Originally published in The Cass City Chronicle (July 15, 2020).
​
Some know him as the smiling teller who used to wait on them at the Pinney State Bank. To others, he is known as an excellent baker and a grower of flowers.

But Cass City’s Don Greenleaf is best known for what he readily admits is a gift given to him by God — his music.

From playing at weddings and funerals to using his talents at church, Greenleaf has had a profound musical presence in his community, one born out of a love of music that began at a very early age.

“We always had a piano in the house. My mother played and my grandmother played, but I always pretended all the time I was growing up that it was an organ,” he recalled.

That love of organ music was deepened during a visit to an evangelistic meeting in Saginaw in the 1950s.

“It was in the old auditorium in downtown Saginaw, which is no longer there. I saw my first organ there, and...that just did it. I remember running away from my parents and sitting on the front row so I could watch the man (playing).”

Greenleaf’s parents encouraged their son’s musical interests, purchasing record albums of the same organist he watched so attentively in Saginaw.

“I listened to those by the hour, I never got tired of them,” he said.

In addition to record albums, Greenleaf’s parents ensured he had piano lessons.

“I took lessons first from Ruth Esau,” he said. “But I could play the lesson by ear, so I wouldn’t
read the music. I was in first grade.”

As a boy, the Cass City native’s musical appetite and style was influenced by musicians near and far. Gospel musicians Helen Barth and Al Smith were particularly influential.

“As I got a little older, my aunt brought home a player and radio combination type thing, it played
45s,” he said. “Well, then I would play from the piano. I would hear the songs...on there that Helen
Barth and Al Smith were singing, and then I would play with it on the piano, one finger at a time.”

Locally, it was Emmaline Bullis, the pianist at the First Baptist Church, who influenced the aspiring musician.

“I used to try to emulate her,” Greenleaf said. “I used to see her every Sunday morning, every Sunday night. I just loved Emmaline and the way she played.”

When Myrtle McColl donated a Hammond organ to the Baptist church in memory of her son in 1960, Greenleaf, then a sixth-grader, knew the Hammond was for him.

“I had to learn that,” he said. “I can’t explain it. It was just a fascination. It was the sound, everything about it was fascinating to me.”

Local organist June Deering instructed Greenleaf on the organ for a year, but she soon learned what Ruth Esau and other instructors had learned about her student— he could play by ear.

“I wouldn’t study,” said Greenleaf, who progressed under the direction of his teachers, but as a young man longed for more instruction. “I didn’t read (music) well,” he explained, “and I didn’t know much about music, so I worked with a man who was a piano major at Northwestern University one summer in Bad Axe. And then I went to Gull Lake.”

The Gull Lake Bible and Missionary Conference, held at Gull Lake Ministries in Hickory Corners, brought in well-known Christian preachers, evangelists and musicians each summer. Two of the musicians featured at Gull Lake, John Innes and Merrill Dunlop, had a profound impact on Greenleaf. After hearing them play, he realized that if he was going to be a better musician, he needed an intensive musical education.

“I knew I couldn’t carry off the things that I heard anymore (by ear),” he said. “So, I went to Bad
Axe and studied with Hazel Krueger for 12 years, classic music. That was when I was 25.”

Greenleaf took his studies with Krueger seriously.

“Mrs. Kruger had to take me right from the very bottom, right from the C-scale on. I learned scales and arpeggios — all those things, all technique, because I had never had any of that,” he said. “I knew I had to do it now or never.

“I would get up early in the morning and practice before I went to work, and then I would
take my lesson either in the evening or on Saturday afternoon,” Greenleaf added. “She would have me in recitals, and I would learn things by Bach and Mozart. I would memorize those
things and then do them.”

Since those early days, the Hammond organ has been Greenleaf’s instrument of choice.

“The Hammond was invented by a clockmaker back in 1935,” Greenleaf said. “His clocks
weren’t selling so well, so he was getting to the point where he needed a new invention. He was a marvelous inventor. So, he invented the Hammond organ with the tone wheel generator and with
the drawbar system, whereby you could control every aspect of the harmonics you were using.”

For Greenleaf, and many Hammond enthusiasts like him, a Hammond organ is nothing without a Leslie speaker, a unique invention of radio service engineer Don Leslie in the late 1930s.

“Don Leslie used a rotating device in both the treble and the bass, and when you played the Hammond through it, it gave it a totally different sound,” Greenleaf said. “[It is] much warmer and much richer and just very, very different from what the Hammond sound (by itself) was. It was not produced as a substitute for the pipe organ, which it will never be, but with the proper equipment on it, you can produce pipe sounds.”

Whether playing the organ or the piano, Greenleaf has had a prolific career as a local musician since
the 1960s.

“As time went on, I became church organist,” he said. “And then I played for several years at
the Little Funeral Home. I played an hour before the service and two hours on the evening before. They had a full-sized Hammond, which was a real delight to me, because the church at that time did not have a full-sized Hammond.”

In addition to playing at his church and at the funeral home, Greenleaf has played a variety of venues, including numerous weddings and evangelistic crusades in Bad Axe and Akron.

“I love to accompany. That’s my favorite thing to do,” he said.

Today, Greenleaf continues to play at funerals and community events. He also plays the organ
and, occasionally, the piano, at First Baptist Church each Sunday. But as much as he enjoys playing for the benefit of others, Greenleaf says his music is ultimately an offering back to God.

“Everyone isn’t given a gift in music; they’re given a gift of some sort, but I realize that God just gave you that. I was able to develop it to a degree — not to the degree that I would like, because I would like to be a classical musician if I could carry it off.

