Day 102, Wednesday June 26, 2024: Leland, Michigan to Oscoda, Michigan
- Mark Carl Rom
- Jul 26
- 8 min read
Carnegie libraries visited: Petoskey and Mancelona, Michigan
Days sober: 370
iOverlander did not have any overnight recommendations for me in Leland, and there were no chain hotels of the kind I usually use, so I was on my own last night. I found a public beach with exactly two parking spaces (two!) and no sign prohibiting overnight parking, so I stayed there, nervously. The beach was open 24 hours a day, and Google maps reported that people visited it at all hours, and so I hoped for the best. Still, I slept with my clothes on in case the federales awakened me with a klieg light.
The sun was setting when I arrived, so I took a longish stroll along the beach. The water was warm enough to walk in without making my ankles throb – I can’t blame climate change for this – and I had the beach almost to myself. Houses were hidden on the top of the bluff; long staircases, often in disrepair, led to the sand. Gentle waves lapped the shore like I lick my ice cream cones.
Which I’m no longer eating, at least not for the time being. Recent bloodwork indicated that I need to cut back on sugar, so I’ll treat ice cream as the luxury it is, rather than the necessity I believed it to be.
My Meeting Guide app told me that I could find one in Petovsky at 10 a.m. When I got there, I almost kept on driving: I was not feeling it. “Mark,” I thought, “it really doesn’t matter whether you are feeling it or not.” (Diabetic: “Sorry, I don’t feel like taking insulin today.”) What matters is that I am here, the meeting is starting, and I need to go in. I did. Nothing memorable happened, or nothing that I remembered, anyway. Doesn’t matter. One day at a time.
My drive was memorable. A dream drive. The Michigan mainland is in the shape of your right hand held up facing you, and my route took me north along the little finger on Highway 31 along Lake Michigan, through Elk Rapids, Charlevoix, Harbor Springs, and Petoskey, one of the northernmost towns in lower Michigan, and one that Ernest Hemingway would pass through on his way to his family’s cottage on nearby Walloon Lake, where he summered as a boy. After dipping south to Mancelona, I strolled north and east to Presque Isle Harbor, then down south along the pointer finger of Highway 23 which skirts the shores of Lake Huron. Along the way, the Great Lakes teased me with the occasional wink and a smile. Libraries came along often enough to keep me amused, and by looking at their pictures I remember that I enjoy the skies above, ever changing from the deepest blue to the fuzziest gray, as much as I do the buildings themselves.
When the Petoskey Literary Society began meeting in 1876, one of its main goals was to bring a free library to the town. This goal “became a reality” in 1884 when the Ladies Library Association – no doubt, there was a lot of crossover membership of these two clubs – obtained a room for a library downtown on the corner of Lake and Howard Streets. The town first requested a Carnegie grant in 1901 although, for reasons that are unclear to me, Petoskey did not receive funding until 1908, after Mrs. Lelia Johnson purchased a site for the library in memory of her husband. The gift states that “This conveyance is made to furnish the people of the City of Petoskey, a site for a free public library and under the express condition that it is to be forever as a free public library and for no other purpose.”
I left Petoskey and Lake Michigan to visit the Carnegie in Mancelona, some forty miles inland. I had a brief flirtation with the Crooked Tree library, no bigger than two trailer homes stapled together, in Boyne Falls. (I have a thing for tiny libraries.) True to its name, it was indeed shaded by a single, somewhat crooked, tree. It flirted back until, blowing it a farewell kiss, I turned away and beelined for the stolid and matronly Mancelona library.
Carnegie pledged $10,000 to the town and, before the pledge was completed, the negotiations between Mancelona officials (especially Mr. M.E. Wellman), architects, other interested parties, and Paul Bertram of the Carnegie Corporation ran on and on for 82 pages.
Bertram is nothing if not detailed. Regarding design, the town “insisted on ignoring [my directions] as apparently has been done with the result that toilets have been placed along the entrance resulting not only in that valuable main floor space being taken for them but with the result also that the lobby…is twice the size it need be.” Bertram details how the library’s dimensions should be reduced to eliminate “wasted” space and lower costs.
The philosophy of library bathrooms has changed in the past century. It is common for modern libraries to put their bathrooms close to the entrance. As a frequent user, this makes sense. Libraries are one of the few places where, like their books, bathrooms are free for the public to use. Sometimes, I know from personal experience, the bathroom is the only library facility a patron wants to use. So rather than making those with the urge ask at the circulation desk “Where are your bathrooms hidden?” they are placed right at the door.
At times, the Mancelona negotiations got hot: specifically, on how the library would be heated. The town had planned to install a steam heat system, for $2000 – a large sum given the size of the grant – but found that rising costs made this unfeasible. Mr. They asked for more money. Frustration mounted on both sides. One official sent a telegram to Bertram stating “Let us know by wire at our expense what trouble [sic] is and why letters [sic] unanswered we are completely tied up and do not know what to do.” Bertram refused to answer the telegram; he never responds to them.
