The Road to Powers

by John B. Anderson

The forties, fifties and sixties brought many miracles in the field of medicine. When I attended Lakeside School, we received smallpox vaccines. (I don't know whether or not the parents had to sign waivers.) Dr. T. from Ti-County Public Health lined us up and shot us. Most of us didn't experience a reaction to the inoculations, except for one of the La Vance girls, who had to wear a protective plastic cup on her arm for awhile to allow the spot to heal.

Junior High brought the polio vaccines. The teachers would parade us to the old gym, line us up, and the nurses would shoot us. A couple of the kids didn't cotton to needles, and they passed out. Some of the kids were brave, and watched as the needles were driven home – not me. I never have liked needles.

When we got to high school, the t.b. Inoculations changed the lives of the Anderson family forever. Sandy and I both tested positive for the tuberculosis germ. The positive test didn't mean that a person had t.b., it meant that we had been exposed to someone who had t.b., and that we had develop antibodies against it. People who test positive with the skin test will always test positive with the test, so we are relegated to getting a chest x-ray every couple of years. All of our family went to the clinic, initially, to get our chest x-rays. Dad was suspect. He went to Powers Sanatorium for a gastric test, which turned out positive.

Our lives were turned upside down. Dad went to stay at the Powers San., isolating him from the general public. We weren't even allowed to see him for the first couple of weeks. At that point in Dad's treatment, we were allowed to see him on the weekends. We made the trek from Manistique to Powers every Sunday, 180 miles, for two and one half years. Mom did all of the driving, until Sandy and I got our licenses, but, even then, it was mostly Mom. I learned the names of every named creek and river between Manistique and Powers. I could also tell you every curve and turn in the road.

Sandy and I sometimes walked around Powers while Mom stayed with Dad. We visited Ann Nelson, who worked at the Dairy Cream. We sometimes got a cheeseburger at, “The Hut,” a quanset hut restaurant. We would take bets as to whether the owner was a man or a woman. We could never decide, even with Mom's input. We even walked to the Old Cedar swimming hole. One Sunday, Joyce Ann joined us on the Powers trip. Mom allowed the girls to join some boys from Spaulding to go swimming there. The boys invited the girls to the Spaulding Theater that evening, thus making our trip home much later than usual.

Some times the drive home at night was eventful. One night the sky around Big Bay-De-Noc were filled with bay flies. The car wipers couldn't clear them fast enough from the windshield to see, and the pavement was so slippery, that the car went down US-2 sideways. On another night, the highway, just west of Cooks Corner, the road was filled with deer. I don't know how Mom did all of that driving for all of those Sundays.

After the first year, Dad was granted off-site privileges. We drove to Powers, picked up Dad, and drove to neighboring towns. We visited Hermansville, where Dad had previously worked for the Earle family, in their lumber yard. (The Earles went on to buy and create Blaney Park.) On other Sundays, we visited Iron Mountain, Escanaba, Menominee, Stephenson, Norway, (where we saw the giant Aslen milk bottle office), and other towns. My restaurant choice at that time was a good cheeseburger. My two winning restaurants in that regard were The Stone House in Escanaba and a little pink house restaurant in the village of Daggett.

Things at home were a challenge. Thank goodness we lived in Manistique, for all of the support that we received from other folks. Mom went back to teaching at Cooks. She even became superintendent after a year. (The wages weren't much, and she got a raise by eventually going back to teach fifth grade at Fairview in the Manistique system.) Fred Hahn at First National gave us a loan, to be paid back when my father returned. Johnny Vaughan said that we could charge groceries at his market until my dad returned. Our neighbor, Gus, brought us buckets of smelt. Our relatives helped out, as well. When my mom got pneumonia, Aunt Hildur took us in until my mom got home from the hospital. I worked at The Surf, Sandy worked at Denny's and Sunny Shores, and we pitched in to keep us going.

A miracle drug! The new drug would gather the t.b., and transport it into a lesion in the lung. A lot of patients had the lesion removed, if it were small enough. My Dad's lesion was too large, so he was sent home with a promise to limit his activity, so not to break the lesion. We were a family once again. Dad was as fast as he was previously, but he was with us.