another) was buried by Lynch and is now resurrected by me in the finding of her card. Likewise shall each Lynch publication have its own proper listing as a singular entity.

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A Dudley Randall Poem in Milestone 2

I bought this Milestone 2 poetry Magazine at a Livonia estate sale this week. Milestone was the literary publication of Wayne (State) University and this second issue dates to 1949. While I don't recognize most of the names, Dudley Randall was both a nationally known poet and the librarian for the Wayne County General Hospital at Eloise via the Wayne County Library System. The poem featured is The Southern Road which was a revised version of the completed poem from 1948 that h as a handful or two of word differences between the two. I don't know if Randall edited the poem for later collected works editions or earlier but this link features it in its likely final form in 2009. Neither version particularly enchants me but the block print in the magazine is an added bonus.

A Cabinet Card of a Dead Man Lying in Repose From Wayne Photographer Susan Doolittle

The City of Wayne, Michigan was not a large village at the turn of the 20th century so it stands to reason that there wasn't a glut of photographers practicing their trade there. As such, the 3 cabinet cards and carte de visites that I own represents roughly a quarter of the early ones. Considering that the wives of Frank Hickok and William Corlett, first Village President of Wayne, took over after Frank's death in 1892 the list grows smaller beyond those two families. Had I snagged the Doolittle dead man cabinet card I'd be even that much more Wayne-rich in photographs. Speaking of Susan Doolittle, of whom I have learned very little about, it is interesting to note that Wayne had three women photographers in an era oft dominated by men in that very field. This photograph of a corpse is a startling example of her work.

Frederick Soop: Not An Equal Opportunity Restraunteer

Detroit Free Press , March 28, 1890 If you don't want to hear a racist tale of a suburban namesake then close your eyes now. As early as 1876 Frederick Soop had left his Belleville farm once again, having done a stint at the Hawkins House in Ypsilanti during the Civil War and the City Hotel in Detroit thereafter, and ventured off to Chatham, Ontario to run the Rutley Hotel , which was conducted as a Temperance House. Detroit Free Press , August 17, 1879 In 1879 he was searching for a good restaurant or small hotel to operate. Eventually he ended up on Washington Avenue near State Street running a dining hall which he ran until around 1890. Detroit Free Press , April 16, 1890 It was in 1888 when the aforementioned racial incident occurred at his dining establishment. It was then that William H. Haynes, a black doctor, sat down with his former classmate S. W. Barkwell for dinner. The men ordered but when the food was served none was placed before Mr. Haynes who, ironically, ha...

The Nankin Township Historical Society

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