Shirley McShane Sillars

By Orin Zebest via Creative Commons

The Internet is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

This week I looked at pictures posted online of an out-of-state relative’s baby in all her rosy-cheeked sweetness. I followed a friend’s spontaneous road trip to the East Coast by reading her blog updates. I used MapQuest to find my way to a weekend class in an unfamiliar part of town.

I did all this while sitting on my comfortable couch.

Convenience has a price tag.

Ask anyone who recently worked in news or publishing or any other business that has deflated under the weight of the Web.

The Internet  stole my job. So did greedy corporate owners who shaved costs by outsourcing writing and editing. Not only did these things blast countless careers into near oblivion, they also took the remains and scattered them among the masses as a freebie.

I get it. The Internet is immediate. Its variety is infinite. Readers can respond and react instantly. Even as a former ink-stained wretch, I find it easier to log on to get my news than to bend down to pick up the bundle of newsprint tossed on my porch three times a week. Worse yet, most of what’s printed is old news before the ink dries.

Isn’t the Internet amazing? Now, online forums, blogging platforms and content sites such as Examiner.com give anyone with nimble fingers and a keyboard the chance to write. Now, a J-school degree is no longer a prerequisite for a byline. Things like site traffic and search engine ranking can sometimes decide the thickness of a writer’s wallet.

It has come down to this: Former salaried writers circle prospective freelance work like hungry lions at a watering hole.  My e-mail inbox bursts with offers to write online in the off-chance that if I earn enough clicks, I’ll get some cash. At least once a month I’m asked to write something — without pay — as a favor.

Favors are a wonderful thing, but freebies do not pay the bills.

It’s time to take a stand. So I am, just as this Washington freelancer writer did on her blog.

I signed her petition. I won’t write for free anywhere but my Web site. Period.

Outside the window of my grandmother’s hospital room, the world rushes by, oblivious to what’s happening inside.

The autumn wind plucks leaves from branches and tosses them earthward, where they swirl and scud across the blacktop with the current of passing vehicles.

The flow of traffic on the nearby road pulses in fits of urgency then ebbs, following the cycles of day into night. The hands spin around the clock, dictating work shifts, feeding schedules and visiting hours.

Inside the dimly lit room, my grandmother is virtually motionless in her bed. Aside from the beeps and clicks of the equipment and the ticking of the wall clock ,the room is silent.

In recovery from hip surgery the day before, she is nearly immobilized. Occasionally she sighs, opens her eyes or clenches her left hand against the metal support bar at her bedside.

Outside the door of her room, nurses and aides rush this way and that in the halls and in and out of patients’ rooms. Doctors are summoned from hidden speakers, the monotone of a computerized voice interrupting the bland Muzak.

It seems as though my grandmother is a hostage in this glass bottle of a room, adrift in swirling waves of uncertainty.

As I gaze at her small form tucked under the covers, I marvel at how advanced age has finally found a way to slow her down, to stop her obedience to the clock, her perpetual servitude.

This woman, who celebrates her 91st birthday today, rarely slowed down enough to sit in her lifetime. For years, she woke at 6 am. to perform calisthenics, then make a full breakfast, still leaving enough time to do herself up right for the day. This meant putting on a dress, beads and earrings, fixing her hair and applying makeup. No matter what.

Her home was always spotless. Everything in it was clean, pressed and shining. Her yards flourished with flowers and fruit trees, berry bushes and a full vegetable garden.

She always had time to bake pies and cookies and cakes and a spare casserole because there was always someone in her family or the neighborhood in need. She had greeting cards and stationery by the ream for every occasion on hand. She’d often tuck into a card a hand-written note or poem to add extra cheer.

Her life was dedicated to caring for her family and looking after friends and neighbors.

But now, seeing her so small and frail and stripped of all that defines her, I wonder: Who is she now? Who will fill her void?

The nurses tell me they are impressed with her strength and stoicism. They say she’s been so cooperative and sweet, even refusing her pain medication at times.

