He Went to Bad Axe and We Never Heard From Him Again

Monday, June 17 (cont'd

When my grandmother wrote a brief outline of our family tree, she wrote of Ferdinand Nemitz "Papa's brother went to Bad Axe Michigan and we never heard from him again. "  I have always wondered how they knew that's where he went if they never heard from him! 

Over the years, I have found a lot of information about Ferdinand and his family, and have even located relatives from that branch.  But today, I want to see where he is buried.  

We asked directions in Harbor Beach, but didn't get too far.  While we were trying (unsuccessfully - but that's a different story) to get a propane tank filled, the woman told us to go to the tavern in Bad Axe and ask.  She also said, in talking about our being from California, that the best job she'd ever had was packing squid in Monterrey for $12.50 an hour.  Wow! She was about 60 and that's the best job she ever had...

We stopped again and got some sketchy directions that took us down this dirt road.  

We came to a cross roads.  Which way to turn?  This deer was standing in the road in one direction. It was nice to see a live deer for a change!

We took a chance and turned the other direction.  And we found it!

The roads were all chained off, and we had trouble parking.  There was a man there watering flowers, and I stopped to ask him if he knew where the Nemitz family plot might be.  He told me his uncle by marriage, Walter, was a Nemitz!  He suggested we look in the older section of the cemetery.

We pretty much walked the whole cemetery and I was just about to give up when John found it.  It was right next to the graves where the man had been watering!  I guess he never went beyond his immediate spot.

And there they were.  Ferdinand, his wife Carolina Timms Nemitz, and  their daughter's family the Kohlbergs. They were really here in the early days of settling in this area, Ferdinand was in his 30's when he came to the US and died (1937)  around the time Harbor Beach was incorporated.   Carolina died before that, 1908. There is some closure for me, seeing where they are buried.  And I am grateful for the contacts I have with his descendants.   It's a part of my heritage. They must have lived a hard life, being among the first to live here.

How did Bad Axe get its name, you ask?  The town was established in 1905.  While surveying a road through the wilderness in 1861, the surveyors made camp at the future site of the town and found a much-used and badly damaged axe.  They used the name "Bad Axe Camp" in the minutes of the survey and on a sign they placed along the main trail.  The post office at Bad Axe, established in 1860, carried the name.   Their current motto:  "The Hub of the Thumb."

Traveling on, across the thumb to the west, we saw these wind generators along the northern coast.  This has to be a huge flyway for migrating birds.  I'm sure there was a lot of controversy about them, as always, but it also tells me the weather here can be pretty harsh.  The area in the whole thumb is totally flat, which is what makes it attractive as farmland.  So it was under water at one point, and the soil is sediment and rich.

We passed through a town called Pigeon, with a sign that read "Thank you for Dropping in Pigeon."
It was probably named that because of the huge number of carrier pigeons that came this way.  The river is the Pigeon River, too. Boy, those carrier pigeons made an impact (so to speak) at least for a little while.

We are now on the "sunset" side of the thumb, in Bay City, Michigan.  It sits on the Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron.  It has a population of about 27,000.  It is divided by the Saginaw River and has four large draw bridges to allow big ships through.  The original industry was sawmills, followed by milling and shipbuilding.  In later years a plant here built destroyer escorts, guided missile destroyers, and patrol craft.  Another company here built industrial cranes.

All of which is my way of providing a segue to  these pictures of some of the very large homes in Bay City.  A lot of prosperous people here!  One of these homes was listed for sale at $450,000.

And here we are at the Saginaw River.  This is a very heavy industrial area, and part of the Saginaw, Michigan metro complex.  This area is right at the crook of the thumb, in the mitten of Michigan, to give a visualization!

So we are now going to head up into the upper main part of the "Mitten, " on the eastern side.