Sebewa Recollector
Items of Genealogical Interest
Volumes 21-23
Transcribed by LaVonne I. Bennett

     LaVonne has received permission from Grayden Slowins to edit and submit Sebewa Recollector items of genealogical interest, from the beginning year of 1965 through current editions.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR; Bulletin of the Sebewa Center Association;
August 1985, Volume 21, Number 1. Written by Robert W. Gierman, Editor.
Submitted with written permission of current editor, Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: KREAMER, WELCH, LOVELL, MILLIGAM-BROCK


ANOTHER 1885 DIARY came to us from Mrs. Helen Kreamer of Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Mrs. Esler has copied and made available the writings of her grandfather, Anthony Kreamer. Some of you will remember, perhaps, the last log house in the vicinity, two miles west of Sunfield on M 43 where Mr. Kreamer once lived. Later he built the Italianate house a mile west of Sunfield and finally lived in Sunfield until his death in 1923. The second house still stands though far from looking like the pleasant place it was when Mr. Kreamer lived there. The diary is an interesting picture of life and times of 100 years ago with many family names familiar in the Sunfield vicinity. Look forward to the first installment in our October issue.

SOME OF YOU have been good in asking for more of MYRTIE WELCH’S MEMORIES. Mrs. Welch celebrated her 95th birthday at her home in Sunfield. Thus we continue with a second installment of Myrtie’s Memories. Myrtle spent the winter months with her daughter, Mrs. Willson in Portland.

Second Installment – Myrtie’s Memories – by Myrtie Candace Lowell Welch.

I remember one day Pa sat on the granary steps and shelled seed corn for Arby, who was trying so hard to get the corn in. Had to use a hand-corn planter, which meant walking back and forth across the fields, punching this gadget into the ground, then tripping it to release corn into the soil. I can’t explain it but I have one in my garage at the present time. I could remember so you’d understand. Also you had to plant each hill just so far apart so you could get back and forth with a cultivator later on. You could go up and down as well as across the field. Quite an accomplishment. I often think about it when Spitzley’s go past my house, here, with that corn planter of theirs. Such improvement!

Another precious memory occurred that last week of my father’s life. One night after supper Ma told me to stay with him so he wouldn’t be alone. Can’t remember why, but everyone else would be busy outside. It was after supper and Pa was sitting up in a rocking chair. When we were alone, he said “I haven’t heard you play the organ this week. Why?” I answered “Ma told me not to for fear it would disturb you”. He told me it would not disturb him and to go play for him. I said “I’ve learned a new piece and I have been wanting you to hear it”. I can even remember the song. It was the hymn “I NEVER WILL CEASE TO LOVE HIM”. Pa told me the song was pretty and that I was improving. He made me feel like a Prima Donna. That was the last conversation I ever had with him. On Saturday night he took a turn for the worse and died Sunday morning.

There were no funeral homes in those days and the body was kept at home until the funeral. Neighbors came in and sat up each night to watch over him so nothing would happen. I had never seen a casket or had been to a funeral. It was so frightening. The caskets were hideous. A long, narrow black box with rounded dome shaped ends. Just long enough and wide enough for the person to be laid in. I think it was lined with white satin. The only flowers I can remember were a pillow shaped arrangement of light blue iris, that one of the neighbors made. I remember how pleased my mother was with it, but I can’t think of the name of the person who made it.

Children’s Day Exercises were to be held the next Sunday and Mae had made Pearl and I new white dresses to wear. Ma, when she was planning what clothes everyone should wear to the funeral, said Pearl and I both had nice new dresses to wear. One of the neighbors was horrified and said we ought not to wear white and they would be glad to make us some BLACK ones. My mother had quite a time convincing her that she would not have us little girls dressed in black. Our Dad would certainly not allow it if he could have his say. Next they said they didn’t think we should take part in the exercises at the church on Sunday so soon after the funeral, which was scheduled for Wednesday, but Ma stuck to it and won out again. Pearl and I were in drills and exercises, which couldn’t be given without all the children to take part. There wouldn’t be time for our Sunday School teachers to train new children in our parts. I had a recitation to give and, of all things, my memory failed me right in the middle of it and no one was coaching me. It was unheard of for me to forget a piece. Well, I did, but I just stood there waiting for someone to prompt me, my knees shaking so I could hardly stand up, and finally I remembered and just finished the thing up. I was so ashamed that I could hardly walk back to my seat. Then, this is what I heard a woman say as we were waiting in the church entry for Arby to bring the horses around to take us home: “If that had been anyone but Myrtie, I would have felt sorry for them. She just stood there until she remembered and went on like nothing had happened. I knew she would remember.” I did, but I was nearly petrified.

The neighbors were good and meant all right. They stuck by and helped us through this trying time and Ma was really grateful. I can’t remember too much about the funeral itself. It was such a long, dusty ride. The services were held in a church located in the Woodland Cemetery about six miles from home. It was north ¾ of a mile from our house to Bismark Highway, then straight west to Velte Road, then north ½ mile. The church has been gone now for a good many years and the land is now part of the cemetery. I remember they said the procession following the hearse was almost two miles long and, of course, the horses were walked all the way. I remember Minnie Campbell, who married Arby a few years later, played the organ for some man and woman to sing. I can see the inside of that church so plainly even though it has been eighty-three years ago. Allie Phillips, Arby’s current girl friend sat with us. She was Ina Lemmon’s sister. Pearl says the only thing she remembers about that day was riding home with Mae and Fred Clay. Mae kept her singing for Fred. Pearl says she kows now that Mae did it to keep Pearl’s mind off the happenings of the day. Mae and Fred were married in November of that year.

That summer Mae kept the housework and meals going. Ma and Sylvia helped Arby in the fields. Ma bought a hay loader for $100, the first one in use in our neighborhood. One man said “She’s spoiling that boy already. Old Dan Lovell would have pitched that hey himself. There was nothing lazy about him”. Others thought it was a wonderful thing for Ma to do. Everything the Lovell’s did that summer was the talk of the neighborhood. Some praised them and others criticized.

Summer passed and the next thing it was almost Christmas time. There is another picture I can see in my mind. Sylvia and Ma were washing dishes at the sink, Ma washing, Sylvia drying. They were both crying and I heard Sylvia say “you just can’t do that to the little girls (Pearl and I). You have to go ahead and have Christmas. (Ma had told Sylvia that she just could not have Christmas). You know Pa would want it”. My mother kept saying “I just can’t do it” but Sylvia kept talking until she consented. I managed to slip out of the kitchen before they noticed me and they never knew I heard them. It was a hard year for everyone.

The Christmas before that had been such a happy one. Mae was teaching the Patterson School, about a mile south of us toward Vermontville. Pa had cut a nice pine tree for Mae to have for her Christmas exercises. Of course he wanted all of us to have a gift on the tree so he asked me to go to town with him one day. After we were on our way he said “I want to buy a present for your Ma and all you children and I need you to help me”. He also said I was not to tell anyone. Did I ever feel important. He bought Ma a beautiful parlor lamp, Mae a water set, Arby, Sylvia and Grace I can’t recall but for Pearl and I it was a Haviland china plate with cup and saucer to match. I still have mine. The handle is broken off the cup and that makes it all the dearer because of the way it happened. The cup was used the day of the funeral. Pa’s sister, Emma, was drying the dishes and she broke the handle off my cup. She cried so hard about it and I said “Don’t feel so badly, every time I see it I will think of you and that will make it dearer than ever”. I remember Pa stopping at the Patterson schoolhouse on our way home, leaving the gifts with Mae to put on her tree.

Well, time marched on and I along with it. Back in those early times you needed very little actual cash. We raised most of our food. When Pa sold the wheat, he always had enough ground into flour to last us for a year. He made maple sugar in the spring and exchanged it at the grocery for white sugar. He butchered beef and hogs for our meat and cured the hams and shoulders of the hogs, then smoked them so they would last through the summer. Ma used to make dried beef. (In fact she made that for Ray and me one winter when she lived with us.) We had apples, plums, pears, peaches, quinces, strawberries, raspberries, black and red ones. We also had currants, gooseberries and some called dewberries. These grew on a vine on the ground and were a large berry, larger than blackberries. I never see them any more. We also had a mulberry tree and, of course rhubarb. These fruits my mother canned or dried for use in the winter. Oh, I forgot the cherry orchard. The canning and jellies, jams, preserves, pickled pears and peaches that went into our basement, you wouldn’t believe it now. We used to like the apples that we dried. We’d cook them with raisins, put them in a tall crock and had them whenever we wanted. We also made apple butter in a big copper kettle, cooking it over an open fire outside. This, too, would keep in open crocks and didn’t have to be sealed up as we do it now.

We raised chickens, so of course had our own eggs and sold the young chickens in the fall. We had cows, our own milk and butter. Ma used her eggs and homemade butter to exchange for groceries. Also if there was any money due her from these, she would say “Oh just give it to me in sugar”, never the cash. She also used her milk and egg money to buy our clothes.

We raised turkeys, geese and ducks. We had these to sell in the fall, too. In the spring the ducks and geese were caught and held between our knees while we pulled their feathers off. I hated that job but it wasn’t painful to them. Ma used the feathers to make pillows and ticks, we called them, for our beds. They were like a mattress. The pillows I sleep on now are made from duck feathers and I also have a feather mattress upstairs that was made with duck feathers when I was a girl. All of this canning, selling of eggs, chickens, etc. made our living expenses. The money from the crops could be used for mortgage payments, taxes, machinery, repairs, etc. Ten years of hard work and good management had put my folks out of debt. Their dream came true.

Evenings. A special part in my memories are the evenings when the whole family was together in our large sitting room. It would certainly be boring to the children and parents now. There was no television, no radio, which are today thought of as regular necessities for our way of living. With outside chores all taken care of, supper dishes done, now everyone could relax and enjoy themselves. Each in their own way or maybe playing games or listening to our parents telling of their lives when they were young, or telling about our relatives back in Ohio. A big Round Aok stove about in the center of the room kept us warm. A box full of wood behind the stove to replenish it when the fire burned low, a big long table at one side with an oil lamp (no electricity either) in the center was all the light we had in the room. It certainly didn’t shine in the corners.

My mother told this story of the lights they had in her childhood. It was called a “slute”. We’d have her make one and show us. They put tallow or lard in a saucer then lay a strip of cloth through it, pulling one end out of the grease and lighting that. You could just about see the light, it was so dim. Also there were candles.

Ma could remember the first oil lamp they ever owned. She said her father wouldn’t allow any of them to light it. He would always take care of that because he was afraid they might get burned. This must have been a big improvement over the “rag in the saucer”.

My dad had a cobblers outfit and sometimes would put new soles on our shoes in the evening. You wanted to be on the alert when he finished. He would pull the shoe off the last and give it a toss in the direction of the owner. You were supposed to catch it, but if you happened to miss and it hurt a little, you were not to be crying over it because it hurt a little. You weren’t to be crying over it because it was all in fun. I very seldom caught mine, I never could play ball.

We had checkers, flinch, dominoes and old maid. We may have had more but that is all I can remember in the game line. We used to make up things to do and games to play. Sometimes someone would read to us or we’d decide to have a spelldown.

Also we might sing. The highlight of our evening was when my father would coax my mother into dancing for us. She would complain there was no music and he would answer “You come on. I’ll make the music”. They would dance the polka, Pa singing a song that started out “with a heel and a toe and a poky-oh”. That’s all I can remember of it but they really could dance, even with the makebelieve music. Then aftr they phky-ohed for a while, they would schottische. That was a stately beautiful dance. If I could use my feet I could demonstrate. I don’t believe it is ever danced anymore.

Often there was popcorn and apples or else sweet cider to drink. Ma used to can that. Pa always peeled the apples for the little girls (Pearl and I). We got lots of attention. Quite often it was mostly teasing and that wasn’t always fun to us. Arby and Pa would crack walnuts, butternuts or hickory nuts, or maybe all three. We had these trees, too. I never see butternuts anymore. They were the best of the three.

VIDEO TAPING:

Recently we made a VIDEO TAPE CASSETTE of Marge Smith interviewing Fern Cronkrite in Portland. The ladies spent 55 minutes discussing old times, mostly in the Sebewa Corners vicinity. Fern has reached her 90th year of age and insists that in many affairs she is the only one left to remember them.

VIDEO TAPING is something I have done on an irregular basis for a little more than a year. Most of the tapes have been shown at least once on the Portland Cable System. The tapes can be used on any video cassette player machine. The tapes we have are:

THE HORSE IN LOCAL HISTORY by Harold Lakin and Marge Smith
JORDANS IN THE CIVIL WAR – Harold Stannard
A VISIT TO CHINA – Marge Smith
THE STORY OF JUSTIN BALDERSON – Justin Balderson and Justin Davis
150 YEARS OF THE ARNOLD MACHINE SHOP – Walter Sprague et al
HOMER DOWNING’S FUNERAL SERMON – John Piercefield
MARK TWAIN’S VISIT TO HEAVEN – Zack and Eleanor York

INTRODUCTION – This accompanying statement was prepared by BERTHA MILLIGAM-BROCK, who graduated from the Ionia High School with the Class of 1879. After 1915, Mrs. Brock took a very active interest in assembling early history of Ionia.

IONIA – THE TOWN GIVEN ITS NAME THIRTY YEARS AFTER IT WAS FOUNDED

The land comprising the County of Ionia was mostly acquired from the Indians for the United States Government by the Saginaw Treaty of 1819 except the land lying west of an unsurveyed line. It is evident that the surveyors who ran the township and section lines of Ionia County knew about where this line should run, for, while Campbell, Boston, Berlin, Easton and Ronald were surveyed in 1830 and 1831, Keene, Otisco and Orleans, being considered Indian lands, were not surveyed until 1837---or one year after the Chicago Treaty.

Ionia is one of the counties of Michigan in the fourth tier, counting north from the south line of the State and has an altitude ranging from fifty to two hundred and fifty feet above Lake Michigan and is comprised of sixteen townships, four in each tier.

The name was given to the County by the Fourth Legislative Council of Michigan Territory at its second session, which convened at Detroit, January 4th, 1831 and adjourned March 4th following and was suggested, doubtless, by some member of that body, familiar with ancient history.

Ionia, in ancient geography, was a country on the western coast of Asia Minor including some islands, this district was named after the Ionians, who returned from Attica to these shores from which they had previously emigrated to European Greece.

Ionia was the cradle of Greek poetry, history, philosophy, medicine and other sciences and developed the Ionia style of architecture. Mythology states that the name is derived from Ion, son of Apollo and Creusa, daughter of the King of Athens.

The townships of Ionia County were surveyed by different men, who were deputy United States Surveyors, doing their work under instructions from the contracts made with the Surveyor General of the United States.

Ionia township lines were run by Robert Clark, Jr., in February 1831 and was subdivided by Orange Risdon from May 27th to June 27th, 1831. He made mention of “excellent mill streams, Indian Trails, prairies, excellent timber, straight and thrifty, rolling surface, good soil and numerous spring streams”. No reason is given for naming the township the same as the county.

By the close of 1831, all but the three northwest townships of this county---not yet acquired by the United States Government---were surveyed and ready for the coming of settlers on the land.

After the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, making travel easier, Michigan lands sold by the U. S. Government at $1.25 per acre, tempted and interested many eastern people. In the fall of 1832 Hon. Samuel Dexter of Herkimer County, State of New York came to Michigan, looking for hardwood timber land, not because of the timber but because hardwood timber is known to be produced from good soil.

Mr. Dexter was then a man 48 years of age---had a home near Little Falls, N. Y.---and had been a member of the New York State Legislature, and had a contract for digging quite a section of the Erie Canal---and his family numbered nine children and his wife, Anna Fargo Dexter. With his friend, Dr. Jewett, a journey on horseback was made from Ann Arbor---across the Territory and as far as Fort Dearborn, the site of the Settlement soon to be named Chicago.

Not finding lands to their liking, they turned back and followed a trail leading to the “rapids” of Grand River, when they met Louis Campau, the resident fur trader there since 1827, and he told them that he thought “up in Ionia County they would find land to their liking” so the two men rode on the trail up the valley, and Samuel Dexter selected land where Ionia was later located, the eastern line running north and south about the center of the present courthouse grounds.

Dr. Jewett at that time went to the location of Lyons, and was at the home of one of the fur traders there for a little time, but it is not recorded that he made a selection of land---but he did return there in 1837 and became Lyons’ first physician.

When the two gentlemen arrived where Mr. Dexter selected his land, they found an Indian village presided over by Cob-Moo-sa, an Indian they described as “of much dignity”. The Indians knew the land had been sold to the Government but as stipulated in the treaties, the Indians were allowed to live, fish, hunt and make maple sugar until the land was purchased by settlers.

Mr. Dexter told them it was his intention to go to White Pigeon, the nearest U. S. Land Office, near the south line of the State, enter his selection of land here and return to his home, spend the winter selling his property, inducing others to join him, if he could, and return the next spring. Result: About ten o’clock the morning of May 28th, 1833, there came to the vicinity of the Indian Village, the Dexter colony, the first colonizing party into central Michigan. It numbered 63 people of six families and five young men; the ages represented were from the mother of Mr. Dexter, aged 75 years, to young children.

The colony started from Frankfort, near Little Falls, eastern N. Y. State on April 22nd, 1833, with three families---Erastus Yeomans, Oliver Arnold and Samuel Dexter, using their own horses to draw the canal boat that had been chartered. The name of the boat was “Walk in the Water”---but some one had written “Michigan Caravan” on the side of the boat with chalk. At Utica, Joel and Edward Guild and their families joined---at Syracuse, Darius Winsor and family joined, besides them were five young men.

The departure of the colony was an important event in the communities and throngs of people gathered to see them depart and bid them “good-bye” and receptions were given them at many places along the canal. They reached Buffalo May 7th where they transferred to the steamer “Superior”, reaching Detroit May 10th. There they sent all the goods they could do without for a while around the lakes to the mouth of Grand River in care of Rix Robinson, a trader at Ada, to be pole boated up the river.

Oxen were purchased in Detroit to pull the wagons they brought as their horses would not be strong enough to convey the colonists and their goods as there was no road most of the distance. They were over two weeks coming from Detroit. They went through Pontiac and passed Saline May 19, from which was an unbroken wilderness.

At Shiawassee were two brothers---fur traders by the name of Williams, one of whom consented to pilot them, looking out the route, he having never been west of DeWitt, an Indian village. There Mr. Williams got Mack-ate-po-nase (Blackbird) the son of Kish-Kaw-Ko, chief of the Saginaws, to pilot them through some extensive marshes, after which, Mr. Williams took the lead. This road was followed by many pioneers afterward and was long known as the “Dexter Road”.

Hard as this trip would have been at its best, it was accompanied by intense anxiety as three children of the families became sick with scarlet fever, and there were no homes on the way, and finally when in Clinton County, Riley, the young son of Mr. and Mrs. Dexter, died. He was buried in a trunk at the foot of a tree in the bark of which, his father’s name was burned with a hot iron---a simple and feeling service was held and logs piled high over the grave to protect it from animals.

Coming to their destination, the Indians knew they would have to move. They sold some of their wigwams to house the colony until they could build log ones, and the Indians erected another town down the river two or three miles, where they lived several years. After purchasing wigwams from the Indians, the colonists were called together and a service of prayer and thanksgiving was held---because of safe arrival, after which the sides of the wagons were made into the first extension table in this part of Michigan and dinner was spread.

Later, log houses were erected at different points along Main Street, which probably was the main trail and when the settlement began to assume the appearance of a hamlet, Mr. Dexter wanted to give it a name and called it “Washington Centre”. The struggle for the placing of the County Seat of Ionia County began before the arrival of the Dexter Colony to their destination.

The fur traders at the location of Lyons knew of Mr. Dexter’s project, of course, from his visit the fall of 1832 and some of these traders were Americans and one had a legal education. On March 5th, 1833, they sent to Gov. Porter a duly signed petition asking that a commission be sent into Ionia County to select a county seat, of course anxious to have it placed there, but the petition was not acted upon at once. They also posted up notices in three public places in the county that such a petition had been sent to the Governor of the Territory, dated April 28, 1833.

With the coming of the Dexter Colony they also got busy and July 12, 1833 sent in a petition asking that a commission be sent to Ionia County to select a sight for a county seat. September 5th following, Gov. Porter appointed this commission and in October they came on horseback and selected the site of Mr. Dexter’s land, which was the west half of the present Ionia Courthouse grounds, and according to the law to cover the expenses of the commission, Mr. Dexter paid one hundred and seventy-one dollars for their locating the county seat on his land. The receipt shows it was paid December 12, 1833. But Gov. Porter died July 7, 1834 without confirming the report of the commission on the selection.

Because of Gov. Porter’s death, Hon. Stevens Thomson Mason, 22 years of age---Secretary of Michigan Territory---then became ex officio Governor and efforts were again taken up to have the County Seat placed in the eastern part of the County and the men of the Dexter settlement and vicinity sent in another petition September 24th, 1834, and because no action was taken, sent in another February 11, 1835 and this last seemed “to finish the argument” for though it is not known when the proclamation confirming the commissioners report was issued, it was done sometime in 1835 or 1836 by Gov. Stevens Thomson Mason and in 1836 Samuel Dexter platted the town, naming it the Village of Ionia County’s Seat”, though this was not recorded until 1841. It included the west part of the present courthouse grounds, presented by Mr. Dexter to the County for the purpose of erecting county buildings and on this was completed the offices of Ionia County, a solid one-story building in 1843.

June 3rd, 1850, the east half of the courthouse grounds was deeded to the County by James M. Kidd and Edwin C. Hart of Oswego, N. Y.

The neighborhood known as Prairie Creek was purchased in 1835 by Nathaniel Brown whose idea was that the water power there would found a village and he boasted that his town there would outstrip Dexter’s village further west and he would have the county seat fixed there. And he platted a village, which he called “Ionia” and set about the construction of a sawmill.

Being in Chicago in 1836, Mr. Brown sold a half interest in this property to John P. Place, who came at once to the location. Mr. Place finished the sawmill in the fall of 1836 and in the same year, he built there the first store in the County and stocked it with goods brought up the river from Grand Haven by pole boats.

But settlers did not appear there and by the close of 1837 Mr. Place, feeling that the village project there was a failure, sold his stock of goods to Judge Brown of Ionia County Seat, closed the store, later bought Nathaniel Brown’s interest in the land, and devoted himself to farming and milling. The sawmill later burned and the power was unused until 1861 when the mill now standing was built.

So while the village of “Ionia” there died in 1837, Dexter’s town was known as “Ionia County Seat” until 1863, when a special act of the State Legislature approved March 7th, changed it to “Ionia”---30 years after it was founded.

In 1885 the present building, including the Court Room and County offices was finished.

The act incorporating Ionia as a city was approved March 21, 1873.

- Bertha E. Brock, Graduate of I. H. S. Class of 1879

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR; Bulletin of the Sebewa Center Association;
October 1985, Volume 21, Number 2. Robert W. Gierman, Editor.
Submitted with written permission of current editor, Grayden D. Slowins

SHEPARD IONIA COUNTY INFIRMARY CEMETERY:

Plans for fencing and placing a suitable marker at the Shepard Ionia County Infirmary Cemetery make the doing seem imminent, so it seems a proper time for this article from THE LAKE ODESSA WAVE on September 12, 1901 to be republished. The editor had just been with other dignitaries at the COUNTY FARM.

THE COUNTY POOR. Over the Hill To The Poorhouse. Where Unfortunates Go As A Last Resort.

One of the institutions of Ionia County of which the people knew as little about as any public institution in the County is, perhaps the county poorhouse. It is situated four miles north and two miles east of the city of Ionia in one of the fertile districts of the county and contains one hundred acres of land on both sides of the highway running north and south (Cooper Road).

The county building proper is a brick structure three stories high. It consists of a main building about eighty by forty feet with a south extension of less dimensions. The building stands on the east side of the roadway, surrounded by a well kept lawn with a flower garden in front extending to the roadway with plenty of shade trees to temper the summer heat. The surroundings are pleasant as the land slopes gently to the west, north and east, thus giving a fine view of the surrounding county. The barns and sheds to the north give evidence of being well kept. The fields are well tiled and the crops we saw were looking fine.

The WAVE in company with three members constituting the board of superintendents of the poor, J. D. Woodbury of Portland; D. Gates of Saranac; O. C. Wright of Ionia and by their invitation also in company with representatives of THE PORTLAND REVIEW, SARANAC LOCAL AND ADVERTISER, IONIA SENTINEL, EXPRESS AND STANDARD and MUIR TRIBUNE made a trip last Friday to the home of the poor unfortunate.

It was a warm afternoon and the trip from Ionia was made in a carry-all drawn by the Fire Department horses of the city. The journey for the first half of the distance was mostly uphill and was suggestive of Carleton’s poem, Over The Hill To The Poorhouse.

The roadside was lined with oak and hickory trees, heavily loaded with nuts and there were many other things of interest to be noted on the journey.

It was our first visit to the County House and to one who has never made such a visit, it is a revelation, both sad and awful. The party was introduced to W. H. Shaffer, who has charge of the inmates and who piloted the party through the various apartments occupied by the charges of the County. Everything looked neat and tidy but there was a barrenness on the inside that contrasted strangely with the beauties of nature on the outside. There were no carpets on the floor, no pictures on the walls, no books to beguile the weary waste of time and no pastimes to divert the wretched beings from their hopeless condition.

Perhaps these beings who have been unfortunate enough to become County charges ought to be satisfied with enough to eat, a place to sleep and clothing to keep them warm. Perhaps, under present conditions, it is the best that can be done. There is one condition that exists in the County House that can and ought to be remedied by the Board of Supervisors of all things. It is the erection of a building where the sick, the idiots and the insane can be kept apart from the other inmates. The present building is arranged so the men and women have different sitting rooms and it is in these two rooms that all the inmates have to huddle in cold weather for warmth and social enjoyment.

At the present time there are eight people in the poorhouse who are idiots or hopelessly insane and who require the constant watching of the keeper, one of the latter, a woman, is constantly singing in a shrill singsong tone of voice that can be heard in every part of the building. Another was roaming about the yard, grabbing at imaginary objects. One woman is so bad they have to keep her shut in a grated room all the time or when out of doors, in a boarded enclosure. It is certainly humiliating for the respectable poor to live on the charity of the public; but to be constantly associated with imbeciles and the insane is enough to make life unbearable.

Some of the inmates make themselves useful both indoors and out and thus are self supporting. This is an exception rather than the rule. The hospital room for the men contains three beds with not much room to spare. One patient was nursing an inflamed knee and another walking about with a dislocated shoulder tearfully bemoaning his fate. A young lady was in the woman’s ward, suffering from an inward tumor. Turned out of doors by her mother, she came here as a last resort to find a place where the troubles and pains of life were soothed by the big hand of public charity.

Another man, 102 years of age, Nathan Draper, sat in his room with his hat pulled down over his eyes, telling his life’s troubles to everyone who will listen. There are so many pitiable sights to be seen here we will draw the curtain and leave the rest to the imagination. Mr. Hafner has a large melon patch containing several varieties of the musk and watermelon. After sampling the same to our heart’s content, we bade goodbye to our host and his hospitality and left for more congenial scenes. The best way to realize these things is to make a personal visit over the hills to the poorhouse.

October 24, 1901. The report of the Superintendents of the Poor showed that the expenditures for the County House Farm included $650 for the keeper’s salary, $405.15 for labor, $615 for stock and other items in general.

The report showed that 57 inmates were cared for and that there were 43 at the farm October 1, 1901. Yearly average $41.65 at a cost of a trifle over 10 cents per day each.

SURNAMES: KREAMER, ESLER, WRIGHT, VanBuren, Stinchcomb

ANTHONY KREAMER AND HIS DIARY OF 1885

Transcribed by Helen Kreamer Esler, May 1885

Few there are who can remember when Post 283 of the Grand Army of the Republic built their hall in Sunfield in 1899. Though frequently the hall is opened to the public, its interior is unfamiliar to most of us. At the time of the Sunfield Farmers Picnic this year I was pleased for another look inside and to see some restitution and improved lighting.

There on the fronts of the chair backs are lettered the names of the Civil War Veterans who were members of Post 283. This time I was attracted immediately to the name of Anthony Kreamer, who died in 1923. His granddaughter, Mrs. Helen K. Esler of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, had written of her efforts in getting information about Mr. Kreamer. She got his 1885 diary and sent me a copy of it. It is from this diary of 100 years ago that we get the flavor of Sunfield before the railroad.

The 1880 federal census for Sunfield Township shows:

Anthony Kreamer, age 43, born in Ohio, with parents from Pennsylvania
Katherine Kreamer, 30, born in Ohio, with parents from PA and VA
Children:
Orville, 18, born in Indiana
Dayton, 16, born in Indiana
Carrie, 14, born in Michigan
Emma, 7, born in MI
John C., 4, born in MI
Rosa Smith, 11, a step daughter
George Smith, 8, a step son

Anthony’s first wife, Charity Wright, had died and he had remarried Katherine Smith.

Mrs. Esler’s father was John Calvin Kreamer.

Mr. Kreamer’s first dwelling was the log cabin 1 ½ miles west of Sunfield on the north side of M 43. Shortly he built the Italianate style house about 1 ¼ miles west of Sunfield on the same farm. That house appears neglected, far from its charm when the family posed at its front. This photo appeared in the SUNFIELD SENTINEL this year. Later Mr. Kreamer moved to Sunfield on First Street where he died in 1923.

Mrs. Esler lived at Sunfield for two years and was acquainted with the Mapes girls and others of the time. Perhaps some in Sunfield and thereabouts remember the Kreamer family.

Now we continue with the 1885 Anthony Kreamer diary.

Thursday, January 1, 1885. Chopped poles for wood. Snowed part of day. Was cold and squally weather..
Jan. 2. Was cold, West wind. Cloudy. Cut some wood.
Jan. 3. Cold in forenoon and high wind. Mild in afternoon. Cut wood and brush. Went to Post meeting in evening. Girls went to Stinchcombs. Ed Gray was here all night.

Sunday, January 4. Ed Gray, one meal. Nice morning. Sun shone bright. Was very nice sunshiny day. Will Parks, Sidney Creps (possibly Krebs) Ed. Stinchcomb took dinner here. Date started to Marshall. Five meals. (Dayton was AK’s 2nd son, born in 1863.)
Jan. 5. Was a very nice warm day. South wind. Rained in night. Earny was sick all night. I chopped some poles for wood in wife’s wood. Cut brush (Earny, Ernest, was AK’s son by his 2nd wife; born about 1882.)
Jan 6. Rained in morning and was showery all day. Cloudy. Drawed wood. T. V. VanBuren helped me.
Jan. 7. Was a very nice warm day. Sun shone all day. Cut down straw stack and repaired hog pen. Went after Dr. Snyder in evening for Ernest. Got medicine for him. Date came home from Marshall.
Jan. 8. 1 meal – W. E. Bowen. Was very nice sunshiny day. Chored around the house. Did not do anything. Was installed as QM at G.A.R. Post.
Jan. 9. Went to store. Sold 9 dozen eggs at 15 sets. Got broom, 25 cents, raisins 25 cents, thread 15 cents, balance in sugar and coffee. Mary Shields went home (Hired girl employed by AK at times.)
Jan. 10. Cut a little wood. Showed Hugh Shaver some rail timber on Cattell’s place. Went to Jones to see about sawing wood. Ming Bishop stayed all night. Was very nice day. Warm.

Sunday, Jan. 11. Was warm in morning. Rained in afternoon and at night. Went to hear a lecture at schoolhouse. Burns, speaker.
Jan. 12. Snowed some. Was very cold. Cut some poles for wood and chored some. Took the girls to a magic lantern show. Cost 50 cents at G.A.R. Hall.
Jan. 13. Got my horses shod in forenoon. Cost 1.12 ½. Charged. Got 25 cents worth of letter paper. Was cold day.
Jan. 14. Ditched all day. Was cold day. Dave NcNab helped me.
Jan. 15. Ditched. T. V. Van Buren and Dave McNab helped. Went to Post meeting in evening. Got a pair of mittens 30 cents.
Jan. 16. Drawed wood and chopped some. T. V. VanBuren helped me ½ day, 50 cents.
Jan. 17. Chored around. Was an awful stormy and cold day.

Sunday, January 18. Laid around some. Was very cold day. 10 deg. Below zero.
Jan. 19. Chored some. Was cold day. Went to store in evening. Got some yarn. 15 cents. Was cold day.
Jan. 20. Helped wash in forenoon. Was cold and clear. Chored some. Jones came with his sawing machine.
Jan. 21. 2 meals. Sawed wood part of day. J. S. VanBuren helped me. Broke the machine.
Jan. 22. Sawed wood ½ an hour. Broke down. Went to Portland. Got barrel of sald (salt?). 1.15. Sold 6 bu. Of oats at 25 cents. Got pt alcohol and cappergum 50 cents. Jones took supper here.
Jan. 23. 2 meals. F. Wool. Drawed some wood. 10 cords. Dave McNab got ¾ ton of hay at $8 per ton. Was cold day.
Jan. 24. 2 meals. Drawed wood. Father and Mother Stinchcomb stayed all night. Got letter from Clapp and Renalds of Battle Creek.

Sunday, January 25. Stayed in house most of the day. 4 meals.
Jan. 26. Helped wash. Chored some. Was cold day.
Jan. 27. Cut some wood. Was very cold. 13 degrees below zero.
Jan. 28. Tom helped cut logs in afternoon.
Jan. 29. Cut logs. Tom helped me. Boys skidded logs.
Jan. 30. Skidded a few logs. Dave Figg and wife were here. Went to church at night.
Jan. 31. Drawed 13 logs to Clem Haddix mill. Was very nice day.

Sunday, February 1. 2 meals. Went to I. F. Wools. Orve and Lewis were here. Came home in an hour. Went to church at night. Was a cold day. (Orville was AK’s oldest son, born 1861.)
Feb. 2. Jones sawed wood for me. J. S. VanBuren helped me ¾ of day.
Feb. 3. Sawed up wood in forenoon. Went to Stinchcombs in afternoon. Wilda had the Dr. Was sick. VanBuren got 2 bu. Of corn. Court got it. Done some trading at E. Stinchcombs.
Feb. 4. Drawed wood. Was cold day. Court VanBuren got 2 bu of corn to grind.
Feb. 5. Finished sawing wood, in all 42 cords. Drawed wood in afternoon. VanBuren helped ½ day.
Feb. 6. Drawed wood. Was cold day. Went to a lecture at night. Paid out 75 cents for lecture and chart.
Feb. 7. Sold Hugh Shaver 500 pounds of hay at 1.20 cents. Skidded 4 logs on Cattell’s place. Had Peabody’s cattle. Snowed awful hard.

Sunday, February 8. Wrote 6 letters. One to Broughten, J. S. Wright, I. A. Gralle, B. F. Witte, Inianaapolis, O. B. Heath at Decatur, and James Shidler. Went to church at Meyers Church. Was stormy night.
Feb. 9. Snowed all day. Blowed and drifted snow fearful.
Feb. 10. Was very cold. Sold Clem Haddix half stack of hay for $12. Is to pay it in 60 days. Court VanBuren got 1 bu. Corn.
Feb. 11. 20 degrees below zero. Sat around the house. Was a stormy day.
Feb. 12. Went to Sign’s to mill. Could not grind. Was a cold day. Court VanBuren got 1 ½ bu. Of corn.
Feb. 13. Helped John Wool to get up wood in forenoon. Hauled ice in afternoon.
Feb. 14. Hauled ice in forenoon. Went to office. Got 2 lbs coffee, ½ lb. tea, 50 cents worth of sugar, bar of soap. Sold 6 doz. Eggs – 90 cents. W. Krebs got 4 bu. Corn.

Sunday, February 15. Clapps folks were here and Sybil and Olive. Snowed hard. Took them home in evening.
Feb. 16. Blowed and snowed awful hard. Was very cold. Date has got the mumps.
Feb. 17. Was cold but sun shone bright. Mrs. Childs and Mrs. Walker were here. Drawed some hay. Court VanBuren got 1 bu. Corn.
Feb. 18. Was cold day. Went after Dr. Snyder for Date and baby Elsie. F. M. Stinchcomb and Father and Mother Stinchcomb were here, Rae and Wilda. Got can oysters 22 cents, soap 10 cents and crackers 25 cents altogether 57 cents.
Feb. 19. Drawed 12 cwt of hay to Hugh Shaver at 40 cents cwt, 4.80. Sold Wilson 15 bu of corn of Wrights to apply on acct 3.75. E. Stinchcomb 200 lbs hay at 40 cts per cwt and to apply on acct 90 cents.
Feb. 20. Went to Portland with grist. 10 bu of wheat. Took 2 bu corn for VanBuren and forgot to get the meal. F. M. Stinchcomb went down with me. Horse in barn 25 cents, crackers 10 cents, 6 of my family got the mumps. Got 4 bu buckwheat of Stinchcomb at 50 cents per bu.
Feb. 21. Boys had mumps. Chored. Was cold.

Sunday, February 22. 2 meals. Was cold. Went to Dr. Snyders after medicine for Date. Ed Stinchcomb and wife were here. TO BE CONTINUED.

SURNAMES: LOVELL, WELCH

THIRD INSTALLMENT – Myrtie’s Memories – by Mertie Candace Lovell Welch

Occasionally, a neighbor family would drop in to share the evening. That was fun. I can remember one time especially. We children always sat at the big, long table to play games. One night we were sitting there eating pop corn. Baker’s were the company that night. Mr. Baker told Pearl and I he would give us a dime if we could find two kernels of corn that were shaped alike. We spent the whole evening lining our corn up on the table. We searched and searched but we earned no dime.

