Michigan's "bearded lady," Grace Gilbert

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, circus sideshows were popular forms of entertainment. Carnival barkers lured audiences into darkened tents with stories of tattooed men, sword swallowers, and human skeletons. Spectators thrilled to the daring deeds of strongmen, fire breathers, and glass eaters. And, of course, no sideshow was complete without a bearded lady. One of the era's most popular bearded ladies hailed from Michigan and is, in fact, buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in the northern Michigan community of Leetsville. That woman is Grace Gilbert.


Grace Gilbert, the "Bearded Lady"

Gilbert was born in Ohio in 1876, the youngest of Giles and Arosina Gilbert's four children. Within minutes of her birth, Gilbert's parents knew that something was different about their new addition. At an age when most babies have smooth, clear skin, the infant's body was covered with fine, silky hair that only became thicker as she aged. By the time Gilbert was 18 months old, a newspaper article was reporting that the hair on her head was a foot long, and that she had three- to four-inch-long whiskers on her face. The phenomenon, according to the reporter, was "the greatest living curiosity we have ever seen."

As Gilbert reached adulthood, she realized that career opportunities (and, in all likelihood, marriage prospects) were limited for a woman with a full beard, so when she was 18, she began appearing in sideshows. In 1901, the same year that Gilbert moved with her family to Kalkaska County, she signed on with Ringling Brothers Circus, one of the nation's largest big tops. She was a sought-after attraction, as her beard, at 18 inches, was significantly longer than those of other bearded ladies at the time. In 1903, Gilbert left Ringling and joined its competitor, the Barnum & Bailey Circus. She stayed with Barnum until 1905, then signed on with a few other circuses, which afforded her the opportunity to tour England and France.

Unlike many sideshow acts, bearded ladies didn't perform feats of strength or skill. Their only job was to appear before audiences in all their feminine, yet hirsute, glory. Personality-wise, Gilbert was very much a lady, and enjoyed stereotypically "female" pursuits like sewing. However, she also had a stocky physique that lent itself to physical labor. Gilbert was happy to use her strength to assist with chores around the circus, and often helped raise the big top (i.e., the main tent) at each new stop.

By 1910, Gilbert had been traveling with sideshows for about 16 years. Despite the fact that she had been on the road for so long, she was able to find romance with a childhood sweetheart---Giles Calvin, whom she married that year during a ceremony in South Bend, Indiana. Gossips immediately got to talking, and not only because of the fact that the Bearded Lady was now married. Calvin was Gilbert's cousin, and Gilbert had, in fact, lived with him after her father died in 1907. The suspicious-minded insisted that the marriage was a publicity stunt. To prove them wrong, Gilbert announced her retirement from sideshows and went to work on her husband's farm in Kalkaska.

However, by 1906, realizing that the circus life was more lucrative than farming, Gilbert returned to the circuit and began appearing at Coney Island, New York. For the next eight years, she and her husband spent summers at Coney Island, then returned to Kalkaska during the off season. Gilbert kept up this schedule until the winter of 1924, when she fell ill, complaining of a sore throat. Unfortunately, her ailment proved fatal, and she died on January 24. She was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, next to her parents. Her husband joined her twelve years later, after he died in 1936.


Additional Information:

According to people who lived in the Kalkaska area at the same time that Gilbert did, the bearded lady was forced to wear a veil around town so that her appearance wouldn't startle pregnant women who might be walking along the street with her.

What caused Gilbert's hairy countenance? While it can't be stated for certain in her case, many "bearded ladies" have hormonal imbalances or a disorder known as hypertrichosis, both of which can cause abnormal hair growth.

People you might not have known were from Michigan

Every Michigander knows that Madonna hails from the Great Lakes State. The fact that Tim Allen comes from Michigan is old news, and celebrities like Jeff Daniels, Michael Moore, and Eminem have incorporated the fact that they're from Michigan into their movies, documentaries, and music, so their status as Michiganders is fairly obvious.

But what about the lesser-known Michigan celebrities? By that, I mean celebrities who aren't necessarily any less famous or important than the celebrities listed above, but simply those whom not many people realize are from Michigan. This post gives them their due. Read on to learn about stars of stage and screen you never realized once lived (and, in some case, still do live) in Michigan.

