RIPPLES FROM THE PAST
97-Year-Old Message In Bottle Surfaces Memories Of Long-Gone Grandmother
By Elizabeth Coady
FOR MOST OF US, DEAD RELATIVES FROM BYGONE GENERATIONS seem more illusion than reality. But a twist of fate has revived the memory of a Detroit woman who tossed a message in a bottle into the St. Clair River 97 years ago.
A handwritten note with the message, “Having a good time at Tashmoo,” and dated June 30, 1915, was recovered last year by diver David Leander. With the help of his friend Michael Brodzik, who is president of the Metropolitan Detroit Antique Bottle Club, a search began for relatives of the signers.
The message, scribbled on the back of a White Star Line deposit ticket, was signed by Tillie Esper and Selina Pramstaller, teenagers who lived nine blocks apart in Detroit. Together they apparently visited Tashmoo Park on Harsens Island for an outing.
While researchers have found little about Pramstaller, they did locate Esper’s surviving children and great-grandchildren. Among them are Janet Baccanari of Beverly Hills, who says she’s the 31st granddaughter of Esper.
“It’s like she came back to life,” Baccanari, 46, told the Detroit Free Press. “It’s exciting stuff….It just gave me goose bumps.” She learned of the discovery in a phone call from her cousin Eric Schiebold, 59, of Bloomfield Township, who told the paper, “for that to be around that long and found is really, really incredible.”
Baccanari recalls her grandmother visiting her family’s home on Sundays when she was a child. She remembers her liking to cook for the family, and enjoying green tea and fish. And she says only three months ago she stumbled upon a birthday card she received from Esper when she was about 8 years old. “Everything’s coming back,” she said.
The descendents have been invited to attend a 100-year celebration of Tashmoo Days organized by the Harsens Island St. Clair Flats Historical Society.
“The event will celebrate the days when the famed Tashmoo steamship docked daily at the park in the early 1900s, allowing passengers who boarded in Detroit to enjoy swimming, dancing, amusement rides and other activities,” reports the Free Press.
