Angie kicks off today’s episode with another journey to the Berlin Wall. This time she shares her favorite escapes from East Germany. Most of her tale centers around escaping via an underground tunnel in a graveyard. Hannelore Froese and her husband Rüdiger are the last two to make it out using this tunnel before the powers that be shut it down.
Theresa shifts the podcast’s tone wildly when she covers Cora Reynolds Anderson. Anderson would be the first woman voted into the Senate way back in 1925. She is also the first indigenous person to earn that status as well. During her short tenure, she focused on education and public health.
Transcript
Angie: Um
Theresa: hello and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast, the podcast where as soon as Angie can be done recording, the better
Angie: her day will be.
Theresa: But we also compulsively read history memes, study the backstories behind them, and join forces once a week and regale each other with a story that we’ve only recently learned. I’m host one, I’m Teresa, and that over there with a busy day.
Angie: I’m host to I’m Angie, and what I said, you know what? It doesn’t matter what I said.
Theresa: The point is I’m very busy today. Okay.
Angie: And she took I know I know, I know in her heart she is taking this and having just way too much fun with it. Because typically I got all the time in the world to record. Just not the next three days. So here I am. You can delete all this if you want. I don’t care.
Theresa: I will delete none of it.
Angie: And one in the recent episode that was just like, we’ll let it put up this out, but then we did a couple of callbacks, and I was like, I
Theresa: will leave it all in.
Angie: Damn it.
Theresa: Otherwise, this
Angie: won’t make sense. I love when I re relisten to our episodes, and you’re like, eh, and I’m gonna edit that. And then I’ll be like, well, you didn’t.
Theresa: You didn’t. And it’s like there’s a like and it’s not that I missed it, it’s that I listened to it and I was like, it has to stay.
Angie: Every single time you do that, I’m like, I know she kept it on purpose. I know it. Yeah. And
Theresa: the times I
Angie: the the ones I delete, you know, that’s gonna leave the the listener wondering. They could reach out to unhinged history at gmail.yahoo hot com.
Theresa: Yeah.gov.
Angie: Yeah. Org. D C A dot
Theresa: DMV. Well, my friend. As fun as it is to throw the DMV
Angie: and berate their emails with what we have going.
Theresa: Uh it’s your turn to go first.
Angie: I have actually decided that my new calling in life is to just send all my bills to the DMV.
Theresa: You let me know how that works for you.
Angie: Because when the repo man comes, I doubt they’re going to the DMV first. Actually, I’ll keep I’ll keep paying that bill. I’ll like my car. Um hi, my name is Angie. I am from the Hinch History Podcast. I don’t know if you know it, but it’s November.
Theresa: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m aware. Okay.
Angie: Uh well, anyway. Um typically this time of the year, I do a story on the Berlin Wall
Theresa: because
Angie: unknown. to me, The Berlin Wall is my Roman Empire, so I’m here with another story on the Berlin Wall. What’s
Theresa: funny
Angie: is that I was just like, of course it’s November, Angie.
Theresa: Where have you been? Welcome, I suppose.
Angie: Like I’m getting you a calendar for Christmas. You know what? I don’t know anyway. I I know what day it is. And we’re gonna talk about the Berlin Wall. My sources are the Smithsonian has a article titled Most Successful Tunnel Escape History, Berlin Wall. Um it’s from November 7th of 2014 by Jessica Camille Aguirre. Uh my next article is called the NDR.de, which I think is
Theresa: a German site. is a German. It is a German site, but I was able to um have it translated, and here’s the thing. The translation is hard. So I’m gonna do my best, but it’s kind of the only source that I could find that told the story as a whole.
So if you are a German reader and I said any of this wrong, I would love for you to reach out and help me with where I went wrong because I did the best that I could. And the
Angie: actual email is in the show notes. Yes, it is. Um my next source is the Berlinwall.com. It has a multimedia history of the Berlin Wall, which I I didn’t see that last year. And then the Berlin Experience.com call it has an article called Gunter Liskin killed, which um is just an interesting little bit. Okay, so that said, every year I cover the Berlin Wall from one aspect or another in previous years. I’ve covered the Great Balloon Escape, which was uh family leaving the Berlin area, the eastern area coming to the western area. Yeah, I had a hot air balloon. They figured out how to make themselves.
Theresa: Which is not the DIY you want when you’re trying to save your own life. Also, there was no YouTube back then, so good could good for them, I guess. Uh we’ve talked about like how David Bowie and his concert affected the call to bring down a wall. And last year I contacted some friends of mine who have experience with being on both sides of the wall and got an interview, so that was pretty cool.
