Dr. Koehler Donates $250,000 to Mackinac Island State Park
By Karen Gould

Serving as Mackinac Island State Park superintendent from 1898 to 1903, Samuel Bayard Poole is being honored by his granddaughter, the late Dr. Aileen Poole-Koehler, with an endowment fund in his name to support park publications. Shown here about 1900 are Mr. Poole and his family outside their home at Fort Mackinac Sergeants' Quarters. Included in the portrait are their milk cow, dog, and cat. (Glass plate photograph from the William H. Gardiner collection, Mackinac State Historic Parks)

The largest private cash donation ever received by the Mackinac Island State Park Commission will be earmarked for the creation of a publications endowment. The $250, 000 gift from Dr. Aileen Poole Koehler, who died in August, also is the first endowment created to support the park's museum programs.

Funds generated from the endowment will be used for park publications.

"It's not going to pay for the total publication budget every year," said Phil Porter, director of the parks, "but it will provide substantial support for our publication projects so we can continue this important way of sharing the rich history of Mackinac with the public."

Mrs. Koehler requested the endowment be named after her grandfather, Samuel Bayard Poole, who came to the Island in 1898, taking the job of superintendent of Mackinac Island State Park. He left the position in 1903, and opened the Iroquois Hotel the following year.

During the September 20 Mackinac Island State Park Commission meeting, commissioners accepted the donation and established a restricted fund to support park publications.

"I think this is a wonderful thing," said Commissioner Richard Manoogian, "and hopefully it sets a good precedence for future endowments."

In the summer of 1916, at just six months old, Aileen Poole, a Wisconsin native, made her first trip to the Island to visit her grandparents at the Iroquois Hotel. In later years, she became a West Bluff cottage resident, dividing her time between the Island and her home in California.

Mrs. Koehler retired as a professor and department chairperson from California State University-Long Beach in 1974, and died in California August 11, 2007.

She had a great passion for the history of Mackinac Island, said Mr. Porter, who knew Mrs. Koehler for 25 years. Her love of the Island's past grew from her family's history there, he said, and from her respect for Alicia Poole, Mrs. Koehler's aunt. Ms. Poole, who lived on the Island and helped manage the Iroquois Hotel, collected volumes of historical information about the Island and its residents.

Included in the collection are photographs of the early 1900s, stories gathered from residents, and notes about people buried at the cemetery, including burial location and names of relatives. The information serves as a primary research resource on Island history, said Mr. Porter.

"A lot of what she did was to talk to people," he said of Ms. Poole.

Mrs. Koehler gave her aunt's collection to the park in the 1990s.

"She knew we would appreciate it, use it, protect it, save it, and it would be in a place where the information could serve as some value," said Mr. Porter.

In 2003, Mr. Porter wrote to Mrs. Koehler, asking if she would consider the endowment to perpetuate the name of the family in Island history and to help support future historic publications about the Island. She responded with a letter indicating she was "tickled" with the idea.

Every publication produced with funds from the endowment will include an acknowledgment of the Samuel Bayard Poole Memorial Publication Fund, said Mr. Porter.

Mrs. Koehler set specific guidelines for the funds. Part of the requirement of her gift is that some funds must be spent each year, said Mr. Porter. If conditions change, making it impractical to continue using the fund for publications, the name of the fund would change to the Samuel Bayard Poole Exhibition Fund, and the money would be used to create or supplement historic exhibits at Fort Mackinac.