There’s something about owning a piece of history; before long, you realize that it doesn’t really belong to you at all.
When my husband Bruce and I bought Dandelion Cottage two years ago, we knew it had a long and storied past, but we didn’t realize just how much this little yellow house remains a part of present life in Marquette.
As many local residents know, the cottage served as the inspiration for the children’s book Dandelion Cottage, written in 1904 by Marquette author Carroll Watson Rankin.
The book tells the story of four little girls who pulled a bumper crop of dandelions from the lawn to earn the right to use the run-down cottage as a playhouse one summer and of their numerous adventures as they set up housekeeping. The heartwarming tale has touched the lives of countless young readers—especially little girls—over the past century. It has been reprinted again and again and has been a best-selling book for the Marquette County Historical Society.
I first fell in love with the cottage and its story when I was a student at Northern Michigan University in the 1970s and worked at the public radio station. One of the local celebrities I interviewed was Phyllis Rankin, the daughter of the author of Dandelion Cottage.
Phyllis told me that her mother began writing the story one August day in 1903 when her young daughter Eleanor proclaimed she had read all the books in the world for little girls. Caroline immediately began penning the pages of what was to become Dandelion Cottage. Published the following spring by Henry Holt and Company, it was the first of ten children’s books to be written by Carroll Watson Rankin.
Caroline (“Carrie”) was born in Marquette in 1864, the youngest of ten children. Her parents, Emily and Jonas Watson, moved to Marquette to open a trading post in 1855, only a few years after the town was founded. The family lived first in a little house on Lake Street and later at 219 East Ridge Street, where three generations, including Phyllis Rankin, would reside.
At age eleven, Carrie published her first short story in a “juvenile paper” called “What Next?” At sixteen, she spotted an ad in the Daily Mining Journal for “a bright boy to do reporting.” She applied, saying that while she wasn’t a boy, she was almost sure she was bright. She got the job and continued at the paper as society editor until her marriage to Ernest Rankin in 1886.
The couple had four children—three daughters and one son. Phyllis, who shared her mother’s love of books, worked at Peter White Public Library for nearly four decades, serving as the chief librarian for twenty years. She retired in 1962.
When I asked Phyllis if Caroline had based the story of Dandelion Cottage on real people and real circumstances, she smiled. Then she quoted her mother’s famous line, “There was a cottage, there were four little girls, and there were dandelions, but all the rest was cut from whole cloth.”
What is known about the cottage is that it was built in about 1880 and was located on High Street adjacent to St. Paul Episcopal Church. Local entrepreneur Peter White owned it as a rental property and donated it to the church in 1888, with the stipulation that it be moved to make room for the memorial chapel he was building for his son Morgan, who had died.
The cottage was moved a few hundred feet to Arch Street, where it remained for the next 100 years. In Dandelion Cottage, Rankin described it as the little house that “stood almost directly behind the big stone church in Lakeville, a thriving Northern Michigan town.”
The cottage was used by St. Paul’s as a sexton’s house and later rented out; in 1889, the rent was a mere $140 per year. The tenant who likely lived in the cottage the longest was Florence Keller, who still resides in Marquette. She rented the cottage for about twenty years, from the mid-1950s to the mid-’70s, and raised her two boys there.
In the early 1990s, the church was looking to expand its parking facilities and decided that the cottage must be moved again—or demolished. It offered the little house, which had fallen into considerable disrepair, to anyone who would pay the moving expenses to relocate it.
For a worrisome time, there were no takers, and it was feared by many citizens that the final chapter in the cottage’s history was about to be written. As a last resort, a committee was formed to save Dandelion Cottage. One of its chief concerns was that the house, if and when it was moved, should remain in the town’s historic district.
Finally, two civic-minded citizens came to the rescue of the little bungalow. Bill Birch, then-mayor of Marquette, and his wife Sally bought the cottage for $1.
On October 12, 1991, it was moved several blocks down the street to its present location at 440 East Arch. The Birches owned a historic old home on East Ridge and the property extended all the way to Arch Street, providing them the perfect place to “plant” the little house.
Perched on a full basement, the dilapidated cottage soon underwent a transformation and was almost completely renovated on the inside. But the Birches were careful to retain as much of the historic nature of the cottage as possible. They hired talented local craftsmen to replicate the original wood trim, refinish the original maple floors and reglaze the kitchen sink. A fireplace was added to the front room to give it a cozy charm. Antique lighting fixtures and lacy curtains completed the vintage look.
The Birches spent $60,000 and devoted a year and a half of their lives to renovating and preserving the cottage. It was placed on the state historical register in August 1992 and officially dedicated on June 27, 1993. A historical marker for the cottage, purchased by Phyllis Rankin as a gift for the Birches, was unveiled at the ceremony.
During the decade they owned the cottage, the Birches held several open houses, giving thousands of area residents a chance to peek into the past. In addition, they rented it out as a guest house and for parties and special occasions.
These days, the cottage (our “camp in town,” as Bruce calls it), has less of a vintage look and more of a casual comfy feeling. Recently, we had it painted a breathtakingly bright yellow—the sunny color of dandelions dressed in their springtime best. If ever tourists needed a beacon to guide them to the cottage, they have one now.
Not that we’ve noticed a lack of visitors. Our first summer as new owners, we were astounded at the number of cars that slowed as they drove by the cottage so passengers could get a better look.
We’ve grown accustomed to strangers knocking on the front door, asking if they can take pictures. Some of them have even shared personal anecdotes—they knew someone who knew someone who once lived at the cottage or who had gone to a party there.
At Halloween, the neighborhood mothers accompanying their costumed children to our door sometimes ask to take a peek inside. And friends hosting out-of-town company come by for tours—and hope for invitations to tea parties for their daughters and granddaughters.
Dandelion Cottage even receives its own fan mail. Letters addressed simply to “Dandelion Cottage” have arrived at our doorstep from as far away as New Jersey.
Once in a while, if truth be told, it all seems a bit too much—as if we are on display as well.
But just the other night we were reminded again of how lucky we are to be living with this bit of history. We ordered a pizza, and when I opened the door to pay the delivery guy, he was standing on the porch, reading the historical plaque that hangs by the door. With a big smile, he confided, “I love this house. I’ve always loved it—the cheery colors and everything about it.”
It was a wonderful reminder. While Bruce and I are lucky enough to be the current “caretakers” of the cottage, it truly belongs to the pizza guy and to the Halloween moms and to the out-of-town tourists, and to everyone who knows and loves the story of Dandelion Cottage.
—Kathy Pohl

Author’s Note: My thanks to Rosemary Michelin at the Marquette County History Museum, the Reverend Mark Engle at St. Paul Episcopal Church, Marcus Robyns at the Olson Library at Northern Michigan University and my good friend Karen Rhodes for help in researching this article.

Marquette Monthly(TM), Copyright 1999-2010  *  Site Comments? Web Design