Bygone Business: Pierson's Floor Covering

The storefront at 410 S. Main Street received a new tenant in the spring of 1964, after having served more than three decades as the home of a shoe store (first Hale's, then Leinenger's). The new store was Pierson's Floor Covering, and it held a grand opening on April 3 and 4, 1964. Operated by Arthur C. Pierson, who had been in the floor covering business in Detroit, the shop sold duPont paint, Armstrong linoleum and carpeting.  To introduce his store to Rochester residents, Pierson offered a child's fishing pole and reel to the first one hundred customers to visit the shop on opening weekend. Pierson's closed around 1971, and the Rochester Eccentric newspaper offices replaced it at 410 S. Main in 1972.

The ad shown here ran in the Rochester Clarion in April 1964 to announce Pierson's grand opening. Do any of you have one of those kiddie rod and reel outfits stuffed in a closet somewhere?

Subidvision Stories: Rochester Heights

The Rochester Heights subdivision was platted on former farmland northeast of the village of Rochester in 1956.  Since 1913, the 30-acre parcel that was subdivided had been part of the William Korff farm, and for most of the 19th century it was part of the large holdings of the Lysander Woodward family. Rochester Heights was part of a post-war building boom in the area that sought to meet overwhelming demand for housing as World War II vets who had finished their college degrees on the GI Bill looked to move into the northern suburbs. The Rochester Clarion announced the new subdivision in August 1956, reporting that the ranch homes in the development would be built by the Jack Hyman Building Company of Detroit, while sales would be handled by White Brothers of Waterford.

The opening of the home sales was done in a spectacular way. When the model homes were ready for public inspection, free helicopter rides were offered to show off the new development. The Clarion reported than more than 1,500 people turned out for the grand opening and about 150 took the aerial view:

About 150 persons took helicopter rides and there were rides on giant earth movers for the youngsters and refreshments for all.
Clarence Burr, village president, cut the ribbon at the door of one of the models to formally open the affair Saturday and for two days a steady stream of people moved though the models. Comment was high favorable and several homes were sold on the spot by White Brothers, of Waterford, who are handling sales.

Streets in the Rochester Heights subdivision are all named for trees. In 1957, an addition to the subdivision was made on the north end, connecting it to the existing North Hill Gardens subdivision via Red Oak Lane.

Bygone Business: Buzzell Shop

It's hard to visualize today, but the former D & C building on the corner of Fourth and Main (occupied today by the Rojo Mexican restaurant) used to house more than one business in the space.  Tucked in to the back end of the building near the alley was The Buzzell Shop, a ladies' dress store located with the address of 113 W. Fourth Street. The business opened in August 1940 and operated for twenty years, closing in January 1960. It was operated by Neil D. Buzzell and his wife, Pearl, who lived in Bruce Township, near Romeo.

Here's a local newspaper ad from a 1951 issue of the Rochester Clarion, featuring a dress that was "big fashion news" for $14.95.

At Home in Rochester: John B. Oliver House

Available evidence suggests that the brick Victorian house at 324 East Street was built about 1865 for a man named John B. Oliver. Oliver was born in France in 1794 as Jean Baptiste Olivier, and sailed with his family to America in 1828 aboard the ship La Leonarde. He settled in Rochester before the Civil War and owned a number of parcels of land on the east side of Main Street; in fact, on some early maps of the village, that which we know as East Street is marked as Oliver Street.

John Oliver was a cabinetmaker by trade, but the most interesting fact about his life comes from the 1877 History of Oakland County, Michigan, which tells us that he was one of only two veterans of the Napoleonic Wars living in the county at that time.

Oliver's house and lot on East Street was sold to Nehemiah and Mary Ralston, emigrants from Northampton County, Pennsylvania, in 1866. The Ralstons remained in Rochester only a few years and sold the house to local merchant Abram Horn in 1872. Horn, in turn, sold the house to James and Catherine Riggs, and following the Riggs family, the house was owned by Orestes Millerd.  For most of the early part of the twentieth century, however, 324 East was owned by the Hadden family, who purchased it in 1904. In 1944 the house was converted to a nursery school, thus ending its service as a private residence.

