David Patrick

David Patrick
by Lynn Spitznagel Sutton

He was just a little Scotsman, not much more than 5 feet tall, but David Patrick’s influence is felt to this day in Omena. David was born in 1886 in Fifeshire, Scotland, and had one brother, James, two years older than he was. David, James and their father, John, emigrated to the States together, but there is no record of his mother having been with them on the boat.

By the time they were living in Omena, Dave and James had a stepmother. The family was not on the 1900 Leelanau Township census, but by 1908 Rebecca Richmond’s Diary refers to“Carpenter Patrick” in connection with some work done on her cottage, “Bonnie Banks”, so by then they had settled in Omena. Several other cottages were built by David’s father John Patrick, with David working alongside him during the early 1900’s. The Shorewood, Homewood, Idlewild, and Idlecrest cottages on Firelanes 4 & 5 – all were cottages John Santos had John Patrick and Dave build during that time.

We know Dave and his father John were building the Nichol/Andrew cottage by 1915. It was one of the four cottages just south of the corner of Omena Point Road and Omena Heights Road. This became known as “The Cincinnati Corner” as all four of the cottages were owned for many years by families from Cincinnati: the Andrew cottage, followed by the original Mulligan cottage, the Porter/Jones/Kondrat cottage and the original Heitzman/Schleef /Mampe cottage. The Patrick father and son had a good floor plan for the cottages they built and used much the same plan for all of them. They all looked very similar as built.

World War I began for our country after a British ocean liner, the Lusitania, was torpedoed by a German U-Boat in 1915, killing many Americans headed from New York to Liverpool. Dave enlisted in the Army, perhaps feeling a patriotic duty for his adopted country, or in sympathy for those who went down in the Lusitania, a ship similar to the one he had immigrated in. He said goodbye to his stepmother and father and went off to war. Dave served in the Army as a private until the end of the war, surviving one of the most brutal wars our country has endured. His most memorable moment of his war years was running over General Pershing’s foot, and although nothing more is known about the incident, the fact that the story is still told around Omena adds to his fame.

After the war, David returned to the family farm to live and work with his father, building houses. The family sent away for the plans to build a new, larger house for themselves, and they set to work on it between other building projects. They used reclaimed wood, doors, windows and trim from the Leelanau Hotel which had been demolished in 1929. Using all the materials they had, he built an entire wall out of the doors, which is still there in the Kimmerly house, doorknobs, windows, hinges and all. When the Patrick’s house was ready to be plastered, a fellow named “Mose” was hired to do the plastering. He didn’t show up. And so David, who knew nothing about plastering, went ahead and finished it. Sadly, his stepmother died before the house she had planned was finished, but David and his father went ahead and finished anyway.

As David got older his hands became arthritic. When he couldn’t hold a hammer any more, he retired. He was alone by this time. His father had died in 1951 and his brother lived in the house next door with his family. Dave sold his house to Bea and Myles Kimmerly and left town. But a short while later he was back knocking at their door saying he had no place to go. Bea and Myles took him in and for the next 13 years David lived with them, staying in a little room just off the kitchen and doing odd jobs for the family. A small wood stove in the kitchen kept him warm in the winter. The family thought of him as “just a very old bachelor” who was part of the family. He was their live-in handyman, weed whipping the grass and helping with other chores. He picked cherries that grew on the property, and sold them at a road stand for spending money. Mostly he took the money and walked to town. He could usually be found at Johnny Putnam’s bar, which later became Keith Brown’s Harbor Bar, where, after spending some time drinking and telling stories, someone would give him a ride home.

When Dave got so old he was unable to take care of himself, his nephew helped him use his service record as a World War 1 veteran as a private in the US Army to get into a Veterans home in Grand Rapids. When the nephew went to see Dave in the Veterans home he was upset that Dave looked so shabby in his old clothes. Dave was living on just $50 a month so his nephew got his birth certificate with the help of Myles Kimmerly, who was a Probate Court Judge in Leelanau County at that time, and helped Dave get his Social Security income.

There is no obituary, no grave in Omena to remember David Patrick by. But after he died in 1980, Bea Kimmerly, who had taken him in when he had no place to live, paid to have his name put on the war memorial board at the Leelanau County Building. The cottages he built, those that remain, are a fond remembrance of David Patrick in Omena.

Sources: Karol Kimmerly Berwald; “Omena, A Place In Time” by Amanda Holmes; and the OHS archives.

Photo from the OHS archives: “Three men standing in front of the Anderson’s ice cream parlor. On the left is John (last name illegible), in the middle is Dave Patrick, and on the right is Walter Barth.”