“But probably that would never be the heart of what I wanted to do. The purpose of the music is to give back to God what He’s given to you and to glorify Him."

This article was originally published by RebelFolio, a publication of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas's Hank Greenspun School of Journalism & Media Studies.

​It’s a warm summer day in Las Vegas, but the heat in the house is set at 80. Clad in light blue button-down pajamas, a gold Torah scroll on a chain hanging from his neck, 90-year-old Marton Ackerman sits back on his deep, black leather sofa.

On the coffee table in front of him is a glass of Coke, a landline phone, cell phone, medications, and a calendar marked with dates with doctors. He carefully lifts the Coke from the table and takes a sip through his bendy straw. He prepares to go back in time.

“We were very poor, and luckily I had a loving family,” he says. “We never went to bed without getting a kiss from my mother. And that’s what I remember from early days.”

Ackerman was born in Mexico to Hungarian Jewish parents in 1929. His parents split up when he was very young, his father staying in Mexico while his mother took the three children and went back to Hungary. 

When Hitler invaded Hungary in March 1944, Marton was 14 years old, living on Kiraly Street 6 with his mother, older brother, younger sister, maternal grandmother, and two aunts.

“The place was a huge building with apartments in it,” he says. “We were on the second floor. On the first floor was the temple, a Jewish shul. We lived in 3-bedroom house, 3-½, I think. … It was a tenement. My mother and all of my aunts worked for a textile factory repairing the bad parts of the whole sheet of material. They would bring it to us, and I remember that the living room was almost up in the ceiling with textiles, and we kids used to go up on a top and—” 

Marton makes a sliding sound with his mouth, as he demonstrates with his hand how they would slide down the stack of cloth. He stares down at the coffee table in front of him, looking through it to a distant time and place.

 “I had a happy childhood for a while,” he says with a smile that doesn’t quite make it from one side of his mouth to the other.

Indeed, Marton’s childhood years were marbled with moments of beauty and tragedy. He played in the streets of Pest, the poorer half of Budapest. He sang in a choir at the synagogue with his boyhood friend, Tibi. He fished from the banks of the Danube River and brought his catches home for his mother to fry. 

“The non-Jewish friends that I had way back, I never went to school with them, but we gathered together in the park and we played together ... football or climbing the hills of Buda,” he tells me, smiling as he talks. “And they were okay with me, you know. But when this started, I think it was...well, antisemitism always was there, but it got worse.”

For Marton, rumblings of the persecution Hungarian Jewry would eventually experience began years before the Nazis occupied his homeland. In the 1930s, the Arrow Cross Party, which shared the anti-Semitic and nationalistic ideologies of their German counterparts, formed in Hungary. The hatred they spewed permeated Hungarian culture, including that of young people.

“[Young people] were trying to spying on us when we were getting out of our school,” he says. “I remember the stores in Budapest had metal curtains they would pull down over the windows. The only reason I remember them is because the … young people would shove me into them and my head would hit the metal.”

Marton endured these beatings, while the young people, students of a local Catholic school, threw racial and religious slurs at him, calling him “dirty Jew” and other names. 

Although Marton cannot remember the exact year when these things happened, he does know that it was shortly after these beatings that he dropped out of the 8th grade, due to the family’s financial difficulties. 

“I went as an apprentice to a furrier, where they made fur coats and all that,” he says. “It was at that time that they started to deport the older Jews. They sent them to work camps and some of them to concentration camps. But my family, we were okay for another year.”

On April 5, 1944, the decree was made that all Hungarian Jews were to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing. Marton remembers that time. 

“We had to wear yellow stars,” he says. “We were restricted on what time we could go out and when we couldn’t. But in the building there were quite a few Jewish kids, and—stupid us—we decided to take off our yellow stars and go to the movies. We sneaked in, because no one had money. But there were always ways for kids to get into the movies.”

Life for the Ackerman family changed drastically in the fall of 1944. On November 29, the Royal Hungarian Government ordered all Jews to leave their homes and to move into the newly formed ghetto.

“Well, they just came in, you know,” he tells me of the morning Nazi officials came to his family’s apartment. He stares at the fireplace across the room from where he is sitting. “They didn’t ask us permission. And not just our [apartment], but everybody who was Jewish there. And evidently they knew who was [Jewish], because there were other people [living there], too; not just Jews.” 

Before moving into the ghetto, the Ackerman family was first taken to a horse-racing track, where the men and women were divided into two groups. 

“My brother and I went to one side and the other part of my family went on the other side,” he says. “This was the first time I was away from my mother.”

At the race track, 15-year-old Marton encountered the complexities of human nature and of the war, in particular. After being ordered to hand over his wallet by a member of the Arrow Cross Party, something strange happened.

“I gave him my wallet that had only my Mexican birth certificate and a picture of the Belzy Rebbe that my grandmother gave me,” Marton tells me. “I told him it was my grandfather. He gave me back my wallet with the birth certificate and the picture. Surprisingly, this man gave me 100 pengő. It was a big sum at that time for me, at least. I never seen a 100 pengő. He said, ‘Good health. Good luck.' To this day, I do not know why he did that, but it helped me survive the war. I later used it to buy apples and potatoes from the farmers.”

Marton and his brother, Gene, along with many of the other Jewish males, were moved from the race track to a brick yard, and then eventually from the brickyard to the ghetto. In the ghetto, they were put to work doing hard manual labor.

