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Lives Overlooked
Joe Smallbone
In Fenton, Michigan, the name Joe Smallbone still lingers-- like the faint hum of a radio just past the dial. He was the town's quiet repairman. A man who lived alone in a soot-covered house on Wakeman Street, surrounded by broken machines and rusting cars. Most people knew his name. Fewer knew his story.
Magdelaine La Framboise: Mackinac Island's Merchant Queen
Just off the northern tip of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, where Lake Huron turns cold and clear, there’s an island that remembers. Beneath the charm of Mackinac—its shops, bicycles, and carriage rides—lies a history far older and deeper.
Before it became a destination, it was a crossroads of trade. At the center of it all was Magdelaine La Framboise, a Métis fur trader, Odawa woman, and entrepreneur who built one of the most successful trading empires in the Great Lakes.
Her story is one of power, loss, and legacy—a woman navigating languages, faiths, and nations at a time when few women held authority, leaving behind a mark the island still carries.
Charles Dickens and the Ghost of Christmas Past
Charles Dickens is a name synonymous with Christmas. With generosity. Redemption. Kindness. But behind the stories that shaped Victorian morality was another-- one carefully rewritten, tightly controlled, and believed for more than a century. In this episode, we examine the marriage of Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth Dickens, a union that collapsed under the weight of celebrity and power. Drawing on letters, contemporary accounts, and modern archival scholarship, this episode explores how a cultural icon became one of the earliest examples of a global media figure shaping truth and how Catherine Dickens quietly ensured that her own story would survive long enough to be heard.
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