Claire the Bookgirl's Story in the Detroit News Reveals Much More

Last week, I was contacted by Frank Donnelly of the Detroit News, who had did his homework, figured out my Christian name, and tracked me down.  He had been researching a story in earnest detail about Claire "the Bookgirl" Whitcomb and her de-licensing by the City of Ludington. 

Frank Donnelly's specialty at the News is stories of interest outstate, and when he had noticed the hoopla surrounding this simple bookgirl which was reported by several agencies after the Associated Press (AP) picked up the story and put it on the wire.  These articles were pretty much standard interviews with the officials involved, paralleling the local coverage of the COLDNews and the MCP.  However, he noticed my supplemental story right here, Ludington's Lynching of Claire the Book Girl, and was intrigued to follow up on it. 

Mr. Donnelly talked on the phone with me for a half hour over the incidents, showing an amazing degree of journalistic demeanor, and his article reflects his journalistic integrity and professionalism.  It approaches the controversy from all angles, and allows the reader the ability to form their own conclusion, something I too often fail at, probably because of all the subtleties involved. 

Sadly, we learn that Miss Whitcomb went to Manistee after the expulsion from Ludington and was coldly received due to the negative press she received, and had to do her last two weeks of the summer in Grand Rapids.  Her detractors in this story, in my honest opinion, come off as shallow as they did in the social media vitriol they spewed.

Dogged tactics land saleswoman in doghouse

Ludington — Some residents hid in their homes. Others called the police. The bolder ones shrieked at the intruder, or took photos and videos of her.

The object of their fear wasn’t a criminal or a wild animal.

It was a 22-year-old saleswoman.

“This has gone really crazy around here,” said resident Vanessa VerStrat.

Claire Whitcomb, aka Claire the Book Girl, is a recent college grad who went door to door this summer selling study guides in this western Michigan town.

Many residents liked the outgoing, clean-cut Whitcomb, whose Facebook page has dozens of selfies with smiling customers and their families.

But others seemed unnerved.

They didn’t like that she kept returning to their homes until they answered the door, visited as early as 8 a.m. and as late as 9 p.m., and continued to press for a sale after they said no.

“I was incredibly offended,” Kandi Nichols said when she demurred and Whitcomb told her other parents had gotten the books for their children. “I had to tell her to get off my porch and never come back.”

After receiving several complaints, the city of Ludington yanked Whitcomb’s vendor permit last month..

She moved her sales to Manistee 25 miles away but word of the controversy preceded her. She ended up going to Grand Rapids, where she finished the last two weeks of her efforts earlier this month.

Whitcomb can’t understand how the summer job went so wrong.

“They were saying I’m a terrible person,” she said, nearly shouting. “No, I’m not. I promise. If you talk to me for five minutes, you would see that.”

The Azle, Texas, native, who graduated in May from Baylor University with a entrepreneurship degree, has worked for Southwestern Advantage for three summers.

The Nashville company recruits college students to sell its reference and children’s books, and subscriptions to its educational website.

The salespeople don’t receive a salary. Their only compensation comes from commissions.

Southwestern deploys the students far from home to cut down on distractions like friends or family. The company doesn’t pay their expenses.

Whitcomb, who answers her phone “Claire the Book Girl,” excelled at Southwestern.

Of 2,000 salespeople, she ranked 16th for sales before tumbling to 30th after the controversy.

Working 80-hour weeks for three months, she talked to 3,201 families in Mason County, selling $65,000 worth of merchandise to 300 customers.

She earned $2,000 a week.

Virgie Sandford, a Southwestern district sales manager who has worked with Whitcomb for three years, described her as an indefatigable worker who sometimes tried too hard to make a sale.

“She’s an outstanding young woman,” said Sandford. “If most parents knew her, they would want their kids to hang out with her.”

Whitcomb, who sold in Walled Lake and Waterford Township last year, said some residents there grumbled about her but didn’t respond anything like western Michigan.

Southwestern salespeople in other parts of the country also have been criticized for their tenacity, according to various news reports.

A company spokesman said the salespeople are being nothing more than determined.

“With sales, the best salesperson will have a little persistence,” said the spokesman, Trey Campbell.

Besides doggedness, the sales force also is known for its attitude.

Despite grueling days filled with rejection in a strange town, salespeople are relentlessly upbeat, said customers.

That comes from their one week of training that emphasizes self-help slogans and precepts.

Salespeople said they’re taught that their biggest obstacle is self-pity, and the way to overcome it is by saying aloud a personal slogan throughout the day.

Whitcomb’s mantra: “I am a rock. I am faithful. I am loving. I am strong.”

She also kept slogans on her work notepad: “It’s worth it.” “It’s God’s divine plan.” “Work with absolute integrity.”

Long days

Working 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, Whitcomb’s goal this summer was to visit every Mason County home with children.

Beginning May 26, she drove down every street looking for children or signs of them in the yards, a bicycle, a swing set.

The first complaint popped up on her work Facebook page July 9. Others followed every three or four days. The trickle turned into a deluge by late July.

