Detroit by Gertrude Snow

Detroit

Before the interurban was built to Dearborn in 1897, we usually went to Detroit by train, although my older sister Clara remembers riding bicycles in with Mother as far as the Detroit streetcars. Once the interurban came, we walked down to Mason and Michigan and took it to the Detroit City Hall. We made a trip into town about once a week.

We went to Detroit for shopping -- clothes and food -- and school and amusements. We bought our shoes at Fyfe's. We shopped at Taylor-Woolfenden's and Newcomb-Endicott's. Taylor-Woolfenden was a favorite until it moved north on Woodward. This move didn't work for them and they later went out of business. We went to Hudson's or Kern's for dresses, notions, yard goods and household necessities. We considered Endicott's the best.

We also patronized the three grocery stores on Woodward below City Hall: McMillan's, Wallaces and O'Brien's. Two O'Brien children were in dancing school with me. We would buy special things in Detroit, such as oysters for stew. Mother was fond of oysters. Of course, most food we got in Dearborn. We also went to the Broadway public market, a collection of small shops. We bought our Christmas candy at Kuhn's.

Mother and Harry, my brother, and I would go to the ball game a couple of times a year -- Clara wasn't much interested. If our cousin Ray was staying with us, he would go too. We would go down on the interurban. The games started at 2 or 2:30 -- something like that -- and we would get out about 5 or 5:30. Then we crossed Trumbull to where there was a corner saloon, to get the car to come home. We always sat in the grandstand and we liked to get between home and third base. The Park wasn't as big as it is now but it was still high -- we had a roof over our heads in the grandstand. Of course they didn't in the bleachers. We didn't eat a lot but we would often get popcorn. I especially remember the wonderful team they had in 1910 or 11, with Ty Cobb and a catcher whose name I don't remember.

I remember the corner saloon from another favorite family story, one about my grandmother and her great friend Aunt Gussie Parker, the wife of Col. Francis H. Parker, one of the commandants at the Arsenal in Dearborn. They were coming back from visiting Cousin Lizzie in Detroit and had to wait on the corner for the interurban to Dearborn. All of a sudden it started to rain torrents, and Aunt Gussie, who could either be a proper lady or one not so proper, went into the saloon, grandmother in tow, for protection. This was unheard of in those days, for a real lady to go into a saloon. The proprietor, astonished and upset, came forward to ask "Madame, is there anything we can do for you?" The two stayed there until the car came.

We also sometimes visited a vaudeville house named Wonderland in downtown Detroit, back of the Opera House and Hudson's, usually on Saturday afternoons. This was vaudeville which often ended with a short comedy play. I also remember an exhibit of small animals in glass cages. I think Wonderland went out of business when I was a child; it had gone by the time I was in high school. We didn't go very often as Mother didn't really approve of it.