Ken Jeong

1. Ken Jeong---Wait, what? Yep, "Senor Chang," the Spanish teacher from the television show Community, was born in Detroit. He's probably more famous to other audiences as gangster "Leslie Chow" from the Hangover movies. Another mind-blowing fact: Before he became an actor, Jeong was a physician, and is in fact still licensed to practice in the state of California. Wrap your mind around that while you watch this clip from Community. (In order to keep this site PG-rated, there's no way I can, in good conscience, include any of his scenes from The Hangover.)

Link to YouTube video of Senor Chang

Terry O'Quinn

2. Terry O'Quinn---Fans of the television show Lost known Terry O'Quinn as the mysterious "John Locke," a role for which he won an Emmy in 2007. O'Quinn was born in Sault Ste. Marie and raised in Newberry, and attended Central Michigan University. Another fun fact: His last name is actually Quinn. He changed it when he was a budding actor and learned that another performer was working under the name Terrance Quinn. Here he is at work in Lost.

Link to YouTube video of John Locke

Elaine Stritch

3. Elaine Stritch---Elaine Stritch is a Tony Award winner (and multiple nominee) who has plied the stages of Broadway and the West End for decades. I'm slightly ashamed to say that the only reason I know of her is that she played Jack Donaghy's cantankerous mother on the television show 30 Rock. (However, she was one of my favorite characters in that show.) Stritch was born in Detroit, and recently moved back to Michigan (Birmingham, to be exact) to be closer to her family. Here's a clip of Stritch singing one of her signature songs, "Here's to the Ladies Who Lunch," from the musical Company.

Link to YouTube video of Elaine Stritch

James Caan

4. James Caan---Admittedly, Caan's days in Michigan were few---he attended Michigan State University during the 1956-1957 academic year before returning to his native New York City. Still, he made a mark on campus. Caan was a member of the football team (he later noted that his position was "tackling dummy") and studied economics. After leaving MSU, he became an actor and got his big break in 1971 when he starred as Brian Piccolo in the movie Brian's Song. A year later, he received an Academy Award nomination for his role as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. Here's a clip from The Godfather, showing Caan in action:

Link to YouTube video of Sonny Corleone

Dick York

5. Dick York---Best known as the "first Darrin" from the 1960s sitcom Bewitched, York was born in Indiana and grew up in Chicago, but spent the last years of his life in Rockford, Michigan, where he's buried in Plainfield Cemetery. York spent five seasons on Bewitched before the chronic back pain he received during a previous project forced him to leave the show. Eventually, York moved to Rockford, where he became bedridden from emphysema. He died at the age of 63 in February 1992. Bewitched clips featuring York are hard to come by on YouTube (most of what I've found are entire episodes), but here's a segment with York, along with his TV daughter, wife, and mother-in-law:

Link to YouTube video of Darrin Stephens

Annie Edson Taylor: Niagara daredevil

Most people find the thought of dropping over Niagara Falls in a barrel unappealing, to say the least. A few young daredevils might consider it the "ultimate rush" (or whatever the kids are saying these days), but most of us who are happily settled into adulthood need nothing more than to look at a photo of the falls, or maybe gaze at them from behind the safety of a barrier, to satisfy our desire for adventure.



Yep, that about does it for me.

Technically, Bay City resident Annie Edson Taylor wasn't looking for a thrill so much as a paycheck when she became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. However, Taylor was definitely at an age when most Michiganders were dipping into their pensions, not plunging 167 feet over one of North America's best-known waterfalls. Taylor made the trip on October 24, 1901---her sixty-third birthday.

 

Annie Edson Taylor

Taylor was born in 1838 in Auburn, New York, and experienced tragedy at an early age. Her father died when she was 12, and her only child with husband David Taylor died a few days after birth. David himself died not long after, in the Civil War. The newly widowed Taylor moved around the country looking for work, and eventually ended up in Bay City, where she opened a dance school at the corner of Center Avenue and Saginaw Street. She attracted a number of students, but, because she tried to maintain the well-to-do lifestyle she had enjoyed as a child, she quickly spent most of her money. In 1900, Taylor moved to Sault Saint Marie, where she taught music, but still wasn't earning enough to support herself. Taylor and a friend traveled to Mexico City, where they hoped to find jobs, but had no luck. Defeated, Taylor moved back to Bay City and considered ways she could avoid the poorhouse.