Of the 61 reviews on the page, 55 people either loved or hated her. She received 37 five-star reviews, the highest rating, and 18 one-star.

Critics said she harassed their families but photos on the Facebook page make her look like a member of other families.

The pictures show her with customers as she’s holding babies, doing headstands, or mugging for the camera with their children.

“She’s just a creative, motivated, talented, honest salesperson,” said Harold Brower, who bought two math books for his 8-year-old twins. “I just think she’s a wonderful girl.”

Complaints against Whitcomb seemed to boil down to her doggedness.

If you pretended you weren’t home, she came back, said residents. If you said you had to think about it, she came back. If you asked her to come back, she came back.

With some residents, it almost became a test of wills.

By the time some residents finally came to the door, they were livid.

Christa Soller said Whitcomb came to her home three times over several days.

The first time, her husband answered but was noncommittal. The second time, Soller refused to answer the door. The third time, Soller began shrieking at the saleswoman.

“I was so angry I flew up from my couch,” she said. “I let her know I knew who she was and she should never come back.”

Soller, 41, who has a 5-year-old son, told Whitcomb she would count to three and, if the saleswoman hadn’t left by the time she was done, she would call the police.

Whitcomb left as Soller began counting, and the homeowner videotaped her Jeep Wrangler pulling away. Soller called the police anyway, filing a complaint for the saleswoman being “very pushy.”

‘Persistent and resilient’

As unhappy residents shared stories about Whitcomb over social media, others who had no contact with her joined the discussion.

Jeremy VerStrat wrote on Facebook that Whitcomb was from Turkey. He apparently got that from her Facebook page, which said she spent a year studying abroad in Istanbul.

VerStrat, 37, was upset that Whitcomb wasn’t a local resident and had come to his home during dinnertime. He said he told her to leave the neighborhood. He took photos, which he posted on Facebook, that showed her license plate and the car inspection and college sorority stickers on her vehicle.

“Her moral character is in question,” he wrote. “She is persistent and resilient.”

As the negative comments spread, two customers asked for their money back.

The controversy reached Ludington City Hall on July 20 when police reported several complaints, including Soller’s.

City Clerk Deb Luskin contacted Sandford but, after receiving another complaint July 22, yanked Whitcomb’s sales permit that day.

Luskin explained all this in an email to the City Council whose subject heading was “Claire the Book Lady.”

“This world nowadays, you’re looking out for the safety of residents,” Luskin said this week when asked about her quick decision to revoke the permit.

Ludington issues about seven sales permits a year, said Luskin.

VerStrat, who couldn’t be reached for comment, celebrated when the permit was canceled.

“SCORE!” he wrote on Facebook.

A summer of rejection

Whitcomb’s father, Rick, joined the fray Aug. 6 by writing a letter to a local online news site.

Given how millennials are criticized by some who say they’re lazy, he said it was ironic his daughter was being castigated for just the opposite.

“It takes a special person with a special heart to devote their summers to rejection,” he wrote.

Contacted last week, he lamented the role social media plays in publicly shaming people these days.

Tom Rotta, a local blogger who looked into the controversy, said he was surprised the permit was pulled so quickly.

“I thought it was pretty much a raw deal,” he said. “I’m not a psychologist but it was kind of localized hysteria, almost a witch hunt mentality.”

As for the Book Girl, the fledgling college grad said she began the summer never feeling better about herself. Halfway through the season, though, a lot of people were telling Whitcomb how rotten she was.

The controversy eventually wore her down.

Despite her daily self-affirmations, she sometimes snapped back at the residents belittling her, she said.

Whitcomb, who’s delivering the last of the books to customers in Ludington before heading to Nicaragua for two years of missionary work, chalked up those transgressions to youth and exhaustion.

“Definitely some people caught me at a bad moment, and I probably caught them at a bad moment,” she said.

Salespeople are told during training that this may be the hardest job they ever have. And that doesn’t include people telling the world they’re a horrible person.

“I put my whole heart into it, which is hard because your heart gets crushed every now and then,” Whitcomb said. “But if I can do this, I can do anything.”

fdonnelly@detroitnews.com

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/08/26/dog...

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It takes a lot of fortitude to leave home and work far away doing a thankless job especially for a young woman. Just think how nervous she was not knowing what or whom would be answering the door when she knocked. She actually was putting herself in a position to be assaulted but she had the courage to press on and complete her job. This kind of job can be dangerous for a young women. She was lucky she didn't run into a pervert or serial killer, instead she ran into Ludington's whiny citizens. Imagine this girl working as hard as she did then being belittled for her tenacity. People actually pretended to not be home?  How chickensh_t is that. Instead of talking to her and telling her they were not interested they hid behind the couch. That's the reason she came back to some houses, because a good sales person covers the entire territory. How was she to know that the people she thought were not at home were actually hiding because they did not want to buy any books. She didn't, so she kept revisiting the homes until she found people at home who told her they were not interested. Claire the book girl is now off to do missionary work, how selfish and evil is that. And what do people think she will be saying to those she meets in the future regarding her Ludington experience.  Probably that Ludington is an unfriendly place to visit or live. At least that's what I would say had I been in her shoes but she seems to be to nice to be vindictive like some of the people she met in Ludington.

