Review by Mack Hassler
I went to the library, because I found that I learned more from one hour in the library than from one hour in class.”
— The People’s Historian: The outsized life of Howard Zinn, by Dave Zirin, p. 45.
Zinn’s family had come from Siberia early in our century to avoid Russian antisemitism and he also worked to totally accept America as his chosen country much like the Kaufman family chose to identify with–and to contribute to–our U.P. region.
Nyquist, likewise, does much library work–the result is a labyrinth spiderweb with many paths leading to dead ends. This makes for a difficult read; Nyquist could have narrated and told stories more; instead he lists the books he has found in the library… it is rich, but a hard read. However, when his topic is women and “marriages and divorces or anulments” the paths the “Family” vividly reflects the history. As Americans, we are too a “family” of sorts in our history, a country of mixed immigrants—not a pure bloodline as the “National Socialist Party” in Germany fought to establish in World War II so tragically. We are one “humankind” that God formed in his/her image in the opening chapter of Genesis from the dust that he had created with the power of his breath (see the opening words in the gospel according to John). This is the real meaning and power of the Nyquist work. He does it well.
One interesting path down this spiderweb labyrinth of family is that of Louis Graveraet Kaufman In his line, we see the introduction of death and wandering. I think John Milton says it best about the introduction of wandering and death into the mix following “The Death of Adam” (see the book with this title by Marilynne Robinson, 2005) “ With wandering steps and slow through Eden they made their solitary way.” (Paradise Lost, end of Book XII)
But the Kaufman clan learned and adjusted quickly to the postedenic world, little wandering and they seemed not too solitary (always had women). Louis.whose grandmother was Native American— from Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, quickly learned the tricks of financial investment from his work in the banks and eventually invested millions to build the tallest building in New York City. Unlike the Empire State Building, topped off in 1931 by ironworkers, Louis Graveraet Kaufman built himself a huge mansion just North of the Marquette Harbor where he had devised the plan of loading the huge ore ships to ship South where the ore could be fired into steel to carry forward the Civil War and wars in Europe. No wandering or fallenness there. The Kaufmans were always practical.
The women are what amaze me in this book. No one ever seems to be lacking a wife or husband The attornies that work for this family must be well paid. By comparison Howard Zinn lived his entire life of nearlears with one wife whom he married just as he was heading off to England with his bombing group.
I will end this review with a passage on the marriages of Marie Jean (Joan) Kaufman , born on 10 March 1907 and her five marriages:
Joan’s fifth husband whom she married in May 1947 in Marquette was the twice-divorced “Jack “Martin. Jack was working at Granot Loma (the large Mansion North of the Harbor) as early as 1938 as a laborer, where he had met and married his second wife, Mary Ellis, and Joan had forced her off the property…. Joan had been given preference to real estate in her mother’ s death in 1956. Joan died on 28 October 1973 at Marquette, and Jack inherited Granot Loma” (p. 118)
(The reference here is to Tyler Tichelaar’s massive volume My Marquette, that I reviewed here recently)
But the passage above will give a sense of the detail that Nyquist crowds into his 287 pages here and his style and the style of living in this very important Family in our economy and in our culture. It is also amusing. The Empire State Building stands still high in the City. Granot Loma is important architecture still according to Ann Berman in her book I reviewed here on September 1, 2025. Personally, I would rather read and keep Paradise Lost. But if you want facts, go to Nyquist.
The Samuel Robert Kaufman Family of Marquette, by Michael S.Nyquist, First Edition, Cover by Kerstin Nyquist 287 pages PBK, $29.95.