Oscar Sorenson bought the house in 1969, painted it blue, and operated it as a private museum and antique gallery called "Wedgewood Hall." Sorenson also built an addition on the back of the house to replace an old summer kitchen.  In the years since, the house has been the location of several small businesses, and is now the headquarters of Kosch Catering.

The John B. Oliver House is approximately 148 years old this year. More details about the history of the property are available on the Oakland Regional Historic Sites web site, here.

This Month in Rochester History

Rochester Falconettes Parents' Club float, 1981 parade (courtesy of Clarence and Dorene Whitbey)

Fifty years ago this month, the citizens of Rochester were doing what they had been doing during the first week of December for over a decade - looking forward to the annual Christmas Parade. Next Sunday afternoon, the Rochester Regional Chamber of Commerce will present the 62nd annual Christmas Parade and a new generation of Rochester's families will be enjoying the tradition.  So now is the perfect time to look back at some Christmas parades past. Readers, I've pulled out a few vintage views to spark your memories. If you have Rochester parade photos in your own family collection that you'd like to share, e-mail them to rochesteravonhistory@gmail.com and I'll add them to the post for everyone to enjoy.  Add your memories of the parade to the comments section as well!

Bagpipers in Christmas Parade, ca. 1954 (Courtesy of Erv and Dorothy Bauer)

West Junior High band in the parade, ca.1967 (courtesy of Clarence and Dorene Whitbey)

Parade float, ca.1967 (courtesy of Clarence and Dorene Whitbey)

Christmas Shopping in Rochester

This week's Black Friday-backed-up-into-Thanksgiving Day retail frenzy has given me pause to reflect upon the Christmas shopping habits of my family during my youth in Rochester. In our family, Christmas gifts were far from extravagant - a modest toy for a child, a useful object or item of clothing for an adult. That's not to say there weren't plenty of gifts under the tree in my family home - there definitely were. It's just that my parents, and the parents of others I knew, didn't go into hock for the rest of the year to underwrite their holiday largesse. Purchases weren't funded with credit cards; most families in my circle of acquaintance probably didn't even possess such a thing, except perhaps for a Kresge's revolving charge card. Instead they planned ahead and set money aside; sometimes with Christmas Club bank accounts, or with layaway plans that allowed them to make payments for merchandise over several weeks.

Downtown Rochester's holiday season kicked off with Window Night and the outdoor decorations consisted of candy canes mounted on the light poles and swags of colored lights festooning the street. A set of three large red bells hung suspended over each intersection and the lights inside the bells moved from left to center to right and back again. We thought those lights were pretty spectacular but they paled in comparison to the Big Bright Light Show that we see today.

Going to a shopping center in those days was rare treat. Most of our family's shopping was done on Main Street, Rochester, or in the stores in the North Hill Shopping Center. My parents most frequently visited Kresge's and Cunningham's on North Hill, along with D & C and Case's Hardware on Main (Case's had a great toyland that I remember fondly). When it was necessary to search further afield than Rochester for gifts, we usually took a family trip to Pontiac to visit the Sears store there. Being accustomed to the small shops of my hometown, I was overwhelmed by the seemingly enormous department store. Today, I am overwhelmed by the numbers of people who camp out in parking lots for days in order to be first in line to  to purchase the latest and greatest electronic gadget that will be hopelessly outdated before the next holiday season rolls around. Such spectacles make me positively nostalgic for simpler days.

Do you have Christmas shopping memories of Rochester?

Subdivision Stories: Blackett's Floral Gardens

This tiny subdivision of only nine lots is located on the west side of John R Road between Avon and Hamlin. Known as Blackett's Floral Gardens, it was platted in 1942 by Russell and Beryl Blackett, owners of the land in Section 23 of Avon Township upon which the development was laid out.  The Blacketts were married in 1929 and settled on the property along John R soon afterward. They operated a greenhouse business called Blackett's Floral Gardens, and trucked their product to Eastern Market in Detroit and to a farm market in Pontiac.  They also operated a retail florist shop in downtown Birmingham for a time.

When this subdivision was platted in 1942, it was appropriately named Blackett's Floral Gardens in recognition of the family business that was located there. The only street in the subdivision is Beryl Court,  named in honor of Beryl Blackett. Russell Blackett's son, Larry, remembers that his father personally built four or five of the houses in the small development.

