Today's Hungry Hollow

History is so strange. Every time a person, or historian who reports on history has their own story. Bill Dunlop wrote his own personal history in his published book, Hungry Hollow. His history had become mine. After a generation later, the book was written about the neighborhood I was born in. My memoirs would not look like his for my history is different than his.

The people who made Bill's story are no longer here. The old Indian houses that made this area and his story have been knocked down, flattened by the county and made into a community garden. The only account of the people of old and their old neighborhood has been recorded in Bill Dunlop's book and in My Uncle Simon Otto's writing in the Petoskey News Review. Bill's memoir, my uncle's articles and my account of people in this neighborhood have walked on or soon will.

As an archivist, I had the wonderful opportunity to find and transpose my Uncle Simon's articles for the family's reading enjoyment. However, I made the decision to publish them in book form for the masses. I have enjoyed comparing their memories to come to an understanding of life as a youth. These two men were best friends growing up during the depression era. They ran, worked, struggled, fished and learned about life together. Studying history and how it changes is easily subjected to the writer's point of view. Each man had their own stories and I was blessed to know both of them personally.

Generations of Native Americans have lived in this neighborhood. My Great Grandparents received the land through land disbursement during the treaty years. Land allotments were given and the Hungry Hollow neighborhood was composed heavily of Native Americans because they segregated the Natives into this area of the town. My mother and siblings were born here in Hungry Hollow. I was raised in Hungry Hollow. I raised my children in Hungry Hollow. Each generation would have different stories of the same area.

During my generation, the homesteads were different than the ones that my mother and her siblings remember. The homes that do remain, are not the same due to new residents. As I look out my bedroom window, I see a newer home sitting proudly on the top of the hill. Where the house sits is the spot were the Merrill's piled their old junked out cars. When I was little, my friends and I use to sit in those cars and just hang out as we smoked the cigarettes we snatched from or parents. The cars have been replaced with a modern brown house. The home that the Merrill's use to live in had burned down and the property was sold to the coldest neighbors around. Even in my time, the homes of my childhood have disappeared.

Today, February 5th, 2024, I read an article written Uncle Simon talking about the same property the Merrills owned. Before they moved in, there was an old Indian shack there. He wrote about the old Native lady who lived there. She was a Native American Medicine woman. My grandmother feared her and Simon was not allowed to go near her home. I smiled as I read the shenanigans of the boys. Her unique ways led the boys to befriend the old lady. Simon's account of the old lady makes me smile for I think I would have enjoyed her grumpy persona. Actually, I wish I had the chance to learn the knowledge she had as a medicine woman. Simon did learn some from her for he shared what he remembered with me before he left this world. Even after his death, his articles allow him to teach me the history of my family.

One of their friends was a Kieser. In the writings of both men, they made an account of the Kieser farm and how they would help their friend with his chores so they could run off and play. Even when I was young, the homestead was still a farm with chickens and cows. I smiled as I read how the boys planted the apple trees out front of the house. Those trees were the same ones I climbed and ate from when I was hungry. Sadly, the trees are no longer there, but I remember them. Today, Mr. Kieser's old barn still stands but it was converted into an apartment building. I remember the barn and always grieve the memory of it when I walk by. Life just isn't the same today as it was back when I was little. I wonder what old Mr. Kieser would think about the barn's transformation.

The Zink family lived across from the old farm. My childhood nemesis resided in this home. She and I were friends one day then the next, total enemies. She wasn't as bad as Nellie Olson, but she was a close second. Unfortunately, Mrs. Zink passed away last week. She was a kind lady but her daughter, was the biggest brat ever. Even today, she and I still do not see eye to eye. When I was growing up, the Kiser's trees were a perfect spot to sit and taunt her. I never said anything, my presence alone was enough to make her mad. She would stand on her hilltop and yell at me to go home. Today, she couldn't do that for Mrs. Zink's lilac trees would shield me from her view.

