Shelley Dumas Family papers, 1872-2023 (Scattered), and undated

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Central Michigan University Clarke Historical Library

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Mount Pleasant, MI 48859, USA

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Restrictions:: Shelley Dumas Family papers are open for research.

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Summary

Creator:: Dumas, Shelley.
Abstract:: This collection of family papers includes photographic materials, papers, family trees, and newspaper or magazine clippings of the Copeman and Reimer families and their friends and family from the Mount Pleasant, Michigan area.
Extent:: 1.5 cubic feet (in 3 boxes, 1 Oversized Folder)
Language:: English
Authors:: Collection processed and finding aid created by N. Armstrong, M. Matyn

Background

Scope and Content:

This collection of family papers includes photographic materials, papers, family trees, and newspaper or magazine clippings of the Copeman and Reimer families and their friends and family from the Mount Pleasant, Michigan area. The collection is organized by series, alphabetically, and chronologically. Overall, the collection is in very good condition with some acidification, one glass plate negative with a broken corner, and tintypes which are a bit warped with minor edge damage. The major series of this collection are Copeman, Reimer, and Simonds. Nina Copeman is the main person in connection in the Copeman papers due to her historical family research. Much of the series consists of photographic materials including multiple formats of photographs from ambrotypes and tintypes through color photography. Papers consist of family correspondence, including about family history, materials related to their relative Linda Ronstadt, and the Henry Baldwin Copeman family farm in Crawford, Michigan. The Reimer series also consists of family photographs and materials, with photographs of reunions and family headstones in Palo and Mount Pleasant cemeteries. The Simonds series consists of photographs of family and their grocery store located in Mount Pleasant. The rest of the collection consist of family photographs and materials from the related Brownell, Ettinger, and Preston Families, as well as materials related to Palo Schools, Central State Teachers College, later Central Michigan University, history, and postcards with substantive notes between family members and photographic postcards of family members. The Oversized folder contains photographs of the Henry Baldwin Copeman Farm and Copeman and Reimer family trees.

Researchers should note that materials related to the family’s homestead in Idaho, Kenneth and Taimie Preston’s college photographs, Kenneth Preston’s work with the Civilian Conservation Corp, and Henry B. Copeman’s remaining diaries (including all Ku Klux Klan entries) were donated to the University of Idaho by the donor. The remaining material related to the family’s lives in Idaho were donated to Coeur d’Alene Museum and the Kellogg Museum by the donor.

Processing Note: .75 cubic feet of photographic materials, miscellaneous, and duplicates were withdrawn during processing. Acidic news clippings and materials were photocopied and the copies retained within the collection. Interfiled into other collections in the Clarke were seventeen postcards, two Michigan vertical file items, and a CMU commencement program. In August 2023, a 1852 wedding bedspread from Centreville, Pennsylvania, two Michigan friendship pillows, and miscellaneous family jewelry were transferred to the Ionia County Historical Society, and an Almont, Michigan, miniature tourist creamer or pitcher was transferred to the Almont Michigan Historical Society. Other miscellaneous items without a definite family provenance were withdrawn during processing.

Biographical / Historical:

Biography:

Nina Mae (Copeman) Preston:

Nina Mae (Copeman) Preston (July 4, 1884-September 9, 1983) was born in Michigan to Henry Baldwin Copeman and Emma Frances Reimer. She had an older sister named Lena Mabel, attended Palo Public Schools, and was a part of the Junior Epworth League. Nina dated a Palo classmate named Bert Connor, who died of tuberculosis at twenty-two years old in 1904. When Nina was age twenty-four, she moved to Coeur D’Alene Idaho with her mother, father, sister, and her sister’s husband and children. Her sister and family did not remain in Idaho. In 1912 Nina learned that a German homesteader named George Kynast had died. The Kynast claim was in Hell’s Gulch, northeast of St. Marie’s, Idaho. After finding out about his death, Nina rode her horse to St. Marie’s, took a boat to Coeur D’Alene, and filed a contest against the Kynast claim on September 5, 1912, filing on the claim on February 11, 1913. Two days later, Nina married Millard Rutherford Preston (January 27, 1889-March 21, 1963) in Spokane, Washington. Millard was from Pandora, Ohio and owned a homestead near the Copeman’s called “Brookside”. After their marriage they moved together to the claim in Hell’s Gulch. The couple had two children together, Kenneth Lamar, and Elizabeth Maxine. Together, Millard and Nina owned approximately 480 acres of land, most of which was timbered. Although Nina and Millard remained married until his death in 1963, they did not live together or communicate after 1944. Nina’s granddaughter, Shelley Dumas, described the marriage as being “mostly a disaster”. Shelley Dumas also stated that Nina’s father viewed Millard with “a serious dislike/distrust”, and that Henry’s diary entries from circa 1925 suggest that Millard was an abusive spouse and did not properly support his wife and children financially. In 1918, Nina returned to Coeur D’Alene with her children, who attended school at Lakeside Elementary, and later graduated from Coeur D'Alene High School.

