1963 Christmas Decorations

I am wondering if my readers could help.

The other day I had someone ask if anyone remembered Christmas decorations strung across the main four corners intersection along about the 1970s and 1980s.  I found the above picture from 1963 (no snow) looking eastward.  I'm not sure that's what they were referring to so I am wondering if anyone remembers other decorations during that era.

I would love to have you comment and I will direct that person to this site to read up on your memories.

Thanks!

1968 Letters to Santa

This is fun -- I looked in a December, 1968, issue of "The Fowlerville Review" and, on the front page, there were wonderfully-written letters to Santa.  I wish we could find out if Robert and Elizabeth and Stacia and Mary Ellen and Davy were lucky enough to get what they asked for.

At this time in the newspaper's history, Dick Rudnicki was the editor and publisher of the paper.  I have forever been grateful for drives around town as Dick told me various stories and identified storefronts and homes.  He is the Fowlerville encyclopedia, for sure!

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas with family and friends, and loads of good eats.  And, hopefully Santa brings you what you're wishing for.

1971 Hair Salons

I love to randomly pull up issues of "The Review" (1972-1984) and "The Fowlerville Review" (1874-1971), do a bit of scrolling, and then clip out an article, advertisement, or compilation of local news.  In a 1971 issue, I came across this ad.

Would love to hear from anyone knowing of any of these salons and where they were located.

1965 Beginning of Community Park

This month, Fowlerville lost one of its leaders from long ago -- Irwin Glover.  You can find his obituary under the "Remember" tab on this blog.  His funeral was a celebration of a life well-led and I feel honored I knew him for these last 18 years.

Irwin was one of the first I met when I joined the Rotary Club in 1999.  He was kind, generous, and outgoing, and he was the reason we sang songs at the beginning of each meeting.  

So, I post the following article that happened to catch my eye this week as I was looking for something interesting.  In May of 1965, this announcement was in "The Fowlerville Review" to bring the community out to work together on putting the Community Park (large one on North Grand) in order.  Irwin, along with Frank Utter and numerous other Rotarians, worked hard to make this happen and aren't we all glad!

A few years back, the Rotary Club funded the paving of what is now known as the "Rotary Mile."  I love using that walk and hopefully many more make use of it -- and, for that, we can thank men like Irwin Glover.

1963 Haire and Jackson

I've been opening up the digital version of "The Fowlerville Review," published from 1874-1972, randomly choosing a date and then doing some scrolling.  If something catches my eye, I save the article or picture and post here.

Please let me know if you would like me to look for anything in particular during those 98 years.  If you give me an approximately date, I can do some looking.

Today's picture was on the front page of the newspaper May 8, 1963.  This picture shows the North Grand Avenue view of the storefront for Haire and Jackson.  Years before, it was the location for Curtis Grocery and years later, the Decorating Center was located here.  Currently, it houses Maria's School of Dance.

Following is the ad from page 7:

1969 'Round the Town News

Thought this might be fun to post here.  

Every week, including the week of May 7, 1969, social and other events of some of the residents showed up in the news.  Some of you might recognize family names and what was happening in late spring of that year.  Enjoy!

1969 Advertisements

Here are some fun advertisements from a 1969 issue of The Fowlerville Review, published by the Rudnickis.  Some of you may remember these storefronts:

Spagnuolo's:

Howard's Market (where Sav-On is now located):

And, J.&D. Tavern:

I am wondering if J.&D. Tavern was located where DaShoe now resides.  Anyone remember?

1971 Rezoning Rounsville Property

In 1875, a very large house was built just south of the railroad tracks on the east side of South Grand Avenue.  It was built by the Rounsville family, also owners of the grain elevator across South Grand; the same one that was severely damaged in the 1909 tornado that touched down along the tracks.  For more information on the Rounsville family and/or the tornado, feel free to use the search feature.  There's also sections of the 1875 map you can search on.