After reading a newspaper article that mentioned Niagara Falls, Taylor hatched a plan. The falls, located along the border of New York State and Ontario, were a major tourist attraction. Taylor figured that, by becoming the first person to survive a barrel plunge over them, she could parlay her experience into fame and fortune. She approached staff members at the West Bay City Cooperage Company to design a barrel that could withstand the tens of thousands of cubic feet of water that plunge over the falls every second. She also solicited local promoter Frank M. Russell to serve as her manager. The cooperage came up with an oak-and-iron barrel that Taylor could stuff with a mattress to cushion herself from the beating she would take in the rapids below the falls. The barrel also contained an anvil at its bottom, so that it would stay balanced in the roiling water. Thus equipped with her ticket to wealth, Taylor headed for the falls on October 12, 1901.

Taylor may have been desperate for money, but she wasn't crazy. Before she took her historic plunge, she wanted to see whether the barrel---and consequently, she herself---would survive it. A few days before her scheduled trip, Taylor stuffed into the barrel what at the time was the world's unluckiest cat, and sent it over the Horseshoe Falls, the largest of Niagara's three cascades. Surprisingly, the cat survived, and Taylor posed for photos with it, determined that she, too, would live through the ordeal.

Let's give credit where credit's due; technically, the cat was the first
 living thing to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

On October 24, 1901, Taylor and a few helpers crowded into a rowboat in the Niagara River, ready to make history. Taylor's helpers held the barrel at the rowboat's edge and Taylor climbed in, clutching a lucky pillow to her chest. Her associates secured the lid, then compressed the air inside the barrel with a bicycle pump. They used a cork to plug the air hole, and set the barrel adrift, watching as it began the first portion of its twenty-minute journey to the Horseshoe Falls. Taylor's trip over the waterfall itself lasted a few seconds, but her barrel remained at the falls' base for a significant amount of time before rescuers could retrieve it. Nervous about whether the barrel had, in fact, become Taylor's coffin, rescuers opened it to find a bewildered but very much alive Taylor, who had survived the ordeal with nothing more than a cut on her head---though she latter gave the press some choice words about her experience. "I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces, than make another trip over the fall," Taylor said.

 

Taylor being helped to shore after her trip over the falls

Her goal achieved, Taylor got ready to rake in the money. However, her luck after the falls escapade was just as bad as her luck had been before it. Russell, the manager she had brought with her from Bay City, made off with Taylor's barrel, and she spent a significant amount of money on private investigators to track it down. Though Taylor earned some cash posing for photos and selling souvenirs, she ultimately had to pursue other lines of work to make ends meet. Poverty-stricken, Taylor died in 1921 at the age of 82. Though Taylor's deed failed to bring her material wealth, it did write a place for her in the history books. Taylor is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Niagara Falls, New York, in an area known as the "stunter's section," which is the final resting place of individuals who made names for themselves by challenging one of the continent's mightiest waterfalls.


For more information:

Annie Edson Taylor isn't the only Michigander to travel over the Horseshoe Falls. In 2003, Canton resident Kirk Jones made the trip---and did so by himself, with no barrel or gear to protect him. The 40-year-old was unemployed, and said that his plunge over the falls was a suicide attempt, though his family said he had undertaken the stunt as a way to become famous and make money. Jones jumped into the Niagara River a mere twenty feet from the Horseshoe Falls, then pulled himself out of harm's way once he reached the bottom. Emergency responders took Jones to a hospital, but he suffered nothing more than a few minor rib injuries. Jones's trip over the falls ended up costing him money. Officials arrested him for causing mischief and performing a stunt in Niagara Parks, and he pled guilty, paying a few thousand dollars in fines.

"Rosie the Riveter" was from Michigan, Part II: Rose Will Monroe

Yesterday, I wrote about Geraldine Doyle, a "Rosie the Riveter" from Michigan. Here's a link to that post:  "Rosie the Riveter" was from Michigan, Part I: Geraldine Doyle

Doyle wasn't the only "Rosie" to hail from the Great Lakes State. Rose Will Monroe, who helped build Air Force bombers at the Willow Run aircraft factory in Ypsilanti, was another one. Unlike Doyle, whose face appeared on the "We Can Do It!" poster that shows a female factory worker flexing her muscle, Monroe earned her fame by appearing in a short film that promoted war bonds.