In 1944, Nina’s daughter, Maxine, moved into a housing complex called Mullan Park with Maxine’s new husband, Elmo. Nina lived with Maxine even after she divorced Elmo, and through Maxine’s two subsequent marriages and divorces. Around 1955, the family moved to a bigger home they purchased near Lake Coeur D’Alene. Maxine’s daughter, Sandra, lived with them through high school. She returned to Coeur D’Alene about 1998 after a long teaching career in Washington to care for her mother until Maxine’s death. In 1978, Nina broke her left hip while in the hospital and never walked again. In 1983, she died in a nursing home of cancer in the breast and chest at ninety-nine years old.

During her lifetime, Nina stored extensive archival items of family history. Included within the collection is substantial family history information in her scrapbook, notes, and letters to family members. Her collection was later organized by Nina’s granddaughter, Shelley Dumas, who also donated the collection to the Clarke Historical Library. (This information is from the donor and the collection.)

Henry Baldwin Copeman:

Henry Baldwin Copeman (March 30, 1859-April 17, 1936) was born in Canada, the youngest son of Baldwin (aka. Henry) Copeman and Elizabeth Smith. Henry had eleven siblings, ten of whom lived to adulthood, and one who died in infancy. In 1859, Henry’s family moved to Michigan. Henry was engaged to Carrie Rossman Morse of Oakland County prior to moving to Palo. In Palo he worked at a butcher’s shop and eventually married Emma Frances Reimer, the daughter of his supervisor, on March 31, 1881, in Mount Pleasant. Together they had two daughters, Lena Mabel and Nina Mae. Carrie Rossman eventually married another man and had two sons. Nina later visited Carrie in Detroit with one of her aunts. Henry owned a farm and twelve-room home near Crawford. Details of the daily farm processes are included in his journal in the collection. In 1909, Henry travelled to the World’s Fair in Seattle. En route he learned of a new homesteading opportunity in North Idaho and entered his name in the land lottery. Returning to Michigan, he sold the farm to J.W. Bowman for $15,000; the auction of equipment and livestock brought an additional $3,000. The family relocated to a rental home on Fancher Avenue in Mt. Pleasant. On August 12, 1909, Henry learned he had drawn #204 on the Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, Indian Reservation. Henry, his wife, daughters, and his daughter Lena’s husband and children then began preparations to move to Idaho. They left Michigan October 13, 1909, via railroad and arrived in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho on October 20, 1909. They rented an apartment house on the grounds of Fort Sherman. Due to the expense of living in Idaho, Lena and her family returned home to Michigan in April 1910, after seven months. On May 5, 1910, Henry selected 160 acres of homestead land in the Benewah Valley, named “Idlewild”. Henry, Emma and Nina journeyed to the homestead and built a cabin and made improvements to the property, including constructing a cabin, outbuildings, and clearing property.

By 1918, both Henry and his wife, and Nina and her family had acquired permanent homes in Coeur D’Alene, but continued to make frequent trips to the homestead, where they had the land logged. Millard Preston, Nina’s husband, managed the majority of the logging mechanics including sales, cutting and transportation. While homesteading Henry killed a large cougar and collected a $15 bounty for the animal. (See newspaper articles from a Mount Pleasant and an Idaho newspaper included within the collection. The Idaho article is within the scrapbook.) He was also involved in several legal battles, one involving a supposedly unpaid bill at a store, and another a logging contract. (These are described in articles in the scrapbook within the collection.) The family owned the homesteads until the 1930s, when they were sold for taxes after they had been cleared of marketable timber. While in Idaho Henry joined the Ku Klux Klan, becoming very involved in the Coeur D’Alene chapter in the late 1920s. (This information is from the donor’s information sheet on the post-Michigan lives of the family, within the Reimer and Copeman Family History File. There is no Ku Klux Klan information in this collection. All Idaho related materials were donated to the University of Idaho by the donor.) Henry died on April 17, 1936, in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, and was buried in Palo, Michigan.

Lloyd Groff Copeman:

Lloyd Groff Copeman (December 29, 1881-July 6, 1956) was born to John Wesley Copeman, and his second wife, Carrie Groff. Carrie was the sister of Kitty Groff, the wife of John’s brother Levi. Lloyd was expelled from the Farmer’s Creek school at fourteen due to what Lapeer County Press later called his “first invention,” a prank where Lloyd used a series of levers, ropes and pulleys to paddle girls who went into the bathroom from a hundred feet away. Lloyd was also expelled from high school and from Michigan State College (which later became Michigan State University). His expulsion from Michigan State College was also due to a prank in which he dumped a full chamber pot onto the head of the school Dean’s son. Later in Lloyd’s life Michigan State College attempted to give him an honorary degree, but Lloyd refused to accept it stating, “When the degree would have done me good, you wouldn’t give it to me. Now that it will help you, I have little desire to accept it.” (This information is found in the scrapbook in the collection.) Lloyd married Hazel Berger who taught music/art at Washington State Normal School in Cheney, Washington. They had three children together, Lloyd Berger, Ruth Mary, and Betty Jane. Ruth Mary was the mother to Linda Ronstadt, a nationally recognized singer.

