The farm horse Maude with Ole’s parents. – Courtesy Katja Sage
The family had no electricity or running water in Ole’s early years. During the colder months baths were once a week. His mother poured kettles of hot water from the wood stove into a big laundry tub in the kitchen. The trips to the outhouse were cold, especially at night in the snow!
Lulu, Eleanor, and Ole’s brother Denver in 1926 – Courtesy Katja Sage
They used candles and Kerosine lanterns for light. These could have been the cause of the fire which completely burned down the family home destroying all the childhood photos of Ole in 1956 while Ole was in the Air Force.
Ole and his brothers all enlisted in the armed services when they came of age. Ole served during the Korean War in Tule, Greenland, 300 miles from the arctic circle. He described his service there as “dull”…however he had to keep his guard up. One time he was cornered by a pack of wolves in a blizzard and was only saved when he found a door unlocked and slipped inside. He sent his paycheck home every month supporting the farm and his younger siblings who were still at home.
Ole’s grandmother Lulu and her husband bought a large parcel of land along the bay between Omena and Sutton’s Bay and were in the process of building a house on it when suddenly Louis died of a heart attack. The building materials were looted at the building site.
Ole Kiersey at the bay – Courtesy Katja Sage
She had to sell off part of the land to pay bills, and then had to take live-in jobs as a housekeeper and servant to support her family, but she hung on to the land. This remaining waterfront was where Ole and his family spent their summers. His ready smile and great sense of humor were a familiar sight around Omena.
Ole loved the land in Michigan near Omena where he spent his childhood, and a lifetime of summers. He died a week after the land was sold in 2012.
Courtesy Ole’s daughters: Katja Sage and Kim Cleary, and to Vin Moore’s interviews of Ole in the Omena Historical Society Archives, Ole’s Obituary and Ole’s own letters and emails.