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Traverse Metropolis Enterprise Legends Corridor of Fame: Meet the brand new inductees
This yr marks the tenth anniversary of the Traverse Metropolis Enterprise Legends Corridor of Fame. Since 2013, the TCBN has paused to honor enterprise giants, civic and neighborhood champions and philanthropists – each deceased and residing – who’ve made lifelong contributions to the financial development and long-term vitality of the Grand Traverse space. What launched with a 10-member constitution class has grown by two inductees yearly.
For 2023, our collective spherical of applause goes to the late Ralph E. “Boots” Wolff, Jr., who was a stalwart supporter of downtown and whose household title was synonymous with pharmacy in Traverse Metropolis for half a century, and the late Mary Jean Brick, whose compassion, empathy and can-do spirit improved – and continues to enhance – the lives of disabled people in her beloved neighborhood.
Ralph E. “Boots” Wolff, Jr. – “Downtown’s Caretaker”
Ralph “Boots” Wolff, Jr. (1928-2020) took nice care of Traverse Metropolis – as a pharmacist at Petertyl Drug, and as a revered chief in two organizations that proceed to steward the vitality of downtown.
Born in Muskegon on June 18, 1928, Wolff graduated from Traverse Metropolis Central Excessive Faculty in 1946 and went on to Michigan State College for his undergraduate research. After marrying highschool classmate Barbara MacIntosh in 1950 and Barb finishing her nursing diploma, they moved to Ann Arbor so Boots might attend the College of Michigan’s Faculty of Pharmacy. After graduating in 1953, the couple moved again to Traverse Metropolis and he started his profession at Petertyl Drug.
Fifteen years later and with a household that finally grew to incorporate six boys, Boots and Barb bought the Entrance Road drugstore from founder Milton “Butch” Petertyl – who had opened it in 1932 on the location now occupied by Sensible Books – and labored alongside one another for a few years. When it was time to retire, the couple handed possession in 1993 to son Jim, who had earned his pharmacy diploma from Grand Valley State College. He and spouse Dixie adopted in his mother and father’ footsteps – working Petertyl Drug collectively till their retirement in 2018, when the shop completely closed.
Whereas being an proprietor of a significant downtown retail institution, Wolff was additionally a founding member of the Traverse Metropolis Downtown Growth Authority (DDA) in 1979 and served on its board for 31 years, together with time as chairman. He’s acknowledged by those that have adopted him for serving to to create most of the issues folks take pleasure in about Entrance Road and the encircling space to at the present time. Wolff was additionally a member of the Downtown Traverse Metropolis Affiliation and an early recipient of its Lyle DeYoung Award for his important contributions in assist of downtown’s enterprise district.
Previous and present Traverse Metropolis leaders have famous the important thing position the Wolff household performed downtown, together with toughing it out as enterprise homeowners throughout a number of financial downturns when the world struggled mightily, and thru the many years when retail enterprise was quickly shifting to malls.
Wolff was lively in native and state pharmacist associations, the Rotary Membership, the Parish Council at Traverse Metropolis St. Francis, and was a Boy Scout chief.
Wolff died on June 1, 2020, in Traverse Metropolis, 18 days shy of his 92nd birthday.
Mary Jean Brick – “The Advocate”
“We exist to make sure that native relations with disabilities stay part of our neighborhood — not other than it.” –Mary Jean Brick
Mary Jean Brick (1923 – 2009) had coronary heart. A number of it. And, by most accounts, didn’t take no for a solution. These qualities, mixed with unstoppable spirit and rock-solid religion, took a imaginative and prescient Brick had for a greater life for marginalized folks in her neighborhood and constructed it – actually.
Impressed by private experiences with each a sister and a son with particular wants, Brick laid the muse that has improved the lives of adults residing with bodily and developmental challenges within the space for almost 50 years.
Underneath Brick’s steerage, ardour and tireless advocacy, the world’s first-of-its-kind Group Residing Middle opened in 1978 in Traverse Metropolis. It was a spot the place residents might study each day residing expertise and develop their independence in a household environment, in addition to interact with the bigger neighborhood.
Born into one in all Traverse Metropolis’s oldest households, Mary Jean (nee Walters) Brick was a daughter of Herman and Clarebelle Walters. Her father was co-owner of Walters & Hemming Plumbing, nonetheless in enterprise in the present day. She was educated as a instructor, earned a grasp’s diploma in particular training and labored as a daily substitute instructor for greater than 25 years. She and husband Robert had six youngsters.
The Group Residing Middle was the primary very giant step for the not-for-profit group identified in the present day as BrickWays – an organization and basis that serves adults with developmental disabilities by way of housing and a continuum of assist. And it was a really far cry from the big services that used to deal with tons of, and even hundreds, of disabled folks – normally isolating them from society.
Mary Jean and Robert’s eldest son John finally ended up residing on the Traverse Metropolis State Hospital (aka Northern Michigan Asylum and the Traverse Metropolis Regional Psychiatric Hospital), however Mary Jean desperately wished higher for him, in response to household interviews on the BrickWays web site.
When a few of these giant services throughout the nation began to shut within the Nineteen Seventies, Brick began trying and advocating for higher residing conditions to permit for John and others like him to stay extra fulfilling, dignified and engaged lives. Right this moment, 48 people stay on the Group Residing Middle (which grew to become a housing mannequin replicated elsewhere) and 5 different distinctive housing conditions round city – all devoted to offering important assist providers to residents in addition to fostering independence.
“Mary Jean impressed in me the connection that makes BrickWays particular in the present day,” mentioned Govt Director Susan Onan-Swartz. “Employees and tenants are household. We don’t should at all times get alongside however we’re there for one another. Sure, there are occasions when it’s robust love however the overwhelming majority of tenants and all the employees really feel that they’re cared for. It’s extra like, ‘How can we are saying sure relatively than defaulting to no.’ That is from Mary Jean.”
And Mary Jean’s legacy lives on, Onan-Swartz added, by way of her youngsters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren nonetheless serving and residing her imaginative and prescient of everybody – particularly these with disabilities – being part of this neighborhood.
For your complete listing of previous inductees, please see the January 2023 concern.
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