AN OLD TRUNK

South End, Airport Road, Washington Island, Wisconsin - 

Peg Sullivan, whose parents purchased the Carl and Maggie Richter home in 1965, generously invited us to pick up an old trunk that had been in her attic for many years.   We jumped at the chance to see this home, built for the Richters in 1907.   Peg, a retired teacher from the Chicago, spends her summers on the island, and she's kept the former Richter home in excellent condition, improving where improvements were needed to make it more modern and livable, keeping the room dimensions and general look pretty much as they were years back.  

Mary Jo, who often used to visit her grandparents there, can make comparisons with the past. The home is tidy and in excellent shape.  There is the chair by the kitchen window, a pair of eyeglasses on the sill, where Carl used to look across the harbor toward the ferry dock.  Trees have now grown up to partially block the view, but Detroit Harbor can still be seen.   

On the floor between beds, in an upstairs bedroom that had been Arni's and Paul's as young boys, was the trunk of Paul Gudmundsen, a son of Arni Gudmundsen, and brother to Maggie Richter.  Nothing was in the trunk, but nevertheless the trunk brought thoughts of years gone by, and it was a surprise to find it in this house after so many years.                         -  Dick Purinton