Note: the Omena Historical Society Board of Directors Voted to Create a Corrigenda As A
CORRIGENDA: OMENA A PLACE IN TIME – A Sesquicentennial History 1852-2002. Author: Amanda J. Holmes. Copyright: 2003. Published by the Omena Historical Society. (Editor: Dale M. Blount).
Note: The Omena Historical Society Board of Directors voted to create a Corrigenda as a way to correct those inevitable errors of fact that happen when working on a major project like a history book. Corrections are in italics.
************
Xiii, Column 1, 3rd Paragraph, 3rd and 7th line, a misspelling(s). In years past a journey down this road would have stirred dust onto, from north to south, the McMachen, Stebbins, Bartlett, Brown, Williamson, Scott, C. L. Joynt, Williams, and A. Joynt farms, each boasting 80 to 160 acres, a frame farmhouse, heavy-timbered barn, and numerous outbuildings. Nothing remains of the McMachen farm, which anchors the north part of Overlook Road, except for a row of mature maple trees along the road.
McMachen corrections on the following pages: Page 33, Column 1, 1st Paragraph, 2nd line; Page 50, Column 1, 2nd Paragraph, 3rd line and 7th line; Page 255, Column 1, No.5; Index on Page 283.
Page 32, Column 1, 2nd Paragraph, 4th line, an error. In 1876 Rinaldo built his house overlooking the bay and lived there with his wife, Mary Donovan Putnam and their four children, James, John, Benajah, and Manervy. When the family emigrated to Omena from Canada in 1871, the children ranged in age from 14-21. John D. Putnam
and his wife, Annie Rennie, lived in Omena (now the home of Jeff & Sheila Lingaur). They had five sons, John Edward (Ed), Fred, Leonard, Walter, and Evits.
Page 32, Column 2, 1st Paragraph, 3rd line, an error. The family worked this land for several years, but eventually started anew on land along Putnam Road. This land was deeded to Rinaldo’s son John in 1893. Elizabeth Putnam Markham says the reason they left the first farm was “because they found it a rather stony piece of property.”
Page 33, Column 2, 1st Paragraph, 10th line, a misspelling. The Ranger’s barn had also been built this way.
Page 34, Column 1, 2nd Paragraph, 5th line, a misspelling. Today a small two-story house stands in the old farmhouse’s place and is currently owned by Doug and Michelle Racich. (Note: spelled incorrectly in 1st edition only).
Page 64, Column 2, Paragraph 3, Line 2, an error. Ernie was born at the turn of the twentieth century to Paul Christina Alpers Barth, one of several children, including
Robert, Walter, and Irene.
Page 65, 4th Paragraph, a clarification. In 1957, John Putnam sold his station to the new Fire Chief (since 1955) and stepson Keith Brown.
Page 66, Column 2, 1st Paragraph, 11th line, a misspelling. With three children of his own, Wayne, Glenn, and Eileen, who helped out in the store when they grew old enough, Ernie seemed particularly attuned to things that might please children.
Page 69, Column 2, 2nd Paragraph, 3rd line, a clarification. “Ed Egeler, Senior was the rural carrier.
Page 73, Column 2, 2nd Paragraph, 2nd line, an error. For his destination, he accepted the advice of Eleanor Blake, a customer of his since her high school years.
Page 86, Column 2, 1st Paragraph, 2nd line, a misspelling. The small pump organ, though old like everything else in the building, had been lovingly maintained, and now had an accomplished new organist, Dr. Earl V. Moore, who, before becoming head of the Music School at the University of Michigan, had served as the University organist.
Page 91, Column 1, Last Paragraph, 4th line, a misspelling. Project manager Bob Lange, Elder and new Clerk of Session of the church, measured and photographed the historic bell, said to have been forged from pennies contributed by the Indians in 1844 at Old Mission.
Page 104, Column 2, 4th Paragraph, 12th line, an error. As soon as Geneva Putnam, an employee of the post office (worked with Post Master Homer Fouts) heard the train (which by this time was always late) in the distance from her home in Omena, she dashed to her little Model A pickup truck and raced up the hill in order to catch the mail bags as they were tossed from the train.