Rose Will Monroe

Born in Kentucky in 1920, Monroe became a young widow when her husband died in a car accident in 1942. Suddenly, Monroe needed a way to support herself and her two young children. She found it at Willow Run, where she hoped to become one of the women whom the Ford Motor Company employed to fly armaments across the country. However, because Monroe was a single mother, her request to become a pilot was denied, and she was placed on the assembly line, where she riveted pieces of B-24 bombers.

See where this is going? ROSE Monroe was working as a RIVETER.

One day, actor Walter Pidgeon, star of several Hollywood movies, was touring Willow Run during a war bond drive when he heard about Monroe. In 1942, the song "Rosie the Riveter" had introduced the title character to Americans, describing a woman who was "making history, working for victory" by building military vehicles while "smeared full of oil and grease." A video of the song follows this paragraph. I've got to warn you: it's very catchy, and will probably stick in your head all day.

In addition to working for victory, Rosie the Riveter was kind of obsessed with war bonds, as the lyrics note:

 

Rosie buys a lot of War Bonds

That girl really has sense

Wishes she could purchase more Bonds

Putting all her extra cash in National Defense

Inspired by the fact that he had met a real-life "Rosie the Riveter" (or "Rose the Riveter," which apparently was close enough), Pidgeon asked Monroe to star in a film that promoted war bonds. She agreed, and became the face of Rosie the Riveter to millions of Americans who saw the short in movie theaters. (I've searched the Internet, but can't find clips from the film, or even still pictures from it, so unfortunately, I can't show you what Monroe looked or sounded like as her alter ego.)

When the war ended, so did Monroe's position at Willow Run, and she moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where she worked a variety of jobs, including driving a cab, owning a beauty shop, and even starting her own construction company. At age 50, Monroe realized a lifelong dream when she earned her pilot's license (an opportunity she had been denied at Willow Run). Unfortunately, her dream ended in 1978, when she crashed her plane and suffered injuries so severe that she could no longer fly. Monroe died in 1997 at age 77 and is buried in New Albany, Indiana, under a headstone that reads "Rosie the Riveter."

"Rosie the Riveter" was from Michigan, Part I: Geraldine Doyle

Did you know that Michigan was home to not one, but two, Rosie the Riveters? "How is that possible?" you might ask. "There's only one Rosie the Riveter." It's true that there's only one iconic symbol of female fortitude named Rosie the Riveter, but several real-life women inspired her creation. Two of those women happen to be from Michigan. This post will focus on one of them, Geraldine Doyle, while tomorrow's post will talk about Rose Will Monroe.

The illustration below is probably the best-known image of Rosie the Riveter, who represented the thousands of World War II-era women who took on factory jobs when their menfolk went off to war:

It might surprise you to learn that this image was never supposed to be Rosie the Riveter. Instead, it was part of a promotional campaign from Westinghouse Electric that tried to boost morale among the company's workers. The poster was displayed in a few Westinghouse factories in February 1943, and featured a generic working woman (i.e., not Rosie the Riveter). It wasn't seen outside the company, and, like all the posters in Westinghouse's campaign, it was meant to motivate both men and women.

Another poster from the same campaign. With a snappy
slogan like that, I can't imagine why this image didn't catch on.

 

 

The poster remained obscure until the 1980s, when it was rediscovered and appropriated as a "girl power" image. That's also when people began calling the woman on the poster "Rosie the Riveter." The resurgence in interest must have come as a surprise to Geraldine Doyle, the Michigan woman who had no idea that her photo had inspired the now-iconic poster---or even that the poster existed.

Geraldine Doyle working at the American Broach & Machine
Company in Ann Arbor; this image served as inspiration for
Westinghouse Electric's famous "We Can Do It!" poster.

Doyle was born in Inkster in 1924 and graduated from high school in Ann Arbor. In 1942, to demonstrate her patriotism, Doyle (who at the time was known by her maiden name of Hoff) took a job as a metal stamper at the American Broach & Machine Company in Ann Arbor. Two weeks later she quit, deciding that, as a cellist, she couldn't risk injuring her hands in an industrial accident. However, during Doyle's two weeks in the factory, a photographer from United Press International took the photo you see above---a photo that later served as artist J. Howard Miller's inspiration when he designed the posters for Westinghouse's campaign.

