Excerpt from Michael J. Anuta: an Autobiography
Privately published, c2006.
Used by permission of the editor, Janet Anuta Dalquist
We joined the Boswell school Parent Teacher Association which was an active one. We were invited to attend their meetings and on about the second year of our membership I was elected president. Having continued my interest in Scouting and, having determined that there were no active troops in Menominee, I asked our PTA to sponsor a troop. Approval was obtained from Miss Mary Powers, the school principal, and from John L. Silvernale, the superintendent of schools. We formed a committee and called on Theodore A. Meyer, one of our high school teachers living in our district, to be our Scoutmaster. He accepted and became one of our great Scout leaders for many years.
When Troop No. 1 was chartered in 1931, I approached the Roosevelt Parent Teacher Association to sponsor a troop for that district. Mr. Auldin J. Smith, another high school teacher, accepted, and he, too, became one of Menominee’s great Scout leaders. I followed the same procedure in the Lincoln, Grant, and Washington schools, and thus we had a registered Boy Scout Troop and leader in all five of our Menominee grade schools.
When we moved from Stephenson Avenue to Holmes Avenue and then to Michigan Avenue we had to rearrange where our children attended school and this also affected the Scout District we were in. However, I continued my committee status on the Boswell troop. I served on the Examining Committee and as District Scout Commissioner. Then I became active on the council and became first a council commissioner, then vice-president and in 1945-1946 was elected president of the Nicolet Area Council. Our Scout executive was Edwin A. Schwechel and with his wife, Margaret, we became wonderful personal friends. He was eventually transferred to the North Chicago Council.
We had a wonderful camping program. However, we had no council camp. We tried a number of camping grounds–Sturgeon Bay, Brown County, Oconto County, Marinette County and Menominee County. Camp Bird in Marinette County was used for two years. It was in control of the County Board of Supervisors and they had many groups seeking to use the camp. We could not depend on any camping dates and, in fact, we were advised that we would not be able to use it for a coming summer. We transferred our council camp to the J. W. Wells State Park campgrounds and called it Camp Monomee. It was a good camp with some usable camp buildings, but the State of Michigan imposed a per person charge on all users even though the Boy Scouts were specifically given preferential use of the camp in the Deed of Gift of the land to the State.
One of our very successful annual Scouting events in Menominee for some years was the annual Scout Troop pot-luck dinner and competition. Each troop planned their own pot-luck dinner. We met in the Menominee high school gymnasium and began with the singing of the national anthem and a prayer and then had our dinners. Each troop would then engage in the competition which included such things as starting fire by friction, lashing together a framework for a lean-to, first aid techniques such as putting on a splint, rope-climbing and knot-tying. Friends and families viewed the competition from the gymnasium balcony and cheered on their troop. We would then have some community singing and a short speech. The session would close with the singing of “Taps.” Upwards of 300 people would attend. It was a great fellowship event in Menominee Scouting.
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