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 conclude a look at the old Frederick & Margretha Werner Farm at the end of Miller Road: Charlie (junior) and his sisters moved on as they grew into adulthood, leaving the farm and northern Michigan. Charlie (senior) and Kathryn stayed on, working the farm until 1972, when they sold the place, retaining the right to spend out their lives there. Kathryn died a few years later, followed by Charlie in 1977. The house was then rented to Conservation Officer Ed Narva until 1978, when the farm was sold to the new Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
In line with the Park’s enabling legislation and the prevailing thinking of the time, signs of human activity were erased in favor of return to nature. The house and all but the barn were sold and removed or demolished.
In more recent years the old farms of Port Oneida have come to be treasured. That which still remains from the Werners’ and Millers’ time here — the barn, the family cemetery, scattered remains of rusted machinery, overgrown orchard trees, fading two-tracks, open fields, Charlie’s hilltop lookout — these vestiges will now remain as remnants from the time when this was a busy home in an active Port Oneida community.