So this year, I’m gonna start off with a quote from the Smithsonian. Only around 300 people escaped over the course of nearly 30 years through tunnels that took months to dig and were more often than not discovered before being employed for their intended purpose. Oof.
Angie: 300 is a shockingly low number to me for 30 years. But also, okay, I think I get it. Um but I think that quote really shows sort of the desperation of people that they’re will what they’re willing to go through to escape a situation and how that plays out, right?
So I have a a couple of fun little escape stories. One of them is a neighborhood along what’s called Bernauer Strass. Um, this is like a row of buildings along this road that sit right in the middle of the border. So if you were in the building, you were in the communist east, but you could walk through the door and be in the west.
Wow. So you can imagine that from like right off the bat, this building becomes these buildings become an escape route from the earliest days of the Berlin Wall, because if you can just walk out the front door, like you’re free to go, right? And it gets to the point where this is such like a popular place of egress that people are jumping out the window into waiting nets on the west side.
Theresa: Whoa.
Angie: Like firefighters are stationed nearby, stationed and or nearby, like at all times with nets, and what will become the early version of the jumping cushions that we have today, like for um stunt devils and things like that, and also firefighters for jumping out of burning buildings.
Theresa: Which I was like, Oh that’s crazy, okay.
Angie: Um that’s not to say that everyone gets out of this scot-free because this is actually the location of the first known victim of the Berlin Wall. So a woman called Ida Seekman trying very hard to go unnoticed by the East Side because the East Side figures out pretty quick, people can leave. And they are doing everything they can to keep them in, and that can range from a variety of different things, right? Like uh to full-on foot chases to shooting at you to throwing things at you to keep you there.
Theresa: Like it’s
Angie: a whole thing. Okay, so she is trying not to be noticed, and she is fearful that they’re gonna throw something at her, she’s fearful they might even chase her. So her hope is that if she can just sort of slip under the radar a little bit, she’ll be good to go. And she does this by throwing her bed sheets out the window and hoping to land on them. I don’t know about you, but I have linen sheets, and I’m just thinking that’s really not a lot of cushion.
Theresa: No. Yeah.
Angie: So I’m unclear if bed sheets means something different in communist eastern Germany at the time. If she threw like the whole pile of blankets out. Regardless, she misses, and no one sees her misjudge the jump. She dies of her injuries after hitting the pavement.
Theresa: Oh.
Angie: So she’s not directly killed by these, but she is considered to be the first victim of the wall because she is the first one to die as a result of trying to escape. Um, and like I said, doesn’t take the the East long to figure this out at all, and they quickly brick up the windows, and eventually they’re gonna just tear the buildings down all together.
Like this is problematic for them from the beginning. And um, like I said, this next bit was really hard for me to find English sources, but it is the story of Hannah Laura Ferrossi and her husband Rudger. Okay. Rud Rudger.
Theresa: That is probably closer to what it’s supposed to.
Angie: I think that’s how you pronounce it. This is one of my probably my favorite Berlin Wall stories. Their escape tunnel is considered the first document escape tunnel under the Berlin Wall. So Hannah Lori, I believe in English her name translates to Hannah Laura.
Theresa: Um, but it’s pretty much I mean Lori is also a girl’s name here.
Angie: Well, right, okay, so it’s spelled H-A-N-N-E-L-O-R-E. So I think it’s Hannah Lore, and I just keep accidentally saying the E sound. But she has this very good life by all accounts in the German Democratic Republic. She’s an athlete through and through. She’s been a gymnast since she’s 13 years old with increasing success each year. She becomes a competitive gymnast and a first youth champion. And then she is the GDR champion on like various apparatus. So she’s like adored.
Theresa: Okay.
Angie: And she’s so skilled that her life is subsidized by the state. So she receives additional food stamps and even money from the GDR. Um, in fact, she would receive a stake every day from the canteen.
Theresa: Whoa.
Angie: Like she they need they want her to stay healthy and they want her to stay happy. And for the most part, she says her life for herself and her family in the East was great.
Like, not a lot to complain about. After her sporting days, she is going to become a correspondent and a sports teacher where she works at a school in Pancal. But despite her successes, politically, life is a little bit harder because she’s not involved in any of like the youth movements or the communist movements that are the thing at the time, right? Now she knows she is eventually going to have to make a choice and join one of these, or she’s going to have to move. One of the two.
Theresa: Right.
Angie: Because it doesn’t seem from what I could understand of the article, it doesn’t seem like she really wants to do either of those things, but she knows that like politically the pressure is coming more and more. So she’s like, ooh, decisions are gonna have to be made. And then her husband and her pay a visit to West Berlin, and they try to return home on the night of August 12th, 1961, which happens to be the day the border closed. They’re told there are no more S Bond trains to East Valen. And she’s like, oh no.
