Shores resident reflects on family’s roots in history

BY ALYSSA OCHSS ochss@candgnews.com

ST. CLAIR SHORES — During the Feb. 21 St. Clair Shores City Council meeting, Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Chris Vitale spoke about David Deacon during his comments.

Vitale mentioned how Deacon came to meetings regularly and that, during a recent meet-the-neighbor event, Deacon’s family history came up in conversation.

Deacon, 84, moved to St. Clair Shores in 1998 and in 2019 he gained United States citizenship. Before that he lived in Canada, where he grew up with his family and the family business, Deacon Brothers Ltd.

His grandfather, William Bleaker Deacon, took him to the factory regularly and he’s been around the factory for as long as he knew anything, Deacon said.

In one memory, his mother had put him in the fenced-in backyard to play. When she went to check on him and he wasn’t there, she called his father telling him she couldn’t find Deacon. His father told his mother, “Well, he’s right here,” said Deacon. His grandfather had taken him from the backyard to the factory that day.

“So, I was at the factory as a little kid and I virtually lived there probably three days out of the five when I was going to school because my elementary school was right across the street from the factory,” Deacon said.

The company started off as a haberdashery owned by his grandfather and his grandfather’s brother, who is Deacon’s greatuncle, Fred S. Deacon, in the late 1800s, Deacon said. They made custom shirts for men who wanted a shirt they could do yard work and other activities in.

“Back then, the men wore a dress shirt with a stiff attached collar,” Deacon said. “So, somebody came in one day and said, ‘I don’t like this shirt with the high collar. You got something that I can wear for cutting the grass on Saturday and, you know, working outside?’”

Deacon’s history goes farther back with relative Thomas Deacon, who was born in 1756 and died in 1836. Thomas was a quartermaster sergeant major, Deacon said, which is one of the higher enlisted ranks in the military. The Americans drove the British out of New York State and Thomas’s regi- ment went across the St. Lawrence River at the mouth of Lake Ontario, Deacon said.

Thomas was then given a land grant since he was an officer in the British army.

“Because he was an officer in the army, in the British army, he was given a land grant to stay there and develop the country so that’s where he ended up in Kingston, Ontario,” Deacon said. “So he had four boys and one of the boys moved to this little town of Bellville, and he had two boys, my father and my uncle.”

Deacon’s father, John William Deacon, born in 1904, started his professional career as a singer in New York City after coming to a crossroads in college.

“He was called in by the dean of the engineering school and said, ‘You’ve got to make up your mind, you’re not doing very well this year,’” Deacon said. “‘Your grades in this engineering class, but I understand you’re a pretty good singer, so you have got to decide, are you going to be an engineer or a singer?’”

After that, his father told his folks and headed off to New York City where he would eventually meet Deacon’s mother, Mary Ina (nee Conner) Deacon, who was a pianist, organist and composer at the time.

The company was growing rapidly back home and eventually, Deacon’s father was called back to help the family business.

During World War II, the company employed around 250 people.

“In a small town like that they were a major employer. So, yeah, everybody knew about Deacon Brothers,” Deacon said.

An engineer came to Canada from England and came to the company knowing the designer was very, very intelligent, Deacon said. The engineer had the idea that flight suits needed to be heated to allow airmen to go higher than 20,000 feet and out of range of German anti-aircraft fire.

In a later phone call, Deacon said they made flight suits for Canadian and British aircrews.

“So, they came up with this concept of sewing a very fine copper edged wire into the suit then when the airman got into the airplane they would plug into the low voltSee HISTORY on page 16A sion about social emotional learning, the impact COVID-19 had on students and helping students get back to a new normal.

Participants included parent Melissa Florek, student Lauren Maciejewski, teacher Debbie Peacock, teacher Kim Rueger-West, social worker Rebecca Asni, interventionist Billie Wilson, alternative education administrator Jeff Lip and teacher Dave Warehall. DiPonio started off by commending Whitmer for her budget and what it did to help the students in the district.

“It has made a world of difference for our kids. We’ve been able to do things that we just have never been able to do,” DiPonio said.

Whitmer said the point of the roundtable discussions is to have an open conversation about what’s going on in the school districts. She said that, even though there are cameras and a lot of people watching, she wanted to have an honest conversation “about what’s happening, what they’re seeing, what you think I need to be thinking about.”

The participants shared what changes they’ve seen in the students due to the COVID-19 pandemic including an addiction to technology, how some students are withdrawing from classes and the general effect of the pandemic.

Wilson commended the superintendent for the implementation of social emotional learning.

“I really like what we’ve started here… the last few years, the social emotional learning, because it makes things a lot better,” Wilson said.

He went on to say it helps the students to be aware of themselves and the people around them. He said because of the pandemic, kids missed that interaction between their peers and some of the younger kids missed the introduction to conflict resolution.

Other teachers agreed that social emotional learning has helped the students tremendously with communication and how to express themselves.

Peacock said that they’ve started to check in with the students every day about how they’re feeling and allow them to share maybe why they’re feeling that way. She said it’s been wonderful for them.

“Giving that opportunity to students to acknowledge that and feel OK to express themselves and know that they have a community in their classroom that can (find) support, where maybe some of these children don’t have that element at home or the opportunity to express themselves,” Peacock said.

Asni said the student stress comes out in various forms including more aggressive behaviors, very low tolerance for frustrations and being emotionally detached. It varies from student to student.

“The needs are just, are so high at all grade levels,” Asni said.

DiPonio transitioned the conversation to one-on-one tutoring and asked the roundtable participants what effect it has had on the students.

“It has a really big impact on students because you get the step by step, you have your instructions that you need, you have that safety net of support,” Maciejewski said.

She also said that safety net can grow to help you get back in the game and the teachers are there to help you get back up if you fall.

“It’s great to have these teachers able to do one on one,” Maciejewski said.

Rueger-West is an elementary school music teacher and she said there was a lot of anxiety when it came to performing on stage.

“They wanted to do well but there was this barrier of, ‘I don’t know what to do with all these feelings and emotions, and I’m scared and had to really work hard to talk me through so much,’” Rueger-West said. “And they did, they did it. They did great but it’s different.”

Her fifth graders had a concert in December and it was the first time they’ve been on stage since first grade. She said they’ve missed so much experience.

Lip said he sees the anxiety and depression in his students due to the pandemic.

“One of the worst things that has happened with this whole experience was whether or not you’ve experienced anxiety or depression, you’ve probably experienced it (during the pandemic),” Lip said.

He said the one on one is critical because it helps build relationships between the students and the teachers.

DiPonio said there are job openings within the school, but they aren’t drawing as many as they did before.

He said they want to do their best for the students and that when they have trust between the home and the school that everything is possible.

“I think we’re great people that want to do the very best. Just like we had teachers that did (that) for us, we want to do the same thing,” DiPonio said. “But it is important that we have good trust with our families, that they believe we have the best intentions.”

Call Staff Writer Alyssa Ochss at (586) 498-1103.

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