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March 10, 2011 • Issue 789 • $1.00 Serving St. Joseph Island since 1995 “Your Island Newspaper” Visit us online at www.islandclippings.com Tel: 705 246-1635 email: [email protected] Fax: 705 246-7060 The Lewises of Encampment By Michael Cansfield “Dear Friends: The old typewriter greets you from its new desk on Everens Point.” SO BEGINS A REMARKABLE COLLECTION of 28 letters penned during the summer of 1921 by Professor Edwin Herbert Lewis as he, his wife, and daughter spent three months on their newly-acquired property at the southern end of Sailor’s Encampment, on the western shore of St. Joseph Island. Professor Lewis was a Rhode Island native who spent his academic career in Chicago—first as a student and lecturer at the University of Chicago, then as Professor of English and Dean of the Faculty at Lewis Institute (the name similarity is a coincidence), a highly-respected polytechnic school that Michigan Governor Chase Osborn, whose summer camp was later became the Illinois Institute of Technology. on Sugar Island. Sometime before 1899, the Lewis family began summering on In 1920, the Lewises bought twelve acres of shore property on the Encampment section of Neebish Island, interacting with St. Joseph Island in the Neebish Concession, Lot 16 from notable full-time and summer residents from both sides of William Burnside, who was farming the remainder of the 88 the St. Mary’s River such as Florence Orrell, Anna Maria acre parcel. During the summer of 1921, Professor Lewis, his (Miss Molly) Johnston, Howard Johnston, and former wife Elizabeth, and 22 year-old daughter Janet camped on the property which included a small, one-room building back from the shore. Here the family planned and built a new cabin, while their recently married son and daughter-in-law honeymooned in the Neebish cottage. Over a span of ten weeks, Professor Lewis wrote a series of letters to Chicago friends Grace and Rose Cody, describing the area, its inhabitants and their goings-on. Remarkably the letters were saved by the Cody sisters and given back to the Lewis family as a record of their summer and bound with a few photographs the family had taken that summer. When Janet Lewis donated her father’s papers to the archive of the Continued on next page David Nelson Sales Representative “Your Island Realtor” The Real Estate Stop 949-7867 • 246-2757 The Lewises ... THE TREFRY CENTRE continued from page 1 SENIORS & DISABLED Persons University of Chicago in 1981, the 1921 letters and photographs were included. They PROGRAMS remain there today, in a collection that includes the elder Lewis’s lecture notes, date • Meals on Wheels books, correspondence, and drafts of several novels the Professor saw to publication. Serving the needs of • Transportation the Citizens on the North Shore & • Adult Day Out But it was the letters that captivated me when I discovered them three years ago, while St. Joseph Island • Home Maintenance doing some personal research on the Lewis family. Since 1948, my family has owned a For more information call 705-246-0036 email: [email protected] bit of the shore once owned by the Lewis family; apart from some lore that the prop - erty had previously been owned by a Chicago professor named Edwin Herbert Lewis, I knew very little about its history. A fortunate Google search led me to the Edwin Rod Wessell Herbert Lewis Papers in the archives at the Regenstein Library of the University of and Son Chicago—only about three miles from where I live year-round. There, among the 6 boxes of archival material, I found a delicate, leather-covered binder holding the • Septics • Road Building letters, photos, and a fragile, pressed flower which had been sent with one of the • Lot Clearing letters. Call 246-2811 Days or evenings and weekends The correspondence contains descriptions of river activity, along with insights into the worlds of full-time and summer residents of the island. With PhDs in both Rhet - oric and English, Edwin Lewis shows his keen mind and inexhaustible curiosity as he David R. Porter, CMA discusses island inhabitants and the literature and world events of the day. Mostly we MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING see in these letters the day-to-day activities of a family summering in a community & CONSULTING SERVICES Waterfront Centre, Hilton Beach, Ontario P0R 1G0 they love, and trying to share that feeling with distant friends. for all your accounting needs While the Lewis family would not spend their summers in the St. Joseph cottage after Personal • Business • Farm & Corporations Bookeeping • Financial Statements • Business Plans 1936, the St. Mary’s River would continue to have an impact on their lives and Income