Petoskey Provisions, Gifts & Wisdom

This is the story about Grandpa Shorter’s Gifts and, believe it or not, it all starts with a grandpa. My grandpa’s grandpa in fact. Homer Shorter moved to Northern Michigan in 1860, just a few years after white settlers began to homestead Emmet County. He homesteaded on the banks of the Maple River in 1885 where he stayed until his death in 1932. The Emmet County Graphic called him a “Pioneer Resident of the County,” forging the origins of the entrepreneurial spirit that drives the Shorter family to this day.

Johanna (Bosma) and Irving Glen Shorter, both born and raised in Emmet County, also did not lack entrepreneurship. That spirit took them to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where they tried their hands at harvesting crops, crate manufacturing, and buying their own timber, and running a lumber company before heading back to Emmet County. Carl, Homer’s grandson, and my grandpa attended school at Pellston. When he was a senior he met a girl named Ruth when Levering High School was closed and she transferred to Pellston. Carl was the class president . . . READ ON