In the summer, our evenings were usually spent in the front yard. Most people’s yards were filled with weeds and tall grass. No lawn mowers were around then. My Dad always kept ours mowed with a scythe. We had a lawn swing and were we ever proud of that? My Dad loved to sing as we all did and we’d spend the evening singing, mostly hymns. My Dad used to go to “Singing School” as it was called in his day. He also sang in the church choir. One night, I didn’t know the words to one particular song, so I just hummed the tune. After the song was over, my Dad informed me never to do that again. Either learn the words or keep still. That sort of spoiled that evening for me, but I learned the words to all the songs after that. Mawson’s who lived on the corner south of us used to tell us they could hear our singing up there. I guess it’s time to wind up the evenings and go to bed. I’m hoarse but so happy. It was so much fun!

OHIO TRIP. In the late summer of 1900, my Dad decided to go visit the folks in Ohio. His parents as well as my Mother’s were still alive. Hitching two horses onto our double buggy (a buggy with two seats and no top) Pearl and I in the back seat, we started for Ohio. Getting as far as Hillsdale the first day, we stayed over night at the home of Asa Kelley, one of Ma’s cousins.

In those days there were no motels or any place to stop over night, so it was the custom to drive into some stranger’s place and ask if they would keep you over night.

My people had never refused to take anyone in. In fact, no one else in our neighborhood ever did, but they’d direct the strangers to our house. “Tell them to go on to Lovell’s, they will take care of you.” Pa would help the man to water, feed, and bed the horses down for the night. He would get them their supper, make places for them to sleep. In the evening, we’d all sit around and visit, just like old friends. In the morning, it would be breakfast and feed for the horses again. When they’d ask how much they owed Pa for his trouble, he would say “No trouble, we enjoyed having you” and never charge them a cent. He’d also say “Maybe I might want someone to help me out sometime”.

Well, the time had come, and first place he asked, they were people like us, who were in the habit of keeping travelers over night. We were asked in at once. I remember, after supper, we were all in their big living room, grown-ups visiting. They had a Melodean and I had my eye on that. It looked a little like a small organ but I knew it wasn’t that. I finally got up courage enough to ask about it. The lady said it played just like an organ and asked if any of us played. Well, my Dad told them I did and I was scared. I didn’t know what in the world I played, LITTLE BLACK MUSTACHE, probably. That was about all I knew then. Next we were asked if any of us sang and Pa told them Pearl and I could, so we sang. I asked Pearl the other day if she remembered and she said “Yes, I can even remember the song”. I had forgotten but remembered as soon as Pearl wrote it down. Here it is:

Life is like a mountain railway, With an engineer that’s brave.
We must make the run successful From the cradle to the grave.
Watch the hills, the curves, the tunnels Never falter, never quail.

Keep your hand upon the throttle And your eye upon the rail.
Blessed Saviour, wilt thou guide us Til we reach that blissful shore
And the angels come to join us In thy home forever more.

Next morning, after breakfast with these nice people we started on our journey. When we crossed the state line into Ohio, my Dad and Mother were so happy.

In the afternoon, Pearl and I were so tired of riding that my Dad told us, at the foot of a big hill, we could get out and walk up the hill. He said he would have to walk the horses anyway and it would rest us from riding. We really enjoyed that until we nearly reached the top where my Dad gave a big war-whoop and cracked the whip. He scared the horses, they started running and soon the whole rig disappeared. Pearl and I started running too and yelling bloody murder. Reaching the top of the hill, there about half way down the other side, they were waiting for us. We thought they were leaving us forever. Later in the day, we crossed the Maumee River on a wooden bridge. I can remember the sound of the horses hooves as they clip-clopped across. Pa sat up so straight and was so excited. I remember him saying “Look, Sade, we’re crossing the old Maumee again”. They were going home!

We drove into McComb. It was after dark. Main Street and the stores were all lit up. Saturday night and the streets were filled with people, out for their weekly shopping. One of my Dad’s cousins, Ell Lovell had a grocery store and when we passed his store, we could see him standing behind the counter, right up front, weighing something up. My Dad was like a little kid. He said “Look, Sade, there’s old Ell, laughing and talking as always”. Grandpa and Grandma Lovell lived right on Main Street in McComb. We went there to spend the first night.

It’s the strangest thing, but I remember no more of this trip. We must have visited so many places. My Grandpa and Grandma Cory were alive then. Also my mother had two brothers and four sisters. My father also had two sisters and three brothers, all living around McComb. I can’t recall seeing any of them, nor how long we stayed and nothing at all about the ride home. McComb is such a pretty town, about the size of Charlotte. That Saturday night driving the whole length of Main Street, seeing all the bright lights shining, to me it was the most beautiful spot in all the world. Never had I seen a town lit up like that. Of course, I had never seen many towns at the time. Even though I don’t remember the trip home, we made it, because, here I am ninety-four years later and I’m in Michigan.

OUR ORGAN. Ours was a unique organ, being the size of a piano with a keyboard the same length. The organs at that time had a single keyboard, some five and some six octaves long. There were no double keyboards as we have today and piano music could be played on this organ. It was made by George Bentley. My Dad bought it from a Mr. Waldorf in Hastings. A few years ago, driving down Main Street, I saw the name Waldorf on a store window. I don’t know if they sold musical instruments or not. Just looking at the organ you would call it a piano, but it didn’t play unless you pumped the petals. In fact it was called a “Piano-Cased Organ”. It was the only one I ever saw. My Dad didn’t care for piano music but loved the melodious sounds of the organ.

I LEARN TO FLY. My Father’s oldest brother, Dell came to Michigan around this time, making his home with us. He was a carpenter and built a number of houses in our community. He also played the violin and taught me how to read music, how to count, and with his help I was soon able to play the hymns in our church hymnal. He also showed me different chords and later on, I was able to accompany him on his violin.

This accomplishment certainly helped me in later years when Ray and I were married. Ray could also play the violin, but unlike Uncle Dell, he played entirely by ear. His dad (Grandpa Ped) was also a violinist, as was his brother John, but both of them had taken lessons to learn. Grandpa Ped was also a thresher. He had a steam engine with a separator that was used at that time to take care of farmers’ grain. There were no combines then. He would take his outfit into a certain community and would stay at the farmers’ homes over night. Usually he would be gone from home a weak at a time. Before he left, the violin was locked in his secretary for safe keeping. Ray’s mother used to let Ray get it out and he learned to play songs by listening to her singing. The dance music, jigs etc., he heard from his dad and brother John. So that’s the way he learned to play. I always said I thought that was real talent. His mother used to say that his dad didn’t really lock the violin up from Ray. It was to safeguard the instrument from the five younger girls. (Enough said about that!)

Anyway, Ray and I spent a good many happy hours playing together. I liked to play chords to his dance music better than when I played the songs. Tunes like TURKEY IN THE STRAW, THE DEVIL’S DREAMS, etc. such as you never heard and probably are happy to think you didn’t have to listen to, but we liked them.

At that time, every ten cent store (like Woolworth’s etc.) had a section for music, with a piano and a clerk to play the music for you. Ray used to like to go in, choose a new
song, have it played for him and if he liked it, buy it. Then, bringing it home to me, he’d say “Play it.” Well, I really was no Liberace. Sometimes I could and other times I had to practice a few times, but he could pick up his violin and play it for me.

We both liked popular music and he would follow my tunes, never making a mistake, excepting one, I can’t remember the name of the song, but there was one place you had to hold a certain note and I tried to explain his mistake but, lo and behold, he said it was my mistake, not his, so I had to play it his way. I tried to avoid that sone when we were playing for company. He informed me he guessed he knew how it sounded and I did it wrong. So, from that time on, I continued to do it wrong. Really, you must keep your man happy.

John took his lessons from Roy Freemire, who was quite a musician. He ran a steam engine with a threshing crew and could play tunes with the steam whistle. When he arrived at the scene of his job, he would play LISTEN TO THE MOCKING BIRD as he drove the rig, powerful engine in your yard.

Roy’s sister, Nettie, played the Banjo and one winter the two of them, John Welch with his violin and Ray playing chords on the piano, sometimes provided the music for dancing at the hall in Shaytown (that old building is still there). I remember, once Ray wanted to dance, so he asked me to take his place. Did I every have fun and was sorry when he came back and I had to quite. I’ve been to so many dances and community get-togethers in that old building with such nice times.

OUR HORSES. Dumb animals, people sometimes say, but to me they certainly are not dumb. To us, horses were a part of the family, doing their work in the fields, taking us wherever we needed or wanted to go, then feeding, watering, currying and brushing, fixing their stalls with nice, clean straw to sleep on was like putting your children to bed at night.

We had a pretty dappled gray horse named Bess. My father sold her. I was heart broken and cried so hard when they tied her behind the man’s buggy and he drove down the road, taking her home. The man had been our closest neighbor, living across the road from us when we lived on the Wellman farm where I was born. Mr. Black was his name. He would be great grandfather to the Blacks over by Saubee Lake. A little over a year after he bought Bess, Mr. and Mrs. Black came visiting one Sunday, driving Bess. I remember when they unhitched her from the buggy my dad said “Let’s turn her loose and see what she does. Her stall is empty”. Bess turned and trotted down the hill to the barn, going through the door and right down to her old place. After being gone over a year, she remembered her old home.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR; Bulletin of the Sebewa Center Association;
December 1985, Volume 21, Number 3. Robert W. Gierman, Editor.
Submitted with written permission of current editor, Grayden D. Slowins:

INDIAN NAMES FROM DANBY, IONIA COUNTY, 1860 CENSUS

Previously I had studied the Danby 1850 Census to see if any Indian population was listed. I found no Indian names. More recently I scanning the Danby 1860 census I was surprised to find nine Indian families listed next to the names of the Charles Ingalls family, in the Shimnecon area. Again, in the 1870 census list there were no Indians. In 1850 there were a considerable number of Indians living at Shimnecon but the census taker considered it improper to list them. By 1860, though most of the Indian population had been moved to the Mt. Pleasant area, we had these nine families listed. Because of the odditites of handwriting there may be here an occasional error or two in the spelling of the name.

Listed below are the names of the Indians in the 1860 Federal census: (by Name, Sex, Age)

1) Wenetalagtie, M, 40; Caboun, F, 28; Dumadele, M, 18; George Hickey, M, 16; Andrew Jackson, M, 12; Musquigo, F, 4; Saragiuella, F, 7/12 month.
2) Padashaba, M, 28; Namigenequeques, F, 25.
3) Menanefitt, M, 50; Iskema, F, 55.
4) Lenidas, M, 18; Eonora, F, 16; William Bogue, M, 9.
5) James Oakanos, M, 28; Canana, F, 28; Lanaschereg, F, 11; Jackson, M, 8; Thomas, M, 6; George Washington, M, 1.
6) Mandama, M, 89; Samewl, M, 20; Okenehenaga, ?, 15; Calie, M, 15; Wento, M, 12.
7) Thomas Jeanasy, M, 35; Umageanac, F, 35; Minequimagu, F, 14.
8) Segramia, M, 35; Tatatabaha, F, 30; Shebiga, M, 13; Charlotte, F, 10; Chobagenous, M, 5; Temacogenous, M, 5; Almah Liada, F, 1.
9) Noggudime, M, 33; Keshebaha, F, 40; Telanoquage, M, 9; Megersago, F, 8.
All listed Michigan as the place of birth.
By 1870 our land hungry ancestors saw to it that there was no room here for an Indian population.

ANTHONY KREAMER’S FARM DIARY; SECOND INSTALLMENT
Monday, February 23, 1885. Chored around. Was a cold day. Helped wash. Sold Walker 52 bushels of my wife’s corn @ 25 cents, $13. Paid wife money. Sold Wesley Krebs 4 bushels of corn. Paid for sawing. Want (?) 30 cts my dues.
Feb. 24. Went to Wrights. Sold E. Stinchcomb and Wilson 3 ½ tons of hay at $7 per ton. Wilson had a credit of $9.50 and Stinchcomb a credit of $15.00. Dr. Benson 25 bushels of corn at 25 cts per bushel. Credit $6.25. Got crackers, oil and coffee, 70 cts.
Feb. 25. Went to Portland with 65 bushels of oats at 25 cts per bushel. Got ½ dozen brooms $1.25, half, 65 cts. Lemons 25 cts, dinner 20 cts. F. B. VanBuren got 2 bushels corn.
Feb. 26. Snowed some. Tried to draw an oak log 22 feet long. Broke sled. Tom helped me in afternoon. Went to Post meeting.
Feb. 27. Drawed 2 logs to mill, 22 feet long. Got a bit of Will Shafer, 25 cents.
Feb. 28. Drawed a log to mill. Went to Teals to see about Wright’s payments.

Sunday, March 1, 1885. Snowed some. Laid around home.
March 2. Drawed 5 small logs to Haddix mill. Was warm day.
March 3. Skidded my logs on Skidsuly. (This meant a sledge). Drawed one load of lumber home. Rained and snowed most of day.
March 4. Drawed my lumber home—-1524 feet. Sold Haddix 5.74 hardwood at $4 per m. Balance due him $3. Went to Wilson’s in evening. Sold W. Krebs 25 bushels of corn at 25 cts on 6 months time. Hells to pay and no pitch hot. Wife’s corn.
March 5. Hauled hay and fodder. Took Mary Shields home. Was very nice day. Paid her $15. Owe her $9 yet. Went to Post.
March 6. Went to mill at Sebewa. Got 8 bushels of buckwheat and 6 bushels of wheat ground. Homer VanBuren got 1 ½ bushels of corn. 25 cts a bushel. 37 ½ cts and 2 bushels of meal.

Sunday, March 8, 1885. Laid around home.
March 9. Split a little sugar wood. Was awful stormy.
March 10. Helped wash in forenoon. Split sugar wood. (Sap from sugar maple trees was boiled in large vats over an open fire, out in the woods. This went on for some days. Split wood aplenty was needed).
March 11. Split sugar wood part of day. Hauled in stack of hay. Had a social dance here at night.
March 12. Went to Vermontville. Dayton left home to work at Marshall. Got him a trunk. Paid him $5. Got 100 Eureka spiles. $3.50. 5 cts for candy and got $10 of I. F. Wool for 60 days.
March 13. Was a cold day. Chored around. Took Mary Shields home. Went to Neads to church.
March 14. Hauled one load of hay. Was cold day. Snowed some and rained hard in afternoon. Went to Fryfogles to mill. Took 39 bushels of corn and oats. Went after Sybil and Olive Wright.
Sunday, March 15, 1885. Went to Ben Beatman’s. Was very cold and blustery.
March 16. Helped wash in forenoon and chored in afternoon. Cartwright got 55 bushels of corn of my wife at 25 cts per basket.
March 17. Note due at Bank – 20. Chored around. Was cold. 10 degrees below zero. Went to church.
March 18. Went to Portland with 27 bushels of wheat for bread. Was cold day. Sybil Wright went along. Paid note at the Bank. Borrowed $5 of my wife.
March 19. Took hay to I. Cuers. Was cold day. Snowed some. Wife went to Wrights to help bake wedding cake for Olive’s wedding. Went to Post.
March 20. Weighed 500 lbs hay for Space. Sold Putnam 1 ½ tons for $12 ½. Note on Downs payable in 30 days. Was very cold day, 15 degrees below zero.
March 21. Went to Vermontville. Got Will suit of clothes $27. Got me a suit, $10, navy blue. Got Cal a pair of shoes, $1. Got a pickle dish for $2 for Oly Wright, a present. Got a draft of I. S. Wright for $60 to pay Bare on note. (Is this Sybil Wright? It may be. Note later.)

Sunday, March 22, 1885. Olive Wright and Charley Tilton were here. Went to church at night.
March 23. Chored around. Did not do anything to amount to a hill of beans. Snowed hard and blowed.
March 24. Weighed out 2100 lbs hay for Baer. Went to Olive Wrights wedding in the evening. Had a very pleasant time. Went after a Methodist preacher to officiate on the occasion.
March 26. Took Charley Tilton and wife (Olive) to Vermontville. Carry and Rosa went along. Drawed $60 for Wright. Sleighing played out.
March 27. Worked in sugar bush. Scattered buckets.

Sunday, March 29, 1885. Stayed around home. Was very nice day. Wrote a letter to Wright and one to McDonald. (Orville Wright lived in Swan, Indiana. A. K.’s brother-in-law. A. K.’s boyhood was spent in Swan. He met and married Charity Wright there. They moved to Sunfield in 1868.
March 30. Gathered sap and boiled in. Snowed hard all forenoon.
March 31. Gathered sap. Was a very nice day. Made out Z. M. Report in evening. (G. A. R. Post 283) Got a letter from Date.
April 1. Sowed 4 acres to clover over on my wife’s place. Was a nice day. Gathered sap in the afternoon.
April 2. Boiled in sap in forenoon and hauled hay in the afternoon. Went to Post meeting. Was awful muddy. Paid Travers 40 cents for patching boots. 25 cents for tobacco, 10 cents for cheese.
April 3. Gathered sap. Was nice day.
April 4. Went to caucus. Gathered sap. S. F. Wright was here. Orve came home late. (S. F. Wright, probably Sybil Wright.)
Sunday, April 5, 1885. Gathered 12 bbls sap. Orve was in bush. Will took Orve home. He got 5 lbs sugar.
April 6. Went to Town meeting. John Wool got 200 lbs hay at $9 per ton.
April 7. Sold Charley Jackson a right of fence $2 and Wm. Bishop a right to be paid in 90 days, $5.
April 8. Went to Cuers with my old sow. Sold to F. M. Peck a farm right to be paid in 4 months. 50 acres. (A. K. did not capitalize farm or fence right. The first two times he wrote it Wright, but never again). 2.50 Spencer bargained for the right.
April 9. Weighed out hay, 1,000 lbs for Boyer and 1,276 lbs for I. F. Wool. Was nice day. Sowed 5 acres of clover seed.
April 10. Sold D. J. Loomis 160 acres right. Is to make me out an insurance policy, $9 and pay me a note of $5. Left the note with Frank Loomis at Vermontville.
April 11. Sold right. O. M. Wells is to pay Orve $1. Shraver is also to pay Orve $1 for a right of 5 acres. Snowed all day. Took dinner at Dick Blairs at Vermontville. Walked home. Was awful tired.
Sunday, April 12, 1885. Boiled in some sap. Syruped down twice.
April 13. Helped to gather sap and boiled it in.
April 14. Was cold. Went to Vermontville. Snowed hard, in afternoon. Put up two samples, one for Griswold and one for Townsend. Stayed all night at Wm. Hales.
Sold Drew Purchase right of 80 acres. Got note of $2, left with Orve. Went to Nashville, got $8 of Wm. Gregg. Came home. Car fare, ?, tobacco, 25 cents, 20 cents and 5 cents; 50 cents.
April 16. Boiled in sap. Gathered 18 barrels. Am 48 years old today.
April 17. Boiled in some sap. Went to Perkins. Got $2 in money. Paid my wife the same.
April 18. Sold F. O. Putnam right of fence. Took his note for $6, payable in 6 months.

Sunday, April 19, 1885. Went to Father Stinchcombs. Was very nice day.
April 20. Went to Shiawassie County. J. E. Wool went with team and my buggy. Got dinner at Wacousta, $1. Stayed all night at Sam Dehavens.
April 21. Went to John Tubs. Put up sample of patent fence. Sold Mr. Ridout a right, $5. Went to Ovid, paid $2.85 for wire.
Went to Andrew Shermans. Sold a farm right $4 and one to I. Sherman. Went to Barry’s. He was awful mad at us.
April 23. Went to Vernon to a sheep shearing association. Did not sell any rights. Stayed all night with R. Steel on the Blags estate. Is a fine man. Rained in night. Dinner and horse fed, $1.
April 24. Went to Corunna and Owosso and Shytown. Put up a sample for Mr. Reynolds and P. N. Cook and sold Rowel a right. Stayed all night at Rowels. Dinner and horse fed, $1.
April 25. Went to Ovid in afternoon. Got some wire, 75 cents worth. Dinner and horses fed, 50 cents. Went to Dehavens. Stayed all night. Rained hard.
Sunday, April 26, 1885. Came home. Was cold in morning. Paid for dinner and horses in barn, $1. Got home at dark.
April 27. Went to Charlotte to get some pension papers filled out and sent to Detroit. Ed. Stinchcomb went along. Dinner and horse fed, $1.
April 28. Plowed at home.
April 29. Plowed all day.
April 30. Rained most of day. Went to Snivelys. Got a spring drag, $4. Paid him. Got $6 of my wife and paid $4 back.
May 1. Took out potatoes and loaded 70 bushels to sell. Put 27 bushels in barn.
May 2. Paid Dou_?_ $21 for Wright. Went to mill with 71 bushels potatoes. Got 30 cents per bushel, $21.30. Got bushel of early _?_. Let C. Wool have $8.30. Let Orve have $1. John is to pay me. Had B. Haddix team, Weals got a check on the Bank of $1113.50. Paid out $10.

Sunday, May 3, 1885. Laid around home most of day. Went to church. Rained and snowed some.

MYRTIE’S MEMORIES, PART IV CONTINUED – WELCH, LOVELL, CORY, GRANDPA PED, GILSON, RAWSON

Then there was Frank, the unpredictable horse. You never know what to expect from him. The folks had raised him from a little cold and kept him until he died. My mother told me this story. She was watching out the window once when Arby had led Frank out to the horse tank. After drinking his fill of water, Frank leaned over Arby, grabbing him by the back of his coat, picked Arby up and swung him back and forth over the tank of water. Ma thought he was going to drop him in, but instead, he just stood him up on the ground and Arby led him back to the barn.

This one I witnessed: Sylvia was in Frank’s stall, putting the harness on him, needing him to take her to Vermontville. Sylvia had beautiful brown hair, so long and so much of it. At this particular time, the fashion was a “Jug Handle” hair do. You combed the hair straight back, then up in the back and gathered it all together, twisting it into a long coil. You fastened it securely to the center of the back, then lopped it around your hand, fastened it again. The remaining end you twisted around the base of the loop. You could see right through it and it did look like a handle on a jug.

Maybe old Frank didn’t like it because when Sylvia tried to flip his bridle on him, he reached down and grabbed her hair by that handle sticking up on top of her head. He started pulling and Sylvia started yelling and slapping his face. He wouldn’t let loose, so she rammed her fingers into the corner of his mouth and started pulling back on them. He had to open up! That was the trick you used when a horse fought having the bit put into his mouth. Needless to say, Sylvia had to re-do her hair before she went to Vermontville.

If the old “booger” was out in the pasture and you wanted to catch him, all you needed to do was whistle and he’d come trotting toward you. But, if you had a rope in your hand to lead him back to the barn, he’d wheel and trot right away. So, unless you just wanted to pet him, you’d hide that rope or you’d be in trouble.

On Saturday night, Arby drove Frank to Vermontville. It was the spring of the year and the Scipio Creek had overflowed its banks. The water flowed across the road, covering the wooden bridge completely. It wasn’t too deep so old Frank went right on across. By the time they came back on their way home, it was pitch dark and the water was steadily rising. Frank started through and suddenly he stopped and refused to go on. Arby talked to him and finally gave him a few good licks with the whip and the horse still would not budge. So, Arby got out of the buggy to find the trouble. Wading the water until he reached Frank’s head, he saw the boards had broken loose from the bridge and were drifting along in the current. Arby had to turn around and take another route home. Dumb animal, huh?

Another horse we called Maude was a very high spirited animal and could she travel? Built like a race horse, she certainly could cover the miles in record time. She was Arby’s pride and joy. Boys were boys back in the days when my brother was growing up. They loved speed just like they do now.

Driving along the road, coming up to a rig in front of you, sometimes you wanted to go a little faster or maybe you didn’t like the dust in your face, so you’d pull out and drive around. Simple? A natural thing to do unless you were a teenager and the guy you were pulling out around was another. In that case, if you had any kind of a horse at all, a race was on. Well, what else was there to do? Road ahead (although it was narrow), buggies even, horses heads side by side, so let’s go. Sometimes the wheels on the buggies would come together and lock. An accident, and the fun was over. Maybe no one was hurt but you had smashed your dad’s buggy, so the truth came out---you were racing---and Ma had heard of a few of these, though it didn’t happen very often. Most times the boys just had fun. In fact, I can’t remember of anyone in our neighborhood who had ever done this. Evidently Ma had, for she always would tell Arby when he would be leaving on a date “Don’t you be racing tonight”. Arby would say “I never race Maude, I just won’t let anyone by”.

I remember this one time, we were at something going on at the Bismark Church. Arby had taken his current girl friend, driving Maude on a single buggy. It was summer time and after the meeting the ladies and children all gathered on the front steps to wait for the men folks to bring the rigs around to take them home. Arby drove up in his turn and his girl friend left the steps and went down to the buggy. Just as Arby took her arm to help her up, Maude reared on her hind legs and began prancing back and forth. Arby would talk to her and just as quickly as she reared, she came back down on all four legs, standing as meekly as a lamb. Arby would try again to help his girl in the buggy, then Maude would rear again. After a few minutes of this performance, Arby would succeed and climb in the buggy nicely and drive off as easily as could be.

I heard a woman say “No girl of mine would ever get into Arby Lovell’s buggy with that horse hitched to it. She’s going to kill somebody sometime.” What the people didn’t know was that Arby had taught poor Maude this trick. He did it with a certain pull on the lines, then another when he wanted her to stop. Maude was gentle as she could be. Arby was the big show-off!

Once after Arby was married and gone from home, Ma and Sylvia went into Vermontville driving Maude. As they were driving down Main Street, Maude walking along with her head down, Arby, who was in town, saw them. He shouted “Maude”. Up came her head and she started down Main Street at a very fast pace. Sylvia had a little trouble quieting her down and stopping. It was just Arby with his tricks who made her high strung. He loved his horses and often said tractors took all the fun out of farming. He said it was a lonesome job with no horses to talk to. The horses understood him but the tractors didn’t.

LITTLE FLY. In 1906, after Ray’s dad (Grandpa Ped) had his leg cut off in a sawmill accident, they rented their farm and bought a home here in Sunfield at the northwest corner of Washington and Third Street with a small barn for horses at the north side of the house. The barn is still there. Prior to this time Ray had always used one of the farm work horses as a buggy horse and was just a bit embarrassed over it. Most of the other boys drove nice little buggy horses, so now that they had sold the others, he bought this pretty little dark bay with a black mane and tail. He called her “Little Fly”, and when he hitched her to his rubber-tired brand new buggy, the other boys’ rigs were nothing compared to his.

One Sunday he came to see me over on Ionia Road, seven miles from Sunfield. That night, leaving for home, he followed his usual routine. Wrapping the lines around the whip socket securely, making himself comfortable with his head on the back of the seat, saying “Home, Little Fly”, Ray drifted off to dreamland and Fly took him home. He woke up when she stopped at the barn door. Getting out of the buggy, releasing Fly from the thills, following her into the barn, removing the harness, hanging it on the wall, giving her a basin of grain to eat, fixing the straw for her bed, Ray then went into the house, at home safely. He didn’t look at the time, just crawled in bed to finish his night’s rest. Next morning, Ray went to the barn to take care of the morning chores and noticed a whole mess of buggy tracks in the driveway, made by his own buggy. The rubber tire tracks were different from others made by steel tires. All were dirt roads, no cement at that time anywhere, so the print of the tires could be plainly seen. Looking closely, Ray saw where the buggy had been turned around and gone south down the road. He hitched Fly up and started retracing the marks. They led him to Uncle Bid’s place. Ray could see where she had stood and pawed the ground there but he still didn’t wake up, so Fly returned to town. This time when she stopped, he woke up, never knowing all these other places he’d been. Seven miles from my home but he had ridden about fifteen. I can’t remember if Ray ever went to sleep on his trips home again or not. It certainly would not be my way. I like to ride, but I want to know where I’m going and where I’ve been. I think I have proved my point. Horses are not dumb.

DAN PATCH. P. J. was just here and I told him the story of Little Fly. He said “What about Dan Patch?” Leon Gilson (Dad’s cousin) had told him of this horse, so I guess I’d better tell it. This horse was a tall ungainly looking horse, a pacer, and could really cover the roads. Looks he didn’t have. At that time, there was a racing horse named Dan Patch that had a world’s record of being the fastest pacer. One Sunday, Ray was at our house. We were waiting for Grace’s date to come and Ray suggested we drive down the road toward’s Ralph’s house and meet him. Ralph Wetherbee was his name. He lived only a little over two miles from us on the Townline Road, now called Kelley Highway. We drove to the first corner south of us (Rawson’s Corners) then turned east. A short distance down the road, we came to the old Rawson place. The house was abandoned long ago, but several lilac bushes were still living around it and they were in full bloom. Grace asked Ray to stop and go cut us a bouquet. Of course he had his trusty knife in his pocket, so he hopped out of the buggy and over the fence and brought a bouquet to each of us. By that time Ralph was there. He was driving such a pretty horse and of course his buggy was bright and shiny. No rubber tires but it was a pretty sight. Of course Ray’s buggy was shining, too. Boys always washed and polished their buggies like they do their cars now.

Ralph also had his Kodak along and had Aunt Grace get in his buggy so he could take a picture. It was a pretty horse, pretty buggy, pretty girl with her bouquet of lilacs. Then Ralph wanted to take Ray’s and my picture. Ray said “You can take Myrtie and me in my buggy but don’t include Dan Patch”. Do you want to see the picture? P. J. has it at the store. There is a little of Dan Patch in the picture but not much. I don’t remember exactly but I think your Dad traded him for his pretty horse, Little Fly---but not even up I’m sure.

I hope I can make it clear to your folks, who have never ridden behind a horse, the difference it makes between a trotting horse or a pacer. A trotter will bob his body up and down while a pacer shows practically no movement at all. The slight sidewise back and forth movement of his head, in perfect rhythm with the beat of his hooves on the ground, no rippling muscles in his body, just a smooth, swift, floating feeling. It was quiet and restful and no noise from Ray’s rubber tired buggy wheels. One step of Dan Patch would cover as much ground as two or three of a trotter. His gait was what I call poetry in motion.

CREAM COLORED MAUDE. This was a small buggy horse Grandma Lovell bought a year or so before I was married. In fact, when we moved to Sunfield in September 1910, we brought her along. Lots of people at that time kept horses in town. Not too many had automobiles and one had to have transportation.

Maude was the laziest, slowest horse I ever had anything to do with. Her walk was a snail’s pace and her trot not much faster than a dog. Of course, this just suited my mother, who was frightened of a horse with any life in it. It must have been July 4th, 1907 when Ma, Pearl, Grace and I went to the celebration in Lake Odessa. We stayed a bit too long and darkness caught us before we reached home. Grace was driving and Ma was scared to have her trot the horse much because of the dark. All at once Ma said “Grace, Maude is staggering. She must be sick”.

Grace said “Sick, nothing. She is going to sleep, but I’ll bet she’ll wake up”. Then Grace grabbed the whip from the socket, giving Maude a couple of belts with that, she went trotting down the road. Grace told Ma she could see to drive and if Ma expected us to get home before morning, we’d have to move along fast enough to at least keep old Maude awake. Lazy old thing. She was safe enough for anyone to drive.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association;
FEBRUARY 1986, Volume 21, Number 4. Robert W. Gierman, Editor.
Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: CARPENTER, WELCH, SAYER, KREAMER, EDDY

A NEWLY REGISTERED VOTER is George Carpenter, aged 90. He is old enough to have been eligible for entry in the genealogy book “Carpenter, the Rehoboth Family”. But with sixty listed with the name of Henry, I cannot match him in the list. If he were born in 1896, he would have been a year or two old when the book was published. His age seems to make him the oldest male resident of Sebewa Township. He is living with his grandson on Goddard Road a half mile south of Tupper Lake Rd.

MRS. MYRTIE WELCH being interviewed by Zack York was a video tape I made last summer. If you have a video tape deck and would like to borrow the nearly hour long cassette for a look, give me a call…..Since Christmas Mrs. Welch has gone to stay with her daughter, Mrs. Willson, who now lives at Auburn, near Bay City. Myrtie and Edna Sayer share the same birth date, July 5, 1890.

FROM THE 1885 DIARY OF ANTHONY KREAMER

May 4, 1885. Sowed oats, 12 acres. Mr. Shace got 7 bushels of oats @ 35 cents $2.45.
May 5. Went to Portland. Drew $1,115 pension money. Paid $9.75 debt and hotel bill 75 cents. Got line straps, bull ring, door lock $1.00. Hog rings 25 cents. Paid $1.50 for Observer. Bought a ledger for the Post. Gave wife $10 to buy goods with.
May 6, 1885, Wednesday. Went to Vermontville. Paid $135.65. Paid Loomis $33.70. Paid Fleming $29.15. Paid H. P. Martin $29.65. $1.95 for a pair of shoes, $1 for horse medicine, 65 cents for dinner and horse in barn, 10 cents for beer.
May 7. Plowed all day. Dave Figg and wife were here. Went to Post meeting. Cow had a calf. Jo Childs helped me in afternoon with two teams. Was awful cold. Snowed some.
May 8. Plowed till 5 o’clock. Rained in afternoon. Tom VanBuren sowed oats. Jo Childs helped me till 3 o’clock with two teams. Paid my wife $131.30 on accounts and a note of $25.10 took up. Paid wife note $58.20. Total $189.50.
May 9. Snowed. Drawed in logs to Haddix mill. Got 1,220 feet sawed. Went to store. Paid Ed Stinchcomb $25 on account. Paid S. A. Wright $2 that belongs to her son-in-law. Paid on goods 65 cents. Am to pay wife $37.20 on Haddix account, to be applied to note. Clem Haddix mill burned down.

Sunday, May 10, 1885. Clapps folks were here, and Sybil Wright. Gave them 15 lbs. sugar. Was cold day.
May 11. Plowed all day. Was a warm day.
May 12. Plowed most of day. One of my horses was sick. Laid down in furrow.
May 13. Spaded in garden in forenoon. Plowed and dragged potato patch in afternoon.
May 14. Plowed some. Went to Post meeting. Paid Ed Stinchcomb $25.
May 15. Plowed and dragged all day. Sold 38 bushels of corn to Conchright @ 25 cents per bushel. $9.50.
May 16. Plowed. My wife went to Vermontville and got me a pair of boots. I paid a mowing machine note $45.65. Did some milliner trading. It was a warm day.

Sunday, May 17, 1885. Went to Ed Stinchcombs a visiting.
May 18. Plowed most of day. Sold 6 calves. Two pair old heifers for $15 to Al Griffin. Was a cold day. Al paid $10 on the cattle. Is to take them away in a few days.

AUTOMOBILES IN EARLY PORTLAND AND ABOUT

From the RECOLLECTOR of October 1972 is this paragraph citing the story of Ionia County’s first automobile as told by Mrs. Helen Eddy Hollen, a former teacher in the Portland Public Schools. Her father, N. J. Eddy, the Portland jeweler and watch repairman of 1898, learned of an auto that was for sale. Some “rich man” of Detroit, Chicago or maybe of Grand Rapids had a son who owned an automobile. The son died and the auto was put up for sale. Mr. Eddy made the purchase and had the car shipped to Portland by flatcar. It was a Locomobile Steamer, built in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The Locomobile Company had bought out the rights to the car from the Stanley Bros. and began producing it under the Locomobile name. Like the early Stanleys, it had a boiler under the seat, heated by a gasoline flame underneath. The cylinders were vertical and the rods could be seen working up and down. One lever controlled the flow of steam to the cylinders and another lower did the steering. The single cylinders and another lower did the steering. The single seat accommodated Mr. and Mrs. Eddy and the daughter, Helen. It was driven around town rather than any country road. When a real excursion was wanted they went all of the way to Eagle and back. Several times, Mr. Eddy stopped the car to get out and lead somebody’s frightened horses around it. In a year or so after selling out to Locomobile, the Stanley Bros. decided to go back to automobiles and started building another steam car, which was too much competition for Locomobile and led to its demise. Later, Mr. Eddy traded his Locomobile for a Stanley Steamer. As far as Miss Eddy was concerned, it did not compare to the Locomobile. “You’d get out in the country and the boiler would pop off and you would have to wait for it to build up a head of steam before you could travel”.

For a list of Automobile companies of 1915 we refer you to the October 1973 issue of RECOLLECTOR. Also, the February 1971 issue of the RECOLLECTOR describes the 1909 one cylinder Reo, owned by several people successively.

Following are quotes from THE PORTLAND OBSERVER as researched by Lucille Esch:
June 15, 1904. Two more automobile touring cars have been added the past week to the list already here. There are now seven owned in Portland. The two new ones are owned by O. N. Jenkins and E. D. Woodbury, the former having bought a Ford and the latter a Rambler. The other owners are Robert Ramsey, F. H. Knox, W. W. Terriff, Thomas Frost, while N. J. Eddy has a Locomobile or steam machine. Portland probably has more of these machines than any other place of its size in Michigan.

1904. Dick Merrifield of Sebewa has bought an auto and he will, with E. C. Derby, make a run to St. Louis with it to visit the World’s Fair.
March 1, 1905. E. C. Herolz has received the Rambler touring car, which he purchased some time ago. It has a canopy top and other adjuncts not possessed by other cars of this make owned in Portland.
April 12, 1905. Frank Jenkins and Herb Emery were in Detroit to drive home the Oldsmobile touring car recently purchased by Dr. Alton. The machine is a very pretty one and the Doctor already has begun to call upon his patients in the country by the new conveyance. He says it works like a compound cathartic pill.
November 12, 1905. John McClelland received his Rambler touring car last Thursday, 1905 model, his side doors and other up-to-date improvements and is painted green.
1906. There was no reference to individual cars but a notice that in October, Governor Warner was to visit Portland in an auto party, which was visiting the entire county. (Special feature in Portland was to view the Commonwealth ___.) Called off because of a very heavy rain storm.
September 7, 1907. Herb Emery was shot at while driving his car. He had pulled over to the side of the road so a buggy could go by and the revolver was fired from the back of the buggy.
November 9, 1908. E. D. Woodbury has a 7 passenger Olds. W. W. Terriff a 2 passenger Olds, Tom Frost a 6 cylinder Olds, Dr. Horning has purchased the Franklin car that Mr. Woodbury has run for the past season.
December 7, 1909. James Webster will retire from the shoe business and will open a garage after the first of the year. He has the option on several good autos and will take the agency for one or two of them and operate a salesroom in connection with an up-to-date repair department. He is trying to get a location on the main block on Kent Street. George Bandfield will open a salesroom for autos. He has bought the Goodwin Marble Shop and will show the Hupmobile there. This racy little car is attracting much attention and Mr. Bandfield already has a number of prospects.
February 1, 1910. James Webester bought a Regal touring car at the Detroit Auto Show and acquired the agency for this vicinity. He bought a six cylinder R. A. C. made at South Bend, Indiana.

