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Saturday, September 6
GSMC September Meeting (Meeting)
1:00 pm Monroe County Community College, Administration Building -Room 173D
Lou Komoroski from Ellis Library will present updates to the Monroe County Library System's local history and genealogy collections. Ellis Library has a huge genealogy collection, especially for the size of the library. It is a great resource for genealogists and is also an LDS affiliate.
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Saturday, October 4
GSMC October Meeting (Meeting)
1:00 pm Monroe County Community College, Administration Building -Room 173D
When the Unthinkable Happened!
Wreck on the Wabash, November 27, 1901
November 27, 2026, marks the 125th anniversary of the Wreck on the Wabash, a fiery head on collision of two Wabash Railway Company trains, in western Lenawee County, Michigan. It was 6:00 pm, on a cold, clear November evening—Thanksgiving Eve—when the unthinkable happened!
The west bound train, Western Express (No. 13), driven by yard engines 88 and 151, left the Milan station laboring to pull eight railcars, six wooden passenger coaches, full of several hundred travelers. The train was three hours late. Among those passengers on the Western Express were 100 Italian immigrants conscripted to work in the mines of California and Colorado. The east bound train, Continental Limited (No. 4), was made up of six railway cars, four of them wooden, full of people headed home for the Thanksgiving holiday. The No. 13 was the local train making short stops in route from Detroit to St. Louis, Missouri. The No. 4 was the fast train making no local stops, on its way to Detroit, unknowingly on the same track, on time and traveling at over 60 miles an hour. The trains were only two miles apart before the horrifying collision occurred.
Train No. 4’s passengers and crew escaped a fiery death by the quick thinking of engineer Aaron Strong. Passengers on Train No. 13 were not as fortunate. The 100 Italian immigrants were cremated in a matter of hours, burned to death, in a fire that could be seen against the night sky for six miles. Without the aid of any local fire department, those living in the nearby communities of Sand Creek and Seneca tried in vain to save the passengers of both trains.
Immediately the Wabash Railway Company began to cover up the story. Why the hasty burial in unmarked graves? Had there really been any Italian immigrants on Train No.13? If there were, had they not simply wandered off into the night. And, into history. A very sensational and well publicized event at the time, over the years, the memory of those who perished in the wreck began to fade.
This presentation will cover the events surrounding the wreck and what has come to light since the Wreck on the Wabash was published in 2001.
Laurie Catherine Perkins, PhD
Southern Lower Peninsula Historian
Mann House, Concord and Walker Tavern Historic Site, Brooklyn
Michigan History Center Museum, Lansing, Michigan
Laurie Perkins worked for the Michigan History Center for more than thirty-seven years having served seventeen years as a Collections Historian with emphases on late nineteenth century rural life, eight years as an Education Historian in charge of the “Big History Lesson” and thirteen years as Southern Lower Peninsula Historian. She was production manager for the Michigan History Museum's permanent exhibit, "Growing Up in Michigan," which received an American Association for State and Local History National Award of Merit in 1994.
Laurie is a Michigan (Lenawee County) native and received her BA in History from Adrian College (1982), Adrian, Michigan and her MA in American Studies from the University of Notre Dame (1986) in South Bend, Indiana and her PhD from Michigan State University (2010), East Lansing. She has a long-standing interest in late nineteenth and early twentieth century agricultural history particularly in southeast Michigan, which resulted in her PhD dissertation in 2010.
The title of her dissertation is Cheese Fever, A History of "Soft Michigan" Cheese Production in Lenawee County, Michigan 1825-1925. In addition, to her dissertation, she has published three well-received local histories based on the four townships where she grew up, Wreck on the Wabash (2001), In the Center of Four Townships (2006), and Sand Creek Telephone Company, 1908-2008, A History (2008).
She and her husband Eric live in an 1880s farmhouse in Grand Ledge, Michigan.
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Saturday, November 1
GSMC November Meeting (Meeting)
1:00 pm Monroe County Community College, Administration Building -Room 173D
Have you read the old letters of your grandfather? Listened to the recordings of your grandmother? Watched the videos of their interviews? Do these even exist? Join us to learn the proper methods for asking quality questions and getting quality recordings both audio and video, and how to save these valuable family resources for succeeding generations. Presented by James K. Cameron, president of Michigan Oral History Association and former Saline area school teacher. |
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Saturday, December 6
GSMC December Meeting (Meeting)
1:00 pm Monroe County Community College, Administration Building -Room 173D
Grab your genealogy grocery cart and visit the untapped resource of the neighborhood grocery. While strolling the aisles you may find where your ancestors shopped, what they bought and how much they owed. Several examples of local resources will be shared.
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