Yesterday

Miss Cornelia Corselius deserves to be remembered for more than her polysyllabic alliterative name. Ann Arbor's first writer of children's stories, she captured on paper the innocense of childhood in 19th century Washtenaw County. Her stories, virtually plotless, teil of bright afternoons spent gathering hickory nuts west of Dexter, fishing in the river, or wandering up to Dixboro to fetch home a strayed cow. Danger. when present, takes the form of familiar childhood terrors--a sudden rainstorm, frj)itening heights, loud noises, and the swiftly-descending darkness of the night. Miss Corselius spent many years as a teacher in the public schools of Ann Arbor, using stories to amuse her restless students when the need arose. Presumably. her use of familiar scènes and situations more readily drew the young listeners under her spell, making little girls forget all about passing notes and making faces at the boys, while causing little boys to neglect countless opportunities for dipping braided pigtails in an inkwell bath. These stories vvere gathered together in a small book of 165 pages called "Financie, and Stories from Real Life" printed in Ann Arbor by the Register Publishing Company in 1885. The book was not Cornelia's only claim to fame. She is also remembered by grateful later historians as the first local writer to preserve information about historie houses in town, her information having come down to us through a paper read to an Ann Arbor Women's Club in 1909. Authur Lyon Cross, historian of St. Andrew"s Episcopal Church, gave her credit for rescuing data of parish history which--save for her diligence--would have been forever lost. Her interest in local history may have stemmed from the tact that her father. George Corselius, made much of the early history of Ann Arbor all by himself. He had been the editor of Ann Arbor's first newspaper. donor of the land for St. Andrew's Church, promoter of the Michigan Central Railroad. and the first man to leave Ann Arbor for the California Gold Rush in 1849. In failing health at the time, he picked up a fever on the Panama route, died, and was buried at sea. His loyal daughter Cornelia had his biography inserted in the "Vanity" section of S. W. Beakes' Past and Present of Washtenaw County. a sumptuous volume published for area subscribers in 1906. fifty-seven years after her father's untimely dcath. and exactly one hundred years after his birth. "To the Children of Ann Arbor, among whom the greater part of the writer"s life has been spent, this unambitious little volume is respectfullv dedicated" is the inscription opposite gives her consent, and Tommy starts off to his Uncíe Hítrry's farm, trudging along the dirt road on a bright Saturday in . October. "You know it is nine miles from An Arbor to Dexter," Miss Corselius reminds us. "and Uncle Harry's farm where the nuts grew was one mile beyond, which made ten." Tommy Bright, who has no conception of the distance involved, is luckily offered a ride by a gentleman in a buggy, who lives "a mile beyond Honey Creek." Eager to begin nutting, Tommy heads directly for the hickory grove instead of stopping at his uncle's farmhouse. He loads his pockets and a box he has brought with him, then leaves without speaking to anyone-"as he must be home before night-fall." Luck is with him again, as "a little way beyond Dexter Village he overtook a man on a load of wheat. He asked Tommy to ride and gave him a seat on a bag of wheat beside him." Tommy rides as far as Scio Mills, where the man stops to grind the wheat. "If I were you, Bob, I'd keep right down the rail-road," he tells Tommy, "they say that is the nearest way to Ann Arbor." Tommy continúes until darkness descends, but finds himself on the edge of a railroad bridge over the Huron, which he dares not cross for fear of falling through. "To add to his confusión and terror the shriek of a locomotive was heard in the distance." Arbor "and the river winding through the deep green valley." "How blue the river is today," says Libbie. Blue!! There is an old school house on a hill by the road, just east of U.S. 23. Nellie and Libbie saw it when it was still in use, and when four-lane paved highways were undreamed of. "The door and windows were wide open, so they looked in and saw all that was going on. The girls' sun-bonnets hung on one side; the boys' hats, some without crowns, some nearly brimless, hung on the opposite side. There were fifteen scholars present, five in their seats and ten in the spelling class, toeing a-crack in the floor, every one barefooted, girls and all. One little chap near the door was trying to piek up a pebble with his toes " The girls reach the farm, and are told that Mrs. Jones' cow will be driven back to town that evening. Mrs. Morton, the farmer's wife, fixes them some refreshments as they sit "in the large, clean kitchen, Nellie in the rocking chair and Libbie on the couch by the window." "She spread a snowy cloth on the table, then made two or three trips to the pantry and back, one dowa cellar, then they heard the pump handle moving vigorously. The next instant she came in with a pitcher of cool water," and fresh bread and butter. doughnuts, ball of Dutch cheese, tarts and peach preserves. Refreshed, the girls start back for Ann Arbor, but linger to piek some wild plums. Suddenly they are caught in a downpour, and