“Incredibly, we were once out working on a house, demolishing it, getting the dangerous things off of the top,” he says as he lifts his glass of Coke off of the coffee table and takes a drink. “When we finished that work, we came down and we could hear the sirens, meaning it was an air raid. You won’t believe this, a bomb fell down just a short distance from where I was.”

When the bomb hit the ground, he saw it bounce into the air. When it came back down, it detonated upon impact with the cobblestone street, sending his brother flying through the air and through the display window of a nearby store. 

The explosion forced Marton violently to the ground. Metal shrapnel hurtled through the dust-laden air, one piece embedding itself into the back of his scalp, another piece lodged in his earlobe, where it remains to this day.

“It was chaos,” he says. “I don’t know where the guard was, but ... lots of people died there, and when I woke up from the blast, first thing I saw was a man’s leg away from his body. And the guy pleading, ‘Everybody, please help me!’”

Miraculously, Gene was unharmed by his crash through the display window, but Marton was injured by the shrapnel.

“A young Nazi grabbed me and took me someplace where they couldn’t see us,” he says. “And he had a satchel on, I don’t know what you call it, and he took out a bottle of liquor. And gave me a shot. He felt sorry for me, I guess.”

Surprised by the kindness of the Nazi, Marton and his brother began searching the streets for someone to help stop the bleeding from Marton’s head.

“So we went to the Red Cross,” he says, “and believe it or not, the Red Cross refused to tend to me because I was Jewish. The Red Cross center was supposed to be an international place, but they would not accept this Jewish kid.” He slowly shakes his head. “They never did apologize for not taking in the Jews during the war.” (The International Committee of the Red Cross has made belated statements acknowledging and regretting its broad wartime failure to assist Jews and other persecuted peoples.) 

With the Red Cross refusing to help Marton, the brothers began their search for someone who would.  “[We] walked the streets until we found another doctor who accepted me,” he says. “I was bleeding profusely. He cleaned me up and put a clamp on my skull. He said, ‘I’m going to make you a turban. You don’t need it, but maybe it’ll save you from going to work up on the buildings, and maybe they’ll start treating you right.’”

News of the advancing Russian Army motivated the Arrow Cross to march their prisoners to Germany, where they would be used as forced labor to help the rapidly declining war effort for the Nazis.

“We walked and walked,” Marton tells me. “And if you couldn’t walk anymore, you were shot. I saw it with my own eyes. They shot an old man. He didn't fall down. He just slumped to his knees. He was dead. I don’t know how many they killed that time, but the march went on.”

This “death march”, as it was called, continued its bloody and merciless journey, until one day a motorcycle pulled up alongside the ragged band of marching prisoners.

“A messenger on a motorcycle stopped the column,” Marton says. “Then he asked if there was any foreign-born in the column, or something to that effect.”

Marton and Gene, as Mexican citizens, made the decision to step forward. 

“We were in shock, and we didn’t know if they picked us to kill us right there,” he says. “But the situation was bad, and many times you wanted to die. We didn’t know what was going to happen, but as I told you, it didn’t make any sense to live like that.”

It turned out that the Ackerman brothers’ decision to step forward probably saved their lives from almost certain death, either on the march or in Germany. Those who had foreign passports were sent back to the ghetto, where they were put to work again.

Unbeknownst to Marton and Gene, while they were working in the ghetto, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was working to establish more than 30 safe houses in the ghetto for Jews with certificates of protection from neutral nations.

“In December,” Marton tells me, “somebody came to the ghetto and told me that my Aunt Lenke was taken to Auschwitz, and my Aunt Malvin, Grandmother, Mother, and sister Piroska were living in a safe house. If I wanted, he would help me and my brother to escape from the ghetto and take us to the safe house.” 

The brothers readily agreed.

Living in the ghetto was a young man—Marton refers to him as “this smart kid”—who advised the brothers that an escape from the ghetto would require them to clean themselves up, so as not to appear like prisoners.

“That day,” he says, “my brother, this guy, and I walked straight, like we knew what we were doing. We just went ‘Heil Hitler!’, while looking stern, and they let us out.”

Marton and Gene were reunited with their family at the safe house, where they lived for the duration of the war. Budapest was liberated by the Soviets on February 13, 1945.

Although the traumatic events of the Holocaust Marton endured are nearly eight decades in the past, the memories of those days are fresh in his mind. 

“I still have nightmares about it. I wake up screaming,” he says. He adjusts his position on the couch and looks at me. He sighs. “So I don’t know. It was bad times, and I don’t like to think about it, you know. It hurts, even after so many years.”

Despite these haunting memories, Marton carries with him an indomitable happiness. “Always smile,” he says. “I survived the Holocaust, and yet I smile.”

​

Like many children, Steffin Bader grew up watching the Detroit Pistons with his dad, hoping there would be a day when he, too, might be on the court.

Although his dream has taken a different form, the goal is within his reach, but he needs the community’s help to get there.

“My dream used to be to play professional basketball,” Bader said. “As I grew up, my dream quickly
changed to wanting to be someone who makes professional sports run so other kids are able to enjoy it the way I did.”

The Central Michigan University (CMU) senior is now within reach of his “dream-come-true”, thanks to a project in his sports management
class.

“I’m majoring in sports management with a minor in professional sales,” Bader noted. “The goal is to
sell the most tickets (to Detroit Pistons’ games). It’s a competition amongst the entire CMU Sports
Management Program. The student that sells the most tickets before the end of the season gets an internship with the team in corporate sales.”

Bader, who has been vigorously pursuing the top sales title since the project was launched in January, has learned much along the way. “I’ve learned perseverance,” he said. “I have been determined to make my dream become a reality by coming up with some new and creative sales and marketing strategies to get tickets sold.”

