Category Archives: History

Documenting Ypsilanti in the time of COVID-19

By Mark | March 25, 2020

Back in 2017, I got the idea that we should designate a weekend to collectively documenting our lives in Ypsilanti. I called the initiative #DocumentYpsi, and the results were pretty awesome. In fact, I was 100% committed, given the response, to make sure that it became an annual thing. But, like so many other things, […]

Also posted in Art and Culture, Health, Ypsilanti | Tagged #DocumentYpsi, 1918, 1918 flu, 1925, Alfred Wilkinson Wilson, Ann Arbor, archives, automobiles, Bentley Historical Library, Bill Nickels, coronavirus, COVID-19, Depot Town, desolation, Enchanted Florist, Enrico Caruso, going out of business, Gretchen Whitmer, Kim Clarke, lockdown, masks, photography, public health, ROTC, scrapbook, shelter in place, social distancing, Student Army Training Corps, Unicorn Supply and Feed, University of Michigan, Ypsi history, Ypsilanti Historical Society | 4 Comments

The story about my great, great grandfather nearly severing the leg of his brother with an axe

By Mark | March 7, 2020

Not too long ago, as you may recall, I shared a few family stories here that had been handed down by my great grandmother’s cousin, Mattie Belle Wise (1892-1992). Well, I’ve got another family story to share with you today. This one, however, comes from my recently-discovered fourth cousin, Stephen Wise. [Stephen reached out to […]

Also posted in Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Tagged axes, Billy V. Wise, Caesarea Church of Christ, Elkhorn Creek, family history, fishing, Fox and Hounds, geneology, George Henry Wise, Georgetown, James Monroe Wise, James Monroe “Roe” Wise, Jefferson Davis Wise, Jennie Tucker Wise, John Anderson Wise, legs, Lexington, Long Branch, Minnie Wise, Minnie Wise Florian, Minorsville, Scott County, Seth Wise, Stamping Ground, Stephen Wise, Thomas Richard Wise, tobacco, trotline | 5 Comments

The Untold History of Zines… Alex Hubbard and Dan M on “The Removal Technician”

By Mark | February 29, 2020

About a year or so ago, when I was done interviewing Sean Tejaratchi, the man behind Crap Hound, for my History of Zines project, I asked him who else I should be talking with from Portland’s golden age of self-publishing, and he suggested that I try to track down Dan M. and Alex Hubbard, who […]

Also posted in Art and Culture, Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Tagged Alex Hubbard, Alvadore, anthropology, bellboy, big death, Bill Brisko, brushes with death, Chloe Eudaly, clip art, cot, coworkers, Crap Hound, dead bodies, Death, donuts, Drawbridge Inn, Ford Galaxy, funeral home, funeral homes, Glenn Dixon, hearse, History of Zines, Joe Snell, Kalon Cream, Kinko's, Lewis & Clark College, Loewen, magnets, minivan, mortuary science, photocopying, Portland, Reading Frenzy, Sean Tejaratchi, Six Feet Under, the death industry, The Removal Technician, The Untold History of Zines, theft, zines | 7 Comments

Finding my family’s version of “Little House in the Big Woods”

By Mark | February 4, 2020

Quite often, I find myself thinking things like, “If not for this one thing having happened, I likely wouldn’t be where I am today.” I wonder, for instance, if my father hadn’t gotten into an accident that kept him from shipping off for Vietnam, how my life might have turned out differently. Or I start […]

Also posted in Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Tagged 1900, 1918, 1918 flu, adoption, Bessie Roberts Wise, biscuits, Carrie Wise, census, Charles Maynard, Church of Christ, Cleve Wise, crackers, Curt Florian, Curtis Florian, Edgar Emerson Wise, Edgar Wise, family history, farming, feather bed, feathers, flu, food preservation, foster parents, Franklin County, geese, geneology, Georgetown, Gladys, Gladys Florian Phillips, Grover Cleveland Wise, Hattie Wise, horses, Jefferson Davis Wise, John Calhoun Wise, Kate Wise, Kentucky, land bounty, land warrant, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods, log cabin, Ma Florian, Mark's ancestors, Matilda Gill Wise, Mattie Belle Wise, Mattie Wise, midwife, Mimi Gladys, Minnie Florian, Minnie Wise, Minnie Wise Florian, Minor Branch, Minorsville, natural childbirth, old maid, orphans, Owen County, Pa Florian, poverty, public education, Sarah Catherine Emerson Wise, Scott County, smoking, spring house, Stamping Ground, subscription school, teaching, tobacco, War of 1812, Wise, Woodlake, Wythe Thomas Wise | 8 Comments

My friend, Ned Cartledge, on the liberation of the Wöbbelin concentration camp

By Mark | January 25, 2020

With everyone talking about the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, my mind went, as it often does when thinking about the Nazi extermination camps, to my friend, the Atlanta folk artist Ned Cartledge. Cartledge, as I may have mentioned here before, saw the horrors of the Nazis firsthand toward the end of the […]