Now a column called A Notes: Louis Gibbs bought a Regal from J. Webster and sold his Reo to Dr. Lathrop. Arthur Nunnely bought a Brush runabout. George Bandfield sold a new Hupp to Dr. Weston of Muir. Mr. and Mrs. Wood are in Detroit to bring home a Ford. Dr. Alton FINALLY drives his own car. E. C. Herolz has bought a new Rambler—went to Wisconsin to get it.
May 7, 1910. O. C. Allen has agency of the State of Washington for the Regal automobile. A carload has already been shipped.
May 17, 1910. Ramsay-Alton is to make auto bodies. The H. J. Hayes Mfg. Co. of Detroit, which has two factories employing 1,000 men takes stock to the extent of $10,000 and promises concern for all the business it can care for. Steel frames will be shipped here for the wood work. Since there is no indication that the automobile business will slacken up for at least 10 years, the officers consider this a wise move.
The auto business has affected every other line---jewelry has been hit because men are buying autos instead of diamonds and have been denying themselves many things in order to enjoy a wise motoring.
Will Russel and Fred Pilkington enventually go to Detroit to learn the auto trade.
February 1, 1910. In company with John Webster and Oscar and Carl Derby, he drove the machine across the snow from Detroit to Portland without mishap. Although the Regal is practically unknown in Portland, Mr. Webster picked it from a big line of low priced cars. Herb Emery, R. W. Alton, F. S. Lockwood, W. D. Crane, Ted Wilson, A. S. Nunnely and O. C. Allen also attended the Auto Show.
February 8, 1910. George Bandfield has made the first auto sales of the season in Portland. Two Hupmobiles to Dr. Alton and Herb Emery, February 15, 1910. He sold two more Hupps to Ed. Dwight and W. H. Coe of Ionia.
March 8, 1910. Portland auto owners met in the office of Fred Mauren and formed an automobile club with a charter membership of seventeen. E. D. Woodbury was elected president, Fred Mauren, Secretary and Dr. F. W. Martin, Treasurer. Another meeting will be held in W. F. Selleck’s office when the by-laws will be adopted and new members taken in. It is the expectation that every auto owner in and around the Village will join the club. During the summer, sign boards will be placed on all the roads around Portland. The matter of good roads will be taken up later.
March 22, 1910. Ted Wilson has been infected with the auto microbe and the insistent little cuss will not let him alone. A. Nunneley is also suffering from the same malady and rumor has it that both will be driving their own cars in a few weeks. C. A. Estep expects to bring his home, weather permitting and G. W. Allen goes to Chicago to get his. He bought a six cylinder R. A. C. made at South Bend, Indiana.
1911. Hack Services---anywhere in the Village, 25 cents. Horse & Auto Livery, Cornwell & Son, successor to Alf Allen, then to Welch, then Alton bought it back just before he died. Bryon Welch took over after Alf Allen. Reed & Trumpower at the old Rink Building.
Blacksmiths; Archie Valentine, 1912, Fred Berkshire in old Wm. Smith stand on Kent St., 1912. Will Davis on Maple Street, E. A. Sweet – Horseshoes in old Fred Berkshire stand, 1915.
Wagon Maker: L. L. Williams with A. Ruessman on Water Street

Garages: John Leslie, B. W. Jackson and B. B. Bowes
Studebaker Wheel (bicycle) sold by Lung & Packard, 1912
1914: Clarence Sayer of Sebewa purchased from Oscar Derby, The Portland Garage, Clarence Sayer, Proprietor – Local Agency for Buick – General Auto Repairing – Full line of Goodyear and Firestone tires. He advertised in the December 23, 1915 Portland Observer the price list of these 1916 models:
Heavy Six touring car $1,485; Heavy Six Roadster $1,450; Light Six touring car $985; Light six Roadster $950.
Citizens Phone 10; Bell Phone 155
December 23, 1915: W. S. Kenkins & Son advertised – Auto Repairing. All accessories for Fords. Call Citizens 66; Bell 197
Garages – John Leslie, B. W. Jackson, B. B. Bowes

Around 1916 Francis Burger and Arthur Balderson bought Clarence Sayer. Burger entered World War I and Balderson kept the garage going. When Burger came home, he and his wife Flossie bought out Balderson and they were a team.
September 30, 1915. One thousand machines are expected in a big parade of Paved Way Boosters. Reo and M. A. C. bands to accompany them. Purpose of the tour of inspection over the two proposed routes. Wolverine Pavedway and the Board of Directors, with the party, will make their choice from the impression they receive along the routes, natural advantages and enthusiasm
And desire of people along the way. Henry Ford and Governor Ferris will be along to study the advantages the road will bring.

These items of early auto history in and about Portland come from a search of news items of the Portland OBSERVER by Lucille Esch and her interviews with Flossie Burger, still alert in her nineties.

When Francis Burger came home from the war, his wife, Flossie Burger, bought out Arthur Balderson and they ran the garage as Burger and Burger, doing jitney business also. He drove for all the funerals and they drove for several of the doctors. She drove more in summer and he in winter.

She did bookwork for the garage and drove to Lansing to pick up parts as well and probably was the only woman in these parts so employed at that time.

They built the cement block building where the J. & J. store is now. The Portland Garage had been only on Maple Street but they ran it through from Maple Street to Kent Street with rooms above. In later years they sold it to Guidi, who then sold it to Joe Mekoff.

Mrs. Sayer, now at 95, remembers that when Clarence was operating the garage it was a time of local option. Ionia County was “dry” and Kent County was not. Frequently the local imbibers would ask him to make a Saturday night trip to Lowell to celebrate the good times available in Kent County. She remembers the distressed calls of wives and mothers, trying to find out when their loved ones might return.

Clarence recalled when an exhibitionist circus performer, to add interest to the upcoming tent show, asked him to drive a heavy car over his chest. Two small piles of planks were laid down, the man laid on his back with inflated chest between the piles and Clarence drove over with no apparent harm to the performer.

Some will remember the R. C. H., the Velie and other early cars that Clarence owned.

Lucille Esch remembers that in winter time the children used their sleds to slide down hill and across Grand River Avenue—later U. S. 16. At that time nobody worried about auto traffic there. In winter it was proper to put the care in the garage, jack up each of the four wheels and let it rest until the good weather of summer.

Now, with the freeway taking the through traffic, who would carelessly risk his neck with a casual walk across Grand River Avenue?

MYRTIE’S MEMORIES * THE HORSE - CONTINUED PART V

Another time, Ma, Grace, Pearl and I were headed for Sylvia and Johnnie’s to spend the day. Grace was driving as usual when, down the road, coming toward us was a thresher’s outfit. Big steam engine, puffing along, huge separator, team of horses pulling the water wagon. It was quite a parade headed our way. Of course Ma was frightened, the road very narrow and a ditch on our right. It was just common courtesy for the engineer to stop his big engine, get off to ask if we would like him to lead our horse past. (They always did that if they met a woman driver. Women were not supposed to know enough to handle a horse). So, the gentleman asked and Grace said “No, I can handle it, our horse is not afraid”.

But my mother said “yes, please”. So, the gentleman took hold of the horse’s bridle and led us past. The horse? It never gave a second glance to the big noisy thing with its string of scary looking tools following along. But Grace? Her pride was showing and she was really upset with her mother. Ma? She heaved a big sigh of relief and thanked the man kindly. Pearl and I? We were just the two little guys who weren’t expected to have an opinion for or against. You might have had one but you didn’t express it to your elders. Those were the days when children were seen but not heard.

Have patience, just this one more horse story and I’ll unhitch them and call it a day. Where we lived in Vermontville on East Main Street, there was no barn, so we couldn’t keep a horse. There was a livery stable where you could rent them so when we wanted to go anywhere, that’s what Ma did. Mr. Kelley had lots of nice horses and then one old one that nobody but my mother would ever rent unless all others were out. That horse was the one for her! It had an ailment called the string-halts. He would be moving right along, when all of a sudden his right hind leg would begin to jerk and up it would come, sometimes almost hitting his stomach. It was funny and like somebody had a string on his hoof and would jerk his leg up and underneath its body. I suppose that was why it was called the string-halts. (It was a good deal like the seizures I had, after falling down the back porch). It never stopped the horse whether he was walking or trotting. He just kept doing his thing. I was always glad the kick went toward his body and not back at the buggy.

Uncle John was ashamed of us when we would drive into his yard. He told Aunt Sylvia he was always glad to see us but he wished Ma would rent another horse. Johnnie always drove such nice ones.

Now, I’ll unhitch my horse from the buggy, turn him loose, he will trot to the water tank for a drink, then I’ll follow him into his stall, remove the harness, hand it on the wall back of him, put on the halter, fasten the rope to the manger, go upstairs in the barn and put hay down the chute to his manger, give him a pan of grain, clean the stall out, placing new, fresh straw in for his bed and give him a big pat for a thank you and let him rest. Or I might just remove his harness and turn him outside the barn and watch him trot out to the pasture to graze. Maybe he’ll frolic around a little or lie down and roll over to shake the feel of the harness from his body and scratch his back on the grass.

OUR WOOD HOUSE. This was no shed with a slanting roof, but a rectangular building with gable ends just like a house, making it much roomier inside than a shed.

Situated about twenty-five feet from the back door, parallel with the house, it was used for many things besides just a place to store wood. When Old Man Winter came roaring in, baring his teeth and shaking white stuff all over the ground, he didn’t frighten us any. My Dad had plenty of good dry wood, cut in our own woods, to keep us warm all winter. Chunks for the heating stove, slabs all split to fit the cook stove, piled neatly in huge ranks across one end. Chunks in one place, split wood in another, ready and waiting to be carried inside to keep us warm and to cook our food.

Come on Old Man, using our iron pokers to stir the fires and keep them blazing, we’d fight you ‘til spring. No one really wins. Mother Nature just sends winter away to some other part of the world, only to send him back to us another year.

We are ready for him again, though. My Dad and Arby always cut our wood for the following year in the current winter, piled it in the woods to dry out and be ready for use. That really kept the woods in a nice clean condition. Sawing up the fallen trees, burning the brush after the good wood was cut out, sometimes sawing down a tree that looked like a storm might blow it over, kept the woods clean and made it easy to drive around in at sugar making time.

Now, I’m NOT getting into the sugar making business. If you want to know all about that, just go to Merle Martin’s, Gearhart’s, Zemke’s or someplace and get your information there. Really I should tell you the primitive way of making sugar. You can’t feature from the old way of doing it. Such a wonderful change and so much easier.

Wood was not the only think Pa and Arby cut in the winter. They also cut ice. Wood and ice were two items I forget to add to the list of things when I wrote about our living. When the water in the lakes froze into ice at least twelve inches or more, the men folk hitched a team to the sleighs, driving out towards the center of the lake, cut uniform blocks of ice. Bringing it home, they would stack it up, with plenty of sawdust between and around the blocks for insulation. They would put it in the north end of our wood house for summer use. Ice cream, iced tea, lemonade, and, oh, so many things to use ice for.

Home made ice cream was such a treat on a hot Sunday afternoon. Arby would take the ice tongs and remove a block of ice from the top of the pile, being very careful not to take up the sawdust away from the next block. If you let air get in through the sawdust, the ice would melt. Tamping the sawdust back in place, the next stop was placing the ice in a gunny sack, pounding it with the broad side of an axe, getting the pieces small enough to pack around the container.

While Arby was getting things going outside, Mae, Sylvia, and Grace were busy in the kitchen, stirring up the ingredients for the cream itself. The freezer was a little like a pail, only it was made of wooden slats fastened together like the staves in a barrel. The bottom had a depression in the center, in which the ice cream can fitted.

Next the metal can was filled with the cream mixture, just ¾ full (had to allow for expansion) then the dasher was carefully inserted. This had paddles on the sides that whipped the cream, while they turned around and around, scraping the sides.

The cover was then put on. It fitted down tightly over the outside like a cap. The dasher had a slight extension, which came through the cover, then fitted into gears in the center of the hook-like think that hooked down over the can and onto the sides of the pail. In the center of this contraption were gears to turn the can. After this was done you screwed on the handle, packed the space between can and pail with ice and salt, added to make a brine. Ice alone would not freeze, so you added salt. Then you started turning. As soon as you could feel it getting a bit thick, you’d always take the cover off, just to have a taste to see if it was O.K. You also checked to see if you needed to add more flavoring. Be very careful, now, because even a drop of brine off the cover into the cream and the stuff would not freeze. You turned and you cranked until you couldn’t make the dasher move. It was ready. Opening the cover, you removed the dasher. A lot of cream came out with the paddles and everyone got a lick at that with a spoon. Yummie, yummie!! Lots of work, but what fun!

I worked in a restaurant in Vermontville one summer. I think I was fourteen that year. Mr. Downing, the proprietor made his own ice cream. When he’d remove the dashers he’d call to me. “Frisky, come lick the greaser”. He never had to call twice. Frisky was Mr. Downing’s nickname for me. There was a lot of licking to do all alone. We served a lot of ice cream. It was just delicious. He made several kinds, but he would never give anyone his recipe.

That was an interesting summer for me and they were interesting people, in their sixties. They told me much about their past lives. They were brother and sister---and twins at that. John and Jennie were their names. Mr. Downing was married but his wife never worked in the restaurant. They lived just a couple of doors west of us on East Main Street. One or the other would always walk on home with me when we came home late. Miss Jennie (as everyone called her) had never been married. She was engaged when she was young to a boy who was killed in the Civil War. She still wore his ring on the first finger of her left hand as was the custom in the days of her youth. Often, she’d want to bring me a special book, or some music and she’d always move her ring to her third finger, saying then, she would remember because it felt peculiar there.

Goodness sake, I was telling you about the many uses of our wood house and now I’m fourteen years old, working for my nice friends in Vermontville. (Received $2.00 per week). Not only have I gone clear around Robin Hood’s Barn but everyone’s in the neighborhood and it’s four and a quarter miles to Vermontville. Anyway it popped into my mind, and now it’s on paper. I’ll get back home again, because my mother might want an armful of wood.

STILL IN THE WOOD HOUSE. Back in Ohio, nearly everyone had a small house in their back yard. It was called a summer house, used for cooking your meals outside to avoid building a fire inside and heating your house up in hot weather. My Dad laid a floor in the center of our wood house, installed a cook stove and my mother had her summer house. Ma would cook our meals, carry the prepared food across the strip of lawn, up four steps, across the back porch, then to the big living room and to the front porch. No problem! She had a nice cool place for her men folks who were hot and tired from their work in the fields, to relax and rest. Of course the older girls helped her.

The porch was the type recessed into the house with just one side open. Ours was about 21 feet long, really just a continuation of the living room, probably 10 feet wide, a door (west side) right in the center, out of the living room. A door at the south opened into the parlor, one opening into a bedroom on the north end. The east side was the one exposed to the outdoors, door in center and entrance steps outside. This opening was covered with screen. Being closed in on three sides, we used it from early spring until late fall. The table was at the north end and the south half was furnished with a small stand for your oil lamp at night, a rocker or two. Just a nice cozy little corner in my world. Such a lovely place to eat, too. Always proud to have company. There were not many people who had a dining room like ours.

Here’s one meal I’ll never forget. Back in those days it was customary for your school teachers to visit the parents of their pupils. An unmarried one would quite often come for supper and spend the night, thus staying for breakfast too. Married ones came bringing their wives and children. We never knew ahead of time when they were going to appear. This time our teacher, Harry Bedford, his wife and their son appeared at our house just as we were sitting down for our noon meal. Pushing our chairs closer together, Ma made room for three more people, hoping she had enough food for all. Well, she did, with the exception of one dish---Kentucky Wonder green beans. At their best, I think, when old enough for the beans to pop out of the pods and the pods are still tender enough to eat.

Ma always cooks them with a piece of meat, my favorite dish. Also it turned out to be a favorite with young Merle Bedford, probably five or six years old at the time. His father was a strict school teacher but he had no control over his own kid, who liked MY FAVORITE DISH so well he wouldn’t eat another thing his mother put on his plate. All at once the beans were gone and my mother had no more in the kitchen either. Merle was so mad he threw a tantrum, looked up at Ma and said “You didn’t cook enough, you better get up and cook me some more”. Well, I hadn’t had enough either, but I would have had if Bedfords hadn’t appeared on the scene.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association,
April 1986, Volume 21, Number 5. Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: MEYERS, KREAMER, FRALICK, SHIDLER, WRIGHT, SMITH, STINCHCOMB, LOVELL, WELCH

MEYERS CEMETERY - ALMOST WITHOUT FAIL spring is the time when we review the damage that has been done by vandals in the cemeteries. Never have I seen an honest confession of why they do it.

For one hundred ten years the grave markers, now somewhat weathered, of John and Cathreen Meyers have stood, facing the highway in the Meyers Cemetery in northeast Woodland Township a half mile north of Lakewood High School. Not far from that place once stood the Meyers Church and the Meyers school. Those are long gone and the M 50 highway now curves around the west side of the cemetery.

Years ago, somebody planted spruce trees around most of the boundary of the cemetery. Several of the burials in the cemetery were exhumed for burial in other cemeteries. Many other markers have been overturned and are piled against the trees. But the markers of John and Cathreen withstood the troubles of the times and kept their attitude to the road on the east side. With a look at them this spring, I find that John’s stone has been toppled, cracking in two places. It has been left leaning against that of Cathreen’s.

The Meyers family came to Woodland Township from Ohio in the 1850’s. John saw to it that each of his nine children had 160 acres of land on which to make a home. Only Jessie B. Meyers, grandson of John, kept the parcel for 100 years. His father was John’s first son, Ziba B. Meyers. The others of the family left a good sprinkling of descendants in the Woodland and Odessa area as well as in a great circle around the place.

Come refreshing weather, I plan to repair that stone that marks my great, great grandfather’s resting place. R. W. G.

ANTHONY KREAMER – (This article is submitted by Max McWhorter from the Portrait and Biographical Album of Barry & Eaton Counties, Chapman Bros., 1891.)

Anthony Kreamer, a well-to-do farmer residing on section 4, township of Sunfield, Eaton County, ranks high among his fellow-citizens as a man of sterling worth. He was born in Wayne Township, Wayne County, Ohio, April 16, 1837. The Kreamer family is of German origin and was founded in America by the great-grandfather of our subject. His grandparents, Michael and Susan Kreamer were both natives of Pennsylvania where was also born John Kreamer, the father of our subject. His birth occurred in Lancaster County, about 1806, and in his youth he learned the trade of shoemaking. Having removed to Wayne County, Ohio, he there wedded Mary FRALICK, who was born in Columbia County, Pa., February 10, 1810. Becoming financially embarrassed during the panic of 1837, to obtain relief he began working on the Erie Canal and in less than a month from that time was drowned near Cincinnati, Ohio.

The mother subsequently married John SHIDLER of Wayne County, Ohio, where they remained until 1849, when they removed to Richland County, that state. Their next place of residence was in Noble County, Indiana. The mother is still living, making her home in White County, Indiana with her youngest son, James P. Shidler. The family to which our subject belongs numbered four children---Elizabeth and George, who died in infancy; Emeline, wife of Martin McDonald, a farmer residing near South Milford, La Grange County, Indiana; and Anthony.

By her second union, Mrs. Shidler became the mother of six children, namely: Isaac of Galion, Ohio; Susan, deceased; George, who served as a soldier in the late war and is now living in Monticello, Indiana; William, who was killed at the battle of Lookout Mountain while serving as one of the boys in blue; Jane, wife of Samuel Albright of White County, Indiana and James P. who resides in the same county.

It was during the infancy of our subject that the death of his father occurred. He remained with his mother until eleven years of age, when he went to live with his grandparents, but twelve months later he started out in life for himself and from that time has been dependent upon his own resources. He is indeed a self-made man. He began working for a farmer in Richland County, Ohio, for $2.50 per month and retained that position for two and a half years, after which he was employed in a livery stable at Shelby, Ohio, for a year. The succeeding season he engaged in teaming in Fort Wayne, Indiana and then went to Swan, Noble County, Indiana, where he remained seven years, working on a farm as an employee in a sawmill or assisting to build a plank road.

In the meantime, Mr. Kreamer was married, to Miss Charity M. WRIGHT, of Swan, becoming his wife. Their union was celebrated April 12, 1860, and unto them were born eight children as follows: Dayton J., Orville A., William W., Carrie A., Emma, Oliver, Oscar and John C. The mother of the family, who was born in November, 1835, and was the daughter of Oliver and Amanda WRIGHT, departed this life June 13, 1877. On the 12th of March, 1879, Mr. Kreamer was joined in wedlock with Catherine A. Smith, widow of Robert Smith of Sunfield, and a daughter of Asa and Elizabeth STINCHCOMB of Sunfield Township. Two children grace their union---Ernest L. and Elsie L.

Immediately after his first marriage, in the spring of 1860, Mr. Kreamer rented a farm in De Kalb County, Indiana, which he operated until the fall of 1861. The war having broken out, he could no longer remain quietly at home and enlisted as a private in the Fifth Indian Light Artillery, serving until February, 1863, when on a surgeon’s certificate of general disability, he was discharged at Nashville. He participated in the battles of Bowling Green, Ky., Iuka, Miss, Champlain Hill, Stevenson, Ala. And Stone River, after which battle he was taken sick and sent to the hospital in Nashville, where he remained until discharged. He was never wounded or taken prisoner and never off duty until the sickness, which necessitated his confinement in the hospital.

Mr. Kreamer has never fully recovered from the injurious effects of his army life, but as soon as possible he resumed work, again renting the same farm upon which he lived previous to his enlistment. Selling out in February, 1865, he went to St. Louis, where he entered the Government employ and later was transferred to Omaha, Nebraska, his service constituting irregular warfare against the Indians on the frontier. He there remained until November, 1865, during which time the troops suffered intensely from lack of provision. They had to live upon horse and mule flesh for about six weeks and many died of starvation. At the time above mentioned, Mr. Kreamer returned to South Milford, Indiana, where he worked at various employments until the following April when he came to Eaton County, Michigan, purchasing the farm in the Township of Sunfield, which has since been his home.

It comprises eighty acres, all of which was then in its primitive condition and covered with a heavy growth of timber, in which the chopper’s ax had never awakened an echo. There was not a house in sight and he had to cut a road to the place. A log house, 18 x 24 feet was erected and in that cabin home his family lived for several years. It is still standing, one of the few landmarks of pioneer days that yet remains. The usual hardships and trials of frontier life fell to his lot. He had to pay $3 per bushel for wheat and $9 per hundred for flour. Leaving his family, he went fifteen miles into the forest to cut wood to pay his taxes.

He had only $380 to begin life in the West, which sum was soon expended and with only his strong right arm to depend upon he has made his way in the world, overcoming the difficulties in his path and surmounting all obstacles until he is now reckoned among the substantial agriculturalists of Eaton County.

The hardships of his army and pioneer life have, however, undermined his health. In politics he is a Republican. He served three years as Highway Commissioner and has held a number of township offices to the credit of himself and his constituents.

Socially he is a Master Mason, a member of the Odd Fellows society and of Samuel W. Grinnell Post, No. 283, G. A. R. of Sunfield.

(This excerpt from the Portrait and Biographical Album should add to the interest of the Anthony Kreamer Diary sections that have appeared here.)

MYRTIE ( LOVELL WELCH’S) MEMORIES VI – IN SCHOOL

Mr. Bedford, our teacher, had a violent temper and he believed in “laying hands” or anything else handy on his students. I saw him get mad once and hit a boy, almost as big as he was, over the head with a slate, breaking the slate in a hundred pieces, leaving the frame dangling around the student’s neck. The boy sat just across the aisle from me.

Another time, I whispered in school to the girl in the seat in front of me. Mr. Bedford saw me and I was ordered up front to stand and face the rest of the students. Well, I never had been ordered up front before and I wasn’t about to go then, but I did! He came back to my seat, tried to pull me out, but I had one leg around the underside of my desk and I refused. He didn’t just pull, he then yanked me out. I don’t remember, but I know I must have stood on the floor. I do remember how I scraped the hide all off my leg.

Now, a teacher who did the things Mr. Bedford did would lose his job. Although I know, now, that my folks didn’t like it, I was told “You shouldn’t have been whispering. You should always do as you are told. If you hadn’t hooked your leg around the desk, you wouldn’t have scraped it etc., etc.”. I didn’t get much sympathy.

Just a couple of other experiences I had on the front porch, then I’ll go out the back door and start all over on the uses of our wood house.

My Dad was waiting on the front steps of the porch for some guy who was coming to see him. The man was training a colt to drive on the road. He had him hitched up to a cart. When training a horse to pull a vehicle, you’d first drive it around the yard, back the lane, anywhere it was familiar with. Next step was out on the road. My Dad saw this man coming down the steep hill south of us, when all at once something frightened the colt, starting him into a run. The man lost control. The horse slackened his speed a little coming up the steep hill to our place. My Dad ran to the road, as the horse turned into our driveway, he grabbed him by the bridle strap down close to the bit. Hanging on tightly, his weight pulling on the bit, soon slowed the horse down. He stopped about a hundred feet or so from the driveway. BUT, the sudden stop made my Dad lose his hold on the bridle, falling to the ground, landing on his side, breaking his left arm between the elbow and wrist.

Next thing I remember was sitting on the front porch, looking through the south door, into the parlor. Ma and Mae had him propped up with pillows, putting cold cloths on his forehead to keep him from fainting and waiting for the doctor to come. The doctor was four and a quarter miles away and there were no telephones. I don’t remember how they managed to call him but I have an idea Arby probably rode his horse into town. The doctor would then have to drive his horses out, so more time was consumed.

I remember when he arrived, he examined my Dad’s arm, saying it was broken. Then saying “I’ll have to have help from one of you”.

Ma said “I can’t and walked away crying, but Mae said “I’ll help you”. The doctor said “You’ll have to hold him while I pull the bones back together, but first, I’ll give you some morphine, Dan, to lessen the pain”.

Dad replied “I don’t want it, you just go ahead and do whatever you have to do, I’ll make it”. So the doctor pulled and Mae held on. I still remember the grating sound of those bones going back in place.

Writing this has made the whole episode come back to me vividly. The horse, running at full speed down one hill, then up the next, turning into our driveway. My Dad, grabbing the bit, dangling from the horse’s head, his feet just touching the ground once in a while, then being thrown almost under the horse’s feet. Also his lying on the couch, waiting for the doctor and all the rest. If I live to be 100 (and I might just do that, just to be ornery). I’ll never forget this day. Did I say it was a long time ago? Today it seems like the event was just yesterday.

THE THRESHERS. This happened sometime between 1905 and 1909. I know, because Sylvia was married in 1905 and Grace in 1909. At this time Ma, Grace, Pearl and I were the only ones left at home. I would have been any age between 15 and 19. At heat and oats threshing time, Ma hired this man who brought his own crew with him. That made it easier for Ma as she didn’t have to scour the neighborhood for help. There were always three men who came with the tresher’s rig, the engineer, separator man and the water wagon guy.

One night, it was almost dark and here came the whole kit and caboodle. Engine, separator, water wagon and a truck full of men to stay over night. They had finished their job that day with just time enough to move to our place before dark. They would be able to get to work earlier the next morning by staying with us, so all we had to do was find a place for them to sleep.

Well, I don’t know exactly how many there were but we had three beds upstairs and one downstairs in the spare bedroom. These were all filled with one man left over. Ma fixed him a place on the couch in the parlor. Grace slept on the lounge in the setting room. Ma’s bedroom was at the north end of the porch. Pearl always slept with her. There I was, no place to lay my lousy head as Aunt Diana Pickens used to say. Ma said I’d have to sleep with her and Pearl. I refused to sleep three in a bed on a hot night like that. We had a hammock on the south end of the porch and I decided to sleep in that. My mother argued it would be very uncomfortable, as well as I might fall out. Of course, you know me, I argued right back that I had taken naps in the hammock lots of times, enjoyed it, didn’t fall out either. I won and we finally all were bedded down for the night.

That was the longest night of my whole life and there’s been quite a few of them. I slept for a little while, my feet as high as my head, the rest of me doubled up in between. The hammock was prickly. I wanted to turn over but couldn’t, had to lie on my back. Every bone in my body ached and I knew I should have listened to my mother. She told me to make a bed on the floor. I couldn’t even get up and fix me a pad in the night. There was no place for a quilt, the floor was bare, not even a rug to crawl out on. So, I just laid there and suffered it out until morning. The porch faced the east and I was sure I saw the first crack of dawn next morning. Then my mother said “I tried to tell you, but that didn’t help either”. It proved that mothers always know best. At least mine did. I was not always sure that I did know best after I became a mother.

At lots of places the men on threshing crews were told to sleep in the barn. That was not my mother. She said hard working men needed a good night’s rest in a nice clean bed. When I was trying to sleep in that hammock, I thought I almost would rather sleep in a hay mow as to ever try that again.

Back to the woodhouse I go. It’s Sunday night, copper wash boiler must be placed on the stove, nice soft rain water carried from the cistern pump in the kitchen to fill it, wood laid in the stove to be touched off in the morning, everything in readiness for Monday’s washing. Can you imagine the pile of clothes? Eight people could soil a lot of clothes, not to mention sheets, pillow cases, towels, etc. All of these had to be rubbed by hand on a wash board. Home made soap wasn’t much like our detergents today.

My mother used to wash outside on the grass. It was much cooler and pleasanter but still hard work. It took pails and pails of water. After scrubbing them clean (you hoped) the clothes were next placed in the boiler and boiled. You then took them out of the hot water with a stick, putting them into a pail, then emptying them into the tubs filled with clean cold water. You sozzled them up and down, round and about to rid them of the soap suds. Then you wrung them out by hand. Then you dip them into the second tub of water and proceeded to repeat the process.

Now, you were ready to hang them on the line, proud, they looked so white and pretty. Sometimes if a towel or table cloth had a slight stain, you’d spread it on the grass in the bright sunshine and quite often the stain would disappear. Do you think you’re through? Oh, no. Look back there on the floor, all the colored clothes are yet to be washed. Quite often the first rinse water would still be warm, also a little soapy and we would use that for the colored clothes. Putting the scrub board into this tub, spreading the closes on it, we’d rub the worst spots with a cake of soap, then rolling it up and placing the rolls in the back of the tub, letting them soak a bit, made the dirt come out easier.

Ma would call out “One of you girls make some starch!” There would be aprons, dresses, shirts, waists (you call them blouses now) then a frilly one was a waist. Tailored ones were shirt waists, under skirts or petticoats (your name---slips). All these had to be put through the starch water before hanging to dry. I, at least can appreciate the modern day fabrics.

I remember the first step to easier wash days was a portable wringer, which clamped on the edge of your tub. This made it much easier than wringing your clothes by hand, even though you had to turn a crank.

Most of the mountain of clothes had to be ironed next day. Sometimes we put the sheets back on the beds, but if you were putting them in the drawers, they, too, were ironed. The first irons that I remember were called sad irons. It was a good name for them. The irons were not sad, of course, but you were, having to use them. They were molded into a form, handle included. The handle was just as hot as the bottom of your iron. We had to use a pot holder to cover the handle.

We had three irons, heated over a roaring fire in the cook stove or range. You’d test the temperature of your iron by picking it up by the handle, tipping it up, wetting your finger in your mouth, quickly touching the bottom with your wet finger. If you heard a sizzling noise, the temperature was O K and you could start ironing.

Using one iron until it began to cool, you placed it back on the stove and used another. “Keep your fire going, girls, so your irons will stay hot”.

Once, I remember I was ironing Sylvia’s petticoat. It was long (she wore her dresses ankle length) with a full twelve inch ruffle around the bottom starched quite stiffly to make her skirt stand out. I was getting tired of it, so, I decided the top part didn’t show, so why iron it? Folding it carefully, as just the pretty starched ruffle was outside, I laid it on the table. Sylvia was putting clothes away and she discovered my little trick. She said “Myrtie, you didn’t iron the top of my skirt”. I quickly informed her of my reason. Her answer was she’d know it wasn’t ironed. Handing it back to me she said “finish this” and I quickly obeyed. I never could get away with anything. Older sisters also knew best.

This is one ironing chore I brought upon myself. Probably I was fourteen or fifteen years old at the time and I wanted a white skirt. Choosing white Indian head material and having no pattern, I decided to box pleat the material onto a belt. Sounds simple? That’s what I thought too. It was much easier said than done. Those box pleats had to be pinned in from top to bottom, not only when I sewed it but also at ironing time. Again Ma and Grace tried to tell me that I’d be sorry and not to expect them to do it. It was my skirt. The ironing took me an hour but I was thankful I didn’t have to use the old iron hot handle. A few years back, someone had manufactured a flat iron with a removable wooden handle.

From the sad iron to electric steam irons, I have used them all. Now, they have become almost unnecessary because of the new fabrics, no ironing. That’s the kind of material I would have had to make that skirt. Myrtie

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association,
May 1986, Volume 21, Number 6. Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

NOTE: Robert W. Gierman was injured in a fall in April and was unable to do this edition of THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR. Filling in for him is Rus Gregory.


SURNAMES: LOVELL, WELCH

When “Myrtie’s Memories” by Myrtie Candace (Lovell) Welch (1984) last appeared, she had just told us about the difficulty of ironing box pleats into a skirt she made for herself when she was 15. Her Memories continue under a heading WOOD HOUSE AGAIN:

Just have to return to this house long enough to tell you this: It also doubled as a bath house. Water carried out from the cistern pump in the kitchen, boiler filled, fire in stove lit to heat the water nearly to boiling. A dipper or two of boiling water would be enough to warm the wash tub of cold water already in the tub for a person to step into. Don’t remember whether the older ones took their baths out there or not, but I suppose they did, too, in the summer time.

This one time is the only one I remember. Ma always gave her two little girls (Pearl and me) their baths at the same time. Often she had us all scrubbed (I mean scrubbed), we would step out of the wash tub to be dried. This time she said “I wish you little girls would get some meat on your bones. You are so poor you look like a couple of little starving Cubans”.

It was during the Spanish-American Civil War and papers were full of pictures of the children who were starving to death. I presume this remark of hers is the reason for me remembering this.

The contents of the old Wood House were never the same after my father died. Of course, Ma used it for cooking our meals, laundry work, etc., but never again did we have it full of wood, all split and piled ready for the summer, no chunks all trimmed so they would fit in the heating stove to keep us warm in winter.

Ma would have to hire the wood cut and the persons who cut it for her didn’t bother to lap off a piece so it would go into the stove. Many times we would bring a chunk in, only to find it too big for the door. You’d twist it this way and that before giving up.

CARPETS: WE MADE THEM.
Sewing carpet rags. That was my first introduction to the use of a needle and thread. Learning how to thread the needle and then making the knot in the end of your thread. That was a real accomplishment for a little girl.

First, though, all the discarded cotton clothes had to be torn into uniform widths. My mother would take a skirt, for instance, cut off the belt, also seams, rip out the hem, then along the top take the shears, clipping ¾ inch widths down about an inch. Now, you could take it and tear the rags on down. I enjoyed the noise they made, it also helped me work off some of the energy I never seemed to run out of.

The light colored rags, old sheets, and pillow cases, Ma dyed them black, blue, red, yellow, and brown. We would mix these bright colors in with the others or sometimes sew each color by itself. Then the weaver would arrange them together to make about a six inch strip in your carpet at regular intervals. This cost more to have woven than the regular hit and miss type. Was a little more difficult, too, in sewing your strips of carpeting together.

The strips were about 30 inches wide and made the length of your room, but you had to sew them by hand. When you had the strips woven in, they had to be exactly matched. It was quite a job. Only remember one of Ma’s that way; it was for the parlor. We thought it beautiful and it really was.

Most young girls thought it was a punishment to sew carpet rags, but I loved it. Sometimes I liked to go with my mother to a rag-sewing bee held for some person who had a large family and not much time to sew up her rags for a carpet. The ladies in the neighborhood would come to this person’s house, in the morning, bringing needles, thread, thimbles, and scissors along with a potluck dinner. By night time they had enough rags sewed to make her carpet. Used to know how many pounds of rags it took for a yard of carpet, but I’ve forgotten.

I always felt so grown up when I’d sit down with my lap full of rags, threading my own needle, sewing the strips together, then rolling them up in a neat little ball, placing it in the basket just like the grown-up ladies.

It was no small deal to make a carpet. Lots of folks would have only one in their living room; others, none, leaving the floors completely bare.

In the early 1900s, a carpet called Ingrain came on the market. It was woven of wool and had designs in it. Big red roses; sometimes pretty colored leaves. Such a change from the rag carpets but so expensive very few people could afford them.

You have all seen small looms for weaving, I know, but very few of you could have an opportunity to see the large ones. A few years ago there was a lady in Portland who wove floor rugs. I had her make some for me. Presume there are some looms around today but I know of none.

