September 7, 2005

OM resident recalls life on the peninsula

Jerry Ostlund shares history of growing up on family farm on Old Mission Peninsula

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer

       From cherry boats and swimming lessons in all weather, to one-room schoolhouses and courting across a field, Jerry Ostlund shared his family history.
      Speaking Thursday evening to 50 people at the Peninsula Township Hall, Ostlund described his family and reminisced about his boyhood during the monthly meeting of the Old Mission Peninsula Historical Society.
      Tracing his roots back to Sweden, when his grandfather came to this country in 1886 at age 17, he shared about Carl Ostlund's travels. Stops included St. Augustine, Fla., and Lawrence, Kan. before Ostlund settled in Old Mission.
      "In the Ostlund family history box, I have a sea shell from Florida and the fourth grade reader my grandfather used in Lawrence, Kan. to learn English," said Ostlund, who lives in St. Louis and summers in the family homestead on Old Mission.
      Carl married and became the area's first white mail carrier, traversing a circuit between Old Mission and Mapleton.
      "I have a picture of grandpa in a horse and sleigh, with a horsehair blanket on his lap," said Leroy Ostlund, who along with brother John, also attended his cousin Jerry Ostlund's talk. "He had a huge handlebar mustache, like the Swedes do, and it hung down and was full of ice."
      Jerry Ostlund talked about his mom, Dana, who hailed from Petoskey. She moved to Old Mission upon landing a teaching job in the Old Mission School - after arriving in town for the interview thanks to a ride on a bread truck. She boarded across the meadow from the Ostlund farm and Frank Ostlund soon came courting.
      When Jerry was four, the family, which included his older brother Miller, moved to a cherry farm just south of what is now the Dougherty Historic Home Site.
      He lived what he terms a normal farm boy life and spent countless hours at the beach with other children at Hasrot Beach. They all took swimming lessons provided by the Old Mission Women's Club.
      "We had lessons at the beach whether the weather was good or bad," said Ostlund, a 1957 graduate of Traverse City Senior High. "We learned the back float with three-foot waves."
      "I can remember not a single boat in sight but the cherry boat," he added of the now busy beach. "Of course, that's really changed now."
      Ostlund also recalled and shared pictures of the cherry boat Gilman D, which took Old Mission farmer's cherries to Northport every summer.
      "The cherry boat was a big deal to us, especially the farmers because it was our way to get our fruit to the canning factory," he said. "Sometimes we could ride the boat to Northport, spend the night, and come back the next day."
      Ostlund also shared memories of Minnie Rushmore, who summered in the Rushmore house next door for years. Every summer she came up from Monroe to plant a garden and clean house before the rest of her family arrived, staying overnight with the Ostlunds. He recalled exploring her attic trunk filled with tall stovepipe hats made of beaver and how she took a noontime rest every day on her porch, with a wooden lapboard for playing solitaire.
      Ostlund attended the Old Mission School, which had one room for upper elementary students and another for lower elementary students. His mother was his teacher in the lower grades and he called her Mrs. Ostlund like the other children. From the fifth through seventh grade he attended the Mapleton School.
      High school meant a long bus ride to town and a mandatory 3:35 p.m. departure on the bus back home - precluding participation in any extracurricular activities.
      "Unless my mind is failing me, I don't remember having a snow day," noted Ostlund. "I can remember being let out of school in the spring if expecting an ice storm but not because of snow."
      After graduation and one final fun-filled summer with friends, Ostlund left for college and never returned to live. He had a 42-year career in the railroad industry, residing and raising a family in Chicago and St. Louis, before retiring in 1999. When his mother and brother died in 2003, he inherited the home he grew up in.
      "I guess that's one of my thrills, coming back to my boyhood home, the 12-hour trip is almost like a homecoming to me," he said.