Bader’s “can-do” attitude is paying off. “I’m currently in second place in ticket numbers — behind by eight tickets but leading the class in overall sales revenue,” the 2010 Cass City High School graduate said. “I’m just a small town kid with big time dreams, and winning this competition is the first step in making my dream become a reality.”

And that’s where he’s hoping his community will lend a hand.

Thanks to the relationship between the Detroit Pistons and the sports management class at CMU, Bader is able to offer special deals to the public.

“I can sell any ticket for any place in the Palace,” he explained. “Every ticket I sell is already discounted cheaper than face value. I can also get a lot of other incentives attached as far as food vouchers, pictures on the court after the game, welcome signs on the big screen, etc.”

In addition, Bader has secured special privileges for those who buy tickets to the March 28 game against the Miami Heat. “I have a deal going with the Pistons that anyone that buys tickets for the game gets a court access pass to go on the court and take a shot,” he said.

For more information, or to purchase tickets to an upcoming Detroit Pistons game, contact Bader at (989) 954-5454 or email him at [email protected].

This article was originally published by ​The Tuscola County Advertiser.

CASS CITY — Nestled in her home in a quiet corner of the snow-laden village is Gail Smith. Entering her house with its bookshelves lined with a diverse array of titles, colorful art adorning the walls, and a friendly greeting at the door from her blind cat, Bo, it’s little wonder that she and her home are visited by friends from around the globe – people who feel that she is a woman who has changed not only their lives, but in a very real sense, the world.

It all started in the late 1990s. Smith was looking for both a new vehicle and a new home. Her first problem was solved when she purchased a car from her daughter in Ohio. Her second problem was solved driving it home to Iowa. “I was driving the car from Cleveland to Iowa, got onto I-75, and saw a sign for ‘Port Austin’”, she says. “I turned right and headed to the Thumb.”

“I chanced by sheer accident through Cass City,” she says.

According to Smith, what she saw that late summer night driving through the village was endearing.

“I was so struck by Main Street, the families walking home,” she says. “I thought, ‘I want to live here’.”

Not long after her initial pass through town, Smith sold her Iowa home and moved to Cass City. Her love for books and culture brought her to Rawson Memorial District Library where she soon became involved with the Friends of the Library, and hosting bus trips, which function as fundraisers for the organization.

Smith’s most fulfilling activity, however, was not discovered until five years after she moved here. In 2005, she visited her son and his partner who were hosting a foreign student while the student attended a summer language camp.

Over dinner she was informed that the student was in need of a home for the school year. It took some prompting, but Smith agreed to host the student if another family could not be found.

Shortly after returning to Cass City, Smith received a phone call informing her that the student had already been placed with a family, but that a young man from Taiwan was still in need of a place to stay for the year. His name was George Yang, and he became the first of Smith’s foreign “children.”

Since that time, the Gail Smith residence has become a mini-United Nations, with 11 foreign exchange students visiting from 9 countries, including Taiwan, Japan, Russia, Moldova, Germany, Armenia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Korea.

In 2006, Smith became an Area Representative with the American Scandinavian Student Exchange Program (ASSE), an organization whose stated purpose is “to foster international understanding through educational and cross cultural programs”.

As a representative of ASSE, Smith has a host of responsibilities, including finding homes for foreign exchange students, making sure the living arrangements and family dynamics are suitable for them, and acting as a “neutral party” students are able to take their problems and concerns to.

For the kids she has placed, Gail Smith is more than a host – she is a beloved mentor and friend. “From the very first second we met, I knew that I could absolutely trust that woman with everything,” says Amulya Badmaeva, a Russian student Smith placed with a Cass City area family. “There’s something about her that makes you feel very comfortable around her. She helped me to grow and mature as a person.”

George Yang, Smith’s first exchange student, echoed Badmaeva’s sentiments, “She’s like my family there, and she surely offered a great, memorable year in my life.”

Perhaps Lars Weigmann, who hails from Germany, summed up Smith’s impact on the world best. “I am of the opinion that Gail really impacted the lives of many kids, including mine, with her work with exchange students,” he says. “And because of that fact you really can say that she impacted the whole world by bringing American culture and lifestyle into the lives of many foreign kids.”​

This article was originally published by The Tuscola County Advertiser.

CASS CITY — She has been described as a woman who “bursts with adolescent girl power” and “a quirky girl with a whole lot of spunk, energy, and dedication.” But to her Cass City friends and family, she is Brittany Nicol — the girl with big personality and gobs of talent.

Nicol says she always has had an interest in music and theatre. She largely credits her grandmother with taking the time to help her and her sister, Alyssa, learn to play musical instruments and to sing when they were growing up. The impressive list of instruments she plays includes the oboe, piano, guitar, ukulele, and hammer dulcimer, as well as various percussion instruments.

As a student at Cass City Middle School, and a member of the Academic Track team, Nicol says her interest developed into a passion. “Academic Track helped my interest in musical theatre flourish into something I could do for a career,” she says. “It was by far my favorite part of middle school.”

Nicol, the daughter of Jim and Jeanne Nicol of Cass City, started preparing for her future career early. In the fall of 2007, she enrolled in Interlochen Center for the Arts, an institution whose stated purpose is to “[engage] and [inspire] people worldwide through excellence in educational, artistic and cultural programs, enhancing the quality of life through the universal language of the arts”.

