The Nankin Township Historical Society

The Plymouth Mail ,  January 12, 1956 I noticed last week that the Schrader Ambulance seemingly took a lot of patients to local hospitals and, since I'm often researching it, Eloise in particular. It made me wonder if they were also the funeral home people and sure enough they were. Which I confirmed through Myrilla Schrader's obituary from 2014. As one of the family owners of the funeral home her job, among other things, was driving the ambulance. In fact, during WWII when her husband Bud was serving overseas her and a sister-in-law took over the entire operation for nearly two years. The Plymouth Mail, October 18, 1946

There'll be some jumping around here because that's what I do. This photo of Earl Trinkhaus by photographer Edwin P. Baker of Plymouth is currently available on eBay for $150. It's a great photo but...a little too rich for my tastes. I could only find incidental mentions of Trinkhaus in the newspapers but am told that he was a carpenter who lived in Northville and is buried at Riverside Cemetery. Baker was a longtime photographer in the village having worked there most of his 60 years in the profession. He died at the residence of his granddaughter Mrs. C. H. Rauch in P lymouth. He was married to Marie Marshall in 1853 and they had two children. All three preceded him in death. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery. The Plymouth Mail , November 19, 1915 As is Ephraim Partridge, who I assume had a much more eventful life than having been the father-in-law of Laura Ruppert Partridge , the schoolteacher who went insane and drowned herself in the lake at Eloise. Mr. Partridge...

I was searching for a photo of Pike's Peak and while looking in the wrong book for it came across these two pages from one of the Images of America Westland book. They feature Hiram Fulton, a Civl War soldier from Nankin who was injured in the Second Battle of Bull Run, in which he was shot in the right arm, causing a fracture and the loss of use of the limb. He was the brother of Janetta Felton who married Ebenezer O. Bennett, also a Civil War veteran, and future Superintendent of the Wayne County House and later Eloise.

A 1910 Christmas card from Eloise to Miss Katherine Sundberg of the J. Solvay Process Company of Detroit from some name starting with an E that I can't decipher. It appears to be Eucena or something close to that but also might just be Emma written rather sloppily.

Detroit Free Press , March 4, 1899 I doubt that this is a new revelation to anybody who has a deep knowledge of the Wayne County Asylum & Eloise but it took me many years of researching the institution before I finally made this connection. That being, William Ganong, he of the cemetery fame, was the uncle of the owner of the Black Horse Tavern which became part of the Wayne County Poorhouse. Known as Uncle Jerry, he was a successful farmer and business owner that fell on hard times and ended up at the Poorhouse where he died in 1899. He and his wife Lavina Ganong Townsend are both buried at the William Ganong Cemetery in unmarked or degraded graves. Which is more proof that Eloise and Ganong Cemetery are and were inextricably connected.

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.

The Buffalo Commercial , February 2, 1878 The history of the Wayne County Asylum at Eloise was beleaguered with incidents of cured but not cured . That is, patients who were released as mentally fit only to commit acts of violence against others or self-immolation. Mrs. Jane Howard, a wife of a Dover, Michigan physician D. M. Howard, seemingly had an ideal station in life but it was for naught. For whatever reasons she was incarcerated at the Wayne Asylum on multiple occasions. A month there in late 1877, which, weaved into the new years didn't cure her hurts. She fatally jumped down a well on her husband's farm near Adrian on the last day of January, 1878. She was 36-years-old.

Detroit Free Press , February 24, 1875 I know that I've come across another story of an insane man writing million dollar checks but since I can't find the mention either on my Portraits of Eloise blog or FB page it'll remain a mere rumor. Though there is a mention of John Bradley who believed that he had been transported to Heaven and offered a cop $200,000, if he wrote to a certain address, for his release. He was sent to the Wayne Asylum There's also, John Vanderwillie , an insane young man who was a master escape artist who offered $3.5 mill ion to the attendants at Emergecy Hospital for his freedom to no avail. He also was expected to be sent to the asylum at Wayne. But no matter. George Wison was another sort. He attempted to pass off $20,000 to $30,000 checks between Chicago and Detroit and locations hither and thither. A tall Canadian man who was believed to be a miner Wilson believed that the Treasury had deposited large sums of money in his bank account. Be...

Detroit Free Press , July 16, 1898 John Vanderwillie was the richest man in the world according to his own faulty faculties. He could escape from any bindings but not from the Emergency hospital where he was being held until he was sent to the asylum. Even an offer of $3.5 million from his vast fabricated fortune couldn't secure his release.

