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Then
Big
trouble in little Michigamme
by Larry Chabot
It’s so easy to like Michigamme: nice town, great name, cool
lake with endless shoreline, lots of famous visitors and a glorious
past. This piece of the past, howe ver,
has been buried in old news clippings for more than eighty years.
Michigamme, age 137, had a peak population of 1,800 in the 1880s
and boasted “a larger percentage of pretty girls than any
town in Northern Michigan,” according to the town’s
centennial story. Sixteen trains rolled through town every day.
Judy Garland’s mother lived there; Henry Ford did business
there.
In 1926, future movie star Jean Harlow endured a miserable summer
with poison oak and scarlet fever on Lake Michigamme.
“The worst nightmare of my life,” she said later.
Only one doctor would treat her, probably Dr. Isaiah Sicotte,
who figured in our big story that same summer. Harlow’s doctors
claimed the scarlet fever took her life eleven years later.
The big trouble in Michigamme began with a simple credentials
check of school superintendent C.C. Walther (fresh from leading
Michigamme to the state Class D basketball title) and ended with
six people losing their jobs.
On April 15, 1926, a school board majority of Charles Sundstrom,
Carrie Karpensky and Gust Schwendeman voted against retaining
C.C. Walther and teacher Florence Simons. Walther was getting
a superintendent’s salary in the belief he was a college
graduate, when in fact he w as
a few credits shy. “Nothing personal,” they said.
As for Miss Simons, supposedly she was moving on next year, so
the board would replace her at a lower salary. Miss Simons replied
that no one asked her about returning.
The reaction in town was immediate: almost 100 residents petitioned
the board to keep Walther and Simons, and all but two of the eighty-four
high school students went out on strike, vowing to “hang
together to the last ditch.” Nevertheless, the board majority
was unmoved by the commotion and gave the kids two choices: “Go
back to school or be expelled.”
The students returned to classes at the superintendent’s
request, feeling they had made their point.
“For fear that we may be charged with being egotistical,”
they told the Daily Mining Journal, “we believe school children,
especially those in higher grades, are better judges of what is
best for their welfare and future success than those who are not
on the ground daily...High school is only a stepping stone to
higher education. We must have proper training for the future
and we believe [the firings] would be a decided setback.”
Then another startling incident popped up. Back in January, a
school audit found possible state law violations by Sundstrom,
Karpensky and Schwendeman—the same three who started the
controversy—for doing business with the school while sitting
on the board. Although no fraud or harm was alleged, the three
had been warned by state education official W.L. Coffey to cut
it out.
On April 20, Coffey arrived in Michigamme amidst the firing uproar
to learn that the January warning to the three board members had
been ignored. He asked them to resign, and when they refused,
called a hearing for May 5 in Marquette for them to “show
cause.”
In an April 24 editorial, the Iron Ore called the state law violations
“purely technical.” Sundstrom sold some batteries, paint
supplies and framing to the school through an unsolicited order.
And Schwendeman, one of two local insurance agents, “is entitled
to a share of the township’s business,” said the paper.
In another editorial on May 1, the Iron Ore again admitted the
law was violated, but wondered how the other two board members
could approve the questionable bills without also violating the
law. The town only has “ten to twelve business men. Should
doing business with all of them be outlawed? We do not believe
so, provided the business comes unsolicited and the regular charge
is made.”
The paper concluded that the law is there to prevent fraud but
sometimes goes too far when it handcuffs local communities.
That same day, the Iron Ore reported the hiring of a Professor
Kirkeberg from Prairie Du Chien (Wisconsin) as superintendent
by a 4-1 vote. Board president P.E. Paquin, who cast the “no”
vote, told the Mining Journal the tally really was 3-1, with trustee
Edward Elnes abstaining. Paquin denied an Iron Ore charge that
the town was more obsessed with basketball than education. He
said practices were held after hours, and since there was no gym,
the coach and players had to walk more than a mile to the nearest
practice site.
Many locals believed Walther’s dismissal had nothing to do
with his credentials or cost cutting. They knew he was a great
administrator and that Michigamme’s share of his $3,200 annual
salary was only $1,000 or so, with the balance coming from neighboring
Spurr Township paying Michigamme $75 a year per student for more
than thirty kids.
