By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
FOSTORIA — The sun was about to set on Fostoria Family Day, the town festival in this hamlet of 200 people in southern Tuscola County.
But Lions Club members from Mayville — the town up the road — saved the day.
“We’re blessed we’ve got the Mayville Lions Club,” said Sam Fackler, a member of the committee that has planned Fostoria Family Day for July 11.
“They’ve never helped before, but they promised us four or five men to help put up a tent, set up our stage, and set up tables and chairs,” Fackler said.
Fostoria Family Day used to be Fostoria Family Days, a three-day event, but it faded to a two-day festival and eventually to one day, though one event — a church service and potluck dinner in Foster Park — takes place July 12 at 11 a.m.
An article in the Tuscola County Advertiser reported that Fostoria Family Day could vanish without more volunteers, and Curt Henderson, Mayville Lions Club secretary, read it.
“We were at a Lions Club meeting and I said ‘You know, we do an awful lot for Mayville but we hardly do anything for Fostoria,’ and because Fostoria doesn’t have a Lions Club, the town falls under our jurisdiction because it’s still in the Mayville (Community) School District,” Henderson said.
About 10 Lions Club members in Mayville — a village of 950 people about six miles from Fostoria — plan to help at this year’s Fostoria Family Day. The July 11 event features a 1 p.m. parade, community-wide garage sales, crafters and food vendors, a pancake breakfast from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Odd Fellows Hall, and a 1:30 p.m. Ice Cream Social at Foster Park.
A tractor tour starts on Foster Street, where tractors line up at 8:30 a.m. and travel for about 25 miles through the countryside before returning to town.
“It’s just a bunch of people with tractors, going for a ride,” said Sam Fackler, who plans to drive his 1953 Farmall Super H on the tour. “The tractor tour is separate from the parade. Last year we had 42 tractors. Everybody’s required to have a ‘Slow Moving Vehicle’ sign.”
While the tractor tour is a Fostoria tradition, it also takes away many of the workers who otherwise would help set up for the Saturday festival, according to Henderson.
Fostoria Family Day organizers “don’t want money so much, but they do a lot of set-up on Saturday morning and some of the guys that normally would help out on Saturday morning are out on the tractor tour, and that’s when they really needed some help,” Henderson said.
A balloon artist will give away balloon creations to kids from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on July 11, and children can have their faces painted from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. and compete in a Kids’ Pedal Pull at 1:30 p.m. that operates just like a tractor pull — the farther a child pedals the replica tractor, the more weight he must pull behind it.
“They do some kids’ games in the afternoon and we have some ladies coming to help with that,” Henderson said.
Free kids’ games are from 4:30 to 5 p.m., and the Mayville Lions Club giving children rides on the club’s barrel train from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
A horseshoe-pitching tournament is at 2 p.m., with Stan the Magician entertaining from 3 to 4:30 p.m.
A Chinese auction and bicycle raffle occurs at 5 p.m., with awards given then to winners of Fostoria’s Patriotic Flower Garden Contest. The Steve Stokes Band performs July 11 at 8 p.m. at Foster Park, the center of festival activity.
“We don’t have a beer tent because we want this to be for the kids,” Sam Fackler said. “Everything we do, it’s all free. The Tribesmen motorcycle club has helped a lot, too. For the last three or four years, they’ve donated bicycles and helmets to give away.”
The Steve Stokes Band performs July 11 at 8 p.m. at Foster Park, the center of festival activity.
Fackler’s wife, Linda, is chairwoman of the Fostoria Family Committee, the group planning the festival. Anyone wishing to volunteer may call 989-843-5746.
“We need younger people, really,” Linda Fackler said. “We have a lady that’s in her 80s that helps us, and Sam’s in his 70s.”
Sam Fackler said Fostoria Family Day could vanish yet without more help.
“It still might,” he said. “It’s iffy.”