Talking to Marion Seeley Jr.

Another amazing moment we had this week was getting to speak to one of the Granddaughters of the original home owners, named after her grandmother, Marion. We spoke with her for about an hour, hearing many stories about her grandparents and the home that she grew up visiting as a young child in the 1940s and 50s.

She told us an amazing story about her Grandmother and the maid Rosie that happened on Thanksgiving Day one year. There were many guests over at the home, everyone sitting around the dining room table for a formal evening Thanksgiving dinner. Most of the guests were not family, but their local friends. Ward pressed the call bell on the floor under the table to call Rosie, and when she entered, he asked her to bring in the turkey. Rosie went back to the kitchen and returned with a lovely turkey on a silver plate, but as she stepped through the threshold to the dining room, she tripped and the turkey when flying onto the floor.

Everyone in the room gasped. Without missing a beat, her grandmother, Marion Seeley Sr. stood up and said, “It’s alright, Rosie. Just get the other turkey.” Rosie quickly stood back up, returned the turkey to the plate and stepped back into the kitchen. “”There was no other turkey,” Marion Jr. told us, “but Rosie knew what to do, and my grandmother knew exactly what to say to prevent disaster among company.” Rosie went back into the kitchen, cleaned off and re-set the turkey on the platter, and returned to the dining room shortly after with the “second turkey.”

That same day, we received a message from Marion Jr.’s cousins and brother, they were planning on having a get together in Ohio in a few weeks and decided after speaking to us and reading our blog that they’d like to take a road trip to Detroit! They asked us if they could come to Detroit to visit us and we’ve gladly accepted, so we look forward to meeting with them in a few weeks to show them their grandparent’s home once more, and hopefully hear some more wonderful stories from them. It will be the first time they’ve been inside their grandparents home in over 60 years!