Archive: Vic's Photos (#8)

Family portrait (1947): Vic, Peter, Dave, Steve, Vicki, Doris

Dear George,

My father, Vic L., created a wonderful photographic record during the years that we were growing up in Menominee, and my brother Peter recirculated many of Vic’s photographs to family members in the early 2000’s in the form of postcards.  I’ve been posting individual photos from Peter’s collection on my blog once a week, and here’s a batch of them in the form of an archive.  There are seven earlier archives of Vic’s photos on this blog which can be accessed by clicking on “Archives” in the “Labels” section of the righthand column.  The most frequent subjects in the photos are my mom Doris, my brothers Steven and Peter, my sister Vicki, and myself.

Love,

Dave

I’m going to guess this was taken on my brother Steve’s first birthday (2-27-42).  It would have been at our house on Ogden Ave. where our grandfather V.A. Sr., age 67, is blowing on a paper whistle.  V.A. was a gentle and kind grandfather, much loved by his grandchildren. 

Here’s Vic riding a bike on Riverside Boulevard near our house.  On the postcard containing this image, Peter wrote, “I don’t remember Vic ever riding a bike.” I’d have to agree, though here we have undeniable evidence.  Riverside Boulevard was a gravel and dirt road when we first moved there in the 1940’s, and the county blacktopped it in the early 1950’s, making for much better bike-riding. 

The Mobil gas station in Menominee was at the corner of Ogden Ave. and Highway 41 near the Courthouse.  Gas in my youth was usually 19.9 cents a gallon, but when the local stations had a gas war it could drop as low as 9.9 cents.  The only traffic light in town was at this corner.  When my high school friend Nancy D. was driving a bunch of us around in her parents’ car, she bypassed the traffic light by driving right through the gas station space.  We all screamed in mock horror.  

Jean and Margaret Worth and their kids – close friends of our family – lived on State St. in Menominee, near to the Burke’s and the St. Peters.  They had three girls – Dooley, Ann, and Jean, similar in ages to the kids in our family.  Jean Worth was the editor of the Menominee Herald-Leader and later the Escanaba Daily Press, as well as a well-known U.P. historian.  The Worths had a fantastic hunting camp in Cedar River where we enjoyed many outings with my parents’ circle of friends. 

Each year my parents brought us on a trip to Chicago where we took in the big city attractions, including the Art Institute, the Museum of Science and Industry, Lincoln Park, and the Maxwell Street Flea Market.  Here are my brother Steve and our mom Doris in a Chicago restaurant (circa 1950).  

The Ferris and Watts circus visited Menominee each summer, staging a parade through town with elephants and other wonders of the world.  The circus grounds were near the site of the present-day airport, and our family would go there shortly after dawn to watch the men and the elephants set up the tents.  

In my midteens I constructed my own private camp in the forested area of our family property between the house and Riverside Boulevard.  It had a lean-to made of Alder tree trunks, a fire pit, a table I constructed from tree branches, and various other accoutrements.  It was hidden away, and I kept its location secret, fantasizing that I would escape there if family life became unbearable.  I guess I must have invited my father and my sister Vicki to come and visit, since Vicki shows up in this photo.  I think I blindfolded them before leading them to my hideout.    

This is family friend Muriel Sawyer with one of her children.  Peter suggested that the baby is Chip, Muriel’s son.  Dick Sawyer was my Dad’s law partner, and we’d visit the Sawyers regularly at their State St. home and sometimes at their hunting camp.  I once went out with Dick and my dad on a duck-hunting expedition at dawn.  We didn’t get any ducks, but it was a memorable adventure nonetheless.   

My mom, Doris, and her close friends Jean O’Hara and Florence Caley are in the back of the Caley’s boat on Green Bay.  Peter commented on his postcard, “It was the only boat I went on as a kid, usually to Fish Creek or Ephraim where the Caleys had built a summer home on the bluff.”  

When my parents moved to their Birch Creek farm in the early 70’s, they continued to entertain friends regularly.  Here’s a lawyer and lawyer spouse group -- Margaret St. Peter, Ken Doyle, Muriel Sawyer (seated), and my mom Doris L. at the kitchen table.  

Though our U.P. small town was in a largely rural region, my parents insured that we made trips to Milwaukee and Chicago at least once or twice a year.  Here are Doris, Kevin (Kiera) O’Hara, Vicki, and Peter at a restaurant in Milwaukee.  

