detroit

I Was a Culturally Deprived Kid: My Teachers Never Told Me About the Ojibwe Poet Jane Johnston Schoolcraft

September 14, 2017 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

[caption id="attachment_14910" align="aligncenter" width="500"]

Culturally deprived because though I loved this Michigan woodland, I was never introduced as a child to the poetry of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, who celebrated Michigan's nature. Photo by Barbara Newhall

We shared a love of the Michigan woods — pine, oak and birch. Photo by Barbara Newhall[/caption]

This Ojibwe poet would have been dear to my girlish Michigan heart. Why didn’t my Detroit schoolteachers ever mention her? Was I culturally deprived? Read more.

A Lost Child in Wartime Detroit — A Headscarf Story

February 9, 2017 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

I couldn’t see the point of my mother’s skimpy yellow babushka — until the day I found myself a lost child in a cavernous Detroit department store. Read more.

The First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham, Michigan — Last Stop on My One-Woman Road Trip

October 2, 2015 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

I’d sung in the choir and been confirmed at the First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham. And now I was invited to read from “Wrestling with God.” Read more.

The Perfect Christmas Tree — I Finally Found It

December 4, 2014 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

At the Christmas tree lot, the kids played hide ’n’ seek amid the trees, leaving me to find the perfect Christmas tree. The responsibility weighed heavy. Read more.

Little Girl Lost — My Mother’s Magical Babushka

January 30, 2014 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

When I was three or four years old, my mother took me shopping at a big department store in downtown Detroit. It might have been Crowley’s or Kern’s or Hudson’s. Shoppers crowded the aisles and soon, my mother and I got separated and I found myself alone. Read more.