Lloyd patented the first electric stove, ice cube trays with flexible rubber, a prototype of the microwave, and many more inventions. By his estimate, the number of patents he had obtained was over 700. Lloyd invented the thermostat in 1909 which warned when a power line was about the burn out. He also invented an electro-thermostatic heat regulator that solved issues common to early electric stoves and toasters. These inventions led him to develop an electric stove. In 1911 he founded the Copeman Electric Stove Company in Flint, Michigan. The company was housed in the first brick building built in Flint, located on Saginaw Street. While the company held some success in selling their “fireless cooker,” they did not experience an overwhelming number of sales. Lloyd sold the patent and company to Westinghouse Electric Company in 1917 after meeting George W. Westinghouse III. Production of the stove was then moved to Mansfield, Ohio. In the hands of Westinghouse, Lloyd’s electric stove became a successful product. Lloyd earned over a million dollars in royalties from his rubber ice tray, and his invention of a more portable clothesline called flexo-line, which is still sold today. Lloyd also produced a toaster that could flip bread without the user having to touch it. The patent for this toaster was in Hazel’s name as according to the family lore she made the original model out of hair pins. This forced companies to invent another way to flip the bread or pay royalties to Lloyd and Hazel. The invention of the Toastmaster in 1926 made Lloyd’s design redundant.

Lloyd continued to invent products which attained varying levels of success for the rest of his life at his property in Farmer’s Creek. When Hazel was bedridden and uncomfortably hot near the end of her life, Lloyd invented a sprinkler system that sprayed cold water on the roof shingles to cool them and the house, and ran cold water through pipes with a fan behind them to blow the cool air through the room. Hazel died in July of 1950 after a series of health complications. Lloyd Copeman died July 6, 1956, after battling cancer and diabetes. His final patent was awarded seven months after his death. Thanks to the efforts of his grandson, Kent L. Copeman, Lloyd Copeman has his own website that includes several biographies, information about his inventions, and patent information. See www.lloydcopeman.com for more information. The processor added a list of his U.S. patent numbers to the collection.

(This information is from the collection, “Lloyd Groff Copeman” by his grandson, Kent L. Copeman, undated, accessed September 6, 2023, at https://www.lloydcopeman.com/biography/bio3.html, and “DAC member remains forgotten Michigan inventor” by Joseph Cabadas, DAC News July-August 2006, accessed September 6, 2023, https://www.lloydcopeman.com/biography/)

Lena Mabel (Copeman) Simonds and Henry Hugo Simonds:

Lena Mabel Copeman (January 7, 1882-March 8, 1949) was born in Michigan and went to Palo Schools. Henry Hugo Simmonds (February 23, 1879-September 19, 1938) was born in Michigan and graduated from Mount Pleasant Schools. Lena and Henry married September 9, 1905. The wedding was described as a surprise to friends and family, but the couple had been considering marrying for some time. (An article announcing their marriage is in the Simonds Family History file.) They had two children together, Irene Opal, and Lloyd Copeman. Lena and Henry lived in Palo after they were married until they built a new house in Mount Pleasant. In 1909, the couple moved to Coeur D’Alene, Idaho with Lena’s parents and sister. However, they returned to Mount Pleasant after seven months due to the expensive prices of goods in Idaho. Their children, Irene and Lloyd attended Mount Pleasant schools.

Henry co-founded Morton and Simonds Grocers with Emory Morton in 1913. The store was located on Main Street in Mount Pleasant, and replaced the grocery department of the Carr and Granger Store. The partnership between Henry and Emory lasted for seventeen years, until 1930 when Henry began Simonds Food Shop with his son, Lloyd, at 127 East Broadway in Mount Pleasant.

Henry suffered from diabetes during the last few years of his life. However, this did not stop him from working. On September 17, 1938, Henry suffered a heart attack while at the store and had to go home and died two days later . Henry was a member of the Christian Church of Science, and two representatives of the local church spoke at his funeral.

In 1948, Lena was visited by her sister, Nina, her niece, Maxine, and her great-niece, Sandra. Lena was then bedridden due to her being scared speechless by a stranger accidentally breaking into her home. The man, who they later found out was a brother to the lady next door, drunkenly walked into the wrong house and put his hand on Lena’s shoulder. Lena was bedridden afterward and later had a stroke and died.

(This information is from the collection.)

Acquisition Information: