The Leona was one of the first summer homes built along the lakeshore and is a fine example of the Arts and Crafts style popularized around the turn-of-the-century by Gustave Stickley. It was built in 1911.

---

Linwood Icehouse Museum Awaits Placement in Park Next Week

Nostalgia for Days Gone By Envelop the Beach Area on Hot Midsummer Days

July 7, 2010
By: Dave Rogers

How can I forget Frank Walsh, the Leona, and the icehouse?

Answer: I can't.

I drove up and down Linwood Beach today looking for the icehouse museum.

Nobody seemed to know where it was.

"I'm not from around here," said one woman, taking a break from shepherding a child on a swing set.

"I'm from around here, but I never heard of it," said a construction worker looking guy fiddling with tools in a truck.

"Nope, never heard of it," proclaimed another man sweating in nearly 90 degree sun, adding with a pant: "Sounds great though; wonder if they have beer?

At the Linwood Beach Marina, a guy who looked like he was in charge, said: "Check the Linwood Party Store," they know what's going on there.

Sure enough, the guy at the Linwood Party Store knew, and gave me a name and phone number for a Larry Chambers.

It seems Mr. Chambers is the stem-winder of this project that is due to be erected at the Linwood Bicentennial Park (bicentennial means it was installed in 1976, just in case you weren't around then.)

Sadly, the Leona is gone, replaced by a new "cottage." However, next week the old, historic icehouse will be erected on a slab all ready to go at the park.

The project is funded by donations from private parties and the Bay Area Community Foundation. It will be a restored piece of history and the showplace of Linwood, being located very near the sign: "Welcome to Linwood."

At the ground breaking on May 22 memories were recalled of earlier halcyon days at the beach, of lazy summers when folks from the city had time to spend away from the hot city and their desks.

They came by Model T and train to rude cottages crowding the shores of Saginaw Bay, replaced now by fancy pricey brick palaces, many suited for all year living.

I recalled having a place at Linwood Beach in the 1960s and attending the beach festival; some of the folks I knew then are still around, and some are not.

Like the unforgettable Frank Walsh, a librarian and bookstore owner in Saginaw, who died in 2008. I can never forget the inscrutable Frank because he and I were kindred spirits of the book, of literature, of history.

At a memorable party at the Leona, the picturesque, venerable cottage of his family, he gave me a copy of the biography of James G. Birney called "Slaveholder to Abolitionist."

That started me on a nearly 20 year odyssey to write a successor volume to that book by Betty Fladeland. Her book started during her research at the University of Michigan into Mr. Birney after her professor, Dwight Lowell Dumond, had rescued Mr. Birney's papers from the basement of his grandson, George Birney Jennison, in Bay City. Someone had to decipher those scratchings, and Ms. Fladeland was selected. Her book, published by Cornell University Press, and two volumes of the letters resulted, published in 1966.

But I digress. Back to Linwood, and the heat.

It seems that nostalgia has been breaking out all over Linwood as a result of the project to save the almost lamented icehouse.

The icehouse, situated near the old Leona cottage, was nearly lost to history until it was rescued by Mr. Chambers and like-minded folks from the area. It was a stroke of wisdom and no doubt will provide inspiration to many devoted to historic preservation.

Frank Starkweather, a beach resident as a youth, recalled how the ice was loaded into the icehouse:

"They also brought lots of saw dust, which was plentiful and cheap. They would put several inches of saw dust on the floor, and then put the ice cubes down (big ones, heavy enough that a full sized man had a hard time lifting one). Saw dust would be shoveled between the cracks of the base level blocks, so they would not melt together into an impossible big, and solid chunk. Lots of saw dust would go around the outside of the base level, between the ice and the inside of the wall boards, That is where the saw dust was called on to do its most work: keeping the summer sun from melting the ice as it beat upon the walls."

At the groundbreaking for the museum, Broadway playwright Ken Gaertner read three of his poems and Rob Clark of The Bay City Times, as is his wont, composed and played an original ditty about the icehouse most appropriate for the occasion. Here is is, as found on the icehouse museum website:

The Icebox, by Rob Clark

Some people say it's nothing but a house for frozen water

Some people believe these walls cannot talk

Many know it as a place like no other

Where ghosts and legends still walk

These boards have lived for more than a century

They're filled with old paint and memories

They've seen generations blow through on the wind

They are the script of our history

So we gather here today to remember

We plant new seeds so we never will forget

CHORUS

They're carving out a puzzle out on Saginaw Bay

The boys are hauling in the blocks

Well it ain't easy work

Lord knows what it took

Day after day after day

To fill the icebox

They say these men work like thundering horses

They say these men set all fear aside

Some have conquered Mother Nature's forces

Some have slipped below the ice

So we gather here today to remember

We dig up dirt so we never will forget

CHORUS

Time has a way of skewing the truth

Time has a way of stealing our youth

Time is a mystery, to you and me

But time is on our side

A sunny day ... late May

A celebration pulled from the stacks

We move forward and build this place again

So those who come next can look back

CHORUS

Mr. Clark has a way of waxing musically poetic; and that he did, to his great credit.

So the icehouse has had its proper tribute and now awaits the final placement and the plaudits of the crowds who will no doubt be captivated by the idea of an old-time icehouse by the bay.

You can find our information about the Linwood Icehouse Museum, and donating to the project, at www.linwoodicehousemuseum.blogspot.com. ###