Oberlin and Ishpeming

Notes from Margo:

A bit of a time warp for me, visiting Kenny in Oberlin. She’s the student now, and seems to be having something of the same intellectual experience that I had here 30 years ago. She felt over her head at first, now she’s starting to get her land legs, seeing a huge world of knowledge and thinking opening up for her. She’s very happy with her roommate, her friends, her classes. Could it better? Maybe not.

In fact, as Lynn pointed out when we took Kenny and three friends out to dinner, there didn’t seem to be one whiner or griper in the place. All of them are thrilled to be here, loving their classes, happy with their teachers, just happy all around. If Lynn was looking for teenage angst, he wasn’t finding it here.

This is Lynn’s first look at Oberlin, and what a good job the college is doing on making a good first impression! Our first day was a magical fall day, warm, sunny, trees in full fall foliage, with leaves drifting down in all their brilliant colors. Groups of kids were studying in the sunlight out in the Wilder Bowl quad. The cross-country team ran past us on a workout. A little band of student musicians was jamming under a tree in a corner of one of the quads. The students were out in force, studying, enjoying the good weather. We dropped in on Tom Van Nortwick, who was my Latin professor when I was here, and we had a congenial talk ranging from reading Harry Potter in Latin and Greek to the Battle of the Big Hole. So Lynn got to see why we all love our Oberlin teachers.

It didn’t hurt any that when we drove into town, it was about 30 degrees warmer than it had been two days before on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The snow and scary driving conditions were gone. The sun was out and the skies were clear. We had rolled across three states, from Western Michigan to eastern Ohio on the Interstate – our first real sustained stretch on an Interstate in the whole trip. It was fine for what it was: We needed to cover some mileage fast. But it was pretty dull, except for a whole charter bus full of Amish people stopped at one of the “travel plazas.” Men, women and children were clustered at the tables outside McDonald’s, eating out of straw picnic baskets. The mothers of babies were in the modern tiled restrooms, changing cloth diapers on babies in old-fashioned plain blue woolen dresses. Even the small children looked terribly serious and 19th century in their black suits and long dresses. To me, it was a visual oxymoron to see them gathered under the red and yellow neon McDonald’s sign.

Arriving in Oberlin was just what you’d think: Cue the soundtrack for the joyful reunions with Kenny and Anabel, her dear friend and ours. We found Kenny at the school where she tutors second-grade kids. We waited outside till she was done, and surprised her at the door. Man! Some good hugs!

We’re staying with Maryann and Clyde Hohn. Anabel’s mom, Katherine, and I stayed with them during new student orientation in September. They live in a 100-year-old rambling frame house with a wrap-around porch. Maryann and Clyde were high-powered folks in Los Angeles who decided to leave the rat race. They sold out their life in L.A. and retired here about 17 years ago, at age 45 or so. Clyde helps in organizing the local bike club, and takes music lessons and plays bluegrass with friends. Maryann does wonderfully beautiful and original needlepoint projects (like the one above) and helps with an animal rescue organization. After Katherine and I stayed here during orientation, we told Lynn about Clyde’s music, and Lynn had asked to play some tunes with Clyde. So our second night here, Clyde invited over his friend Keith Tarven, a biology professor at the college who plays guitar and sings. Anabel, Kenny and Lynn sat in with them for a little evening musicale. Will Rubenstein, our dear friend who went to preschool with Kenny and Anabel, dropped by, and it felt like a Miraloma preschool reunion. Anabel sang the song she wrote about her father, Toshio. And Kenny sang the Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye, Earl.” If I were the sentimental type, I might have gotten all teary. Well, yeah. I got all teary.

It’s great to see Kenny, Anabel and Will so well settled here. They are working hard, loving it, growing fast.

