EDITOR’S NOTE: Superiorland Yesterdays is prepared by the reference staff at the Peter White Public Library in Marquette.

30 years ago

MARQUETTE — Roger D. Charbonneau has been promoted to chief financial officer of Northern Underwriters, Inc., of Marquette. Charbonneau, 32, a Bark River native, worked on the audit staff of Anderson, Tackman and Co. and the tax staff of Ernst and Whinney prior to joining Northern Underwriters. A certified public accountant, Charbonneau received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Northern Michigan University and two associate degrees from Bay de Noc Community College in Escanaba. He is a member of the Michigan Association of CPA’s and the American Institute of CPA’s, and is a member and past president of the Upper Peninsula chapter of the National Association of Accountants. Northern Underwriters has 81 employees and has insurance offices in Marquette, Escanaba, Iron Mountain, Munising, Houghton, Ishpeming, Negaunee and Menominee.

90 years ago

MARQUETTE — The library apprentice class composed of 12 young women from the city has just concluded its four weeks’ course of training. Three girls will be selected from this group for work in the Peter White Public Library the ensuing year, and eight will be retained on a waiting list of those prepared to do emergency or substitute part time work at the institution. The twelfth young woman, Miss Eleanor Stockwell, took the course as additional training to fit herself for taking charge of the school library in Norway where she will be teaching this year. The members of the apprentice class worked in the library from 8 to 11 o’clock each morning the first five days of the week. Practice and instruction embraced use of library catalogues and reader’s guide, study of classification and the catalogue system, method of shelving books, mending and mechanical preparation of books. Miss Margaret Smith, librarian, who had charge of the class, says such training makes it possible to have in reserve young women who can be taken into the library for part or whole time work with a minimum of loss of time and inconvenience to the public. In the apprentice class they learn all the “tricks of the trade and the rules of the game” without the library’s service to the public suffering from the awkwardness and slowing up of service which ensues when the untrained girl is put directly to work in the library. The girls in the class have not been paid for their services while in training the past month, but to balance that they have not had to pay any fee for their instruction, either.