Here's what you will need:
1 medium head cabbage
2 tart apples
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 medium onion
2 tsp salt
Shred cabbage; peel, core and slice apples, chop onion. Mix together with lemon juice, salt, and a little water. Cover tightly and cook slowly until just tender. “Clubhouse facilities were as sparse as some of the fairway grass that first spring. Included in the purchase of the property was a huge Tudor-type mansion stable. The mansion had been the home of Arnold Lenz, a Vice President of General Motors and General Manager of the Pontiac Motor Division. The basis of the old clubhouse was the Lenz mansion. The stable was remodeled to house the men's and women's locker rooms, the Pro Shop and the dining/entertaining area known as The Pine Room.” From a History of the Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club on the organization's website.
What do the following places and things have in common? (Actually, if you have looked at the photographs and read the recipe, you probably know the answer)
• A recipe for apples and oranges
• A home on Davis Drive in Golfside
• Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club in Grand Blanc
• Chevrolet Grey Iron Foundry
Answer: Amelia and Arnold Lenz
Born in Traverse City, Amelia Kempter Lenz’s father died when she very young and she moved to Saginaw when she was a child. In the 1923 Saginaw City Directory, her occupation is listed as a stenographer at Saginaw Products’ Jacox plant – an early name for General Motors’ Saginaw Steering Gear. On June 22, 1927 she married Arnold Lenz. Lenz emigrated to the United Stated from Germany and worked for a number of foundries prior to starting with General Motors.
His obituary in the Saginaw News noted: He came to Saginaw in 1920 as Superintendent of the Grey Iron Foundry of Saginaw Products Co. division of General Motors. In 1925, Mr. Lenz was promoted to assistant manager of Saginaw Products and became general manager of Chevrolet Grey Iron Foundry two years later when that plant – the world’s largest of its kind – was annexed by GM’s Chevrolet Motor Division. Arnold left Grey Iron in 1931 and went to Flint to become Chevrolet’s assistant manufacturing manager in charge of plants in Saginaw, Flint and Bay City.
He handled G.M.’s war contract from 1941 until the end of the war, when he moved to Cleveland to head Chevrolet’s operations there. He became assistant manager of the Pontiac Division in 1947, later was made a vice-president and headed the Pontiac Division since 1950.
The Saginaw News, July 14, 1952
The article noted that he was “generally credited with placing Chevrolet Grey Iron Foundry here on a profitable basis” and had “a wide reputation as industrial executive who ‘get[s] things done.
Shortly after their marriage, Arnold and Amelia Lenz commissioned Saginaw Architects Frantz and Spence to design a home on Davis Drive in what was then known as Golfside Park. Blueprints for the home are preserved in the Castle Museum’s collection.
Drawings of the Lenz family home
The Lenzs’ final home was a farm near Grand Blanc where they raised prize winning beef and dairy cattle. Arnold and Amelia were killed in a car and train accident on July 13, 1952. On their way to visit one of their daughters at summer camp, their automobile struck the side of the Beeliner, a New York Central passenger train.
Within in few years after of their deaths, the Lenzs 2,000 acre farm was purchased by investors who developed it into the Warwick Hills Golf and Country Club. Deana Coleman, our staff associate, tests out weekly recipes from the cookbook Savoring Saginaw. This historical information is prepared by our Vice President/Chief Historian Tom Trombley and Chief Curator Sandy Schwan.