Stories from Around Town
We're always amazed when we hear someone say, "Oh, no one wants to hear what I've got to say."​
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And do you know what we say to that? "Uh, yes they do." Especially in 10 years, or 20, or 30, or 100. That's how we know what happened in 1776. In 1900. In 1966. Pick a year, any year. Somebody wrote down stuff.
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The problem is people think they don't know how to start. And we say to that, just pick up a pen and write. Don't worry about having it "sound" just right. The point is that you've started. Write some more. Maybe it's 3 sentences. Maybe it's 3 paragraphs. Maybe you got the groove going and you write 3 pages. Just write it down, let if flow.
Maybe it's just a short little memory. About the time you spent sitting at the counter of Burg's Drug Store. Or how you used to take the shortcut through the peat bog to get to school. Or how you used to walk across town to go ice skating but by the time you got there and laced up your skates, you were freezing and ready to go home! Maybe it's from 1930 or maybe 1960. Maybe it's the story your grandma used to tell you about how they produced everything they needed on their farm and only came to town once a month. Or the time your grandpa won the Brothers of the Brush beard contest. Tell us!
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Read Chelsea History articles here (originally published in the SunTimes News.
Reminiscing About St. Mary School & Convent
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These first person memories were gathered from the Facebook "Chelsea Residents in the Know" page in December 2025.​ The building at 400 Congdon is now a private residence. But before, it housed the Chelsea Center for the Arts. and the Chelsea Children's Co-Op. And before that, it was St. Mary school. Next door, to the south, is the convent where the nuns lived. And to the north, was the rectory (on the corner of Congdon and Summit). And one more lot north was the original St. Mary Church. More info about the main building is available below.
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I attended St. Mary's from first to fourth grade. They closed the school after that. The sisters at the time were Sister Rita Michael, Sister Patricia, who was the Reverend mother and Sister Louise. I know there were more just can't recall them. The year I was in second grade they had a slumber party in the convent for all of us who attended St. Mary's school. I remember all the girls slept in a room on the 2nd floor at the back of the house overlooking the backyard. There was an attached bathroom. The boys slept downstairs in the living room which faced Congdon Street. I do remember it was a lot of fun and we had juice and donuts for breakfast. - Marilyn Weir
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The Adrian Dominicans lived there and taught at the school. - Cathy Guinan
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I attended catholic school & only once went into the convent’s front room w beautiful wood floors. The empty lot north of the rectory was where the original St. Mary Church was. It was torn down in 1962. From 1961 to 66 (before the new church as built on Old US 12), Mass was held in the gym/cafeteria at south end of classroom bldg. I attended school there thru only 5th grade when it closed in 1972. - Sue Frisbie Bauer
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I went to St. Mary's School back in the day! The nuns were Adrian Dominicans-there would be 4 at a time living in the convent. The bedrooms upstairs were very small-one for each nun, with room only for a single bed, a desk and a dresser I believe. There was a large "work room" on the second floor where they would do lesson planning evenings. About the time the old church was torn down, Fr. Smith also undertook to remodel the convent for the nuns. They used to call when they needed something from Schneider's grocery and mom would send me up to get their list and run to the store for them. There was ivy growing on the wall that enclosed the short stairway to the kitchen in the back, and when we made our first communion back in th late 50's, the nuns would attach a piece of ivy to our veils. Downstairs, there was a small chapel on the school side in the front, Across from that was a living room. I'm not sure if there was a dining room. Around 1967, a group of us then-high school girls convinced the nuns to let us have a pajama party there - it was just before the nuns stopped wearing full habits. We were all curious as to whether they had shaved heads under their wimples. . .at midnight, a friend came and rang the door bell. We hollered up to Sr. John Edna that we'd get the door-not to bother getting up-Naturally. all 4 came running down, attaching their head gear-it was another year or two before we found out they did have hair underneath their veils! - Linda Merkel Hahn
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I went to St Mary’s through 8th grade then to high school. I believe they were Dominicans.
Sister Clare James was the Mother Superior and one of the other nuns was Sister Claudette!
Never could figure out how they could hide the pointers up their sleeves until they needed to “get our attention. - Phil Boham
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I started working for St. Mary in 1996 at the actual school there. However we did not have enough room in the school for CCD classes so we used the convent as extra classrooms. The convent was sold well before the school was sold to Jeff Daniels, I believe. - Mary Underwood
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I have a copy of the cookbook published in 1995. The book contains about 30 pages of parish history at the front. This history is pretty comprehensive about the parish as a whole. There is not a lot of information specifically about the convent but it does confirm that the sisters living there were from the Adrian Dominican order and that Fr. Dupius moved in after the sisters left. I have the book as I was on the publishing team that produced it. - Sharon Pignanelli
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When it was the CCA, my husband Bill was asked to bring in the U of M HVAC experts he knew to evaluate the rattling and knocking pipes that heated the classrooms and made them very noisy for music lessons., His verdict:: "Back then, they were just happy to have heat" and not too concerned about having a nice quiet furnace. - Shawn Personke
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Here is a more complete history of the main building, written by the CAHS.​​​​​​​​​​
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Growing up in the 1960s and '70s
By Kathleen Treado Daniels
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My family moved to Chelsea from Marquette in 1964. We moved here because my father was transferred to Camp Waterloo, he was an administrator there.
His goal was to move back to Marquette to become the prison warden.
We loved growing up in the downtown area. First we lived in a house on Main Street, eventually the house was torn down to make way for the Chelsea State Bank(it was originally where the Court building is today). Across the alley was Dr. Bruce Stubbs and his family.The Stubbs house was saved and a big town happening was when their house as well as The George Palmer house, was moved down Main Street to their new locations. The Stubbs house resides at McKinley Street and the Palmer house ,on AD Mayer drive.
