Frank Fitzgerald, 1955 - 2004

By Frank Straus

Frank Fitzgerald, one of the longest-serving historical interpreters in the history of Fort Mackinac, died December 9, 2004. He was 49, and six of his 49 summers were spent at the Fort, including four as lead interpreter.

“He set an example that he expected everyone around him would follow,” said Phil Porter, superintendent of the Mackinac Island State Park and one of Frank’s former fellow interpreters. According to Phil, the talent for leadership that would carry young Fitzgerald to the presiding officer’s chair of the Michigan House of Representatives was apparent from an early age.

Frank Fitzgerald spent most of his summers on Mackinac Island. When Frank was six, his father, Judge John Fitzgerald, bought “The Cliffs,” the historic 1891 cottage on the East Bluff. Here Frank watched the growth of visitors crowding to and from Mackinac Island during the boom years of the 1960s. Below “The Cliffs,” for several years, the steam whistle of the venerable, coal-fired ferryboat Straits of Mackinac could be heard coming up from the harbor.

As time passed and the 1970s arrived, Mackinac Island continued to change under the impact of the significant increase in day tourism during those years. The last Great Lakes cruise ship, the S.S. South American, sailed away. Visitors to hotels began shortening their stays. A prominent Island tour-buggy firm changed its route of operation. The Island’s distinctive “atmosphere” seemed, by some, to be threatened.

At the same time, day tourists were increasingly enthusiastic about changes at Fort Mackinac, which, starting in 1958, had had begun to be re-interpreted, through guides, as a historic national treasure. During the years leading up to and encompassing America’s Bicentennial, the Fort was interpreted as a landmark of American revolutionary history. Guides, including Frank Fitzgerald, dressed in the uniforms worn by members of the “Legion of the United States” in 1796, the year that Fort Mackinac was first occupied by the U.S. Army.

Many Fort Mackinac guides, including Phil Porter and Frank Fitzgerald, worked in the 1970s to show Fort Mackinac buildings that were being reopened to the public, give tours of the fort, and conduct sample musket and cannon firings. The unreliable flintlocks were a constant source of drama for both the visitors and the guides. While the visitors enjoyed every “bang” wrung from the temperamental weaponry, the guides themselves learned over time to rank themselves and their workmates by their conscientiousness in keeping their reproduction long guns in tip-top shape.

This was only one facet of the conscientiousness that Frank Fitzgerald showed as a guide at Fort Mackinac. He would become the head guide.

Frank’s roots and connections to Mackinac Island ran deep. His grandfather, Governor Frank D. Fitzgerald, oversaw Fort Mackinac during two terms as Michigan’s chief executive in the 1930s. The Fitzgerald family continued to pioneer a role in Michigan history in the 1960s as young Frank’s father, John W. Fitzgerald, became a member of the state’s first appellate court. Justice Fitzgerald would later serve on the state Supreme Court.

With this background, young Frank set his eyes toward the law from a young age. But added to this love of the law was a permanent love of history, especially the history he and his friends were helping to preserve on Mackinac Island.

Many law students spend their summers interning in some useful law firm, gathering the connections that they hope will help them after they have been graduated and have passed the bar exam. As a student at Virginia’s William and Mary and later at Lansing’s Cooley Law School, however, Frank Fitzgerald returned to Fort Mackinac each summer to resume his career as chief guide. “He had majored in history at college,” Phil Porter explained later. “We talked afterwards, and we agreed that the things we had learned as tour guides really benefited both of us.”

After his admission to practice, Frank Fitzgerald served as Eaton County assistant prosecutor from 1984 to 1986. After a skyrocketing career in Lansing-area law, he was elected to the state House in 1986. The youthful legislator was quickly selected by senior members to head his caucus’ Policy Committee. In this role, he crisscrossed the state, interviewing citizens, making speeches, and holding hearings on statewide public issues.

Working closely with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and other citizen groups, Frank played a key role in enacting state legislation to increase motor vehicle safety and stiffen penalties on repeated driving under the influence. Decreases in traffic deaths throughout the state in the 1990s were a tribute to the enduring work Frank had crafted with the help of his fellow citizens.

“Being comfortable in front of crowds,” Phil Porter later recalled, was something that he had seen Frank Fitzgerald develop during his years as a Fort Mackinac guide. “Coming into contact with thousands and thousands of people every year. I know it really helped him in the legislature.”

Frank’s high-mileage legislative career exacted a price from himself and his family. During his years as a guide at Fort Mackinac, he had met a fellow guide, the former Ruth Waley. Frank and Ruth Fitzgerald became one of the many couples whose romance was sealed under the friendly green cedars of Mackinac Island. The couple were to be blessed with a daughter, Ellen, and a son, John.

Young Fitzgerald continued to rise in the eyes of his legislative colleagues. He was selected as the House speaker “pro tem,” a role that required him to preside over contentious sessions of the legislative body. “You just have to sit there,” Frank told me. “You just have to sit there and issue rulings, and they have to be fair rulings. Of course, the other side doesn’t think they’re fair, but they have to be. Because someday, they might be up here, and you might be down there. That’s how it works.”

During Frank Fitzgerald’s 16 years in public service, both the Governor’s chair and the state legislature switched back and forth between political parties. During one especially emotional period, control of the state House was evenly split between both parties. After his forced departure from the House in 1999 because of term limits, then-Governor John Engler appointed him to serve as state insurance commissioner. After an executive reorganization in the following year, Frank became director of a new state department that regulated both financial institutions and the insurance industry.

Frank rejoined the private sector in 2003, becoming managing partner in the Lansing office of the Detroit-headquartered Clark Hill firm. He oversaw the expansion and relocation of the firm’s Lansing office, and was preparing for new challenges in the private practice of law, when fate intervened. The former Mackinac guide, legislator, and state executive passed away in New York City, not having reached his 50th birthday.