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Past columns come alive in local book
By CHRISTIE BLECK
Published May 6, 2007
in the Ingham County
Community News
MASON — Small-town newspapers hold a
curious place in the publishing world. They can be of huge interest to
the local community, yet outsiders are mostly oblivious to them.
But the locals don't really care. They
just want to read about what's going on in their backyard, their
neighbors' backyard and so on.
Mason residents from the 1930s to the
early '60s had the Ingham County
News, the forerunner of the current Ingham
County Community News, to give them the scoop on community
happenings. One of the ways it informed its readers was through the
insightful and humorous "Down by the Sycamore" columns written by
Nelson D. Brown, who joined his father, Vernon Jacobs Brown, as a
partner with the News in 1923.
Nelson Brown died in 1961 of leukemia.
However, his words now live on — beyond the yellowed
back issues —in the
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form of the new book, "Down by the
Sycamore: From the files of the Ingham County News," compiled by his
daughter, Margaret Brown Doolittle of Mason.
Published by the Mason Area Historical
Society, which will reap the proceeds of the book, the first volume in
the series covers the columns between 1937 and 1941.
The individual pages kicking off each
year in "Down by the Sycamore" include a photo plus a collection of top
headlines from that year. Photos include the three-story Harry and Iva
Rayner Bond home at the corner of Barnes and Ash streets and Maple
Grove Cemetery.
In the book's foreword, Doolittle writes
of her childhood memories — the smells of printers' ink, hot lead and
pumice soap; calling number after number in the Mason telephone
directory to ask the dreaded question, "Do you have any social items
today?"; and lifelong lessons gleaned from her father about hard work,
honesty, independence, and being true to one's self.
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"My father taught me to read and then he
inspired in me his own love of words, books and writing, and the desire
to do the best possible job I could at whatever task I undertook,"
Brown wrote.
It takes a village to write a
book
At a crowded April 28 book-signing at
Bestsellers, Doolittle, who worked at compiling "Down by the Sycamore"
since last October, acknowledged, "I've learned a lot about publishing
a book."
It was, after all, a collaborative
effort that included the help of Richard and Dorothy Ferris, who
indexed the book; Bill Thorburn and Mary Jeanette Davis Smith, who
verified names, dates and events; and the staff of the Mason Public
Library, which according to Doolittle turned over its key to the
newspaper room numerous times so she could pore over old back issues.
Elaine Ferris, a member of the Mason
Area Historical Society, said there's a great deal of interest in the
history of Mason, where, she said, there are "a lot of people with
common ancestry."
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Barb
Tornholm, who serves on the Mason Planning Commission, credits the
Historical Society with nurturing the love of local history through its
strong membership and the Mason Area Historical Museum.
"They
really do some phenomenal things," said Tornholm, who attends the same
church as Doolittle, First Presbyterian.
Tornholm
said Doolittle was interested in preserving her father's writings as a
legacy for her children and grandchildren.
"It
started with just the kids," Tornholm said. "Dorothy Ferris encouraged
her to share it more broadly."
Thus
was born "Down by the Sycamore," whose next volume in the series,
covering 1942-45, will be out Nov. 17.
"Down by the Sycamore"
is
available at Bestsellers, the Mason Area Historical Museum and from
Doolittle. Contact her at
mar43doo@cablespeed.com,
(517) 676-2693 or 901 Gary Court, Mason, MI 48854. The cost is $15 or
$18 if mailed.
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