I’ve try and describe one; probably I can’t make it very clear on paper, but I’ll make a stab at it. It was really quite an invention. The loom frame I’ll make a stab at it. It was really quite an invention. The loom frame itself was probably 5 feet wide and perhaps 8 feet high, maybe 3 feet deep. On the back were two round rollers, one above the other. One held the warp and the other the finished carpet. The front was like a table top. The warp came from a roll, underneath this top, then went on a slight incline towards the top and out to the carpet roll. The carpet warp was threaded into place the width of the carpet strips. I think they were 30-inch strips. By using two colors of warp, a strip would be going the long way of your carpet. My mother usually chose red and black to be alternated. Usually about 6 inches wide, first a red, then a black. If you were using just the hit and miss rags, this gave a little more color and a sort of pattern.

After your loom was all threaded up, the rags were put into a shuttle. This was a real thin piece of board about three inches wide and six inches long, having an eye hole in the front end and at the back was a notch. You threaded the shuttle just like you would a needle and then fastened it securely in the notch at the end. Can’t imagine what kind of wood was used for this shuttle. Perhaps it could have been maple. It was almost pure white and as smooth as glass.

Now let’s get this show on the road and start weaving. I think Mrs. Lovell is in a hurry for her carpets.

You pull a kitchen stool up in front of the table, sit down, and you’re ready. There are two long narrow pedals underneath the table, on which you place your feet because you are the motor for this complicated thing.

You start pushing slowly and evenly with first one foot and then the other. Oh, hold everything! I don’t have the rags laced in yet. Forgot to tell you at the upper end of the warp, long bar with eyes to lace is placed. This bar is stationary but at the bottom, right in front of the operator, is a portable one. Laced with the warp to correspond with the top. Now, using your threaded shuttle, you weave your rags across the warp, maybe under about four strings, then over four. You lace a couple of rows of rags through, then start to pedal. Next you push that portable bar up and literally pound the rows of rags together.

As you kept lacing, pushing, and pedaling, your carpet was fed onto the roll at the back. Must have been some measuring device somewhere. Just for instance: your strips would need to be twelve feet, or any room length. You stopped weaving the rags in and wove a selvedge with the warp back and forth between each string. You then ran about 6 inches of just the warp strings and started the next strip. This made a place to cut the lengths of carpet before sewing them together.

How come I remember so much about this? The lady living just two farms north of us wove carpets. It was right on my way home from school. I was fascinated with this loom. Thought it was the most wonderful invention. Sometimes Mrs. Schaffer would let me sit down and weave a few minutes, not long enough though, because she was afraid I couldn’t beat the rows together tightly enough….

Now, the carpet is ready and all Mrs. Lovell has to do is sew it together, then tack it down on the room floor. Ma never would let anyone help her with that sewing. Using carpet warp and a big needle, she would whip those edges together so one could hardly see the seams. Then, too, she was very particular to have it sew so tightly that the threads couldn’t possibly break when you stretched it on the floor. At last, Ma’s finished and ready to put the carpet down.

Older girls have the walls all wiped free from dust, woodwork washed, and windows shining. Floor mopped, they now cover it first with newspapers, then carry the new carpet in, spread it carefully on top of the papers. Now, here comes Ma, saucer full of tacks in one hand, hammer in the other, and a frown on her face, dreading her job……..

Starting in the corner, she would go a yard or two each way, then one of the girls helping to stretch it, they would go across one side and eventually finish clear around the room. The last side was always the hardest. Some times it would seem like you never would make it. Whoever was down on the floor pulling it in place so Ma could put a tack in, there fingers might sometimes give out and back would go the carpet. Then someone else would come stomping and pushing the carpet with their feet, then stand and hold it in place until the tack could be hammered in. What a job! But very rewarding; once it was completed you forgot about the work……

To be continued.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association,
August 1986, Volume 22, Number 1. Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: AUNGST, McALISTER, STUCK, LEAK, BRIGGS, LUMBERT, PROBASCO, DERBY, SWINEHART, McWELTHY, LOVELL, WELCH

ROSINA, Jan. 16, 1886 (unnamed source) –
Frank AUNGST (sic) of Indiana has been visiting friends here.
Thomas LEAK and son have returned from a visit in Indiana.
Newton TROXTON is visiting among friends in Osceola County.
Old Mr. McALISTER has rented Mr. DETERICK’S farm house and moved his family into the same one day last week.
Thomas LADE will spend the remainder of the winter with friends in New York.
The young men of Sebewa Corners thought it would be nice to have a band, but we think they are like the man we read about in the old book, they didn’t count the cost.
Mrs. A. FENDER has an aunt visiting her from Ohio.
Ora LAPO has so much business he has to have an assistant.
Mr. FIELD has closed a very successful term of singing school.
--FUN, The Sentinel, Jan. 19, 1886 – ROSINA, Jan. 19, 1886.

ROSINA, Jan. 25 –
Mahlon STUCK, from Sunfield, made a flying visit Sunday.
Mrs. Evira TORPY has gone on an extended visit among friends in Clare County.
The Messrs. LEAK have a sister visiting them from Huron County.
The social held at Mr. HUNT’S was a financial success. A good time was enjoyed.
The report that Eddie GRAY was bettr and home was a false one, for he is still lying in a very critical condition at Bowne Center.
William LEAK was returning from Indiana, where he has been visiting friends.
J. HAMMOND has opened a general boarding house for all the “fatherless” children in the neighborhood.
W. INGALL was skidding logs and one rolled on to him injuring him quite severely.
J. C. BRIGGS sold a four year old colt last week for $150.
--FUN, The Sentinel, Jan. 27, 1886.

ROSINA, Feb. 1:
O. B. HEATH, formerly of this place, now of Dakota, is visiting friends here.
Mrs. J. C. BRIGGS has returned home from a visit among friends in Ohio.
Mrs. Ella WINTERS, who has been visiting friends in this place, has returned to her home in Barryville.
TEW’S Band of Orange made the Rosina Band an unexpected visit last week, consequently the boys did not entertain them as well as they would have liked.
Thomas MARTIN’S little daughter Jessie is quite sick at this writing.
Mr. and Mrs. TRUXTON made friends in Sunfield a visit last week.
David and Hiram LUMBERT, who went from here about two years ago to Arkansas, are both reported dead. Hiram was shot dead while purloining his neighbor’s chickens.
Several farmers in this vicinity have got the Bohemian oat racket worked on them badly.
DUDE, The Sentinel, Feb. 2, 1886.

SEBEWA, Feb. 4.
A portion of Andrew WEIPERT’S milldam gave way Sunday night, leaving a breach about twelve feet wide. This makes the second time this winter that Mr. W. has been obligated to construct new banks.
Mr. John BARRY of Nashville and Mr. Oliver WELLMAn of Castleton made Alex MORGAN a visit last week.
Ephraim PROBASCO of this township has security the right of the county for the sale and manufacture of the Portland land roller.
E. C. DERBY has invented a land roller which is claimed to be far superior to the Portland roller. He will apply for a patent soon.
R. N. Wilson spends his spare time in buying saw logs.
S. F. DEATSMAN has been very sick with congestion of the lungs. He is now better and will be able to resume teaching in about a week, soliciting orders for the Michigan Hedge Fence.
Married, on Jan 31st, by A. A. GARLOCK, Esq., Mr. Joshua GUNN Jr. to Miss Mary Jane TRUXTON, alias “Highflyer” of the Portland Observer. Of course this happy couple both reside in Sebewa.
Last Saturday night a company of amateurs from Danby and Grand Ledge played a temperance drama in COLWELL’S Hall. The Hall was well filled and the play received merited praise.
The G. A. R. Post will give a social party in the above named hall Friday night, Feb. 5.
The M. E. Church has received the new bell, which weighs about four hundred and fifty pounds. It can be heard only two miles and will probably be sent back. The managers of the church are raising a subscription to build church sheds, as our horses have been obliged to stand out until they have become proof against cold weather. There is not the enthusiasm manifested in the subject that would have been four years ago.
Will RAMSEY is preparing to build a house on his farm in the spring.
SCRIBE, The Sentinel, Feb. 6, 1886.

ROSINA, Feb. 8.
Mr. Will HOWARD of Portland made Mr. TRUXTON’S folks a visit last week.
Mr. and Mrs. H. H. McWELTHY of Ainger made their parents a visit last week. Mrs. McWELTHY will spend a few weeks with her parents.
Mr. Thomas LADE who has been visiting friends in Rochester, N.Y., has returned home.
Mrs. Elnora TORPY who has been visiting her daughter in Clare County has returned home.
Mr. Swinehart’s people have friends visiting them from Ohio.
Jennie MARTIN is still on the sick list.
The United Brethren held a social at Mr. J. GILSON’S. The Rosina Band were in attendance and a good time reported.
The Baptist Church of this place contemplate holding a series of meetings.
J. S. Henry has the material on the ground for a barn.
The Sentinel, Feb. 11, 1886.

WEST SEBEWA, Feb. 15.
A drama entitled “The Last Leaf” was played at the Johnson Schoolhouse on Saturday evening, was played mostly by home talent and was pronounced a success. MISS BLANCHE ARNOLD and A. BUSH, acting as Mr. and Mrs. Ashton, did remarkably well, as did also Miss L. Coe as “Lillie”. E. DOWNING as Caleb Hanson, and J. JOHNSON as Caleb’s son Harry did well, but Miss PATTY (Miss Grace Bush), TOMM CHUBBS (Dale Smith), DICK BUSTLE (Chester Sandborn) capped the climax. Then followed a farce, “Do Not Judge By Appearances” which was very well rendered. The house was very crowded, every inch of standing room being occupied, but the very best of order prevailed.
Mrs. Wm. BREWER of Ionia and Miss WILCOX spent Saturday and Sunday with Mrs. Brewer’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. WM. BUSH.
Miss Fannie SWART(H)OUT, living in the northern part of this state, is visiting her parents, Mr. and Mrs. David SOULES.
The best lady waltzer will receive a silver cake dish at the party to be given at CALLWELL’S (sic) Hall in Sebewa, Friday evening, by the G. A. R. post.
A protracted effort is being held at this place by ELDERS BADDER and BUSH.
Sebewa has two literary clubs, one at West Sebewa and one at the Johnson school house, which will not take a back seat for any other club of their size.
“Chronicler” had better get to the front or some one will get ahead of him with news from this burg.
Matthew KNOWLES and C. McNEAL at broom factory No. 2 have quit making brooms, the broom corn being so expensive.
THE SENTINEL, Feb. 17, 1886.

ROSINA, Feb 22.
E. C. TRUXTON and A. PENCE started Friday for the north to look up some land.
Married, Sunday, Feb. 14, Charles W. HILL of Sunfield to Miss Lillie D. LEAK of Sebewa.
Charles KELLEY and wife of Charlevoix are visiting friends in this vicinity.
The Rosina Band will have closed doors after this.
W. D. TRUXTON returned from the pine woods Monday.
We think a little prohibition would do good around Rosina.
Protracted meetings are in progress at the Baptist Church.
Edward REESE, of the firm of Reese & Detterick of this place, will build a house in the spring.
We understand that A. O. LAPO, our enterprising merchant, will build a store and house in the spring, both in one.
DUDE, The Sentinel, Feb. 24, 1886

MYRTIE’S MEMORIES , continued:

By MYRTIE (LOVELL) WELCH in 1984.

MILK: Certainly has been a lot of progress in the handling of milk over the years of my life. In Ohio, the women always did the milking of the cows, in Michigan the men did the job. Neighbors thought my mother was crazy not to change her ways. To her it was a perfectly natural thing to do and was just one more of her daily chores. Pa could milk and did if my mother was sick but they were from Ohio and that was woman’s work, so she kept at it and he let her.

My first recollections are of seeing Ma go down the hill to the barn, with a shiny tin, twelve quart pail in each hand. Pails had to be bright and shiny. Ma was very particular that the milk we used was clean. In a short time back up the hill she came with her pails full of milk.

As I look back, seems like going up and down that hill was the hardest part of the job. Then, long after I was married, a cyclone came through and demolished our big bank barn. It was long after Ma left the farm forever, but she built a new barn for her tenants. It wasn’t built below the hill but up on top of it, back behind the house. No more struggling up and down that hill!

Guess I better get back to my mother and her pails of milk. Summertime, she would go down the outside hatchway into the cellar. This cellar was kept clean as any room in the house, probably cleaner. A table was at one side with gallon earthen jars to strain the milk into. My mother used a cloth as a strainer. Holding it tightly around one side of the pail’s brim, she would then tip the pail up and fill each crock. We had a regular strainer but Ma liked her way best. Thought it was more sanitary.

The milk was then left for the cream to raise. Cream was taken off with a skimmer, placed in a jar and left a few days. Next it was churned into butter. The skimmed milk was usually made into cottage cheese. That was the most delicious food. I’ll bet if one had some today and showed the cottage cheese one buys now to the original kind, it wouldn’t even be recognized as a poor relation. No comparison whatever.

A number of years after my father died, creameries came into use. There was one just west of the corner here on School Road. Built on the north side of street just before the road turns south to the school house. This creamery was still in operation when Ray and I were married in 1911. Our first home was the little white house on the corner of First Street and School Road. The creamery was next and only building to the west of us.

People were required to buy two ten-gallon milk cans for the milk to be transported. Then a stand had to be provided to put them on, built out at the edge of the road. This stand must be the same height as the flat-bed on the carrier’s wagon. The carrier, or milk man as we called him, handled his wagon with a team of horses, stopping at each farm house for the milk. All the cans were labeled with the owner’s name. Picking up the filled can, he would then leave an empty for us to fill……

What a lot of labor that saved Ma and us girls. Just milk the cows, bring the milk to the empty can sitting on the milk stand. Set the strainer on top of the can, pick the pail up and pour it in. No rinsing of strainer cloth, no cream to skim off, no crocks to be washed. Just wash and scald the milk pails and that chore was all taken care of. Also, no churning – bought our butter from the creamery……next on the market came cream separators. We never had one because that labor-saving device came after Ma left the farm.

John and Eulalie had one. It was quite a complicated machine. Cranked the thing by hand, cream came out one spout and skimmed milk out another. You wouldn’t believe all the parts that went into the making of the thing, until you dismantled it. You had to wash each piece, then put it back together for next time.

Next came a giant step in progress. No more taking your pails into the barn and milking the old way. Really it was very unsanitary. Farmers were told if they didn’t fix a special room for milking, no creamery would buy their milk.

The requirements would be so expensive, that unless you had a large herd of dairy cows, it was out of the question. Now, the modern way is wonderful, I think.

FIRSTS: In the early days of my life (I had to be less than ten), Pearl and I accompanied my father and mother to Lansing. Now, when you drove a horse thirty miles anywhere, you didn’t spend a few hours, then turn around and drive your horse another thirty; you stayed overnight.

We visited at the home of my Aunt Helen and Uncle Ed Wood. Aunt Helen’s first husband was my mother’s half-brother, William Ramsey, who died I the early years of their marriage. Later, Aunt Helen married this Mr. Wood. We hadn’t been there very long before I had a problem. After all, I had ridden thirty miles non-stop. I whispered my trouble in my mother’s ear and she in turn told Aunt Helen, who told Hattie to show me where to go. So, I followed Hattie and she started up the open stairway. I thought, where is she going? I want to go outdoors and I needed to go right now.

At the head of the stairs, Hattie opened a door into a little room, the likes of which I had never seen before. There was this big long, funny looking thing along one side, a big bowl like thing in the corner and in another corner was an object. I certainly didn’t know anything about that.

Hattie raised the cover and invited me to sit on the thing. While sitting there, I wondered where things were going. Maybe some place else in the house. This covered pail didn’t have anything except a little water in it when I sat down. I asked Hattie where it emptied and she said in Grand River. GRAND RIVER, I thought; I jumped off that stool like I’d been shot. Then she pulled a chain that was hanging down and the water came thundering down into the toilet. I jumped again, afraid I’d land in the river myself. Then when she walked to that other bowl, touched something and water began coming into that and said “You may wash your hands here”. Think of that, water in the bowl and no pump in sight. Now where did that come from? I was too scared to ask any more questions.

Next morning, Hattie took me for a walk. The river was nearby and we walked across the bridge. I wondered how in the world that thing last night emptied into Grand River this far from Aunt Helen’s house. Anyway, that was my first introduction to a bathroom.

Next first experience I remember right now was the telephone. About the time Pa died in 1901, there were a few telephones being installed out in the country. Two in our immediate neighbors’. On our way home from school one p.m., the two girls whose people had telephones were trying to explain it to me. I had told them I never had even seen one, let alone talking on them. I would soon be passing both their houses, so one girl said “I’ll go into my house and wait for you to call me from Mabel’s, and you can try it”. So Mabel and I walked on from Ada’s house, and stopped in at Bebel’s home. Here was this scary looking box that talked to you, hanging on a wall. Mabel told me what Ada’s ring was and said you just turn this little crank so many times, then put this receiver to your ear and listen. When she says “Hello” you say “Hello” back to her.

I reached for the crank and then, losing my nerve, told Mabel I was scared I wouldn’t do it right and asked her to crank it for me. She did, then put the receiver to my ear. Ada answered but I was so frightened that I dropped the receiver. Mabel handed it back to me, but I was so shaky. I can’t remember whether I said anything or not, but now I knew it really was true. It worked.

I miss the old-fashioned type that required an operator. Have been helped so many times by them; too, you could have a nice little chat with an operator while you waited for your party to answer. Myrtie, Ray’s sister, worked here a good many years and was very efficient. She also had worked in Lake Odessa and Grand Rapids before coming here.

When Johnnie died, we wouldn’t have known about it in time to get out there before it happened if the operator hadn’t called us. She knew from the calls coming into the office what was happening and so called Ray immediately. We were so grateful to her. Another time when Lois lived on Grandma Bishop’s place, she was alone with Danny in his high chair. Lois fainted away and when she came to her senses, crawled (couldn’t stand up) to the telephone, rang the operator and just said “Please call my mother, I’m sick” and hung up the receiver. The operator recognized Lois’s voice and called me at the store, telling me I’d better get out to Lois’s house, she was sick. Now, could these new-fangled outfits do that? Then, again, when Ray died, don’t know who the girl was any more, but she certainly was on the job. Calling people, telling them I needed help. Never will I forget that. New phones are another sign of progress, but I don’t like this one. The old way of the operators was so comforting to know. Just call the operator and you had sympathetic help at once. In small towns like ours, it was a good thing.

Might just as well include this story right here for it also involves Ethel, her mother and father, Mary and John Walsh. Before the road between the hills was graded up and filed in as it is now. Going south directly in front of our house was a very steep hill. The road leveled off maybe 25 or 35 feet, then another sharp hill. On this level spot was a small bridge, just about the same width of the road and probably not more than 4 or 5 feet wide. Don’t remember whether or not there was water running under there, but in the spring of the year the water came from somewhere. At times the bridge was covered but never very high. It was Saturday and neighbors south of us were driving to Vermontville to do their weekly shopping. The water was a little deep but nothing to be frightened about when all these people went to town soon after noon.

In the middle of the afternoon the water began rising. We could see it climbing higher and higher up each hill. Ma was worried about the people coming from town, so we sat on our steps to watch for them. Finally, they had all passed through except the Walshes. Ma said “I have to go start the milking, but I’m worried over Mr. and Mrs. Walsh. You girls sit here and wait for them. If they get into any trouble, you Myrtie, run for Arby and Ernie Benedict but tell Arby first. He is quicker than Ernie”. Arby, at that time, lived on the first farm north of us. Mr. Walsh came. He had two horses hitched to a single buggy with a top. Everything was fine when suddenly the buggy wheel ran off the side of the narrow board bridge, tipping the buggy over on its side, breaking the tongue loose, horses kept on dragging Mr. Walsh, holding fast to the reins, Mrs. Walsh holding fast to his coat tail, screaming “Ethel’s in the buggy” over and over. By this time I had headed for Arby’s, calling to get Ma to the house. Arby was at the supper table but he jumped up and was on his way. I hurried across to Ernie’s and told him, then started back home.

Arby was wearing rubber boots. I hadn’t gone very far before I saw one of them on the ground; a little farther on was the other boot. I carried the boots home. When I arrived Arby was just swimming out with Ethel in his arms. The buggy was entirely submerged with only one corner of the top in sight. Ethel’s head was up in that corner but her head was above water.

Arby had quite a time getting her out, he thought she was dead. Looking back now, she probably had fainted away or mayb struck her head as the buggy tipped over. Whatever it was, air in that part of the top above the water, and Arby, saved her life.

Next I remember the doctor being there. Pearl remembers them putting Ethel in bed in our spare bedroom and she and Mrs. Walsh were there for a week before Ethel was able to go home. Shock, I suppose, might have caused that.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association,
October 1986, Volume 22, Number 2. Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: CONKRITE, MYRTIE (LOVELL) WELCH, and those on the following list of Ionia County Rural Schools:

LIST OF RURAL SCHOOLS, by Rus Gregory

After a plea in the Recollector for which I was a substitute editor, a kind person lent me a copy of the 1919-1920 Ionia School Directory. A list follows. Readers will note some questions. Those are schools for which I’ve encountered confusions. Perhaps some schools were called by more than one name; perhaps school names were legally changed. I know some schools were closed by 1919-1920. The 1875 Atlas of Ionia County shows Ritenburg School and Ritenburg M. E. Church on a diagonal road, an extension of Grand River Trail, on the northeast corner of what is now the intersection of Grand River Avenue and Kelsey Highway. I’ve encountered no one, as yet, who has firm information on the two buildings. The list is convenient to have. What is still not answered, of course, is where the schoolhouses were located and what became of them as the districts were closed or annexed.

BERLIN
No. 2 Eddy School
No. 3 Fr. (Fractional? – lib), Coon School
No. 4 County Farm
No. 5 Fr., Benedict
No. 6 (Berlin) Center
No. 7 Hartwell
No. 8 Henderleiter
No. 9 Durkee
No. 10 Mud Street
No. 11 Fr., Randall

BOSTON
No. 1 North Bell
No. 2 South Bell
No. 3 Fr., Saranac, graded
No. 4 (Boston) Center
No. 5 Fr., Waterville
No. 6 Sage
No. 7 Fr., Ware
No. 8 Fr., Pearsall
No. 9 Hahn (Grove?)

CAMPBELL
No. 1 Bushnell
No. 2 Clarksville, graded
No. 3 Fish (Pleasant Valley?)
No. 4 Lake
No. 5 Darby
No. 6 Mill
No. 7 Jennings
No. 8 Rosenberger

DANBY
No. 1 Compton
No. 1 Fr(actional? - lib) Abbey
No. 2 Grub Town (Pence?)
No. 3 Frost
No. 4 School Section
No. 6 Lockwood (Barr?)

EASTON
No. 1 Prison
No. 2 Dexter
No. 3 Dildine
No. 4 Goodwin
No. 5 Welch
No. 6 Grove (Haynor?)

IONIA
No. 1 Fr., Loomis
No. 2 Fr., (North) LeValley
No. 3 Welch (Road)
No. 4 Holcomb
No. 5 (Lee P.) Spaulding
No. 6 Badder
No. 7 Oak Grove
No. 8 Fr., Stone
No. 9 Fr., Gorham
No. 10 Prairie Creek

KEENE:
No. 1, Potter’s Corners
No. 2 Fr., Sayles
No. 3 Day
No. 4 Fr., Culter
No. 5 Marble
No. 6, Tasker
No. 7, Stevens
No. 8, Wilkinson (Bowen?)

LYONS:
No. 1, Pewamo, graded
No. 1, Fr, L. & I., Lyons, graded
No. 1, Fr., L. & P., Maple Corners
No. 2, Ross
No. 3, Little Brick
No. 4, Townsend (Spaulding?)
No. 6, Kimball
No. 9, Crane
No. 10, Muir, graded
No. 11, Murphy

NORTH PLAINS
No. 1, Fr., Hayes
No. 2, Fr., Stone (Newman?)
No. 3, Stoten (Stoughton)
No. 4, (North Plains) Center
No. 5, Fr., Matherton
No. 6, Schaeffer
No. 7, Baker
No. 8, Fr., Hubbardston, graded
No. 9 Fr., County Line
No. 10, Sessions

ODESSA
No. 1, (Lake) Odessa, graded
No. 2, Bretz
No. 3, Baird (Beard?)
No. 4, South Cass (Odessa Center?)
No. 5, Algodon
No. 6, Limerick
No. 7, Bippley
No. 8, Fr., Nye
No. 9, Carr

ORANGE
No. 1, Steele
No. 1 Fr., Keefer
No. 3 Coleman
No. 5, LeValley
No. 7, Kilmartin
No. 9, Riker
No. 9 Fr., Pierce

ORLEANS
No. 1, Lambertson
No. 2, Dorr
No. 3, Orleans
No. 4, Heald
No. 5, Blanchard
No. 6, Hall
No. 7, Greene
No. 8, Fr., Chittle
No. 9, Piper
No. 10, Shiloh

OTISCO
No. 1, Cook’s Corners
No. 1, Fr., Hoppough
No. 2, Smyrna
No. 4, Fr., Cole (Kemp?)
No. 4, Fr., Kiddville (Oakwood?)
No. 5, Fr., Brink
No. 6, Seeley
No. 8, Button

PORTLAND
No. 1, Howe (Howell?)
No. 2, Hamlin
No. 3, Portland, graded
No. 3, Fr., Probart (Friendbrook?)
No. 4, Christian Bend
No. 4, Fr., Gibbs
No. 5, Collins
No. 6, Miller

RONALD
No. 1, Palo, graded
No. 2, Long Plain (s)
No. 3, (Ronald) Center
No. 4, Mattison
No. 5, Hardscrabble
No. 6, Fr., Case
No. 7, Literary Hall
No. 8, Hubbell (Hubble?)
No. 9, Woodard Lake
No. 10, Dye
No. 11, Little Brink (Normington?)

SEBEWA
No. 1, Fr., High (Sebewa?)
No. 2, Goddard
No. ?, West Sebewa
No. ?, (Sebewa) Center
No. ?, ___ shop
No. ?, Halladay
No. ?, ___hnson
No. ?, ___avis

HISTORY OF SEBEWA CORNERS by Fern Conkrite; Taped for Cable June 15, 1985, by R. Gierman

I am talking about the Sebewa Corners I knew from about 1900 to 1934. There were about 35 houses that sheltered some 90 people, more or less.

In an 1876 Atlas, Sebewa was a village divided by the town line. The part in Danby was known as Cornell – named for a family of early settlers.

John Bradley was the first Postmaster; he also had a grocery store. F. M. Cornell had a general store, Will Alberts had a hardware and blacksmith shop and sometimes we had a meat market.

Two churches were there – Methodist and United Brethern. The land was given by John Friend in 1876 for the Methodist Church and the Dan Halladays gave the land for the United Brethern in 1892. The U. B. people had a campground just West of Sebewa for a number of years.

Sebewa High School Franctional Dist. #1 was our center of learning. The school was named for the people who gave the land. The Halladay School was named for the family that gave the land for the church and school.

In the early days we had a rooming house and a hotel.

In the early 1900’s we had a daily mail delivery to Sunfield. Later the delivery was extended to Portland for a time. The first mailman that I remember was Rollo Derby, who carried to both Sunfield and Portland. Others were Lida Puffer, Minnie Southwell, Jessie Friend who carried only to Sunfield. After the Sebewa office was closed, R. F. D. came in and Lawrence Knapp was our mail carrier for a long time, like 25 years or more. He carried by horse and buggy in summer and team and sleighs in winter. He would drive one horse to Sunfield in the morning, change horses and deliver till noon and be back at the farm for dinner. He changed horses again and finished the route, then another change to the first one of the morning and came home again at night. That was the summer schedule. Winter time called for two horses on a sleigh as the teams had to go further. Each team made about 20 miles. Later a Model T Ford did the trick; then a new Model A and as time went on, a care to fit the times.

We had a flourishing I. O. O. F. and Rebekah Lodge – about 100 members in each one. I went through the chairs to Past Nobel Grand, to District Deputy Press, also President of the County Noble Grands. I played for the degree team.

Some of the clerks in the Bradley and Cornell stores were Harley Rogers, Tracey Williams, Rhoda Deatsman and Reva Snyder. Lillian Alleman was bookkeeper in the Cornell store and Leighton DeGraw, Alva Deatsman and Orson Drake were a few of the clerks.

Omar Baker was barn builder. Every year he had a crew of men working. Several barns are still standing that were “Baker Built”.

When I first went to school, we carried water from across the road. Later we got a well and pump. We used to keep warm with a Round Oak stove in the middle of the room. At least there was a fire in the stove. One teacher had as many as 30 to 40 pupils. They had good control – discipline. My teachers were Agnes Erdam, Bruce Gibbs, Emerson Ray, Grace Kenyon, Dorothy Samaine, Maude Samanine, Emma Wilton and Elizabeth Cornell.

In World War I we sent several boys to service. Some of them were Walter Brown, Otho Lowe, Floyd Erdman, Ivan McCormack, Clyde Hiar and Don Benschoter. Don is the only survivor. He and Winnie sent two boys, Junior and Norton, to World War II and Jim went in the Army of Occupation.

Our Doctors were Dr. Albro who moved to Portland and has a street named for him. Dr. Snyder was next and was with us for a long time, later going to Mulliken. Dr. Morse came next and went on to Lake Odessa. Dr. Crawford was the last and he went to Sunfield. By that time, automobiles were in so house calls could be made much easier than with horse and buggy.

Twice I can remember the Postoffice being robbed. Not much was taken. The safe was blown open. The last time it was robbed a horse and buggy was taken. The next morning it was found tied to the fence on the town line road (now Keefer Hwy.) and all the residents were home in time for breakfast. In other words, home talent!

Another incident I remember, Bradley had taken several cords of wood on store debts. The wood piles began to get smaller. Said merchant did a little detective work by putting a pinch of gun powder in several blocks of wood. In a few days a guy’s stove blew the door off. No more wood was taken!

On July 4, 1914, some boys made a cannon and packed it with gun powder and sand. They lit the wick in front of Cornell’s store. It exploded and a fragment went through the window striking a 6 year old boy. He was seriously wounded, dying a few hours later.

On September 18, 1921, the D. A. R. Society of Ionia erected a boulder about ½ mile South of Sebewa in memory of Johnathan Ingall, a veteran of the Revolutionary War.

Frances Ingalls Spaulding of Crystal was a granddaughter of Johnathan. Hall Ingalls was a brother of Frances. They were both born at Shimnecon. Later Hall married Nellie Baden whose father, Milton, was the first sexton of Portland Cemetery. Hall and Nellie lived the most of their married lives of some 60 years about a mile North of Sebewa. Both Frances and Hall were present at the ceremony dedicating the boulder in Johnathan’s memory.

The Conkrite family came from New York in a covered wagon to Danby Twp. And settled near the Centerline Bridge. My Father was the second youngest of eleven children, all born in Danby except the baby of six months who came with them. One of the first burials in Danby Cemetery in 1831 was a four year old girl who burned in a bonfire while clearing the land. My Father played with the Indian boys.

The Wainwright family came from New York by the way of Indiana. My Mother was the oldest of four children. She made dresses for the squaws.

Raymond Cramer who lives in Portland can boast of being born in Sebewa’s only log house in 1910.

MYRTIE’S MEMORIES, continued, by MYRTIE (LOVELL) WELCH:

THE CELLAR.
Our Cellar was not a basement. Webster says a cellar is a place for storing provisions while a basement is the lowest part or story of a building. No refrigeration back then, so when a house was built, a cellar to keep your perishable foods cool was included in the plan.

In this house, too, the cellar is located beneath the den. I used to keep the walls swept clear of cobwebs and dust, clean papers on the shelves, floor scrubbed with soap suds, then rinsed with clear water carried down from the kitchen. The water ran out when down the drain in the southeast corner, immediately. Now sometimes water comes in but it takes its time running out. I don’t carry it down, either. Always put the milk, butter, shortening, etc. directly on the cellar floor. Meat, if it wasn’t to be cooked at once, I seared in a skillet over the fire, then carried it down stairs and placed it on the floor. Everything had to be covered.

My cellar shelves were loaded always with canned fruits, jams, and jellies. No more of that. I do a little but can store it in my cupboards. The south part of the cellar, I always called it, is what Webster would call a basement. When we moved here, the furnace with the corner made into a coal bin was about all there was down there. Haven’t been down for years. I’ll bet people who do have to go must be afraid they’ll get hungup on cobwebs. I do have someone else clean it once in awhile.

As usual, I am getting away from my subject but I write things down just as they pop into my head and this just popped in right now. In the early days (what an expression, makes me feel so antiquated), doctors would accept most anything useful as payment of a bill. Maybe a sack of potatoes, oats, or hay for their horse or wood to heat their houses. Most anything usable. Apples, butter, etc. would be accepted. When Ray’s sister Ethel was born, Jan. 25, 1897, the doctor wanted a load of wood for his payment. Roads were snow covered, so Ray’s father told him to hitch the horses to the sleighs and take a load of wood to Sunfield, delivering it to Ed Snyder’s house. The house was this very one I’m sitting in today. Dr. Snyder built it in 1900. Ray, 12 years old then, used to say in later years, on that day so long ago little did he think he would be throwing wood and coal into that same window.

CELLAR AT THE OLD HOMESTEAD.
This cellar ran the full length of the house. It was divided into two, one under the north end and the other under the upright at the south. The north one had no windows, so we called it the dark cellar, the other one had four windows and was called the light cellar. Besides the windows, a hatchway opened into it from outside, so this could be opened in the summer time. This made it nice and airy, no stale or musty odor at any time. Milk was kept in crocks on the shelves, waiting for cream to rise and be skimmed off for butter, so the place had to be kept clean and free from odors. Open crocks of milk would become tainted with the slightest smell.

There was also an inside stairway leading down from the pantry above. A small landing, with shelves for storage at the end, built at the tope was nice. No steps leading down into space when you opened the door. But this landing and those cellar steps had to be scrubbed with a brush every Saturday. My mother was a great “scrubber-upper”. After all, there was FOOD in that cellar. This light airy storage space was certainly in the fall always, “a sight for ‘sore eyes’ “, or maybe a more accurate expression would be “a sight for hungry stomachs”. The shelves were filled then with canned fruit, gallon crocks of apple butter, lard to bake with, cucumber pickles in a six gallon crock on the floor. Enough food to feed an army. Maybe that’s what we had, there were eight people living in that house regularly with plenty coming and going, my mother was prepared.

The prettiest sight in this cellar was the shelves on which my father stored out apples. These shelves were not built with a solid board but with narrow boards placed a half inch or so apart to let air in around the apples. Also there was something across the front to keep them from rolling out. The apples were all sorted according to variety. We had so many different kinds, most of them not raised anymore. There were Northern Spies, of course, Greenings, Baldwins, Greasy Pippins, Tolman Sweets, and Snow apples. Also had one called Rambo. This was a fall variety and had to be used first. Not very good keepers but delicious eating. Then another called Russets. These my dad buried in a pit to be opened up in the spring. This pit was dug at the edge of our garden, lined with straw someway. Can’t tell too much about this because it was one more thing we never did after my dad was gone. However, the pit was like a cold storage and Pa buried Russet apples, heads of cabbage, carrots, turnips, etc. What an exciting day when he went out in the spring and opened that pit. Everything was as fresh as the day he stored it. The Russet apples were delicious. Not even withered.

THE DARK CELLAR
All I can remember we kept in this one is barrels filled with potatoes and cider barrels. The cider barrels were laid down flat and had spigots in each one. Cider, as you all know, turns to vinegar as it ages. We always had one barrel of that and each fall my dad would take apples to the cider mill and have fresh cider made. We drank out of this until it turned so hard it wasn’t fit to drink, then we’d leave it for vinegar.

Now all this was fine until one day you were sent down to draw a jug of vinegar. You didn’t want to go into that dark place, you were scared but you didn’t dare say you were afraid and could you please take a lamp with you. The answer to that would be “a lamp, you want to set this house on fire, now go on and get that vinegar, there’s nothing down there to be afraid of”. I knew there was and its name is DARK. Coming so suddenly out of the day light into this room, you couldn’t see a thing, so you’d wait a few minutes (seemed like hours) and then you could see a little but still you were scared. Walking, gingerly, up to the vinegar barrel, you’d put your jug under the spigot and turn it on. Not so fast, it will spit back up, so you wait forever for the jug to fill, expecting some wild animal or an old crazy man to grab you and choke you to death. It wouldn’t have taken long, you were half way there already. The jug in full, you turn off the spigot and go out into the light and up the stairs to safety.

When you were sent down for potatoes; that was a lot worse than drawing vinegar. You’d enter the darkness, stand still until your eyes were accustomed to the sudden change, then walk up to that potato barrel! You look down into that barrel and there really is NO light now. Barrel is nearly empty; you’re going to need to reach way into this one. But it isn’t you at all, it’s me. I am really scared now. I pound on the outside of the barrel to scare the rats or whatever is in there. Nothing comes out so I reach into the darkness and fill my pen. Once more I have survived.

Pearl told me last Sunday when she had to go for potatoes, she always snitched a few matches and hide them in her apron pocket. When she reached the barrel, she’d strike a match, holding the lighted match inside the barrel she could see whether there was anything in there or not. Always careful to hide the burnt match in her apron pocket to dispose of it before Ma found out. Now, why didn’t I think of that. You know something? I’ll bet Ma would have caught me at it. No flashlights in those days. What an invention that was.

SLEIGH BELLS
What a delight these strings of sleigh bells were! Used only in the winter time, when the roads were covered with snow and you were unable to pull a buggy. Buggies had wheels, so now a cutter or sleighs with runners were the conveyances. The sleigh bells, mounted on a strap, placed around a horse’s neck, hanging loosely underneath his head, jingled and jangled with every movement of his body. Each string had a different tone. The size of the bells, some about an inch in diameter gave out a high pitched sound, while the larger ones made a lower sound. Probably were 25 or 30 bells on a string.