Notable: I asked Kenny if there was anywhere she needed a ride to, since she doesn’t have access to a car. So Kenny, her roommate Britt, and I drove to the nearest Trader Joe’s, where we stocked up on food for their dorm room. The store is only about 25 miles away, but we got lost at least three times on the way there, and then again on the way back. So… Kenny has a skewed idea of how Lynn and I have navigated our way across the country. We’ve actually done pretty well, only gotten lost a few times. Really.



Notes from Lynn:

Fred Braastad, a vigorous Norwegian who liked to plan ahead, commissioned an impressive family monument for his family plot in the crowded cemetery in Ishpeming, Michigan. Big as a mining cart, it’s a three-tier cake of granite blocks. The top block is engraved with “Father 1847-1917”; the middle block, with the family surname (in Norski, Braastad sounds like “BROAstad,” but in the Upper Peninsula it morphed into “braysted” when people talked a century ago about his fabulous department store).

The monument is bracketed by two parallel rows of 11 headstones, each about a foot high. All but two bear names of some of Fred’s children, grandchildren and a couple of spouses. The exceptions are “Mother, 1855-1942,” and again, “Father, 1847-1917.”

Missing is my grandmother, Ida. I put my hand on the cold monument. I wanted to ask my great-grandfather why he disinherited his oldest child.

It’s what the late Norris Alfred called a Great Truth: By the time you come up with questions about family mysteries, nobody is left to supply the answers.

Fredrik Braastad grew up on a farm near the Norway village of Ringebo in the Guldbrandsdalen Valley near Lillehammer, where at age 16 he began to work for five years as a store clerk. He arrived in the U.S. in October 1868 and got a job as a laborer just as winter began in the Upper Peninsula’s booming iron mines. Wisely, he switched to clerking in a store in Negaunee. Four years later he moved next door to Ishpeming, then a growing city on a former cedar swamp covered with cartloads of rocks from a half-dozen mines. “Ishpeming followed the classic pattern of iron-range cities everywhere,” writes Stewart Holbrook in “Iron Brew.” “It budded and grew out of a hodgepodge of mine ‘locations.’ … For 40 years, this range of hills was the biggest producer of iron in this country.” The miners came from Cornwall, Finland, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Poland and almost everywhere but the U.S.

At 26, the clerk-turned-entrepreneur opened the doors for what would become F. Braastad & Co., Dealer in Dry Goods, Groceries, Crockery and General Merchandise. In 1880, he purchased the entire stock and fixtures of his rival. Within 10 years, his store was described as the most extensive in the U.P. He married a girl from Norway, Ingeborg Knutson, and in due course his family grew as fast as his businesses. A Democrat, he was elected to a term as Michigan's state treasurer in 1891. He organized a streetcar system for his adopted city. He was a key force behind the formation of an association to promote the Norway sports of ski jumping and cross-country skiing. It would become in 1904 the National Ski Association (he was the founding vice president). In the 1894 city directory, he is listed as proprietor of his mercantile store, as vice president-general manager of the Winthrop Mining Co. and as owner of Ames Mine (“Hematite Iron Ore of Superior Quality”). His big but not ostentatious five-bedroom home was built across Cleveland Avenue from his stores.

The only other Braastad in the directory is Ida, my grandmother, at the same address. Three years later, she was married to Ernest Talma Ludlow. He grew up in Benton Harbor, Mich., and is variously described as a salesman, a YMCA director, an organizer of service clubs like Rotary and the Lions, a would-be actor and, most significantly, as an employee of his father-in-law. Family photographs show the new grandfather with Ida’s little sons, including my father, John Ludlow.

As the 20th century began, F. Braastad & Co. changed from a small-town emporium into a glittering department store. In 1903, the Miners Journal published a breathless story about the demolition of the old buildings and construction of “a fine three-story block which will be a credit to the town and and a source of much pleasure to Mr. Braastad.” It would become a landmark with a clock tower jutting above the thick walls of pressed brick. The bells would ring every 15 minutes, audible reminders of the glories of merchandise on Cleveland Avenue. The store opened in November. More than 5,000 people came to gawk and shop. Each was handed a free carnation. It may have been the most satisfying moment in the career of Frederick Braastad (who had long since added an “e” to his name). He was 66. After that, things began to be less joyful. In Norwegian-speak, the operative phrase can stand for overwhelming dismay or "oh, my": “Uff da,” they mumble. “Uff da.”