After leaving the factory, Doyle worked at a soda fountain and bookstore. In 1943, she married Leo Doyle, a dentist, and eventually raised six children with him. Though Geraldine Doyle had always known about the UPI photograph, she had no idea that it had inspired a poster until 1984, when she read a magazine article about the image's creation. Doyle's daughter, Stephanie Gregg, told the Los Angeles Times that, although her mom didn't have the bulging biceps flaunted by the woman on the image, Doyle immediately recognized herself. Doyle embraced her newfound fame, gladly signing autographs for fans who wanted to meet the "We Can Do It Girl."

Geraldine Doyle holding a "We Can Do It!" sign
a few decades after her photograph inspired its creation

Doyle died of complications from arthritis in December 2010 at a Lansing hospice. She was 86 years old. Her husband, Leo, had died earlier that year. During an interview that discussed her role in creating one of the nation's most iconic images, Doyle said that she never made money off the poster, as she was too busy with her post-factory life, "changing diapers all the time." However, she was proud of her status as Rosie the Riveter. As she told a reporter for the Lansing State Journal in 2002, "You're not supposed to have too much pride, but I can't help have some in that poster."

Bruce Catton brought the Civil War into American homes

When Bruce Catton was growing up in the Northern Michigan community of Benzonia in the early 1900s, he listened in awe as veterans told tales of Civil War combat. Like many boys his age, Catton thrilled to the sounds and images those stories conjured: the crack of gunfire, the bursts of smoke, the soldiers stalking through fields in pursuit of---or retreat from---the enemy. However, unlike most boys, Catton didn't abandon his fascination with military intrigue once he reached adulthood. Instead, he made a career of it---and became one of the nation's most celebrated historians in the process.


Bruce Catton

Catton, whose birth name was Charles Bruce, was born October 9, 1899 in Petoskey. His family later moved to Benzonia because his minister father accepted a teaching position there. Following his adolescent curiosity about the Civil War, Catton enrolled in Ohio's Oberlin College, but left to serve in the Navy during World War I. (Catton never finished his studies, but did receive an honorary degree from Oberlin in 1956.) After the war, Catton became a journalist, and married Hazel Cherry, with whom he had a son, William Bruce, in 1926.

Fifteen years later, as the United States entered World War II, Catton took a series of jobs that led to his true calling. In 1941, he became director of information for the War Production Board; later, he assumed similar positions at the Department of Commerce and the Department of the Interior. These jobs gave him an inside look at the war effort as it played out in Washington, D.C., and inspired his first book, "War Lords of Washington," in 1948. Though the book didn't sell many copies, Catton enjoyed writing it so much that he decided to become a full-time author and historian.

During the 1950s, many scholars wrote in a dry manner that appealed to academics, but made popular audiences yawn. Among these scholars, Catton stood out. His books had a lively tone that made them accessible to almost everyone. Catton didn't just relate a series of dates, places, and names; he told stories that brought history to life. Many of Catton's books were about his childhood obsession, the Civil War. His most famous work is probably the "Army of the Potomac" trilogy, whose third book, "A Stillness at Appomattox," won the 1954 Pulitzer Prize for history. In addition, Catton wrote the "Centennial History of the Civil War," a trilogy that discussed the war's military, social, political, and economic aspects, and published a few books about Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Somehow, in between all that writing, Catton also found time to become the first editor of "American Heritage" magazine.

Catton continued writing into the 1970s. His status as one of America's most revered historians was cemented in 1977, when he received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from fellow Michigander President Gerald Ford. One year later, Catton, who lived in New York City, died at age 78 at his summer home in Frankfort, not far from Benzonia. He's buried in the Benzonia Township Cemetery, where to this day he receives visitors who come to pay their respects to a man who made the study of history not just a dry pursuit for academics, but something accessible to everyone.

For more information:

In addition to his works about the Civil War and other historical events, Catton wrote a few books about his home state. In 1972, he published "Waiting for the Morning Train," a memoir about his childhood, while in 1976, he released "Michigan: A Bicentennial History."