For Nicol, her time spent at the center was life-changing. “Everyone always laughs, but I describe it as a ‘magical place’,” she says. “Interlochen is my favorite place in the whole world. I really came into my own at Interlochen and was surrounded by people who were as passionate about the arts as I was… Interlochen (and my parents) taught me what good work ethic and focus is and that I can do anything I set my mind to.” That combination of passion, work ethic, and focus have served Nicol well, as she continues her education at Michigan State University.

The decision to become a Spartan, however, was not part of the original plan. “It’s actually a funny story,” she says of her decision. “I applied many places for my undergraduate degree, but they were all Musical Theatre programs. After some thinking (and almost going to college in Oklahoma) I realized I would rather be closer to home and go to a program that was centered around acting instead of singing and dancing. Also, since I had such a different experience for high school, I wanted to go to a public university.”

Today, Nicol is pursuing her Bachelor in Fine Arts in Theatre, with an emphasis in acting – a pursuit she is, by all appearances, both enjoying and excelling at. “It’s a program that I had to audition into and I have about 15 other people in my class receiving that same degree,” she says.

Nicol has received rave reviews for her performances in 14 different productions at Michigan State University and in the Lansing community. The Lansing State Journal says that Nicol’s scenes “are passionate and forceful, revealing a fragility in even the most intelligent and outgoing of souls.”

While her participation in an eclectic array of productions has been a thrill, Nicol says she does have her favorites. “Pump Up the Volume was a great experience because I really connected with the guest director that came from New York. I also just finished Xanadu where I did the whole show on roller skates. That was definitely a learning experience!”

For Nicol, the end is in sight, as far as her time at Michigan State University goes. After graduating in May of 2014, she plans to take her career to the next level. “I’m planning to move to New York City to pursue Musical Theatre. I’m very excited to make the big move!”

While the excitement of big-city life looms on the horizon, Nicol isn’t quick to forget where her roots are. “I think of how great it was to grow up in a small town community,” she says. “I loved going to football games and being involved in my church.”

Nicol credits the members of her support network with helping her achieve her goals. “I have an extremely supportive family, some great friends, a very supportive boyfriend, and I have had some amazing opportunities,” she says. “I wouldn’t be able to do any of the things I’ve done without the unending supports of my parents. So many thanks to them. My mom always jokes that I have to thank her first when I get a Tony. If I ever get so blessed to have such a high honor, you bet I will! “

For more information about Brittany Nicol, her career, and background, visit her website, www.brittanyannnicol.com.

This article was originally published by The Tuscola County Advertiser.

CASS CITY — There’s no saying what will happen when a seed of talent is nurtured — take Cass City’s Roger Parrish, for example. The combination of raw talent, encouragement from his parents, and opportunities to hone his skills proved to be just what he needed to blossom into the village’s “music man”.

Parrish’s talents were “inherited”  from his mother, Elena Stoll Parrish, whose musical abilities included singing, as well as playing a variety of instruments, including the piano, organ, and harmonica.

“She never had the opportunity to take lessons,” Parrish says of his mother. “She played by ear, without notes.”

As a boy, Parrish’s parents encouraged his musical talent. They bought an old upright piano from Cass City High School for $5. It was on this piano that Parrish’s mother taught him how to play by ear — something he picked up on quickly. “She taught me a couple of hymns, old traditional hymns,” he says. “[Playing by ear] made sense to me.”

When he was about 10 or 11 years old, Parrish began taking piano lessons from Ethel McCoy, wife of a prominent town doctor. He was under her tutelage for a couple of years, during which his natural talents were refined.

As time went on, Parrish had opportunities to grow and share his gift of music. At the ripe age of 15, he became the organist at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Cass City. During his high school years, he was the school choir’s pianist, played at various local functions, and was a drummer in the band at Cass City High School, where he was graduated in 1950.

After high school, Parrish enrolled at Central Michigan University. When he returned home from school on the weekends, his schedule was full – teaching piano lessons Saturday afternoon, playing for area dances Saturday night, and serving as church organist on Sunday morning.

In 1954, Parrish graduated from Central Michigan with a degree in education with a minor in choral music and piano. It didn’t take him long to put his education to good use.

“There was an opening in Caro for elementary music,” he says. “There was no school building at that time, so they had classes in area churches. I’d get in my car and go to the different churches [to teach].”

The following year, Parrish took a job in his hometown, teaching choral music for grades 1 through 12. “There was no music room at Campbell Elementary at that time, so I had to literally push a piano from one room to the next,” he says.

Parrish taught students the fundamentals of music and was a great promoter of vocal talent among high school students. “There were some very talented students at that time, as there are now, I imagine,” he says.

Not only did Parrish teach music – he composed it as well. Among his compositions are Cass City High School’s anthem — “Alma Mater, Hear Us Now”, “Rhapsody of the Red Bird”, “A Tribute to Mother Teresa”, (written 5 days after her death in 1997), as well as a host of Christmas songs, such as “This Child of Christmas”.

“It was a highlight of my life,” Parris says of his time teaching in Cass City. “I enjoyed it very much.”

In 1970, having taught at Cass City for the past 15 years, Parrish decided to resign and take his musical career in a new direction. He headed to California, where both family and opportunity awaited him. There, he worked as an entertainer in various venues, one of which was the prestigious Stardust Country Club in San Diego.

From there, Parrish worked in a variety of places, including Indiana, Virginia, and Florida. While in Miami, someone suggested that Parrish apply for work with a cruise line. “I applied on Thursday, was hired on Friday, and set sail on Saturday,” he says.

His job with the cruise line took him to South America and the Caribbean Islands. He worked with them for two winters before retiring in the mid-1970s.