straggle home wet and muddy. When Nellie gets home, Mrs. Bright scolds her for going off without permission, feeds her bitter herb tea "to keep from catching cold," and sends her to bed. "The poor child was too weary to grieve much. She was soon fast asleep and never awoke until morning." Several weeks later, Ned Harris, an older boy, takes Tommy and the girls fishing. Ned knows of "a good place down the river just below the second railroad bridge," which, in terms of today's geography, would place them in the Arboretum, opposite the back end of Huron Towers. The fishing proves excellent; Nellie gets a bite the minute she drops in her line, and Libbie quickly lands a "fair-sized black bass." On the way to the river, Ned tells the story of "old I Rheinbeck, out on the Saline Road," who came to town in the I winter with a load of wood on a sledge, pulled by a yoke of I oxen. He sold the wood, then stopped Schneider's grocery, I while he went in for a drink. "Rheinbeck found the schnapps I and company both suited to his mind and stayed talking andj I chapter one of "Financie". The book takes lts title trom the name oí' a character who appears incidentally in a few of the i stories. two-year oíd Financie Parshall. Her proud father explained the unusual name to a visitor: "It is in no ways likely that either her mother or myself j will live to bring her up. When she was a year oíd I invested five hundred dollars at ten percent for her, which is not to be touched. principal nor interest, till she is twenty-one. She is to have her support out of the farm the same as the rest, so she will have quite a nice property when she comes of age. I am going to have her taught how to take care of her money, and so named her Financie." If her face were not her fortune, her name would be. Financie, alas, is not a Washtenaw County girl, so we need not follow her fortunes here. Only three of the stories in the book possess recognizable local color. All recount the adventures of Tommy and Nellie Bright and Nellie's friend and inseparable companion, Libbie Jones. TO DEXTER FOR NUTS One day. eight-year-old Tommy approaches his distracted mother to ask, "Mamma, may I go up to Dexter and get somé hickory nuts?" Not really hearing the question, Mrs. Bright Hom me DOOK) Little Tommy screams for help with all his might, and is quickly found and taken in by a kindly cottager, who lives with his wife nearby. The next morning, fed and rested, Tommy is returned to his frantic parents with a gift chicken under his arm, and a standing invitation to gather the plentiful nuts which lie in the woods near his rescuer's home. On "a cool, pleasant morning the summer after her brother Tommy's adventure," Nellie Bright goes to spend the day with Libbie Jones. The girls are looking for something to do when Mrs. Janes suggests, "Girls, how would you like to walk out a piece on the Dixboro Road and see if you can hear anything of the cow? She has been gone since yesterday morning and I imagine she has gone back to her old home." The girls set out walking along the dusty road toward Dixboro from Ann Arbor, which we now cali Plymouth Road (not to be confused with Dixboro Road itself, which runs north and south). The find the cow in the pasture of its former owner, but encounter some diversions on the way. THE HURÓN RAN BLUE "After climbing the long, steep hill" of Broadway, the girls stop to caten their breath and admire the view of Ann drinking with the others around the stove so long that thej team began to get uneasy." Two mischievous children B jumped on the sledge and the oxen tore off for home, downB the Main Street hill, "past the soap factory, through theB hollow and most to the top of the long hill by Mr. Gray'sB before they slacked up." The oxen walked home, and sol eventually did the inebriated Mr. Rheinback. The girls are fishing quietly from the railroad trestle whenB their rêverie is suaaeniy sriarterea oy me =i..;i. -r J locomotive. The boys, on the bank nearby, are unable to helpB them. The river is too shallow for a jumps, so Libbie andB Nellie climb down on the braces and hang on for dear life.B "The poor children shut their eyes, but the horrid din andB roar, worse than all the thunder storms they had everl experienced mingled into one, they could not shut out, forl they needed their hands to cling to the support with, and it I was all they could do to keep themselves from being thrown I into the river. It was over at last, but the few seconds seemed I ages long, measured by their agony. Some friendly University freshmen, fishing in a boat I nearby, rescue the girls from their precarious perch and give I all four children a ride back up the river "to the foot of the hill I by the Old Brewery," presumably the brewery that once I stood near the south end of the Broadway bridge. Strings of I fresh fish proudly in tow, they return home, none the worse I for their brief brush with disaster. In the story of the missing cow, when the girls have I reached the summit of the Broadway hill and see the bright I town of Ann Arbor spread below them, Nellie exclaims, "if I somebody could paint this landscape just exactly as it looks I now...it would be about the prettiest picture I ever saw in my I life." In her stories of Ann Arbor childhood, Miss Corselius I contributed some brush strokes to the canvas. - Way BackWhen -