Benjamin Harrison declared his Candidacy for President at the Michigan Club in Detroit while giving a speech on Washington’s Birthday.
Gus Harrison, the Michigan lottery’s first commissioner, fondly recalled the first winner — Hermus Millsaps of Taylor — who walked away with $1 million on Feb. 22, 1973.
“He was 53 years old, a native of Tennessee and he worked at the Chrysler plant… He just hung around after the drawing, and we didn’t understand it,” Harrison said.
Well, it turns out, the winner and his wife came to Lansing earlier in the day and spent all of their bus money. They didn’t have the bus fare to get home. So, Harrison had a lottery agent drive the couple home.
“It’s ironic, here he is with most of a million dollars in his pocket and he didn’t have the bus fare to get home,” he said.
For the full article, see John Gonzalez, “Michigan Lottery celebrates its 40th anniversary; announces online sales in 2013”, MLive, November 15, 2012.
Highballs with Hermus
Hermus Millsaps, a factory worker from Taylor, became the Lottery’s first million-dollar winner on February 22, 1973.
Some suggested the Lottery PR people had invented a character, because the back story was almost too good to be true. His car was on the fritz the day of the drawing, so he and his Russian-born wife hopped a Greyhound bus to Lansing. They carried a brown paper-bag lunch to save money. Hermus did invest 57 cents on a chartreuse rabbit’s foot for luck.
After he won he led a group of journalists across the street to a watering hole, where the bartender explained that he couldn’t cash Hermus’s $50,000, first-installment check. The scribes bought the drinks.
Hermus immediately quit his job. He later grew weary of the media attention and quit giving interviews.
This reporter was writing a package of stories about the 5th anniversary of the Michigan Lottery and Hermus’s big win. I decided to take a chance and pay a cold-call visit on a Saturday afternoon. His wife answered the door and said her husband didn’t want to be bothered. As I made my case on the front steps, Hermus peeked out his head.
He swung open the door of their small Taylor home, which featured a heated driveway to melt the snow, five televisions and old newspapers stacked on every chair and couch in the house.
In the basement he brought out his guitar and amp, pulled out his dental plate and with great enthusiasm sang the “Wabash Cannonball,” complete with howls imitating the horn of a train. He fixed us both a “highball” — followed by multiple others.
As I was leaving after a couple-hour visit, Hermus insisted I not go away empty handed. He retrieved a glass container of pickled pig’s feet from his fridge and a cheap, tin ashtray stamped with “Iowa” and in the shape of the Hawkeye State from a cupboard and handed them to me.
I couldn’t help chuckling as I walked down his sidewalk, half in the bag, carrying gifts from the unlikeliest of millionaires.
Addendum:
Millsaps died virtually penniless in 2002.
Source : Reporter’s Notes : Charlie Cain Unedited, July 16, 2009.
The U.S. Supreme Court has sidestepped a dispute over the time-honored tradition of walking along Michigan’s Great Lakes beaches, declining to hear an appeal.
The court on Tuesday let stand the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling last July that declared open to walkers the area between the waters edge and the ordinary high water mark onshore – even if the shoreline is privately owned.
The public right to walk the beaches does not cover inland lakes, where lakeside owners land rights extend to the middle of the lake. Under the Michigan Supreme Court ruling, beach walking is allowed along the shoreline up to the so-called ordinary high-water mark, loosely defined as the point on the bank or the shore up to which the presence and action of the water is so continuous as to leave a distinct mark.
Robert LaBrant, general counsel for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce who filed a brief on behalf of the property owners, said that definition is confusing and bound to lead to more litigation.
For most property owners, this ruling won’t mean any dramatic changes. But some will abuse this ability to stroll the lakefront, LaBrant said. They’ll build campfires and lug beer and ice with them and you’ll have a lot of people traipsing through.
For the full article, see Charlie Cain and Mark Hornbeck , “It’s OK to walk on the beach; U.S. high court lets stand Michigan ruling allowing strolls along Lakes shorelines, Detroit News, February 22, 2006.
For another article, see “Top court refuses state case; shorelines remain open to walkers, Lansing State Journal, February 22, 2006.
The Detroit native (born in Detroit on January 9, 1955) and veteran character actor J. K. Simmons ended his brilliant award season with the ultimate prize, a best supporting actor Oscar for “Whiplash.” Then the man who played the nastiest jazz instructor in history proved he’s a sweetheart in real life by telling global viewers to phone their mothers. “Call your mom, everybody,” he said. “I’m told there’s like a billion people or so (watching). Call you mom, call your dad, if you are lucky enough to have a parent or two alive on this planet. Don’t text. Don’t email. Call ’em on the phone. Tell them you love them, and thank them, and listen to them for as long as they want to talk to you.”
Many Americans are most familiar with Simmons as a recurring character in the Farmers Insurance ads, but he has appeared in numerous tv shows and movies.
Sources:
Julie Hinds, “Oscars: 10 huge moments from Hollywood’s biggest night”, Detroit Free Press, February 23, 2015.
Julie Hinds, “Detroit native J.K. Simmons wins an Oscar”, Detroit Free Press, February 23, 2015.