But now, back to 1971.  The property was now owned by Tom McKane and he was looking to sell 66.9 acres.  The village council was considering rezoning the land and received a great deal of opposition from residents.  Following are the articles with that information.

I'm curious if anyone remembers when the house was still standing and/or this battle.

1971 Proposal One

In 1971, the village dealt with an issue of being able to or not sell liquor-by-the-glass.  I found this totally intriguing since the Prohibition Era, fifty years earlier than this proposal, has held a great deal of interest for me.  Throughout Fowlerville's history, it was a "dry" town, sometimes even the entire county was dry.  

The following full-page advertisement was taken out by the Committee for Lower Taxes in Fowlerville, labeled, "What Wrong With Fowlerville?" and additionally to "Vote YES for Liquor By The Glass, Monday, March 8th."

I continued looking at this issue of "The Review" newspaper and found the Fowlerville Licensed Beverage Association as well as the Progressive Business of Fowlerville" ran full-page ads.  There were no names associated with the organizations.

In the next issue, Wednesday, March 18, 1971, on the front page, an article entitled, "Fowlerville Approves Liquor" read as follows:

Fowlerville residents approved liquor by the glass for the village by a margin of 58 votes.  354 ballots were cast, with 12 ballots spoiled, for a final count of 200 yeas-142 no.  

With no opposition, all incumbents were re-elected.  It was not known at press time if any write-in candidates had been placed on the ballots.

Re-elected to office were President T. Nelson Tobias, 274 votes; Clerk Murial Bohm, 275; Treasurer Treva Risdon, 273; Assessor Harold Robb, 267; Trustees Gerald Bohnett, 261; Robert Branch, 254; and Andy Linman, Jr., 261.  Library Board members re-elected are Marge Carlon, 264, and Marion Jackson, 260.

Election workers reported that the majority of the spoiled ballots were the results of voters pushing down the markers under the Democratic ticket, either mistaking the markers for the Republican party, or possibly intending to write in a candidate.

A note regarding the above article - the library was under the auspices of the village in 1971.  By 1994, the library became a district library, encompassing the same area as the school district.

1967 Stones in the Road

As I've been looking through some old files, I thought I'd search on items at 50 years ago, 40 years ago, etc.  Looking back 50 years ago, I found this article from The Fowlerville Review, published January 4, 1967.

Reading through this article, I wonder if Jerome Olrich and Mary Loughlin are still around.  Anyone know?

1972 Frank's Silver Year

Continuing to look back at the Curtis Grocery history, I found the following article in a 1972 issue of The Review:

I'm sure for many of you it is a walk down memory lane -- so many names in this single article!

1967 Frank's Foodliner

As I'm sure close to everyone is aware Curtis Grocery closed a few weeks ago after reopening in 2010.  I am so sad to see the empty storefront and know I can't bop in there to see Ken, Craig, Larry, and Cate--have so enjoyed seeing them whenever I needed to resupply our fridge.

As I pondered the closing, I went in search of some of the ads from days-gone-by.  Below is an ad from November, 1967.

The next page of that particular issue of The Fowlerville Review also showed the winners of the "Let's Go To The Races" contest.  The picture on the left shows Frank Curtis, on the right is Gary Whitford.  Would love if my readers would leave a comment on either of these two men. 

1970 Housing Prices

Wanna buy a house?  In 1970?  By today's standards, we'd all be lining up to pay these prices.  But, inflation has played some tricks on us.  A house costing $16,000 in 1970 would be priced at $100,000 in 2015.  Interesting...

1971 Community State Bank Ad

Sticking with the theme of Halloween coming up, here's an advertisement for the Community State Bank from the October 27, 1971, issue of "The Fowlerville Review," for "bewitching car loans."

There's a great deal of information and pictures on the Community State Bank on this blog.  If you make use of the search box and put in words such as "Community State Bank" or "George Tait," you will find various articles previously written.