Theresa: But wait, she’s stuck in the West, right? Isn’t that where you want to be?
Angie: She so she’s told, like, they make it back home to the east, but she is at this point, she is she knows a wall’s gonna come up because the
Theresa: night the borders closed, the walls aren’t there yet, right?
Angie: Like they’re hastily built after this, but you can still see the other side.
Theresa: Like it’s it’s a regular border crossing, right?
Angie: Okay, so she goes home and she’s like, oh, this is not sitting right with me, even a little bit, and the construction for the wall starts the next day. So she’s like, alright. She is able to get her parents to the West, but she tells her husband she’s not ready to go yet because she’s got a gold in there in the East. And so I think she’s just a little concerned of this change being like perhaps less helpful than it would be to stay in the East for herself
Theresa: because she’s got it,
Angie: like, you know, she’s got a good, right? But um the following months, the political pressure keeps getting more and more and more intense. And this is August, these months are passing, and she is thinking about it more and more. Her and her husband have a friend called Walter Nybank, and he happens to have a new wife in the West. She has been given permission to move to the East, but when she does so, her permission paperwork is torn up in front of her.
So she cannot. And like she’s upset, obviously, and her husband, who is fucking the East, is upset. So he spends the next few months working out how to make it to the West so he can be with his new wife. December, he shows up on the doorstep of um Hannah Laura and her husband, and he’s got a plan. But they have to decide immediately if they’re gonna go. Like it’s it’s tonight, babe.
Theresa: Like Wow.
Angie: You need to make a decision in the next few hours. And so they decide, yes, absolutely. They he provides the plan for them, they memorize the details, and then they burn the paperwork. They are to meet at the Schroeder family grave in the Pancal Three Cemetery. Now, this cemetery is really special because it is up against the wall, and there happens to be a cemetery on the other
Theresa: side.
Angie: So they’re they’re neighbors. They’re just they share a fence, right? Beyond that, the only thing that’s going on is a border guard path and the elevated S train tracks that already belong in the West. So if you could make it into that cemetery and out of the one you’re in, it’s probably pretty good, right? Um, because by all accounts, the border guards on the West aren’t really trying to send you back.
Theresa: You just did a bit on grave robbers.
Angie: I think that’s a good one.
Theresa: And here we are back in the graveyard.
Angie: I know. Wild, right? I thought the same thing. Um, so like you said, it’s December, it’s the 19th, it’s 1961, and these three mourners carrying pine branches go walking through the cemetery, and they go right up, well, at least two of them go right up to the Schroeder family plot. No one even considers to question this because it’s a cultural burial practice there. Like these pine branches are just part of the custom, so everybody’s like, Yeah, they’re just mourning their dead. Like cool, cool.
Theresa: Okay.
Angie: Move on with your life, right?
Theresa: Um does one of the pine branches have a shovel head on it.
Angie: Her husband is supposed to be following at a distance. I’m not sure why. I’m assuming maybe it’s to make it look a little bit more natural, like a couple of mourners at a time are making their way to the grave, and so it just doesn’t appear like all of a sudden there’s 15 people standing here.
Um But Hanna Laura and the friend arrive right at the scheduled time at the Schroeder grave when a young woman called Kiki from West Berlin lifts the pine branches that are laid on top of the grave as decoration and hops out of the ground and tells them to follow her.
Theresa: Oh, my. Okay.
Angie: Yeah.
Theresa: So
Angie: we’re she’s in
Theresa: full minecraft
Angie: in this. I say
Theresa: my
Angie: whole Minecraft.
Theresa: Yeah, yeah, that’s what we’re doing.
Angie: She turns around, hops back in, and they begin their journey. The tunnel is about 32 inches tall and supported by wooden beans. It’s approximately 92 feet long. And they have to do this via a crawl. Like their army dude crawling it, right? My girl Hanalore has worn as many of her clothes as she could possibly put on because she doesn’t want to leave them behind because she knows everything she’s doing, she is going to be leaving behind, right?
Theresa: Yeah.
Angie: In her clothes, she’s got her like papers stuffed in there just in case we need them. And that’s it. And she makes it to the west side, she climbs out the wooden ladder, and she can see her husband wandering around the other cemetery. He did in fact not go to the right Schroeder family grave, and he hung back just a little too far.
Theresa: Apparently. I’ve got ideas and thoughts about husbands.
Angie: But carry on. This one is something. Apparently, Schroeder is a really common last name
Theresa: in this area, and the graveyard’s full of them.
Angie: And Kiki must have known this because she turns around and she’s like, oh, we don’t have everybody we were assigned. I’ll come back at the exact same time tomorrow and get them out.
