Who Had a Phone in 1917?

Quite a few people had phones in 1917. Small communities had one or more public phones, businesses often had phones and a surprising number of farm families. I scanned in the pages of this 1917 phone book belonging to Luther Finch and you can click here to go the their page. This little 64 page booklet covered 16 communities in Manistee, Benzie, Wexford, Osceola, and Missaukee counties. They included Arcadia, Benzonia, Beulah, Buckley, Cadillac, Copemish, Dighton, Frankfort, Harlan, Hartwick, Honor, Hoxieville, Lake City, Marion, Mesick and Thompsonville. Besides scans for this website, I created a set at higher resolution in tif format that needs to go out on a CD or stick drive. Let me know at my email steve@dryhillpress.com if you’d like to arrange to get a copy.

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MISS HERZOG’S ROOM 1933

This is a 6′ by 3.5″ photo of Arcadia School students taken in 1933 according to the writing on the back. Only 4 of the students’ names are included: Clinton Brown, Bernard Finch, Dale Hopkins, Claude Gilbert – the first 4 boys in the back row starting from the left. Bernard Finch, my father’s brother, was born in August 1922 so would have been 10 or 11 at the time. I think the fifth student from the left in the middle row may be my aunt, Bernard’s sister, Juanita Finch, who was born in 1925 so 7 or 8 years old. Can you identify any of these students?

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Tough Loss for the Arcadia Trojans

February 2, 1945 was not a good day for the Arcadia High School basketball team. They played against Bear Lake and would have won except for some unfortunate footwork on the free-throw line. My father, Nelson Finch, played in this game, and no, he wasn’t the one who messed up. The clipping on this post is the first paragraph of the article in the February 6, 1945 Manistee County Pioneer Press. The amazing thing to me is that this four page paper had twenty-nine column inches devoted to this game that ended 26-25. The NBA doesn’t get that much press! I put the whole article on a page of its own where you can read it by clicking here.

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