Great Lakes Voices

  Kitty and Daniel Gute On a warm Sunday evening last summer, Mary Gute Witte discovered the bodies of her mother and father. Her loving parents were sitting in the front seat of their car in the garage of their River Hills home. They had covered their heads with plastic bags and asphyxiated themselves by pumping helium into the bags. Daniel Gute was 79 years old and in good health. Katherine “Kitty” Gute was   Mary Witte 78 and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. For years the affluent, conservative couple had studied this method of death. They told family and close…

The bustling summer season is a memory in Door County as year-round residents transition from brilliant autumn to the muted, quiet winter. Off the tip of the county, Washington Island is a place where life has always moved a few beats slower. The island is a lively community of 700 full-time residents and devoted visitors, but isolation has long challenged people who try to make a living there. The recession and housing crunch added new pressure, rippling out to this dot on the map in Lake Michigan. Jane Hampden talked with islanders whose fortunes rely on the ebb and flow…