- Dates
- 1945-05-06 – 1945-05-07
- Kind
- Education
- Where
- Beaver Island
- Participants
- L. B. Karr (leader)
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- agriculturecommunitytourismfishingheritage
- Within
- Beaver Island
Summary
The May 11, 1945 Charlevoix County Herald reports that seven East Jordan FFA boys and their teacher, L. B. Karr, spent a weekend camping under the stars on Beaver Island, from May 6 to 7. The trip included rain-soaked camp life, a baseball game, a picture show, fishing and cooking; the group returned on the Mary Margaret.1 A separate item in the same issue’s “Peninsula” community column independently confirms that one of the boys, Paul Bennett, made the trip as part of the East Jordan School’s Agricultural Class.2
The named boys were James Graham, Paul Bennett, Harry Dougherty, Kenneth Richards, Floyd DuFore, Clifford Cutler, and Lee Danforth.
History
The Herald’s feature account, headlined “East Jordan’s FFA Lads Have Enjoyable Outing At The Beaver Islands,” opens by reporting that “everything proceeded beautifully and all returned happy.” It goes on to say the boys and Karr were “purified early Monday morning by a drenching rain”: everyone was soaked, and the group had to dry their blankets and replenish the camp-fire before returning. The trip nonetheless included a baseball game, a picture show, and fishing, with the Herald crediting the boys as “excellent cooks and good campers and ship-mates.” The return crossing on the Mary Margaret was rough enough that, in the paper’s words, two of the boys “heaved a hearty heave when the good ship rolled a wee bit too tossingly.” The Herald closes by reporting that the whole party wanted to return to Beaver Island that fall.
The same issue’s “Peninsula” neighborhood column, edited by Mrs. E. Hayden, independently records that “Master Paul Bennett of Honey Slope farm was one of the Agricultural Class of the East Jordan School, who made a trip to Beaver Island, Saturday, returning Monday.” This item identifies the school program by name as the “Agricultural Class” and gives Bennett’s family farm, but frames the travel days as Saturday to Monday rather than the feature story’s May 6-7; both wordings are preserved here rather than reconciled into a single timeline.
Evidence and limits
This is a source-bounded youth agricultural-education outing. The reports do not identify the FFA chapter’s officers, the campsite, the island landing, the boat’s operator or registry, or the boys’ full civil identities beyond Bennett’s family farm. The feature story calls the Mary Margaret a ship but gives no dimensions, construction history, or service route. The two accounts’ differing day-of-week framing for the same trip is noted rather than resolved. The record preserves the reported weekend and activities without treating the cheerful feature as a complete itinerary.
Open questions
- Where did the group camp, and which route and operator connected it to East Jordan?
- Can East Jordan FFA, school, or county-extension records identify the students and Karr?
- What vessel was the Mary Margaret, and what was its relationship to later island mail service?
- Does the discrepancy between the feature story’s May 6-7 dates and the Peninsula column’s Saturday-to-Monday framing reflect loose shorthand for the same weekend, or an editing inconsistency?
See also
Footnotes
Read the document
8 pages, rendered from the held scan.
Sources
- Charlevoix County Herald, May 11, 1945, “East Jordan’s FFA Lads Have Enjoyable Outing At The Beaver Islands.”Reports seven East Jordan FFA boys camping on Beaver Island from May 6–7 with teacher L. B. Karr; names the boys, describes rain, a campfire, baseball, a picture show, fishing and cooking, and says they returned on the Mary Margaret. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
- Held raw OCR preserves the FFA outing report independently of the normalized Markdown rendering.
- Charlevoix County Herald, May 11, 1945, "Peninsula" community column, edited by Mrs. E. Hayden.Independently records that Paul Bennett of Honey Slope farm made a trip to Beaver Island, Saturday to Monday, as one of the East Jordan School Agricultural Class. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
Added 1 August 2026 · revised 2 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “East Jordan FFA Beaver Island Outing in 1945”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/east-jordan-ffa-beaver-island-outing-1945/, accessed [date], citing Charlevoix County Herald, May 11, 1945, “East Jordan’s FFA Lads Have Enjoyable Outing At The Beaver Islands.” (and 2 further sources listed on the page).
Last revised 2026-08-02. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.
BibTeX for “East Jordan FFA Beaver Island Outing in 1945”RIS for “East Jordan FFA Beaver Island Outing in 1945”