Theresa: How is he gonna know to hang out for 24 hours in a cemetery?
Angie: Hopefully he’ll figure it out. Now, my anxiety-fueled self is thinking they don’t even have cell phones.
Theresa: Yeah.
Angie: How is she gonna text her husband and be like, hey, wrong grave? I can see you. It’s like the scene in the mummy, you’re on the wrong side of the river, which you haven’t seen yet, and you need to get your eye together.
Theresa: But anyway, I know.
Angie: Um I’m I’m trying, right? I’ve gotta fail you in one way, and if I do this, that means I have to fail you somewhere else, and this feels like the safest route. Is it though?
Theresa: Carry on.
Angie: Anyway. it’s fine. She returns the next day, and he is at the right grave. So she collects him. As I understand it, he was the last of something like 28 people that were able to escape in this fashion through this tunnel.
Theresa: Whoa.
Angie: So, like, by the cusp of his chiny chin chin hair or whatever. Kiki is paid 650 West German marks for the help. No, I do not know what that translates to today. I’m not even sure if there’s a way to find that out.
Theresa: Yeah, I mean, considering I do have some German currency, but it that I mean the stuff I’ve got’s like World War One. Yeah,
Angie: I
Theresa: mean it’s I get it. I get it.
Angie: Yeah.
Theresa: I’m not even angry.
Angie: Thanks. Now she and her husband, Hannah Lorra and her husband, they’re flown to an area called hopefully I’m gonna pronounce this right. Oberessil, and they are interrogated separately by the American authorities to assure that they are not spies or even criminals. Her interrogation alone lasts four weeks.
Theresa: Oh, that’s a little lengthy. They were thorough.
Angie: They were very thorough. I mean, they have their reasons, right? Like, I get it, but holy cow. She finally makes it out and she gets some good old Western cornflakes, and is taken shopping in Frankfurt by Army Jeeps. And apparently this was like a thing for her. Like she thought that was cool, I guess. Um, they settle with a great aunt in in Hamburg, where she takes work at the historic Hamburg turner scraft Vaughn 1816, which is like a sports club.
Theresa: Okay.
Angie: So I think I think she’s some sort of educator there, right? And then she’s gonna become the first time, the first full-time rhythmic gymnast coach employed by the Hamburg Sports Federation. So
Theresa: she’s nice.
Angie: She’s
Theresa: back to the city. They’re making a life. Yeah.
Angie: Yeah. Um, she gave this interview where she tells the story regarding this game in 2024, which is pretty cool. And there are still Stasi photos that document both the tunnel entrance and the grave. So you can see them. I just don’t think I don’t I didn’t include them in my thing, mostly because they’re very black and white and a little bit hard to make out.
Theresa: Um at least via like showing screen to screen. I don’t think it would would work well.
Angie: Um I say the tunnel they went through was discovered just a few days later when two women tried to use it, but instead were arrested and sentenced to two years and three months for
Theresa: passport offenses.
Angie: The Stasi supposedly considered the digging of the tunnels as a form of human trafficking.
Theresa: I mean, they’re not wrong.
Angie: But it’s consensual. I don’t know how well else to…
Theresa: it happens between two consenting adults, sweetie.
Angie: Um eventually the cemetery graves near the wall on the east side were moved, and the wall there was then demolished so the guards could see right through. And that’s that’s my Berlin wall story for the year.
Theresa: Wow.
Angie: Yeah.
Theresa: Okay, I’m going a delightfully different direction.
Angie: Um Okay, let’s go.
Theresa: I am going to kind of give a hat tip to a listener on TikTok, uh, Dennis Perry 883. Um, he told me to check out the story of Cora Reynolds Anderson.
Angie: Okay. You’re thinking about it, you’re not gonna know. It’s fine. You know what? I was I I was thinking about it because when you started with Cora, this was gonna totally age me. Whatever. My brain immediately went to Cora the Avatar.
Theresa: Okay, okay.
Angie: So yeah, that’s what I was thinking about.
Theresa: My sources are National Park Service. No response.
Angie: Shocking.
Theresa: Okay. Uh yeah, that’s what I was waiting for. Um, the National Park Service, Cora Reynolds Anderson, uh, Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, medium. She blazed a trail in the mitten, Cora Reynolds Anderson.
Oh, sorry, uh, next source is Wait, take that back. So she blazed the male in the Trenton. Goodness grace, she blazed a trail in the mitten. Cora Reynolds Anderson changed Michigan politics forever by and Edward Anderson.
WFMK 99.1. This is this lady from Lance, Michigan was one of our most important women by John Robinson. WZMO, Michigan’s first female state representative by Sophia Murphy.
