Bob Frei and his grandson, Isaiah.

History is the medium through which we learn. It captures the mistakes and victories of our lives. With history we can relive and embrace the memories that have made us who we are today.

Over the years, local historian Bob Frei has worked diligently to preserve the history of Gladwin. Along with the Historical Society, Bob published the book “Beaverton: A Century in the Making,” which chronicles the development of Beaverton.

Busy as ever being the county’s IT director, playing organ at Christ the King Lutheran Church and as Beaverton’s “official” photographer, Bob somehow finds time to document most of our major events in the community and is even currently working on Gladwin’s sesquicentennial anniversary.

GCR: Are you from Gladwin originally?

Bob: No. I’m originally from Bridgeport. I was born in the old Saginaw Women’s Hospital on Janes Street. Same place my mother was born.

GCR: How did you end up here?

Bob: I came to Gladwin after I graduated from college with a teaching degree – my area of specialty is in social studies and I minored in music. I took a part-time job teaching choir in Gladwin in 1971, the year after I got married. That was my first life here in Gladwin. I have been in Gladwin ever since, except when I was in the service.

GCR: So you were in the military?

Bob: While I was a student I dropped out one semester. At that time it was the old draft system, and during that summer my number came up, then of course I got my greetings and salutations. Fortunately, it was a week after starting back up at CMU, so they gave me a delayed induction. Basically, I didn’t have to go until I was done with college. Then the draft system changed to the lottery system and I had a high number in the lottery. So I probably wouldn’t have gotten drafted under the lottery system.

GCR: So how did you actually end up in the military?

Bob: Well, like I said, I graduated and got my job here. I figured they didn’t want me any more because I had gotten a high number under the lottery system – the Saginaw draft board apparently thought the same thing, because I didn’t get my greetings. Then a year later, I resigned at Gladwin and took a job with the 4-H extension service in 1972 as an aide. I had been working at that for about a year when I got a letter from the draft board. They found an old record saying I was on delayed induction and that I was supposed to report for duty. At that moment, Vietnam was going on so I went and enrolled in the Air Force. Then I found out that I wouldn’t have been drafted anyways. I got a notice, basically saying that I was relieved of my draft duties. I spent three and half years in the Air Force.

GCR: What was your job in the Air Force?

Bob: Well, I never served overseas. I spent all my time serving at S.A.C (Strategic Air Command) headquarters, working in the 544 Aerospace Reconnaisance Technical Wing.

GCR: What was that like?

Bob: It was interesting there. Half-way through basic training, I got pulled I away to fill out security questionnaires. I had to list everybody I knew that wasn’t an American citizen. They sent me for a battery of tests and things like that. They were going to send me to the Defense Language Institute with a high security clearance. Well, I found out about bypass specialties and took a test for audio-visual. Then I got signed up as an audio-visual specialist. Then I got orders to report to the Presidio of Monterrey, but I already had my duty assignment. So I found myself working in audio-visual, but with a very high security clearance.

GCR: What was that like?

Bob: That was interesting. One day I was called in by my commander and was told to prepare a SAC briefing for Gerald Ford, because I had the security clearances to do the project. We worked together on provided aerial imagery that spy planes had taken. At the time, an experienced technician could tell the difference between a golf ball and baseball on the front lawn of the White House. That was back in the early 70’s – just think what they can do now.

GCR: What did you do after the military?

Bob: When I got back home, I enrolled back into Central Michigan University to get my Master’s degree in Business Administration and Finance, but shortly after I went to work for a mortgage company. Nila and myself also owned a ceramic supply company, that I had gotten started because Nila wanted me to change my night job.

GCR: What kind of night job was it?

Bob: I was a night manager at a McDonald’s that got robbed three times in Omaha. After the first hold up, I started writing down the serial numbers of the tens and twenties and keeping them in my pocket on a slip. One of the witnesses to the robbery was a girl from the neighborhood - I am sure she recognized him. I picked him out of a lineup, and he was found with money bearing some of the same serial numbers I had written down. But the other witness didn’t pick him out of the lineup, probably because she was afraid he knew who she was, so he was let go. The guy was only 15 years old, and was strangely enough the son of a preacher. Two weeks later he was involved in another robbery and ended up killing the two people. That made Nila nervous about me in that job, so I resigned and we started 'Nila Ceramics'.

GCR: Your involved with the historical society, what makes you so interested in our local history?

Bob: The thing is, when you look at history in other places, say national history – that is all important stuff, but it doesn’t have that personal feeling that local history has. You can look at a photo of Carl Ockerman that’s here in the equalization department and see a picture of his family when they first arrived in those log cabins, those temporary huts they lived in.

GCR: What is the most interesting thing about history here to you?

Bob: There is such a close connection between the people here now and the history. For some reason that has always interested me.

GCR: So how do you go about capturing the history, the personal stories of our community?

Bob: In doing the centennial book, we had our meetings every single week. People could bring their pictures in every single week and people would have all these stories to tell about the pictures. Sometimes people would disagree – we wouldn’t call them old people, but rather "senior resources" – and they would argue and disagree until people settled on the story.

GCR: I take it these “Senior Resources” are pretty much invaluable to preserving local history.

Bob: Definitely. A lot of the older generation who have the memories are slowly passing away. Charlie Brushaber passed away a couple of weeks ago and he was an incredible source of information because back in the twenties and thirties he worked for the road commission and knew everything about roads and bridges. For instance, we have a picture of the old elevator with a bunch of women working as bean sorters, and we don’t have a single identification of 1905 workers. We don’t have anybody alive who can even recognize these people. We have all kinds of pictures that need identification and we need the people in our community to help preserve our history by sharing their memories.

GCR: Why should we be interested in preserving our local history?

Bob: We need to remember where we came from, to see what people endured, how they were successful and to ask ourselves, “Are we repeating ourselves?” We are heading back to a time, where there was a huge gap between those who had and those who didn’t have.

GCR: Is there anything interesting going on with the historical societies right now?

Bob: We are starting to work on this County First Settler Sesquicentennial, marking the 150 year anniversary of the first settler, Marvil Secord, in 2011. That will be an opportunity to have a more complete county history, better than we have had before. What we are hoping to do is put together another 400 page book of general history of the communities of Gladwin.

GCR: Historically, there were a lot of communities in Gladwin County weren’t there?

Bob: We used to have a lot more communities than what we do now. I would like to preserve those communities while the people are still around. We used to have a place called Podunk, that used to have a dance hall and post office. Everybody we talk to talks about the dance hall, but we don’t have a single picture of it. We are trying to capture communities like Wagarville that had a cheese factory, a Dutch windmill and places like that. To sort out some of the problems with the old communities, like Butman that has three different locations.

GCR: How could you get the community involved in something like that?

Bob: I want to get meetings set up for people to bring in their old pictures, for them to bring in their memories and stories. People who come don’t have to pay anything, we just want to capture the history of Gladwin.

GCR: Something you’ve done quite well already. We’ll be looking for next book. Thanks, Bob.