Woman doing it for herself: The story of Madeline La Framboise

Madeline La Framboise faced a dire situation in 1806. Her husband, Joseph, with whom she ran a fur trading business, had just been killed by a Native American customer at the La Framboises' trading post, near the present-day city of Lowell, in West Michigan. Now Madeline was a widow with two young children to support. She was also half French and half Native American---a pedigree that, combined with her sex, stacked the deck against her when it came to business success in nineteenth-century America. However, Madeline had ambition, and wasn't about to back down from a challenge. By the time she retired from the fur trading business in 1818 at the age of 38, she was making up to $10,000 a year (ten times more than her competitors). She had also cemented her status as one of Michigan's first and most successful businesswomen.


Artist's rendering of Madeline La Framboise;
no known photographs of her exist.

Madeline was born on Mackinac Island in February 1780 to a French-Canadian father and an Odawa mother. Her father died when she was just three years old, so Madeline grew up in her mother's Native American village near present-day Grand Haven. When she was about 14 years old, Madeline married a Frenchman named Joseph La Framboise, with whom she had two children, a daughter named Josette and a son named Joseph. The elder Joseph was a fur trader, and joined forces with his wife to establish the first trading post in the Grand Rapids area, as well as several other posts throughout West Michigan. Joseph and Madeline built a lucrative business, trading manufactured goods for furs that Native Americans brought to the La Framboises' posts, then selling the furs to Mackinac Island merchants. The couple did well and enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle---until that fateful day in 1806 when Madeline suddenly found the company resting solely in her hands.

Madeline could have looked for another husband to take care of her and her family; instead, she took the business and ran with it. Madeline successfully managed the trading posts she and Joseph had opened, and even expanded her reach into other parts of West Michigan and Northern Michigan. She gained a reputation as an intelligent, fair trader, and communicated easily with her clients, as she spoke four languages. Her business was so strong that she eventually became a threat to the American Fur Company, which monopolized the fur trade in the United States. Reports differ as to whether she eventually sold her business to the American Fur Company, or instead merged with it, but in the end, she walked away from the transaction in 1818 with a significant amount of money. A few years later, she returned to Mackinac Island to begin her retirement.


Madeline La Framboise's house on Mackinac Island

Madeline no longer managed a network of trading posts, but her work wasn't over. She was proud of her Odawa heritage, and helped establish Mackinac Island's first school for Native American children. She was also an active member of St. Anne Catholic parish, to which she donated land for a new church with the understanding that, upon her death, she would be buried under the church's altar. Her wishes were granted; when Madeline died at age 66 on April 4, 1846, the pastor made sure she was interred under the altar she had helped build---a fitting tribute to a woman who gave so much to the island and who blazed a path for female entrepreneurs and philanthropists to come.



For more information:

Some sources cite Madeline's first name as "Magdelaine," while her gravestone uses the spelling "Magdalene." I've used "Madeline" in this post because it appears in more sources than do the other two spellings.

The historical marker for Joseph and Madeline La Framboise's trading post is located in Stoney Lakeside Park in Lowell, though no one knows where, exactly, the trading post sat. According to a 2011 article in the Grand Rapids Press, staff from the Lowell Area Historical Museum decided that the post's most likely location was on the Grand River's north bank, between Stoney Lakeside Park and Cumberland Avenue.

Madeline La Framboise's body no longer rests under the altar at St. Anne. The church and its grounds underwent renovation in the 1990s, and Madeline's remains were moved to a garden in the churchyard.

Madeline's house on Mackinac Island still stands, and is now the Harbour View Inn (photo below), located just down the road from St. Anne Church on Main Street.

 

 

And now, a completely random fact: "Framboise" means "raspberry" in French.

Speaking out against slavery: The story of Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth's life began around 1797 when she was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York. Her life ended November 26, 1883, when she died at her home in Battle Creek. In the intervening 86 years, Truth dedicated herself to securing equality for all races and both sexes. Her words were so compelling, and her presence so powerful, that she effected change across the nation, including in her adopted state of Michigan.

Sojourner Truth

Truth was born Isabella Baumfree, and was a slave for the first thirty years of her life. During that time, New York state was in the process of abolishing slavery, and Baumfree's owner said that he would free her in 1826, a year before the "official" date of emancipation, so long as she remained productive until then. He eventually broke his promise, saying that, because she had injured her hand, Baumfree was not producing enough to uphold her end of the bargain. Enraged, Baumfree bided her time, then escaped with her infant daughter, Sophia. She found refuge with a Quaker family, the Van Wageners, who "bought" Baumfree from her master for twenty dollars. Baumfree lived with the Van Wageners until the following year, when New York's emancipation order took full effect and she was free. The family also helped Baumfree secure the freedom of her five-year-old son, Peter, whom her former master had illegally sold to a slaveholder in Alabama. Truth's victory made her one of the first African American woman in the United States to win a court case against a white man.

