Historian Joyce Blaker Longo

 

Joyce Blaker lived her whole young life in Medina at the former Cook Hotchkiss place in the old farmhouse with her large family.  When she was a teenager she got a job working as a clerk at the Medina Store ( historically called the "Red Brick Store") as did each of her sisters in succession.  Joyce was friends with Lynn Huff, Ed Potter, Neva Shadbolt and others who remembered the early days of the 20th century and the stories of earlier times and discussed them with her.

Here are her own words when I first "met her" at the online genealogy site for Medina Cemetery, "Find-a-Grave":

I am a retired school teacher. I grew up in Medina back in the good old days when everyone knew everybody else. I have a passion for local history and heard all the stories, my whole life, of Medina in its heyday in the 1840's and 1850's.

As a young girl, I worked in the Medina store. Every morning at 10 AM a group of old-timers would come in to drink coffee and tell stories about the antics going on in Medina when they were young... So many generations,  so many good times... So many hard times. They would hang around about an hour and then go off to do whatever they did for the day. Then they would come back in the afternoon about 4 PM to enjoy an afternoon refresher. I would listen to their stories and be filled with the pride and sense of community they had known and enjoyed.

I have tried to imagine those earlier times when there was a big old saloon, 3 blacksmith shops, grist mill, saw mill, a big two story hotel with rooms to rent, bar room, billiard room, barber shop, and big old livery barn, Medina Academy, Babtist and Methodist churches across from each other, Maccabee Hall, Babtist Ladies Hall where there were banquets and dances. Yes,and even a stage coach to Hudson and Morenci twice a day!

Well, I never could get my head around it. I only know that something important,great and wonderful has happened here in Medina. It is a hallowed place. Sadly,happened,and disappeared. There are shadows of our forgotten ancestors in this cemetery.  

In driving through Medina this summer, I was stunned to see that there is barely a hint that Medina ever existed. Even the old brick Medina store is a pile of rubble.

Over and over, I am asked and I ask my self.............

"WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THOSE FAMILIES?...And..........***WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL OF THOSE BUILDINGS?"****There were over 95 buildings in Medina Village.

********WHAT HAPPENED,I WANT TO KNOW! **********

The headstones in Medina Village Cemetery have their stories. .There,in the cemetery, are the pioneers who cleared the land, the soldiers who fought the wars,the common people who breathed and lived their lives and raised their children.

Let me tell you who they really were. The research will take time, but, as I progress I will fill in some of the blanks. I want to be clear, I am not taking requests, that is not my mission. My mission is to leave flowers and photos for as many as I can. Be kind and patient with me, this is a labor of love.

Thank you. J. Longo

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Joyce passed away unexpectedly just one year ago in 2019.  She had compiled what she called her "foldable map" and a Medina Calendar as a part of what she called her trilogy.  All that was left was her dream for a published picture book.  The last time we spoke was on the phone and I asked her what I could do to help now--and she said "Find more pictures!"  What she really wanted most was a photo of the Medina Village cheese factory.  Though I've still not found it, I did just acquire a scan of the interior of A cheese factory that COULD BE Medina's cheese factory of the village.  That is posted under the Photographs page, and was found at Clements Library at the University of Michigan just a couple of weeks ago.

After we had 'met' online, we corresponded awhile and eventually met in person at the Hudson Museum around 2014.  We hit it right off and I did lots of property tax research on my volunteer time at the Lenawee Historical Society Museum that was very revealing about the ownership of the houses and lots from 1840 through the end of the 19th century.  Discovering the ownership of the old Hamilton house and who lived in the Colvin block, for instance, shaped our view of 19th century Medina to be closer to reality than it was.

Joyce did extensive research on Medina and Canandaigua families, as well as those down at Tiffin or "Peg Town," often visiting the locations and offering the owners copies of maps where their homes are located.  I know that she traveled to Bay City to meet descendants of the Colvin family and acquired from them photos of that important Medina family.  

A book has been elusive for both of us and now that Joyce is gone, I felt that I had to do something to pull all her research together.  I would not have been involved with this research were it not for meeting Joyce.  She loved history, once even working at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn.  She was also a middle school math teacher and a great artist, specializing in buildings but also doing some portrait work from family snapshots.

Joyce's greatest artwork for her Medina project is what she called the "Skyline" which is based on a photo from the collection of the late Jim Findlay of Hudson.  We are indebted to Jim for his dedication to historic preservation and through his collection efforts we are able to see what the village of Medina once looked like, almost back to it's "heyday."

