It was the winter of ’68 or ’69 and Prof. Joe Kirkish let me park my car next to his apartment while I took off for Christmas vacation. When I returned 10 days later, I couldn’t find my car! She was buried under a massive snowdrift. It took several friends and me hours to free that car!
Stan Smart ’69
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I, like many others, was caught in the big one of ‘66. As we crossed the bridge it became apparent we were in for quite a ride across the UP—blowing snow and very limited visibility. We were inching our way along the Seney Stretch, after dark, and the snow was starting to really accumulate. We were pushing snow with the front bumper, and we knew we weren’t going to make it much farther when out of the darkness we saw lights through the blizzard. It was a small, middle-of-nowhere store/gas station. We managed to get the car into the parking lot and noticed a number of other cars had also called it quits there. As we went inside, there were about 20 others there, and the old couple that owned the place said we could have whatever we wanted to eat and were welcome to stay as long a we liked, all at no charge! (We did leave the couple some cash to cover what we ate.) We stayed for three days, sleeping on the floor of the store. On the third day, someone heard the DOT snow blower coming. We all ran outside, grabbed snow shovels, garbage can lids, whatever we could find to move snow and cleared a path to the highway. We then dug out as many cars as we could, drove them to the edge of the highway and as the snow blower went by, each car filed out behind it. I think about six or seven cars made it out before the road was again closed by the snowdrifts. We all followed the snow blower for quite some time to a junction (I think it may have been the US-2 and M-26 junction). The highway heading north was plowed, and we managed to make it to Houghton without further incident. My future wife was also caught at another spot along the Seney Stretch and was also stranded for a few days. Great memories!
Doug Davies ‘69, ‘72
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I saw the Thanksgiving commute stories in the newsletter and thought that I would share my first Thanksgiving commute story.
I started at Tech in ‘98. Thanksgiving break was the first commute home in my freshman year. Excited to get home, logic and reason didn’t apply to the commute decision-making. At the time, my family lived in Adrian, Michigan, a solid 10-hour drive from Houghton in ideal driving conditions.
A few folks from my hometown were going to commute with me. Tech was on quarters at the time and we had a Calc final on the Friday morning of the commute. The plan was to leave immediately after the exam. We went to bed Thursday night to no snow on the ground and woke up Friday morning to more than two feet of accumulation that fell overnight. True to the stubbornness I acquired form my mother’s German heritage, we departed shortly after the Calc exam on Friday. It took a solid two hours to get my much-loved 1994 Dodge Caravan out of Lot 21.
We took the northern route to the mighty Mac; what would normally take about five hours took more than 10. We basically followed the storm the whole way across the UP. There were spots where my trusty minivan was pushing snow with the front bumper. Driving in snow like that truly was about momentum. As we drove along, we witnessed several 4x4s spun out in the ditches.
What was normally a 10-hour drive turned into more than 18 after rest stops and stops to periodically clean the mirrors, hood, and windshield off. We managed to make it a fun drive nonetheless. Future commutes did a better job at factoring in weather conditions.
Kevin “Toad” Toadvine ‘04
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It was ’66, and on the way back to da-Tech from Detroit I was riding in the back seat with some fellow Tech students. The Mackinaw Bridge closed shortly after we crossed it. We learned this later on the news. We made it as far as Naubinway on US-2 before the road was so bad that we just couldn’t go any further. There was a motel there—King’s Motel if memory serves. And naturally, it was closed for the season, however the kind owners let us into their living room for the night. And most of the next day as it turned out. There were approximately 30 of us camped out on the floor all over the house. The owners gave up their bed for a very pregnant lady. The electricity was out so no furnace and no well. Water to flush with was made from snow by melting it on the gas stove. The Kings owned a small market next to their house, and they fetched bread, soup, and cold cuts to feed the hungry and stranded folks—mostly Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech students. We passed the hat shortly before leaving after the county plows went by, but being students, I doubt much was collected. I have never forgotten their kindness and generosity and I can easily see that being stranded in a car stuck in a snow bank or ditch beside US-2 could have been life threatening. God bless strangers that help the needy.
Chris Otis ‘70
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While the experience of being a passenger in a vehicle that lost control and ended up in a ditch along the Seney Stretch was invigorating, more memorable was not seeing the engine when I opened the hood after being towed because the compartment was completely packed with snow from sliding into the ditch.
