The Mother of “The Moorings”
By Betsy Alexander
Historical Education Coordinator, The War Memorial
Marion Jarves Alger was born in Detroit in May of 1878. She was the granddaughter of famous Boston and Sandwich Glass magnate, Deming Jarves, and daughter of Michigan Carbon Works founder, Deming Jarves, Jr., both extremely successful businessmen.
She met, and then married, Russell Alger, Jr. in Detroit in January of 1896, the eldest son of one of Michigan’s most famous citizens in history, Gen. Russell A. Alger. Both Marion and Russell grew up during the Gilded Age, in the public’s eye, and from very privileged backgrounds.
By the following January she had given birth to Josephine, quickly followed in September of 1898 by Caroline Fay.
Marion Alger lawn bowls with granddaughter, Marion Miller, Fay’s daughter.
Marion and her two toddlers moved to Grand-Mère, Quebec in spring 1898 to join Russell, who was already there setting up his father’s latest business. That December, the young family were out playing in the snow watching Russell and another friend on a toboggan. The two men hit a rut and ended up airborne, with the friend landing hard atop Russell in a deep ditch. When Russell attempted to get up, he found himself unable to move. He ended up bedridden for several days completely paralyzed, an ominous precursor of his future.
The following July, Russell, Marion and the two little girls fled for their lives when brushfires burned down their house and a portion of the huge Alger pulp and paper mill that had just opened for business. These harrowing experiences in Canada stayed with the young couple for the rest of their lives.
They returned to Detroit just as General Alger resigned under a dark but unwarranted cloud of national public suspicion as McKinley’s Secretary of War. Some 150,000 excited well-wishers crammed the train depot for his short drive to the Alger homestead on Fort St. Marion and the other Alger women were at the family residence to welcome him along with the cadre of political and society VIPs who accompanied him. They graciously greeted everyone and put on a fine homecoming display during a time of enormous family emotion and public scrutiny.
By October 1902, Russell and his friend, Henry B. Joy, were busy with the serious business of moving what became Packard Motors to Detroit, soliciting more investors, and involving Albert Kahn in the process of building a massive new factory for them. Meanwhile, Marion was busy creating something big also: their only son, Russell III, was born in July of 1903.
As Russell continued traveling, administering his father’s and his rapidly growing business assets, Marion was home raising their young children. She was already involved in Detroit causes and national issues like women’s suffrage, as they were still living downtown on East Jefferson.
As the children got a bit older, they could better enjoy their extended summer stays in rented “cottages” on Mackinac Island and in Grosse Pointe. It was now the Edwardian age, and the children had a dare devil investor father, a charismatic activist mother, and a great deal of money; life was great as an Alger!
In early 1907, Russell purchased the Theodore Hinchman property at 32 Lake Shore Road and the process began to demolish it to build the Alger’s dream home, “The Moorings.”
By January of 1911, Marion was living fulltime in Grosse Pointe Farms and her commanding organizational skills and laser sharp community focus really emerged. First, she co-founded the Neighborhood Club to “address the area’s social service, educational, and recreational needs” of year-round residents. She was elected its president several times between 1911 and approximately 1946 and was incredibly influential as a key board member throughout the duration. Over the years she was involved, countless other programs and services were added to benefit the community, such as a welfare office and, during World War II, a Civil Defense headquarters, and an official U.S.O. center for the thousands of troops shipping out.
In 1913, Marion added to her Neighborhood Club responsibilities. She was vice president of the management board and fundraising chairman at Women’s Hospital and Infants’ Home, today’s Hutzel Hospital. This was a very rare all-women run medical organization and board, with all-women “house doctors” at a charity unwed mothers’ hospital and home. After earlier years’ mismanagement, it became a remarkably smooth-running organization once Marion and Mrs. Henry Bourne Joy were involved as the two VPs to President Mrs. Frederick H. Holt. Many other major institutions adopted their business and financial practices after the turnaround, unheard of for the day.
In 1915, Marion’s Neighborhood Club co-sponsored the first Grosse Pointe Public Library.
With her eldest daughter newly married and gone and the other two now teens, Marion became further involved with the Red Cross and war effort in 1917. As an authorized Red Cross instructor, she went into area schools and the greater Detroit community to teach the approved method of sewing bandages and surgical dressings for soldiers. She was also charged with registering sewing volunteers and groups. Large classes at the Packard plant, J.L. Hudson’s, and other major companies soon followed thanks to her polite persistence. Marion even tended to wounded U.S. soldiers at hospitals in France while visiting her father, who had moved there after leaving Detroit.
