A ROBIN’S WINTER

MY EARLY LIFE

          I often think about how lucky I was to grow up in a small town.  I still consider Linwood, Michigan to be one of the most wonderful places in the world.  My mother always said, "It's great to travel, but it's always wonderful to get back home," and I wholeheartedly agree.

          My parents both grew up in Linwood and knew one another all their lives.  It took a while for them to discover one another and decide they wanted to be lifetime companions.  Dad was twenty-nine and Mom twenty-five when they ‘tied the knot’ in St. Anne's Church in 1934.  I came into this world, the first of four children, nine months and eleven days later in the front bedroom of the Ballard homestead across from the Linwood Hotel.

          Soon after, they moved to Flint, Michigan, where Dad got a job in a General Motors Auto Plant.  I remember Mom telling me how hot it was in their little apartment in Flint, and how much we suffered from the record heat wave that summer.  I also remember her saying how she never got to know her neighbors, and how different life in a big city was from the life she had known in Linwood.  While there, my sister, Carole, was born.  Dad got laid off from his factory job at the General Motors Plant in Flint, so he went to Flint Barber School and got his license to barber. Leonard, Anne, and their two young children returned to Linwood.

          The first home I can remember in Linwood was a cottage- like structure on Benjamin Street directly behind the State Bank of Linwood and Grandma & Grandpa Ballard’s house. 

While living there, one day in particular stands out- the day of the Great Bank Robbery.  I was a youngster of about three or four, peeking out from behind a big tree in our back yard, watching this exciting happening unfold.  Two young men had broken a side window and were armed and lying in wait for Joe Oulette to arrive.  They planned to have him open the safe, give them the contents, and make a fast get-a-way.

          It so happened that Harry, Joe's brother, who worked in the little Cheese Factory next to the bank, arrived about 7:00 AM for work, noticed the broken window, and looked inside and saw the would-be robbers lying in wait for his brother.  Word spread throughout the community, and local townsfolk armed themselves with rifles and shotguns and surrounded the bank (Just like a vigilante committee in the Old West).  The Barrett Hardware, across the street from the bank, provided weapons for those who wanted them.

          The would-be robbers finally realized what was happening and that their attempt to rob the bank had failed.  The Bay County Sheriff Department officers arrived shortly and apprehended the culprits.  And people often said, "Nothing ever happens in Linwood."

          We eventually moved into a bigger house on the corner of Center Street and First Street.  This house was located, I found out later, on the exact spot where the famous Rosebush Hotel was located in days gone by.  The Rosebush was a pretty impressive structure which had several rooms to rent upstairs and a dining room, a bar room, barber shop, and ice cream parlor and pool room on the first floor.

          A few things stand out in my memory of the white house on the corner.  One was hearing my mother screaming in the back bedroom.  Dr. Drummand, our family physician, was at my mother's bedside as my sister Nancy was being delivered.  Not knowing what was happening in there, I was terrified.  Someone should have explained to me what was going on.  In those days, many deliveries were made at home.

          One day, my Uncle Ed Ballor, who owned the local Lumber Yard, came over and he and Mom were talking about the outbreak of WW II. I didn't understand at that age what war was all about, but I could see they were upset.

          While living in the house on the corner, my folks learned that the large brick building next door was for sale.  My folks seized the opportunity and purchased the building from my Uncle Ed.  After purchasing this building (which was a Recreation with pool tables, pin ball machines, ice cream coolers, etc.) my folks built living quarters in connection, and soon we moved in.  Dad enclosed an area in