This isn’t the first time that age has forced my grandma to slow down. She’s broken her wrist, her shoulder and, two years ago, suffered a nearly fatal skull fracture.

Although she survived that episode, she’s never been the same. She started wearing pants for one thing. Then she changed the color of her hair. Most shocking of all, she started peppering her conversations with profanity. She wasn’t what she had been, but we were all grateful to have her around.

Each time the recovery has been slower, but the determination to carry on still sparkled in her eyes.

Inside my grandma’s hospital room, as the light outside drains from the sky, I wonder: Am I peering through a portal into my own future? Will I learn to slow down before nature pulls the rug out from under my feet? Will this be the last time I see her alive?

Outside the hospital, the world bears down on us all if we let it. We rush from point A to B without thought to the larger meaning of what we’re doing. We’re slaves to the clock, almost always too busy to do things like visit the sick.

As I let go of my grandmother’s hand and lean in to give her a kiss, I see the clock. It’s telling me I must go. Visiting hours are over.

I amend one thought before I go: My grandmother isn’t stripped of everything that defines who she is. Take away the strand of pearls, the matching shoes and purse, separate husband from wife, mother from child, put a woman alone in a room and watch her spirit fill it to capacity.

I suspect however she leaves this room, it will take a while for that to go away.

Shirley Sillars is a copy editor for the Daily Tribune. Contact her at s.sillars@excite.com.

Originally published in the Daily Tribune on November 13, 2005.

IF YOU HAPPEN TO TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE ROAD on Horseshoe Drive in Rural Brandon Township and gaze to the right, just past the house on the crest of the hill, you might catch a glimpse of Double E Ranch.
If you do, you’ll probably have to look again.
That’s because you’ve undoubtedly caught sight of Double E’s livestock — spindle-legged, long-necked curious creatures with perky tufts sprouting from the tops of their heads.
The big birds – known as emu – are a study in contradictions.
They are graceful ballerinas prancing in brown feather tutus.
They are serpentine investigators, quietly slithering their snakelike necks though fence openings, fixing their unblinking brown eyes on a source of interest.
They are klutzes when spooked, darting like panicky pin balls around their pens, kicking up clouds of dust.
NATIVE TO AUSTRALIA but raised in the United States for most of this century, emu are flightless birds raised for their meat, feathers, skin and the oil derived from their sizable fat stores. Emu oil is used in a number of products and his highly regarded in many parts of the world for its healing and regenerative properties.
In rural Oakland County, where wooded lots, rolling hills and horse stables are more the norm, the sight of 5-foot-tall birds padding around in pens is still a head turner.
Interest in emu ranching as well as the food and products derived from the prehistoric birds is growing, said Renee Miskey, owner of Double E Ranch. If she and other emu ranchers have their way, the big birds won’t be an enigma for long.
Miskey raises and sells most of her emu for their meat. She also sells (but doesn’t manufacture herself) various emu-based products, such as hand lotions, soap, and pet food. She collects and empties the large, dark green emu eggs and fashions them into ornaments, jewelry boxes and knickknacks. Once a month she sets up a vendor booth at Royal Oak Farmers Market.
MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW WHAT EMU ARE, where they’re from, or their useful properties. Least of all do they understand how quirky and personable the big birds can be.
Miskey’s trying to change that. For a small fee, she hosts student groups at her 10-acre spread in the country. She’s more than happy to “talk emu” with shoppers at the Royal Oak Farmers Market.
“A lot of children are not used to the farm environment,” she said. “This is one way to show them how ‘products’ are brought up. Some kids don’t understand that pork chops start out as farm animals.”
Miskey and husband, Gene Beesley, have been raising emu for almost five years. They started with 20 birds and have had as many as 250 at one time. They are raising 170 birds now and join about 120 other emu ranchers in Michigan.
The work involved in emu ranching is minimal, she said, with most of it front-ended in the building of the pens and shelters.
Nothing goes to waste in emu ranching.
“Ninety-seven percent of the bird goes into production,” she said. “Emu put more back into the soil than they take out. They live on the ranch year-round. They are pellet and grain fed. There are no chemicals, steroids, hormones or antibiotics given.”
Learning to successfully breed and maintain the birds has been an odyssey of trial and error, Miskey said.
Much of her information has been gathered from the American Emu Association’s Michigan chapter and from other ranchers.
“Most of it is learning how to (successfully) hatch them and take care of them,” she said.
Miskey at one time kept riding horses in her barn, but switched to the exotic birds as a way to spend more time at home.
“It was my husband’s idea,” she said.
“With my love of animals and my nursing career, this was a way for me to be at home and take care of something.”
ON A RECENT OVERCAST, HUMID AFTERNOON the emu were active but quiet in their pens, which separate the birds according to age. Only the striped hatchlings emitted a discernible cheep-cheep-cheeping. Adult emu utter a soft, throaty sound that resembles the beating of a bongo drum and could easily be mistaken for bullfrogs in a nearby swamp. Miskey said emu are quiet neighbors and don’t generate the waste or odor of other livestock.
While the birds are raised for slaughter and for the most part are regarded as such, Miskey said some emu are extremely personable and reach out with their gaping beaks and tug on her heart strings. A certain number are kept around for breeding purposes, she said.
“Those you get attached to easily,” she said. “You know they’re not going anywhere.”
Emu, when accustomed to humans who are taught how to approach them, are incredibly curious and friendly. They aren’t beyond nipping at shiny metal buttons, dangling earrings and long hair. A human entering a pen of the big birds can expect to be surrounded, pecked and prodded.
“I love to watch them hatch and grow,” Miskey said of the personal rewards of emu ranching. “Nature is exciting to me.”