The "Jeremy Verstrat" guy is an example of our area's worst arses.  You can tell from his post on Facebook above that he is basing his inflammatory rhetoric strictly on hearsay and misinformation, blaming Claire for coming at people's dinnertimes.  Being forceful and lying?  I know a reliable source that refused the book girl's spiel and yet spent a while chatting amicably about other things, inviting her into breaking bread with them.  The xenophobe known as Jeremy Verstrat obviously has some irrational rage against door to door sales and people from Texas and/or Turkey.

Would you be more frightened by someone as amicable and selfless as Claire, or someone like Jeremy who spreads mischievous slander after coming out and taking multiple photos of this young girl's car.  It's a shame we can't export idiots like Jeremy to Turkey, and import more enterprising young ladies like Claire to the area. 

One last sarcastic "thank you" to our local Chamber of Commerce and other agencies that claim to want to bring entrepreneurs to the area but left Claire in the lurch without an iota of support against the injustice of what the City of Ludington did to her business and the dangerous precedent it set against other prospective entrepreneurs that may want to come here. 

It should be noted that this article made the very front page of the newspaper itself, placed in a conspicuous position to attract the attention of those wondering whether to purchase that day's Detroit News.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/travel/lake-michigan-tour.html?ac...

http://www.shorelinemedia.net/ludington_daily_news/news/local/artic...

Shoreline Media implies to the reader Ludington is such a "special place," and implied "Ludington" was the only place reviewed.  Shoreline even gave a web-site to the NY Times.  But, one has to search in the travel section for the review of not only Ludington, but up and down the Coast of Lake Michigan.  

So, tell us why this is even newsworthy?  In all actuality The NY Times does not paint Ludington as a positive travel destination.   

Shoreline's version and the actual review are two completely different reviews!  LMAO

Per the usual, the Detroit News carried a story that is reality based unlike the local news outlets...Shoreline Media and the Mason County Press! Claire the "Book Girl" was ousted by whiny "Luddite's," who have nothing better to do with their time other then spreading hearsay gossip, and having 911 on speed-dial.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/travel/lake-michigan-tour.html?ac...

"Ludington was founded in 1845 as a center for trappers and fishermen. It boomed in the 1880s on the lake trade and remains a home of the only regular cross-lake ferry. Like so many waterfront towns, it was devastated by the rise of the railroads and devastated again by the waning of the lumber industry. What remains is the architecture of what had been a bigger town, elegant storefronts filled with dead-end concerns — dollar store, consignment shop, tattoo parlor — and rundown mansions where, once upon a time, the debutantes drank gin on back porches watching the ships."


This surely is not a great review!!  LOL

The NY Times surely was not aware of Claire "the book girl" and her recent follies with the COL, but also the citizens who reside here...where the citizen's spread gossip like an active volcano, and also have 911 on speed-dial for their protection from the boogey man!!  

Jasper, thanks for posting the NY Times article. I enjoyed it. I'm surprised that so much of the article was about Ludington. I liked his perspective regarding looking at Lake Michigan from a sunrise perspective as a child then seeing it from the beautiful sunset side we are familiar with.

Willy,

No doubt about it, your photo is fantastic.

However, there is more to Ludington than beautiful sunsets.  

There are numerous underlying issues plagued by people who live here.  Affordable housing is just one of them.  Many people work numerous jobs to support their family.

Back in the day there were numerous industries(jobs) which now have ceased to exist.  But, it appears the COL is out of touch with reality of today's world.

Thank-you so much for posting this awesome photo!  But, this beautiful photo does not address the real concerns occurring in "Pure Ludington."  A beautiful distraction from reality, yes!

Jasper, thanks for the photo comment. For those not familiar with the area, it is a photo taken on the beach at Ludington State Park at the mouth of the Big Sable River, looking north with the Beach House located to the right.  The article was not a critique about social problems and living conditions of the communities around Lake Michigan. Every town has it's problems. What I got out of the article was the enjoyment someone received by exploring the "other side" of Lake Michigan and the differences that were apparent to them. I thought it was an honest and well written article which will encourage many people to travel here who may not have otherwise thought about touring along the shores of one of natures wonders.

Thanks for your foray into fact-finding, Jasper.  The NYT article does not critique the city for too much in its present state, so the propaganda mill at the COLDNews glommed onto the good parts.  Overall, it wasn't a bad review, though I'm sure Snyder's Shoreline Inn doesn't like the smell of mildew reference.  But it wasn't the glowing review the COLDNews would want and might actually link correctly to.

I have to agree with their assessment of the Old Hamlin Restaurant, good food, good people, classic Ludington. 

X, I also thought the mildew smell comment might agitate Snyder's owners but it should be taken as an honest assessment of a visitors first impression of the room they paid good money to rent. I know that when people get used to certain smells they tend to block it out. It would be a good idea for Snyder's Shoreline to try and remedy the mildew odor and provide a cleaner smell to it's rooms. I agree about Old Hamlin comments. Love their pies.

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