Well-deserved Honors

I am glad to see the acclaim given to your first editor, Bruce Catton. It is proper that his fellow historians have honored him by giving a literary award in his name (“Letter from the Editor,” August/September 1984).

His hometown, Benzonia, Michigan, has also commemorated him: in June of 1984 the Michigan Historical Commission unveiled a plaque honoring Mr. Catton.

This was due, in part, to the columnist Judd Arnett of the Detroit Free Press . When he traveled through the northern part of Michigan and found nothing to designate Benzonia as the hometown of the great Civil War writer, he began writing columns about this in the paper. Finally the Michigan Historical Commission got involved, and the commemoration took place.

Though it was Arnett who promoted the plaque, that is not to say that the town had neglected Mr. Catton. One room in the Benzonia Public Library had been dedicated to him. This library is located in Mills Community House, once a dormitory for students who had attended the same academy that Mr. Catton had attended. My mother, born and raised in Benzonia, went to school there at the same time as Mr. Catton.