For more information on tours of Double E Ranch, which is less than an hour’s drive from southeast Oakland County, or about emu products and crafts, call 248-627-4286 or send e-mail to dbleranch@aol.com.

Originally published in The Daily Tribune on July 4, 1999.

What makes a mother?

Is it the nine-month gestation culminating in the several hours of pain and bloodshed of childbirth? Is it marked by the passing on of physical characteristics and talents, such as brown eyes, a great singing voice or the offbeat talent of curling your tongue?

Or is it the simple acts of unconditional love and undying devotion?

On this day of greeting cards, bouquets of flowers and lunches in crowded restaurants, I find myself sorting out the various puzzle pieces that make up the picture of motherhood.

I’m reminded of the movie, “Fly Away Home,” my favorite inspiration for motherhood.

The movie stars Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin as a father and daughter reunited after a long separation and the death of Daniels’s ex-wife.

Paquin discovers a cache of abandoned goose eggs and secretly incubates them in a dresser drawer. When the eggs hatch, the goslings cast their eyes upon the 13-year-old girl, whom they instantly designate as their mother. The process is known as imprinting, and it forges a bond that cannot be broken.

The goslings don’t care that the girl doesn’t have wings or a beak or any sense of how to raise them. She wants to do it and that’s the defining moment.

Through trial and error and some experimentation with aviation, the father and daughter teach the geese, literally, how to fly from the nest.

This warm, fuzzy story has always reminded me of motherhood in the truest sense. Its bonds can be formed in the most unexpected ways.

Consider adoptive motherhood. However it comes about, it’s not about giving life but ensuring a future. It isn’t about looking alike but about sharing love, providing stability and forging new bonds and traditions.

Like making a baby, making an adoption plan has its own set of painful challenges and obstacles.

As a prospective adoptive parent, I must crack open my life and let all the delicate insides spill out for inspection. Every detail is open to scrutiny by the state child welfare agency and the federal government, including the FBI, homeland security and immigration services. Don’t forget the foreign nation I’m petitioning, which has its own set of standards and tests to put me through as well.

As the biological mother of an 11-year-old daughter, I know about the pain of childbirth. I also know that the pain washed away the instant my newborn was placed in my waiting arms.

I’m sure the frustration of adoption paperwork and bureaucracy will melt away soon after I united with my future child. Or at least when she trusts me enough to smile back.