While living with the Van Wageners, Baumfree became a Christian, and it was this religious awakening that led to the next phase of her life. The years Baumfree had spent as a slave were never far from her mind, and in 1843, filled with the sense that she was meant to preach about the evils of America's "peculiar institution," Baumfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth and traveled the country, urging audiences to support emancipation. Truth also adopted the cause of women's rights, and in 1851, at the Ohio Woman's Rights Convention in Akron, delivered an off-the-cuff talk that became known as "Ain't I a Woman?" Some controversy surrounds this speech because multiple versions of it were published. One version didn't include the phrase "ain't I a woman" anywhere in the text, while the most "popular" version (which was recorded by conference organizer Frances Dana Barker Gage and appears in the above link) contains southern terms and inflections that Truth probably would not have used, as she hailed from the north. However, regardless of what exactly Truth said, she delivered a moving speech that won over the hearts and minds of many attendees.

Truth's life in Michigan began in 1857 when she bought a house in Harmonia, a community west of Battle Creek. When the Civil War began, she traveled extensively, helping recruit African American troops for the Union army, as well as working at the Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C. In 1867, she moved to Battle Creek and continued her campaigns, which now included an (ultimately unsuccessful) effort to obtain land rights for freed slaves. Truth also tried to vote in the 1872 presidential election (Battle Creek election officials turned her away), and spoke against capital punishment to the Michigan Legislature.

Truth's health failed in her later years, and when she died in 1883, more than 3,000 people attended her funeral. She is buried in Battle Creek's Oak Hill Cemetery. The state of Michigan has honored her by naming I-194, a stretch of freeway between downtown Battle Creek and I-94, the "Sojourner Truth Downtown Parkway." Truth was also one of the first inductees into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame, and is the subject of a twelve-foot monument in Battle Creek.

Sojourner Truth monument, Battle Creek

While these accolades are well-deserved, Truth's most enduring legacy is the fact that, thanks in part to her efforts, equality among the races and between the sexes has become not an impossible dream, but a very possible reality. Truth wasn't shy about letting the world know that, through her efforts, she was going to change history. As she herself said, "I am not going to die, I'm going home like a shooting star."

Additional Facts:

*Truth spoke only Dutch until she was nine years old.

*She achieved all her accomplishments despite never having learned to read or write.

*When Truth escaped in 1826 with her daughter, she insisted that she had walked, not run, away. Her rationale? "I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right."

*During a speech she gave in 1858, one of the audience members accused her of being a man. Truth answered the question simply by opening her blouse to prove the accuser wrong.

For More Information:

"Narrative of Sojourner Truth," by Sojourner Truth

"Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol," by Nell Irvin Painter

A tribute to Elmore Leonard

The "Dickens of Detroit," author Elmore Leonard, has died at age 87. He had suffered a stroke late in July, and though initially he appeared to be recovering, he ultimately lost his battle, dying at his home earlier today in Bloomfield Hills. Leonard is best known for his gritty mystery and crime novels, many of which have been adapted into television shows and Hollywood films by the likes of Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, and Barry Sonnenfeld.

Elmore Leonard

Leonard was born in 1925 in New Orleans, and moved with his family to Detroit when he was about nine years old. He's said that the writing bug first bit him in the fifth grade, when he wrote a play based on the novel, "All Quiet on the Western Front" and staged it in his classroom. In 1943, Leonard graduated from the University of Detroit High School, then joined the Navy, where he served in the South Pacific. After leaving the service, he studied English and philosophy at the University of Detroit, graduating in 1950.

Though Leonard got a job writing copy for an ad agency, the fiction bug was still circling him. Inspired by Ernest Hemingway's spare style, and by the western movies Leonard loved so much, he began writing western novels, then segued into crime fiction. Throughout the decades, he wrote 45 full-length novels, as well as a novel serialized in the New York Times Magazine. Leonard also wrote several short stories, essays, non-fiction works, and screenplays.