She became very motivated by and politically involved in what was commonly known as the Nurses Bill (officially the Lewis-Raker Bill) in September of 1918. A group of influential Americans tried to address the ill treatment of female nurses in the military by advocating for their inclusion in military rank and pay. The bill initially failed in July of 1919 – the (male) U.S. Surgeon General opposed it - but a few watered-down provisions were later passed in June of 1920 as part of the National Defense Act. American nurses in the military did not receive the full parity she sought until 1947, after World War II concluded.
March 13, 1919, Cottage Hospital opened initially as part of the Neighborhood Club, which was pressed into action housing ill patients in their gym and coordinating their travel to farther away Detroit hospitals during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. The original hospital building was a former “summer cottage” hence its quaint name. Marion and her peers were responsible for opening this first hospital for the region. They also advocated for and received a new structure in the late ‘20’s when the original Cottage building became too small to serve the community.
In the early 1920’s, personal tragedy struck: Russell became permanently paralyzed after a riding accident. Marion reportedly nursed him herself instead of relying on in-house medical personnel. Russell had to shift his lifestyle and business dealing into low gear; Marion continued her community involvement, but Russell was her number one priority. As Russell’s health would allow, Marion would carefully organize yacht outings and vacations so that he could enjoy himself as best possible from his wheelchair.
The Neighborhood Club Thrift Shop started in 1928 as a large rummage sale organized by Marion at the Neighborhood Club and was wildly successful; the Thrift Shop continues in business to this day.
Later that year, on Dec. 7, while yachting off the coast of Havana, Russell suffered a debilitating stroke. He downplayed the incident, but his health was much worse than most realized.
On Jan. 26, 1930, he was in New York City undergoing corrective surgery following his stroke when he contracted pneumonia and died at age 57. After a funeral at “The Moorings” Russell was interred at Elmwood Cemetery’s Alger mausoleum along with his parents.
With her three children and Russell all gone, Marion did not wish to stay alone at her beautiful estate she had shared with them for 20 years. After some traveling, she made plans for a new home and gardens to be built in the Farms; she moved into her new home on Provencal in 1934.
But what to do with her beloved “baby”, “The Moorings?”
On Marion’s behalf, Edsel B. Ford, acting as President of the Arts Commission at the Detroit Institute of Arts, brokered a deal for the museum to have her estate. The DIA happily took them up on the offer and opened the Detroit Institute of Arts Russell A. Alger House museum May 5, 1936. The Alger’s had a longstanding relationship with the DIA, having donated many wonderful pieces over the years. Marion donated the furnishings to them when she left them her estate plus paid to have Ellen Shipman completely redesign the formal gardens for better foot traffic. This is when the famous knot gardens were installed, another Marion gift to her community in 1937.
Unfortunately, the two consecutive Detroit mayors were against the Alger House museum and were successful in shutting it down in June of 1948. The estate reverted to Marion and again she thought hard to leave it to a worthy cause benefitting her community.
There had been much clamoring for an appropriate memorial to the veterans and those killed in World War II from the Pointes. Fundraising had been underway for one, along with plans for a new Library for the School District. Marion offered her estate as a combination of the two, but her offer was rebuffed. Marion’s nephew, Alger Shelden, was the head of the memorial drive fundraising and suggested they marry her desire of leaving the estate to the community for educational and cultural programs with the World War II memorial idea. Marion had lost her grandson at Guadalcanal, so she was very much personally invested in this also. She quickly signed off on the concept and gifted her house to the Grosse Pointe War Memorial Association in March of 1949.
Although she hadn’t lived at her former estate in years, Marion continued to pay for much of the annual garden replanting costs and upkeep as she had during the DIA’s tenure. Whether she was a War Memorial board member or not, she oversaw things and offered politely pointed comments when she wanted something immediately addressed. In spring of 1961, she and Josephine paid to have the Dining Room paneling stripped and restored to its pre-DIA appearance.
When Marion passed Dec. 16, 1962, Grosse Pointe lost much more than a philanthropist, community activist, social leader, and skillful gardener. We lost a woman who repeatedly fought for what she thought was right and what was needed and sought to deliver both for our benefit. She loved her community dearly and used her social status, power, and money for positive change. She was an exemplary example of noblesse oblige and one of the truly outstanding matriarchs of the Grosse Pointes.
To learn more about the history of The War Memorial and the Alger Family, please contact Betsy at balexander@warmemorial.org to schedule a tour.