And it’s the little things like a smile breaking through a face wet with tears that best defines the joy of motherhood, no matter how it comes about.

I still have a single dandelion bloom my once-toddler daughter gave to me on my second official Mother’s Day. It was part of a bouquet she’d picked and held in her chubby fist. I sealed it in a plastic bag and taped it to her memory book.

That dried-out weed is more precious to me than any store-bought card or gift.

I’m learning from others that bonding and attachment with children adopted from orphanages, as mine will be, isn’t as instantaneous as with a biological child or a flock of goslings. It will take more work and, I’m sure, more pain.

I’m willing to risk that for another bouquet of hand-picked flowers.

Happy Mother’s Day and here’s to all the endless ways in which women, men and children come together to be a family.

Shirley Sillars is a copy editor for the Daily Tribune. She can be reached at s.sillars@excite.com.
Content originally published in The Daily Tribune on May 8, 2005.

IN ROYAL OAK’S WAGNER PARK, where the midday traffic on nearby roads is muffled to a low hum and even the sunniest day is reduced to filtered light through the dense canopy of green, a different kind of golfer comes to play.

He (most often it is a he, although sometimes he is accompanied by a she) comes bearing a lightweight backpack stuffed with a variety of colorful plastic discs. He’s casually dressed,  is generally accompanied by others, and is looking for fun and relaxation.

While there are no tee times, membership fees, carts or caddies in this game of golf, there are rules, challenges and endless choices.

Disc golf is played around the world – from Europe to Japan and all across the United States and Canada. It was created by “Steady” Ed Hendrick, the Frisbee inventor, as a way to do more than just toss around the plastic disc. The first course was built in La Mirada, Calif., in 1971.

The sport was formalized in the 1970s and today there are professional and amateur tournaments playing somewhere in the world nearly every week of the year. In the Michigan Disc Golf Organization, there are 50 events scheduled this year.

At Wagner and other area parks, disc golf is played much like traditional golf. The object is to complete each hole in the fewest number of throws. A golf disc is thrown from a tee area to a target, the most common being an elevated metal basket known as a Pole Hole.

As a player progresses down the fairway, he or she must take each consecutive shot from the spot where the previous throw landed.

Disc golf offers the same joys and frustrations as traditional golf.

BERKLEY NATIVE ROBERT TURNER knows this.  An avid player since 1991, Turner began tossing around the disc for fun when the course was added to Wagner park in the late ’80s.

“It was a way to kill time when I was younger,” said Turner, who is now married, lives in Warren, and is a sales representative for Universal Plumbing Supply in Berkley. “It is a good way to compete. You don’t have to be athletic and it’s for all ages.”

But the more he played, the more Turner learned that there was much more to the sport than tossing a piece of plastic through the air. He noticed that other players had a variety of discs that, when thrown consistently, angled a particular way toward the hole.

“These people were getting good shots on a consistent basis,” he said. “It takes a while to get to know which disc to use and how to get a good shot with it.”

Now Turner is so busy organizing leagues, he doesn’t have the time to play the way he once did. He is vice president of the Detroit Disc Golf Club, which is affiliated with the Professional Disc Golf Association. He organizes local leagues that play on Monday and Tuesday nights at Firefighters Park in Troy, and at River Bends Park in Shelby Township.

Along with getting to know the game is getting to know the lingo. When considering which disc to use on a shot, you need to know the “stability rating” of a disc, which is a fancy way of saying flight path of the disc. This is influenced by the shape and thickness of a disc and its rim.

You’ll hear terms such as “hyzer” and “anhyzer” that refer to the angle of the disc on its flight path. Discs are referred to as “plastic.”

Another advantage to disc golf is its accessibility. There are two courses in Royal Oak, two in Troy and a number of others in the tri-county area.

“You can play it year ’round,” Turner said. “We have tournaments in the snow. We also play at night with glow-in-the-dark discs.”

