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When my kids bought me a newfangled Keurig coffee machine for Mother’s Day a few years ago (alright, we all know it was my husband who really made the purchase, but I digress), I was ecstatic and over the moon. I ended up loving everything about owning one. It was like I was now...

Did you know that Wayne used to have a man-made lake for recreation? The land bordered by Michigan, Hannan, Glenwood and Hix was all the Irving Carpenter farm. He had bought the land in 1904 from the Nash family and grew the farm to include a Sugar Bush, where maple syrup was...

Did you know that out of all the months of the year, July ranks third in popularity? According to Ranker, a website that polls millions on everything from film to sports to food, July even topped December, which clocked in at fourth; May secured the top spot, while June came in...

There were cars made in Wayne before Ford? Yes! The first was made by a man named Charles Collier, a Civil War veteran, he moved to Wayne around 1900 and opened a bicycle repair shop at the corner of Brush and Newberry. Known as a tinkerer, Collier put bicycle tires on a buggy...

“I only have one wrinkle,” Jeanne Calment of Arles, France, once said. “And I’m sitting on it.” As you might surmise—just from that quote alone, Calment wasn’t the kind of woman who bit her tongue. But, then again, when you’ve lived to see the age of 122 like Calment did, I think...

It was announced in August 1950 that Ford would build a new plant just west of Wayne in what was then Nankin Township. The new plant would be built on the Stellwagen farm, on the south side of Michigan Avenue. The Stellwagen’s had come from Germany in the 1850s and settled there,...

Has your household’s cache of leftover Easter candy been depleted yet? Back when my kids were really little, I used one of my favorite treats as “filler” for their Easter baskets—much to my kids’ dismay: “Oh, darn! That’s right! You despise Hershey’s Special Dark! Sorry, I keep...

Jell-O. Kleenex. Onesies. Popsicle. Q-Tips. Sharpie. We might not realize it, but we use proprietary eponyms—when a brand name becomes synonymous with a particular item—all the time. It doesn’t seem to happen so much anymore—then again, we hear Just google it a lot these days....

The history of theaters in Wayne begins with the Palace Opera House, which was a one-story meeting hall with a raised stage at one end. It was located about where Bakers Acre is on Michigan Avenue. Dances, speakers, political rallies, and high school graduations were held here...

I openly admit it: I am a reluctant beneficiary of technology. I like the smell, feel, and sound of turning a weathered page of a hardcover book. I prefer writing my lists on the backs of discarded bill envelopes or pieces of scrap paper as opposed to taking advantage of my...