In 1943, the Blackett family left Avon Township for Marlette, Michigan, where they continued their greenhouse and floral business. In 1952, they moved to Clarkston and operated a lumber yard near the intersection of Dixie Highway and today's I-75.  Today, the children and grandchildren of Russell and Beryl Blackett continue to work in the building industry as Blackett Builders.

My thanks to Larry Blackett for sharing the details of his family's business history with me.

Bygone Business: Deaton's Marathon Station

Deaton's Marathon, looking south toward Univerity, 1977

When I was growing up in Rochester, there were more gas stations along Main Street that there are today. One of those stations, now long gone, was Deaton's Marathon, located on the west side of North Main just south of what was then the Dillman & Upton lumber yard. Today, this location would be part of the Rochester Medical Center development.

Deaton's Marathon was one of several local businesses operated by W. "Joe" Deaton, a 1951 graduate of Rochester High School.  Joe Deaton was well known in the community and served as a member of the volunteer fire department, the Shriners, and the American Legion Homer Wing Post. He died in 2002.

I remember visiting Deaton's Marathon as a child, and I particularly recall going there to collect the promotional glassware that Marathon gave away to commemorate the Apollo space missions during the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Does anybody else still have a full set of this fine drinkware in the back of the cupboard somewhere? There are probably many

thousands of examples out there, but all of mine came from Deaton's Marathon on Main Street in Rochester, Michigan.  Those were the days!

At Home in Rochester: Albert C. Steadman House

The house at 133 S. Walnut was built in 1891 as the family home of Albert C. Steadman and his wife, Alice Woodworth Steadman. The Steadmans purchased the lot on Walnut from Eliza Newberry in June 1891, when they retired from farming and decided to move into the village. They broke ground for their new house in August 1891.

Alice Steadman died in 1913 and Albert remarried and moved to Bloomfield Township. After the Steadmans, the house was occupied in 1920 by Delos R. Harrington and his wife, Louise. Harrington, a foreman at the Western Knitting Mills, built a new house at 118 S. Walnut in 1929 and the couple moved across the street at that time. In 1930, the Louis C. Harris family lived in the former Steadman home.

Probably the best-known of the residents of 133 S. Walnut was Dr. Ormond Daniel Geib. Dr. Geib studied at the University of Michigan before receiving his medical degree from the Detroit College of Medicine in 1924. He came to Rochester to establish his medical practice in 1932. He and his wife, Jessie, occupied this house for many years.

The Steadman house is 122 years old in 2013.

Dr. Mille E. Wilson and the Wilson Medical Dynasty

At the turn of the twentieth century, women physicians were fairly uncommon outside of  the country's largest cities, but the small villages of Stoney Creek and Rochester, Michigan could lay claim to two of them. The story of a daughter of Stoney Creek, Dr. Bertha Van Hoosen, is well remembered here, but Rochester's woman physician, Dr. Mille E. Wilson, is little known these days.

Amelia Elvira Wilson, known as Mille, was born in Avon Township in 1876, the daughter of Dr. Jesse E. Wilson and his wife, Susan Richardson Mack. Her father, Jesse, along with his twin brother, Jeremiah "Jerry" Wilson, had practiced medicine together in Rochester since before the Civil War. The twin brothers had grown up in Ontario, the sons of American parents, and had studied medicine at the University of Michigan and Bellevue Hospital Medical College before earning medical degrees from Castleton Medical College in Vermont. Together, they came to Rochester and established a joint medical practice which lasted for half a century, until the death of Jeremiah Wilson in 1906.

Mille Wilson first attended college in St. Thomas, Ontario, were her father and uncle had once lived, and then went on to study at Lombard University in Galesburg, Illinois before earning her medical degree from the Michigan College of Medicine and Surgery in Detroit in 1903. She first served as a house physician at the Detroit Emergency Hospital, but when her uncle Jerry Wilson died in 1906 she resigned her post and returned home to Rochester to assist her father in his practice.

A year later, she was appointed assistant physician at the Michigan Home for the Feeble-Minded and Epilepetic at Lapeer (later known as the Lapeer State Home and Training School). She would hold that position for the next 41 years, until her retirement in 1948.

Dr. Mille Wilson was known as something of a pioneer. Not only was she a women in a male-dominated profession, but she was believed to be the first woman automobile driver in Lapeer County. Furthermore, at the age of 70 she took pilot lessons at a Flint airport.