One soon learned the sound of each neighbor’s bells and could tell who was driving past without looking out. My father’s bells were called a graduated string. Tiny inch bells at the top and gradually changing to one and one half inch on the middle. They made the most melodious sound. Ma gave them to Arby and now Ruth Wright has them. She has quite a collection of strings, all from some of her relatives. Has them displayed hanging side by side on one wall of a room in her house.

(MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS OF MYRTIE):
While going from her home to a neighbor’s because she was afraid of lightening and thunder, Maude Fowles was struck by lightening and killed in spring of 1908.

A guy got sweet on a gal; he would go over to her house early in the morning and stay all day. Mother said “enough is enough” and one day she went after him with a buggy whip. He came home just ahead of her. No, he didn’t marry the girl but he did go back to see her!

One family wanted to go back home to Indiana so they rigged up two covered wagons, loaded up the household goods and took off. Ma and two children in one wagon and Dad in the other. After a time word came back that they had made it o.k.

During the smallpox epidemic, one of the victims was a baby about a year old. She carried the scars (or pits as they are called) to her grave some 80 years later. The one death was Albert Bradley. His sister was staying at the Oliver Benschoter home. She was looking out of the upstairs window and saw her father and another man when they came with lanterns to the cemetery to bury Albert.

Some of the early families in Sebewa were the Jim Browns, Charles Halladays, Fred Erdmans, John Friends, Henry Allemans, Peter Knapps, Lon Evans, Alfred Garlocks, Sleight families, Lowes, Conrites, Highs, Cramers, Overlys and Holmes.

One of the first preachers in the Methodist Church played a violin and he brought it to church. That was a no-no as violins were only used in dance halls and the devil was in it bigger than a woodchuck!

Another of our other pastors were Burch (who drove a horse and cart and wore a linen duster), Winn, Ellinger, Swem, Stanley Thayer (who came from England), Carter and Thompson. I might say, during my growing-up days I was organist for Sunday School then for church. I taught a Sunday School class, was President of the Missionary Society, leader of the Little Light Bearers (a branch of the Missionary Society) and always helped with Children’s Day. After coming to Portland, I was pianist at the Nazarene Church for a time.

My school days ended with the 8th grade at Sebewa High. Then I went to work. In the early 20’s I went in to the baby business. Babies were born at home then. My first baby was Lucille Singlinger; later Mildred, Kathryn Kenyon, Arlene Sears, two Greenhoe boys at Crystal, two Benschoter boys, Junior and Norton and Glenn Fender to name a few. The Greenhoe boys are about three times removed as great grandsons of Johnathan Ingalls.

In 1927, I came to Portland when Gertrude Fischell and I went in to the interior decorating business. One year we hung 1000 rolls of wall paper and spread several gallons of paint. Later we bought acreage on Okemos Road and did a little farming with cows and chickens. Then came I-96 which put an end to that business. Then we built a house on Riverside Drive. In 1978 we came to the Portland Apartments. In 1984, Gertrude passed away at the Ionia Manor after 58 years together.

Sebewa is a trailer village now. Only a few houses are left. I am the oldest living native. I have seen the times change from wood stoves, hard coal burners, furnaces to solar heat and have gone from horse and buggy to automobiles to airplanes, radios, televisions and a man on the moon – ALL IN 90 YEARS!

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association,
December 1986, Volume 22, Number 3. Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: GREEN, ROSELL, PETRIE, KENYON

A century and two years ago was born Elsie Green Rosell near the Danby Cemetery. She attended the Halladay, Sunfield and Portland schools. She was a first cousin to William Petrie. Dennis and Ida Petrie called on her when they were here from Florida last summer. She is at Rindy Foster Home at Midland 48640.

Last year we lost track of Edna Kenyon’s address but now she has made it known again. She is in a high rise retirement apartment. She was 96 in October. If you would like to send a Christmas Card her address is:

Edna Kenyon, Majectic Towers, Apt. 710, 1255 Pasadena Gardens, St. Petersburg, FL 33707

SEBEWA IN THE SENTINEL, 1886, continued

SEBEWA, Feb. 22 – The amateurs of Sebewa will produce the great temperance drama, entitled “The Last Loaf” at Colwell’s Hall, Thursday evening, Feb. 25th. This troupe is the product of the Johnson district literary society. They sustain their parts very well indeed. The proceeds go towards purchasing an organ for the society.
Died, Saturday, Feb. 20, Laura Miller, age 14 years, daughter of Conrad Miller.
The manager of the G. A. R. social, at Colwell’s Hall last week, offered as a prize for the best lady waltzer a silver cake dish. Several ladies “tipped (sic) the light fantastic toe”, but Miss Lettie Johnson of West Sebewa carried off the prize.
One of our professional men has added a “hair dressing” establishment to his business.
W. A. Price has determined to run business on his own hook---C. D. Woodbury having withdrawn his capital.
Will Heinzleman purchased forty acres of land last week of Sanford Yeomans---consideration, $500.
E. C. Derby of Danby has applied for a patent on his land roller.
There is movement on foot to establish a graded school at Sebewa Corners. If this project is successful, several new districts will be formed.

RECOLLECTIONS OF LAKE ODESSA PIONEERS by Grayden Slowins

In recognition of the Centennial of our neighboring village at Lake Odessa in 1987, I shall attempt to relate the bits of history as told to me over the years by people who were around in 1887 when the railroad came thru. My relatives had lived in Campbell, Odessa, and Berlin Townships before there was a Lake Odessa. My own earliest recollections are from the late 1930s, when I stayed in the summer, first with Granddad Brake’s in Aunt Jennie Tasker’s house on Second Avenue, (later the Bernard and Euceba Thomas house) and then at Uncle Duane Gray’s on Sixth Avenue. I hung around the (Haight-Weed) Wortley-Baine (Pickens-Koops) Furniture Store and Mortuary, where Uncle Duane was a mortician. I rode young Freddie Baine’s scooter (the old foot-powered type) down the sidewalks of Fourth Avenue. We bought little things from Mae Armour at the D&C Store. Later I was pharmacist for 10 years, 1957-1966, in the (Russ-Smelker) Hansbarger-Tasker-Hewitt Drugstore.

Many Civil War veterans were alive in my childhood in the 1930s and 1940s. A few lasted into the 1950s and 1 or 2 into the 1960s. Widows lasted even longer. Other people simply remembered the War, even tho they were not involved in it. My memory is of “Grandma” Norcutt of Pinhook or Campbell Corners. She and her husband Zeb (Zebulon) ran the General Store and Campbell Post Office in Sec. 23 before the railroad came thru, bypassing Sebewa, Bonanza, and Pinhook. Later, when Clarksville got started, their son Henry and later grandson Howard continued the business there (now DeJongh’s Market). I believe her son Milo carried on the farming operation and was grandfather to Mrs. Pete Blair of the same location. Zeb had lost a hand in a buzz saw. “Grandma” Norcutt told many stories of the hardships of the Civil War. She ahd also known people in her childhood who remembered the Revolutionary War. She was no relation to us, but her farm home had been a short distance down the road from my Great-grandfather Abraham Brake, Sec. 24 Campbell.

Next I remember Wilbur Walters. His family were pioneer settlers around Morrison Lake. He had attended the American Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876 and carried a cane from it. Wilbur played the fiddle for dances and farmed a bit. He always sasid he knew more people in Lakeside Cemetery than he did on Fourth Avenue.

Some of my best talks were with Walter Wortley. Walter was born about 1880 in Sec. 13 Campbell Township, around the corner from Great-grandpa Brake’s farm. He was the oldest of 8 or 9 kids born and raised on a 40-acre farm. When the railroad came thru in 1886-1887, his father, Joseph Wortley, got a job on the section crew, to help feed his family. Walter got his first job that same summer of ’86, working for his Uncle Abel Bywater across the road in Sec. 18 Odessa. Carl and Addie Bywater were too young to help or not born yet. Walter was six and had not yet started school. But he cultivated corn 10 hours a day for 6 days a week, walking behind an Ajax cultivator and one horse. His Uncle Bywater may have had only 10 or 20 acres of corn, since it was common practice at that time to cultivate corn almost continuously, from the time it came up until the ears were big enough to make the hose sick. And of course there was the Biblical admonition against muzzling her.

At the end of the week, Walter received 5 cents per hour or $3 for 60 hours. He went to Bonanza and bought a pair of work shoes for $3. He had walked barefoot thru that hot sand all week! This was his first pair of real work shoes and he was financially independent. His mother never again needed to buy him any clothes, although she continued to knit socks and mittens for him, and made linsey-woolsey shirts, underwear, etc. Within a couple years he owned the cultivator and by age 10 he owned the horse. He soon went out on threshing crews. But he noticed that a laborer got $1 a day and his dinner, while a teamster got $3 a day and his dinner and the horses’ dinner. Besides, the teamster got to ride the wagon and build the load instead of pitching bundles skyward all day. This was important to not-tall people like Walter and myself. I had the same problem when I started out at age 10, behind the Rumely Oil-Pull and the Red River Special. Soon he had his own team – by age 12. At age 14 Walter completed the 8th Grade and headed for the new town of Lake Odessa. He went to Mr. Weed, who had succeeded Haight in the furniture – casket – funeral business, and sasid “I want to learn the trade”. “Okay” said Mr. Weed, “But you will have to sell your team. We already have two teams of blacks for the hearse”. This was one of the biggest disappointments of his life. Fifty years later Walter retired with $20,000 invested at 5% interest and thought he was set for life. But he lived another 20 years and his widow another 20 years beyond that. Thank Heavens for Supplemental Social Security, because they had retired before self-employed people could pay into Social Security.

Mrs. R. A. Colwell was still alive into the 1960s. her husband was a young lawyer in Ionia when his father, E. F. Colwell, joined with the financier, H. R. Wager, in platting and promoting the business district on Fourth Avenue. They owned a number of the original buildings and he maintained a law office here too. She still owned in 1960 the row of wooden buildings between the Drugstore and the Theatre, occupied by the bakery, barbershops, photo studio, etc. Other early lawyers still around then were Thomas Johnson Jr. and Charles Ernsberger.

Next I remember Mr. Andrew Muir. He and his wife lived in a little house by the alley between Mrs. Shellhorn and Scheidt’s Hardware, where the telephone building is now. I believe Mr. Muir was a Spanish American War Veteran in 1898, because he told me about coming home from “The War” as a young man and being unemployed in mid-winter. He took a job husking corn from the shock on shares, for a widow lady who lived on the little farm in the triangle across from Lass Implement (now Stamms), later owned by A. A. Kimmel. He later farmed on his own, and in old age he bought his prescription each month from me---75 cents for 30 Thyroid one grain as I recall. Anyone who has ever husked corn from the shock with a husking peg over jersey gloves, knows what the simple comforts of life are. You huddle in your Mackinaw on the leeward side of the shock to conserve body heat. You carry the corn out of the drifted field in a basket on your shoulder. Hot soup at noon tasted mighty good.

Other members of Lakeside Barracks, Spanish American War Veterans, were Lew Terry, originally from Orangeville, Barry County, who was a barber in the theatre arcade, and Thomas Benton, whose occupation before retirement I do not recall. Another Spanish War Veteran from my childhood days at Portland was old Doc Bradfield. He had served in the Horse Cavalry in both the Spanish American War and World War I, I believe. He always led the Memorial Day Parade at Portland on his white horse. He ended his life in disgrace and in prison, for performing an Abortion, I believe, 40 years ahead of his time, I guess!

Next I remember Bill Caswell. He was father of Chalmer and Or Caswell, grandfather of Denard O. Caswell, great-grandfather of Jon D. Caswell. Bill was born on a 40-acre farm at NW ¼ Sec. 23 Sebewa Township in 1864. He died in Lake Odessa at his home on Washington Blvd. in 1964, at the age of 99 years, 11 months, and 23 days. At the age of 6, in 1870, he carried square nails to the carpenters at the building of my barn. Nails, hinges, other hardware, and windowglass were the expensive items for building in those pioneer days. So kids followed the carpenters, picked up dropped nails, and handed them up. The old story goes that a man bought 10 pounds of nails to build a barn, sent the kids behind the carpenters, and had nails left over. In 1878 Bill was age 14 and a hired man here when my house was built. We talked a lot about his long life when he was 95. He was a horse man thru and thru. First he ran a livery stable at Sebewa Corners. When the railroad came thru and bypassed Sebewa and Bonanza, he opened a livery behind the Burke Hotel at the NW corner of Fourth Avenue and Third Street in Lake Odessa. It was a natural progression for his sons to sell, repair, and store cars at the SE corner of the same intersection, in a building later used by Zerfas, Senters, Lass, and now Fates Family Fare. Bill’s sons moved the business to Ionia. Or had married a daughter of the Tew family when they moved their General Store from Tremaine’s Corners, south of Ionia, to Lake Odessa. My Grandpa Dan Slowinski had been hired man at the Tew farm near Tremaine’s Corners and picked the future Mrs. Caswell up out of a manure pile when she fell into it. Chalmer Caswell was chauffer to Governor Fred Green of Ionia. In those early days of automobiles, many people stored their car at the dealer’s, like a livery stable. Bill spent his last years hanging around the horse barns at the Lake Odessa Fairgrounds in Bonanza.

The final person I think of at this time was Leo Fialkowski, born in Prussia, died in Berlin Township, 1947. He was the last relative of the Schnabel – Slowinski family to come over from Germany, and was always called “The Dutchman”. Uncle Martin and Aunt Marina Schnabel were the first ones to arrive, coming in 1854. They assisted many others to make the trip later, and always met them at the Ionia depots, after the railroads came thru there in 1857 and 1869. When Leo was to arrive, Uncle Martin waited all day with his team at the Ionia depots of the Grand Trunk and Pere Marquette Railroads, but no Leo. The next morning a messenger came knocking at his door and said to go and sign for his freight at the new Lake Odessa Depot. What freight? He hadn’t ordered anything. “It’s a man”, said the messenger, “and the lapel tag says ‘Deliver to Martin Schnabel, Berlin Township, Lake Odessa, Michigan, U. S. A.!’ “. “Oh, God! It’s Leo!” said Martin. Leo’s mother was a sister to Mrs. Michael Slowinski and to Mr. John Kloss, so he was a cousin to Albert Kloss and to Dale also.

A final chapter in the life of Great-Grandfather Abraham Brake comes to mind in the events of this week. He and Caroline Cosens Brake had 12 children, nine of whom grew up, and their descendants are scattered across the world. But five of them remained in this area, including the four youngest:

Lucinda (Mrs. Isaac) Amon, whose great-grandchildren own the Snyder Implement Co. of Alto and Portland.
Anna Elizabeth (Mrs. Allen) Amon, whose daughter Elizabeth Lenon died August 2, 1983, at age 83.
John F. Brake, (my grandfather) whose youngest and last survinging child Ida (Mrs. Walter) Livingston, whose remaining sons Burdette and Karyle live in Campbell.
Martha Jane (Jennie)(Mrs. Frank) Tasker, whose daughter Gwendolyn Redstrom died December 22, 1984, at age 83

There are two John Brakes in my generation, but none in the next two generations to take possession of the family heirloom – a horse-hobble carried by Great-grandfather John Brake in the War of 1812. The Mennonites served on both sides in the Battles of Canada as unarmed teamsters. They were instructed to wear their black hats day and night, and not one was ever shot. They hauled the supplies, then dropped back while the “English” on both sides fired their cannons and muskets. At dusk the German-speaking Mennonite boys went back onto the field to gather the dead and wounded. Perhaps one possiblility now-a-days is for a daughter to retain her name in marriage and produce a son, John Brake! Royalty have been doing this for centuries and now it seems popular with common folks.

MYRTIE’S MEMORIES, CONTINUED; by MYRTIE (LOVELL) WELCH

SLEIGHS
A sleigh had two sets of runners. The front ones turned as you guided your horses, the back pair was stationary. Followed the turn of the front pair. Usually a wagon bos, with a high seat in front for the driver, was used to carry passengers or grain to the mill, your groceries, etc. Sleigh bells were not used on these horses, but a larger bell was placed on each horse’s neck. These were called team bells.

Lots of logging was done in the winter time. To draw logs, the box was removed. The first winter Ray and I were married (1911), he drew logs into town from some wher south of here. Would get up at 3:00 a.m., have his breakfast, then go bring in a load of logs before he began his daily Dray-line job here in town. Brought in a little extra income.
Ray kept his horses in a barn on Washington street, where P. J., then Gary later, used to live. While he was gone for his team, I used to start my days work, then I’d hear his bells coming and be in the window to wave my hand; but as soon as the sound of the bells were gone, I’d crawl back in bed, feeling guilty to be so nice and warm when I knew Ray must be cold. Sometimes, he would get off the sleighs and trot alongside to warm himself up. When I heard the sound of his bells coming back into town I’d get up, light the lamp and be in the window again. Guess I forgot to say we lived down south of here where you turn to go to the school house. Can see the house now from my window.

These woods where he went for the logs must have been close by, for he would be back in town before daylight. Had to be ready to meet the 8 a.m. train to pick up freight for the merchants. What a cold winter that was!

CUTTERS
A cutter was the only other conveyance used in the winter time when snow covered the roads. Just sleighs and cutters. Two horses were driven to pull the sleighs, but a cutter used just one horse. These vehicles were sort of a square looking type with the seat in the very back. The back then curved around, down the side, shaping down towards the floor. This gave one protection so you wouldn’t fall out, and could tuck the blankets or robe around you to keep warm. Then the sides continued on to the front, making a sort of dashboard. This body was mounted on runners, like those on a child’s sled only of course larger and longer. The whole cutter was maybe four feet wide and perhaps six feet long. It cleared the ground at maybe twelve or eighteen inches. Not so high. You could easily step right in, about like going up one step on the porch.
So what are we waiting for? The runners are on, the horse is between the thills, LET’S GO. Climb in, no brakes to be used. You may step on the bottom of the blankets to hold them around your feet, tuck them tightly then around your legs and up your body as high as they will reach, usually about to your arm pits. You feel sort of like a mummy but it is necessary because “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. Cold or not, it used to give me a thrill even though we might only be going to Vermontville. So different than a buggy ride.

Before Ray and I were married, sometimes we would go for a cutter ride in the evening. Usually it was Sunday night, not many people out. Such a beautiful world, snow every where, fields, trees, roof tops, everything covered, smoke coming from the chimneys of the houses we drove by. The hush and silence of the winter’s night almost took one’s breath away. As our horse trotted along the way, the only sound we heard was the jingling of our sleighbells, cutters just glide along noiselessly. Gave me the feeling of us being the only ones in the world and we were just soaring along into space. Sort of lonely but happy, just to be alive. We look up at the sky and see the moon shining down upon us and our snow covered world, making it almost as light as day. Next, the clouds begin to break away and out comes the first star. Must make a wish and say “Star light, Star bright, wish I may, wish I might have the wish I wish tonight”. Still think of this, even now, when I see my first star.

Other stars soon follow my first one, until the sky is dotted all over with them, sparkling like diamonds. We located the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, and also the Milky Way. Didn’t see the man in the moon try to dip right in and take a drink but the sight was so beautiful and fairy-like that you might. The beauty of the winter night around and the diamond studded sky made us feel, as we drove home, that we were driving on Hallowed ground. We feel like a King and Queen, this great, big, beautiful world is ours. You modern guys with your noisy snowmobiles can have your speedy fun, but I’ll just float along silently in my old cutter, taking time to enjoy the wonders of the world around me.

A SLEIGH RIDE
In 1900, the year before my father died, we were invited to his brothers, John Lovell’s for Thanksgiving Day dinner.

Sleighing didn’t always come as early as this but this year, the snow came and the ground was never bare until spring. We had good sleighing all winter.

Uncle John’s family lived south of Sunfield on what is now known as the Dan Aungst farm. Five miles from our place. Such a beautiful winter morning, ground, trees, and buildings covered with snow, sparkling in the early morning sunshine. I can hardly wait to get started. Hurry everybody! At last, here comes Pa and Arby from the barn. Horses prancing, act as though they were as anxious as I to get started. Pa and Arby have filled the bed of the sleighs with nice clean straw covered over with horse blankets for us to sit on. Ma climbs up on the drivers seat with my dad; Arby Mae, Sylvia, Grace, Pearl and I sit on the straw covered bed. More blankets to tuck around us and we are started at last. Down the road north ¾ mile to Dellwood corners, then east one mile to Bismark School house. There we stop and pick up my father’s aunt and her son. Her name was Aunt Diana Pickens, (she lived to the age of 102); the son’s name was Thomas. Their home is now owned by Lloyd and Rose Steward. We go north two miles from Aunt Diana’s and next east one mile on what is now St. Joe Highway. Here we behold the most gorgeous sight! This whole mile bordering on the south side of the road, was covered with timber. Huge, tall trees, their snowy braches glistening in the sunshine, growing so closely together, looked to me like a huge snow bank.

On then down east to the Brethren Church, one-fourth mile north and we are at Uncle John’s. Don’t remember much more of this day, except Aunt Allie had roast turkey. It was a first time for turkey for me. They raised their own. Of course, I remember the rest of the family, Bessie, Donna, and John Jr. All older than I. Don’t recall the ride home but I’ll bet we sang most of the way, because if my dad was riding somewhere, he sang. He loved music.

Thinking of this great big woods makes me wonder if that wasn’t where Ray went for his logs that winter of 1911, I told you about. So much timber was sold and cut down at that time. I know it was close to town because he never was gone very long. I’ll just bet that is where they came from. I think Charles Brown owned that place, perhaps not then but he later lived there. Some of you will remember him.

CHANGES IN LIFE STYLE
A few years after the death of my father, some things to make life easier for a woman were invented. For instance, small portable stoves to cook on. The fuel used for these was kerosene or gasoline. They made quite a difference at our house. We never cooked our meals in the Summer Kitchen anymore. Could set one of these small stoves on top of our wood-burning range or on a shelf. Also a portable oven came on the market. This was a big help, saved on wood as well as a lot of leg work, carrying things outside to cook, then carrying it back in to eat.

Another thing was spring and mattresses for our beds. Can’t help but think the old fashioned straw tick was much more sanitary than a mattress but not nearly as comfortable.

Using a material called ticking, these were sewed together like a huge pillowcase, excepting both ends were closed. Down in the middle center of the top was an eighteen or twenty inch slit fastened together with buttons and button holes. Through this opening, the tick was filled with fresh oat straw. Crammed so full you could scarcely button the opening. Next procedure, carrying the bulky thing up that hill, into the house, up the stairs, and get it in place on the bed. Ma, Mae, Sylvia, Grace each grasp a corner and lifting it high enough to clear the ground, they are on their merry way. The awkward thing was not heavy, oat straw being very light.

I called it a merry way because it was just that. Sylvia had a way of turning any task, however hard, into fun. They talked, laughed and giggled all the way to the house. This tick goes upstairs, so that will take a bit of doing. There were banisters along each side of the stairwell at the top. So they’d stand the tick through the doorway, two of the girls leaning over the banisters at the top pulling on it, the girls at the bottom pushing, and then with one last mighty heave, over a banister the unwieldy thing was upstairs and in place on the bed. Most of our beds had a tick filled with feathers, which was placed over the straw one. Eased the hardness just a bit.

Earlier in the day this room had been completely cleaned. Curtains, bedding, throw rugs washed and dried. If the tick was not new, it also had to be washed. Feather bed and quilts hung on the clothes line to air. Even the carpet had been taken up, carried down stairs, threw over the clothesline beating the dust out with a carpet beater. I got to help a little now, I could whack away at the carpet, also the feather tick. Probably my whacks were not very hard ones but every little whack helped. When they put the carpet down, I never was allowed to pound a tack in but now I came in handy. A tack puller was handed to me and I was ordered to pull the tacks out. I didn’t mind doing that but after I pulled them out and placed them in a saucer, I was told to sort out the bent ones so Ma wouldn’t have to pick around for the good tacks when she was laying the carpet again. Didn’t like that, too puttery, I’d rather beat the carpet and see the dust fly.

This one bed is finished, just four more to go, and they will all be clean and sanitary. Sanitary or not, I’m very thankful for mattresses and springs.

Just must tell you this, then I’ll leave the beds and housecleaning, because they are making me tired. When Sylvia and Johnnie were married, they began home keeping at Grandma Rachel Welch’s. Just two rooms, Grandma Rachel had built onto the side of her house, for her son, Grandpa Ped, (Johnnie’s father) to live in when he was married.

I used to be there quite a lot helping Sylvia. No place for me to sleep in their part of the house, so I would have to go upstairs in Grandma Rachel’s part. At bedtime, carrying a lighted oil lamp in my hand, I’d start on that LONG journey across Grandma’s kitchen, then up the stairs to the ROOM. This place was filled, almost to overflowing, with Grandma’s things she had no use for anymore. One thing I remember was her spinning wheel. I thought it was all junk, but today it would be very valuable.

A stand to put my lamp on and the bed was in one corner of the room. This bed was very old. In place of slats, ropes were strung across and up and down to form a place for the tick. If you thought the slates were hard, you should have slept in this. You could actually feel the ropes. The whole place was very spooky, my little light didn’t reach more tan three feet away and what did I know the things that were hiding to come after me when I’d blow out the lamp. Didn’t dare to leave it lit, might tip it over in the night and set fire to the house. Every night when I’d start for bed Sylvia would say “Are you sure you are not afraid, Myrtie?” Always answering “No, I’m not afraid” when I was already shaking in my boots and my teeth were chattering.

All of Grandma’s treasures were burned when a few years later, fire destroyed the old, old house.

Always wanted to rummage through that upstairs room but didn’t dare. Grandma Rachel would have called me a snoop. I was always on pretty good terms with her and wanted to keep it that way.

~ MYRTIE CANDANCE LOVELL WELCH

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association,
February 1987, Volume 22, Number 4; Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: JENISON, HUIZENGA, DARLING, BULLING, PIERCE, PRANGER

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD were Pearl Huzenga (Jenison), LeRoy Darling, Theo Bulling and Viverne Pierce.

THE PRANGER REUNION
August in 1986 Sherm and Muriel Pranger attended the Pranger Reunion in Platte, South Dakota where more than 300 of his great grandfather’s family were in attendance. In 1892 the Prangers left the Netherlands where it seemed there was little chance of land ownership, for America and Platte, SD. Sherm’s grandfather, Sjoerd (Sherman in Dutch) first came to Fruitport, Michigan where his wife had relatives and a year later joined the family group in Platte. There, there were five Pranger families, each blessed with seven to ten children.

Sherm was born in 1917 and attended school in Platte. At the age of 20 in 1937 at a time of dust storms and troublesome locusts with economic depression, he hitch-hiked to Michigan, visited relatives in Grand Rapids before coming to visit his father’s sister, who was married to John Ruiter. They lived on Bippley Road in Odessa, a ¼ mile west of M 66. It was from there he started working for William Balduf on a threshing crew. He remembers driving his team and wagon close to a pear tree and picking and eating the fruit. There were no fruit trees where he had lived in South Dakota.

Six months later his parents followed him to Michigan. Most of us knew him as a carpenter and as the manager of the lumber yard sales office of Theo Lenon and Smith Bros. at Sunfield.

From the original five immigrants including Grandfather Sjoerd, there are more than 1,200 descendants, 183 in Platte Community and the rest scattered from Alaska to Florida and Maine to California.

Sherm and Muriel enjoyed their visit to the reunion and Platte and went on to visit the Black Hills and the Bad Lands.

The Pranger name came about in 1811 when Napolean decreed that all the conquered Dutch people have family names. The name is of German origin meaning “one who displays” or “the place of display”.

STEAMBOATING ON THE GRAND
Reminiscences of Early Days, by J. C. Pratt in Saranac Local, researched by R. C. Gregory.
In 1842 there was plying on Grand River, between Lyons and Grand Rapids, a scow (1) covered with canvas in case of rain. We do not recollect the name of the craft. It was the property of Daniel Ball (1) of Grand Rapids.
In 1843-44 the boat “South Bend”, similar to a canal boat in every respect, except there was a pass-way on each side of the boat for the men to travel from stem to stern, and vice versa. The boat was propelled (as were all boats before the introduction of steam) by setting poles. As business of moving grain increased and more and more merchandise was required, another boat, the “Jesse” was put on the river in 1845-46, and was run in connection with the “South Bend”. At times when the river was high, the water was too deep for using the setting poles and the current strong, they were compelled to send a rope from point to point in a row boat, fastening one end to a tree, and then altogether, a long pull, a strong pull, etc. They would pull to a point where they had tied, then re peat the performance. This locomotive was of necessity very slow, frequently taking from six to eight days to get from Grand Rapids to Ionia, making freights very high.
Later, in 1846 the boat “Fred Hall” was put on the line by Irish and Van Allen of Lyons. The same year the “Jonah”, another pole boat was put on by Wm. Beach & Co., of Rochester, N.Y., who were buying wheat here to supply their mill at that place.
The next year, 1847, the steamer “Humming Bird” commenced plying on the line, commanded by Captain Robert S. Parks, formerly an old resident of the county. It carried passengers and freight, and did some towing of boats up the river. This was a great convenience to people, as the boat would run up to a bank anywhere and take on passengers and freight or discharge the same. This boat made the trip from Ionia to Grand Rapids in one day and back the next, thus giving the inhabitants some communication with the outside world.
We forgot to mention another pole boat, or rather canoe, which was called the “Marasuck Canoe”. It was some sixty feet in length, made by the Indians out of a very large whitewood tree, and capable of carrying twenty-five barrels of lime. Chas. L. Hecox, then a resident of this village (Saranac), took the contract of furnishing the lime for the county buildings or offices, which were built in 1844, and occupied until a year or two ago. He transported the lime in above mentioned boat from Grand Rapids.
Later the steamer “J. F. Porter” was put on. This boat had two locomotive engines, and was capable of running ten miles an hour against a stiff current. This boat was a credit to the company who put it on the line, and our river banks were always lined to greet the traveling public, as she was almost invariably loaded with passengers both ways.
The succeeding year, or in 1849, Robert S. Parks drew off the “Humming Bird” and had constructed a stern-wheel steamer called the “Naubeck”, named after a noted Indian chief. She was a staunch and good boat, but did not make as rapid a traveler as the “Porter”. It was well fitted up for freight, and had good accommodations for passengers. It was on this new steamer that our friend and fellow townsman, Chas. L. Wilson, earned his first money, which he never got. Perhaps if Charlie had possessed a little of the cheek he has since acquired, he might not have been so badly left by the doughty captain.
In 1850 a stock company from Grand Rapids built and put on this line the steamer “Forest Queen”. She was a magnificent boat, but was too large for the river above the Rapids. She was not completed so as to start very early in the spring and, as the water was getting too low for her to run on the intended route, she was drawn off and run between Grand Rapids and Grand Haven. She was a failure as an up-river boat on account of her size, and made only two or three trips, not getting above Saranac. The freight rates those early days were comparatively cheap; being only 44 cents per hundred from Chicago without classification. The rate was for goods laid on the bank, including cartage around the Grand Rapids to Saranac.
Capt. R. Simmons, a former old settler of Saranac and Boston, was for a time pilot on the “Humming Bird”, “Porter” and “Naubeck”, and master of one or two of the boats spoken of, Vine Welch, of Keene, since deceased, was an old river pilot when the first steamer came in the river. The railroad caused the river transportation to be slow and the boats were drawn off.

LAKEWOOD SCHOOL DISTRICT:
Wm. Eckstrom has released some records of the West Sebewa School District. Mrs. Richard Goodemoot has perused the record to find the names of those attending school there from 1927 to 1963. Three years of records were missing. The list follows concluding with the list of teachers:

Cheney, Josephine Cheney, Alma Cheney, Daisy
Cheney, Clara Creighton, K. Carl Goodemoot, Ruth
Goodemoot, Ruby Green, John Green, Orlo
Green, Gordon Hunt, Walter Leak, Lorraine
Lesher, John Lesher, Madalund Litchfield, Durwood
Litchfield, Atheline Litchfield, Maxine Litchfield, Alvin
Martin, Lloyd McNeil, Charles Nickolson, G. Robert
Peacock, Wayne Peacock, Catherine Thorp, Marshall
Wallace, Roger Brown, Florian Brown, Nyol
Brandt, Robert Barclay, Bertha VanHouten, Clifford
Friendly, Lloyd Kenyon, Willard Kenyon, Loraine
Goodemoot, Earl Leak, Anna Bella Kenyon, Madonna
Sargeant, Mavis Sargeant, John Jr. Goodemoot, Merle
Leyrer, Paul Layrer, Willa Layrer, Gloria
Smith, Kenneth Vance, Richard Creighton, Frederick
Goodemoot, Richard Zwilp, Mary Hatt, Herbert
Layrer, Martin Kill, Albert Kill, Frank
Smith, Carlton Sharlow, Arlene McCaul, Anna Mae
Brandt, Hazle Brant, Max Brandt, Ray
Brandt, Ruth Van Putten, Gerald Van Putten, Katherine
Lakin, Glenna Mae Lakin, Teddy Sharlow, Elizabeth
Shetterly, Philip Smith, Beverly Vance, Marilyn
Janes, Betty Janes, Carl Tompkins, Amy
Tompkins, Denver Tompkins, Gorden Tompkins, Leota
Johnson, Ethlyn Barkley, Marian Schnabel, June
Tomlinson, Richard Commee, Edmund Sargeant, George
Commee, Durwood Johnson, Gordon Johnson, Marlene
Becker, Marian Blackmer, Jacquiline Commee, Clarence
Coe, Joyce Shetterly, Shirley Smith, Roger
Becker, Louise Brandt, Betty Brandt, Evelyn
Blackmer, Donna Shetterly, Joy Downing, Cleo
Commee, Loren Creighton, Rex Smith, Calvin Jr.
Hissong, Max Simmons, Claude Jr. Morley, Sherdyne
Raymond, Kenneth Raymond, Donald Raymond, Nancy
Raymond, Shirley Coe, Larry Brandt, Roy
Eldridge, Joanne Smith, Della Galvan, Sarah
Galvan, Rachel Galvan, Tabita Galvan, Raquel
Galva, Esther Esparza, Consuela Esparza, Elizabeth
Esparza, Pauline Baily, Jr. Baily, Polly
Baily, Alice Baily, Marguarette Baily, Morgorie
Smith, Donna Sedore, Shirley Thomas, Robert
Brofford, Thelma Wybenga, Katheryn Davis, Larry
Piercefield, Jerry Thorp, Donna Piercefield, Janet
Piercefield, Wayne Piercefield, June Piercefield, Wanda
Smith, Tommy Shetterly, Linda Brandt, Leon
Carey, Nancy Carey, Norma Carey, Noretta
Lich, John Thomas, Robert Bursley, Robert
Beaver, Barbara Bursley, Lawrence Bush, Arleen
Graul, Jerry Graul, Melvin Smith, Mary Lou
Ingrahm, Betty Avery, Dorne Avery, Robert
Creighton, Rodger Piercefield, Patricia Thomas, Aaron Lee
Bailey, Joe Piercefield, Bonnie Landeros, Mary Lou
Landeros, Ruth Cavazos, Lupe Cavazos, Janie
Pinkston, Karen Goodemoot, Kenneth Pinkston, Brian
Thorp, Richard Cavazos, Joe Cavazos, Pete
Champlin, Donald Harris, Norman Harris, Doris
Harris, Betty Harris, Larry Harris, Ernest
Beaver, Arlene Harris, Robert Lich, Evelyn
Piercefield, Wilma Dexter, Walter Dexter, David
Dexter, Lynden Avery, Jimmy Brandt, Melvin
Bush, Ronald Hale, Donald Hale, Sharlene
Brown, Jimmy Orta, Esther McNutt, Vonnie
Creighton, Ronnie Creighton, Penny Sandborn, Julie
Smith, Elaine Garcia, Reymundo Garcia, Ramiria
Montalvo, Roman Montalvo, Rafael Garcia, Richard
Thorp, Dianne Garcia, Victor Oviedo, Lupe
Oviedo, Tony Lich, Linda Montalvo, Pancho
Thorp, Bonnie Sandborn, Marcia Pinkston, Craig
Thorp, Donald Possehn, Carole Montalvo, Richard
McNeil, Clay Taylor, Ronald Haverstick, Kenneth
Taylor, Ruth Ann Haverstick, Jimmy Taylor, Roger
Haverstick, Sharlotte Taylor, Rhoda Lich, Larry
Piercefield, James Ludwick, Roselie Piercefield, Wayne
Binns, Paige Piercefield, Dorothy McNeil, Corinne
Possehn, Christine Possehn, Robert Smith, Victoria
Thorp, Connie Sandborn, Suzan Smith, David
Haskins, Arthur Haskins, Carolyn Haskins, Willis
Conley, Joe Downing, Vicki Goodemoot, Keith
Haskins, Henry Thorp, Larry Risner, Richard
Risner, Theodore Conley, Maston Downing, Diane
Possehn, Donna Baker, Sue Ellen Baker, Bonita
Conley, Gene Goodemoot, Jane Sandborn, Kay
Risne(e?)r, Debra Risner, Steven Ritenburg, Kathy
Conley, David Ritenburg, Vicky

FOLLOWING IS THE LIST OF TEACHERS AT THE WEST SEBEWA school from 1920 through 1963:

Susie Classic
Wilma Hunt
Bertha Kneale
Ruth Peacock
Lula Wallace
Lena Crane
Mabel Blackmer
Beatrice Kauffman
Violet Myers
Constance Hiller
Lucile Sindlinger
Ruby Adams
C. Earl Champlin
Bessie Alberta
Rachael Binns
Theda Pallas
Joyce Steele
Linda Hershberger

MYRTIE’S MEMORIES, CONTINUED by MYRTIE (LOVELL) WELCH:

SETTIN’ HENS AND SUCH
     Back in the “hey-day” of my life, we raised chickens, as did every farmer. Our henhouse was built along one side of the wall inside with a row of nests for the hens to lay their eggs in on the opposite wall.
     Can just hear you younger readers say “Now what crazy thing is she talking about? What are roost and hens’ nests?” My more antiquated children know but for the others I’ll try to explain. Roosts first. Ours were started with 3 two-by-fours about 4 feet long. One end mailed at right angles to the wall, half way between top and bottom, then a board slanting from the roof to the edge of this first board. Three of these were used to hold the roosting poles, one at each end and the third in the center so the weight of the chickens couldn’t make the poles sag. The poles, small enough for a chicken to cling to with their feet, were then placed length-wise between the supports. Fastened to the slanting board, one pole above the other (not directly above, of course), it now looks like a stairway with no steps hanging to the wall. Just the poles.
     Sometimes you might be a little late with your chores, darkness came before you had taken water and grain to the chickens. Always had that out for them ready for the next morning. With a lighted lantern hanging from one arm, a pail of water on the other, you’d enter the henhouse. What a sight greeted your eyes. All those chickens clinging to the poles, all facing the same way, backs to the walls, eyes closed, they were asleep. Maybe one or two would open a sleepy eye, give you the once over, and just go back to sleep. BUT, if you made the least bit of noise then pandemonium would start. They were very much awake, roosters squawking, hens cackling, all flying down off their poles, you didn’t tarry. You just gathered your lantern and fled out the door. As soon as you left with the light they would quiet right down.
     Chickens made a good burglar alarm. If people heard them making a fuss in the night, someone always investigated immediately. Most men would carry their shotgun out with them. Maybe you wouldn’t see anything, could have been a rat, weasel, skunk, or some other wild animal wanting a chicken dinner or it could have been a man. Plenty of chicken thieves around in those days.
     Guess it’s about time I began on those nests. This was just a simple board mounted like a shelf on the opposite side from the roosts. A board along the front to keep the eggs from rolling out, small boards about four inches high, spaced cross wise about twelve inches apart the full length of the shelf, made a box like nest just large enough for one hen. These were covered on the bottom with straw to keep the eggs from breaking when laid. Now in the early spring, some of these older hens would decide a family of little chickens would be a nice thing to have. So she would quit laying eggs, climb into one of those cozy little nests and there you would find her when you went to gather the eggs. You couldn’t scare her off, had to pick her up and throw her out, being very careful to reach under her from the back to get hold on her legs. She would fight back, picking your hands with her sharp bill, if you didn’t take care. You’d give her a toss but if she really wanted to sit in that nest for the next three weeks, (time it takes for eggs to hatch), she’d fly right back in and set there.
     Reporting to Ma, she’d tell me to keep that up for three or four days until we knew for certain she was going to set, then we’d put the eggs underneath her. You didn’t put fourteen perfectly good eggs under a hen then have her decide after a few days that she didn’t really want a family that bad and have her leave the nest. The eggs would be spoiled and have to be thrown away.
Well, this old hen persisted, we put nice fresh straw in the next, marked fourteen eggs with blue carpenter’s chalk, and let the old hen crawl in. She’d take her beak and her feet to push the straw around, making a little hollow in the center, she arranged the eggs in it. Dropping gently down on them, they would still not suit, so she’d poke her head around underneath herself, first on one side, then the other until they felt exactly right. Then spreading each wing out a little way from her body, she’d settle down for a long three weeks ahead of her. She would leave her nest just long enough to eat and drink and maybe go outside the hen house long enough to scratch around in the ground a bit. Always get back on the nest before the eggs would get cold. If they were allowed to get cold, they wouldn’t hatch.
     When the little chickens began to appear, Ma (not me) would take them out of the next, put them in a pasteboard box, tuck a cloth lightly over them, take them in the house until all the eggs were hatched. If she had left them in the nest, after the appearance of one or two chicks, old mother hen would be so proud and anxious to show them to the world, she might just leave her nest with them. Then the rest of the eggs would get cold and no more little ones.
     Pa had made several box structures to house the hen and her tiny chicks. These looked like tiny houses, had a slanting roof over the top, the back and sides and floor were built solidly, but the front had slats across so the chicks could go in and out. Ma (not me, again) would carry the old hen out and place her inside the little house then returning the baby chickens to her, she’d start clucking and the little chicks would run to her crawling underneath her feathers to keep warm. When the chickens were two or three days old, we let the hen out of her house part time. After getting the hen and her babies settled in their cozy little house, Ma told me to go clean out that nest, dispose of the eggs that didn’t hatch and now were rotten, then put clean straw in. I didn’t like this nasty job but went about it anyway. Soon finished everything but disposing of the rotten eggs. Three of them. Ma had said, toss them way back into the orchard and don’t make a mess around the hen house. Gingerly, I pick up an egg, going just outside the door, closing my eyes, I gave that egg the hardest underhand toss I could. The thing landed in the apple tree right over my head, down it came PLOP, right at my feet. You’ll have to imagine what happened next, for really I remember no more of the incident. I’ll bet someone else finished my job.
     Guess I forgot to explain why Ma put the mark of blue chalk on her eggs under that old hen. Sometimes, another hen would decide they wanted to lay their eggs in that nest. So every night, when you gathered in the eggs, you had to lift that old settin hen up to check. If there was an egg with no blue mark on it, you knew that one was freshly laid, so you’d take it out of the next.
Modern incubators have been in use for a good many years, taking the place of my old “Settin Hen”.