The Hawks Herald, the woman who paved the way, Cora Reynolds Anderson by Emily Debracus. That’s not how you say it. I’m so sorry, Emily. Michigan Public Radio, Cora Anderson, recognizing Michigan’s first indigenous state representative elected nearly a century ago by Anna Speedle. And if I didn’t give everything away, here we go.
Angie: Can you hold, please, while I check my list? Carry on, but I’m gonna look at my list because that that sounds familiar.
Theresa: April 10th, 1882. Cora Reynolds is born on a lands reservation. She’s part of the Ojibwe tribe. Uh sources say both Ojibwe and Chippwa. Um I do not fully know the nuance there. I bel my assumption, here’s where I speak out of ignorance that I should just shut up now, is that the Ojibwe are maybe larger group and Chippewa are subset of bots thoughts of mine? Did I confirm before this? Did I have the internet at my fingertips? Both of those are true.
Angie: Well, the first one I didn’t do, but yeah. I think that they are at minimum both a part of the same language
Theresa: group. And
Angie: now I’m going to be quiet.
Theresa: Now now you
Angie: know enough to keep your mouth shut, and I don’t.
Theresa: Carrying
Angie: on.
Theresa: She goes on to attend public schools in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula before graduating high school in 1899.
Angie: She graduated high school?
Theresa: She graduated high school.
Angie: Good for her. I am so happy already, thank you.
Theresa: So after graduating high school, she is one of two graduates.
Angie: Two.
Theresa: Two. And from there she goes to Haskell Indian Institute.
Angie: That was a hell of a party with those two. Right?
Theresa: It was just like, well, uh, we made it out of English class. So yeah,
Angie: I’m I’m gonna go this way now. And Shake hands. Jesus.
Theresa: So she goes to you know, the Haskell Indians Institute that’s now known as Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas.
Angie: Okay.
Theresa: So we were excited about you know getting high school out of the way. She gets a degree in education and returns to Lance to teach.
Angie: So she’s duly educated.
Theresa: Oh yeah.
Angie: She’s a smart cookie. So I love this because so few of our stories end with, and she had an actual college degree as well. Uh-huh.
Theresa: Uh-huh. I mean, considering I’ve got family members that I recently did research on that graduated eighth grade.
Angie: And that’s a big deal.
Theresa: Yeah.
Angie: Mm-hmm.
Theresa: Mike Aunt
Angie: said that to my mom in my eighth grade graduation. You have to make it exactly how she wants it because you don’t know if she will graduate high school or not.
Theresa: And I was like, uh, actually, yeah, that’s a low bar.
Angie: Like I remember in high school, everyone being like, We’re so proud of you. And I was like, was there any reason that
Theresa: you didn’t think this was a foregone conclusion?
Angie: Like, I thought this was the law. Like I literally turned around and went, Isn’t it the law? Don’t I have to go to high school?
Theresa: I mean, up till you’re like 16 or so, and then they’re just like, well, we try. Um, but anyhow, she returns back to teach. Now, there is a quote I have. Documents from her time period show her as a member of what was called the Chippewa tribe. Today, she would be if she was still willing, part of the Lance band of the Ojibwe tribe. Clear as mud. Like I still have.
Angie: Yeah. I got the same set of questions, babe. I got trust me when I tell you this.
Theresa: And and did I like research? I read it and was like, I should look that up. Anyhow, moving on.
Angie: Um I recently listened to an entire lecture from a professor to understand something about the Ojibwe, and I and it had literally nothing to do with my like topic. But I was like, I don’t understand. You’re
Theresa: like,
Angie: tell me like I’m fire.
Theresa: Please thank you.
Angie: And I’m still like, I’m gonna need more.
Theresa: Give me more info. So now that we have her returning home, she teaches school at the Zeba Mission in up in the upper peninsula for many years. In 1903, she’s 21. She meets and marries a man named Charles Anderson. And love this for her. To supplement her income, they end up running a local hotel for years.
Angie: Okay. So you’re on a train, uh train ride of people who own hotels this month.
Theresa: I guess I am, aren’t I?
Angie: Yeah. I like it. Let’s go.
Theresa: But this ends up not being enough to really satisfy her because honestly, Cora really wants to help the less fortunate. So in the early 1920s, she organizes the county’s first public health service.
Angie: Okay, that’s cool.
Theresa: Isn’t that pretty awesome? Now, her and her husband are both pretty active members in her community, and she’s not gonna sit idly by, and they become involved in the prohibition movement.
Angie: Are they for or against it?
Theresa: I believe they are for prohibition.
Angie: So
Theresa: you know, I mean
Angie: they’re doing the best the best they can with the information they have. They actively worked about alcohol in the area as well as nationally.