Following her retirement in 1948, Mille Wilson moved to Plainwell, Michigan, to live with a friend. Although she died in Lapeer in 1957, she was buried in Plainwell near her friend rather than in Lapeer or Rochester.

An obituary of Mille's father, Dr. Jesse Wilson, which was published in The Canada Lancet at the time of his death in 1913, claimed that Jesse Wilson was descended from family that boasted several eminent physicians, although their names were not specifically noted. In addition to those in her father's lineage, however, Mille also had at least one physician ancestor in the lineage of her mother, Susan Richardson Mack. According to Mille's membership record in the Daughters of the American Revolution, she was the great-great-granddaughter of American patriot Stephen Powers, who served as a soldier and surgeon attending the wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Thanks to Rod Wilson for the newspaper feature about Mille Wilson which included the photograph show here.

This Month in Rochester History

November 1963 is remembered in Rochester history in much the same way that it is by people across the nation. Fifty years ago this month, Rochester residents were stunned and saddened by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Under a banner headline that read "Rochester Bows Head in Sorrow for Fallen President," the Rochester Clarion reported in part:

Suddenly, the streets were empty. It was an overcast, partially rainy early afternoon in Rochester when word was flashed by radio and television that President John F. Kennedy had been struck down by an assassin's bullet while riding down a Dallas street.
. . .
In the National Bank of Detroit office here, a radio was turned on. The customers and personnel froze as the death was announced and the National Anthem was played. Businesses suddenly found their stores almost empty.

The article went on to say that a variety of local events were cancelled or postponed over the weekend that followed the president's death. A turkey drawing by downtown merchants, a hootenanny at the high school, and the Illinois-Michigan State football game at East Lansing were among the activities that did not take place.  What did take place were special local church services on the day of the funeral.  The Clarion continued with its description of local observances:

Schools were closed Monday. There was no mail delivery and all federal and local governmental offices closed their doors. A black drape hung over the front entrance of the Municipal Building. Monday night was the regular meeting of the Village Council. A proclamation by Council President was read and the meeting was quietly adjourned until Tuesday night.
. . .
It was a remarkable and most tragic weekend.

St. Andrew's World War II Honor Roll

During World War II, the members of St. Andrew Catholic Church assembled this honor roll to recognize those from the parish who were serving their country in uniform. In all, 120 names were added to the plaque that hung in the church until the building was demolished on July 24, 1972.  Parish member Reid Hanlon, whose name was on the honor roll along with those of his brothers, rescued the plaque from the rubble heap and took it home.  After his death, the honor roll passed into the custody of his grandchildren, who recently decided to donate it to the Rochester-Avon Historical Society.

RAHS members Rod and Susan Wilson spent many hours cleaning and repairing the wood and repainting the letters to restore the honor roll to a condition which allows it to be displayed. RAHS hopes to have it  placed in a local museum eventually, but for now it will be on display this weekend at St. Andrew Catholic Church during the 100th anniversary celebration of the parish. For a list of all of the names on the St. Andrew World War II Honor Roll, click here.

At Home in Rochester: Pearl John O'Brien House

P.J. O'Brien house as it looked in 1907

 The house on the northeast corner of Fourth and East streets in downtown Rochester was built in late 1903 by Charles A. Burr, who also built the opera house block at the corner of Fourth and Main (where Lytle Pharmacy is today). The Rochester Era reported in late 1903 that Burr had purchased the Barley lot at Fourth and East and was having a foundation laid for a house. In March 1904, the newspaper  remarked that lumber dealer P. J. O'Brien had purchased the newly-built house from Burr, was making an addition to it, and would be occupying it as a family residence.

O'Brien was born in Oakland County in 1875, and was a prominent business and civic leader in Rochester. He established a lumber and coal yard on Water Street in Rochester in 1899 (the business later became known as the Nowels Lumber Yard). He was also a stockholder and second vice-president of the Rochester Savings Bank, and vice-president of the Rochester Development Company, which was formed in 1919 to bring new industry to the village. He served as secretary of the Rochester Fire Department, as village clerk and village treasurer, and as a member of the board of education.