Taxes (E-file) careers. After settling in California in 1927, Janet Lewis would go on to have a Phone/Fax (705) 246-3153 Res. (705) 246-3460 respected career as a writer, publishing five novels, eight collections of poetry, one anthology of short stories, and several opera libretti. Janet’s first collection of poems, HAZARD TREE REMOVAL The Indians in the Woods , would reach print in 1922—within a few months of the St. Joseph summer documented in her father’s letters—and involves the Ojibway legends • Professional • Certified Miss Lewis had learned from Neebish resident Anna Maria (Miss Molly) Johnston, • Trained granddaughter of Sault-area trader John Johnston and his Ojibway wife Oshaw- • Experienced guscoday-wayquay (Woman of the Green Glade). • Local Call Matt at After Miss Molly’s death in 1928 (she spent her last days at Matthews Memorial (705) 542-9951 Hospital in Richards Landing), Janet Lewis would further honour the Johnston family by writing the historical novel, The Invasion: a Narrative of Events Concerning Wessell Firewood the Johnston Family of St. Mary’s, published by the University of Denver Press in Processed Hardwood Firewood 1932. The novel traces the Irish and Ojibway roots of the family and depicts three generations of Johnston history at the Sault. The Lewis’s son, Herbert Taylor Lewis, a 246-0334 visual artist, drew the endpapers for the novel, depicting a map of the St. Mary’s River. Michigan State University Press reissued the work in 2000. Delivery Available Any Questions Regarding Services Published weekly by Please Call Kevin or Katie Heather & Brian Fox HOW TO REACH US: By email: [email protected] • By phone: 705 246-1635 • By fax: 705 246-7060 KENTVALE By mail: The Island Clippings, 5285 5th Side Road, R. R. 1, Hilton Beach, Ontario P0R 1G0. The Helpful Place Or simply use one of the Island Clippings boxes conveniently located at Ambeault’s, Kent’s Corners SalSales&Servicees & Service or the Hilton Beach Post Office. Off-Island Subscription Rates: $65. per year plus tax. 712712KLineRoad K Line Road RichardsLanding The advertiser agrees that the publisher shall not be any ad. Cost for ads may be adjusted from time to time (705)246-2002www.kentvale.comYou must see this 122 year old liable for damage arising from errors in advertisements due to price increases of postage, paper and ink. Ads General Store beyond the amount paid for the space actually occu - cannot be copied. The editor reserves the right to edit, pied by that portion of the ad in which the error revise, classify or reject an ad. Articles submitted do 246-2002 www.kentvale.com occured. There shall be no liability for non-insertion of not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor. Page 2 Janet Lewis’s poetry continued to be influenced by her time on St. Joseph. Although she never visited the region after the We have now made it through our first St. Joseph Island death of her father in 1938, Janet would often travel back in full week of running the St Joseph Island Market…and before much MARKET her writing. In the early 1970s, when commissioned to write more time flies by we want to thank “For John Muir, a Century and More after His Time”, Janet everyone for their support. We know refers to this region in the resulting poem, “I have seen those we still have a way to go but we are Indians in their birch canoes…As John Muir saw them, years excited at least getting over the first hurdle and years ago. / Or do I use / A borrowed memory, learned in of opening the doors. my childhood days / From my Ojibway friends?” There are some special people who worked long and hard so we could open those doors. Janet would live nearly until her century mark, and into her Special thanks to: Brad Campbell and Chris for their fine 90s she continued to reference the St. Mary’s in her poems. workmanship. They repaired and painted, working long, long hours One of her most touching, written in 1994, is simply called determined to get it done. You did a fabulous job! “River”. Gord Robinson and Elgin Eddy who just showed up Friday “Remember for me the river, before we opened and said “we are here to help”. Flowing wide and cold, from beyond Sugar Island, Carla Lacasse, Karen Silver and Tanya Alexander for Still and smooth, breathing sweetness cleaning and cleaning……… Butch Shaw – we are so grateful that he came forward to help with Into still air, moving under its surface the meat department lending his years of experience, With all the power of creation. knowledge and skills. Remember for me the scent of sweet grass A special thanks to Peggy Chapman for showing up and working for In Ojibway baskets, days cleaning, scrubbing, stocking shelves, offering incredible moral Of meadow turf, alive with insects.