They suspected the board wanted all “hometown” teachers
(six of the nine were) and had a local man lined up to replace
Walther. It also was thought that a replacement for Miss Simon,
who wasn’t a local, was on tap, and that Mrs. Karpensky had
loaned her money for college.
Then came another shocker: Spurr Township threatened to hire Florence
Simons and start its own high school, thus depriving Michigamme
of all that tuition money.
At a contentious May 5 hearing in Marquette, the state charged
Sundstrom with selling $43 worth of goods to the school, that
Schwendeman wrote a policy on the school, and that Karpensky served
as school librarian for $6 a month—while all three were on
the board.
Because they ignored Coffey’s ultimatum to stop, he ordered
them removed. Coffey said the ousters were unrelated to the firings
or student walkout (which he first read about on his way up from
Lansing in April).
Sundstrom defended himself by claiming he only sold $18.40 in
goods, on which he “lost a few cents,” and added that
most school supplies came from other merchants. Then Schwendeman
admitted writing policies on the school for a $50 commission,
but so did the other local agent when he also was a board member.
For her part, Mrs. Karpensky acknowledged her $6 a month stipend
as school librarian, but claimed a board member traditionally
held this position.
Prosecuting attorney Thomas Clancey, representing the three ousted
board members, claimed that every township trustee in the Upper
Peninsula would be sacked “if cases of this kind were pressed.”
When he called Coffey’s order for another hearing in Lansing
as just more harassment, Coffey retorted with, “I am tired
of your bunk.”
None of the dismissed were in Lansing for the May 21 hearing before
state education chief Thomas Johnson. Because of high travel costs
and the state’s lack of proof that the school was harmed,
attorney Clancey criticized the hearing location. He also was
angry that accused trustee Schwendeman, disabled since childhood,
was expected to travel 400 miles from home when he couldn’t
even climb the courthouse steps in Marquette.
In blunt letters to each trustee, Thomas Johnson announced the
verdict: “You are hereby removed from office.” A Mining
Journal article concluded that Clancey proved “there was
no proper case...and that showing up in Lansing wouldn’t
have done any good anyway.” Even though there were violations,
“the nub of this case was the defiance of the state.”
Back in Michigamme, Iron Ore readers were startled by the latest
scoop: P.E. Paquin, employed as a railway mail clerk, was forced
by the post office to quit the school board because federal workers
were barred from elective boards. So, trustee Edward Elnes became
the entire board. It was time for a special election on June 12
to fill the vacancies until the regular election in July.
A slate of prominent town candidates, headed by Jean Harlow’s
temporary doctor, Isaiah Sicotte, led the ballot. The dismissed
members, however, refused to vacate their seats, calling the election
illegal because their appeal time hadn’t expired. Naturally,
said the Mining Journal, Michigamme was in a high state of excitement.
After Spurr Township loaned the school a ballot box when Michigamme’s
mysteriously disappeared, the election went on as planned. The
new slate was swept in, but when they tried to take over the school
accounts, Schwendeman wouldn’t give them up without a court
order.
A month later, the whole thing was repeated at the regular election,
despite a lawsuit to quash the results. When no court action ensued,
the election went on, with Sicotte’s now-incumbent slate
on the ballot.
The deposed had one final maneuver up their sleeves: they printed
their own ballots with their names already checked, and handed
them out to voters entering the polls. Describing the local mood
as “hostile,” the Mining Journal said the situation
was so strange it “would put a crossword puzzle to shame.”
Surprise! The Sicotte slate drew less than seventy votes each,
while the other group, which included the ousted Schwendeman and
Karpensky, polled more than 100 a piece on their homemade ballots.
The election board tossed out the fake ballots, certifying the
election of Dr. Sicotte, Otto Lund, Albert Olson, Ernest Christiansen
and John Treado. And so the dust finally settled on one of the
U.P.’s great adventures.
For the deposed board, life went on. Sundstrom ran his store until
his death in 1948. He also served four terms in the state legislature.
Insurance agent Schwendeman, who died in 1947, was township clerk
for many years. Karpensky, according to Dorothy Elnes Moore in
Michigamme Family Histories, would “split wood for her neighbors
as well as for her own household.”
Michigamme High School graduated its last class in 1965 and merged
with Republic.
—Larry Chabot
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