Scope and ContentThree memories of "outsiders" in the towns. 1 "Today I read a prize-winning story a man wrote about his boyhood. He tells how he and his pals often visited the hobo camp near the railroad tracks in his home town. There was never any problem with the hobos and the parents didn't object to the visits. The boys knew most of the hobos by their nicknames like Cookie, Joker and Preacher. This reminded me of the hobo camp that I remember in Douglas. It was located close to the river. To get there from the old business section of town you went east on Center Street to the end of the paving, then continued east down the hill on an unpaved road nearly to the river. Then turning right you followed the river for a block or two. The camp consisted of a one-room building hardly big enough to hold a Model T Ford. I don't know who owned the building or who paid the rent, if any. The camp was occupied (summer only) by three or four hobos -- usually the same ones who came very year. They found jobs picking berries or fruit, from strawberries to winter apples, then closed the camp and moved on. There was never any trouble or disturbance that I can recall. Farmers were glad to get extra help at harvest time and gladly paid the going wage -- S 1 a day plus lunch. There was no deduction for Social Security, health insurance, or retirement benefits, and no green cards, or other identification was required in the 1920's. Can anyone come up with a picture of the shack or tell us the names of some of the occupants?" -- Williard J. Prentice 2 Another kind of itinerant visitor received n chillier welcome. Bands of gypsies, apparently the same Romania-area natives who have roamed Europe for centuries, would sometimes come into town. Then the local populace would hasten to lock up both their daughters and their chickens. "As I remember each spring the gypsies came to town just at noon when the town children went home to eat. We were all afraid of the gypsies and when the news spread we all ran like mad. Doors locked. They came with old horses and covered wagons for a number of years. One of the places they always had to go was the feed mill, for hay for the horses and to see if they could not get a pocket book. Most of the time my father would be at the farm working, so my mother locked us in the house. The gypsies would like it when Mr. John Kraemer was there. They tried hard to get a purse but he was up to their tricks. After a few years they got old cars and telephone service was established. Each town notified the next that the gypsies were coming. City officials would meet them at the town limits and shoo them on. They got a couple of nice purses in Saugatuck. I remember hearing about one of the gypsies dying, so it must have been around 1906. The John Kraemer family moved into Douglas from the farm that year. They bought the grist mill and the home on the four lots from a Mr. Hamlin." -- Mrs. Elsie (Kraemer) Weiss [Elsie J. Weiss of Pasadena, California, daughter of John Kraemer, feed merchant] 3 Modern people don't understand about all the mystery and fears surrounding gypsies in earlier days. A Douglas man born in 1901 [in Caro, Mich.] explains: "When I was about six, I had been told there were gypsies around and that they were after little kids. I had a little wagon which I propelled with one leg while kneeling on the other knee in the wagon. Whenever I got a distance from home I would think about the gypsies and would pedal with great speed for home. Once the wagon tipped over and a penny I had in the wagon was lost. I looked a long time for the penny (but did not find it) and was at the same time watching for gypsies." -- Arthur Leroy Lane Sr. [father of CR newspaperman Art Lane