P. J. O'Brien house as it looked in 2013

An interesting aside: O'Brien disliked his given name, Pearl, so later in life he went to court to have it legally changed to Peter. He was commonly known as P. J.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the former O'Brien residence was the home of the Heart of the Hills Resale Shop. Today it is the location of Marie's Salon and Spa.

Bygone Business: Club Rochester

According to this newspaper advertisement for Club Rochester, fine dining in 1964 cost a princely $1.95 per plate. Club Rochester was located at 306 S. Main, on the site of today's Rochester Chop House. The popular restaurant and lounge opened at this location in the mid-1950s, succeeding the Hopkins Bar and before that, Harry's Cafe.  Club Rochester came to a sad and abrupt end on July 28, 1970, when the building was completely gutted by a four-alarm fire that started in the kitchen.   The Brooklands, Avondale and Troy fire departments were called in to assist the Rochester Fire Department in fighting the blaze, which attracted onlookers from all over town. The fire threatened the adjacent buildings and sent several fire fighters to the hospital, but was successfully contained with the help of Troy's aerial truck. The remnants of the old structure were demolished and a new restaurant, Cooper's Arms, was built at the location.

Pioneer Farmsteads: John Martin Wilcox Farm

Avon Township pioneer John Martin Wilcox built this handsome farmhouse on East Avon Road as his family home around 1860. Here Wilcox farmed and raised horses on a 170-acre parcel. He and his wife, the former Maria Amelia Bennett of Macomb County, reared a family of thirteen children, two of whom died in infancy.

John M. Wilcox was born in Ontario County, New York in 1819 and came with his parents to Avon Township in 1832, when he was thirteen years old. His father settled on the land in Section 14 where the Wilcox farmhouse still stands, but it was John M. Wilcox who built the house after his marriage to Maria Bennett. It is said that timber on the property was harvested and sent to Pontiac for milling, then returned to Rochester to be used in the construction of the house.

The John M. Wilcox house is one of only a handful of Rochester Hills homes that pre-date the Civil War.

This Month in Rochester History

439 S. Main in 1998 (Rochester Hills Public Library)

439 S. Main under renovation in 1999 (Rochester Hills Public Library)

Fifty years ago this month, residents of Rochester were watching a brand-new building go up on Main Street. Joseph Watson of the Watson Insurance Agency built a modern two-story office building on the southwest corner of University and Main, on the site where the old St. James Hotel (earlier known as the Lambertson House) had stood from 1847 until its demolition in 1962. Robert C. Smitha was the architect of the new structure, which housed a real estate firm and a medical office for a number of years. The building was much smaller in 1963 that it is today; it was expanded westward to the alley in the 1999 and almost tripled in size. In recent years it has housed a Starbucks coffee shop on the first floor and is currently home to the Bean and Leaf Cafe, and several offices.

Subdivision Stories: Parkdale Heights

A small subdivision lying south of Parkdale Road between Elizabeth and Lounsbury streets was laid out as an addition to the Village of Rochester in November 1917.  The proprietors of the subdivision were two Rochester couples: Richard D. and Mary Watson and Alfred E. and Elizabeth Williams. The former farm land along Parkdale Road was quickly developed between 1915 and 1925 and many of the houses built on Parkdale and the adjacent side streets were occupied by employees of the Parkedale Biological Farm just east of the village.

The land on which the Parkdale Heights subdivision was created was formerly owned by Robert J. Lounsbury, an attorney and real estate developer who served as mayor of the City of Pontiac. After earning his degree from Columbia Law School in 1875, Lounsbury had come to Michigan to represent the interests of East Coast capitalists who had investments in the Midwest. In addition to the Lounsbury street that bears his name in Rochester, there is also a Lounsbury Avenue in Pontiac.

Yates Cider Mill Marks a Milestone

Yates Cider Mill owners Mike and Katie Titus receive a Michigan Milestone award from a representative of the Historical Society of Michigan

This afternoon at Yates Cider Mill, the Historical Society of Michigan recognized Rochester Hills' oldest continuously operating business with a Michigan Milestone Marker. The plaque honors the mill for 150 years of service.

William H. Yates emigrated to Michigan from New York and established his mill on the Clinton River in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War.  The original structure was a grist mill, but Yates decided to begin pressing apple cider thirteen years later,  in 1876.  In 1894, the Yates family built a new structure to house the thriving business, and the iconic building that we know today was used to press apple cider that fall.

