considered âterribly importantâ in Grosse Pointe, for example, because her husband happens to be Mrs. Edsel Fordâs sisterâs son.
All the Ford talk in Grosse Pointe can be confusing, however, since there is not one Ford family in the community but three. The richest Fords are of course the royal Fords, or the âcar Fords,â as they are called. But far from poor are the so-called salt Fordsâthe John B. Fords and the Emory Fordsâwhose money comes from such enterprises as the Wyandotte Chemical Company and the Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company (soda ash from salt beds is used in glassmaking). Then there are the âold Fords,â who would include the Frederick Clifford Fords; they, though not as rich as the others, have been around longer, and have prospered in such endeavors as law and banking. Frederick C. Fordâs mother was a Buhl. The original Buhl was given a land grant by King George III in the 1760s, and not long ago, when a Buhl wanted to sell off some of the land, an elaborate search was made into the title of it. When no title could be found, Mr. Buhl grew exasperated. âDamn it,â he said finally, âthere isnât any title to that land; the Buhls just took it!â Mrs. Frederick C. Ford is an amateur genealogist and has made an ancestor search of her family, the Brushesâanother first-cabin Detroit family. She discovered that the Brushes descend directly from Alfred the Great in the ninth century, so âoldâ would certainly apply to these Fords. None of the three Ford families, as far as anybody knew, was related to any of the others until the Frederick C. Fordsâ son, Walter Buhl Ford, married âDodieâ Ford, Henry Ford IIâs sister. This union created a family known locally as âthe Ford-Fords.â
Grosse Pointe startedâas did Westchester County and the Philadelphia Main Lineâas a resort, and the old first-cabin families built summer and weekend homes there. There was a logic to it. Detroitâs rich used to live in large city mansions along Jefferson Avenue, and the Jefferson Avenue trolley line ended at the Grosse Pointe line. Beyond that was country, and Lake St. Clair was still clear and sweet, as the name implied. Immigrant French farmers, who gave the fat point of land its name, had small, rectangular farms in the area, and as these were bought up, one by one, by the rich, roads were built along the farmsâ borders, which accounts for the strict grid pattern of Grosse Pointe streets today. The French influence lingers in strange ways. A street with the odd name Kercheval is presumed to descend from the French cours de cheval ââhorse path.â The old rich built along the lakeshore places that were sprawling, comfortable, countrified, but not particularly grandiose. Life in Grosse Pointe was unhurried and informal. âIt was lovely in the old days,â says Countess Cyril Tolstoi, kin of the McMillans and the widow of one of Count Leoâs nephews. The countess, whose house is now on a typically crowded Grosse Pointe street, says: âThis place is all thatâs left of my grandfatherâs farm. His property ran all the way down to the lake, which is now I donât know how many blocks away. It was a long walk through the woods to the nearest neighborâs house. Now Grosse Pointe is so big and crowded that when I go to parties I hardly know anybody. Iâm introduced to people Iâve never even heard of.â The countessâs butler pours a martini from a silver shaker and, as if to emphasize her remarks, the tinkle of a bell from a Good Humor truck can be heard outside her heavily curtained windows. And Mrs. Raymond Dykema, another old-timer, says: âThere was a feeling of importance , growing up in Grosse Pointe in those days. As a girl, I would sit on our veranda and watch the ships go by and know that my father built them. They were our ships. It made one
C. J. Cherryh
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