Julie Hinds, “J.K. Simmons lit up Oscars with simple message”, Detroit Free Press, February 24, 2015.
Tiger Fans Visit Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, Florida
The Detroit Tigers will begin their 2019 season on February 22 with its annual exhibition game against the Southeastern University Fire at the renovated Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium.
Southeastern went 59-7 last season, going 8-0 in the NAIA postseason to claim the first NAIA national championship in any sport in school history.
The Tigers open their Grapefruit League schedule Feb. 23 against the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin, Fla., before their home opener Feb. 24 against the Philadelphia Phillies at Joker Marchant Stadium’s Publix Field in Lakeland. The Tigers and Lakeland boast the longest-standing relationship between a team and a spring training host city in the majors.
The Feb. 24 games against the Phillies is one of 16 Grapefruit League contests to be played in Lakeland.
For details on tickets, contact the Lakeland ticket office at (863) 686-8075, or visit tigers.com/springtraining.
It will be the Tigers’ 55th season warming up in Tiger Town and its 83nd in Lakeland, Fla., which is the longest-serving spring training host city for a Major League Baseball club.
PUBLIX FIELD AT JOKER MARCHANT STADIUM, Lakeland, Florida
On February 23, 1802, adoption of fire regulations marked the beginnings of the City Of Detroit Fire Department.
Sources:
On February 23, 1870, what was then known as State Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) opened its doors to 10 female students. These women, ranging in age from 16 to 23 – studied subjects including chemistry, botany, horticulture, floriculture, trigonometry, surveying, and entomology. No special courses for women were offered at that time, so they took the same classes as men and participated in the daily fieldwork alongside male students.
Source : Michigan State University Diversity and Inclusion Page
A few weeks earlier, according to Michigan History, Elizabeth Stockwell from Kalamazoo was the first female to attend the University of Michigan on February 2, 1870.
Source : Michigan History
The Village of St. Ignace in Mackinac County was incorporated. The village is Michigan’s second-oldest continuous settlement and remains the county seat of Makinac County until this day.
Source : Michigan Historical Calendar, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
For more information, see History of St. Ignace : St. Ignace was among the largest settlements in New France for the last decade of the 15th century until the establishment of Detroit in 1701.
No matter which party you support, former Governor G. Mennen “Soapy’’ Williams demonstrates how a single leader can change a state and its culture rapidly. He served six terms as Governor of Michigan from 1949 to 1960, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1961 to 1966, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines from 1968 to 1970, and as a justice on the Michigan Supreme Court (Chief Justice from 1983 to 1986). He died on February 2, 1988 at age 76.
Heir to the Mennen shaving lotions fortune (hence the nickname), Williams started off as a lawyer, earned 10 battle stars during World War II, and then joined the civil service force at the Office of Price Administration and later the Liquor Control Commission. He ran for governor as a Democrat in 1948 — against the will of his mother, who refused to donate any of the family fortune to a Democratic candidate. In office, he helped push the decades-in the-making Mackinac Bridge to completion and started the annual bridge walk tradition.
After the governorship, he served as a foreign diplomat for Presidents Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He was elected to the Michigan Supreme Court in 1970 and remained on the bench until 1986, serving as chief justice his last four years.
Sources:
Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society, National Governors Association, Detroit Historical Society, DTMB
Detroit Historical Society Facebook Page
Joseph Serwach, Soapy at 100, Dome, February 20, 2011.
Justin A. Hinkley, “Murray who? Meet state office buildings’ namesakes”, Lansing State Journal, October 27, 2015.
For more information, see Soapy: A Biography of G. Mennen Williams by Thomas J. Noer (University of Michigan Press) – With a stunning 1948 upset that reflected his unrivaled campaigning skills, G. Mennen Williams became Michigan’s 41st governor, only the second Democrat to win since the Civil War. This book charts the highs and lows of the governor’s life and distinguished political career, including the construction of the Mackinac Bridge, leading the state to financial bankruptcy, 1960 presidential aspirations, his unabashed liberalism, his time as the chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, and the origins of both his nickname and trademark bow tie. The MSU community and other subscribers can access the book online via Ebrary or EBSCO.
It’s arguably the most iconic photograph of World War II: six faceless figures straining together to plant the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi, high above the volcanic killing grounds of Iwo Jima.
The powerful image, taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal in the early afternoon of Feb. 23, 1945, was instantly recognized as an artistic masterpiece and widely disseminated as a symbol of American resolve and triumph. The composition was so perfect that some insisted the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo was staged.
It wasn’t. The bloody reality is that three of the flag raisers — Sgt. Michael Strank, Pfc. Franklin Sousley, and Cpl. Harlon Block — later died during the five-week campaign to seize the Japanese-held island. Sgt. Bill Genaust, the cameraman who filmed the flag raising — more proof of its authenticity — also was killed.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, preparing to once again ask a weary nation to sacrifice part of their paychecks to help finance the war, recognized the photo’s potential public relations value. The survivors — officially determined to be PFC Ira Hayes, Cpl. Rene Gagnon, and Navy corpsman John Bradley — were whisked off the island and sent home to headline the 7th War Loan drive. The 58-city bond tour included a two-day stop in Detroit in May 1945. One thousand schoolchildren greeted the heroes at Michigan Central Station.