LIFE AT LOVELL’S
Arby’s bout with the bees, comes to mind right now, so I think I may as well start with that. Pa was not at home. Time – summer. Place – supper table. All six children seated in their proper places, Ma came to sit down, carrying a large plate covered with fresh hot biscuits. Conversation started in this order, (I think).
Ma: Wish your pa was home, we would have honey for these biscuits.
Arby: I can get it for us.
Ma: I don’t want you to try it. You’ll get stung.
Arby: No, I won’t, I’ve watched Pa get it, and I really know how.
Ma: Well, go ahead, if you think you can, but get Pa’s hat with the veil. That will protect your head and face at least.
Arby: I don’t need that! Pa never uses it! He just reaches inside the hive and pulls out a block of honey. The bees never pay any attention to him, so why would they bother me.
Off he goes with Ma and we five girls right behind him. Cocky Arby leads the parade. Now, the bee hives were at the edge of the garden, probably twenty five or thirty feet from the south side of our house.
Bold as brass, Arby squats down and reaches inside the hive and removed the honey. Before he could even straighten up, those bees came out by the hundreds, swarming all over his face, neck any place they could see a bare spot to light.
Arby started screaming at the top of his lungs, running as fast as his old long legs could carry him. Past the house, past the granary, on down the hill he ran to the horse tank, probably sixty or eighty yards from the hive. Tank was full of water, so Arby quickly ducked his head in to rinse the bees off.
Now, I know this is no way to end a story. I’m sorry but I can remember no more. I would like to know as well as you, how Arby was affected, whether anyone had any supper, if they did, could they eat the honey, etc., etc. What do you expect of me, this happened before my Dad died, so it had to be at least eighty four years ago.
Just thought of something! Suppose that was why Arby was bald at such an early age. Wish I could remember what Pa said and if the bees drowned. Whole thing is hilarious now but at the time a tragedy.

SYLVIA’S EASTER EGGS
I’ve told you earlier in this history, every farmer raised chickens back then. This was a yearly custom in my family, at least. Don’t know whether or not other people followed it, but we did.
Two or three weeks before Easter Sunday, whoever did the nightly chore of gathering the eggs, would start snitching a few out each night and hiding them somewhere. Keeping the place a deeply guarded secret. On Easter morning, they would take a pail and get them, bringing them in for Ma to cook for our breakfast. When I say “they”, I’m always referring to Mae, Arby, Sylvia, and Grace. I’ve told you before, Pearl and I were the LITTLE girls. THEY wouldn’t think of trusting us with such an important thing as hiding place of the Easter eggs.
This year Sylvia insisted on gathering the eggs and wouldn’t even tell the rest of the THEY’S where the hiding place was.
Of course, every year my mother would pretend she didn’t know what was going on but kept saying to my dad, she couldn’t understand why the hens were not laying as many eggs as usual. They had been laying so well, but were dropping off so suddenly. He’d go along with her and make believe he didn’t know either. Usually, one or the other of them would know where the eggs were being hidden, but this year, Sylvia kept her secret well.
Now, last fall before winter set in, my dad had made a frame about twelve or fourteen inches wide around the horse tank, filling the space with straw. This would keep the water in the tank from freezing. Sylvia decided in this straw, she would have a splendid place to hide her Easter eggs.
Wonderful! No one would ever guess this one, they didn’t either. But one day, the thing backfired on her. A few days before Easter, my father and Arby decided to remove that banking from around the horse tank. Said the weather was getting so mild, probably the water wouldn’t freeze very hard, just maybe a thin scum, so they sat to work clearing the straw away.
Sylvia, who was watching out the north windows, suddenly began crying, so hard my mother said she was actually sobbing. She finally stopped enough to tell my mother, the Easter eggs were in there. Later, my dad told her if he had known he would have left the straw in place until Easter morning. Ma sent Sylvia down with a pail to bring her eggs up to the house. Remember Ma telling, Sylvia had stashed away over one hundred eggs. No wonder she was heart broken and no wonder Ma thought the hens were dropping off. Sylvia always thought so much of tradition. Every little thing meant so much to her. Sylvia, very special to each of us!

MYRTIE – THE MORON
When you finish this article, I know you will all agree that Moron is a very fitting name for me and for once I would not argue. I can visualize this happening as though it were yesterday. Winter time, the family all at the table except me. I had been dancing all over the place, telling everyone how I could hardly wait, I was so hungry. Ma’s supper looked so good but as I was about to sit down Ma said “No one filled the water pitcher, Myrtie take it outside and bring some fresh water in for supper”.
Filling the pitcher, I started to carry it inside, when suddenly I thought “Here is my chance, no one will be coming out if I hurry. I’m going to see if this is true”.
Someone had told me if you stuck your tongue on a piece of iron in the winter time you couldn’t pull it loose. The whole top of your tongue would stick fast to the iron. Deed and double, (as my Grandma Croy (Cory?) used to say), I knew better than that, it just wasn’t true. Now, the pump handle was a nice clean bit of iron so I quickly put my tongue down on that. Jerking back up, looking at the pump handle, top of my tongue on it, I found it to be true.
Casually walking back into the house with my pitcher of water, I took my place at the table. Refusing everything that came. My, the questions soon began to fly and remarks like “I thought you were so hungry”, “this is so good, try it”, etc. My mother saying “you just must eat something” when all I wanted to do was get away from the whole bunch and cry. I could have screamed, it hurt so.
Soon after supper, Sylvia asked me to go down the garden path to the little house. I said I’d go, she picked up the lantern to light our way and putting it down by our feet while we sat, it also threw off a little heat to keep us warm. Settling in for the duration, Sylvia said “Now, Myrtie, you tell me what happened out at the pump to make you lose your appetite. “Promise me, Sylvia, if I tell you, you won’t tell the others”. She promised and she never told until we were back in the house, then she told the whole story. I can hear the laughter yet. After Ma got through laughing, she fixed me some warm milk. I did manage that. Now, I know it is true, but I had to prove it, didn’t I? Still like to get to the bottom of everything.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association,
April 1987, Volume 22, Number 5; Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: LOVELL, WELCH, HIGH, WOLF, P.J. WELCH, MILLER, PRICE, WOODBURY, DEATSMAN, DERBY, PLANT, KENYON, SANDBORN………

MYRTIE’S MEMORIES, CONTINUED, by Myrtie (Lovell) Welch:

ARBY’S TAFFY PULL
Sunday afternoon, the folks were gone to Diamondale to spend the weekend with Ma’s cousin, Rachel Smith, leaving Pearl and I at home with the older ones.
Arby, probably getting bored, nothing to do, suggested to the older girls that they made some taffy. That should be fun. Said he wanted them to teach him how to pull it, he had always wanted to try.
I don’t remember Mae being there. Probably spent the afternoon with a girlfriend or maybe had a date with a boyfriend. Anyway, the rest of us all headed for the kitchen and the fun began. Can’t really tell you who did what, everyone was busy doing something, especially Pearl and I dancing around, getting in everyone’s way.
The other three brought the maple syrup from the pantry, poured it into a large kettle, lit the little oil burning cook stove, set the kettle of syrup on the burner and the taffy was on its way. Nothing to do now except wait for the syrup to boil down. Oh, yes, you could butter three plates to turn the taffy on to cool. One for Arby, one for Sylvia, one for Grace. None for Pearl and I, again we get told “You are just too little”. We were big enough to enjoy smelling the aroma of that boiling maple syrup. Most delicious odor in the world!
At last, it is now time to turn the syrup onto the buttered plates to cool. Syrup has cooked long enough or so they thought. Checking every few minutes with their fingers, they finally decide it’s cool enough to handle and we all start outside.
A beautiful autumn day, sun shining brightly, we decide to go on the south side of the house. Arby was the first one to get his taffy off the plate to start pulling. Grace and Sylvia, when they tried to pick theirs up, discovered the syrup had not been cooked long enough. Telling Arby to put his back on the plate. He said it would be alright when he pulled it enough for the stuff to set, but that wasn’t the way it worked. The heat of his hands and the warm sunshine made it softer and stickier than ever so he gave up finally. Tried to put the syrup back on the plate but most of it stuck on his hands. Asking the girls to take the spoon and scrape it back on to the plate, he was told that no way were they going to scrape his fingers then put the scrapings in with theirs to be cooked over. Go wash your hands. “No”, Arby said “Ma won’t like it when she finds out we wasted all this syrup. I know what to do”. Calling Pearl and I (the scape goats, always), he ordered us to start cleaning up his hands by licking it off. Always we’re told to mind the older ones and do as they said, so we started licking, Pearl on the right hand, me on his left. I can see this all so clearly, but, as usual my memory has left me. It’s frustrating not to know if they cooked the taffy over or if Arby helped to pull it. I’m certain of this---I’ll bet Pearl and I didn’t help eat it, if they did. Such a dirty trick that brother of mine played on us. I wish now I had nipped his fingers just a wee bit.
My story is over, the day is gone, but as usual it was a fun day. Everyone happy.

CHICKEN FOR SUPPER
I used to like to feed the young chickens in the fall of the year. Why wouldn’t I, I had helped set the hens, take the little chicks out of the nests, and now they were nearly full grown. Almost ready for market.
There was a bare spot down in front of the granary. I liked to scatter the wheat grain there, then I’d stand and watch them scratch around in the dirt for their supper.
One night as I was feeding them, Ma came along, going to the barn to do chores. I called her attention to how fast they were growing. She agreed saying some of them are big enough to eat, like this one right here. There was one almost under my feet pecking away at his supper. Reaching down, Ma grabbed my little friend by his head, raised up, gave his body a flip, broke it’s neck, handed him to me, saying “Take him to the house and tell the girls to cook him for our supper”. On she went to the barn. I knew she always killed the young chicken that way, but I had never seen her. Always before I had closed my eyes when she was about to show her dexterity. I was struck dumb, couldn’t utter a sound, no one around to hear me anyway. I just stood there with the poor thing in my hand, then decided I better mind and do as she said, so I walked slowly to the house. The girls were delighted, saying “Our first young chicken. Won’t he taste good”, we’ll have mashed potatoes and so on for our supper. Presume I ate as much as anyone else but right that minute, I was very mad at my mother.

DISTANT RELATIVES
The first farm on the west side of Lakewood High School was owned, at one time, by my father’s aunt Diana Pickens. She lived there, a widow, with her two boys, Thomas and Charley, who married and brought his wife to live there, also. They had two children, a boy Orvin and a girl Coral. When these two were quite small Charley died. Soon after, his wife, Addie, re-married to another Pickens, Tommie, a cousin of Charley. Now, Tommie moved in, took over the farm and helped raise Charley’s children. Aunt Diana and her other son, Thomas, had to move out. She asked my father to find them a place with a small acreage, so she could have her garden, a cow and always chickens. With a garden filled with vegetables, a cow to furnish milk and butter, chickens to provide you with eggs, once in awhile, a chicken dinner, then setting your hens, you might just have some young ones to sell in the fall. This would be practically their living.
My father soon located the ideal spot, I’ve told you before, the twenty acres across from the Bismark Church and School house where Lloyd and Rose Steward now live. House just the right size, could have their garden, cow and chickens. Just one of three-fourth miles from us. Also Thomas would find plenty of work as a day laborer for the farmers. This is the thing that seems so ironic to me. Pa moved Aunt Diana close to him so he could take care of her when she grew old. He was the only relative she had here in Michigan. Pa died at the age of Fifty, Aunt Diana, one hundred and two.
Time moves on. Of course Aunt Addie and Uncle Tommie, as we were taught to call them, were really not related to us in any way but Coral and Orvin were. Their Grandmother, Aunt Diana, was a Lovell. We always called each other cousins but we really were third cousins. Coral and I were the same age, everyone said we looked more like sisters than distant cousins. We had been close friends all our lives when suddenly, at the age of sixteen, Coral became ill and died within a week. Don’t remember what her illness was. Such a shock to everyone, Aunt Addie almost lost her mind with grief. In a short time, she began driving over to our home wanting me to go home with her for a few days, Ma would always say I could go, thinking perhaps it would help Aunt Addie adjust to the loss of Coral. One day she came for me and asked my mother if she could keep me, said “Ma had Grace and Pearl, and she had no one, Ma didn’t need me but she did, etc.” Of course you know the answer to that one and also I didn’t go home with Aunt Addie that day. Later on, I did go once in awhile. It was so lonely there, no one my age. Can remember Sunday mornings, we always went in to Lake Odessa attending the Methodist Church there on main street.

ANOTHER CHICKEN FOR SUPPER
Once on one of my visits to Aunt Addie’s she said “I wish Orvin and Tommie weren’t working over on the other place, I’d like a chicken for supper”. A few minutes later she asked me if I supposed I could run one down. Now that was one thing I could do, run. We went outside, she pointed a chicken out to me, saying catch that one. No sooner said than done, handing the poor thing over to her, she now said “Get the axe, I’ll hold it down for you while you chop it’s head off”. “Me?” I answered, “I never killed a chicken in my life”. Then her answer came “Neither have I, but if we’re going to have chicken for supper one of us has to kill it”. So she took the chicken’s legs in her hand, laid the poor thing on a block of wood, grasped it by the head with her right, pulled its neck out straight and said “Now, kill it”.
Picking up the axe, I raised it over my shoulder and came down with a powerful blow, I thought, but it was just hard enough to start the blood a little. The rooster squawked, I screamed, threw the axe and ran for the house. Aunt Addie was on her own, a half killed chicken in her hand, nothing for her to do but pick up the axe and finish the job.
Supper time, it made a lot of sport for Orvin and Uncle Tommie. They sure enjoyed making fun of us. I didn’t care, I never had killed a chicken, I never was going to kill a chicken, up until now I never have. Now, I couldn’t anyway, no one has chickens running around. You go to the market and buy them already killed, sometimes already cooked; but, however, until you have tasted a freshly killed fowl, you never will know what a delicious treat it is. I really don’t enjoy chicken any more.

MA’S DISCOVERY
One evening Ma and I were milking the cows outside in the barnyard. Oh, oh, now I hear someone say “Barnyard? What’s a barnyard?” A barnyard was a huge pen built to enclose your animals at night.
The long part of our barn run from the east to the west, covering about half the enclosure. At the south east corner a fence was fastened directly to the barn, then extended east to the water tank, leaving this space for the animals to drink when they were shut in, beginning the fence on the other side, it extended east to the road, then north, probably a couple hundred feet or so, now back to the west until even with the barn at the west end, then south and fastened to the corner of the barn again. A large gate was in this last part, to enable a team and wagon to get in and out.
Sliding doors on this side of the barn opened into the horse stable, the cow stalls and the sheep pen. You could let the animals in or turn them out again without leaving the barn. Hope you get the picture. I could draw it but how do you type a picture?
Guess Ma and I better get the milking done, so we had just threshed out grain a few days before this. A huge, cone shaped stack of straw, thirty or forty foot high, was built about fifteen or twenty foot from the barn, directly in front of the stable doors. This straw would be used during the winter months to bed down the horses and cattle making them nice and cozy through the cold weather.
We liked to milk our cows outside in summer so pleasant, air so nice and fresh, no stuffy barn odors. Just as we were getting up on our feet, after finishing the last two cows, Ma spotted a hen’s nest about halfway to the top of that straw stack.
She said “Look up there, the hens have stolen a nest in that straw. How will we ever get the eggs?” I answered that I could easily climb up after them. She said “I couldn’t, I’d fall, straw was so slippery” etc. I insisted that I could do it and I started climbing. Oat straw was especially slippery and so recently threshed, hadn’t settled the least bit, I would maybe get three or four feet up, then down I’d come. After trying several times and getting nowhere but down, I decided the east side was a little more slanting, I’d climb up that side to the top, then work myself down towards the hen’s nest, pick up the eggs and come to the ground. Ma said “I’d fall”, I said “I wouldn’t” and up I went clear to the top without a back-slide. I started down and about the first step I took, the straw started sliding and I shot like out of a cannon, clear to the ground. Traveling past that nest at a terrific speed, thinking I’d break my neck, my leg or maybe just an arm. I scrambled out of that pile of straw, thankful to be alive and unhurt. Do you want to know what that Mother of mine said? “You never got the eggs!”
Well, now I like that! I was thankful just to be alive and unhurt and all my Mother could say was “You never got the eggs”. Don’t remember whether we ever did or not.

JACOB C. HIGH GENEALOGY by Grayden D. Slowins

Trina High, 211 Glenforest Rd., Toronto, Ontario, M4N 243 Canada
Dear Ms. High; Sorry for the delay, but I wanted to assemble as much material for you as possible. The following comes from the records and gravestones of East Sebewa Cemetery, from the Atlas Plat Maps of early years, from U. S. Census Records of 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880, and from the pages of The Sebewa Recollector historical bulletin of the Sebewa Center Association.

FIRST GENERATION:
Jacob C. High, was born in Virginia, December 13, 1813, died in Sebewa Township, Ionia County, Michigan, 1905; was married to Catherine Estep, second to _______ Estep, and third to Mary Ann Lapham Green, born in Ohio, December 1, 1820, died in Sebewa Township, 1905. The family was not listed in the Census of 1850, but in 1858 Jacob C. and Mary Ann High deeded 1.2 acres of their farm at NE ¼ Sec. 24 Sebewa Township to the Township of Sebewa on May 20, for the sum of $50.00, to be used as a Cemetery. Apparently they also sold approximately 22 acres of the flood plain along Sebewa Creek at the northwest corner of their farm to Jacob Collingham (no; Cunningham) to form a millpond for his Up-and-Down sawmill. Also approximately 1 acre was dedicated for the construction of the High rural school. That acre reverted back to the current owners when the school closed in the 1960s. Therefore all Atlas Plats beginning with 1875 show 137 acres and splits thereof. Mrs. Tena Rischow, 12288 S. Keefer Hwy., Sunfield, MI, 48890, is current owner and occupant of the property and could probably give more information on the deed history. Jacob and Mary Ann are buried on Lot 22, Block 3, of this East Sebewa Cemetery. Since the four older boys were all born in Ohio, and Mary Ann was from Sebewa families of Lapham and Green, and mother of Welcome J. High, it would appear that the Estep sisters were mothers of all the boys born in Ohio, although Mary Ann was actually from there also.
Jacob C. High’s children were:
1. James W. High, born circa 1840, died 1862-1864
2. John High, born 1846, died after 1924
3. Jacob E. High, born 1848, died 1887
4. George High, born 1849, died 1922
5. Welcome J. High, born 1857, died 1914

SECOND GENERATION:
James W. High, born in Ohio about 1840, died as a soldier in the Civil War, about 1862-64; was married to Amanda Meloy, February 19, 1862. James is said to have lived in Sebewa, and may have had children, but this family is not listed in any of the Censuses.
John High, born in Ohio, 1846, died in Michigan after 1924; was married to Anna, born 1852. This family lived on the Heinzleman farm, Sec. 17 & 20 Sebewa Township. John was still alive in 1924; when he was interviewed by the Rambling Reporter for an Ionia paper who happened to stop at the Sebewa Creek bridge. John was 78 years old then. He said the up-and-down sawmill was gone and his father’s old house was still standing but abandoned and in bad condition with the windows stoned out.
John and Anna’s children were:
1. George High, Jr., born 1872;
2. Sarah High, born 1873.
Jacob E. High, born in Ohio, 1848, died in Sebewa Township, April 6, 1887. He is buried on his parents’ Lot 22, Block 3, East Sebewa Cemetery. His parents were Jacob C. and Catherine.
George High, born in Ohio, 1849, died in Lake Odessa, 1922, was married to Mahala, born in Ohio, 1852. George had a 77 acre farm across the road at N ½ of SW ¼ Sec. 18 Danby Township in 1906. He later lived at Lake Odessa with his daughter and died there. Her husband was a Medical Doctor, first at Sebewa and then at Lake Odessa after the train came thru in 1887. Her son was a Dentist at Lake Odessa and owned the farm at S ½ of SW ¼ Sec. 18 Danby, next to his grandfather’s old place. He set out pines and spruce and built a cottage there. George and Mahala’s child was:
1. Nellie High
Welcome J. High, born in Sebewa Township, August 2, 1857, died April 9, 1914; was married December 14, 1879, to Mary Lucinda Merryfield, born in Paris Township, Kent County, Michigan, March 1, 1861, died in Sebewa Township, September 16, 1894. Buried on Lot 8, Block 14, East Sebewa Cemetery, as is Myrtle.
Their children were:
1. Myrtle High, born September 1, 1880, died October 19, 1880.
2. Maurice Welcome High, born September 2, 1880 (?).
3. Harry High, born May 7, 1884, died December 11, 1970.

THIRD GENERATION:
Maurice Welcome High, born in Sebewa Township, September 2, 1880, was married February 2, 1908 to Lydia V. Wilcox, born at Portland. Later married Josephine A. Stone or Deatsman.
Maurice and Lydia’s children were:
1. Opal High, born May 8, 1904
2. Maurice Winston High
3 Dorothy High

Harry High, born in Sebewa, May 7, 1884, died in Portland, December 11, 1970, was married, no children. Harry is buried on his parent’s Lot 8, Block 14, East Sebewa Cemetery. His wife went back to be buried with her first husband. Harry ran a bakery in Portland, Michigan, for many years.

FOURTH GENERATION:
Maurice Winston High. His child was:
1. Trini High
Wilson W. Merryfield, father of Mary Lucinda Merryfield High, owned a farm directly across the road from Jacob C. High, at S ½ of NW ¼ Sec. 19 Danby Township. Later his family owned much land in Sec. 14, 15, and 23 of Sebewa, and later still in Sec. 12 & 2, still later in Sec. 35 and in 28 of Danby, and in the Mulliken area of Roxand Township, Eaton County. He died in 1891 and is buried in Mulliken Cemetery. He married Rosanah Howland September 8, 1846. She died April 30, 1905, and is buried there also.
William Estep, born 1826; was married to Rebachah, born 1833. They live W ¾ of SE ¼ Sec. 21 Sebewa Township. The Estep sisters who were married to Jacob C. High in Ohio were not listed as his children, were too old to be his children, so may have been his sisters. He had lived in Ohio and Rebachah was born there. He was born in Maryland.
~ Grayden D. Slowins, Sebewa Township Clerk, Cemetery Superintendent

DEATHS for the period: Richard P. WOLF, living in the former High school at Sebewa Corners and P. J. WELCH of Sunfield. Mr. Welch had served as a member of the Sunfield, Sebewa and Danby Fire Department for 50 years, the last 32 as Fire Chief.

FROM PORTLAND REVIEW, Volume 28, Number 51, June 10, 1913
SLOW DOWN TO TEN MILES – Drivers of Automobiles Must Have Regard for Speed Limit
Careless automobile drivers, who turn the corners down town at a reckless rate of speed, have forced the council to take action and last week the clerk was instructed to have sign boards painted and place in different parts of the village, close to the corporation line, warning the drivers not to exceed ten miles per hour within the limits. It is understood that this is more for the purpose of regulating speed down town than for checking it in the residence districts, though it is intimated that drivers who take too much for granted will find that it applies anywhere in the corporation.

The two following items are taken from PORTLAND REVIEW, Volume 34, Number 25, December 10, 1918:
FIRST WOMAN VOTER – Mrs. Claude Plant First in Michigan to Exercise New Right – Men Stood Aside At Polling Place While She Voted – Getting Up Early at the Plant Home Wins Distinction for Her.
To Mrs. Claude Plant belongs the distinction of having been the first woman in Michigan to vote at an election where officers are chosen. Hereafter women will participate in every election.
Mrs. Plant was on hand at 7:00 o’clock Monday morning. Several men were there, too, awaiting the opening of the polls. Gallantly they stood aside while Mrs. Plant entered the booth with ballot No. in hand. Then she handed it to the inspector, properly folded, and went her way. Her picture will be in every daily newspaper in Michigan before the week is over.
Mrs. Plant is a demure little lady, who isn’t strong on notoriety, but they have a habit of getting up early at the Plant home and there is also an autuomobile, for quick transportation. Mrs. Plant is the mother of a charming little lady named Virginia, about three years old. Prior to her marriage she was Miss Edith Wasnick, for a number of years employed at the Ramsey-Alton plant.

BRING MRS. KENYON’S REMAINS FROM N. D.
Florian Kenyon, returning from Golden Valley, N. D., where he was called on account of the serious illness of his father, Marvin E. Kenyon, brought the remains of his mother, who died at Golden Valley last July, and they have been interred in the Baptist cemetery in Sebewa Township. The body had been kept in a vault, awaiting the trip to Michigan. The elder Kenyon was somewhat better when Florian left.

Taken from Portland Review, Volume 45, Number 12, September 3, 1929:
THREE SANDBORN BROTHERS IN BRADLEY CORNERS WRECK - New Ford Coupe hits Abutment As They Fail to Negotiate Curve.
Three brothers, Melbourn, Raymond and Harold Sandborn, sons of Lon Sandborn, were in a new Ford coupe, on their way to Electric park, Friday evening. At Bradley’s corners they failed to note the curve in the road and the car struck an abutment.

Melbourn was cut on the neck and leg, Raymond about the face. Harold was not injured. Dr. W. W. Norris attended to the injured at his office.

The car had gone less than 1,000 miles and the boys carried no insurance. It was badly damaged and was towed to Hunt Bros.’ garage.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR, Bulletin of The Sebewa (Ionia County, MI) Recollector,
June 1987; Volume 22, Number 6. Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: OLRY, SAYER, WELCH, LOVELL, CRAMER , PANGBORN, LOUDEN, GOODEMOOT, VANHOUTEN

The Annual Meeting of The Sebewa Center Association will be held at Sebewa Center on Monday, Memorial Day Holiday with a potluck dinner at 6:30 P.M. on May 25, 1987. Carol Leak and Anne Slowins have been named as the Refreshment Committee. Wilbur Gierman’s 3 year term as President expires so that office must be filled by election. Allen and Leah Cross have been appointed to act as a Nominating Committee.

This year in conjunction with our annual meeting there will be a special event of naming the Olry house as an historical building registered with the State History Division. Grayden and Anne Slowins are inviting all to their farm on Musgrove highway, just east of Shilton Road for the Ceremony of unveiling a bronze plaque designating the house acceptance as an historical building. The time is 4:30 P.M. on May 25, 1987. The house will be opened to visitors for inspection from basement to attic. Also of interest is the sheep farm where Grayden has 175 ewes and 292 lambs, one of the largest flocks in Ionia County. After that inspection and celebration we urge all to come to Sebewa Center for the potluck program.

The houses of Ken Seybold, LaVern Carr and Lila Towner, all built in the 1870’s and of the same Italianate style are eligible for the same honors. Another house just west of the Center on what was once the Frederick Gierman farm was of the same style but was burned about 1900. Please read carefully the following story about the Olry house.

Giving Credit where Credit is due, Sherm Pranger would like us to know that Jack Barker replaced missing letters in making restoration on the Sunfield Service Board. Mr. Barker lives just north of M 43 on Shaytown Road.

Watch the Sunfield Sentinel for notice of a June unveiling of a State Historic Marker to be placed at the Sunfield Grand Army of the Republic (G. A. R.) by the Daughters of Union Veterans (D. A. V.).

Mrs. Edna Sayer, who will have her 97th birthday July 5, has been moved to the Masonic Home in Alma for care. Myrtie Welch of Sunfield whose experiences we have shared in the serialized story, shares the same birth date as Edna Sayer. Myrtie enjoyed a wheel chair trip down town on a recent warm day. She enjoys visitors to her home.

The Guys and Gals Home Economic Sewing Club has been using our schoolhouse for the past season on Saturdays. Recently they had installed on the front of the building a new mercury vapor yard light.

The Stevens Thompson Mason Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution DAR are about to have a ceremonial ritual of marking a grave of a soldier of the American Revolution. There are three Revolutionary soldiers buried in Ionia County. William Pangborn is buried in Snow’s Cemetery in Ronald Township, at the age of 110. Sebewa Township has the DAR Marker for Jonathan Ingalls on the roadside a half mile south of Sebewa Corners. The other veteran, Louden Andrews, is buried in the Letts Cemetery, Berlin Township a half mile west of M 66 on Peck Lake Road. If ever there was a marker for him, no one seems to remember. Members of the DAR have contacted Washington for his record and now have a bronze marker to be placed in his memory. June 20 at 2 PM has been selected as the time for the unveiling. Louden Andrews lived north across Bennett Road from the white former Wesleyan Church on M 66 near the Harwood farm.

The letter from Dr. Andrews that follows came from Mrs. Doris Hogan. She is the grand-daughter of George Goodemoot. Her mother, Clarice was married to Charles Andrews who was descended from a brother of Louden Andrews. Mark your calendar or date book for this event. There is likely to be no other such ceremony.

Credit also goes out to Evelyn David and Joyce Petrie for helping publish the Recollector.

OUR CENTENNIAL EVENT
On February 28, 1986, the John C. Olry Farmstead became Site #1294 on the Michigan Register of Historic Sites, for reasons of historical and architectural significance. On May 25, 1987, the plaque marking the site will be dedicated, at 4:30 PM, prior to the potluck & annual meeting. A guided tour for members and guests will be provided.
The Olry farmstead was taken up from the United States Government on April 17, 1849, by John F. and Margaret T. Olry. The first dwelling was just east of the present structure, and the first barn was southwest of the present barn. This spacing was inconvenient, but was their only fire protection.
The family was French Catholic and was always considered a bit pretentious by the neighbors. Perhaps this is why they built the only brick & sandstone, Victorian-Italianate home in Sebewa Township; and why the house most always seemed to require a hired girl to help care for it.
The older Olry sons often walked to Westphalia to church on nice Sunday mornings, or at least as far as Portland, where they might hitch a ride on the back of someone’s wagon. The 1850 Census shows:
John F. Olry, age 31, born in France; Clarissa (Margaret?), age 33, born in France; Catherine, 15, born in Ohio; William, 13, born in OH; John C., 12, born in OH, Margaret, 10, OH; Mary, 8, OH; Lewis, 7, OH; Francis, age 11/12, born in Ohio.
John F. Olry was born in 1819, died April 13, 1861, at age 42. Margaret was born in 1817, and her death date is unknown. They may be buried at Westphalia Cemetery. John was Sebewa Township Treasurer in 1852. The Abstract of Title shows the following heirs of John F. Olry who were paid off by John C., thru Quit Claim Deeds or Warranty Deeds:
Catherine D. Sherwood, William and Mary Elizabeth his wife, Margaret, Mary Ann Estep, Lewis A., Francis
William & wife and Francis are buried together in the West Sebewa Cemetery. Lewis A. is buried at Lake Odessa Lakeside Cemetery. Catherine’s share of the estate passed thru her heirs – Frank, William Hl, and George Sherwood. John C. and his wife, Lora, are buried in East Sebewa Cemetery. Lewis had the farm where Martha & Maynard Thrams now live. William was on the east 40 acres of the Doris Leak farm. Catherine was not a part of the Sherwood families in the Berlin – Ionia area. Margaret Jr. has not been traced. If there is any Olry bloodline left at all, it may be in the Estep families.
John C. Olry built the front barn in 1870 and the cowbarn about 1882-1885. He began excavation and footings on this house in 1876. Bill Caswell handed up square nails to the carpenters on the front barn at age 6. At age 14 he was hired man here when the house was built. He told about the construction shortly before he died in 1964, at the age of 99 years, 11 months, and 23 days. The Portland Observer also gave a running commentary as follows: May 21, 1879, “John Olry is getting up an elegant residence. The stone work by Thomas French is much admired”. June 11, 1879, “Unquestionably the best wall ever laid in this township is now being built for the foundation of Mr. John Olry’s new residence. The workman, rather than the artist, is Mr. Thomas French, who in this job is outdoing himself. The building is in the hands of Mr. George W. Cole, who is capable of creating a substantial and handsome residence. Mr. Olry congratulates himself in having procured the services of two such expert workmen”. And finally on October 23, 1879, “John Olry’s beautiful residence is approaching completion, and when finished will be one of the handsomest houses in the township.”
The materials are believed to be Ionia sandstone and VanderHeyden brick, but no distinguishing marks have been located as yet. The house was completed before John Friend and associates began to manufacture bricks, in 1880, on the rear of the E. C. Derby farm, near the mouth of Sebewa Creek in S ½ of SW ¼ Sec. 18 Danby, on the land now owned by Hitchcock and Laughlin. The house is built of ivory brick, sometimes called white brick or yellow brick, over mailing girts, over 2x6 rough sawed studs, giving almost 8” space to fill with insulation. The sandstone was used for headers & sills on windows and doors, also at the top of foundations. The 10’ ceilings are untouched, except in the kitchen. A small maid’s bedroom was removed from the kitchen about 1925. Prior to that the cookstove was in the dining room, at least in winter, and the sink was there also. The cupboards were moved from the pantry to the kitchen, and the pantry was turned into a bathroom about 1937, when electricity came and provided water pressure from the pump on the cistern. This also provided water for the water-heater, but inside drinking water did not come until 1957. This change in the pantry explains why the indoor stairway to the basement is reached thru the bathroom. Only one interior door has been closed, from the pantry-bathroom to the living room. The only exterior change has been enclosing the front and west porches about 1935.
All original woodwork remains intact, mostly walnut finish, with solid walnut stair banister. The windows are high & narrow in the Italianate style, as is the hip roof. The house has no fireplace, although most town-houses of that style and period did have. The original heating was woodstoves in the kitchen or dining room, living room, and parlor, with stovepipes thru the bedchambers above. The parlor guest bedroom is now a music room, 9’ x 9’. Central hot air heating was added, first with wood and coal and later oil.
The Portland Observer says “May 18, 1881, Born in Sebewa on the 17th instance to the wife of John Olry, a 9 ½ pound boy (Glenn J. Olry.)” The house was completed just in time. A daughter Harriet was also born here. No others in all the years since.
John C. Olry took over the farm at the time of the death of his father, John F. Olry, on April 13, 1861, at age 22. He was born Nov. 15, 1838, and died Dec. 26, 1903, at age 65. His wife, Lora E. Kelly, died in 1922. They are buried in East Sebewa Cemetery. Glenn J. Olry took over the farm at the time of the death of his father, John C. Olry, in December, 1903, at the age of 22 also. Glenn died June 5, 1956. His wife, Fern VanHouten, daughter of Charles & Cora VanHouten, was born in 1882, and died in 1972. They had no children and are buried in East Sebewa Cemetery. Glenn’s sister Harriet (Hattie) and husband, Charles Ralston, lived on the next farm west. Charles was born across the road, in the house which is a duplicate of this but built of wood. Charlie lived with Glenn and Fern after Hattie’s death in 1915. Glenn inherited 105 acres from John C., got 25 more from Lora’s 55 at her death in 1922, and the final 30 at Charlie’s death in 1941.
Descendants by way of Lora Kelly Olry’s family are Richard & Jean Dawdy of Portland. By way of Fern VanHouten Olry are Coralane Boyes, Verland & Rod McLeod, Betty Farmer Pohl, John & Neil VanHouten, of this area. If there are any blood descendants of John Olry, they have not been located.
Grayden & Ann Slowins purchased the farm for $100 in 1855. Glenn J. mortgaged it for $2600 in 1923. Grayden and Ann mortgaged it for $22,000 in 1966. Jimmy Carter’s inflation drove the market price to $240,000 in the early 1980’s, but it was never worth that much, based on it’s earning power, and today the True Cash value is much less.
- Grayden Slowins

Dr. L. H. Andrews, 325 Wallace Ave., St. Joseph, MI 49085, November 21, ’74:

Dear Mrs. Carigan: I was very glad to receive your letter and would have written sooner except that I have been under the weather a bit and my wife fell again and badly injured her arm……

I think the Andrews family will take the prize for leaving as little in the way of family records as they did. I can not tell you much but it might possibly tie in with what you know.

