Features

Good ghosts of Escanaba

ESCANABA -- The October moon hangs like a big orange pumpkin in the sky.

All around north Escanaba, attics and basements take on an eerie glow!

A chilly wind rustles the jack pines and rusty acorns scatter from the oak trees.

Friendly ghosts arise from their slumber!

Around brick chimney posts, coffee pots brew on woodstoves that have been gone for decades. Age old aromas of baking bread, cabbage soup, smoking hams and cinnamon from povitica and apple pie, fill the air.

In a peaceful attic between an antique steamer trunk and a pile of Iron Port newspapers (one of Escanaba's earliest papers), Gertie the good ghost sits in her rocking chair.

Her feathery, white fingers are busy knitting an orange and black boo-tiful neck scarf.

As she rocks, the old wooden bird's eye maple floorboards creek.

The attic is cold and breezy. A stripped grey cat hunts for spiders in the rafters. Gertie likes the cat's company but soon he will head downstairs to the refurbished rooms.

Gert hums her school's song "fight, fight for Esky high..." She remembers football games, popcorn, frosty nights and a certain handsome quarterback.

In the basement of the same old house, Si sits on a stool by his workbench. His pale, ghostly face is concentrating on the cedar blocks that he is chopping into kindling wood.

All around him, a bit rusty and dull, are the tools of his lifetime. Saws, chisels, levels and nails still hang in the basement cubby hole. (The rest of the basement was remodeled into a laundry room)

After Si wore the football jersey, he wore a carpenter's apron. For over fifty years, he hammered the lumber from the forests of Upper Michigan into the homes and buildings of the growing Escanaba.

Gertrude was always by his side. The streetcars came and went. The ore boats came and went. Chicken coops and clotheslines in backyards, disappeared. Victory gardens transformed into raised bed gardens.

But, through it all, Gertie kept the coffee pot brewing and the family well fed.

Si provided the foundation, the faith and the finances. Gertie rocked the cradle, simmered the soup and made many, many birthday cakes, Christmas's wonderful, Thanksgiving's tasty and the home, cozy.

Old Escanaba homes are filled with history. Many of them have been maintained, updated and remodeled beautifully.

Who are the ghosts that dwell at your house?

Have a safe and happy Halloween.