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My family of 7 -- our parents, and Howard C. Treado,’71, Reatha Treado Tweedie,’ 73, Tim Treado, ‘74, Anne Mann,’75, and me class of ‘77 , moved off Main Street onto South Street, where my mother Daph still resides.
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We lived on our bikes and on the swing sets of St. Mary school.We loved grabbing before school treats at Kuesters and picking up after school potato chips and dip at Schneider’s.
I spent so much time playing down the hill on Chandler Street with Diane Burg, and Kim Dresch as well as playing “all neighborhood” games of hide and seek and kick the can.
When the Robert Powers family moved to town, they rented the Barlow home on South Street(another home moved to another location the green and pink Victorian on W.Middle St.)and their family of 9 became part of our family. I became fast friends with Judy Powers Cavanaugh, to have a buddy kitty corner from my house was awesome. My sister Anne and I spent so much of our lives at the Frisbie house on Madison St. with our dear friends Susan Kay Bauer, and Cindy Frisbie Gauss.
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We’d take the bus to Tamarack to swim in Clear lake for the afternoon.My love for singing old camp songs comes from those bus rides. The snake dances and bonfires before Homecoming football games, on Thursday nights were beyond breathtaking for an elementary school kid,no parents involved,only older siblings and the cheerleaders and football players who I had crushes on all!!!
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Our father died on Homecoming morning in 1969, on a cold and rainy day. He was 38. We stayed in Chelsea because our life was entrenched in good friends who made it and easier for our mother to stay. We were blessed with great friends from our ST. Mary family. The Merkels, the Powers, The Thomsons...
I can’t forget to add...I was in track during Junior high and high school our coach was DiAnn L'Roy, and I was a cheerleader and I was in many Chelsea musicals( helmed by the multi talented DiAnn LRoy)for many years. I had a crush on my husband during those musicals. He never knew that until years later.
We married , lived in NYC, and after our first child was born in 84, we decided to raise our family in Chelsea. We moved back to town in ‘86.
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We loved our upbringing. So 3 kids and grandkids, Chelsea is still our home.
Staffan Family Rocking Horse, c. 1900
By Diane Borton Alexander
Stephanie (Sis) Wagner Kanten said that her great-grandfather (Frank Staffan - carpenter/undertaker) made the rocking horse. I believe it came from her mother who was Katie Staffan Wagner. I was fortunate to get it and keep it in the Chelsea family by donating it to the Chelsea Historical Museum. I've had it since Sis passed away in 2010, keeping her memory close for Joanne Staffan Ingles and me.
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The Iconic Cavanaugh Lake Steamer
By Jan Bernath
Part of the mythology of Chelsea includes the boat that my father, Lewie Bernath, built for Lloyd Heydlauff in 1940. Here is a picture I took of him many years later when he was in his 80s.
The story goes that there was a line of cars back towards town to see if it is would float. Obviously, it did!
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Caroline "Carrie" Vogel
Mike Maroney is the historian for his family - THE PLIENINGEN VOGELS. Originally compiled in January 1958 by Karl Vogel, additional notes were made by Paul Maroney in the 1970-80s, by Dan Maroney in the 1990s-2000s, and by Mike Maroney in the 2020s. Here's one tiny snippet of the family's wonderfully complex and thorough compilation! Thanks to Mike Maroney for sharing!
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CAROLINA “CARRIE” VOGEL, the second child of Israel Vogel was born September 25,1867 and died in 1941. She married Clarence Maroney in 189l. Her entire life was spent in Chelsea, Michigan, and she is buried there in The Oak Grove Cemetery. "Carrie" Vogel, as she was known to all her friends, was unquestionably the village belle during her girlhood days and she had all that was needed to win the title. She was a beautiful girl, wonderfully proportioned, vivacious, active, possessed of boundless health and energy, full of fun, and of a friendly and cooperative nature except in the morning.
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Before her marriage in 1891 she was a popular and efficient saleslady in George Kempf's Dry Goods Store on North Main Street in Chelsea. After her marriage, she lived the rest of her life in what had been the Davidson home at the corner of Railroad and McKinley Streets in Chelsea, one of the oldest houses in town that Clarence remodeled by the addition of a large porch, a number of large plate glass windows, and other alterations making it into a large and attractive, comfortable home that occupied a large corner lot.
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Carrie was a great lover of flowers, and her large and well-tended garden contained many well grown varieties, including a host of many different oriental poppies, all lovely. She was a talented mimic, and in later life she delighted in dressing up and impersonating many characters to the delight of the children, my own included, whenever they visited her.
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She was a member of the Eastern Star, in which organization she held many offices down through the years. She was an early member of the Cythererians, a ladies group that included all of the first ladies of the village in its membership; and she and the members of her family were lifelong members of the Congregational Church.
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John Strahle - Civil War Vet
By Shawn Personke
It's so interesting to find out who lived in your house throughout the decades. Our research found that John Strahle - the longest living Civil War vet - lived in our house for over 10 years, purchasing it from the Kantlehner family, who originally built it around 1910. Strahle and his daughter Carrie moved here after his wife Sophie died, John died in 1929. Since he died at the start of the depression, we surmised that the house ownership/occupation was in limbo for a couple of years until it was bought by the Groves, who started the "5 &10" in downtown Chelsea and operated it through the 1960s. We often imagined them walking uptown to open their store, or do some other business. These stories are just one of the many that can be found in the digitized "Chelsea Standard" archives housed by the Chelsea District Library.
Photo: A vintage postcard - looking south on South Main, from about where Cottage Inn now operates.