Tale of Two Storefronts: Brinton and Lake

By ANGELA KELLOGG-HENRY

Cleaver Managing Editor

If you research Clare County history a lot, you’ll realize items from Lake are hard to come by. It has always been a small community, and photos, ephemera, and other historical items don’t pop up every day. It can even be difficult to research. If you search “Lake, Michigan” on search engines, auction sites, and antique sites you can imagine what you get; a lot of results that are not from Lake, Clare County, Michigan.

Recently, two postcards popped up on an auction site bearing the postmark of Lake, Michigan. Both were real photo postcards, which means it is probably the only one, and generally not mass produced. It was labeled Lake, Michigan Town Hall and had a Lake postmark. The building didn’t fit with anything I knew to exist in Lake, so it was puzzling. My friend Andy Coulson suggested it could be Brinton. A quick look through the Brinton Centennial guide in the Harrison District Library found the exact photo and it was sure enough it was Brinton. Brinton is just to the south of Lake in Isabella County. Brinton had their own post office from 1888 to 1906 so it makes sense for mail from Brinton to postmarked at Lake after 1906.

When I actually inspected the postcard. In the body of the message at the top it said Brinton and was dated Nov. 19, 1911, but postmarked in Lake, Nov. 21, 1911.

The message reads, “I will you this card to let you know that I have not forgotten you. This is our hall. This ___ of this building is directly across the street. This is where I am every Saturday night. The man that stands with his hand on the pole is the shopkeeper in the lower hall Berk Clark. The women are Rebeckahs just out of lodge. When you come up I will show you all about it. So goodnight. From your ever true friend. J.A. F.”

 This all made sense until the second card popped up and was a store front again with a postmark of Lake. They were written in the same hand and the first addressed to Mrs. Dell Parsons, Winchester Indiana R.1. The second addressed to Miss Time Parsons, Winchester Indiana R.1. A quick look in ancestry determines they were mother and daughter, Time was about 24 years of age in 1910, and her mother Phidella was about 50 years old.

The second card shows a store front with a stairway to the left. The windows do not match and its hard to say if the buildings are the same. This postcard is dated Dec. 3, 1911, and postmarked in Lake on Dec.5. Of course, the building could be the same just modified years or months apart. The photo in the postcard could be from any time period.

The second post card reads, “Dear Time, Sunday night 930 am so sleepy and ____ Wrote a letter I had to go out at 3 o'clock this morning [illegible sentence that refers to a sick cow] was up late at lodge elections of officers. This is one of our stores. I will tell you who they are when you get here. Warm today. Good by. From J.A.F. to T.P.”

So, one wants to assume the store shown in the second postcard is actually in Lake since the author references two stores. The gentleman in both photos she identifies as Bert Clark appears in both photos. The old newspapers do mention a Bert Clark as a businessman in the area.

If anyone has information about these postcards, please contact the Cleaver office or email editor@clarecountycleaver.net.