Rembering Rita Rusco

Rita Hadra Rusco, North Manitou's "Island Lady" has died.

She came to the island from Texas in 1942, the young 21-year old wife of a more mature (20-years) Jack Hadra, the pair having then been recently hired by W.R. Angell to handle the affairs of his Manitou Islands Association. She came in city dress, complete with silk blouse, sheer stockings and high heels. A "city slicker;" a spectacle to behold for the "real" islanders. But over her remaining nearly seventy-years, she became an island icon ... a "real" islander indeed.

We did not know her well ... my wife and I ... first becoming acquainted with her when we tried to bring North Manitou into the Memorial Society, changing it from the South Manitou Memorial Society to the Manitou Islands Memorial Society. We picked her up in Grand Rapids and drove her up to the big "special meeting" at the Lakeshore's headquarters in Empire, on a dreary late November afternoon and evening. On the way home, she and my wife driving back alone, she shared, among other things, her recipe for "Island Smash." That, later on, led to an episode my wife would like to forget, were she actually able to remember anything about that infamous evening.

Like most others from North Manitou, Rita was never much moved to participate, even though at one annual meeting we made her an "Honorary Lifetime Member" (sort of a draft, as it were, since she'd never shown any inclination to join of her own accord.) She didn't show up to accept the honor, the fancy plaque being accepted on her behalf by Paul Maleski (who was quickly recruited on the spot that day.) We enjoyed her company once more on a special day trip to North Manitou, sponsored by the Leelanau Historical Society. After that, she'd phone occasionally to straighten me out on some historical inaccuracy or another that had appeared in something I'd written. She was a stickler for accuracy and truth when it came to North Manitou history.

And so, another of the few remaining pieces of Manitou Islands history and culture is now forever gone.

But she left as her legacy to future generations the only historical memoir ever published by a North Manitou Islander, her lovingly written North Manitou Island — Between Sunrise and Sunset. Surely that will abide as a fitting tribute to this real "Island Lady."