COSTS ARE RELATIVELY LOW depending on how much equipment you want to purchase. Turner said discs cost an of average of $8 to $12 each. Equipment bags vary in size and quality and cost costs between $30 and $60. Or, you can carry it all in a plastic bag if you wish.

“It’s easy to pick up the basics of the game,” said Dan Hilliker of Shelby Township, who recently joined both the Firefighters and River Bends leagues. “But I’m just learning control after 8 years of playing. People have their own style.”

The biggest challenge is putting, Hilliker said. If you can drive, he said, that’s great. But the putting – trying to get the disc into the metal basket from short range – is where skill comes in.

“People start out thinking it’s easy – just toss the Frisbee into the basket,” he said. “My girlfriend thought it was easy until I had her play. She’s been at it a month now. If we’re not working, we are playing.”

Which brings up the addictive nature of the game. In the spring 1999 issue of Disc Golf World News, in an article titled “Addicted and Obsessed,” players admitted to forgetting wedding anniversaries and hocking engagement rings all for the love of the sport.

Even with everything else going on, Turner says he manages to play at least six rounds a week.

“Has it caused problems in my marriage? Yeah, you could say that,” he said. “But, it’s a fun sport. Everyone is very nice. I used to play more than I do now.”

Originally published in the Daily Tribune, August 1999

Photo by Shirley McShane Sillars

AS I STOOD IN LINE at REI last Friday, balancing an armload of moisture-wicking long johns, fleece shirts, wool-blend socks, water-repellent pants and a rental agreement for a down sleeping bag, I watched as two teenaged boys walked in — wearing shorts.

Granted, it was almost 50 degrees outside on this late-January afternoon. But their attire deflated my enthusiasm for the adventure for which I was preparing.

Early the next day I was going on my first Women in the Wilderness winter expedition offered through Oakland County Parks.

Would I need all this expensive stuff, I wondered, if the forecast called for 40-degree weather and little or no snow?

When I signed on for this adventure, I envisioned myself among a group of hardy women huddled around a campfire as the wind howled and the snow swirled around us.

I thought of that vision as I carried my gear to the car. The overcast sky held promise for snow, but not a flake was in sight. Weather forecasts aside, most who knew of my plans thought I was the flake for planning a January camping trip.

Apparently the idea of spending a day and night outside in January seemed about as appealing to most folks as a root canal.

THE NEXT MORNING I awoke to find the landscape dusted in an ice-crusted layer of fresh snow. Just enough snow to make it seem like winter.

When I arrived at Independence Oaks County Park in Clarkston, I joined about 45 women from all over the metro Detroit area, who also answered the call to get back to nature.

Women of all ages, backgrounds and circumstances converged on Twin Chimneys Pavilion, seated along the shores of Crooked Lake, a spring-fed body of water covered in a thin skin of ice.

Bundled in multiple layers of clothing, we followed the scent of wood smoke to the shelter and set our stuff onto the growing pile of gear.

We were greeted by Derenda Howard, recreation specialist at Oakland County Parks and one of the organizers of the Women in the Wilderness program. Assisting her were county parks staff members and Michael Banks, of Eastern Mountain Sports and the School of Outdoor Leadership, Adventure and Recreation.

While the WIW program was structured, it was by no means confining. Participants could sign up for or switch clinics at any time. Offerings included cross-country skiing, snow shoeing, hiking, ice fishing and geo caching.

In the evening, we ate a hot meal by the fireplace, participated in a drumming circle, and were given star charts of the January sky if we chose to hike away from the camp.

However, we all were required to participate in clinics on proper gear for outdoor winter activities and basic survival.

“The program has been growing every year,” Howard said of the twice-a-year expeditions. “For our fall program, we’ve had consistently about 25 women. Last year we had 24 women for our winter program. This year that amount nearly doubled.”

Many of this session’s participants were second-timers. What is the appeal?

Howard thinks it’s the women-only dynamic. Women who like the outdoors but maybe feel they need to learn more about it feel less intimidated in a same-gender group, she said.

