AACHM Oral History: Thekla Mitchell
Sun, 11/08/2020 - 9:27am
Thekla Mitchell: Thekla White was born in 1921 in Newport, Arkansas, the youngest of nine siblings. At age 22, she traveled to Ann Arbor to visit her sister. After getting a job at Cunningham’s Drug Store, she decided to stay. She worked at the University of Michigan Hospital as a nurses’ aid and laboratory assistant in the Pathology Department for 24 years. Known as “Dimples” to friends and family, Mrs. Mitchell was active in community organizations including the Ann Arbor Civic Club and the Order of the Eastern Stars.
Farming Is Hazardous, Report Indicates

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Cubans Hoping For More Sugar Sales

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Oddly Shaped Egg, October 1959

Ann Arbor News, October 21, 1959
Caption
EGG WITH A LEG: We're not "eggs"actly sure what happened here, but somehow this hen's egg took a turn for the different. This is how it appears alongside two normal eggs. They're the property of Mrs. George Wandel, 5894 Earhart Rd., Northfield township.
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Legacies Project Oral History: Mary Frazier
Thu, 01/16/2020 - 9:10am
Mary Frazier was born in 1910 in Marion, Arkansas, where her father owned a 140-acre cotton farm. She describes sharecropping, Black land-ownership, and the devastating effects of the boll weevil infestation on the cotton industry in the early twentieth century. When her father’s farm went under, she moved to Detroit to live with her aunt in the Black Bottom neighborhood. Over the course of her career, Frazier worked as a domestic laborer, hospital worker, and U.S. Postal Service employee. She completed her high school education at age 83.
Mary Frazier was interviewed by students from Skyline High School in Ann Arbor in 2010 as part of the Legacies Project.
Legacies Project Oral History: Ben Helmke
Wed, 01/15/2020 - 9:42am
Ben Helmke grew up on a farm in Pratt County, Kansas in the 1930s. He served as an organist in the Army chaplain’s office at Camp Schimmelpfennig (now Camp Sendai) in Japan. Helmke graduated from Hastings College and McCormick Seminary and got his masters in social work from the University of Michigan. He and his wife Polly raised three children and he started his own mental health clinic. Late in life, he came out as gay to his wife and children. He lived happily with his partner Len Quenon for 25 years.
Ben Helmke was interviewed by students from Skyline High School in Ann Arbor in 2016 as part of the Legacies Project.
Potatoes at DuRussel Potato Farm, January 1997

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Inspecting Potatoes on Conveyer Belt at DuRussel Potato Farm, February 1993