In December 1916, Bertram reached out to Mrs. Mary C. Spencer, the Secretary of the Board of Library Commissioners for the State Library to try to resolve the impasse(s). Betram gripes that Mancelona is “involved in expenditures contrary to its pledge.” Spencer, a good politician, acknowledges the complaints (“it is an unfortunate situation”) and that the town needs either to change its plans or raise the funding on its own. However, “From a personal standpoint, if it would be possible, I would be very glad to have them receive the gift of the additional fund…as they are very much in earnest and doing the best they can. This is merely a suggestion on my part…”
Bertram can’t hide his annoyance with the town and its proposal for a steam heat system, “Now, we all know the difference between steam heat and any other practical kind of heat is not $2000…” Spencer, judiciously, writes back “I am not familiar with the cost of heating apparatus and therefore could not pass judgment on the amount asked for, but I have no doubt that your estimate is absolutely correct…If you would like me to take the matter up with them I am glad to do so…”
In February 1917 Bertram again wrote Spencer to complain that “It was foolish of these people to give a pledge that they would erect the building complete and ready for use for $10,000 without first taking bids to establish the basis for giving such a pledge.” Spencer, working behind the scene, is able to report that “the library matter has been adjusted and they will bring the expense within the amount specified.” Bertram graciously replies that “[I] am so sorry that you have had so much trouble with the Mancelon library matter…[but] I hope they have not ‘cheapened’ the building but in view of the fact that they thought to show that they absolutely needed a considerable amount in addition to the appropriation, I am afraid that they have done so.” Spencer, more intimately, ends the correspondence in March 1917 with “My Dear Mr. Bertram…I assure you that I have not considered the Mancelona library matter any trouble. It gives me great pleasure to be of service to you in this or any other possible way.” Bertram, for his part, had previously begun addressing her as “My Dear Mrs. Spencer.”
Bertram wasn’t done with Mancelon yet. On October 10th he wrote Wellman to complain about the “radical changes” in the building’s design and, basically, WTF? By November, having calmed down a bit, Bertram asks Wellman “We should be glad if we might have a reply [to the previous letter].” Wellman quickly writes a detailed reply to which Bertram, again worked up, answers “You have entirely disregarded the essentials of our October 10th letter.” Wellman can’t find that letter – whoops! – and asks Bertram to send it again. Bertram begins again to forward the correspondence to Spencer, who assures Bertram that she has written Wellman to “make the matter as clear to him as possible. I think this will be satisfactorily [resolved].”
Today, it’s easy to find a list of books on mediation, like Bringing Peace into the Room: How the Personal Qualities of the Mediator Impact the Process of Conflict Resolution, which “demonstrates that at the very heart of conflict resolution is the subtle interaction between the parties and the mediator's personal and authentic style.” Spencer could not have read this book – it was published in 2003 – yet it appears that she intuited its main lessons.
Mary Spencer was a native Michigander, born in Pontiac in 1842, and when she became the Head Librarian of the Library of Michigan in 1893, she was the first person holding that title who was not from New England. She was a progressive. Until she became Head Librarian, the state library’s books were available only to public officials; she made them available to local libraries, readers groups, and other citizens. To make books available to local libraries, she established an “associate library” system, so that the patrons of libraries who became associates would have access to the state library’s collection. Early in her tenure the state approved funding for traveling libraries – it was the second state after New York to do so. In May 1895, Spencer’s library sent fifty books to the hamlet of North Star, “with the goal of exposing those who live a distance from large towns to the best literature,” as Spencer sought to cultivate “a desire for good books.” By 1897, Michigan had 50 traveling libraries; by 1898, 125; by 1902, 722, with over 16,000 patrons checking out over 74,000 books.
Spencer served as Head Librarian for 30 years, until she took ill and died in 1923 at the age of 81 and the end of her final four-year term. Her bio on the Library of Michigan website (written by Jim Schultz) notes that Spencer combined “vision and pragmatism” in her leadership. She was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1984. Michigan Women Forward (“a nonprofit organization dedicated to the economic empowerment of women and minorities”) lauds Spencer as “a modest woman of vision who was able to create an outstanding library system not only because of her undeniable competence, but because the respect and friendship that lawmakers felt toward her personally, enabled her to win the support that changed dreams into reality.”
I worked myself into a tizzy for a good part of the afternoon, thinking of all the things I regret from my past. My past, unfortunately, is not likely to change. I prayed the serenity prayer multiple times, which brought a little comfort into the present. Listening to the audiobook Go as a River, by Shelley Read, allowed me to slow down those mental wheels as I focused instead on what was going to happen next to Victoria, the book's heroine.
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