Theresa: So they’re they’re believing their movement will get legs. She becomes an active member in the Grange, which is an organization that welcomes voices and political aspirations in both men and women.
Angie: Cool. And
Theresa: so she by the time she runs for office, she’s well known in her community and they know her as an educator and a health advocate.
Angie: Cool.
Theresa: She’s asked to run by her predecessor and wins the primary against two other Republican candidates and then runs unopposed in the final election, taking office in 1925.
Angie: Cool. Love this 1925, huh? We just got the right to vote.
Theresa: Yeah. Yeah.
Angie: That’s awesome. Okay.
Theresa: And it’s funny you say that because voters in Michigan were able to vote in the presidential election in 1918, two years before the federal government ratified the 19th amendment to the Constitution.
Angie: So wait female voters in Michigan could vote.
Theresa: Women.
Angie: Women over these were voting in in Michigan in 1918. Sweet God do the men’s know
Theresa: we can’t tell them
Angie: okay all weight bed.
Theresa: Yeah just don’t put that put that away for a second. Now so everybody really knows her they they really think that you know they see her for who she is and we need to really understand because when she was setting up that public health service in her county the first one that’s the first public health nurse that was brought to the region.
Angie: I was wondering if it was the first public health in the country.
Theresa: I don’t think to the country I think Michigan is progressive.
Angie: I mean I guess probably New York City probably had something.
Theresa: I
Angie: maybe look I’m not going to speak more out of my butt than I already have this episode. Like you gotta let me pace myself a little bit listen I just was reminded you haven’t seen the mummies I’m a little faulted. Okay.
Theresa: Okay. Fair fair
Angie: think you know what? Whatever.
Theresa: Moving
Angie: on
Theresa: so when she runs for that House of Representative seat she wins. She starts her term in 1925. She’s the first woman elected to the Michigan House of Representatives and the first Native American woman to serve in the state legislature.
Angie: Get it sis Get it.
Theresa: I hope we have a picture. Oh hold that thought I mean I do I’m gonna make you wait for it a little bit though I’m shape
Angie: the end I’m just I’m just saying well I’d expect it at the end but I
Theresa: was just saying I hope we have a picture. Now um Winona Single she’s the assistant director of the indigenous law and policy center at Michigan State University and she’s also a member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians she would say that Anderson was elected in 1924 and served a year and during that time period it was a very difficult period for the tribes across the country including in Michigan in part because it was a time where there was very widespread for native children to attend Indian boarding schools
Angie: it was it
Theresa: was widespread it was yeah families were were getting their children forcibly taken from them to go to these schools to learn English good for us. Yeah
Angie: go
Theresa: team go
Angie: not count that among our points
Theresa: not even a little bit honestly that is one of many blots on our
Angie: record our record is a blot if
Theresa: it’s got a couple of white specks where we haven’t quite filled in the gaps yet give us time we’ll we’ll be
Angie: a completionist here shortly we’ll sort it out we do love a good Sherpie.
Theresa: Yeah I mean but so Anderson Cora Reynolds Anderson she represented multiple count or counties I could try to say their names I will butcher them all. There’s one named Iron I think I’ve got that one but while she’s in the House of Representatives she concentrated on public welfare issues chaired the Industrial Home for girls committee and was continuing her push for public health issues especially the fight against alcoholism and tuberculosis.
Angie: It’s a wild combination.
Theresa: I mean, tuberculosis right next to the National Park Service off your bingo card. But you know honestly in her in her defense right we’d known she was you know prohibition for prohibition and you know I’m sure to book tuberculosis was ripping through the reservations
Angie: oh it had to be it
Theresa: had so this this makes sense to me um she continued to sit on several committees like agriculture insurance and the Northern State Normal School which is now Northern Michigan University.
Angie: Cool
Theresa: and she also championed the fight to recognize Native American fishing rights in here in Bay I
Angie: like that even more
Theresa: let’s start the fight early good for you sis. I mean early this is 1925.
Angie: Well I mean, early, as in like some of our groups are only now having the ability to wage that fight.
Theresa: Yeah. And
Angie: you’re not sure. This is a hundred years later,
Theresa: and she’s you know what I mean. Like I wasn’t saying that I
Angie: wasn’t trying to make it sound like they weren’t fighting back. What I’m saying is we have groups now only now that have the ability to fight back.
Theresa: Because we stripped them of their ability to do so.
Angie: So like good for her.
Theresa: When asked why there’s not much in Michigan’s historical record about Cora Anderson’s ancestry, single replied, if you look at newspaper coverage of her service in the state legislature, that newspaper coverage really downplayed, if not did not highlight that she was a native woman serving in the state legislature.