Here are the expenditures for running the County Farm at Wayne (Eloise) and the market value of produce produced and livestock sold and tended to. Most of the work was performed by paupers with some help from Edwin and Martin Wightman as well as Martin Lawlor. The Wightman name is well-known in the area and a family member was the first burial at Ganong Cemetery. Paupers also earned their keep by making the necessary clothing for the patients' yearly needs. A half century lat er the paupers of the 20th century often refused to work the farm leading to its demise and consequently the self-sustainability of the institution at large.

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've thrown off my spendthrift shackles lately and spent more than I should have on this novelty postcard emblazoned with an ELOISE postmark from 1907 but it'll last longer than a 6 pack of pumpkin ale. It's from a girl named Helena to her friend Grace Knoepfler of Milford, Michigan telling her to meet her in Detroit the week after the Milford Fair. Which seems like a pretty vague meet-up time and place but what do I know?

Detroit Free Press , November 4, 1903 The bucolic setting of the Eloise Asylum farm did not spare it the brunt tactics of Halloween hijinks. Hersdman M. Andrus found this out the hard way by riding his bicycle into the entrance at dawn only to be throttled by a piece of timber which had been lain across the gateway. As would be expected he suffered severe bruising about his shoulders and noggin.

Detroit Free Press , November 2, 1931 What is a worse fate than being an invalid at old Eloise? Being an invalid at Eloise and losing your family to a car accident on Halloween night. Clarence Gavitt received just that news the day after Halloween in 1931. Having been an invalid at the hospital for the previous two years his life had obviously sustained considerable tragedy. A year previous his then 9-year-old daughter Vera Helen Gavitt had been struck by an automobile at McClellan and Harper Avenues and lost he r right arm.  The fatal Halloween accident occurred at the same intersection when Vera and her mother, Amy Gavitt, stepped in front of a cab. The horror of the tragedy was amplified by the fact that the mask wearing child was likely in the midst of trick-or-treating. Upon receiving news of the accident from his brother Burton, Clarence Gavitt collapsed and was reported to be near death. A friend of Vera, Marie Talley, sustained a broken leg but survived the accident.

  Outside of their Frankenstein barbarism Eloise and Wayne County General Hospital had a reputation for innovative medical procedures and research.   As this press photo somewhat attests to, Sylvester E. Gould of WCGH speaks of artery replacement surgeries which were going on at Wayne State University that he was seemingly part of. Of course, the hospitals always had affiliations to the local colleges and universities so it might have been in conjunction with those programs that he was assisting Wayne. Either way, the photo of Gould and New Jersey Dr. Stuart Stevenson is available on eBay.

I bought this envelope today with an Eloise postmark of February 7, 1948. It's addressed to the widow of Judge Charles L. Fifield of Janesville, Wisconson. Unfortunately, there's no return address or letter inside.

Detroit Free Press , September 17, 1913 This is a bit of a mysterious story mainly due to the marred scan of this story from the Free Press . The good part is that you can make out half of it and the gist of it is that Jacob Goldfrene, a Detroit financier, was passing out million dollar checks to police officers and presumably anybody else who came in contact with him. According to police, when he was found on Hasting Street calling on those passing by to witness that he was related to angels. The bad news is that I can't find another source for this story or even another person named Goldfrene in any Google search which leads me to believe that his name was misprinted in the paper. The address at 282 Brady Street brigs back a dozen returns for people looking for work and an Eli Freeman but little else.

scroll through the pages with the arrows at the middle edges of the book See what happens when I have time to organize things! An article on the DUR interurban system that ran through the area between Detroit and Jackson and locales in-between as featured in the Winter 1971 edition of The Dearborn Historian . Of course, the various rails traversed the entire country but our main concern is the immediate Detroit area. Note the photos of the Westwood stop in Inkster and the few of Eloise among the mostly Dearborn stops.

Detroit Free Press , March 27, 1907 Frequently when a mental patient from Eloise was deemed cured or was released due to improvement in their mental health it was often followed by a return to the institution or a tragedy. In William Rowe's case it ended in suicide 3 months after a stint at the asylum. He was found in the attic by his wife after she had gone out to make a phone call. Initially she couldn't track him down at the house or around the neighborhood and as a last resort checked the attic where she found him hung. She ran from the house and flagged down two men, Frank Ritter and A. F. Martin, who determined that Rowe was dead and summoned the coroner, who confirmed it.

Detroit Free Press , July 9, 1903 Charles Varney wasn't unlike many a pauper who died homeless and nameless at the County House only to be further maligned with a cold dropping in the potter's field and summarily forgotten. This isn't exactly a memorial but at least it's a fair recording of the man.