Peter suggests on this postcard that this friendly group is seeing our family off at the depot on a trip to Milwaukee.  From the left: my Aunt Martha, Mike and Jean O’Hara, our grandfather V.A. in the cap, an unknown man behind him, my Uncle Ralph, and probably my Uncle Kent. 

The Ann Arbor car ferry ran between Menominee and the Lower Peninsula.  This is Car Ferry #5.  When we lived in Ann Arbor, we thought about taking the car ferry across Lake Michigan many times to save on driving time, but we couldn’t afford it.  Then it shut down, and we’d missed our opportunity.

This scene is somewhere on the shore of Green Bay on a boating expedition with a group of my parents’ family friends.  From the left: Florence Caley, Bill Caley, Jean O’Hara (kneeling), probably Doris L under the bag, Mike O’Hara, and Peter guesses Mike W.  This bunch had lots of fun together for many years.  

On his postcard of this scene, Peter labeled the image “Ice Cutters” and commented: “One of the things I remember is the ice house on the Marinette side of the river up from the Paper Co. where they would store huge blocks of ice sawed out of the river & then buried in sawdust.”  They delivered ice to my grandfather’s Marinette drugstore when I worked there as a kid.   

This is Peter L., Vicki L., and Kiera in front of the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee, about 1957 or ‘58.  Peter commented on his accompanying postcard, “The Pfister Hotel completed in 1893, cost $1.5 million, a staggering sum in opulent Victorian times.  One of America’s first electric hotels and the first in the world to have a thermostat in every room.  In 1962 it was sold to Ben Marcus at a bankruptcy auction.  He invested $12 million to return it to its former glory.”

Here’s my mom Doris with my siblings Peter and Vicki at YMCA Camp near Green Bay, probably about 1951.  They would have been visiting my brother Steve at the time because I’d graduated to Boy Scout camp by then.  I never liked going to any of these camps (too nerve-wracking being with all those strangers), but Steven was more socially adept and did better in new situations.    

I look pretty dressed up for this occasion, even sporting a handkerchief in my breast pocket.  Peter speculates on his postcard that it was my prom night (a good guess since I can’t think of any other occasion for wearing a suit in my high school years).  That’s our Irish Setter, Mickey, resting on the ground.

I missed out on my sister being a Junior Varsity cheerleader because I was away at grad school.  There weren’t any high school sports for girls, so cheering for the boys’ teams was the sole athletic option for girls.  Vicki didn’t pursue her cheerleading career after junior high, probably because it didn’t fit with her life priorities.  

Here's a beautiful photo taken in Menekaunee on the Green Bay shore across the river from Menominee.  Menekaunee started out as a separate fishing village and eventually was absorbed by the city of Marinette.  I went many times with my dad to buy fresh whitefish at Pederson’s fish house in Menekaunee on trips home from college and graduate school.  There’s still some active commercial fishing on Green Bay and Lake Michigan that’s based there, though substantially less than in days gone by. 

Katja first came to visit Menominee in March of 1957, three months after we’d first met in Milwaukee. This photo, with Peter, Vicki, and myself, was taken a couple of years later at our house on the river. Vicki was 10 and Peter almost 12.  My brothers and sister loved Katja, and it took no time at all for her to become a full-fledged member of our family.

As newlyweds, Katja and I moved from Yellow Springs to Ann Arbor in September 1960, and we’d make biannual trips to Menominee via the Mackinac Bridge each August and sometimes in December.  Here’s my mom Doris talking with Katja as I packed the trunk, probably about to depart on a wintry trip to the Lower Peninsula.  Xmas vacations in Menominee were full of excitement because of all the togetherness with siblings, socializing, thrift shops, Jim Beam, and laughter. 

Around the late 1960’s my parents, Vic and Doris, teamed up with Vic and Ruth Mars to buy a large section of land in the Birch Creek area, north of Menominee.  Vic and Doris’ half included a dilapidated farm building compound in which they originally had little or no interest.  After a couple of years, though, they decided to renovate it, and Farm because the heart and soul of their later lives.  This is my dad on the front porch before the work had begun.  Now the property is owned jointly by Vic and Doris’ nine grandchildren, and they’ve turned it into a thriving rental and family vacation property.