Septaquintaquinquecentennial

Ralph Fowler looks a little worried but he shouldn’t be – the little village he founded is still going strong after 175 years. He’d actually be smiling if he knew a former resident was destined to have a super interesting blog like this!

I was looking forward to being in Michigan for the Fourth of July so the fact that my little hometown was celebrating its Septaquintaquinquecentential was just a bonus.

I spent the first couple days of my trip touring Detroit and the Detroit metro area visiting my friends and their little babies. It’s so hard to squeeze in every one you want to see so I made a rule that I only visit people that have 1)Tigers or Lugnuts tickets 2)BBQ & Pool Parties or 3) My nephew & a Septaquintaquinquecentential celebration.  Fireworks are always expected.

Anyway, so after getting all those visits over with I headed to The ‘Ville. My mom is the one who is responsible for me being a museum and tourist activity enthusiast so it was fitting that as soon as I got there we went to the new town “museum” which was a couple tables of stuff set up in an antique shop.  They are hoping to get a permanent home for the historical collection and I hope they do. I will donate my Fowlerville Fair purple ribbon and my senior picture (one of the poses that best shows my Lee press-on nails of course).

Speaking of senior pictures – the museum included a book that had composite photos of every graduating class of Fowlerville High School. There was blank space underneath all the photos for comments. No one had written anything and I kind of regret not filling out my extended opinion of the classes of the late 80s and early 90s. But I did draw mustaches on a few people. Kidding. That would have been pointless since half of the classes back then had those ridiculous mustaches anyway.

 

They had all kinds of old village business stuff and info about Fowlerville’s most famous resident:

And we overheard word of a historical walking tour and talked the whole fam into going the next day. It was great because there were people on the tour that were lifelong residents (multi-generational) and added stuff like “I remember taking tap dancing lessons in that basement in the 50s!”

We learned that one of the houses on Grand River was an original Sears Craftsman house so for the rest of my visit every time we drove by we would say “Did you know that is an original Sears Craftsman House?”  Gol darn it is fun to learn new things about your old teeny town.

Before the walking tour I went with my mom to the breakfast at the senior center. They had little kids singing patriotic songs and a quilt being raffled off. I fully expect to win.  

Oh and some church kids decorated the placemats:

AND they had an awesome Ronald Reagan calendar by our table:

If all of that sounds like heaven I have one last magical story to tell you about my visit.

We stopped at the IGA where I used to work (well it is no longer an IGA but a re-done independent grocery store with the same owners) and I saw some of my old grocery store people and mentioned that I was bummed because they didn’t have any sprinkle cake donuts that I know and love. I barely finished my complaint when my old friend went behind the deli to get to work on crafting up some sprinkle cake donuts. “Vanilla or chocolate icing?” Small town service.

CUSTOM CAKE Ds:

I might move back and give ghost tours of the cemetery or maybe a walking tour of all the houses we used to TP or all the trees and cornfields that were markers for keggers. Lots of history in that lil village there – even more than tap dancing in basements, craftsman houses, and famous baseball players. Oh if these donuts could talk…

*the top photos were ripped from the Village of Fowlerville brochure about the Septaquintaquinquecentential. The rest were taken by me. The donuts were mostly eaten by me.