People and places that shaped Williamston

Local historian and retired Williamston High School teacher Mitch Lutzke tells some intriguing stories about Williamston’s history in his new book, “Stories from Williamston’s Past: Volume 2.”

Lutzke said that discovering the life story of Kathleen Frances Lawler, who rose from humble beginnings in Williamston to become one of Warren G. Harding’s key advisors during his unusual front-porch presidential campaign from his home in Marion, Ohio, was pure serendipity.

“While doing research, I would come across blurbs on her life and save them. I was fascinated, and I began throwing out her name to older residents in Williamston. They’d never heard of her,” Lutzke said.

An intrepid researcher, Lutzke used resources from the Harding Presidential Library & Museum in Marion and discovered it had held an exhibit on Lawler. That led to a discovery that some of Lawler’s papers and scrapbooks were right in his own backyard.

The only known picture of Kathleen Frances Lawler, circa 1920.

Someone had donated a collection of Lawler’s to Michigan State University’s archives, and it allowed him to begin piecing together her biography.

Lutzke said not much is known about Lawler’s earliest days in Williamston. No school records are available from that period of time, so nothing shows her graduating from high school.

The author believes she jumped to one of Lansing’s business and secretarial schools and became a stenographer, eventually becoming what would be known today as a court reporter.

After a stint at the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, Lawler made a leap to a series of appointments working with U.S. Senators in the nation’s Capitol.

Media reports show that she traveled the U.S. on various assignments, including accompanying Republican presidential nominee Charles Evans Hughes on a monthlong campaign swing in 1916. In 1918, she was front and center in a U.S. Senate race between industrialist Henry Ford and Truman Newberry, which was won by  Newberry but contested by Ford, who demanded a recount.

Lawler was then selected as one of the stenographers to take notes during the Senate testimony, which resulted in the indictment of Newberry for campaign spending violations.

Lutzke writes that not long after, Lawler was selected to be one of Harding’s campaign staffers and moved to Ohio. Local media called her “the secretary to Warren G. Harding.”

Lawler soon transitioned to being the personal secretary for First Lady Florence Harding and, following Harding’s successful run, was expected to be named the social secretary to the first lady.

However, in January 1921, Lawler submitted her resignation to President-elect Harding. Afterward, she held a variety of jobs and attended the Republican National Convention twice. She also wrote a 900-page memoir that was never published.

Lutzke said he discovered where the manuscript is being held during his research. When it’s transferred to the Harding Presidential Library & Museum, he’s going to make a trip there to read it.

Another Williamston resident detailed in the book is Forest Akers, whose baseball skills Lutzke was aware of before his research. Akers played for numerous city teams and semi-pro teams in the area before making his way to MSU, then known as the Michigan Agricultural College. He went on to work for the REO Motor Car Company as a sales manager before moving to more major roles in the Detroit auto industry.

Akers, who graduated last in his class at Williamson High School and was kicked out of MSU, didn’t let any of that get in his way when it came to giving back. Lutzke writes how Akers joined the Michigan Board of Agriculture, akin to MSU’s Board of Trustees today. Akers Hall is named after him and his spouse, and the golf course on campus was the result of one of his many gifts.

Lutzke found it was much easier to research Akers’ life since the MSU archives contain an extensive collection of his papers, along with seven scrapbooks containing numerous photographs. In contrast, there is only one know photograph of Lawson, which appeared in a national newspaper in 1920.

All in all, Lutzke’s new book includes 14 individual stories of people and places that have made an impact on Williamston. He said he’s going to take some time off from writing, but he’s already thinking of another book on early Lansing-area industrial baseball teams.