Amberrose Hammond - Wicked Ottawa County, Michigan

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2011 by Amberrose Hammond

All rights reserved

First published 2011

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.62584.109.4

Hammond, Amberrose.

Wicked Ottawa County, Michigan / Amberrose Hammond.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

print edition ISBN 978-1-60949-174-1

1. Crime--Michigan--Ottawa County--History--Anecdotes. 2. Murder--Michigan--Ottawa County--History--Anecdotes. 3. Violence--Michigan--Ottawa County--History--Anecdotes. 4. Corruption--Michigan--Ottawa County--History--Anecdotes. 5. Ottawa County (Mich.)--History--Anecdotes. 6. Ottawa County (Mich.)--Biography--Anecdotes. 7. Ottawa County (Mich.)--Social conditions--Anecdotes. 8. Ottawa County (Mich.)--Moral conditions--Anecdotes. I. Title.

HV6795.O88H36 2011

364.10977415--dc23

2011032574

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is dedicated to Jeanette Weiden for her amazing detective skills.

(Told you Id do it.)

Contents

Acknowledgements

If it wasnt for my Loutit District Library, I would never have been able to write this book. Please continue to support your public libraries, as they are so very important to a community. Id like to thank the members of the Dusty Dozens who have welcomed me into their group and inspired me to love our local and state history even more. You are an amazing bunch of historians and people! Bob Beaton, for the endless work he has done with indexing old stories on Sandhill City. The Carl Bajema Collection, for its inspiration and story leads. Mike Faulkner, for supplying information and enthusiasm in the George Seelman story. Its always awesome to meet someone actually connected to a story I write. Ruth Horton, for her genealogy on the Shield family. Herrick District Library, for its assistance on some Holland area history. The History Press, for giving me the opportunity to write this book and my first book, Ghosts & Legends of Michigans West Coast. You have inspired awesome possibilities in me. My family, grandparents and mother, who are always excited about what crazy project Im doing next. Tom Maat, for just being an awesome partner in crime in whatever I do. Julie Williams, for always listeningagain! And to all of the crazy lives that were lived in the past that made this book possible.

Introduction

Welcome to the wilds of west Michigan! Our history in sleepy, picturesque Ottawa County might seem pretty tame to its residents and visitors. We have pastel dunes, miles of beautiful Lake Michigan coastline and busy little tourist towns bursting with people in the summer months. But buried in those shifting sand dunes are fascinating, shocking, witty and sometimes gruesome stories. Our ancestors dealt with their share of murder and mayhem, just like we do today.

My interest in this project took root when I started writing my first book for The History Press, Ghosts & Legends of Michigans West Coast. As I collected tales about haunted locations and the history behind them, I uncovered stories of murders, bank robberies and other dastardly deeds. I saved them all out of morbid interest, and when it came around to thinking of another project to work on, the idea of putting these tales came together in the form of this book. Writing these stories was like piecing an eggshell back together sometimes. There were so many details and nuances that it made my head spin at times.

I was even motivated to write this by my own family historya little bootlegging on the side, as well as other little wicked things. My great-great-grandma Volovlek came from Yugoslavia to the United States in the early 1900s. Great-great-grandma Volovlek was quite the legend in our family history. She was a midwife who delivered a lot of children in her day around Grand Haven, even her own grandchildren. She first migrated to Wisconsin when she came to the States and owned a boardinghouse. She was a bigger lady who always wore a long dress and an apron, so everyone was in shock when one night she served the boarders dinner at the house, went upstairs and came downstairs with a baby in her arms. The baby was hers, and no one even knew she had been pregnant. She actually delivered her own child.

An early Ottawa County Atlas. Courtesy of Loutit District Library.

An early plat map of Ottawa County. Courtesy of Loutit District Library.

She and her husband owned a farm off M45 in Robinson Township with chickens, cows, pigs, horses, fruit trees, grapevines and plenty of homemade booze to supply some of the notables around Grand Haven during the Prohibition era. It was always said that she even spent a night in jail for her illegal sales. And the stories dont stop there. My great-grandma and grandpa Resner made their own share of wine and beer as well. We still have the large wooden wine casks they once used in the winemaking process.

BLOOD SAUSAGE

When my grandma and her sister were little girls, it was a big event when great-great-grandma Volovlek was slaughtering the pigs and getting the smokehouse ready for the meat to hang. The family always made a dish called blood sausage, which by all means does not sound too tempting. But on Sundays, after the kids had to fast for twelve hours before taking communion at the local Catholic church, the sausage would be put into the oven and ready to eat when everyone came home from church. The smell of the cooked sausage filled the house, and everyones mouths watered as they entered the kitchen. It was always something to look forward to.

So when my young grandma and her sister went to great-great-grandma Volovleks farm for a pig slaughter, they werent prepared to find out exactly how blood sausage got its name. They stood there in their pretty dresses and watched as Uncle Joe took an axe to a pigs neck. Blood started spraying everywhere and on Uncle Joe as the pig whipped its body around, reacting to the pain. As the blood poured out of the pigs neck, great-great-grandma Volovlek grabbed on to the pig, got a bucket and started to collect the blood spilling out, telling my grandmas sister to grab a cake pan, too, and try to collect as much blood as possible. My grandmas sister can still remember holding that cake pan, trying to catch what blood she could but not quite understanding why she was doing it. The two young kids were a little horrified at the event and asked their mother, Why did grandma want us to collect the blood?

Shes collecting the blood for the blood sausage! No doubt the image on their little faces was priceless as they decided, from that moment on, to never eat blood sausage again.