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The Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center is proud to announce the opening of a new photographic exhibition featuring the work of one of the U.P.’s most prolific photographers. “Munising in Black & White: The Photographs of Mary Jayne Hallifax” will include 60 photographs by Mary Jayne Hallifax, a professional photographer in Munising who to images of the community for over seven decades. Hallifax passed away at the age of 96 in 2025 and donated many of her original negatives to photograph collector Jack Deo, who is loaning the images to the Beaumier Center for the exhibit. The images in the exhibit are just a tiny fragment of her catalog and focus specifically on the period of the 1950s and 1960s, showing community events, street scenes, school activities and the lives of people in the community. The exhibition will be on display July 9 through October 3 at the Beaumier Center’s gallery in 223 Harden Hall on the campus of Northern Michigan University. The Center’s summer hours are Monday through Friday, 12 to 4 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
A lifelong Munising resident, Mary Jayne (Shampine) Hallifax was a 1946 graduate of W.G. Mather High School. While working on the school’s yearbook, she was asked by the school secretary to take help develop and print photographs, and from that her lifelong love with photography began. After she graduated and started working, she spent her nights taking photos and developing them. It became such a passion; she gave up her job at People’s State Bank to pursue photography full time. She soon became Munising’s most in demand commercial photographer, especially for weddings and senior photos. However, she loved just wandering the streets of Munising taking candid photos of people in the community, events and the general “goings-on” in the community. She even took photos for the State Police crime lab.
In 1948, Mary Jane married Richard Hallifax, and the pair worked on photography together. He did much of the film developing and press work, while she focused on making prints, and her portraiture studio work with families, weddings and graduating students. During her career with newspaper work and even into retirement Mary Jayne photographed seven Michigan governors on their trips to Munising: G. Mennen “Soapy” Williams, John Swainson, George Romney, William Milliken, James Blanchard, John Engler and Rick Snyder. Up until her 95th birthday she had a weekly column “All About Town with Mary Jayne” or “Down Memory Lane in Alger County” for the Marquette Mining Journal and years earlier for the Munising News.
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Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center, Mailing Address: 1401 Presque Isle Ave Location: 223 Harden Hall,Marquette, Michigan, United States
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