Oakland Parks’ WIW program is modeled after the Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ outdoorswoman program, Howard said.

Although the DNR program is more extensive and teaches hunting and archery, the idea of WIW is to help women gain confidence in the wilderness.

“Last winter I was surprised with all the different outcomes,” Howard said. “The women were so excited that they were able to stay outside overnight. We had a temperature of minus 11 degrees that night. I had one woman tell me she didn’t like going from her house to her car in the winter. She said she wouldn’t have a problem with that anymore.”

This past weekend was a considerably gentler for those who attended. There were no blizzards or sub-zero temperatures to battle. If anything, the mild weather and scant snowfall canceled some events and limited other activities.

But it didn’t diminish the sense of adventure and learning. Most of the women stayed overnight; all but two camped in tents.

I FOUND THE GROUP to be a mix of first-timers who had read about the program in the newspaper, to those who have attended one of the previous expeditions and had so much fun they returned with a friend or relative.

“It’s about learning skills but it’s also about meeting other women and making connections with other women who like the same type of activities,” Howard said.

It was just what empty-nester Andrea Burgess Frye of West Bloomfield was looking for. She said she discovered her love for the outdoors later in life.

After last winter’s sub-zero experience with WIW, Burgess Frye enrolled in a few SOLAR classes and returned this winter with a heightened level of understanding.

Burgess Frye said she never had the opportunity to participate in outdoor activities when she was younger; she always had other responsibilities. She joined a ski club three years ago and has been hooked on outdoor recreation ever since.

Young mother Grazyna Cumming of Huntington Woods has camped, backpacked and engaged in other wilderness adventures most of her life. She attended her second WIW program last weekend because she enjoys female bonding time.

“I like the all-women dynamic,”said Cumming, who usually camps with her husband and toddler son.

She attended the fall WIW program at Addison Oaks Park and had so much fun she returned along with her friend, Natasha Prada of Grosse Pointe Park.

Retiree Sally Banworth of Oakland Township brought along her teenage granddaughter. Banworth’s husband is not into camping, she said, so she recruits her daughters and granddaughter to tag along and share in her lifelong love of the outdoors.

“This program is about a lot of things,” Howard said. “It’s about gearing up for winter. It’s about learning skills you not only use for recreation but also for learning what you need to know to survive. Anyone, anytime could have a car break down or an accident, and especially in winter, could find themselves in a survival situation. Would you be prepared?”

THE 28-HOUR PROGRAM kept us outside most of the time and answered the question of preparedness.

It turns out most of us had some of the stuff necessary to survive a night outside without food and shelter. But none of us knew all there is to know.

“We all have the capability to survive outside up to 25 degrees below zero,” said Banks. “We may not have the knowledge and skills, but we have the capability.”

We learned from Banks some of the basics, such as never wear cotton on an outdoor adventure. Cotton absorbs and holds moisture, which can be deadly in a winter setting.

We learned to carry basic essentials on any hike or expedition: map, compass, lighter or matches, whistle, some kind of tarp or plastic trash bag, small length of rope or cords, flashlight, knife, water and food, such as energy bars or granola bars.

“Most often, without the training and knowledge, people put themselves in situations that make survival more difficult than it needs to be,” Banks said.

Most of the women said they’d return for another WIW experience. Some signed up for the more advanced programs. The takeaway: Most of us don’t know what we don’t know when it comes to outdoor safety and survival.

And, finally, the revelation of the weekend: It’s OK to consume a lot of calories, particularly the fat and sugar kind, on a physically challenging outdoor weekend. The calories are needed for strength and warmth.

Count me in for the next adventure.

Originally published in 24/7 on January 29, 2006.

On an overcast, gloomy mid-October morning, William Kessler paces the floor of his sixth-story suite over the DuMouchelle Galleries on Jefferson Avenue in downtown Detroit.

Two days earlier, he relocated his 40-year-old architectural firm from a historic building on St. Antoine in Greektown to this new space in the shadow of the Renaissance Center and in view of the Detroit riverfront.

