INSIDE
: Community turns out to support in-progress Heeres film Volume 4, Issue 8 July 17, 2026
REFLECTIONS OF OUR COMMUNITY MASSIVE DONOR LISTING COMING NEXT WEEK - THANK YOU!
Total Raised: $113,669 Lead this Legacy WE ARE A 501 (c)(3)
SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE
@echopublishinginc
YOUR YOUR LOCALLY LOCALLY OWNED OWNED ANDAND OPERATED OPERATED NONPROFIT NONPROFIT NEWS NEWS SOURCE SOURCE YOUR LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED NONPROFIT NEWS SOURCE Sign up today to start or keep receiving the Echo & Mirror!
We have been overwhelmed by the response we have received in the past week with over 700 people signing up for our new delivery service! We will still be mailing newspapers for free to the following locations: Pentwater, Hart, Hesperia, Walkerville, Mears, Shelby, New Era, Rothbury, Montague and now Whitehall. Subscriptions are also available. Scan the QR code to sign-up or call us at 231301-8149. Donations are also welcome!
The Oceana County Agricultural Society Board of Directors includes, above, from left, Stacia Erickson, Sean Carey, Lindsey Merten, Mark Haynor, Vice President Carl Weigand, President Paul Erickson, Stephanie VanSickle, Lance VanSickle and Mike Carey. Missing from the photo are Judie Burmeister and Nate AndresMooi. • Contributed photo by Malcolm Carey
Fair board breaks ground on new project By Stacia Erickson the project by the end of
PERMIT NO 62
RESIDENTIAL RESIDENTIAL POSTALCUSTOMER CUSTOMER POSTAL ECRWSS ECRWSS
PRSRT STANDARD PRSRT STANDARD NON PROFIT NON PROFIT U.S. POSTAGEU.S. POSTAGE PAID PAID
BIG RAPIDS, MI 49307 BIG62RAPIDS, MI 49307 PERMIT NO
the year. Once finished, The Oceana Echo Community Correspondent the building will feature modern restroom/showOn June 25, 2026, the er facilities and a larger, Oceana County Agricul- renovated kitchen with tural Society Board of seating. Future plans inDirectors held an official clude making the space groundbreaking ceremony available to rent for spefor the new bathroom and cial events like receptions and graduation parties. kitchen building project. The Oceana ComWhile the new facilimunity Foundation is ty will not be finished in currently accepting dotime for the 155th Oceana County Fair this Au- nations to support the gust, Blackmer Construc- building project fund. tion expects to complete Board President Paul Erickson noted "Although we have received an inkind grant, project finances currently fall short of our goal. We encourage community members to help us bridge this gap. All donations are greatly appreciated, and every donor will be included on a sponsor listing to be displayed in the new facility." To contribute, one can mail a check noted as to, "Oceana County Fair Building Fund" to: The Oceana Community Foundation, P.O. Box 902, 388 S. Hancock St., Pentwater, MI 49449 For more information on the project and to be added to that donor listing, please contact Tammy Carey at 231-869-3377 or visit www.oceanafoundation.org. The board thanks the community for its continued support of the Oceana County Fair.