1972 Ralph Fowler House

At the recent funeral for Dorothy Peckens-Pfiefle, a reader of this website was given a copy of the article published in 1972 of Ralph Fowler's house, located in the northwest quadrant, of the structure's possible removal to Bell Oak.  In fact, this house was demolished instead of being moved.

The house sat at about what is now the corner of North Ann Street and West Grand River, where for a couple of winters an ice skating rink had been created.  After the Peckens no longer had this property, some may remember this corner where used cars were displayed.

Information like this -- and so much more -- can be found in my two books, The Fowlerville Chronicles and Through the Eyes of a Country Editor.  (How's that for a hard-sell job!)

As a favor, I would love to ask anyone having articles and/or newspaper clippings from days gone-by, please contact me and I'll add them to the site.  It is great to keep this information available for anyone doing research.

1970 Library Construction

The following picture was given to me a few days back:

In 1970, the Fowlerville library was finally, truly, getting a home of its home.  The building -- where the library continues to operate out of -- was built in 1970.  Before that, the library was located in the Handy township building, and had outgrown the confines of those walls.

Since 1970, the current library building has been added on to, but continues to experience growing pains.  Every available space is used up and the staff is constantly working at making sure all the books, magazines, dvds, and reference materials are well displayed.

But, back to the above picture.  A note came with the picture indicating Ronald Brunger, a pastor in Fowlerville and a library board member, is sitting at the keyboard.  Can anyone identify the others in the picture?  And, does anyone have a memories to contribute of when the library building was under construction?

1970 Music Banner and Pipe Organ

When Mr. Leonard, one of my readers, purchased the Estey pipe organ from Charles Needham of the Howell Pickle Works company, he was given this banner that used to hang in the music room of J.C. Ellsworth's house, when Banker Ellsworth originally owned the organ -- now there is a mouthful!  But it pretty much sums up the entire many days of all the wonder pictures and information that has been provided for this website.

And, following are pictures of the pipe organ as it currently is housed at Mr. Leonard's home:

 

I'd like to extend a huge thank you to Mr. Leonard for his time and effort in sending me the information, a packet full of copies, and e-mails just chockful of information.  Thank you, thank you!

1970 Tait House

Following are two pictures of the Ellsworth/Tait house, the first one possibly in the 1950s and the second one probably about 1970, when my reader that has provided so much information purchased the organ.

The one big change I see in the house is the front porch.  In the older picture, the porch covering was for the first floor only, but later, probably when the roof was redone, tall pillars were adding in front of both floors.

1970 Purchase of J.C. Ellsworth's Organ

The last two bits of information I would like to offer on the organ originally owned by J.C. Ellsworth are two pieces of correspondence when the organ was purchased by its current owner.  The second letter is from George Tait, who became the bank president after Mr. Ellsworth.  Some may well remember him.

When Mr. Leonard met George Tait, he relayed they had made the music room smaller and turned it in their master bedroom.

Tomorrow I'm going to post an update of a post a few days back on Mrs. Fred Palmerton being injured, then over the next couple of days, I will be posting some pictures my reader sent.  Thank you so much to this particular reader for sharing so much great information on the village and one of its community leaders.

1966 Chris Ludtke

Once again, I found myself on the second and third floors of the Harmon building, doing a little exploring with one of my readers and friend.  In the very near future, I will be posting a few more very interesting discoveries.

But for now, I want to do a little bit of an update on an earlier squint shot.  Click here for the squint shot article.  Once you've read that article and obituary, come back here.

My reader offered a little additional information and insight.  Chris Ludtke would have been 20 years old in 1919 -- writing on a wall might have been something a kid that age would do!  When Mr. Ludtke passed away, the service was held in the Lutheran church with at least some of the pallbearers being active in the Masons.  Paul Harmon's grandfather was one of the pallbearers.

Tomorrow I will be starting a series of scans of an advertising gimmick from about 1990.