Book teaches local history to children

As an elementary school teacher, lifelong Tecumseh resident Kathy Smith wanted young children to have a fun way to learn about Tecumseh’s history. After being transferred in 2008 from teaching first grade to a new role as a second-grade teacher at Herrick Park elementary, she saw that one of the curriculum pieces in social studies was to learn about the local community history. She searched for materials to use that would be suitable for second graders but didn’t find any books that would be interesting or appropriate for children.

“That summer, after trying to find something, I decided I was going to try to write a little book for the second graders to use,” Smith said. The result of her efforts is “The History of Tecumseh, Michigan, Children’s Edition,” which has continued to be part of the second-grade curriculum at Tecumseh Public Schools.

She started her project by gathering information with the help of those at the Tecumseh Area Historical Museum, the Lenawee County Historical Museum, local historian Ashley Chase, and by referencing “One Hundred Years a Country Town” published in 1968 by Clara Waldron. “I used Clara Waldron’s book for a lot of this information,” she said. “Lots of people have helped me through the years.”

Her first printing came out in 2009. “I just put the basics in there. I wanted each of the kids to be able to keep a book so they could take it home. Grandparents could talk about it, and it could start a dialogue with family members about the history of Tecumseh. We have such a unique history here,” Smith said.

She has revised the book since that first printing and has had three additional printings with new information, including a second edition in 2015 and a third edition in 2020. Each time she has asked an organization in Tecumseh to pay for the printing and has received financial assistance from the Kiwanis Club of Tecumseh, Dan Meikle of Tecumseh Union Block Suites, the now defunct Lions Club of Tecumseh, and others.

She usually makes about 1,000 copies of the book in each printing and gives the books to Tecumseh Public Schools teachers for their second-grade classes.

“I don’t make any money off it,” said Smith. “I keep the books here and I check with the second-grade teachers each year. I deliver enough books for them to use for the year – that way I know when I need to have another printing done.”

The teachers use it as a teaching tool in their classrooms to educate about Tecumseh history. “I think that the kids are just amazed looking at downtown Tecumseh when the first light fixture was hanging there and the streets were dirt, and the sidewalks were wooden planks,” she said. “Things like a picture of Ernie Van Vleet, who started delivering groceries to people in 1906 in his red wagon pulled by his horses, Bob and June. He delivered groceries for fifty years in Tecumseh.”

She sometimes goes into the classroom to talk to students about Tecumseh’s history, as well. When she was teaching, the teachers and students would take a community walk after finishing the book to see some of the locations mentioned, and would visit the historical museum, as well, to connect images in the book to artifacts from the past.

“One of the things that I was really trying to do in this book was to show how things change over time, and that was one of the curriculum benchmarks under local history. So that’s why I tried to show things that were then and things that are now,” she said.

On the back of the book, a photo of Clara Waldron with her typewriter is joined by a photo of Smith with her laptop, continuing the tradition of chronicling the city’s history.

The book includes information about Meyers Airport, the first airplane built in Tecumseh in 1940, World War II, and the Civil War, as well as Laura Haviland and the Underground Railroad and the houses in Tecumseh that were involved.

Smith said she started working for Tecumseh Public Schools as an assistant in a kindergarten class, then six years later she updated her teaching certificate and moved into a first-grade teaching position, which lasted for seven years. Her stint as a second-grade teacher continued until she retired in 2017 after nine years in that grade.

“It’s just an honor to still be able to teach the kids somehow in my own way through this book,” she said. “I love Tecumseh history. I’m so excited about our bicentennial coming up this summer. I hope that when they read this book and they take it home to their parents, they talk about it in school, and that it’s developing some anticipation and excitement for the bicentennial as well as for Tecumseh history in general.”