I do not know just when my great-grandfather, Louden Andrews, came to Michigan nor do I know if he came before my grandfather or after. My grandfather was Luther Andrews and he was born in New York State. I am sure June 15, 1816 (This is written in the Bible of my grandfather). He and his bride drove an Ox team from New York state and settled about two miles west of Homer, Michigan. At that time the U. S. Engineers said that Michigan was a hopeless swamp that would never amount to anything. It was very rugged. My grandfather said that as he drove over the log roads, thru swamps, every little way there was a spot where some horse or Ox team had slipped off the log road and their bones were sticking up thru the muck. I do not know what year this was but I guess it was about 1835 or 36. At that time this area he moved to was heavily populated with the Pottawatome Indians, with whom he became very friendly and helped them fight battles with the Hurons who came here to attack them. I do not know if I spelled the tribes’ name correctly and I can not find it readily. His father, my great grand-father Louden Andrews, and two of his brothers settled near Ionia, on farms, I think.

One Christmas my grandfather went up there to visit, and Christmas morning he and his brother, I think it was John, went out to hitch up a team to the sleigh when the old man came out and asked “What are you doing?”. They told him and he said “You boys can ride if you want to but I am going to walk”. He was over 90 years old at that time and the boys had to “hump” as they called it to keep up with him on a walk to another brother’s home about 8 miles away cross country.

I do not know that the brother’s name for sure but I thought it was Charles. Another brother went west and was never heard from again. Louden carried a British bullet in his hip until he died. The lady from the D. A. R. who wrote me that the old settlers remembered him, said that his grave had been marked by the D. A. R. and I thought that was good enough. I was very busy at the time and was not able to go to Ionia but once. In the meantime, I had lost the lady’s name who wrote me and nobody seemed to know much about it. She told me in her letter that he was almost 100 years old when he died. According to what my grandfather told my mother, and that is all that I know about it, the brother he visited was John. I know from what my mother learned, from my grandfather, Louden was too young for the Draft or the army at that time. They had a neighbor by the name of Weaver who was called to serve in Washington’s army but because he had a family, he did now want to go and my great-great-father lied about his age and went into the army under the name Louden Weaver. A Librarian at the Benton Harbor Library looked up the names of the soldiers from New York and found the name of Louden Weaver. But there was no Louden Weaver. It was Louden Andrews who actually served, and he was in Washington’s army four years. He was at Valley Forge I am pretty sure and also at Jockey Hollow. Those were the two most bitter winter campaigns and he told about tying rags to their feet during the winter but they were not very good. The British tracked them by the blood on the snow. About everything I know was the things my grand-father told my mother. He was an invalid following an accident and developed osteomyelitis in his leg. They did not know how to treat it then and all they did was pour carbolic acid in the wound, which is the worst thing they could have done. My mother took care of him for several years before he died and he told her all I know. Nothing was written down.

To do a little supposing, if my Great Grandfather was too young for the army, he was probably about 16 years old when he joined Washington’s army under the name of Weaver. That would make his birthday about 1760. My grandfather visited him when he was about 90 years old, and I imagine from what the lady wrote me, if he was nearly 100 years old when he died, that might be between the years of 1850 and 1855. Now if these dates help you any, maybe you can tie it in to what you know. What I know is very little in fact, and I can not prove much of that.

Written records were not kept very well then. I was born in Albion, Michigan but the State of Michigan has no record of my birth. My army discharge might be the only way I have, to prove that I was even born, or that I am now almost 78 years old. My father was the youngest son of my grandfather, and my grandfather was the youngest son in that family.

I am afraid that I have not been of much help to you but the two names that are most important in my family to tie to are Louden and Luther. If anybody has any recollection or records of such men in the family, there is very likely a connection, as those were not common names. According to what I have been able to learn from some of the people in Ionia, John and Charles are names that occur quite frequently in the family. That makes it hard. My grandmother Andrews was a daughter of Cornelius Putnam but I do not know if he was a son of Israel Putnam or of Israel’s brother. Cornelius goes in that family too.

I am sorry that I can not help you more. If you learn anything that might help, I will be very glad to learn of it. The Andrews name is not too common and I think that they are all related, way back perhaps.

Sincerely, L. H. Andrews
P.S. My Grandfather was quite a character. I could recite some interesting things that would characterize the man. That might be a family trait.
L. H. A.

MYRTIE CANDANCE (LOVELL) WELCH

MA SLIDES DOWN HILL – I slid down a strawstack trying to gather eggs but my Mother slid down hill to feed the hogs. This could have happened any year between 1905 and 1909. Sylvia left home in 1905 and Grace in 1909. Grace, Ma, Pearl and I were living at home. One morning we awoke to find our world had changed over night into one covered with ice. Limbs of the Evergreens in our front yard weighted down with ice, trees in the orchard behind the house covered, all roof tops, too, with huge icicles clinging to the edge. Just everything was covered, especially the ground leading down the hill to the barn. That was a glare of ice. Sun shining, though, made it all very sparkling and beautiful; but WE had chores to do.
Ma and Grace picked up the pails and made it to the barn to milk the cows. Pearl and I watching from the north windows of the kitchen. Out at the east side of our dooryard, along the road, was a strip probably twenty-five or thirty feet wide covered with Cherry and a few Butternut trees. This was where the slope towards the barn began. Grace and Ma, walking very carefully, headed for this group of trees. Wasn’t quite so icy at the end of the trees, the ground leveled off and soon they were at the southeast corner of the barnyard. Clinging to the barnyard fence, they easily made it to the barn. Door right at this corner and they pop out of our sight.
Soon Grace and Ma returned, each with a pail of milk in their hand. Neither one had fallen nor spilled a drop of milk. Ma said now if she could get the pail of swill down to the hogs without spilling it but she didn’t know how she would ever do it. Grace said “Let me go” but Ma wouldn’t allow that.
Now the hog pen was built just west of the barn and the path down to this was even steeper than the other. Ma managed to get past the granary, a little more than half-way, sitting the pail down to rest a bit and plan her strategy, she came up with this idea. “That pail has a good strong bottom, I think if I set it between my knees, I could plant my feet firmly on each side and slide down this grade right to the hog-pen door. No sticks or stones sticking up that I can see, I’m going to try it”.
We girls, watching from the kitchen windows couldn’t imagine what she intended doing, when all at once she gave her skirts a hitch above her knees, squatted down, one foot on each side, gave the pail a little nudge and down she went directly to the door of the pen. Not a drop did she spill. The pigs had their drink, suppose they were happy and so was my Mother! She could always find a way out of a problem. Some way she would get the task done. Guess I’ll try and give you a better idea of our home. It wasn’t all up and down that hill I’ve written so much about. The house was built on the hilltop but to the north the ground sloped gently down towards the barn, then leveled off. Was perfectly flat when the barn and hog-house were built. Our farm and all others north of us were perfectly flat for miles and miles.
Our farm, directly behind the house was level, that stretched through many farms west of us. Directly behind our house was our beautiful orchard. I wonder now if that wasn’t the reason Pa built the barn below the hill. Really no other place for it without sacrificing a lot of fruit trees.
Maybe, now, I hope, you will get the picture a little better.

NAILED TO THE POST
One lazy summer afternoon, we girls were enjoying ourselves on the front porch doing nothing. When out of the quietness came this distress call from Ma. “Girls, the pigs are out!”.
Ornriest animals anyone ever had on a farm. Now, cattle will form into a group and they will not hard to manage; but pigs, you have to chase one at a time.
They’ll go this way and that, maybe turn around and come right towards you. Chasing them finally back into the hog lot, we are grunting as hard as the pigs; we find they have broken the big gate (maybe ten feet long) completely down. We will need the hammer and some nails, Pearl goes to the granary for them, Grace and I try straightening the gate back up. Now, the top board has been nailed, with the flat side down, to the end posts. Grace pulled one end up, boards all in place, I pulled up the other post. Boards all in place here excepting my end of the top one.
When I straightened my end of the gate and set the post in the proper place, that board being fastened at the other end, just swung around and set itself into its proper place. The nail was still in the board so it settled right down in the original hole. Good! Gates all back together, no problem, we’ll just add some more nails to make it stronger then we can go back to the house and relax after our long hot chase.
Wait a minute, just one small problem. I am nailed fast to the gate. I had placed my hand flat down on top of the post, when the board flew back of its own accord, that old nail went right through my hand. Just about an inch down from the base of my third and my little finger on my right hand. Grace screamed and cried but pushed the board up and released my hand. Nail went right between the bones of those two fingers, never even drawing a drop of blood. Never hurt at all. Ma had me soak it in Epsom Salts water, then put her favorite remedy, turpentine, on it, then covered my hand with a bandage. All of this was not necessary, nothing to bandage. A little round hole in my hand was all you could see. The scar was plainly seen for years, but no more. Can’t prove it without the scar. I assure you it really happened.

NICKNAMES
My mother told me when I began learning to walk, I humped my shoulders up in such a peculiar way, that my father began callimg me “hump” and he never even then called me Myrtie. I was always “Hump” to him.
Just once in my life, I can remember him saying Myrtie. That was because I was disobeying him. At the dinner table that day my father said he was going to get feed ground for the pigs and wanted me to come out and hold the bags for him to put the grain in. I said I would, then I finished my dinner before he did and I slipped upstairs. I was reading a book, as usual, and I very much wanted to finish it before having to help Pa. Thought if I read real fast, I could make it, just a few more pages.
At the head of the stairs there was a west window and through this I could see the granary door. I settled down on the top step, picked up my book and proceeded to read. Had one eye on the book the other one glancing now and then toward the granary. Now, I saw my Dad when he went out to work, also heard him call “Hump”. Just two more pages, I thought, I can’t stop now so I kept on reading. All this time, I didn’t realize he could see me just as well as I did him. Calling out “Hump” a second time, I didn’t move but the third call was MYRTIE in no uncertain voice. It really meant move and move I did. I was so frightened, I threw my book and down those stairs I went. Maybe he’d spank me although he never had; but I knew I deserved one. You know what happened, I walked into that granary, never a word did he say, just handed me a bag and began shoveling the grain.
Pa never called me Myrtie again that I remember. He never had to in that tone of voice, I learned my lesson.

RUFUS, ARBY’S NICKNAME FOR ME
I was always reading to the older ones. This day, I lay flat on the floor with a book laid out in front of me, entertaining Sylvia, who was busy ironing. My story was about a certain boy whose name was Rufus Roughwig. I didn’t know how to pronounce those big words, so I asked Sylvia, Ruffus Row-wig. Giving the letter “u” the sound as in “up” instead of just plain “u”.
Arby came into the room where we were and sat down to listen. Well, that boy’s name soon came up in the story. Arby said for me to let him see but he thought I was miss-pronouncing that name. I said I wasn’t because Sylvia told me how. He answered, “She probably didn’t know how herself”. Sylvia said she did too know how, she was just playing a trick on me, knowing how badly I felt over miss-pronouncing a word. They bantered back and forth awhile, then Arby said “Guess I’ll call her Rufus, then she’ll never forget how to pronounce it. From that day on, the rest of Arby’s life, I was Rufus to him. No one else called me that.
I always thought Sylvia deserved the name but Mae, Arby, Sylvia, and Grace were never nicknamed.

JIM CRAMER
One, cold, fall day, my Mother was husking corn. Guess I better back up and tell you the primitive way of harvest corn for already I can hear you asking “What did you say your Mother was doing?” I’ll try to explain.
Remember, in the beginning of my story, I told you how evenly the rows of corn were planted, now it’s fall and time to cut it down so it can be husked. There was a real pattern to this. A perfect square was blocked off by counting eight or maybe ten (I’m not certain) rows each way. Then going to the very center of the block, you’d tie the tops of about four hills together to start your shock of corn. Then with a hand corn knife, you grasped the top of each stalk in one hand, then cut it loose from the ground about six inches up.
The stalks were then carried to the center where the four stalks were tied together. You sort of pushed the cut ends into the ground, then leaned them up against the center. When the whole block was cut and stacked, the tops were pulled together and tied. This made what was called a shock of corn, looking much like a tepee of an Indian. It was a beautiful sight when the field was all cut down and shocked, to see those “Tepees” placed so evenly over the ground.
The corn was then left standing in the shocks to ripen and kernels to harden on the ears. Next step was the husking. The shock was laid over flat on the ground. Had to take a corn knife and cut down the center stalks.
A little contraption called a husking-peg was used to pull the husks from the ears of corn. This gadget was a steel blade, about four inches long and maybe an inch wide with a hooked end. You grasped this firmly across the palm of your hand, the hooked end protruding out between your thumb and finger. With the exception of the hook, the rest was padded with leather to protect your hand, also had straps to fasten it on firmly.
Now, you are all ready to attack that great that great stand of cornstalks. Squatting down using your heels to sit on, you reach over and pull a stalk toward you. Now using the husking-peg, pull off the husks, give the ear a little twist and jerk, then toss it on the ground. Pushing the husked stack to the back of the pile, you grab the next one then repeat until you have the whole shock done. Now, let’s see, if that block was ten hills on each side there would be one-hundred stalks of corn. This is just one block and maybe there’s ten or fifteen acres.
The husked corn has to be picked up from the ground, loaded onto a wagon, hauled to the corn crib up by the barn, then unloaded into the crib.
Think of the changes I have seen in just this one thing. A corn binder came first, but still you had to shock it. Huge corn huskers, run by a steam engine, combines, can’t exactly tell them all but up to the present way. So easy now.
I have seen my Mother after my Father died, go out and help Arby husk corn when snow was on the ground and sometimes storming.
Now I’ll get back to the nickname Jim Cramer. As my Mother husked the corn, she would give the ear a toss on the ground and I was supposed to keep them picked up; placing them in a basket for Arby to empty into the wagon later. A few times I would find one or two husks left on the ear, just the inside ones that probably were not quite dry enough to snap it off. Really made no difference because they dried up and dropped off later, but I told Ma she was not husking that corn right. She asked me what she was doing wrong and I said “You’re not doing it like Pa does”. She answered “So, how does your Father do it?” I informed her he didn’t leave any husks like these hanging on his ears. I was still just standing there looking at that ear of corn when she said “Oh, you are just like old Jim Cramer, always standing around doing nothing. Just telling other folks the way it should be done”.
Jim Cramer was a man she knew in her “beloved Woodland” who did just that. He was lazier than a pet coon to hear Ma tell it.
Of course, as usual, everyone gathered around the table at noon was told that story. Everyone, excepting me, enjoyed it.
From that time on, I was called Jim Cramer, sometimes Cramer but mostly just plain Jim. My Mother called me Jimmy.
My brothers-in-law Fred Clay, Chas. Collier and Johnnie Welch never called me Myrtie, it was always Jim.

PEARL’S NICKNAME “Pete”
Arby told me years ago how this one came about. Pearl had a toy wagon, on the side of which was written two words “Little Pete”.
One day Arby, Pa and a man who was working for them sat waiting for Ma and the girls to get dinner on the table. The hired man was playing with Pearl and he asked her what were those words on her wagon. Arby said Pearl shook her head “No”. The guy then told Pearl “It says Little Pete”.
From then on Pearl became Little Pete, or just plain Pete. Of course Fred, Chas, and Johnnie never called her anything else either.
Never could understand really why I had so many, Pearl had only one and the other four none. Since I’ve written them down, I guess maybe I deserved every one of them.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association,
August 1987, Volume 23, Number 1; Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: WELCH, GIERMAN, OKEMOS, ANDREWS, NIELSEN, INGALLS, SLOWINS, OLRY, LOVELL, WELCH

LAKE ODESSA CENTENNIAL POSTMARK NOTING THE TOWN’S 100TH ANNIVERSARY.
The event was shared by people of all ages and especially the children, watching the parade, catching something to remember for 2037. Woodland Township is next for a whopper of a sesquicentennial celebrartion in August. On July 5th our twin girls Myrtie Welch and Edna Gierman celebrated their 97th birthdays.
Edna is in the Masonic Home in Alma at 1200 Wright Avenue with a zip of 48801, and has been pleased with birthday notes. Myrtie was able to get out to our annual meeting and enjoyed the mental acrobatics of recall by Zack York.

The Daughters of the American Revolution, Stevens Thompson Mason Chapter of Ionia carried out the impressive marking of the grave of Louden Andrews at the Letts Cemetery in Berlin Township on June 20th. A video tape of the ceremony was made by Fred Wiseogle. The tape is now in the keeping of the Ionia Historical Society. Descendants of Mr. Andrews from Homer and Ann Arbor were present with local relatives took part in the ceremony.

For those wishing to visit the grave of Chief Okemos, here again are the directions. Find Okemos Road one mile west from Charlotte Highway at the first road north of Centerline Bridge, then south beyond the settled area and stop before making the curve to the right. Then take the trail to the east toward the river. Shortly you will come upon the stone marker placed there by the Ionia D. A. R. under the supervision of Hall J. Ingalls. The Chief died near DeWitt in 1858 and was hauled here by sled and was buried in the presence, among others, Hall J. Ingalls. Shall we celebrate that 130 years next year?

From a letter from Viggo Nielsen: Some 25 years ago Viggo used to come out from Ionia and do audits for local school districts as required by state law. For the past several years, he has lived at the Clark Memorial Home in Grand Rapids. “Yes, here I am, still getting around with a 4-legged walker that I can push, as it has casters on the two front legs so it helps me to step off more freely….I am thankful that so far I am able to get down to the dining room for my meals….If I can hold on till the 30th of July, I

HALL INGALLS, RESIDENT OF COUNTY 89 YEARS AND WED 64 YEARS
Well Known Sebewa Township Farmer Became An Ionian When Three Months Old and Has Always Made This County His Home; Was Playmate of Indians In Boyhood Days; Speaks Their Language. He Lived In First House North of Mill Pond on Keefer Highway.

HALL JACKSON INGALLS, well known Sebewa township resident, has lived in Ionia County since he was three months old and holds the distinction of having resided in the county longer than any other living Ionian, settling here with his parents in 1836. And, as a boy he played with the Indians and grew up with them and today holds them in high respect. Mr. Ingalls, who was 89 years old last March, (from an article printed in Ionia, Michigan, Thursday November 5, 1925) celebrated his sixty-fourth wedding anniversary on October 6. His wife is not in very good health but he enjoys the most remarkable health for his advanced years and is active and spry as he does his daily chores on his 80-acre Sebewa farm. He has a mania for talking and will chatter by the hour, relating experiences in youth and Indian historical events. His memory is keen and retains all his faculties, having excellent eyesight and hearing. He is smart as lightning and quick to grasp a new situation. In his associations with the Red Man he learned their language and can speak it fluently today. Therefore, let us listen to his stories….
MRS. HELEN HALL INGALLS SPOKE: “I remember friends visited us one time and wanted to visit the Indian camp across the road so I went with them. After we had been in the camp for a time, Hall, my husband, came striding thru the woods, grumbling to himself, slashing the bushes with a big stick and pretending to be angry because I had run away.
The Indians saw him coming and began chuckling. One of the old Indians motioned to me quickly to run over to him and crouch down on the ground. I did, and quick as a wink, he covered me with a huge basket near at hand and then sat down on the basket.
Mr. Ingalls pretended not to see, but went on searching for me. He strode around the circle of wigwams, turned back the flaps and peered inside the wigwam for me, muttering and slashing with his stick all the time.
Finally he made a quick dash for the basket, pushed the Indian sprawling to the ground and lifted the basket, exposing me doubled up beneath it. All of the Indians sitting about, jumped up and down and whooped with laughter.
We hear many say that Indians were sober and stolid but I never found them so……..They laughed and enjoyed a good joke the same as anyone else.

INDIAN SUGAR CAMP
Once when my husband was a little boy, still in dresses, his father took him on an Indian pony to visit an Indian sugar camp not far from here. There were no roads then, even to Portland, just Indian trails.
When they reached the camp they found the Indians busy gathering the sap and boiling down syrup. They had no pails so they caught the sap in short hollow logs which served as buckets. The trough at this camp was nearly filled with clear sap. From this the sap was poured into a large kettle and boiled into syrup.
While Hall was standing beside his father watching the Indians, one of the Indian young men suddenly grabbed Hall and popped him into the trough of sap---dresses and all---right into the sap they were going to eat afterward. My husband was terribly frightened but up he came spluttering and gasping as the Indian with a deft stroke wiped the sap from his face. The Indians, of course, thought it a great joke and began laughing loudly.

AN INDIAN DEATH
I remember one of the Indian squaws---in the camp across the road died in childbirth. Her husband, Chippeway came across the road to our house and made me understand he wished me to prepare his wife for burial. By signs he told me he wanted a white shroud for his wife---and by pointing to his feet and stroking his legs I knew he wanted me to get some stockings for her like the white women wore. Somewhere he had seen someone laid out in a white shroud and so he wanted the same for his squaw.
Then he led his Indian pony to me and made gestures for me to ride to Portland and get the white shroud and stockings. I had quite a time making the shroud look the way I wanted, for Indians had no underwear and the brown skin of Chippewa’s squaw showed through the muslin and it didn’t look right.
Finally, I went home and got one of my white nightdresses and cut it up the back and placed this on first, then the muslin over it but when that was done Chippeway brought out a heavy shawl which he wished wrapped around the body, too.
There wasn’t room for it in the coffin---so he made signs for me to tear it in two, which I did, and it slipped in nicely. He was very much relieved and proud when it was all finished. The Indians seemed almost happy over it.
I remember we all went with them to the burial at Shimnecon. (Mr. Ingalls also buried old chief Okemos at Shimnecon.)
I recall in 1841, when a small-pox epidemic broke out among the tribes and all except 150 in this locality died. Stirring scenes were witnessed in those days. Indians, raving with delirium, would run to the river and jump in, most of them drowning. It was a remarkable thing, however, that of those who got out of the river, the greater percent lived.
“Following this terrible epidemic, the Indians had no chiefs. Dearmack and his brother were then duly elected as the heads of this new tribe. In 1845, Dearmack and his brother purchased 110 acres of land on the bend of the river, and called it the territory of Meshimmenconing. The tribes all moved onto this land and it was plotted into five-acre lots and each tribe had to clear the land and were expected to raise crops. Forty-nine log houses were constructed.
If I remember correctly, Rev. Mondoga and his wife came to the village in 1851 and built a log house for a parsonage. Rev. Mondoga and his uncle, John Compton, tried to convert the tribes and taught the Indian children. In 1853, Manassa Hickey, the first missionary, came and in 1855 the first church was constructed. A year later a school house was built.
An exclusive cemetery for Christian Indians was established near Grand River and fifteen were buried there, I believe. A rod south of this burying ground was the plat of land for the so-called heathen Indians and 13 were interred there, including Chief Okemos, who had been chief of his tribe at a town east of Lansing which still bears his name.
‘Okemos’ guns, belts and other belongings were buried with him and in later years because the grave was desecrated it was covered with stone. I know many efforts were made by the missionary to convert him, but his heart was hardened and he would say “kay”, when asked to become a Christian, which means “no”.
I remember one occasion of a squaw being buried who had been visiting the settlement. The remains were being carried in a rough casket by the young Indian boys and a woodchuck clumsily waddled its way across the path. The youths dropped the casket and ran after the woodchuck and after catching him took up their burden once more and this time got it under the ground.
After the government gave the Indians the land at Mt. Pleasant, in 1860, Dearmack and Menawquet sold Meshimmemconning and in 1861, departed with their tribes for Paw Paw, but most of the others moved to Mt. Pleasant.
For 35 years Mr. Ingalls served his township as justice of the peace and for a number of years he was health officer. Today, he is happy and contented and rejoices in being able to relate thrilling and hair-raising experiences with the Indians.”

SOME WORDS ON A TRUST WELL HONORED – The Olry Homestead
Whether you’re coming east from Lake Odessa or west from Sebewa Corners, the majestic ivory house set back from Musgrove Highway catching the light like a bed of iris, commands your attention and respect. It crowns the open landscape like a dowager-queen, all soft hued bricks and long windows veiled with organdy within and Virginia creeper without.
The barns behind it, their tin roofs glinting, are classic structures boasting or rural Michigan history through all the seasons they’ve survived, one by variable one. The oldest is a bit swaybacked like a fine old horse let out to pasture after carrying generations of children about, but the sheep that find shelter inside its solid walls don’t care and those of us who admire the subtle gentility of age can only rejoice. This barn’s warm wooded profile relieves and brightens eyes weary of proliferating pole barns. This is a barn with heavy beams and wide planked floors that smells of hay and husbandry and not aluminum.
A veneration for what was and still should be pervades this farm, now duly placqued and entering on an official list of Michigan historical sites. The Slowins, Anne and Grayden, who raise sheep in the close cropped fields around the house and barns, have kept the faith. They have preserved the spare elegance of the house while living with their own productive lives within it. Anne the artist has hung her pictures, most of which are views of the farm, in almost every room adding the peace and charm of the outside to the rich collage of old family portraits, Grayden’s photographs, collections of rare old books and magazines, prize ribbons from various fairs, and a wild and woolly assortment of artifacts and lore related to sheep.
On Memorial Day weekend, the Slowins graciously opened their home so we curious folk who’ve been driving by for years admiring the house from afar, could at last explore it from the beamed attic with its well-stocked canning cupboard. We marveled at the high ceilings, the polished woodwork, the big comfortable rooms, the well used music room hinting of winter evenings spent with Hayden and Mozart, and all the other titillating treats and surprises scattered throughout. Children ran up and down stairs and in and out doors while older visitors basked in nostalgia and sweet memories.
In the yard outside, a valiant young gingko, a gift to the Slowins from Bob Gierman (who is himself a gift), has recovered from an earlier skirmish with the family cats and begins to assert itself amidst the protective and aromatic mounds of honeysuckle, mock orange and lilac draped like antimacassars around the shoulders of the old house. Through the windows of the newest barn, one can see the pumpkin colored snouts of three vintage Allis Chalmers tractors cherished not only for the jobs they continue to perform but for the aesthetic response they engender.
Everywhere on this farm, one finds the new and the old, beautifully nurtured and respected, existing together not as museum pieces but as vital components of an energetic world. Even the ancient rocks scattered along the fencerow and beside the barns resemble the muted profiles of the sheep who stroll around them.
Good work, Slowins! The Olrys must surely be as gratified from wherever they look on as those of us who were fortunate enough to experience the grace and history of your lovely home in person. Thank you.
~ Connie Peakes

CHERRY PICKING by Myrtie Candace Lovell Welch
Beautiful morning. Beautiful tree loaded with red cherries, glistening in the sunshine. I’m so happy, I hop, skip and jump along like a frisky young colt alongside sedate Mae, who has asked me to help her pick chrries. At last someone has realized I’m beginning to grow up like the rest. I’ll show them today! I’m really quite dependable!
Quite a large, tall tree, so Mae has brought a ladder down with her, which she now sits up in the tree. Before mounting the ladder, she hands me a little pail, saying “You can reach enough cherries to fill this, standing on the ground” and up the ladder she goes to have all the fun. Grown-ups! This tiny little pail for a big girl like me! Stand on the ground, not me, I soon tire of that. Looking up, I see lots of cherries I could pick by climbing into the tree.
Up I go, Mae not telling me I couldn’t. Cherries all around me now. I start picking them. They look so delicious, guess I’ll eat one or two, so tasty, one or two calls for more, besides it’s fun to spit the seeds. Wonder how far I can spit them, bet I can spit a cherry seed farther than anyone in the family, wonder how far Mae could spit a cherry pit, guess I’ll ask her. No I better not she would just tell me it was very un-lady-like to spit anything. On and on my thoughts keep rambling until they are interrupted by a call from Ma; “Girls, dinner is ready”. By this time I have really worked myself up into the top of the tree. Thinking I would climb to the ladder and get down that way. About that time Mae is on the ground and so is the ladder. I yell at her “Don’t take away the ladder, I need it. I can’t get down from here, I’m hungry.” This was her answer to that; “you climbed up there, now climb down the same way. You can’t possibly be hungry, you’ve done nothing all morning except eat cherries and spit seeds”. With that she left me “up a tree”. I got down, I had too done something and I could prove it. The bottom of my little pail being almost covered with cherries.
Now the usual thing has happened, I simply can’t remember any more of this day, so my story ends. One thing I am quite certain didn’t happen. Mae didn’t tell of my “shenanigans” the minute she stepped in the house. If she had, I would have been laughed at, someone would probably nickname me the great cherry picker. Mae really didn’t care for the way the other ones picked on Pearl and I.
Think I’ll write next about my grown-up sister.

MY SISTER MAE
Nancy Mae Lovell, born Oct. 10, 1877, in McComb, Ohio. Nancy was our Grandmother Lovell’s name. Mae, thirteen years older than I, twenty-four when our father died, had black hair and eyes to match. About my height, maybe five foot five or six inches, never very heavy, don’t believe she ever weighed more than 130 or 135 pounds. Rather a quiet, reserved sort of person but fun-loving like the rest of us. Such a dependable sort of person and always a willing helper of our mother. Took so much responsibility in caring for the younger ones, especially Pearl and I. She was our second Mother.
Mae did most of the sewing for the family. One time, I remember, she was making a dress for me. All finished except turning up the hem, she called me in from MY VERY important play, telling me to remove my play togs and get into my new dress. Ordinarily, I would have been pleased about the whole thing; but today MY playtime had been disrupted. I didn’t want to but did as I was told.
Mae sat on the floor, a saucer of pins in her lap, and began turning up the front of my skirt. Such a terribly hot, humid summer day. Top of her blouse was wet through with perspiration. Her face was dripping like she’d been out in the rain, hands so sticky, she could scarcely pick up the pins; but she began on the back of my skirt. I had my back turned towards her and I informed her I wanted to play and for her to hurry the thing up.
No response came for a minute, then she reached up, taking hold of me by the waist, turned me around, looking me right in the face, said “I believe if I’m willing to work on this dress for you on this hot day, you should at least be willing to just stand still while I do it.” She never really scolded me, but always with a few well put words, Mae could make me feel like a worm. This hot day, I was so ashamed I think I felt like two worms, one wooly and the other smooth.

MAE’S MARRIAGE
Mae was married in October of 1901. Same year our father died in May. Fred Clay was her husband’s name. Not a local man, Mae met him when she taught the Gunnel School out by Parma. I believe Mae boarded at Fred’s parents’ home. You see I was just eleven years old when she was married and I’m going to skip details because I just don’t remember.
Mae taught out there two or maybe three years. Fred used to come and see here during vacations, always having to stay the week-end, too far to drive a horse in one day. That way, we became well acquainted long before they married. Everyone liked him, especially the little girls, Pearl and I.
Mae taught her last year at the Patterson School just a mile south of us. She left Gunnel so she could spend her last year at home. I often think how happy she must have been over that decision. We were all home together the last year of our Father’s life. Wonderful memories of a happy family.
On November 18, 1902, Mae and Fred’s first baby was born. A boy whom they named Morrison LeGrand, choosing the name of a favorite Uncle, Eli Morrison, married to Pa’s youngest sister, Emma, and the LeGrand was Pa’s name. What an event that was! Nothing so thrilling to the Lovell sisters had ever happened before. We wanted the whole world to know, could hardly wait to get to school the next day, to brag and “strut our stuff”. No one in the whole Bismark School had a married brother or sister. Just us! Most important people on earth! We had a nephew! We were now Aunt Grace, Aunt Myrtie and Aunt Pearl.
Yes, Aunt Grace, who was always telling Pearl and I how much older and wiser she was than we, came right down to our level and bragged just as much as we “Little Girls”.
Fred and Mae were living with his parents at that time and I believe Ma went out to help Mrs. Clay. We nearly lost our big sister and it was several weeks before she was able to come home. Too far for her to ride in a buggy. Dr. said she could come by train to Vermontville just four and ¼ miles from our house. Sylvia met her there and brought her on home. Now, I wonder, who saw Morrison first? Of course, no other but me. I saw them coming up the hill, darting out of the house, I met them just as they were turning into the driveway.
Before Sylvia could even stop the horse, I had jumped up on the buggy step, right between the moving wheels and almost into Mae’s lap. I remember she said “Well, couldn’t you at least wait until I got out!” Trying to sound a little disgusted with me, but with a half smile on her face, I knew she was as anxious to show Morrison off as I was to see him.
Fred came later in the day driving their horse on the buggy. Mae came home so Ma and Sylvia could help her with her baby but Fred came with the idea of renting a farm nearby home.
Luck was with him. A nice farm, with a tenant house, just south to Rawson’s corners, then east first house on the north side was available. They rented it and soon were living just around the corner from us.
Everyone was so happy. Almost like having Mae home again. Close by so we could help her if she needed us and visit her probably when she didn’t.
The only thing I really remember about that house was the big window in the front. I thought that was wonderful, all our windows were small. Mae loved flowers and plants and could always make them grow most any place even in this.
Fred made her a window box just right to sit in front of that big south window. They filled it with soil and Mae sowed (of all things) Climbing Nasturtium seed! Ma told her they wouldn’t amount to anything, they were never meant to grow inside a house. Ma was wrong, that was the most beautiful sight all that winter. They vined, Mae strung cords up to the top of the window. Soon they reached the top, next started blossoming. Mae had bouquets to give away to everyone who came.
Ilene, the second thrill in my life was born Jan. 20, 1905, on the old home place. Leta, Mae’s third child was born on our farm, too. Later Fred and Mae moved up to Charlotte, lived on a rented place for awhile, then bought the pretty place with the brick house, just south of the fair grounds in Charlotte. That was Mae’s home until her death, June 28, 1959. Fred lived there until his death in April 15, 1960.
After his parents died, Morrison and his wife Sara Ledyard, purchased the family home. Sara was killed in an automobile accident, dying on November 3, 1969. Morrison then lived there alone until his death October 14, 1977.
Not many left in Mae and Fred’s family. Just Ilene, who married Ted Lee, now deceased and Leta, married James Pasco, now deceased.
Morrison’s daughter Shirley and her two sons and Judy (Ilene’s daughter) with her four children are the only ones left besides Ilene and Leta. All so very precious to me.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association,
October 1987, Volume 23, Number 2; Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: ROBB, GUNN, McNEIL, VANHOUTEN, ARNESEN, WAKEMAN, COOK, CASSEL, McLEAN, MEYERS, LOVELL, WELCH

THE SEBEWA CENTER DISTRICT #4 SCHOOLHOUSE 1957 (WITH PHOTO), some 10 years before the 1967 tornado swept away the belfry, caved in the front and left the whole thing in a mess. This was the year of the Dutch Elm disease that got the graceful elm tree in the background. The woodshed and the two outdoor brick and concrete toilets were also flattened. Of Sebewa’s eight district schools, it remains the only one left as a public building.