Mark Aubel ‘73
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While a couple of my Thanksgiving trips back to Tech in the ’60s were in near-whiteout conditions, they were easy compared to my dad’s story of one trip he made in the early ’30s. (He was class of ’34 I believe.)
Four of them were driving an old Ford back across the middle of the UP late at night in well-below-zero temps when they had a second flat tire and had to patch at least one on the side of the road in the blizzard. Of course, that meant removing the tires from the rim, patching the inner tube, remounting the tire, and then remounting the wheel. Their hands would get too stiff to work, so they took turns running up and down the road to warm up. He made it sound like it was just what was expected in winter travel back then.
Tom Brunson ‘69
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Made it to the Seney Stretch in my ’72 Chrysler Newport, hardly a snow-worthy vehicle. Despite only driving 25 mph due to poor visibility, I still managed to hit a deer, which damaged the plastic front grill that also keeps snow from getting into your engine. The small doe was killed instantly, so we continued on. We made it to Munising and spent the night in a hotel—only to find out the next morning that my car would not start since the entire engine space was packed with snow from the severe blowing winds and the deer/grill damage. I had to have it towed, and a mechanic was able to dry it out and get it started. It was about 20-something hours to get to Houghton. My friend Doug kissed the ground (snow) when we arrived at Wadsworth Hall.
Jeff Frederick ‘88
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I usually went up 117, but it was already closed. Spent the night in a restaurant in Gould City. The next morning, a friend’s car next to a semi had only six inches of the antennae showing. Had to take US-2 all the way to 41; it drifted shut after we passed.
Les Foster ‘68
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I was a freshman at the Thanksgiving 1966 break and rode in a car to and from Detroit over the holiday with three other guys after signing up on the “ride board” at the Union Building. We did fine coming back until after the Mac, then turned onto US-2 and struggled to M-117. Turned north (barely) past stuck cars and made it to Engadine, where the townsfolk had opened up some large building for refuge and meals. After eating, our driver insisted on carrying on. Had to stop for gas in McMillan, and the gas station owner said we were “crazy Toots,” but our driver carried on. Between Seney and Shingleton, it was pure whiteout, and you just prayed to keep the taillights of the car in front of you in sight. After Marquette, we had to stop several times and clean out the wheel wells of the car. We made it to Houghton at 9 a.m. Monday morning. This was the scariest adventure of my life till then.
However, the real bummer was I just assumed that classes were cancelled because of the storm, and promptly crashed in my dorm bed. When I got to Doc Berry’s Chemistry class the next time, he sternly informed those students like me that classes were never cancelled at Tech; it was our responsibility to be there, and all absentee students on Monday received a zero for the quiz held that day. Ow! That was the worst part of the storm.
I always enjoy reminiscing about Doc Berry—what a great teacher!
Ray Berg ‘70
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In 1956, a year before the bridge opened, four of us crammed into a Nash Rambler for the trip to Saginaw—normally about a 10-hour trip including a ferry ride across the straits of Mackinaw. As we got closer to the ferry dock in a sleet storm, a mile or so of cars were stopped along the highway waiting for the ferry. After an hour, we took a long, cold, wet walk toward the ferry dock to find out what was going on. Turned out the ferry had hit the pier while trying to dock due to high waves in the straits, and the Captain decided to ride out the storm on the lake, which halted all ferry traffic. After an uncomfortable 12-hour wait in the cramped car with no food, we finally got on the ferry and continued our trip. Ten hours had turned into 26 before we got home. The next year, the bridge made it a much easier trip and the ferry was gone forever.
Pete Rankin ’59
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I’m surprised there weren’t more Thanksgiving stories in the last newsletter. It seemed like the first big snowstorm of the year always occurred about the time we could leave for the holiday. The first 2 years I, and I think all of the on-campus coeds, left for home or someplace else. The one treat my first year was that the Mackinac Bridge had just opened. Even though I only had to take the ferry when I first enrolled, it was amazing to be able to drive over the Straits on that bridge going home—and so quick! It’s still fun to cross, and I’ve done the walk several times. Going back after the holiday was always a challenge because whomever I rode with had to get me back by closing time at the dorm. Because of the weather, that didn’t always happen, but we were always excused for coming in late then.
