• Sunday-What'sUP August 5 - 08:43 pm

Wesley Williams of Ahmeek started keeping a scrap book of paper clippings and items of interest back in 1913, beginning with the Copper Country mining strike. Over the years he accumulated a wealth of 20th century news and trivia, as today's Shoebox Memory is an example of both. Our thanks to Deb Oyler, Calumet School Library, and the UP Digitization Project for their teamwork in preserving Mr. Williams' collection.

While browsing throught the UPRDC archives this morning I had a sudden flash of insight about a connection between myself and Wesley. The past 11+ years it has been my priviledge to be webmaster of pasty.com, with the mission of collecting pictures and comments about life in Michigan's Upper Peninsula - and publishing them on the WWW. I realized that this is exactly what Wesley Williams did for the better part of his life, minus the Web. It wasn't until years later that the content he gathered finally made it to the Internet. Just like Wesley arranged clippings and memorabilia in an organized format, so it is my daily habit to take the pictures of contributors, comments from our editing staff, and your interactive feedback, and add them to our online "scrapbook" (with the help of our staff's technical expertise and support of our sponsors).

There were others who assisted Wesley in bringing his collection to this international forum, including Mary Kaifesh who passed away a couple of months ago. We salute librarians everywhere for their hard work in organizing and advancing knowledge and information, which makes life in our times so interesting.

Have a good week :o)

What an interesting page today. I wonder how people reacted to this newspaper caption of that day.
She followed out his last wishes. Sad they never seen their real wedding day.
Hopefully the lady was able to go on with her life,

Very interesting. I am surprised the priest would have done this. So much is my knowledge of a priest's life.

Sweet little Mary Kaifesh was a librarian...??? She was such a dear lady. I love old news...It is so interesting to read. Not like todays news at all.

How sad is this clip.....we take so much for granted....if they lived in this era he probably wouldn't have died.

Thanks for always having the "unusal" Sunday clips.
God Bless ya'll on this wonderful Sunday morning

Alois Tijan, a young Croatian, who was killed in the Seeberville incident of Aug. 14th 1913 had a similar funeral in Calumet. Since his marriage plans were cut shot by his untimely death, his casket was followed by a "bride" and ten girls dressed in white as was the Croatian custom.
Seeberville is/was a "suburb" of Painesdale, just down the hill from the still extant shafthouse. In short, the incident occurred after two strikers crossed Copper Range property on their way home. This angered some Waddell-Mahon security guards (rent-a-cops or "copper boss gun thugs", depending on your preference)who tracked the men to the Putrich boardinghouse. One of the strikers resisted, friends came to his aid, and it escalated to the point that the guards opened fire. Alois Tijan, and Steve Putrich died, several more were wounded.
REBELS ON THE RANGE by Arthur W. Thurner is the best single source balanced account of the 1913 strike.

I had the priviledge of carrying out a friend's last wishes a few years ago. She wanted her ashes brought out to the area where the Fitzgerlad lies. I was able to follow thorugh with her wishes & I felt good being able to.
How sad for the bride to follow through with her groom's wishes. And how hard it had to be on her. Does anyone know if she ever married later in life?