Sunday, February 10, 1974 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Five Sn day, m F" e r uc 1 , 1 74T E MI H G N A L PaeFv _. . PROFILE Wystan Stevens: Exploring bits of" Ann Arbor's hidden history By LAURA BERMAN Wystan Stevens opens the door to the 130-year-old home in which he lives and from force of habit launches into a guidebook tour of the living room antiques. "Peo- ple think I'm weird because I live in a museum," he admits. But the historic Kempf house on S. Division is hardly an un- suitable home for the man who probably knows more about Ann Arbor history than anyone else. Stevens will be 31 on Tuesday. For the last ten years of his life, he has been possessed by the history of the city. As caretaker of the city-owned Kempf House, Stevens g i v e s guided tours on weekends and has the chance to live rent-free in the perfect setting to burrow into local history. He's virtually a full-time Ann Arborphile. It is an unusual obsession and people are undoubtedly puzzled by this young man who has no steady job, who is unmarried, and who spends much of his time digging out the secrets of dead. eras. Why does he do it? "It's an interesting addiction - like a detective story," Stev- ens says. "What keeps it alive are the constant discoveries - finding out things that nobody else knows." "My father was worried about me for a while," Stevens says. "He wanted me to get a job that pays a living wage, he want- ed me to get married and to do all the things that real people do." Stevens is now working on the Sesquencentennial (Ann Arbor: 1824-1974) and until recently, wrote a weekly column for t h e Huron Valley Advisor on local history ("Doctor Daniel K e 1- logg: the Clairvoyant Physic- ian"). Such concessions to t h e things that "real people do" have' appeased his father. "I could give you a tour of this house with my eyes closed, I know it so well," Stevens com- ments. "People envy me, living here in the midst of these an- tiques. Actually they're not very comfortable." Stevens lives in two rooms of the home, the den and an up- stairs bedroom. The den is be- reft of antiques but cluttered with books like the "History of Washtenaw County 1881," a tat- tered old volume filled with bio- graphies of prominent citizens and titillating chapters that tell of local murders from a moralis- tic point of view. The den also contains the world's largest collection of Ann Arbor postcards, a complete set of Pioneer High yearbooks and an incomplete set of the Michi- ganensian. "It's easy to get the old ones," explains Stevens. "But the new ones are harder to come by. You have to wait for the grads to die off." There are also three bookshelves stacked with local historical works and also- a collection of novels that men- tion Ann Arbor. It is not a haphazard, grab-bag group of memorabilia. Stevens has a reverence for the past and is committed to seeing the best of it preserved. The son of a professor father and a University alumna moth- er, Stevens grew up in Ann Ar- bor with W. H. Auden's first name and a special feeling for his hometown. He never felt the restlessness that sends peopl running from their towns at the first opportunity. He always want- ed to go to the University and did, for a while. As a freshman, Stevens lived in Fletcher Hall and quickly fil- led twelve notebooks with t h e history of the dormitory. (H, dis- covered it had been hastily snu: down during Prohibition after a bootleg ring was discovyered to be operating out of it.) He quick- ly lost interest in school, while knowing everything there was to know about Fletcher Hall only' whet his appetite for local his- tory. "I'm interested in other his- tory, especially American, ' Stev- ens says, "but in Ann Aroor I can do something original I can make a contribution. Here, I am on the frontier, discovering new information all the tirne " "It is an inexhaustible subject, the challenge is to learn it all." An impossible goal, he admits, but one that he has set for hini- self. "You can go back and back, and get deeper and deeper into the subject. In a way," says Stevens, "you create a whole new world, it becomes a fairy tale that really happened " Wystan Stevens, local histar- ian and private escapist, pioneer and detective. He does odd gobs to support himself and never goes out without a camea. "There is not just one Ann Arbor," he observes. "There are layers of this city one over the other. There are new Mv;i dings on the foundatins of old 3-ones, different periods of histiry co- existing alongside each oter." Of course there is plenty to keep a local history buff busy in Ann Arbor - but is it eno::r I for a lifetime? "I don't plan for the cuvure," he answers. "I don't know if I am going to study Ann Arbor all my life. I do have the desire to put it all down on paper to write a thorough history of this city. And maybe, after I do that, I will be able to go on «o some- thing else." But Stevens is not readv to spirit- away the ghosts of Ann Arbor's past. Far the present, he lives in the "little temple' at 312 FUTURE WORLDS LECTURE SERIES presents DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON .Journalist, Author: "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" TUES., Feb. 12, 3 p.m.-adm. $1 HILL AUDITORIUM, Ann Arbor TICKETS: Michigan Union Ticket Desk and at the door info: 763-1107 (coming Feb. 21 : Margaret Mead) S. Division - the Greek revival home marked with a hisoricai plaque. "I'm happy here," Stevens says. "But still, sometimes I wish the Historizal Commission would move the furmnure around."' PROFESSIONAL THEATRE PROGRAM CITY CENTER ACTING COMPANY JOHN HOUSEMAN, Artistic Director "An outstanding theatre group"-Knickerbocker News "Wel knit unit of young and proficient players"-Daily "Outstanding performances"-The New York Times "Absolutely sparkling"-Cue presenting John Gay's THE BEGGAR'S OPERA Feb. 14-15 at8 Feb. 16at3 and William Shakespeare's MEASURE FOR MEASURE Feb. 16 at8/ Feb.1 7at 3 & 8 Mendelssohn Theatre TICKETS: PTP Ticket Office, Mendelssohn Lobby 764-0450 SUNDAY ONLY __.--- 7 .' { .! r .' y, .l , . } y_ . r; /