By my third year, I had decided that it wasn’t worth the long trip downstate for just a long weekend. A few of my classmates and I took advantage of the time to spend in the quant lab to catch up on our work. Med techs were assigned to the chemistry department, but Dr. Maki, the department head, was not our advisor. Amazingly, he actually said a few words to us that weekend. He hadn’t spoken to any of us coeds since freshman orientation when he told us that we didn’t belong and weren’t wanted at Tech! I guess he decided that we might actually be around for a while by then. We stayed at the dorm and ate at the Union.
I can’t remember if it was after Thanksgiving or the Christmas holiday, but one of the girls who was from Florida (her uncle was a doctor in Calumet) brought a baby alligator back with her during our freshman year. It resided in the claw-foot tub on one of our 3rd floor bathrooms at Smith House. One of the girls who always used the tub rather than the showers refused to ever use it again.
Gail Dankert Richter ’61
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The article about Epic Drives in the December 2, 2014 TechAlum Newsletter caught my attention. Attached is an article I wrote for a writing class that I am taking through Osher Lifetime Learning Institute (OLLI) at California State University in Fullerton. One of the requirements of attending classes is that you must be over 55 years old. All the classes are non-credit and led by instructors that are not paid. It is not a strenuous class, but definitely stimulating.
The attached article, “A Night to Remember,” is written from memories of an event that happened probably in the winter of 1961 or 1962 when returning to school from Christmas Break. I titled an earlier version of the story “A Night in Jail.” All of the events happened, although some of the conversations may be a little embellished. Because I am writing to an audience in Southern California, there are references in the article to climatic difference between Southern California and the Upper Peninsula. Also, if you remember, the Straits of Mackinac Bridge opened in the fall of 1957. I had crossed the straits via ferry before the bridge opened, but always crossed via the bridge when attending Da Tech.
[You can read about Charles’s Night to Remember here. Thanks for sharing!]
Charles L. Hand ’62
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[Jim Carpenter, a mechanical engineering alum, recalls yet another epically treacherous drive to Tech.]
Thanksgiving Trip—1966—Rockford to Houghton
We left Rockford mid-morning to grey skies and moderate temps. Joined up with other carpoolers in Reed City and added another vehicle to our caravan. One of my DHH RAs was our chauffer for the remainder of the trip. A cold rain and rapidly dropping temps were the signs of trouble to come. I-75 became slush and ice covered well south of the Bridge. The other vehicle in our group spun out and went off the highway. We were able to push it back to resume the trip, but it then ran out of gas. By the time we got gas back to them, it was dark. With a long haul ahead in blizzard conditions, we stopped at Downings (now Audies) in Mackinaw City for dinner.
Unfortunately, these delays meant we were on US-2 between M-117 and M-77 when a semi jackknifed and blocked the highway, stopping all traffic for the night as the blizzard raged on. The car had a weak ignition system, which got wet from the snow blowing into the engine compartment. The last time we got it started for heat was in the wee hours of the morning. There was a bus with a half-broken-out windshield a few vehicles behind us that was still running, so we warmed up there. There was a family with a baby that needed food in one vehicle, so we contributed what we had. At daylight, we thought we were getting the road cleared as we could see a large plow heading east on the shoulder around the two lanes of stranded cars. Unfortunately, it ran off the shoulder and got stuck down an embankment.
One of our group had connections with a construction firm doing work a ways west of us. We gave him our extra clothes and he set out on cross-country skis, bringing back a hot-wired, tracked vehicle. With that, we were able to get vehicles turned around and head back to M-117. We towed the dead car to a gas station, dried off the distributor cap (Google it, younguns), got several cans of Ether, and headed north again. The rest of the trip went slow but smooth—other than when our driver had to hit the brakes. When he did, the engine would stall, so we had to remove the air cleaner to spray Ether into the carburetor (again, Google it, younguns) to restart. When we got on M-28, we heard it was being closed behind us, but we continued on. Conditions improved further west, and we made it to Houghton about dark on Monday afternoon.
November 27–28, 1966: Ferocious Gale and Snowstorm
This storm hit at the peak of Thanksgiving weekend return-trip travel. The week leading up to the storm had been mild, and the thawing weather and rain put a damper on the second week of deer hunting season. During Thanksgiving weekend, an upper-air trough began to form and deepen over the central United States. At the surface, low pressure in south-central Canada, which had been pumping mild, southerly winds into the upper Great Lakes, began to fill, while new low pressure formed in northern Missouri ahead of the deepening trough in the Plains. The Missouri low became the main system and strengthened rapidly, drawing in cold air from the north. Rain quickly changed to freezing precipitation and then snow from northwest to southeast across Upper Michigan. As the storm intensified and lifted northeastward, gale force winds began to buffet the region.
