This continues a series adapted from the book, “A Port Oneida Collection,” Volume 1 of the twopart set, “Oral History, Photographs, and Maps from the Sleeping Bear Region,” produced by Tom Van Zoeren in partnership with Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear. Here we have a look at the Brunson Farm, along the northern portion of Thoreson Road: Like many Port Oneida farms, the land that became the Brunson Farm was earlier owned and logged by timber baron Thomas P. Kelderhouse. It was subsequently inherited by his daughter Margaret, who married Joseph Brunson (or “Bronson”, as many documents say), also of the Port Oneida area. The Brunsons built a farm and raised five children. Leonard Thoreson remembered Margaret, who went by “Mag”: “You’d walk by here sometimes, you’d hear her singing & playing the organ. She wasn’t a good player, but she enjoyed it.” She played mostly hymns on her foot-pumped organ.
Two of the Brunsons’ five sons, Joe and Archie, stayed on here after growing up, and eventually took over the farm operation.
In contrast to their neighbors, the Thoresons and the Millers, the Brunsons never made it past a life of basic, hard-scrabble toil. Their rolling, lakeside land would be worth millions today—but as a farm the sandy hills offered little beyond basic subsistence. And unlike their neighbors, the Brunsons lacked the aptitude or enterprise to launch successful sidelines other than hiring out as manual labor at neighboring farms, or doing yard work for “resorters.”