Angie: I hate that.
Theresa: I think she had to lean into the lenses that would work for her.
Angie: I mean, yeah, I get it. And I and I I guess if it’s like I think sometimes people, especially historically when you’re looking back, you want them to be able to announce what they are. But maybe for them, it’s just Tuesday, right? Like it’s not a good thing.
Theresa: They’re like everybody knows.
Angie: I don’t need to talk about it. Yeah, I am this and I am also this, and everybody knows both things. So
Theresa: yeah,
Angie: why just do my job?
Theresa: Right.
Angie: Right, exactly. Whereas like people looking back are like, but you were this. Why are we not talking about that?
Theresa: And so it could be that it’s just a known thing, and it’s like, ah, yeah, so it could just be like that she was just like, well, I mean, just gloss over it.
Angie: Yeah, I’m just a woman, just here.
Theresa: Now, it could have been, I mean, and this this makes sense given even now, right? That highlighting her native ancestry could make her a controversial figure for election in a state seat.
Angie: And that could have been why she chose not to highlight it. I mean, we do see it brought up quite loudly when other people who look like her now get these kind of seats. We see it brought up when you don’t look like Kennedy, period. Yep.
Theresa: Yep.
Angie: Like, yeah.
Theresa: Now her term lasts for a solid year.
Angie: Nice, okay.
Theresa: Now how long is supposed to be the term though?
Angie: Like at least two? Yeah.
Theresa: Um she loses it to redistricting.
Angie: I was thinking nice because she did it, and I was hoping you were gonna say, and then she retired.
Theresa: No, no,
Angie: because okay.
Theresa: Yeah.
Angie: Redistricting, all right. So when it ended, she served as a representative for the state chapter of the Grange in 1930, the Andersons moved to Bay City, and Charles worked as a prohibition agent. I didn’t even know that was a thing.
Theresa: Okay I mean, there has to be somebody to reinforce the no drinking here.
Angie: Yeah, I guess it would have been like the 1920s version of the DEA, huh?
Theresa: Yeah. Yeah.
Angie: Well, 1930s. Yeah, nothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, I guess, okay, yeah.
Theresa: So Valerie Martin or Marvin, she’s a historian and curator at the Michigan State Capitol, called Anderson a bridge maker and would go on to say that Anderson connected the indigenous and UP communities, which I’m assuming is Upper Peninsula, to the state government. And as an English, French Canadian, and Native woman, Cora Reynolds Anderson represented several populations not present in Lansing at the time.
Angie: That’s impressive.
Theresa: Right. Any legislator of its kind has a foot back in home or a foot in life back home where their district is, and then they have another foot in Lansing. But in building that bridge between the two places, she was building several bridges because there’s not only a geographic divide, but there’s also cultural differences. And she or we know she was unusual right from the start because she pursued higher education as well. Well
Angie: then
Theresa: I mean, because she’s serving on boards, she’s doing things to push this forward. Okay, so I put this in the wrong spot, but one she lost her term to redistricting. She tries to run again in 1926, but is unsuccessful because of that redistricting.
Angie: Right, okay.
Theresa: Now we’re gonna fast forward a little bit. She passes away in 1968. Nope, she passes away at 68 in 1950.
Angie: Okay.
Theresa: Um
Angie: her burial location is unknown.
Theresa: Why? I wasn’t there at the time. I didn’t write it down. I don’t know what to tell you. Nobody knows where it is.
Angie: Oh. Maybe she wanted it that way.
Theresa: Maybe she was cremated. I don’t know.
Angie: Good for her. All right.
Theresa: But I will say in 2001, the Michigan’s Hall of Women’s Hall of Fame recognized her and wrote at a time when minorities, including Native Americans, were subjected to considerable economic and social discrimination. Anderson’s determination to attend college and return the benefits of her education to her community were notable. Her role as educator, legislator, and public health reform leader aided the Native American community as well as the whole society.
Angie: She could have been the president, man.
Theresa: No, we needed a couple more years. We still do.
Angie: Oh my gosh, she’s so cute. I wasn’t expecting a picture right then. Oh my okay, so it’s a is this a ticket to an event or just something uh paper and newspaper clipping?
Theresa: You know, I’m not quite sure. I think this is just some kind of ad for her running.
Angie: Okay, that makes sense. All right, so it’s uh the sepia tone, it’s got on the right side of the image it says Cora Reynolds Anderson, and then right below that it’s in parentheses Mrs. Charles H. Anderson, which is cute. Um Republican candidate for renomination for state representative on on Tonegaran District. Did I say on Tonegar?
Theresa: I looked at the string of counties and I was like, Yeah, just counties.
