Our family never got to take many trips. It was outside the budget to travel, so, as a rule we didn’t do it.
I can think of two early exceptions that I will write about today and another bigger vacation later that I will write about tomorrow.
I am writing this on National Michigan Day, that is the anniversary of the date of admission to the Union for our lovely pair of peninsulas. If you have read “The Great Toledo War” by Harold “Swampy” Marsh, you know that the only war fought between states other than that other Civil War was fought between Ohio and Michigan. Ohio won and got Toledo and we got stuck with the Upper Peninsula. But it wasn’t until my lifetime that Michiganders could even get to the U.P. without a boat.
Sometime in what was probably late summer of 1956, or early summer of 1957 Mom and Dad bundled us into the car and we headed north. The reason I know the approximate timeline is that the object of our wandering was the car ferry at the Straits of Mackinac. It was the last year the ferry operated before the Mackinac Bridge opened on November 1, 1957. I can’t say for sure why I remember that date. It must have been strongly impressed on me as a kid, probably by my Dad. He had a head full of historical minutia.
The bridge had been a huge capital plan since about the birth of my great-grandfather. In fact, the research I did today, mostly from the Mackinac Bridge Authority https://www.mackinacbridge.org , indicates the first meeting that discussed the need for a bridge spanning the Straits was held at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in 1888! By 1934 the first price tag on such a project came in at $33,400,000. But no plan came to fruition until 1953 when bonds totaling $99,800.000 were issued and the Bridge was on its way to reality.
I believe we took this boat ride to the U.P. so that I could remember a time before the direct route. It seems to have worked.
Michigan was home to the Motor City. The entire state’s economy and culture was built upon names like Ford, Olds, Chevrolet and yet no person had ever driven the length of Michigan without that 5 mile boat ride from Mackinac City to St. Ignace. In 1956 or 57 Harold and Joyce set out to do it again.
I remember nothing from the drive up to the ferry. We left very early in the morning and all three of us kids slept much or most of the trip to the top of the Lower Peninsula. But we were awake and anxious as we waited in what seemed like a huge line of cars and trucks queued up to board the boat. I feared we were too far back in the line and we would have to return the next day. The ferry itself was the biggest boat I had yet seen in all of my 6 years. The photo above is the ship we rode in 1956. “The Vacationland” could transport about 150 vehicles at a time. I do not remember a thing about that time in the Upper Peninsula. I don’t know if we stayed a day or a week, but I remember that boat ride (and the horrible stink of diesel fumes in the hold). The ride seemed like an ocean voyage.
Fast forward to some date in 1958. The Marsh family was off to make that trip again. The “Mighty Mac” had opened the previous November and thousands had crossed the Straits by passenger car. I remember this trip much better. There are some old black and white photos somewhere that support my memories.
It seems to me now that the original goal was to drive across the bridge and so we went there apparently without stopping. I don’t think we had bought the almost new 1957 two-tone Chevy. (I’d give an arm for that car today!) So we must have been driving the old ’53 Plymouth. Either way, I was old enough to have a window seat in the back and I was subjected to my first taste of vertigo as we drove across the steel grid of the inner lane on the bridge. I could look out the window and all the way down to the Lake, 199 feet below. Neither of my sisters would even look out the window.
I’m not sure of all the places we went in the Upper Peninsula. I am certain we saw the Tahquamenon Falls, referred to sometimes as the Root Beer Falls because of the unique amber colored water. They were cool for about 15 minutes to a 7 year old, but it seemed to take a very long time to get there (not far from Paradise).
The Toonerville Trolly, was a big hit on that trip. It was (and still is) a steam powered, narrow gauge train that takes you through Black Bear country to a riverboat landing. The boat is called the Hiawatha today, and it may have had the same name back in the 50s. That is a longer ride. When you arrive there is a longish hike to see the falls. (Today I discover the hike is 5/8 of a mile each way with a lot of stairs to climb. I’ll bet there was a lot of complaining from people with short legs.)
Other than the Bridge and the Falls, I only remember one more significant event from that trip. We had stopped somewhere near Lake Superior in Christmas, Michigan. This is the kitschiest Christmas town in the world, complete with a 35 foot Santa Clause standing out by the road. I remember sending a postcard to a friend from the post office (with Christmas stamps and a Christmas, Michigan post mark). We met the “real” Santa and got to spend a good amount of time with him. As I said, I was 7 and had been clued in to the real meaning of Santa, but both of my sisters believed in the conventional children’s way. What poor Santa didn’t know (but my parents did) was that Karla had an active case of the mumps. (When we got home, both Crystal and I came down with the mumps too. She was definitely contagious.) To help disguise her ailment, Mom had put Karla in a hat that tied under her chin with a wide ribbon. I’m still not certain it did any disguising as much as it accentuated her condition but when Santa met my sister, he leaned over and said to Karla, “Ho Ho Ho! You have some cute, chubby cheeks, don’t you?” Karla was over the moon that her hero spoke directly to her. The rest of us hoped Santa had already had the mumps as a child, otherwise he was in for some hurting.
A quick search today reveals that there is a distance of 376 miles between Charlotte, MI and Christmas, MI. That’s how far we spread the mumps virus that summer. Karla was our own little 3-year-old Typhoid Mary. That’s the story of how the Marshes made an impact on the health history of the great State of Michigan.

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