Remembering Bumpa – George "Sonny" Grosvenor

NMI Pickup by migolferYesterday at The Leland Report Molly Grosvenor wrote:

This morning George Firestone Grosvenor, our Bumpa, passed away. He went peacefully in the company of his children and with the kind assistance of all the great people at Effie’s Place. This truly marks the end of an era. I know that many people have a story or two or many about Bumpa. It’s great comfort to know that he will live on in these stories… may we all keep telling them. May the seas be calm in heaven! In lieu of flowers donations can be made to the South Manitou Island Memorial Society’s project “relight the light” or to Munson Hospice.

You can share your memories here or over at the Leland Report’s tribute to George Grosvenor. George captained boats that went to the islands, most recently the Manitou Isle to North Manitou. My favorite tales from him were those of delivering the mail across the ice to the Manitou Islands. He said his dad would tie a rope to him and make him walk in front of the mail truck as they crossed the ice.

Was it true? I don’t know but I do know he was a great guy who will be missed.

Photo credit: NMI Pickup by migolfer who writes: North Manitou Island. For those of you old enough to remember the island pickup/dropoff point off the beach by Bourniques. This was before the fancy dock they put in. If the weather was bad, the drop off point was on the south beach off The Big Windfall. The boat is the “Manitou Isle”.

5 replies
  1. Freddy Hollister
    Freddy Hollister says:

    Our thoughts and prayers are with the Grosvenor family. As long as we have been visiting “God’s Country” (as Flo liked to call it) we have loved North Manitou – the Lake, the scenery, the beautiful weather, the history, ships and shipwrecks, the woods…but we have treasured the wonderful people we’ve met and been friends with. George Grosvenor was one of the great people in my life; an example for us all. It is fitting that we lost our Mother at the same of year, as they were such good friends. They both are greatly missed!

  2. Ann Weber
    Ann Weber says:

    As with everyone that knows the Grosvenor family our thoughts and prayers are with you. My fondest memory of the Captain is one day when a sudden severe storm blew in over the lake and we all stood in awe watching him bring in the passengers from the Manitou’s, slipping by a sail boat stuck in the harbor entrance, in 90-mile an hour winds, the waves so high, you could not see the boat (ship) in-between the waves, he made it in, as everyone said “Only George could have done that!”

  3. BJ Ingwersen
    BJ Ingwersen says:

    Looking for the name of the mail boat run by Grosvenors 1948-1954. Writing a story of my Dad, who got a ride to South Fox with George ’50 or ’51 to cruise timber. I remember George as a very giving man when using the boat from Leland to visit my dad on S Manitou.

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