Boxes are everywhere. The tearing down and rebuilding of walls is still under way.

“We’re trying to lighten it up in here,” said Kessler, pointing to the freshly painted walls, coated in the whitest of white to cover the dark tones favored by the previous tenants.

“There was a lot of brown everywhere,” he said, gesturing around the offices that housed a law firm. “Everything was brown. The ceilings. The floors. It was very conservative. We tore out the walls to open everything up. We want to build in light and color.”

Kessler’s plan — although far from finished — already coaxes more light into the space.

On this dark morning, the undressed windows, the white walls, and the splashes of bright color — exposed ductwork and pipes coated in shades of lime green, lemon yellow Pepto-Bismol pink and orange-sherbet orange — make the room seem as if it is awash in sunlight.

“Generally the colors I use are pure rather than muted,” he explained. “I’d rather use a little bit of color and make it bright rather than use a  lot of muted, washed-out color in a room.”

Pure bright colors. Modern designs. Mixing architecture, colors, paintings and sculpture to create environments. This is Kessler’s philosophy. He’s been using it for four decades with much success and  it’s not likely to change.

“This is what I believe in,” he said. “Color enriches our lives.”

Kessler was born in Reading, Pa. His father ran a lumber company and that, apparently, sparked his interest in building and design.

“What I really wanted to be was a photographer,” he admitted. “I went to school in Chicago to become a photographer. Then I got interested in industrial design, painting and sculpture.  I realized if I became an architect, I could do these things.”

Kessler graduated from the Chicago Institute of Design with a bachelor’s degree in architecture. He went on to earn a master’s degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

He began teaching, but his brief career as an educator was interrupted in the 1950s when world-renowned architect Minoru Yamasaki asked him to come to Detroit to work on a project — the Detroit University School (now University Liggett School) in Grosse Pointe Woods. Kessler accepted the offer with the idea that he and his wife, Margot, would only stay in Detroit  for two years.

“After living in Boston, (Detroit) was a great change in culture,” he said. “Detroit is a very industrial town.”

What convinced Kessler to say was his wish to see the school project through to its completion. That project led to another and then another one. Forty years later, Kessler still lives in the Grosse Pointe Park home he designed — a modest, modern-styled ranch with vast windows overlooking a walled garden and a courtyard.

“I’m not interested in classical architecture,” he said of the area’s prevailing housing designs. “Shouldn’t people live for themselves and in the century that exists now rather than emulate what their parents and grandparents lived?”

The first two offices of William Kessler and Associates Inc. were in Grosse Pointe. The third move was to the previous site near Greektown.

“This building is closer to the core of what interests us, Kessler said of his new offices. “We didn’t think for a second about moving out of  (Detroit).”

He moved his firm to Detroit in the 1970s with the belief that Detroit was experiencing a rebirth. That didn’t happen, but he maintained a commitment to the city.

“Detroit has the greatest promise of any city in America,” he said. “That probably sounds overstated, but it can only get better. Given the right leadership —  and I think we have that with Mayor Dennis Archer — Detroit can be transformed. And if it’s done right, Detroit could become one of the most significant and beautiful cities.”

Kessler’s firm has won more than 140 awards for architectural design. Among the buildings and projects his firm has designed are Detroit Receiving Hospital-University Clinics; the Center for Creative Studies; The Detroit Science Center; the revision to the Detroit Institute of Arts; restoration of the Fox Theatre and offices; the Michigan Library and Historical Center, Lansing; and the Industrial Technology Institute, Ann Arbor.

Projects in development include an arts and science center in Salt Lake City, Utah; a jobs corps center in Flint; an opera house restoration in Lancaster, Pa.; and the new Wayne County Medical Examiner building in Detroit.

His daughter, Tamara, runs her own interior design business and also works at his firm.

Kessler will speak about architecture to the Grosse Pointe Artist’s Association at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7, at the Grosse Pointe war Memorial.

This article originally appeared in the Oct. 27, 1994, edition of The Grosse Pointe News.