America 250: Remembering Chippewa Que By Claire Marshall The Oceana Echo Community Correspondent There are 50 states in the union, and over half have Native American names. From the Ojibwe “Mishigamaw,” we derive the name “Michigan.” A trip up or down the lakeshore would uncover place names with similar origin stories: Manistee, Muskegon, Ottawa and Macatawa. The United States of America might have just celebrated its momentous 250th anniversary, but the land on which this country was formed has a human history reaching back millennia. In 1821, the Treaty of Chicago was signed by the Michigan Territorial Governor and representatives from the Ottawa, Ojibwe and Potawatomi Native American tribes. This treaty ceded all Michigan lands south of the Grand River to the white settlers and displaced thousands of Indigenous peoples. Throughout the next several decades, Grand River Native Americans migrated throughout Michigan, searching for land to claim or purchase as their own, but with every new home came another document, ceding more and more of their land to the state. Many of the Grand River Ottawa settled in Oceana County at a reservation in Elbridge Township, established in 1855. One of the many who found themselves in Elbridge and established a thriving community was Josette DeRosier, also known as Chippewa Que. Josette was born to a Native mother and French settler father in either 1819 or 1829 around Torch Lake, Wisconsin, and her path to Elbridge spanned hundreds of miles of land and water. In the early 1830s, Josette, her mother and brother traveled by mail boat from Torch Lake, Wisconsin to Northern Michigan, then by canoe to Grand Haven, where the family eventually settled in 1835. This is the legend, of course, the first confirmable record of Josette is her 1847 marriage certificate to Peter DuVernay, a son of a prominent Grand Haven pioneer. Theirs was the first marriage performed at the Ottawa County courthouse. They remained married until Peter’s death, likely by hypothermia, in 1855, as was reported in the Grand River Times. They had two children together, Sophia and Frank. With that heartache still fresh, Josette and the Native Americans who’d settled in Grand Haven were transferred to the Elbridge Reservation; but not before she met and married David Moon in Grand Haven. During their eight years together in Elbridge, three “Moon” (also sometimes spelled “Moan”) children were born: Sarah, Henry and Amanda. Henry Moon went
Josette DeRosier DuVernay Moon Robinson
Marge Peterson stands by her Native American ancestor's grave
on to become well-known in Hart as a local barber. Josette, David and their children constructed and lived in the “frame-built house” in Elbridge, as reported in her obituary published in one of the local newspapers of that time. David Moon preceded Josette in death in 1866, soon after which she married her final husband, Henry Robinson. Josette and Henry Robinson were both each other’s third spouses, and all of Henry Robinson’s wives were of the Grand River tribe. Josette had two more children with Henry Robinson - Mabel Jane and Kate Bell - joining Henry’s other five children and Josette’s four surviving children. Undoubtedly, Josette had other children who did not survive to adolescence. Plenty of women in the 19th century had seven or more children, but Josette was well-loved and respected throughout Oceana County through her work as a midwife, aiding the women of rural Michigan through births that were all too commonly fatal during this time. In her later years, she was a frequent collaborator with Dr. L.P. Munger, who called on her expertise to assist in the eastern reaches of the county and noted her “tough and devoted resolve.” That same obituary claims that “perhaps no other woman of Indian blood has been more respected and generally beloved than was Mrs. Robinson,” and described her as having, “a very kind disposition and her generous heart made friends for her by the score wherever she went.” Of her medical talents, “the sick and suffering always desired ‘Grandma’ Robinson as a nurse, and she was never known to refuse aid whenever it was possible for her to render it.” Josette died in Elbridge on April 17, 1904, over 300 miles from where she was born in Wisconsin and several counties away from where her tribe had lived. Her funeral was held at the Elbridge Township Hall and she is buried in the township's cemetery. The county mourned her passing, and she was put to rest by hundreds of her friends and neighbors. She was survived by six of her children, Henry Robinson (who did not remarry) and her brother,
John Parisien. John remained in Grand Haven and was well-known by most everyone in the city at the time. As such, Josette’s death was noted in the Grand Haven Tribute, the article’s author, George W. McBride, recounting the story of her family’s journey from Wisconsin. McBride romantically describes the tableau, “The frail canoe, with mother and son and daughter, gliding over the rippling waters of the great lake…,” and Josette, “the dark-skinned girl, lithe and graceful as a fawn, balancing herself, corresponding with the tossing motions of the canoe” - more legend than near-past. McBride likewise describes Parisien and the other Native Americans, “What mighty changes have been wrought within the lifetime of this man. The race from which his mother sprang has practically vanished. In its stead has appeared a restless and vigorous life, void of the beauty and the simplicity of the Chippewas, but charged by the Creator with a mission of mercy to the Millions.” Today, there are still 6.49 million Native Americans living in the United States, with 172,295 in Michigan alone. Millions more Americans can claim distant relation to those that lived in the country 250 years ago. Marge Peterson of Hart, who, at 96, is one of the oldest direct relatives of Josette, recalls a time when she didn’t dare let her neighbors know she had “Indian blood,” as she described it. Growing up in New Era, Marge explained that many in the village wanted to avoid associating with "anything not Christian.” All these years later, however, Marge is proud of her heritage, an American with Indigenous ancestry. “I am proud. I am very proud to be a part of that” - “that” being the legacy of the Native Americans who built up Elbridge Township - and, despite her fear of ostracization from her neighbors, her family held onto that pride. “I was never made to feel like I shouldn't be [proud].” She noted in her family history records about the prominent placement of Josette’s obituary, “For an Indian woman to be on the front page speaks in a million ways how important she was to the community.”