The Van Gieson Legacy & Native Americans on Brown’s Lake
- Linda Hass
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Former Brown’s Lake resident Katherine Van Gieson sat comfortably in the chair of her Jackson apartment holding pieces of Brown’s Lake history in her hands; although some would say her very presence is historic.
At 102 years old, Kay, as her family calls her, is a living repository of Brown’s Lake history, filled with memories that might amaze today’s listeners. Even so, Kay did not look her age on this recent autumn day. She was dressed in purple attire, her silver hair styled in a neat bun, and the lively twinkle in her eyes added a youthful glow to her presence.
“These artifacts have been in my family for generations,” said Kay, holding up Indian arrowheads and spearpoints of various sizes. “They were found on our family’s Brown’s Lake property. I have lots of stories about the Indians,” she added.
Indeed she would, since her late husband’s ancestors were among early property owners on the lake. Marcellus Van Gieson (1828-1906), a New Jersey native of Dutch ancestry, migrated to Michigan in 1852 and was drawn to Jackson by the beauty of this spring-fed, hidden gem in Summit Township. So in 1868 he and his wife, Mary, bought 207 acres on the west side of the lake for $8,000, and moved into a house originally owned by George and Celeste Brown, namesakes of Brown’s Lake.
The property was next owned by their son Bert Van Gieson (1866-1932) and his wife Jessie; and then by their son, Rollo Van Gieson (1921-2010), who married Kay in 1942. Somewhere along the line, family members passed down artifacts and stories of Potawatomi Indians on the lake. Almost all the Potawatomi in southern Michigan were rounded up by federal authorities in the late 1830s and forcibly relocated to other states. Among those who remained were a small number who converted to Christianity and those who had married settlers and were established here.
“The Potawatomi fished in the shallows a few houses down from us, along a small creek branching off Brown’s Lake,” she said pointing to an old photo.
The Potawatomi are long gone, of course, but if one could look at this creek through the mists of time, their presence might return in the form of shadows walking up and down the shallows catching bluegill in homemade nets. Elsewhere, faint figures might stand poised with multi-pronged spears (known as “leisters”) ready to catch carp in the shallows or pike lurking in weed beds near the drop-off.
The original Van Gieson farm was near this creek, but sat high atop a hill, complete with house, windmill, and a barn filled with horses, cattle, chickens and sheep. Opening a window to the past, one might see a woman walk out of the cabin to a well and begin cranking a hand pump. Gushes of water spill into her wooden bucket. In the distance, a man tends sheep and another picks apples from an orchard, as a dog sits at his heels, looking up at him expectantly.
This is the property that Katherine Van Gieson inherited when she married heir Rollo Van Gieson, and the property that she clearly remembers. “Renovations had been made to the house over the years, but the windmill, barn, well and orchard still existed when I lived there,” she said.
“The house had electricity by then, but it was very low voltage, so it was dim at night. We still went to the well outside to pump water, and the house had an ice box instead of a refrigerator,” she said, adding that the ice man would come regularly to deliver slabs of ice destined for their insulated metal box.
“The original house had what we called a ‘traditional Michigan basement,’ because it was more like an old-fashioned cellar with a dirt floor and rough stone walls.” The damp, dark space was originally designed for food storage like root vegetables and canned goods. “I didn’t prefer to go down there often,” she said, chuckling.
“On Sunday’s, Rollo’s parents would hitch the horse to the buggy and ride to the nearby church,” said Kay, adding that the family attended South Jackson Community Church on Kimmel Road for decades. Another memory from her early days in the house was cutting fresh cedar trees for Christmas and trimming them with bright red bows and strands of homemade popcorn.
Over time, more families came to live on the sparsely populated lake, including the arrival of Howard and Lillian Paar, who lived on the southwest part of the lake before the Hayes Clubhouse occupied that spot in the 1950s. The Paar’s famous son, Jack Paar, ended up becoming an American talk show host, radio and television comedian, film actor, and the second host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962.
“I went to Jackson High School with Jack’s brother, Dick Paar, who was also a friend of Rollo’s. Jack’s mother was a sweet person. I don’t remember much of her husband--he was away on work a lot, but he did help Rollo get his first job,” Kay said of Howard Paar.
Another memory that Rollo often talked about was meeting First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he was 14 years old at the Marsh house. The episode of Eleanor’s attempted private visit at the lake house, in a wooded spot on the north side of the lake, lives on in the archives of the Jackson Citizen Patriot, including a photo of her presence, which ended up being not so private.
As wonderful as it was to live on the lake, Kay was hesitant to get in it. “Too many people had drowned over the years; in fact I almost drowned once,” she recalled. “I invited two of my friends over to enjoy a summer day in the shallows. Despite my warnings, they wandered into the drop off, started to panic and sink. I was only able to save them because I was on an inner tube and paddled out to them,” she said. Still, she always loved looking out onto the beautiful body of water, she said.
In 2019, at 96 years, Kay sold the property, which needed more maintenance and updates than she was able to provide. Today, she is comfortably settled in a Jackson apartment complex that is considerably easier to maintain. She also enjoys visits from her family, including son Timothy and daughter-in-law Cindy Van Gieson of Jackson, who were with her on this autumn day.
“Brown’s Lake will always have a special place in my heart,” she said, looking down at an abstract filled with the names of those who have come and gone. The abstract is a valuable testament to the residents who lived on Brown’s Lake over the centuries, but it was held in the hands of a much more valuable historical asset—the human kind.