Joan and Edward Made Me a Detroiter for Life
Now Where Is the Detroit Hospital Where I First Started to Whine and Breathe?
Saturday, September 24th, 2022 at 9:42 AM
Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital
Detroit, Michigan
Today is my Fifty-Ninth birthday. I’m not at Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital. I’m looking for it.
My parents, as humble as Joseph and Mary, traveled from Warren, Michigan to a hospital in Detroit to give birth to a child. I am thankful for their pilgrimage because I can forever say that I am a native of Detroit. Forever. Detroit Michigan is on my birth certificate, stored in the public health records of the city. I am currently eligible for the stamp of Detroit on my death certificate, but I’m trying to shoot for one hundred years first.
I was brought home to a house barely inside the City of Warren, near the corner of Hoover and Eight Mile. I am currently racking my brains for the name of the street, but at fifty-nine, I have to wait as my brain searches the archives. The answer might come back while I’m still writing this daily post. Bazinga! The house might be still standing on Republic Street near the corner of Stephens and Van Dyke!
I am vain about the fact that Marshall Mathers as a youth called that vicinity home, and I strangely identify with Eminem for that reason. Plus, like myself, Eminem is a Detroit poet. At fifty-nine, I claim the title.
It is an open fact that Eminem lived at 19946 Dresden Street, a fact marked on Google Maps near the corner of Hoover and State Fair. The house once could be purchased from the Detroit Land Bank Authority for a dollar. One account tells how an arsonist set fire to the house in November 2013, with the remains of the house demolished in 2013.
According to Zillow, a purchaser bought the house for eighty-thousand dollars in October of 2007. I found an interesting note on the Zillow record.
THIS LAND IS OWNED BY JAMES F. KOLLER, CHRISTIAN M. CASTLE, AND MUSTAPHA DOUGLAS.FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CALL OR TEXT:313-327-2858 OR EMAIL: PLPC.INC@GMAIL.COM
I dialed the number. A calm recorded voice advised me, “Call rejected.”
I texted the number. “Hi, I would like to buy the Eminem property at 19946 Dresden. Do you have a number in mind?” The message has yet to bounce. The message has yet to be answered. I sent the same text to the email address. The email has yet to bounce.
Before I veer away from the Eminem legend in Detroit, my friend Bill the Detroit Old-timer, remembers when Marshall Mathers worked as a line cook at Gilbert’s Lodge in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. That’s Harper between Nine Mile and Vernier, so basically Detroit.
Mathers was chanting and cooking, and my friend claims that he told Mathers to shut up. Bill claims he wasn’t the only person who told Mathers to shut up and cook. I think all of this grief was said in a good natured, Detroit-style, badass way. We diss our friends in Detroit. Thanks for hijacking my daily post, Eminem.
What I really want to explore is the mystery of the Detroit hospital where I took my first breath and whined my first whine. My mother, Joan Elizabeth, always said I was born in Saint Mary’s Hospital. “They’ve torn it down,” she added. My life in Detroit is like the Detroit based flick, “It Follows”. Except I’m being stalked by a wrecking ball.
Just like Chicago, the Second City, Detroit, once the Fifth City, has continued “Wrecking and Rebuilding”. In 1950, Detroit’s population peaked at 1.8 million, well ahead of number 6 Baltimore at 949 thousand. We were right behind Los Angeles at 1.9 million in 1950.
Detroit history records a Saint Mary’s Hospital, but it changed its name to Detroit Memorial Hospital in 1948. I can’t ask mom for more detail when I visit dad and her at Great Lakes National Cemetery, a place she chose for her eternal rest. I laid a penny on the shared headstone of mom and dad. Dad served as a national guardsman at the armory at Mound and Eight Mile, near the now-closed Elias Brothers. He mobilized every summer until I was six, reporting to Camp Claybanks on the shores of Lake Michigan near Stony Lake. He wasn’t called to service during the Detroit riots of 1967.
The last time I visited that Elias Brothers on the Detroit side of Eight Mile, my sister Karen was enjoying breakfast with her crew of tree trimmers. I was happy and surprised to see her. One of the trimmers insisted on buying me breakfast. Soon after that merry breakfast, the location closed for good. Karen moved up to Traverse City, and became an ordained Christian minister. I should have taken up the offer of a tree trimming job.
My birth picture clearly states Saint Joseph Mercy. Not only did the picture gender me as male, I’m recorded as baby 7402887. To find the actual location of the hospital forces one to grope for facts on Google. I found a black and white picture of the two building hospital in 1970, but eBay won’t let me download it. Let’s face it, Saint Joseph Mercy is now a hospital system.
Pinterest provides the following lead. St. Joseph Mercy, 2200 East Grand Boulevard at Milwaukee Boulevard - opened in 1925 under the Sisters of Mercy - hospital closed in 1981 and was demolished in 1993 for the GM Poletown plant. That set of facts doesn’t make sense. Mother told me that the hospital of my birth was torn down when I was a child. That’s well before 1993, two years after my first and only marriage.
I sadly note that I didn’t scan a copy of my birth certificate, which would give me more information. I must visit Detroit Vital Records at 400 Monroe St, Detroit, MI 48226.
I’ll continue to search for the Detroit land where I first drew breath for myself. I want to stand and look around and thank mom and dad for making me a Detroiter for good. It’s the birthday gift good for a lifetime.
Staring at my birth photograph for clues …..
