Michigan Legends: Folktales and Lore from the Great Lakes State

An Early Detroit Spirit Sighting

   19 An Early Detroit Spirit Sighting Back in about 1840, when Detroit still was a tiny village sprinkled up and down the Detroit River, there lived a rough old woman who was a real character—­ and the last person anyone would have expected to have the experience she did. Her name was Marie LouiseThebault,but for some reason,people called her Kennette. As long as most could remember, she had lived alone, perfectly content, in a rough, little wooden house on River Road, now known as Jefferson Avenue, which runs along the Detroit River.The little house was shielded from cold wind and hot sun by a huge, old elm tree. This woman was quite different, and she didn’t try to hide it. She was unlike virtually all women of her era. She hated the very idea of marriage and had in fact roundly rebuked her own sister for having married. Kennette was what one person in the 1880s called a believer in “women’s rights”—­ decades before the women’s rights movement really took shape (although the inaugural women’s rights movement in America had occurred in the 1840s). Kennette would have fit in well with the roughest of women’s 20    An Early Detroit Spirit Sighting champions. She cared not for her appearance. She wore a plain, calico dress year-­ round, despite the season. She had made this dress purposefully unflattering. It looked more like a big, long sack. She considered hooks and eyes or buttons too fancy. She secured her dress with pins or, failing those, thorns. She wore a red handkerchief around her neck and an ugly,rough cotton cap,along with shoes she had made herself. She was a picture of the “I don’t care what you think” kind of fashion. Her personality was equally gruff. In fact, ironically, though she hated men, she was far more like a man than a woman. She did not spin wool, knit, or weave, as all women did at the time. She had no use for pets, and she was miserly by choice. She almost never lit her lamps in her home at night, because she wanted to save fuel. She ate simply, and neighbors often brought her fruits and vegetables—­ probably out of pity. Kennette’s only occupation was one usually practiced by men: she was something of a cobbler. She had a wooden bench and a cobbler’s implements, and she offered to make shoes for children. That might make you think she liked children, but she didn’t, really. When a child once criticized her poor violin playing, for example, her harsh rebuke caused his instant, abject regret. As much as Kennette disliked being with other people at home, she was too cheap to pay all of her own rent. She decided to rent out a room to an elderly woman who happened to be very religious. Well, Kennette hated religion as much as fancy dresses. She always argued with anyone who claimed such passion or told stories of miracles or visions. She mixed in with her arguments plenty of exasperated sighs and facial expressions. But the boarder paid rent, and Kennette had no trouble taking the old lady’s money. Not only did the little bit of extra cash come in handy,but Kennette figured she could save even more if she could use the lamplight of the old lady to have light at night for free. The old lady saw in Kennette a real challenge and was always preaching to her.“It is not pleasant,”Kennette often complained,“to be told that the books I read are wicked, that they instill poison into my heart, and that when I am old, I will be stranded on the shore of remorse and despair.Well, to hush her up, I made an agreement.” An Early Detroit Spirit Sighting    21 Kennette told the woman,“I don’t believe in hell or purgatory, so if you die first, come back; if I should, I will return. Just appear and I will know that there is such a place.” Purgatory is the place where Catholic and some other Christians believe that souls go to be purified of their sins before being worthy to enter heaven and live forever in God’s presence. The old woman agreed. But given Kennette’s surly attitude toward the woman and the woman’s constant preaching,the two had...