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17 Gifts from Fair Lane and Other Oddities
- Wayne State University Press
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CHAPTER 17 Gifts from Fair Lane and Other Oddities BART OF THE INSPIRATION for this book was the odd and often unique nature of many of the items that have come as gifts to the Henry Ford Museum over the years. Among these items, none are stranger than some of the objects found at Fair Lane after Clara Ford's death and donated to the museum by her heirs in 1951. Many of these "gifts from Fair Lane" were originallygifts to Henry Ford or Clara Ford, things they apparently could not bear to part with—though the evidence,which is in a very real sense overwhelming, suggests they never could bear to part with anything. Henry's announcement after the Chicago Tribune trial of 1919 that he was going to build his own museum—and the publicity surrounding that undertaking in the 1920s—evidently triggered an emotional response in people from all walks of life all over the world who regarded Henry as an authentic American hero. Gifts of every kind poured into Dearborn from little hamlets in Michigan and from as far away as Foochow, China. Unlike some donors in recent years, these early donors surely had no tax deductions in mind. In the 1920s, thousandsof these gifts were stored in Henry's warehouses in Dearborn. Some found their way to Fair Lane; a few made their way into the Henry Ford Museum around 1930; but the fate of many others is unknown. The people charged with categorizing Henry's gifts in the 1920s were understandably puzzled about how to proceed. Some gifts were so bizarre they defied categorization as anything other than oddities. Others were more remarkable for their duplication than anything else; for example, in one lot there were ninety-one wooden canes, eighteen miniature automobiles, twenty-two glass bottles containing various small objects, twelve wooden chains, and twenty-eight paper flowers. At one point, however, a worker, looking at seventy-two crates of diverse gifts in a hangar at the Ford Airport apparently despaired and categorized the whole lot of them under the label "Freaks." A list describing the approximately 1,750 items contained in these crates and identifying the donors survives, though many of the gifts do not. It contains such notations as Handbag from inner tube, Goldie Allen, Kane,Illinois Tablemat made from 1920 Ford coil wire, Mrs. Grace Nee (no address) Branches of tree shaped like Henry Ford, H.L.Brown, Dexter, Michigan Cushion top, Gaston Black, State Prison Camp, Troy, New York An old piece of wood, E.G. Grimsley,Freeman, North Carolina Bale of wool, Valmin Pagin, Biene, County Cork, Ireland Ox cart with load of bananas, banana tree, and wax figure of Henry Ford, Carlos Guetinag Koyas, San Jose, Costa Rica Fancy work made of tin cans, Catherine Watts, Moultrie, Georgia Sled loaded with wood, Louis Flinn, Munising, Michigan Box of dress patterns, M. Harnick, Ypsilanti,Michigan Miniature Model T, Evon Gelden, Dorm, Germany Wooden block puzzle, J.A. Bushman, Algonac, Michigan Flag pole, Charles T. Raven, New York City H. Ford photo in 1-gallon bottle, J. Porter, Poorhouse, Parkersburg, West Virginia Carved pipe, Harry Anderson, Detroit Police Department Box of butterflies, Franklin Helm, Bogota, Colombia Black necktie, J.P.D. Bordus, Catlettsburg, Kentucky Shark's tooth, W.H. Blackburne, San Francisco Medicinal remedy, John Linden, Cleveland Box with three dolls, Kansuke Takeda, Japan Airplane made of wood (32"), N.M. Hakett, Marietta, Oklahoma 405 Miniature wood cars, John D.V.A. Berg, Leiuwdoonsstod, South Africa Silver coffin plate (3" x 5"), "Mr. Jonathan Wheeler, Died July 2, 1849, Aged 29 Years" (no donor tag) Ash tray made from piston, T.W. Ferguson and A.H. Olson, Twin Falls, Idaho Covered wagon made from coconut shell, R. Payne, Honolulu, Hawaii Log schoolhouse, J.D. Noah, Cedar Springs, Michigan American flag made from bits of paper, J.E. Martin, Niagara Falls, New York Picture made from postage stamps, G.E. Thompson, New Haven, Connecticut Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford in jigsaw, A.F.Michalewski (no address) Ox yoke, John Lenox, Flint, Michigan Piece of Plymouth Rock, Mrs. Margaret Dill, Plymouth, Massachusetts Old Meat grinder, Judd Lytle, Clyde, Ohio Car made from pith of corn, W.N. Watson, Faxton, Virginia Chicken carved from wood, Charles Cypress, Seminole, Florida Shell with engraved Indian, Preston White, New Bedford, Massachusetts Leather boat, A.B. Gillis, Detroit House of Correction Root of tree grown through a small plate of iron, Jose I Velez, Sarmiento, Pira...