Title: Fenton over the years: postcard book to be released with 175th anniversary shows city history
Publisher: Fenton Press
Author: Eric Fish
Date: 4/19/09
Ken and Donna Seger are inviting Fenton residents to take a trip down memory lane in the form of old postcards while celebrating the city's 175th birthday this summer.
Fenton Historical Society members and A.J. Phillips Fenton Historical Museum workers are set to release a book May 18 comprising 250 historical postcards from Fenton's history, dating back to the early 1900s. In the days before the Internet and e-mail, Donna Seger said postcards were the hot thing and were sold in general stores.
"That was a big thing back then, postcards were," she said. "They could send a postcard for a penny."
The book took the Segers about a year to complete and is modeled off an already-published Genesee County postcard book featuring correspondence from 1900 to 1960. Included in the Segers' 250-card book is a lake section featuring cottages and resorts on Lake Fenton, which was known until the mid-1900s as Long Lake.
"The lake used to be a really, really big thing," Ken Seger said. "They had people come here from Chicago and all over."
Other sections in the book include Fenton High School sports postcards, postcards of Fenton's downtown and artist representations of places around the city that were popular in the 1940s.
A postcard from 1931 commemorated an 86-9 Fenton football victory over a high school in Rochester.
"We wouldn't keep it if Fenton didn't win," Donna Seger joked.
Other postcards showed horse-drawn buggies and carriages at resorts on South Long Lake Road and boat tours on area lakes.
All the postcards in the book are identified according to location and era, a task the Segers say was the most tedious part of completing the publication.
"A lot of it, we didn't know the information, we had to do the research on it, put a date on it," Donna Seger said.
Ken Seger described 1907-08 as the heyday for postcards and noted their significance because they were inexpensive, and people could send them to show friends and family where they were. Today, with the click of a computer mouse, people can do the same thing over the Internet in a more timely fashion.
Although the Fenton Historical Society had many historical postcards, several were donated for the book by other residents. The Segers credit Ron Bigelow, Tom Brushaber, Ray Dillard, Ann Adams and Debra Wargo for helping supply postcards for the publication.
Ken Seger is a lifetime Fenton resident and has worked as the A.J. Phillips Fenton Historical Museum curator for the past 30 years. Donna Seger works as the museum caretaker. All proceeds from their postcard book will benefit the Fenton Historical Society.
The Segers also will be selling a book on Fenton businesses for the city's 175th anniversary. Ken Seger describes that book as a catalog of all the current businesses in the city, a souvenir so people can look back in the years ahead to see what businesses were in the city and how they marketed their products.
The historical society compiled similar books in 1983 and 1959 to mark the city's 150th and 125th anniversaries.
Title: Postcard book reveals history of Fenton
Author: Jan Rynearson
Publisher: Tri County Times
Date: 5/26/09
Just off the press is the "Postcard History of Fenton."
Published by Arcadia Publishing, the paperback was compiled by a husband and wife team, Donna (president of the Fenton Historical Society) and Ken (curator of the A. J. Phillips Fenton Museum) Seger.
The book will offer nostalgia for Fentonites and reveal to newcomers and history buffs what Fenton once was. There is an introductory history of Fenton, researched by the Segers, followed by photos of original postcards under the following categories: historic homes, churches and schools, industry, depot and municipalities, parks and bridges, parades, businesses, Lake Fenton, disasters and cameos. A photo of the A. J. (Andrew Jackson) Phillips home at the corner West Shiawassee Avenue and South Adelaide Street graces the cover.
Many of the postcards belong to the museum. Ken Seger also used some postcards from his personal collection. Others donating the use of postcards for the book were Ann Adams, Ray Dillard, Tom Brushaber, Ronald Bigelow and Debra Wargo. Cheryl Canty provided computer work to make the project possible.
Ken grew up in Fenton, graduating from Fenton High School in 1954. He spent four years in the U. S. Air Force as a control tower operator and 30 years as a die maker for General Motors, retiring in 1989.
For the past 30 years, Ken has been head of acquisitions and curator of the museum for the Fenton Historical Society.
Donna said she fell in love with the "town" when she moved here with her husband 41 years ago. He wanted to return to his birthplace after being away for 10 years. She has been a trustee for the Fenton Historical Society for 30 years, president the last 12 years.
The couple lives in an historic home in the Dibbleville area of Fenton, built in 1842.