Since that time, Parrish has used his musical abilities to benefit the Cass City community. He was the organist and choir director at the First Presbyterian Church for 15 years, and has played and sung his original music in other churches throughout the area.

Today, Parrish is active with the Tom Thumb Singers, where he serves as the lead piano accompanist. “I enjoy hearing and playing the music of the Christmas season,” Parrish says. “It’s very inspirational.”​

​CASS CITY — Most people look back fondly on special Christmas gifts they received as children. For Kevin Gracey, it is the gift his brother received that he remembers best, because it led to a life-long hobby for him.

It all started during the Christmas season of 1973. “My younger brother went to Bad Axe and told Santa he wanted a train for Christmas,” Gracey says. A while later a phone call came, informing Gracey’s brother that he had won a drawing for a model train set.

For years, Gracey tried to get his brother to give him the train. His mother, however, always intervened, advising Gracey’s brother to keep the set. After ten years of asking, Gracey finally got the train, trading his keyboard to his brother in exchange.

The joy of owning that first train sparked in Gracey a desire to continue collecting – a hobby that continues to this day. Gracey still has that first train, a 1973 Lionel Blue Streak Freight. “My prized one is my first one, because I know where it came from,” he says.

His initial interest in trains, however, has expanded to include train displays. “To me, it’s the operating accessories,” he says, citing the saw-mills, buildings, lights, and other accessories that help to create a winter scene for the trains to travel through. “It’s a blast. The people who say, ‘I had this when I was a kid’ [make it enjoyable].”

Today, Gracey enjoys sharing his passion with the public locally, setting up his display during Fall Family Days at the Thumb Octagon Barn and during the Christmas season at Rawson Memorial District Library.

“I love Christmas,” Gracey says. “I love the lights, and especially with Christmas, people come into look at it…it’s satisfying. It’s a good hobby.”

During most of the year, Gracey’s display is housed in his basement. “I have a 4’x20’ display and it’s solid Christmas – buildings, lights, everything to do with Christmas. It’s a year-round thing.”

Gracey is quick to point out that he couldn’t maintain the display without the help of his wife, Diane. “My wife has everything labeled in tubs,” he says. “She does all the landscaping.”

In addition to his display, Gracey enjoys buying and selling trains. “I’ve been to some shows and set up to sell there,” he says. “But sometimes it’s a two-hour drive, an hour to set-up, then a seven-hour day with the display.”

With the advent of Ebay and other online markets, Gracey says he doesn’t do the shows any longer. He does give a word of warning about online markets to prospective train collectors, however. “Be very careful. You need to know what you’re looking for,” he says, referencing the varying degrees of quality and prices.

During the holidays, Gracey will be setting his train display up at Rawson Memorial District Library in Cass City. He says he is hoping to run the train on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during the month of December.

“This year we’re going to do Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” as our theme, he says. The display will feature buildings, characters, and scenes from the famous Christmas story.

Gracey says children love watching the magical, miniature “winter wonderland”. “The kids, if you get something they can relate to…it’s just that much more satisfying”, he says.

In addition to the display, the public is welcome to enter a raffle for one of two H.O. model trains donated by Cass City resident Stanley May. One train is guaranteed to go to a child, while the other will be given to a person of any age. Tickets are $0.50 each and will be available for sale at the library until December 20. For information about the raffle, contact the library at (989) 872-2856.

For more information about the display, or collecting train sets, contact Kevin Gracey at (989) 415-7036.

This article was originally published by ​The Tuscola County Advertiser.

CASS CITY -- One never knows where a childhood interest might lead them.

Cass City’s Richard Berweiler discovered that what started as a boyhood fascination with auto design developed into a lifelong hobby and career.

It all started in the 1940s when Berweiler was a child.

“I had an uncle who was interested in cars and he would take me around to car dealers,” Berweiler said. While perusing the latest selection of sedans and station wagons, Berweiler picked up brochures, which showcased the modern designs and conveniences of the current autos, and included glossy photographs within their pages.

“I’d cut them up for scrapbooks, not knowing what they were,” Berweiler says of the first automotive literature he acquired. All of that changed, however, in the early 1950s when his passion for cars began to take off.

“I had the interest in car design,” Berweiler said. “My uncle would take me to auto shows, and up and down Livernois Avenue on Sunday afternoons, looking at cars.”

When he wasn’t viewing cars in person, he was studying the sleek designs of the latest models in his ever-growing collection of automotive brochures.

It didn’t take long, however, for Berweiler’s appreciation for car design to develop into a career pathway. While a high schooler, young Berweiler sat in on a presentation given by a General Motors representative. His topic – engineering and auto design. “He recommended … the Art Center in Los Angeles,” Berweiler says of the representative’s advice for aspiring engineers and auto designers.

According to Berweiler, that piece of advice was very valuable. From 1954 to 1957, he attended the Art Center, learning to fine tune the natural artistic abilities he already possessed. His education at the institution proved to be a good launching pad for his career.

The year he left Art Center, Berweiler was hired by General Motors as a tech stylist. “Basically, [my job] goes back to the old fashioned 4-view line drawings of the cars,”  he says. From there, he worked his way up through the ranks to become a studio engineer. It was from this position that Berweiler retired in 1987 – 30 years after joining the company.

As all retirees must, Berweiler had to make a decision about what he would do with his newly acquired spare time. It didn’t take him long to figure it out; he would continue pursuing his love of collecting automobile brochures.

In the early 1980s, Berweiler had joined the Automotive Literature Collectors’ Club. It was through this organization that he found other like-minded collectors throughout the country and globe. His interaction with fellow collectors increased dramatically in retirement, trading with people from New Zealand, Australia, Germany, England, and even as far away as Tahiti.