Angie: Yeah, anyway, the picture on the left shows what can only be described as one of the sweetest women I have ever seen. Um she’s got it looks like short cropped hair. I can’t tell if it is maybe in the in a bun, but it’s lighter in color and got the the curls of the era in front, and she’s got a square neckline dress on, and she is looking direct at the camera, like she is gonna be the tide that has things to say and says them straightforward, no beating her on the bush.
Theresa: Yep.
Angie: And I love her.
Theresa: Oh, it says the mining gazette printers.
Angie: That’s who did it.
Theresa: But I don’t know what venue that or was it full done in the paper? Was this just a one thing and you know, this print on the bottom of all their flyers, so
Angie: well it does say respectfully selects solicits your support and influence at the primary election September 14th on her record. That’s pretty cool. I wonder if it was just like a flyer around town.
Theresa: Could be, yeah.
Angie: But either way, that’s that’s her story with you.
Theresa: mean, it took all of those sources to find all of this detail, Which I
Angie: I’m assuming there’s no memoir written for her, no, not really. That’s devastating. Devastating. Somebody should do something about that.
Theresa: Yeah, like find more.
Angie: Like I we you know, you we have uh
Theresa: I did what I could. But she was really
Angie: fun to learn about. I wasn’t saying you. I was saying like we have so many wonderful historic women. We need more you
Theresa: know, more memoirs, more biographies to be able to. It could be the indigenous people know and they’re like, well, just no one’s asked me. I know all of this.
Angie: Dude. Yes, okay. Can I saying that, can I tell you a story about um the book uh How to Kill a Witch? Yes.
Theresa: Okay.
Angie: So in that story, there is a group of uh historian researcher archaeologists, right? And they are looking for what was then the most renowned witch in Scotland, okay. And they know for a fact, this is like uh early, like early 2020s, maybe, um, that I’m going off memory here, so I could be wrong on the air. But they know for a fact that she’s from this region and that she was buried in this region, and they know she was buried in this region because there’s this huge story that goes along with her death.
Like she was buried and they needed to bury her in like a liminal space in that she needed to be buried in a place where she couldn’t return per their customs.
Theresa: Okay.
Angie: Okay. So their thought process was we will bury her in the tide. And then we will place a huge slab. It’s like a ton, the like literal ton slab. It’s like six feet long, three feet wide, granite slab on top of her sarcophagus or or casket or whatever, in the tide. So she’ll forever be stuck there.
There’s no way she can get out, whether she makes it through the coffin and then w she can’t lift a slab, or she makes it out of the slab, she’s not gonna make it out of the tide. Like that’s their thought process. Three hundred years ago.
Okay. So modern researchers are like, we know she’s here. Like the re the research documents, they’re so vivid on the description of where they put her. So one historical researcher does like all the paperwork and is like it’s gotta be in this area. It’s gotta be in this area and he reaches out to an archaeologist and the archaeologist is like yeah definitely and they’re doing all this like mad science to try to figure it out. Meanwhile a historian totally unrelated to this group goes to the local people in the village and talks to all the old people and they’re she’s like where’s the witch and they’re like oh the rock right there and she just puts her muck and boots on and walks right out to the bear
Theresa: Whoa.
Angie: because she’s like hold on this story’s so well known and so renowned you’re telling me that the old folks don’t know oh someone knows and it’s literally right there in the harbor like you can’t miss it now. It’s
Theresa: the
Angie: idea somebody knows something.
Theresa: Mm-hmm and she was like there has to be this this story is so popular
Angie: that somebody had to tell somebody who had to tell somebody and all the old guys in the pub are like yeah right down there.
Theresa: So yeah somebody knows somebody knows
Angie: just gotta ask the right people
Theresa: I mean remember when we had Ishi’s brain that was lost and it’s like no no I swear I knew the whole time
Angie: Yeah.
Theresa: just nobody asked me
Angie: this was sitting in my desk for 50 years I didn’t know you wanted it back it’s like losing Einstein’s brain for a minute. Oh you wanted that back?
Theresa: Oh
Angie: my bad. sorry Yeah.
Theresa: Thanks for letting me go on my how to kill a witch
Angie: tangent
Theresa: Angie I’m always here for you to tell me that how to kill a witch I mean thanks.
Angie: It’s a great book if you have the opportunity to read it it’s delightful. It’s
Theresa: on even more so have you have the opportunity to listen to it because the authors are the narrators Oh.
Angie: And so it’s a lot of fun
Theresa: if you need more book recommendations set at the end of your podcast
Angie: send this to somebody else who also likes things in reverse order of the standard podcast. And on that note goodbye. Bye Ha ha.
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