My grandparent's house sits between the farm's barn and my home. For years, it sat empty and slowly decaying. I remember being scared of the vacant home and would run past it after dark. During the day, us kids would sneak into the house. I would creep into the home and try to imagine what life must have been like for my mother. The wooden framed house was so plain and open. Old wooden chairs were scattered amongst the room. My grandfather was a tailor. For years, he was the only tailor north of Grand Rapids, Michigan. As I conduct my research I have found proof that he was involved in politics more than most Natives Americans were. No matter how notable he may have been, my grandparent's home was very humble.

When I was about sixteen, the house was purchased by a young couple and they remodeled the old rackety house into a nice abode. They remodeled the home and sold it to my Uncle Simon. Simon was so proud to get our family home back and he mentions it frequently in his writings. Unfortunately, Simon's widow sold the house to a nice young man before the family couldn't gain ownership. One day, I will get it back. Until then, I will remember the teachings I received while he lived there. Even this home has changed radically since my youth.

My parents home is settled around swampy land. My father worked hard to tile off the streams that flowed through to make sure the house was stable and secure. When I wander the land, I can see the old well and parts of the foundation of the old chicken coop in the back yard. The old trees that I swung from have been cut down and the old outhouse no longer stands. My uncle wrote how this land was the same land that my great grandfather use to tend a big garden by hand. He use to turn over the soil by hand every spring. According to my uncle's writing, he refused to use machines. He felt as if it was disrespectful to the land so he would never use it. My father didn't feel the same. He would use the rototiller to work the land and a cement mixer to construct the beautiful stone walls in the yard. One would never know that the grounds was very wet and wild.

When I was a child, before the age of fifteen, our home looked like an old tar-paper shed. One would drive by and the person would know that we were a bunch of poor Indians. Once you walk into the house, you would see cemented walls with an occasional hole in the walls from kids play or my father's anger. The wooden floors were rough planks that skewered our feet if we didn't wear shoes. The kitchen cabinets were made by my father. Interestingly, he made them to accommodate my mother's 4'11 inch height. I remember my husband calling the house a doll house because everything was made for short people. I didn't mind it because I didn't get much taller than my mother. The old Indian shack doesn't look that way anymore.

I remember when mom began to remodel the house. She began to cover the old with the new. My bedroom was once my parent's room. After the divorce, mom wouldn't sleep in here. It became my bedroom as a teen. During that time, I asked my mother if I could write on the walls seeing that they were going to be covered. My friends came over on my birthday and we wrote messages on the drywall paper. As I went to school, the man came and hung wooden panels over my friend's work. Forty years later, I don't remember what was written in our time capsule walls. In the spring, this room will be remodeled again and I will open the time capsule I made for myself all those years ago.

Simon once wrote about my mother's home. He couldn't imagine how mom raised her eleven children in this home. In the article, he talked about their rude beginnings. Little did I know, they started living in the basement with a little wood stove. My siblings lived in the cement foundation of the home. By the time I was born, the family lived in the wooden shed that dad built on top of the cement foundation. When I was five, dad built an addition to the house. He expanded the basement and built two rooms above that. One thing that caught me off guard about my uncle's writing was his words, "Drunks never finish what they start." Dad never finished the home for mom. Mom did that on her own.

This spring, I intend to start to change history again. After I purchase the house, I will be transforming the house into a business. Jiibi-kwe Publishing will take hold and I plan on adding a new business called Jiibi-kwe apothecary. The basement will become the apothecary and the upstairs will be the publishing company, school, and the family's archives. I love history and the more I work, the more I keep expanding my family's history. This change will be a welcomed change in our family's history and will change the look of the neighborhood again.

One thing I am proud of is the fact that I will finish all the things that dad didn't. The stone walls outside will be completed. The inside will be reconstructed and the rooms he never got to will be added. Best of all, the walls will be ringed with mom's book shelfs. I will finish what they weren't able to do. Dad will have his gardens again and the swamp lands will become medicines for the apothecary. I am looking forward to the changes and I proud to finish their work with my own flair.