Berweiler’s collection of automotive literature has grown far beyond the scrapbooks he compiled as boy in the 1940s. Today, he has more than 38,200 automotive brochures from just about every American auto manufacturer, and several foreign makers. Of all 38,000-plus, he says his favorites are the Cadillacs, especially his 1928 brochure, as well as the Packard and Lincoln brochures of the 1950s and ‘60s.

Where does a person store that many brochures? In their basement, of course. Rows of neatly organized shelving units, built by Berweiler and organized according to the make of each car, house the thousands of pieces of literature.

Using a spreadsheet, Berweiler has meticulously catalogued each brochure on his home computer, noting the year, size of the document, number of pages, and other detailed data pertaining to the catalog.

After more than 65 years of collecting, Berweiler says he is beginning to wonder about the future of his hobby.

“We’re going into a period when car manufacturers are discontinuing printing literature … They’re going digital,” he says. “I feel this hobby could come to an end in the next few years, because they’re going to quit printing, and will [instead] put it all online.”

For now, though, Berweiler is going to continue collecting. He is routinely in contact with fellow collectors throughout the world and enjoys sharing his passion with others.​

This article was originally published in ​The Tuscola County Advertiser.

CASS CITY — Few people return to their hometown to find their name emblazoned on the village limits sign welcoming visitors to the community. Even fewer people will man shuttles into space. Cass City native Brewster Shaw, Jr. has had both experiences.

A recent visit home for his 50th high school class reunion provided some time for Shaw to reminisce about his early life in the Cass City area and his illustrious career with NASA.

For many young people, leaving their small hometown after high school is a top priority. It wasn’t for Brewster Shaw. In fact, he credits the life lessons and experiences he had in Cass City with forming a solid “launch pad” for his future. “We lived on a farm. When you live on a farm, you learn a good work ethic. You know, it’s just part of growing up, part of your existence. Cass City was a very comfortable community … it was a great place to grow up.”

Shaw’s greatest role models were his parents. His mother, Ione Shaw, was a teacher in the Cass City public school system for many years and his father was a farmer. “I still hear my mother correcting my English and telling me what the proper way to speak is,” he says. “I still feel the presence of my father offering me the opportunity to do hard work, but then feeling good about what I accomplished.”

Shaw, a 1963 graduate of Cass City High School, took an active role in the life of the community. For him, school athletics was a way to burn energy and make friends. “I’m not a big guy, I’m not a great athlete, but at Cass City High School I was able to play athletics,” Shaw says. “I played football for Mike Yedinak until senior year, and then the coaching staff changed. I played basketball for a couple of years for Irv Claseman, but I was short and slow, and so senior year I didn’t even go out. And I ran track – ? mile, mile kind of stuff, because I’m not fast. Had we lived in a big city with a much bigger high school, it wouldn’t have been that way. So, I thought that was a positive.”

In addition to athletics, Shaw dabbled in the music world — a hobby that paid off…literally. While his junior high trombone career was short-lived, playing in a rock band for his senior trip turned out to be beneficial. “[Playing for the senior trip] was a good primer, because I paid for the majority of my college education by playing in a rock band at the University of Wisconsin, which was relatively lucrative.”

When it came time to make plans for college, Shaw says he was a typical high school senior. “I wanted to go to school out of state, because I felt like I needed some space between myself and my parents at that particular time, not unlike a lot of 18-year-old guys. My mother and my three older sisters had all gone to the University of Michigan; my father had gone to the University of Wisconsin, so it was a fairly easy sell to get my parents to support me going to the University of Wisconsin.”

For Shaw, going to space was not an early aspiration. “When I was growing up here…I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he says. “Math was something that was relatively easy for me, and I liked physics, so I got a University of Wisconsin catalog and started flipping through. My dad had an engineering degree, so I looked into engineering and I found this thing called ‘engineering mechanics’ and read all the courses for the 4-year program. I thought those looked ok, so that’s what I signed up for without having a clue what I would do with it.”

It wasn’t until college that Shaw began to think about a career with NASA. “There were three or four things that created this perfect storm of an idea.” The first “ingredient” for that storm was a love for flying planes. “One of the drummers in our band was a private pilot,” Shaw says. “He took me flying one day and I’ve never stopped flying since that day. I got a private pilot’s license while I was in college.”

The second component was a celestial mechanics course at the University of Wisconsin. “I enjoyed that course a lot,” Shaw says. “[It was taught by] a professor who did become a role model, sort of a mentor, that I liked very much.”

The third contributing factor to Shaw’s pursuit of his career was a sense of awe at man’s rapid development of space technology and exploration. “That was in the mid-60’s and I was watching, like everybody else in this country, us getting ready to go to the moon. And all of those guys that were involved in Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were military test pilots. So, it seemed like the only avenue to do what they were doing, which intrigued me, was to be a military test pilot.”

The final part of the equation stemmed from current events. The Vietnam War was in full swing and the call of the draft was inevitable. “We had gone recently to a lottery system,” Shaw says. “I had a very low lottery number. It was pretty clear I was going to be drafted.” Faced with compulsory recruitment, Shaw had a decision to make. “I could allow myself to be drafted into the army, or I could choose to fly and maybe someday get to get to test pilot school…maybe someday I would be able to do what those guys were doing, those guys who were getting ready to go to the moon.”

When those four components came together, Shaw’s “perfect storm” began brewing. In 1969, after his completion of Officer Training School and attending undergraduate pilot training, Shaw entered the U.S. Air Force. He served during the Vietnam War, attended USAF Test Pilot School, and realized his dream of becoming a test pilot.