But over the last few years, comprehensive investigations by historians and the commandant of the Marine Corps have revealed that two of the feted flag raisers, Bradley and Gagnon, were erroneously identified as being in Rosenthal’s photo. Bradley’s removal from the famous tableaux was particularly surprising. He’d been the subject of a bestselling book, “Flags of Our Fathers,” later turned into a critically acclaimed film by Clint Eastwood.
As a result of the findings, a local Marine regained his place in history: Pfc. Harold Schultz, of Detroit, a quiet, amiable individual who would have been embarrassed by the attention the revelation brought.
“He never sought fame or glory,” his stepdaughter, Dezreen MacDowell, said recently.
Schultz on Iwo Jima
Schultz was born Jan. 28, 1925, and grew up at 235 Boyd St.in the Springwells-Fort Street neighborhood. His father worked in the foundry at Ford Motor Co.’s Rouge plant while his mother was a machine operator at a screw products plant. His older sister and only sibling, Emma, worked the counter at a candy store.
Schultz attended Southwestern High School. He was 18 when he enlisted in late 1943. According to his draft registration card, he was 5-foot-6, 150 pounds, with blue eyes, brown hair and a ruddy complexion.
Schultz was a member of the 5th Marine Division. On Iwo Jima, he had just been assigned to a mortar squad when he helped a cluster of Marines hoist a makeshift flagpole at the top of Mount Suribachi.
Attached to the 20-foot section of pipe was a 96-by-56-inch flag, which fluttered dramatically as Rosenthal hastily swung his Speed Graphic camera around and, without using his viewfinder, snapped the scene. It was all over in the blink of an eye.
Two weeks later, Schultz suffered shrapnel wounds on his left hand and stomach. He was discharged as a corporal in October 1945.
There actually were two flag raisings on Suribachi, spaced roughly two hours apart. Rosenthal had captured the second raising, in which a larger flag replaced the original. There was considerable confusion, as many Marines weren’t sure which flag-raising they had witnessed or participated in.
‘I was a Marine’
The lack of facial features in Rosenthal’s photo, and his failure at the time to get the participants’ names, hindered positive identification. Block, for example, was originally misidentified as Sgt. Henry Hansen, who had raised the first flag and later was killed on Iwo. That error wasn’t corrected until 1947.
Ivory, a native Detroiter who served with the Marines in Vietnam, has long been active in veterans affairs. From his Maryland home, where he’s working on a book about the battle, he shared the few biographical scraps he has been able to collect about the enigmatic Schultz.
“Schultz settled in Los Angeles after the war,” he says. “He’d met a girl from Glendale named Mary, who he corresponded with while overseas. But she died young of a brain tumor.”
Schultz found a job with the post office. Despite the warm, sunny clime, he routinely wore a flannel shirt.
“It’s like he never left Detroit,” Ivory said.
But he had left, and aside from a brief period following his discharge, he evidently never returned. Over the years, the infrequent phone calls to family in Detroit “would start off cordial, then grow angry and end abruptly,” Ivory said.
Clues included a broken helmet strap
Ivory speculates Schultz may have suffered some undiagnosed psychological damage. On Iwo, one of his best friends had been “blown to bits just a few feet away.” After the trauma of combat and the death of Mary, his fiancee, Schultz was content to quietly sort mail for 35 years.
Schultz didn’t drink, smoke or swear. He never had a driver’s license. His only known vices were Glenn Miller records, Hedy Lamarr movies, and the $2 window at local racetracks. He once attended a 5th Division reunion in San Francisco, where he met Rosenthal, but made no claims to fame.
In 1989, when he was 64, Schultz married a neighbor, Rita Reyes. According to MacDowell, he only mentioned the flag-raising once, a passing remark during dinner.
“My God, Harold, you were a hero,” his stepdaughter said.
“No, not really,” he said. “I was a Marine.”
“And then he didn’t want to speak any more of it,” MacDowell recalled. “He just felt like he was doing his duty to his country.”
On May 16, 1995, Schultz was found dead in bed, the victim of a heart attack. He was 70. His grave marker at Hollywood Forever Cemetery mentions his service and Purple Heart but not his role in history.
It was only in 2016, after archival forensic experts had used the latest technology to scrutinize piles of film, documents and photos, that the Marine Corps officially corrected the error. Clues to his identity were a broken helmet strap and the way he slung his rifle.
Schultz was not the only “mystery Marine.” In 2019, another high-level investigation determined that the figure long thought to be Gagnon actually was Cpl. Harold Keller, an Iowa native who died in 1979. Like Schultz, Keller was aware that he’d been in the photo but never publicly declared the fact.
“It’s just amazing that two men could be in the most famous photo in Marine Corps history and keep it a secret their entire lives,” Ivory said. In today’s fame-at-all-costs world, “that probably says more about us than it does about them.”
Source : Richard Bak, “Free Press Flashback: How fame found a humble Detroit Marine after Iwo Jima“, Detroit Free Press, May 27, 2022.