In 1968, Ellen Taschner, wife of Charles Taschner of Owendale, and brother-in-law to long time employee of the brewery Frank Taschner of Sebewaing, participated in a class doing research work about Michigan history. Ellen noticed a void of materials in local libraries about this topic and decided to select a local industry. Lucky for us she selected the Sebewaing Brewing Company. Part of her wish was to have this research be available at a local library. That is exactly where this report was found, in a local library of where else, Sebewaing! Ellen’s goal was realized and it is available for reading by anyone that visit the vertical files. Even better, the paper is available right here where it can be easily read by anyone with a computer and the Internet. This type of access must have surely exceeded her imagination at the time.
Some quick comment
s on this report. There is substantial detail on the life span of the brewery but more importantly, especially before Prohibition. This period is relatively unknown except for a few articles here and there, not very much detail is known. The fact that Ellen did this research in 1968 and was able to speak with two former employees of the brewery, one a long time president and general manager (A. E. Mast) and another long time employee (Frank Taschner) was instrumental in the amount of detail she was able to gather. In a few areas of the reports, some beer label names, small bits of content, or dates required some minor corrections. The report was kept intact but comments made in the right margin in order to preserve the author’s writing.
From what could be researched on-line, Ellen passed away in January of 1971. However, she left this gift to all of us so thank you Ellen for all of your work helping to document the memory of the Sebewaing Brewing Company.
