Memories of the River Rouge in old Dearborn

Ivadel (born 1898, grew up near Michigan Ave & Miltary):

The lowland along the Rouge was affectionately called "the Flats." Here we picked violets, spring beauties and adder tongues in the spring and wandered along the waters edge at all seasons of the year. Stepping stones had been placed across the stream in back of the [St. Joseph's] Retreat and we often spent happy hours there rearranging the stones. If we had had to lift such heavy weights at home, I am sure we could not have done it.

Henry Haigh wrote in his "Latter Days in Dearborn," "It was about the right kind of a stream for a boy -- a raging torrent in springtime when the freshet was on, but at other times a babbling brooklet over which in places one might almost jump."

One experience of the raging torrent I remember well. The boys of the neighborhood had gone swimming as soon as the ice was out of the stream and my brother, John, was among them. The current was swift and Hoyt Travers was being carried down by the surging water. John, who was much stronger and taller, grabbed him as he was yelling for help. There were probably many other episodes that were not told.

My mother had forbidden my brothers to go to the river but they were drawn to the water, just as most youngsters are today.

Dorotha (born about 1900, grew up at Michigan Ave & Howe St):

We had..a small duck pond where each Sunday the neighbors (four I think) would drive their children to the River Rouge a few blocks from the house for a good swim. We never minded the trouble it took to get them out of the water and on the way home again.

Marie (born about 1900, grew up near Michigan Ave & Military):

Dearborn was a wonderful place for children at the turn of the century. Looking back it seems like a different world after the first world war.

Each season brought its special delights. Most of the children went to the only public school. We all walked to school and most of us home again for lunch. We looked for the first signs of spring -- the pussywillows growing in the swampy land near the school, the first spring beauties, and after the usual spring flooding of the Rouge River, went on violet-picking excursions down on the "flats." We made May baskets to hang on doorknobs on the first day in May.