William Yates' son and grandson followed him in the business, and in 1959, Yates' grandson, Harry, sold the mill to the Posey family, who still own and operate it today.  Several generations of area residents have fond memories of autumn trips to Yates Cider Mill, and this year the atmosphere is especially festive as the mill observes the sesquicentennial anniversary of its founding.  We think William H. Yates would be proud!

At Home in Rochester: Milton Henry Haselswerdt House

This lovely home on North Main Street stands in testimony to Rochester's share in the prosperity of the decade known as the "Roaring Twenties." The house was built  in 1928 as the family home of Milton Henry Haselswerdt and his wife, Augustine Blanchard Haselswerdt.  The Rochester Era described the progress on the house in October 1928:

M. H. Haselswerdt, president of the First National bank, who is building a fine new 12-room home, is nearing completion. The house is of colonial design, with exterior walls of buff brick and tile roof. The colonial entrance and arched windows add much to the attractiveness.

Milton Haselswerdt was born in Washtenaw County in 1882. After completing high school, he attended business school in Ypsilanti before taking a position as an assistant cashier at a bank in St. Ignace. He moved to Rochester in 1908, where he helped to organize the First National Bank of Rochester, serving at first as cashier and eventually rising to the position of president of the bank.  He was vice-president of the bank at the time that it built a modern new facility on the southwest corner of Fourth & Main, the building that houses Chase Bank today.

The Haselswerdts moved into their new home only months before the stock market crash of 1929 changed the economic fortunes of the nation.  Milton H. Haselswerdt was best remembered for bringing the First National Bank of Rochester out of the 1933 bank crisis in reorganized form, as the Rochester National Bank. This bank was the only one in Rochester to survive the Great Depression with no harm to depositors. It later merged with National Bank of Detroit, and Haselswerdt stayed with NBD as a director of the Rochester branch, retiring in 1957. He died in 1976 and  was entombed at White Chapel Cemetery in Troy.

This Month in Rochester History

Honor Roll moving in 1963 (Rochester Hills Public Library)

Fifty years ago this month, Rochester leaders were contemplating what should be done with the community's World War II honor roll, which had fallen into disrepair and was standing in the way of a proposed urban renewal project.

In 1963, the honor roll was located on the east side of Main Street at Second; Second street had not been opened east of Main at that time. The village was preparing for an urban renewal project on the east side of Main, encompassing the area occupied by the former Chapman Mill Pond (which had been washed out in 1946) and adjacent property.  Part of this plan was to open Second Street east of Main.

The village fathers and the Blue Star Mothers, who had originally sponsored the creation of the memorial, contemplating moving the memorial to the municipal building grounds, as this article from the September 26, 1963 issue of the Rochester Clarion reported:

Township treasurer Helen V. Allen, representing the Blue Star Mothers, addressed a letter to the Council asking them to consider a spot for the memorial on the Civil Center grounds.
The memorial is now located on Main St. across the road from the eastern end of Second. Because the names are etched on glass, some of the panels are broken and the memorial in general is in poor condition. It is believed that stones thrown up by passing cars have broken the glass panels.
Mrs. Allen said this week that the Blue Star Mothers have brought a glass company person to Rochester to look at the memorial and it is estimated it will cost $600 to repair the memorial. It will cost an unestimated amount to move the memorial. She said that the Blue Star Mothers will ask other organizations and individuals to help them finance the project.

Honor Roll at re-dedication in 2002 (Rod and Susan Wilson)

The planned move to the municipal building grounds did not happen in 1963. Instead, the honor roll was removed from its site at Second Street and dismantled. The broken panels were stored away in a garage and not seen again for several decades, until the Rochester Avon Historical Society adopted the honor roll as a historic preservation project and restored it.  At a cost many thousands of dollars greater than the estimate of 1963, the memorial was returned to its former glory and given a place of honor on the grounds of the Rochester Municipal Building in 2002. It was re-dedicated on Memorial Day of that year with many local World War II veterans in attendance.

If you haven't visited Rochester's World War II Honor Roll, be sure to take time to stop by the Municipal Building to view this memorial to the more than 1,100 men and women from the community who served in uniform during World War II.  Among the names listed are 26 preceded by gold stars, denoting the ultimate sacrifice in defense of freedom.