In 1978, NASA selected Shaw to be a United States astronaut. For four years, he was involved in various technical assignments. But in 1982, Shaw was “tapped on the shoulder” and assigned to a flight. Three years later, Shaw boarded STS-9 Columbia, which he piloted.

“Like a sledge hammer hitting the back of your seat.” That’s how Shaw describes the initial jolt of the rockets attached to the shuttle, as it lifts off the ground. He says he knew that the ascent into orbit would be rough, because of the accounts of other astronauts. As he spoke, tears welling up in his eyes, it was apparent that he did not expect the beauty and sense of awe he would feel as he caught his first glimpse of earth from space. “It’s an experience everyone should have a right to,” he said.

The years since that first extraterrestrial trip have been anything but boring for the astronaut. In 1985, Shaw was shuttle commander for STS-61B Atlantis. Four years later, he was shuttle commander yet again, this time for STS-28 Columbia.

Following his career as an astronaut, Shaw served in various NASA management positions. He retired from NASA in 1996, choosing to work in the private sector. His career path took him to Rockwell International, a leading manufacturer for the aircraft/space craft industry. Rockwell was soon acquired by Boeing, where Shaw worked as a senior executive official until his retirement, in 2011. In 2006, the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation inducted Brewster Shaw, Jr. into the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Today, Shaw and his wife, Kathy, live in Houston, Texas. They enjoy traveling, visiting their children and grandchildren, and making occasional trips home to Cass City.
​
Shaw has by no means abandoned his love for adventure. On any given day, you may find him riding his motorcycle cross country, or flying his plane – yes, his own plane – in the Texas skies.

This article was originally published by ​The Tuscola County Advertiser.

CASS CITY — The advent of spring means many things — the migration of snowbirds (feathered and otherwise) back to their northern homes and the blooming of flowers.

For Cass City businessman Scott Ackerman, it signals the beginning of the busy season for him at Ackerman’s Bike Repair.

The business, which is now the Thumb’s leading bike shop, started out on a whim.

When Cass City’s True Value Hardware Store closed in 1985, Scott Ackerman found himself without a job. His search for work took him all the way to Flint but proved fruitless.

“I went all over and couldn’t find a job anywhere,” he says. “So, I said ‘Well, is there anything I could do that I have experience doing until something else comes along?’”

It turns out that that “something else” was repairing bicycles.

“I fixed a few bikes in my dad’s driveway, then eventually moved to his shed,” Ackerman reports. “I was given some used bikes, and sold them locally.” Unemployed, but realizing he had both a knack for bike repair and a growing clientele; he began putting together a business plan.

One of the first and most important components of his plan was to find a permanent location. After looking at several storefronts on Main Street and other locations, Ackerman was directed to a lot at the end of Pine Street. He removed an existing building from the property, and then began building the structure his shop currently occupies, in 1991.

“I started with four new bikes and very few parts,” he said, smiling.

“I bought out a guy in Caro and stored the parts in my church’s garage.”

Looking to expand his business without accumulating a great deal of debt, Ackerman says he started out slowly and steadily gained momentum. “The economy was still pretty good in the ‘90’s and things just built up from there.”

Today, 28 years after its humble beginning, the bicycle repairman says his business is still going strong. “I’m the only full bike store in the Thumb.” With between 40-60 bicycles ranging from child to adult models on the floor at any given time, the selection is surprisingly large for being in such a small community. “[The store] seemed like a lot of space when it was being built”, the owner says as he looks over the room, now filled to capacity. “But I still wouldn’t want it any bigger.”

From children’s and BMX styles to mountain bikes, hybrids, and the increasingly popular  cruiser line, Ackerman’s diverse stock of bicycles mirrors the variety of terrains and uses people will encounter in the Thumb region. “There are certain brands I don’t carry, but there are no types of bikes I cannot get,” he says.

In regards to sales, Ackerman is a proponent of quality bicycles, but says he won’t force anyone into a product they aren’t interested in. “I carry quality bikes. They’re high quality compared to the department stores’. There are so many things the average person doesn’t realize about bicycles, but I’m not the type to push everyone into a top quality bike. Not everyone has $200 to put into one.”

The store owner says that, while the prices of his bikes are a bit higher than the department stores due to their higher quality, his prices are very fair. “I stay below the suggested retail price. I’m still cheaper than city prices.”

When it comes to buying a bike, Ackerman offers consumers a few pointers.

1. Look for aluminum wheels with aluminum hubs and stainless steel spokes.

2. Aim for a lighter bike – the lighter the bike, the easier it will be to pedal.

3. If you’re in the market for a higher quality bike, prepare for a more comfortable seat, long-lasting and better quality paint/decals, and a stronger frame.

In addition to his selection of bikes for sale, Ackerman is primarily known throughout the area for the work his business’ name advertises– bike repair. “The only bikes I won’t repair are the ones that aren’t repairable,” he says with a grin. While the shop is open year round, the busy season runs from the beginning of April through the end of June. According to Ackerman, during the summertime, the Thumb is a vacation spot for many from the Detroit area. “When they get a flat tire, they go to the phone book and find my shop. The only other bike shops are in Bay City, Saginaw, and Port Huron.”

“I don’t expect every customer to understand all the components of bike [repairs and sales],” he commented. “But I’m here to explain all that.”

Ackerman’s Bike Repair is located at 6247 Pine Street in Cass City and welcomes the public to stop by. For more information or to schedule a repair, contact Scott at (989) 872-4930.​