One year later, the grand new store burned down. It was rebuilt and restocked in a year but at a heavy cost in money and hard work. A year later, Braastad persuaded his son, Arvid Conrad Braastad, to take over as general manager. What became of that we know not, but in 1906 the old man announced that all his holdings were for sale. The Miners Journal commented, “He has long worked in this city, has practically taken no vacation in 35 years and he feels he is entitled to a rest and the reward that such service should give.” He must have changed his mind, because a few years later he ordered carpenters to begin work on expansion of the department store to provide space for increasing business. He gave many an uplifting statement about the future prosperity of Ishpeming and the iron mines because, as he put it, “the country needs ore.”

At some point not recorded in the newspaper or ever explained by my father, Ida and
Ernest Ludlow left Ishpeming for Eugene, Oregon. They took the costly furniture, gold-trimmed dinner service and other wedding gifts, mostly gifts from her father. But something dreadful must have happened to sever the relationship between an independent-minded young woman and an Old World father accustomed to obedience. She was disinherited.

Did his son-in-law (my grandfather) try to take over the family business? Worse, did he NOT try? Did his wife (my grandmother) have such a showdown with her father that she forced her husband to leave? I guess we’ll never know. (For the story of our search for her home in McKenzie Bridge, Oregon, see the blog entry, “Roadside Attractions,” from September.)

In the meantime, the iron mines began to play out. Ishpeming’s population dropped dramatically from a high of 13,255 in 1900. (It was 9,238 in 1930 and 6,700 in 2000.)
Then came the chains. The Woolworth company opened a branch store in 1915. J.C.Penney arrived in 1917.

By then, the Braastad family had begun to scatter. The children gathered again when Fred Braastad died in 1917. Ida didn’t come to the funeral. F. Braastad & Co. closed its doors two years later.

H.W. Gossard Co. took over the building in 1920 as a factory for women’s intimate apparel. It pulled out in the 1970s. The clock tower was torn down in 1959. A developer renovated much of the building in 1986 and named it Pioneer Square, but the few tenants today include a company that makes bows and arrows, a travel agency, a typing service and a preschool called “Mini Miracles.” The only evidence of 1903 affluence are the stamped-metal ceilings now covered with a burgundy paint job.

Ishpeming isn’t close yet to ghost-town status, but the movie theater is for sale and many a downtown shop is vacant. The only flourishing retail businesses seem to be thrift stores, and one of them is on the ground floor of what was once Fred Braastad’s proudest achievement – his three-story department store.

Across the street is the old Braastad home, built in 1900 and preserved for generations by family members. Now it’s for sale. Five bedrooms, 5,300 square feet, two fireplaces, good condition: $99,500.

At the Ishpeming Carnegie Public Library, front desk librarian Cindy Mack helpfully went into the basement archives to come up with city directories, local histories and squibs from the Mining Journal that somebody had typed and pasted into folders. When asked about my distinguished pioneer great-grandfather, she said, “Braysted? Sorry. Never heard of him.”

Uff da.


Notable: San Franciscans who think they’ve seen everything should visit the Ishpeming restaurant where we had a light lunch. “Don’t look now,” I warned Margo, “but in the corner you’ll see something you won’t see in Frisco.” It was true. Two women in a booth were smoking cigarettes. When we asked about it, the waitress said, “It’s discretionary.” … Another memorable name for a tavern: Tee Pee Bar (“We bring you happiness”).

Mileage from St. Ignace, Michigan, to Saugatuck: 281

From Saugatuck to Oberlin, Ohio: 302

Total mileage so far: 6,270