I haven't read any of Leonard's works, though a few of his novels are in my insanely huge pile of to-be-read books. I'm more of a historical fiction girl, so I'm not sure whether his subject matter will interest me. However, I might have to pick up a few works in homage, especially after having read one of the suggestions he gave to aspiring writers in his essay, "Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing." Quite simply, Leonard said, "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."

For more information:

Elmore Leonard's website

List of Elmore Leonard books

Happy Birthday, Michigander! Today's celebrant: Madonna

So, there's this obscure musician who hardly anyone has heard of. She's got the most unusual name: Madonna. She was born in Bay City, and it's her birthday today, so in the interest of helping a fellow Michigander, I decided to devote this post to her in the hopes of getting her some new fans. Come on guys, let's help this lady hit the charts!

She knows she's going to make it big some day.

All kidding aside, Madonna Louise Ciccone is arguably one of the most famous people to come from the Great Lakes State. The press has covered pretty much every minute of her adult life, so instead of rehashing all that, I'll leave you with some facts about her childhood in Michigan.

1. She was born August 16, 1958, making her 55 years old today.

2. She was named after her mother, and her nickname as a child was "Little Nonni."

3. Her mother died of breast cancer when Madonna was about five years old. A few years later her father remarried, to the family's housekeeper.

4. She grew up in the Detroit suburbs and attended Rochester Adams High School, where she was a straight-A student and, believe it or not, a cheerleader.

5. She attended The University of Michigan on a dance scholarship, but eventually dropped out and left for New York City.

Here's a video showing photos of Madonna in her younger years. I'm not sure what's going on with the weird, creepy music, but the pictures are cute.

Happy birthday, Madonna!

Happy birthday, Michigander! Today's celebrant: Gillian Anderson

I'll admit it: I've seen only a few episodes of "The X-Files" (I was more into the "real-life" paranormal stuff I saw on "Unsolved Mysteries"), but I'm still happy to celebrate the birthday of its co-star, Gillian Anderson, who played Agent Dana Scully, and who was born on August 9, 1968. Here are some facts about the 45-year-old actress:

Gillian Anderson, shown here looking bemused by something off to her right.

1. Anderson was born in Chicago, and lived in the United Kingdom for a while before her family moved to Grand Rapids when she was 11 years old.

2. She attended City High School, where she played "Officer Brophy" in two performances of "Arsenic and Old Lace" in 1983. She graduated from City High in 1986.

3. Anderson is bidialectal, meaning that, because she grew up in areas with vastly different ways of speaking, she shifts accents depending on the person to whom she is talking (i.e., she speaks with a British accent in the U.K., and with a Midwestern accent in the U.S.).

4. She almost didn't get the role of Dana Scully because the network wanted to cast someone with more experience and sex appeal. The series' creator stood up for her, and she eventually got the part.

5. She spoofed her role as Dana Scully in an episode of "The Simpsons" that everyone has probably already seen, but I've included a clip from that show, regardless.

Happy birthday, Gillian!!!!

Happy Birthday, Michigander! Today's celebrant: Dean Cain

Every once in a while, I'll post facts about famous Michiganders on their birthdays. Today's inaugural celebrant is the 1990s televised version of Superman, Dean Cain, who was born July 31, 1966 in Mount Clemens.

The Man of Steel, born in the state that, uh, uses steel to, um, make cars...okay, this is a horrible analogy

Here we go:

1. Cain's birth name is Dean George Tanaka. His parents later divorced, and he was adopted by his mother's new husband, Christopher Cain.

2. His stepfather is a film director who helmed the movie "Young Guns" as well as "The Next Karate Kid" (the one with Hillary Swank).

3. Cain moved with his family to Malibu when he was three years old (so he's no longer a Michigan resident, but we won't hold that against him).

4. He attended Princeton, and dated Brooke Shields.

5. He was a free agent with the Buffalo Bills, but injured himself during training camp, effectively ending his football career.

6. One of Cain's early acting roles was "Guy in Doritos Ad Who Likes Cheese." Check it out, around 17 seconds in. (I apologize for all the Jay Leno you'll see in this commercial):

7. Cain's latest gig will be his turn as host of Spike TV's "10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty," in which teams of big game hunters compete against each other to locate the mythical beast. The show will debut in January 2014.

I don't think I can top that last one, so I'll stop while I'm ahead. Happy 47th, Dean! We're proud to call you a Michigander!