It is only from the "Skyline" photo that we are able to see the Medina hotel built by C.P.Warner and Charles Prisbrey from the mortgaged lumber acquired at Canandaigua; also the Carter Blacksmith Shop that appeared to be made of brick (the first bricks were manufactured on land of Charles Prisbrey, according to G. W. Moore) and the hotel barn and other houses lining the Main Street.  From the tax records we found that the firm Allen Daniels likely kept their famous early mercantile on the SE corner at the brick building.  Later when Hudson Museum acquired the photos of Toledo musician James Lee (descendant of Stillwell Palmer--who was grandfather to Annis Darr) we found a tin type that seems to depict that SE corner of the business district.  The men in the carriage also appear to be woodworkers Chauncey Mann and Ben Heydenberk, in front of the old Pratt cabinet shop.  Then recall Imogene Bennett's remarks about parlor tables and bric-a-brac at the cabinet shop and it all seems to make sense.  For access to Imogene's papers we are indebted to our local history friend Bonnie Bennett Aldrich who is descended from pioneer Gersham Bennett of Canandaigua area, as well as the village founder William Cavender and his brother-in-law Samuel Gregg.  My grandparents lived near Medina in the Moses Bennett house so I consider Bonnie just like family.  She lives way out of town but felt she knew Joyce well even after meeting her in person only once.  Bonnie traveled several hours to attend Joyce's funeral in Medina last spring.  The outdoor service was conducted by Joyce's absolute hero Reverend Howard Yatzek.  I miss her. 

Once when I took a request at Lenawee Museum for photos of the 1929 tornado of Medina, I was having trouble finding anything--and so I decided to scour Hudson Museum and also came up flat.  Then my husband Mike said did I look in the "Storms and Disasters" box?  We pulled out some unmarked photos and I saw the Colvin house from the photos Joyce had acquired from the family at Bay City.  And so there was an entire series of snapshots of the "Cyclone" as they called it back in 1929, up and down Medina's Main Street, and even another panoramic view in which we saw for the first time some houses and barns previously unseen.  Unmarked but apparently taken by the publisher of the Hudson Post Gazette, Medina native Stanley Stone.  So the study of Medina is a never ending puzzle to which we are always finding and then searching for another piece.

Eventually Joyce returned to Michigan from Florida and I spent many visits at her Waldron home in her "research library" working on these picture projects and more.  Her notebooks have been deposited at the Hudson Museum and are available for researchers.  There is a lot of genealogy on the families.

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Joyce's obituary:

Joyce Annette Longo, age 73, of S. Main St., Waldron, died Sunday, January 13, 2019, at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor. Born in Hudson on August 5, 1945, she was one of nine children of the late Ralph Harrison and Mary Norine (McVay) Blaker.

Joyce was raised in Medina and attended Morenci Area Schools, where she graduated with the class of 1963. She furthered her education at Eastern Michigan University and later took classes at Bowling Green State University. Joyce taught math and computer classes at both Morenci and Onsted high schools. She had a love for architecture and antiques, and she loved to draw. She took great interest in history, and was currently working with the Hudson Museum on a project regarding the local history of Medina.

Joyce married James Longo in 1982, and he preceded her in death in 1998. Also preceding her in death in addition to her parents were four siblings, Marvin Blaker, Ralph Wayne Blaker, Nancy McCarty, and Doyle Blaker.

Surviving Joyce are four siblings, Sandra Davis of Morenci, Michael (Sharon) Blaker of Medina, Timothy (Laura) Blaker of Morenci, and Tamara Cooke of FL; a sister-in-law, Joanie Blaker of Morenci; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Cremation will take place and a private burial of her remains will take place in the Medina Cemetery at a later date. Arrangements were entrusted to the care of the Eagle Funeral Home in Morenci.

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This website I have made in memory of Joyce and the people of Medina and I hope you all enjoy it.  I would not have done it without Joyce, but it did not take much persuading to get me to help as I have long lamented the changes that took place in the countryside where I grew up.  Medina Village was my first town, my first experience of going to the store, a place where I begged my Dad to take me.  I must have been very small as I remember crying when I felt lost, separated from my Mom and it seems like she was in the wing part of the store that had work clothes and hardware.

Years later in the 1980's my husband Mike took my photo, at my request, on the front steps of the closed "Red Brick Store."  My beloved home, my grandparent's home and many neighboring homes are now gone forever and so I understand how Joyce felt.  It is worth remembering the small industrious places that somehow hung on even into the 1950's with country schools, small post offices--real community places where everyone knew everyone else.  Some are still hanging on if only by a bare thread!

I hope you will enjoy these posts and pages, and in the future I will be adding more from time to time---eventually printing a paper document to put on file at the local museums.  When I am able I will open up the commenting function in hopes of learning more from YOU!

Diane Mills
January 16, 2020

WE ARE INDEBTED TO the keepers of our heritage at Lenawee County Deeds Office, Medina Township Hall, Hudson Museum and Lenawee Historical Society Museum for access to tax and land records of Medina and Hudson, and especially to Medina photographs--also, special thanks to Louis Miller of Clements Library at U of M for photo scan use, especially for the photo of the cheese factory.  We are deeply indebted to the late photography and post card collector Jim Findlay of Hudson.

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