GLEN HAVEN -- Carolyn Bumgardner stood in the cold drizzle amid friends and family while authorities boarded up her trailer home and U.S. Marshals instructed movers to box and load her belongings in a truck.
The Leelanau County woman, 70, had about an hour to collect what she could from a double-wide trailer parked behind her childhood home, declared the marshals, who then ushered Bumgardner to the road and blocked her driveway.
She can never return home. Bumgardner was the last resident of the village of Glen Haven, now entirely consumed by the sprawling Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
"I was on my way to a funeral when I got stopped by three police vehicles," Bumgardner said Thursday afternoon as she stood under an umbrella with her daughter Jo Lynn Davis. "I couldn't believe it. We are a five-generation family in this area."
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Holmes Bell issued a writ of assistance Wednesday that allowed marshals to evict Bumgardner, ending her decades-long dispute with the National Park Service.
Her trailer, like the rest of the village, is now owned by the government.
Tom Ulrich, Sleeping Bear's assistant superintendent, said the park service purchased Bumgardner's property at 5427 Glen Haven Road in 1980, and she was allowed to remain there for 25 years. She was paid about $36,000 for the property, he said.
"As we do with all holders, we send advanced notice that their term was set to expire. We have spoken with Carolyn and met with her family ahead of time ... but Carolyn refused to leave the property," he said. "A judge awarded possession of the property to the park service in February of 2007 and issued a court order for her to vacate the residence by Oct. 19."
Ulrich said Congress enforced eminent domain to turn Glen Haven into a public area along the Michigan lakeshore. Bumgardner spent the past three decades fighting for her property in federal court. She contends she never signed over the property.
Deputy U.S. Marshal Bryan H. Matthews led a handful of officers in the eviction and stood in the driveway after movers backed in the truck.
Authorities gave Bumgardner enough time to collect her personal things, Matthews said. The rest of her belongings will be sent to a storage unit.
Bumgardner lived at the trailer since 1972. Her mother, Clara Bumgardner, 91, lived in a small wood-sided home in front of the trailer since the 1930s. The government forced her to leave in the late 1970s, said Bumgardner, who hopes to move in with a family member.
Zoe Smith, Bumgardner's daughter, stood alone in the rain as other family members huddled around a vehicle and repeatedly, unsuccessfully called Michigan legislators in an attempt to halt the eviction.
"It's emotional. My mom just had surgery. She is 70 years old and this is her home," Smith said.
The family had traveled the globe with her career military father before retiring to Carolyn Bumgardner's home town.
"We were related to virtually everyone here," she said. "It's not about the money, it's about the place."
Ulrich said the eviction is a step toward preserving the quaint coastline town for public use.
"Many of the previous land owners had to relocate ... I definitely sympathize with what they must feel. Of course, Congress and the people of the U.S. said we would like to make this a public place for everyone's enjoyment," Ulrich said. "We are very actively restoring and interpreting the historic village of Glen Haven."
John Dean delivers mail around Glen Haven and grew up across the street from the Bumgardners. He came to support his life-long friend Thursday. His family also was forced to leave the village, he said.
"This woman was my first baby-sitter. I came back to be with her because we are some of the few Glen Haven people left," he said. "There is no reason to move a 70-year-old woman out of her home."
Dean doesn't believe the park service has the resources to preserve the place he once called home.
"They are letting the houses over here fall apart," Dean said. "They don't have the money to maintain the property."
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