Richard Wright, an instructor at Northern Michigan University at the time, was visiting family in the Menominee County community of Daggett that Sunday. “It was raining and blowing,” he recalls, “and we were concerned about the weather farther north. We left right after lunch, and things were fine until we got to the snow belt around Trenary. It started to deteriorate fast, and by the time we got around Skandia, traffic was down to one lane.” He and his wife made it to their home in Harvey. Later that evening they lost power, and with it, their source of heat.
They were not alone. Thousands of homes throughout an eight-county region of central and eastern Upper Michigan lost heat and cooking facilities as wind gusting to 60 mph caused massive power failures. Curtis, in Mackinac County, went without power from 4 p.m. Sunday until well into Monday. The Chippewa County community of Rudyard was blacked out too, as five miles of ice-laden utility poles around the town were brought down by the wind. Farther west, Munising also experienced a blackout that caused the city’s hospital to use emergency backup power. Vicious winds snapped trees and flung them onto power lines around Marquette. The wind was so strong it blew spray from Lake Superior across US-41 near the prison. It was the first time residents had witnessed that spectacle in many years. Half the city was without power at the height of the storm. Baraga and Delta counties also suffered extensive outages.
Only a few inches of snow fell in the Copper Country during the storm, while on the east end four to five inches accumulated at the Sault with no real problems. The central and much of the rest of eastern Upper Michigan bore the brunt of the storm. Over a foot of snow accumulated in Marquette. The full gale accompanying the blizzard piled up drifts eight to nine feet deep between Marquette and Negaunee with even deeper drifts around Skandia.
Larry Wanic grew up near La Branche in northern Menominee County and enjoyed an extra day of Thanksgiving vacation because of the storm. “I remember the fields,” he recalls. “There was hardly any snow. It didn’t snow more than six or seven inches in this area, but the fields were like you see in North Dakota. They were bare and then you’d have places where the drifts would be five feet.”
The blinding, blowing snow brought traffic to a complete standstill during one of the busiest travel days of the year. Hundreds of vehicles became stranded along main thoroughfares throughout the region, from the straits westward to Baraga County. In the Green Garden/Skandia area alone, about 200 vehicles became mired in drifts on US-41 south of Marquette. Most of the stranded travelers camped out on the floor of the Idletime Bar near Yalmer Road and stayed there through much of the next morning. Stalled vehicles still lined the highway on Tuesday morning, a day after the storm ended.
Joe Freeman of Engadine, a small town in western Mackinac County just north of US-2 on M-117, remembers a Greyhound bus stranded in the main intersection of the town at the height of the storm. “Its windshield was busted,” he says. “It was the wind that must have blew an evergreen branch or something . . . through the window.” The bus was full of students heading back to NMU and Michigan Tech from downstate. The students were herded over to the Town Hall where they were forced to spend the night. “The manager of our store opened up and made sandwiches for the kids,” recalls Freeman.
The store manager made lots of sandwiches that evening. After a 75-mile stretch of US-2 from the Straits to Blaney Park became impassable, 500 students and motorists took shelter in the Engadine Town Hall. Freeman says the students had no goulashes or boots, so some of them put on the town’s firemen’s boots housed at the hall. “The powers-to-be didn’t like that too well,” remembers Freeman with a chuckle.
Farther north in the woods of northern Luce County, tragedy struck as the blizzard peaked. The proprietors of Pike Lake Resort had just closed the place down for the winter, as the last of the deer hunters headed south. Faye Leighton had operated the resort since 1941. A widow for over 20 years, she married a longtime family friend, Leslie “Doc” Purman in 1964.
As darkness fell that Sunday evening, the couple left isolated Pike Lake and headed toward Newberry on one of the backwoods roads. They became stuck along the way and apparently decided to walk to the Pine Stump Junction Bar for help. The pair struggled through the biting wind and blinding snow for nearly four miles. Exhausted, they probably decided to rest for a while. Their frozen bodies were found cuddled up in a snowdrift beneath a cedar tree on December 1, three days after the storm ended. Ironically, they were less than a half-mile from their destination. A ferocious gale and snowstorm rendered a short hike an insurmountable obstacle that evening in late November 1966.
John Baker ‘71