Page 107, Photograph, an error. Automobile in photograph is not a Motel T; it is a
1914-15 Reo (a four-cylinder touring car).
Page 109, Photograph, an error. Cyrus Fouts is in the photograph - not brother Martin known as “Pooda”
Page 141, Photograph, an addition. On (far right) third adult from right is Kay Heitzman Groll Harris standing behind the small child.
Page 146, Column 2, 2nd Paragraph, 3rd line, a misprint. Isabelle Borgerson owned the hotel in 1919, but the next year she sold it to a Miss Alysworth.
-2-
Page 154-155, Column 2, 3rd Paragraph, a clarification. The person that Bea Kimmerly is referring to was not someone who stayed at the Omena Inn, but rather
a cottager. The bad behavior referred to is that of cottagers. The residents at the Omena Inn took their meals at the Inn and didn’t shop for food.
Page 160, 4th Paragraph, a clarification. They opened the building to find it jammed with boats of many sizes. Mary Helen Ray remembers standing on the stairs and passing items and a lot of miscellaneous “stuff”, assembly line fashion, until it reached
the outside of the building before they “scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,” and followed through on their promise to take care of it.
Page 165, Column 1, 1st Paragraph, 4th and 6th line, an error. Rebecca Richmond, in writing a letter to a prospective cottager in 1908 wondered if it had been the destruction of the Omena Inn by fire four years before (1904) that had curtailed the community’s fortunes.
Page 168, Column 2, 2nd Paragraph, a clarification. Reverend Chichester built what became the Ayars-Ray cottage in 1901.
Page 174, Column 2, Last Paragraph, 4th line, a clarification. Whoever designed or built the Fisher cottage (now owned by the Renz family who bought it in 1940) made certain that cleaning the cottage, at least, would not have to be a time-consuming chore.
Page 185, Column 2, 1st Paragraph, a clarification, The Ray cottage (built by Reverend Chichester) was a more permanent plastered structure because as a minister, Reverend Chichester had never owned a permanent home for himself, so he wanted something sturdy and enduring in 1901.
Page 210, Column 1, 1st Paragraph, a clarification. There is question to the validity of the Carmichael’s giving the acreage between the Point cottages and the newly opened (1937) Omena Point Road to the cottage owners. Mr. Carmichael gave the land to some of the cottagers but was unwilling to sell the few feet behind Ruth and Stewart Ayars’ icehouse and the service road to the Woolfords and Oberndorfs. After Hector Carmichael died, his wife Jesse sold that land to the Ayars.
Page 216, Last Paragraph, 2nd line, an error. On August 24, 1948, an unnamed gang of boys – resorters alleged to have come from Northport Point – held a party on the island that quickly degenerated into a bacchanal of destruction focused on the hapless cottage.
Page 228, Photograph, an error. In the photograph with Gordon Solle are Geneva Putnam (Smith) standing on the left and Elsie Putnam (Esch) on the right.
-3-
Page 229, Column 2, 1st Paragraph, 1st line, an error. Then my father could go back and forth on the train from Traverse City to Chicago and return a few days later.
Page 253, 1970, 3rd entry, a misspelling, and a correction. Verlin Steele begins a buyer and brining station. (Note: spelled incorrectly in 1st edition only). This entry should be in the early to mid 1950s. Verlin Steele passed away in 1966 and his wife sold the business to Chuck Kalchik in 1968. He and his partners built on in the 1970s, so the reference may be correct year wise.
Page 255, Note 5, an error - delete
Page 279, Index, Barth, Glenn, 66
Page 283, Index, McMachen, xiii, 50, 255
McMachen, William 33
Page 284, Index, Racich 34
Page 285, Index. Steele, Verlin 253
Committee:
George Anderson
Joey Bensley
Helen Putnam Bradley
Nancy Craker Enyart
Eric Hallett
Mary Helen Ray
Rat Renz
Jane Saxton
Mary Hallett Stanton
Joan Kalchick TenBrock
Fred Putnam
Ruth Steele-Walker
Jim Von Holt
JULY 2013
-4-