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD. John Robb, husband of Dorothy, great granddaughter of Samuel Gunn. They lived in Kansas. Lula McNeil VanHouten, Norman Arnesen, Richard Wakeman, Donald Cook, Lester Cassel and Fern McLean, a sister of Blanchard Rice.

John MEYERS was my great, great grandfather. I did the story for the Woodland Township sesquicentennial history book. Some 500 copies were printed and a few remain for sale.

MYRTIE’S MEMORIES Continued…….by Myrtie Candance (Lovell) Welch

Dr. Snell! Not only a doctor in Vermontville and the surrounding country but a real friend to everyone in the community. He was one of my dad’s special friends and mine too. He had a daughter, Norena, a deaf mute. Sometimes, if Pa was not going to be in town very long, he’d allow me to go with him, dropping me off at Dr. Snell’s to play with Norena while he went to take care of whatever business he had, stopping by to pick me up on his way home. Their house was just at the north edge of Main Street.
Norena was older than I; but she liked small children. She would bring out her dolls or maybe some books to entertain me. This day Dr. Snell came out of his office to talk to me. He asked what my Dad was doing. I told him he butchered two hogs the day before. He said “What did he do with the pig-tails?” I answered “He threw them away”.
“Threw them away? That’s a terrible thing to do. Doesn’t he know pictails make delicious soup, my favorite. When he butchers again, remember to bring them to me, will you?” I promised I would and told Pa on the way home. I remembered how he laughed but he said “We will do just that. Help me to think of it”.
I did and the next time we butchered, Pa brought the tails in the house for me. He said “Wrap these up for Dr. Snell. I’m going to town and you can go and take them to him”. When I took them to the doctor he thanked me kindly and asked me if I wanted him to save me some of the soup, but I said NO really quick-like.
I was rewarded for the gift, though. Some time later, he drove into our yard, lifted out a small crate and handed it to me, saying that he’d enjoyed the soup so much he wanted to give me something. In that crate was a beautiful pair of snow-white fantailed pigeons. I was a happy little girl. Later, I would want to take Dr. Snell the pigtails every time we butchered but my folks said he didn’t really make soup of them, it was just a joke, but I didn’t believe them.
One summer Arby was very, very ill with some kind of fever. I remember a bed was moved into our parlor, placed in the center of the room for better air circulation and plenty of room to get around him. Dr. Snell came every day, ordered medicine for every hour on the hour, night and day. The neighbors were so kind. They took turns coming to help Ma and the older girls. Someone would always stay over night so Ma could get some rest. There were no hospitals back in those days. You took care of your own sick person. I presume maybe in the large cities there might have been hospitals.
Arby grew worse every day, sometimes delirious and a little hard to handle. Later on he just laid there, rousing up only for his medicine and, I suppose, a little food. I don’t really remember that. Dr. Snell had told them when Arby’s fever broke, whether it was night or day, they must notify him immediately. It happened one afternoon and the rest of this I do remember clearly. I was out in the dooryard on the south side of the house and saw Dr. Snell when he was at the corners a quarter of a mile south.
Now Dr. Snell had a span of small bay driving horses. He always drove the two of them. The roads were sandy, muddy at times or frozen and snow covered most too hard for one horse, especially being on the road every day, for a doctor made house calls wherever and whenever he was needed.
What a sight I saw that day as he came closer. The Dr. was standing up in the buggy urging his horses by flapping the lines across their backs. He had run those horses every step of the four and a quarter miles from Vermontville to our house.
Tossing the lines to someone (I presume it was my Dad) the Dr. grabbed his little black bag, and was soon inside with Arby, staying the rest of that afternoon on through the night. In the morning he reported “the crisis is over, now all he needs is a good rest and care. He’ll soon be good as new”.
This was certainly a heavenly message to a little girl who adored her only brother.
This thought just popped into my mind. I’ll bet no winning race horses at the tracks ever received more efficient, loving treatment than Dr. Snell’s little bays at the hands of my Dad. After all, they had just won an important race against life or death. Dr. Snell! A true friend of the community.

CUTTER RIDE WITH MY DAD
I always loved going places, didn’t matter where, with my Dad. Just the two of us, he was all mine, no one I had to share him with.
This particular morning at the breakfast table he told my mother he had to go to Woodland. Of course, I was excited and though “wish I could go; Woodland, I don’t get there very often”---on and on went my thoughts.
Now, any of the others would have blurted right out “Can I go with you?” but not me. I just hated having to ask for anything, especially such a favor as this. (Never did and still don’t like having to ask for anything.) I had my own special way. I’d wait until Pa left to go harness his horse, then sneaking up to Ma, would whisper to her “You care if I go with Pa?” Always the same answer: “I don’t care, it’s whatever your Father says”. Down that hill I’d race, pulling up short at the barn door, standing just inside, my Father never even looking at me, watching him place one piece of harness after another until he started to take the bridle down off it’s peg. That was the final act, so it was now or never. Finally out of my dry mouth would at last come “Pa, can I go with you?”
Always the same answer: “I don’t care, it’s just as your Mother says”. Before the words have all come out of his mouth, I’m gone, racing up the hill, bounding into the kitchen saying “He said just as you say”. Then my mother would sputter at me, (can’t say I blame her) “I don’t care, but I wish you would ask when you should, never have time to get you ready properly, come here while I comb your hair, etc., etc., until I see Pa driving up from the barn. Some way she always finishes in time.
This morning is very cold and I am bundled up like a mummy as I go out to the cutter to climb in. Pa reaches over to tuck the blankets in around me. Our cutter is what they called a Swell-box painted a bright red. Not quite as big as the box-like ones but much lighter and prettier.
We are on our way, out the driveway, north down the hill, red cutter glistening, sun shining on the snow, sleighbells jingling such a pretty song, everything just perfect, I’m going to Woodland with my Dad.
Now, I would like to tell you some more about my ride, but I can remember nothing after coming down the hill at home. Must have gone the whole way just floating along in my cutter on top of cloud nine until I came back to reality. We had been to woodland, although I don’t remember about it, for here we were at Kilpatrick Church, halfway on our way home. Going east beyond the church on the north side of the road is Kilpatrick Lake. We were traveling right along, when suddenly my Dad pulled off the road to the left, going through an opening in the bushes along the highway, driving right out on that frozen lake, going over to the east end, drove back on to the road again. Never said a word, just acted like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. I never said a word either, but I was scared half out of what few wits I had. Reaching home, I overheard my Dad telling my Mother about it, heard her laughing, asking my Father what I did. Pa said “She never said a word or made a sound”. I could have said plenty if I hadn’t been too frightened to speak.
When I started this chapter, I spoke of my Father being at the breakfast table. He always was, but the unusual part of it was, he never ate any breakfast, just drank a cup of coffee. Food first thing in the morning made him ill. Meal time at our house was such a special time to him. His whole family seated round the table, talking, laughing, bantering back and forth. He loved it. Now most men, especially a busy farmer, would have drank a cup of coffee and left the house to begin their day’s work. But not my Dad, he always came to the breakfast table and sipped away at his coffee until everyone was finished. Meals were a wonderful time to just sit and relax and talk. In the hustle and bustle of modern living just try that sometime. This is what I call being a family. Take time to enjoy it.

GOING FOR THE COWS
This was a task I thoroughly enjoyed. Never went by myself, either Grace or Pearl was with me. They enjoyed the walk also. Supper over, my mother would say “you girls better go let the cows out of the pasture. I can hear them bawling, it’s time for milking”. Then off we’d start going down the grade past the hog pen through the gate, and we then headed west, right into the sunset.
Always a little problem to face right here. Ma raised geese and the old gander always spotted us the minute we came through that gate. Now he thought he was King of the Barnyard and he resented us being on his property. That measly old guy would start running at us, old long neck stretched out as far as it would go, head lowered just above the ground and hissing just like a snake. If Grace was with me, she just picked up a stick, fired it at the gander, hit the target, he gave a loud squawk, turned, running back into the barnyard. Always took more than a gander to keep Grace from whatever she wanted to do. Pearl and I, that was a different story. We would both be scared and start running. Soon the gander would tire of the race and turn back. Ma used to tell us to turn around and yell “shoo” at him and he’d leave us alone. Who wanted to turn around and face that horrible thing! Don’t think either one of us could have yelled at that particular moment.
Now that’s all over, maybe now we can enjoy our walk. On we go, a little farther west, the lane leads right along the edge of a nice big pond. Our pride and joy but not our Father’s, an eyesore to him in the middle of his farm. Really, just like a small lake. Very deep in the center and way to the north side. Deep enough to row a boat or swim. Arby and his buddies used to swim there. In the winter everyone in the neighborhood came to our pond to ice-skate. Along the lane on the south side there was a nice, hard, sandy bottom, stretching out into the water probably about twenty-five feet, where we girls used to play in the summer. Our own private beach, what a place to entertain the girls who came to play.
You know those cows are still bawling and we are only about halfway there, so think we better hurry along. Quite a steep little grade in the lane, as we leave the pond. What a beautiful sky we see, sun just sinking out of sight, every color of the rainbow displayed along the horizon. What beautiful dresses they would make. Next one of us would suggest we choose our color, make believe we are grown-up ladies and make a party gown to wear to a ball.
If Grace was with me she would always make me describe my dress first. Tricky, of course. If I made mine first, then she could make her train on the gown longer than mine and cut hers a little more daring at the top. Sometimes hers were so daring, I was ashamed of her. Once I thought she will never beat this one, so I made my train so long it would reach halfway as far back as our house. What did she do when she made hers? Her train reached all the way to the house, and that would have been ¼ mile.
When the “cow-getters” were Pearl and I, I always made her go first so I could pull the same trick on her, that Grace did on me. A few weeks ago Pearl was here and we were talking over old times. She said “How was it you always made me go first to make our dresses?” I told her because I had to get back at her, what Grace did to me.
Well, here we are at the pasture gate, cows are waiting, opening the gate, they file out one by one and start for the barn, always in single file, like a parade. Throwing our pretty dresses over the fence, we close the gate and follow the cows back to the house. We probably will make some more dresses tomorrow night.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association,
December 1987, Volume 23, Number 3; Robert W. Gierman, Editor;
submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: GOODEMOOT, PEACOCK, GODDARD, ALLEN, COE, BUCKMAN, BARTLETT, MEYERS, WOLF, REIMER, HAIGHT, CRAMER, STAMBAUGH, SEYBOLD, BAILEY, NOTT, MIDDAUGH, BENSCHOTER, LOVELL, WELCH

WEST SEBEWA CHURCH
Above (photo of building and sheds) is a landmark of West Sebewa from 1865 to about 1913 when the building was dismantled by Donald Goodemoot and materials were used for farm buildings diagonally across the corner. For many years it was served by the Presbyterian minister from Ionia with regular Sunday meetings. It was located just South of the present West Sebewa store. Note the extensive church sheds at the rear used to stable the horses that had brought the membership to meetings. Such sheds were in place at the Baptist Church, two miles south, and the Methodist Episcopal churches at Sebewa Center and Sebewa Corners. News items of the period mention several different ministers who served the church. In 1902 B. C. Peacock and others were instrumental in organizing a Church of Christ and built their church a half mile north from the Presbyterian Church. The old building sat open and idle and became a place for “the boys” to play cards.
Schneck’s HISTORY OF IONIA AND MONTCALM COUNTIES (1881) has this account of the First Presbyterian Church of Sebewa: “The First Presbyterian Church of Sebewa was organized in 1865 by Rev. Lewis Miller. The organizing members were D. W. Goddard, Robert Allen and wife, Hannah Goddard, Mary Coe, E. B. Buckman and wife, Benjamin Bartlett and wife. Directly after organizing, the Church built a house of worship on section seven and dedicated it in February 1866. The pastorate is vacant at present but preaching is supplied, nevertheless, pretty frequently. The Sunday School has a growing membership and assemblies regularly every Sabbath.”

THE JOHN AND CATHREEN MEYERS FAMILY (My great, great grandparents) by Robert W. Gierman

THE STORY PRINTED IN THE WOODLAND SESQUICENTENNIAL BOOK.
John Meyers was born in Hanover Township, Southhampton County, Pennsylvania on March 16, 1800. His father was Valentine Meyers and his mother was Cathreen Wolf Meyers. His grandparents were Christian and Apolonia Wolf. His wife was Cathreen Reimer, daughter of Jacob Reimer and Elizabeth Heller Reimer, all of Northhampton County, Pennsylvania.
John Meyers children were Ziba Meyers, George N. Meyers, John Meyers Jr., Samuel Meyers, Daniel Meyers, Eliza Meyers, Mary Ann Meyers, Permelis Meyers and Valentine Meyers. The above information is from Meyers Family Record, published by William Meyers in 1920. John Meyers’ Jr. and Daniel Meyers became United Brethren Ministers.
From the record book of Ziba Meyers we learn that he and his wife, Elizabeth Bretz Meyers, “landed in our house the 16th day of June, 1850” after having stopped for a short period in Charlotte in the move from Ohio to Michigan.
The family located in the northeast quarter of Woodland Township. Soon there was a Meyers log school. It was used for church services. Shortly thereafter the Meyers Church was built in 1851 by Stephen Haight and Emanuel Cramer. It was considered to be the first United Brethren Church in Michigan. The Meyers Cemetery sprung up around it, though several bodies were later transferred to the newer “Lakeside Cemetery”. Despite vandalism the cemetery remains, bordered on the north and west sides by tall spruce trees.
The church and schoolhouse are long since gone but the tombstones of John and Cathreen stand in memory of their burials there in the 1870s. Two years ago John’s upright marker, in the style of the times, was broken over in three pieces. Last year repair was made and it is again erect. Darrel Meyers of Sunfield, a young lad who addresses John as Great, great, great, great grandfather, helped in making the repair.
Some of the walnut timbers of the schoolhouse were reused in a building on Tupper Lake Road in Sebewa, now owned by Ed Leak.
John apparently had a passion for land. He saw to it that each of his seven children had 160 acres in that corner of Woodland Township. Ziba was the only one to hold onto the title very long. His son, Jesse B. Meyers, kept that land all during his lifetime. It is now the Haskins farm in Section 2 in Woodland Township.
Jesse also kept Ziba’s account book. From that book we learn a day’s wages in logging in 1852 was 50 cents as was the same for threshing, cleaning wheat, branding and husking corn. A cow cost $17.00. Butter was three pounds for 37 ½ cents. A day’s rail cutting was also 50 cents. Mention is made of mowing thistles, killing hogs, sawing logs, work on a well, drawing corn to Hastings, work on the road, cradling grain, digging taters, shearing sheep, drawing dung, scoring timber and making a pair of shoes for 62 cents.
In an article in a 1923 Lake Odessa Wave, early ministers in the Meyers United Brethren Church were: Rev. Schafer, Rev. Bridenstine, Rev. Hamp, Rev. Isaac Mourer, Rev. F. Ferguson, Rev. M. Murthlin and Rev. Garbin.
In the more than 130 years since John Meyers came to Woodland Township, his family has bred, spread and mixed until they can be found in families across the country. It would take an avid genealogist for John to locate all his family descendants.

“MRS. STAMBAUGH’S CHURCH”
May 9, 1899. Proceedings of a meeting called at Mr. J. T. Brown’s residence in Sebewa Twp. For the purpose of organizing an EY Class by Rev. F. E. Walters.
Balloted for Class Leader and S. C. Croft chosen. Balloted for Exhorter and D. M. Stambaugh chosen.
Moved to ballot for Trustees, carried. Balloted for Trustees and two ballots taken. J. R. Brown was elected for one year.
Balloted for Trustee for 2 years and 3 ballots were taken. D. M. Stambaugh declared elected.
Steps were taken to organize to solicit and elect a building committee to build a chapel in the near future.
Building Committee chosen. S. C. Craft, Amos Hall and D. M. Stambaugh.
It was further declared that the name of the Church should be The First Zion Church of Sebewa.
Sept. 13, 1900. Proceedings of a meeting called to elect 2 trustees. Ballots were cast and J. P. Brown was elected for one year. At the second balloting Amos Hall was elected for 2 years.
Sebewa, May 8, 1902. Meeting called to elect trustees with results as follows: Amos Hall was elected for 3 years. D. M. Stambaugh was elected for 2 years. David Baughman was elected for 1 year. The Trustee board was organized as follows: D. Baughman, President; D. M. Stambaugh, Treasurer, and Amos Hall, Secretary and representative to the ___ Camp.
- J. F. Kirn, Pastor
Sebewa, May 8, 1902. Meeting called for the purpose of electing a class leader, Exhorter and S. S. Officer. D. M. Stambaugh declared elected Class Leader. Amos Hall declared elected Exhorter. Mrs. Kate Hall elected S. S. Supperintendent, Amos Hall, Vice Superintendent, Laura Lumbert, Secretary, Wm. Lumbert, Treas., and Otie Baugham Librarian.
Report of Building Committee, Cost of Church:
Mrs. J. T. Brown cash $28 lumber $25, $53, D. M. Stambaugh, work, $53, Mrs. Susan Stambaugh, Board #25, J. T. Brown, work $50, cash $53, $103.
Amos Hall, work $139.30, cash $5, $144. Mrs. A. Hall, board, $25. S. C. Croff, work $18, cash $25, $43. David Baughman, work, $15. Amount of others’ work $11. Cash collections by Rev. Walters $72. Amount of pews $102.50. Amount of Furnace $80. Supplies by G. W. Hay paid Mar. 30 1900, $163.75. Hardware by Childs $31.97.
Total $922.20
Debt on Church $102.50. Pews $80.00. Furnace $163.73. G. W. Hay -. J. Childs $31.97.
Total $378.20
Account with Treas. December 10, 1899
Amount on hand to date including cash collections $30.51, Dec. 10 gave order for Fry of $5.00, Dec 13 by Lish Brailey cash $2.00. Dec. 13 by J. Brown cash $15.00. Dec. 15 by F. E. Walters cash $25.00. Dec 17 to J. Eckert $2.00. Dec 19 to J. A. Hay $37.00. Dec 19 to incidentals $.37. Dec 19 to incidentals $.25. Mar 3, 1900 by J. ?. Brown and wife $50.00. Mar 3 by S. C. Croff $.73. April 19, Geo. Snider $1.00. April 19 Mrs. F. E. Walter $1.00.
1903. David Baughman elected trustee for three years, Frank Guy for class leader, Mrs. Kate Hall as Superintendent, William Lumbert elected for treasurer, Katie Hall for Secretary and Otis Baugham as librarian.
1904. Meeting called to order by brother Kern. Ira Cross was elected trustee for three years, Amos Hall elected as class leader, David Baughman as Exhorter.
Sunday School: W. M. Hall was elected as superintendent, Laura Lumbert as assistant, Kate Hall as Librarian, Laura Lumbert as Secretary, Kate Hall elected as Chorister and Ines Horn elected as Treasurer.
December 29, 1904. Officers for the year 1905. Meeting called to order by brother Kern. Officers elected as follows: Trustee elected for three years Amos Hall, Class Leader Amos Hall, Exhorter, Wm. Hall, S. S. Superintendent Ralph Hall, Assistant S. S. Superintendent Kate Hall, Treasurer Ira Koos and Librarian Emma Hall.
The foregoing is from the records of the church that was built at the northwest corner of Tupper Lake and Sunfield Roads and was referred to in the local items of The Portland Observer as Mrs. Stambaugh’s Church. I as a youngster frequently rode to Sunfield on a lumber wagon, yet I have no recollection of a church on that corner. So, it seems to me it must have disappeared prior to 1916 or 1917. Nobody had ever made mention of this church to me before I read a small item in the reference in The Portland Observer. Recently John R. Waite, who had written the Lake Odessa “A Centennial History” sent me the records as printed above. Perhaps he made a “find” at a yard sale. John is living in Florida and is busy with “several projects”.

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD. Kenneth Seybold, Go(rm?)a Bailey and Estia Nott Middaugh of Lake Odessa.

November 15, 1987 was the day Don and Winnie celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. Congratulations to the Benschoters.

REMINISCENCES CONTINUED by Myrtie Candance Lovell Welch

HAY RIDE
One time Arby was coming from the back of the farm with a wagon load of fresh, loose hay. Pearl was riding with him.
A flat rack with end gates at each end of the wagon, Arby pitched the loose hay on between the end gates, probably the load was at least eight or ten feet high, then with the height of the wagon, it was up in the air at least fifteen feet. Arby and Pearl climbed up the front end gate, then settled themselves down on the hay and started down the lane to the barn. Going down the stony steep grade to the pond, a wagon wheel struck a large stone. This, of course started the load to rock, and the whole thing tipped over on its side. Arby grabbed Pearl, had his left arm around her, the lines to the horses grasped tightly in his right.
Keeping the horses under control, he and Pearl just went down with the hay all around them, right at the edge of the water in the pond. Arby said Pearl jumped up saying “It scared me worse than it hurt me”. Luckily neither one was hurt.

SCHOOL DAYS
In Sept. 1885, I started my school-days at the Bismark School, ¾ mile north to Delwood Corners then one mile east. Don’t recall the name of my first teacher, can only name three: Mr. Whelply, Mr. Bedford, and my last one through eighth grade, Miss Alice Prescott, a very dedicated teacher and a favorite with all. The years with her were the happiest school years of my life.
I think Miss Prescott regarded her pupils as her children….acting more like a mother than a teacher. She taught us more than ‘Readin’, ‘Riting’ and ‘Rithmetic’. She taught us to live right, to enjoy school, to honor our parents, to play fair, never to cheat, to enjoy each other, to be kind and courteous at all times. If a person disobeyed, it was so hard for her to scold him; but she said what had to be said, tears running from her eyes at the same time. Sounds like a softie, doesn’t it? She wasn’t. Miss Prescott had perfect control of her class-room at all times. She rules with love and kindness.
Our school-building was just one large room, three windows on each side, no windows in back or front. Facing the east, there was a door at each side of the front, boys coming in at the south door, girls entering at the north………just inside each door along the wall a shelf was placed for dinner-pails, with hooks underneath on the floor for boots and rubbers. South side for boys, north side for girls.
In between the doors on the front wall was a huge blackboard, a motto above it saying “Kindness Makes Friends’. Letters in this were about a foot high, took up most of the space between the doors. Below this, directly in front of the backboard (blackboard?), a 6 inch high platform was built for the teacher’s desk and a place for classes to be held.
About in the center of the room was a large stove. In the winter, this kept everyone seated near-by, half roasted, while students at the back of the room sometimes had to wear their coats to keep warm. Don’t remember about the teachers whether they kept warm or not. They were up moving around but you weren’t. You had to ask permission to leave your desk.
Then over on the north side by the coat rack was the community water pail. A tin dipper hanging on the wall above it. Everyone drank from the same dipper. “Ugh!” I can hear someone say, and “Ugh” it was; but really, I don’t believe we had anymore colds in those days of drinking from the same dipper, than the children do now drinking from a faucet. Much pleasanter now though and certainly more sanitary.
Starting about even with the stove, were stationery double desks, room for two students and built joining each other, bolted solidly to the floor, then placed in rows to reach the back of the room. A narrow aisle, about as wide enough for a person to walk through, between each row and a wider aisle in the center to separate the two groups of seats.
These desks were built so closely together, one could almost feel the breath of the people behind you. Just close enough for the mischievous boys sitting back of you to drop a nice, wet chewed-up paper wad down inside the back neck of your dress. Just close enough for you to send a message to someone four or five seats behind you. Writing your question or whatever on a small scrap of paper, folding the paper, leaving it just large enough to mark the person’s initials on, tucking the note in the palm of your hand, you’d then drop your hand casually outside your desk. That was the signal. Down would come the arm of the next in line, taking the note from your palm, checking the initials, it would be sent along in this manner to the person for whom it was intended. If a reply was requested, the answer came back to you in this same manner. Sneaky? Yes, but helped to break the monotony of just sitting there studying all the while. You weren’t allowed to whisper to your seatmate. I usually managed to sneak quite a few in during the course of the day when the teacher wasn’t looking.

INK WELL
Betty was just here and she asked me what I was writing about. I answered “School Desks”. She said “Don’t forget the ink-wells!” Betty spent the first eight years of her school life in a one room school. The Hunter School, located just north of Delwood Corners, near Betty’s girlhood home.
Now I’ll try and explain the ink well. At the right hand top, close to the ledge on the front of your desk, a circular hole, about 1 ½ inches in diameter was drilled. A little glass container, about an inch in depth, was next placed in this hole. A tiny flange at the top made it secure.
This glass cup was filled with ink, in which you dipped your pen-point, filling it with a drop or two of ink, you began writing your lessons. Usually after six or eight words, maybe, it was necessary to dip your pen in the ink again.
Rather a slow process, but the ink-well was better than having a bottle of ink standing open on your desk to be upset and spilled.
Pioneers had quill pens, the large strong feathers from the wing of a bird. Next came the metal points that we used, then the fountain pen, which stored the ink inside the pen. Made it possible to use quite awhile, then you’d have to replace the ink. First fountain pen I ever had, was a graduation gift to me in 1907. Also I received a gold pen with a pearl handle. Charley Collier gave that to me. He was Grace’s boyfriend at that time.
From the fountain pen to the Ball-points we all enjoy using today is just another proof of the progress even a lowly pen has made. Someone came up with the ball-point after using a Fountain pen.

BATHROOMS
About thirty feet west of the back of our school building sat two little necessary houses. One was directly in line with the north side, the other straight down from the south, gave you a real excuse to leave the school-building for a few minutes. What a pleasure it was to leave that old desk and straighten out your cramped legs for a few minutes.
Raising your hand for attention from the teacher, you gave the signal, only the first and second finger upright, permission to leave the room would be granted by a simple nod of the head. Sometimes it would be “No” if recess or the noon hour were coming soon.
If I received the nod, I would sedately walk to the door, but once outside I hopped, skipped and jumped, making good use of my freedom. Sometimes I wouldn’t even enter the little house. No windows in the back of the school-house, no one could see me, I could run around just for exercise and then again, just stand gazing at the clouds in the sky or watching and listening to the birds in the trees. Such a wonderful world to me always. Reluctantly, I leave this behind, enter the school-house door and tip-toe noiselessly back to my seat.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association, FEBRUARY 1988, Volume 23, Number 4. Editor Robert W. Gierman. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: LUSCHER, McNEIL, WENGER, SLOWINS, LAKIN, SMITH, JARVIS, GRISWOLD, BENEDICT, ROACH, ALLEN, PATTERSON, LOVELL, WELCH

EDNA (McNeil) Wenger – Date of Birth May 4, 1887 – Date of Death October 16, 1981 – Place and Time of Service – Sebewa Center Methodist Church, Monday, October 19, 1981, 1:00 p.m. – Clergyman Rev. John Morse – Organist Mrs. Edgar Perkins, James Spencer Soloist. Bearers Thomas Sandborn, Allen Sandborn, Jr., John Sandborn, Riley Sandborn, Jr., Luke Sandborn, Charles Wilson. Final Resting Place East Sebewa Cemetery. Arrangements by Pickens-Koops Funeral Chapel – Lake Odessa.

One hundred years ago last year, Edna Luscher was born to Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Luscher in the house long since vacant across the road from where Mr. and Mrs. George Carr now live. She attended Sebewa Center School. Around 1910, she married Bert McNeil. Above (photo) is the log house they bought on the forty acres then owned by Luke Cook, then Postmaster at West Sebewa. The house was located ¾ mile south from the West Sebewa Store where Clay McNeil now lives. From an earlier Recollector we have the quote of George Dow “for bed bugs we used hot water but I defy any woman to get rid of them in a log house”. Edna told me that was the case with her log house and they promptly replaced it with the Clay McNeil dwelling. After many years raising sheep, chickens and a big garden Edna married Robert Wenger, who survived her a few years.

DEATHS for the period have been those of Bernice Gunn, Ernest Frantz, Evelyn Thompson and Clayton Goodrich.

M*A*S*H By Graden Slowins:

Mobile Army Surgical Hospital 4007. Most people are familiar with the long running and rerunning TV sit-com-drama about the Korean War, starring Alan Alda. I happened to catch the full hour on New Year’s eve and once again saw Cpl. Walter (Radar) O’Reilly get to go home to the farm at Ottomwa, Iowa and marry the pretty, shy blonde nurse from Lancaster, Missouri. She reminds me of Karen Thorp.

Well, I was that shy shepard boy who became Radar’s equivalent in the 45th MASH. It all began in March, 1955 when we were assembled 400-strong in the Battalion Street after Infantry Basic and Medical Basic Training. We had our duffle bags packed and were prepared to board the troop trains for California and ship out to the Korean War. Four names were called out: Alexander, Goberlesch, Slowins and Steffas. “You men aren’t going”. You take the other train to Detroit, Michigan”.

We were assigned to a little known unit at Fort Wayne, Detroit, separate from the familiar Army Induction Center. Our manpower strength was supposed to be fourteen Privates, two Corporals and one Sergeant besides the doctors, dentists and nurses, all of whom were officers. At first that was the case. But as the Korean War dragged on and wound down, the other privates and corporals were rotated to Korea dragged on and wound down, the other privates and corporals were rotated to Korea and we got old Master Sergeants, who came back with a few months to serve before retirement. We reached a strength of seventeen Master Sergeants and PFC Slowins, later Corporal Slowins.

Now that might not sound like the best of arrangements, but it was, because the Company Commander was Colonel George Thompson, a draftee Medical Doctor and a dead ringer for Col. Henry Blake, the first commander of M*A*S*H 4077. He had the same tall, thin, stoop shouldered build, the same disheveled half-out-of-uniform manner of dress and the same disdain for Army S. O. P. All the rest were regular Army, so it was he and I against the system, and he looked out for Private Slowins!
My title was not Company Clerk like Radar, but Medical Supply Sergeant though I was only a P. F. C. I gradually acquired all the privileges of the sergeants except pay. The Colonel kept me off guard duty because of night ambulance call. About every four to six months some desk jockey in Headquarters would notice that there was a private in the Medics who never pulled K.P. Duty. So I would be assigned a day of K.P. Usually part way through the day the Colonel would send a Master Sergeant to relieve me. “We need Slowins in Supply! On the double!” The old German Mess Sergeant (seen by most as Sergeant Shultz on Hogan’s Hero’s) would pull K. P. I might pull K.P. Get to Hell out of here, both of you!” Which, of course was what the Colonel had in mind all the time. The Mess Sergeant knew our scam because the cooks and medics shared the same barracks. But he knew that the draftee Doctor Colonel outranked him.

Another favorite of the high brass was Morning Muster. In theory, all armies from time immemorial have had everyone line up at the beginning of each day to count noses and account for casualties. But in the practice that seldom works completely, since many are manning their posts and the sergeants are usually exempt anyhow. So when they call for Morning Muster, Sgt. Leavenworth would stand out front in the street and I would stand facing him. He would call out to the Battalion Commander, Medical Company all present or accounted for, “SIR!” Since this looked ridiculous, we usually would not hear about Morning Muster again for several months. Editors note—You are used to seeing M*A*S*H serialized, so too you must wait until next issue for Grayden’s second page---RMG

THIS IS A RECORDING OF A VCR THAT HAROLD LAKIN MADE ABOUT THE HORSE IN LOCAL HISTORY:

MARGE SMITH---The Portland Historical Society was formed following our 1969 centennial. When those of us who worked on the Centennial realized that there were certain voids in the history of our town that could be researched. So in 1970 our historical society was formed. This presentation today is from the historical society and our presenter is Harold Lakin. He is a lifelong resident of the Portland area and today he is going to talk to us about some of the history of early Portland especially as it relates to our use of horses in work and transportation.

HAROLD--- We have talked about the history of the Portland area, about people, places and the means by which people made history and one of those means was by the horses we had. Up until the automobile and the farm tractor, horses were high in the economy and social life of people in Portland. I would like very much to review the part that horses played. I was raised in Portland. I fell in love with a beautiful team of Percheron horses and it led eventually to life on a farm.
From that time on I’ve had a lot of love for horses even if not too much connection. It led me all through the grades, all through high school and college career where I became connected with the cavalry. It seemed like I was in some way connected with horses all the way through. Later on as we moved back on the farm we had horses around.

To start with we had several different breeds of horses. The main horses we had were the draft horses. They did the plowing, the fitting of the ground and the draying into time. Later on we had the Belgians come in and the Shires. They all had a place in the history of Portland. The Percherons sometimes weighed as much as a ton. Then there were the medium sized horses, the Morgans and Hamiltonians. They were principally used for driving and riding.

Wit World War I there was a scarcity of horses with the army coming in and buying whatever they could get. Some of the people in order to satisfy the demand, began to bring in Western horses. Henry Kenyon of Sebewa brought in a whole carload of Western horses and sold them around. Farmers didn’t really like the Westerns but they had to have them because they needed the horsepower.

Another figure in the horse history of Portland was Fred Jarvis. He was a horse buyer and seller, associated with most of the horses in Portland. He was a man about town, a humanitarian, quite instrumental in things about town. People who could not borrow money from the banks often could borrow from Fred. I had the privilege of looking at some of his journals and seeing where people borrowed $50 to 100 dollars. He did a real service to those people. Later on Fred became mayor of the town.
A lot of people were employed because of horses. Horses were used to haul the drays, we had veterinarians, horse stables, feed barns, buggy makers, blacksmiths who shod the horses and put irons on the wagons and sleighs. The economy was dependent on horses. I like to think of the time when we had horse doctors. The term veterarian came after the horse doctor.

Not until Dr. Griswold came to town did we call the veterinarian for a sick horse. Our horses had different kinds of ailments from spavin, things that happened when the horse collar did not fit, the ring bone, the scratches and fistula. Horse box and the heaves were very common. If you bought a horse back in those days you had to be very careful it did not have the heaves. A horse was not much good if he had the heaves. It was a good deal like a man today having emphysema in the lungs.

Dr. Benedict was another veterinarian. He was coach of the football team. Dr. Harper came over from Sunfield occasionally. We had harness makers who made very beautiful harnesses. It was very common to see farmers gather at the Wilhelm harness shop on Saturday nights to catch up on the news around. Many years ago we had a buggy making industry in Portland where they made buggies and wagons. It was run by a family by the name of Bowers & Lehman. Leo Lehman’s father was instrumental in wagon making.

Part of the business of having horses around to help propagate the horse race. We had to have stallions supervised by a man who often drove them around the country-side. Ben Benjamin had a Shire stallion that he tended. He also had a Hamiltonian for raising good driving horses. We did have a few ponies around town but I don’t remember a stallion of that breed. The Emerys had a pony. The Pryers east of town had a pony as did some others.

A Mr. Roach had a good team of Morgans. When he finished farming, rather than having anybody else keep them and perhaps abuse them, he had a man in town take them out, shoot them and bury them. I’ve always thought Mr. Roach’s love of horses in having that done. I often think of the love and attachment we had for our horses. Marge will tell of the good times and sporting events that came from the riding club that she and her husband, Labe, organized.

MARGE SMITH- - -I think the riding club began about 1940 and was a very informal type of organization. The horses for most kids were mostly just grade horses. It started out with people getting together on Sundays for the pleasure of riding or maybe a picnic. As time went on through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s people became interested in upgrading the horses they had, so they moved to registered Arabians, registered quarter horses and Morgans. It was this group that started the rodeo, building an arena, which was in that valley area back of TRW. For four or five years, we had quite outstanding rodeos where people came from all over the Midwest to attend the rodeo. It is a shame that the arena is no longer there. Now the emphasis is on horse shows and the Portland Riding Club has built a very fine arena on Bogue’s flats and once a year on Labor Day they have a large horse show and people come from all around including Ohio and Indiana, and Illinois with their horses. They come, not only to get points but there is a monetary gain also.

HAROLD LAKIN- - - That just goes to show that we haven’t forgotten horses entirely. They say that there are more horses in Michigan than there were in 1910 but I think it is a different kind of horses, horses for recreation mainly. I’d like to speak about the Morgan horse. It was developed in the Boston area by a man by the name of Morgan. By selection and breeding of horses he developed what we call a chunk, a medium sized horse that was a dual purpose. It was a good riding horse and it could work. It could plow and it could drag though not to the entent that the big draft horses did.

It became my pleasure as a kid to have a long time experience with a Morgan. I was introduced to farming when I was about twelve years old. We had to drive cattle from the Portland area to Sunfield for better shipping facilities. We took our team of horses along. One of the mares had a colt, just a year old and just ready to be ridden. I got permission to mount the colt and that was the start of my relationship of a mare cold called Bird. She finally became my family’s chief form of recreation. Bird was given to the family and we kept her around for several years. Bird never broke out and never got away from my place. We worked her, cultivated with her, the kids rode her. She sort of took over our heard of cattle and bossed them. One time she did break out. She went back to her old stable two miles away at the Rowe farm, got into the barn, into her old stable and was found dead in the morning by Mr. Rowe. They say that elephants return to their home base to die and that is the very thing she did when she was thirty-one years old, a good old age for a horse.

Horses in Portland did die and you might well wonder what happened then. I remember when a horse died and a man loaded it onto a stoneboat, a very low planked sled, and coming through town down through Main street across the upper bridge and on out Market Street. I can remember of a dozen times of seeing this little trip repeated with dead horses, a funeral for a horse and usually a bunch of kids following along behind, very curious about the whole thing. The kids followed along behind in the dusty track of the stone boat on down Market Street to about where the sand pit is there now. There was a horse “cemetery” there. We used to watch the interment. If you lived in Portland, ultimately you had the experience of seeing a horse funeral.

MARGE SMITH - - - Do you remember the race track? In the old maps of Portland I think it was on the east side of the Grand River.

HAROLD LAKIN - - - No, but where the city complex is now, where the filtration plant is there was a street down through a set of buildings, a sort of a little Western town. In this set of buildings was what I would call the judges stand. There was an opening at the second story, a sort of a veranda up there, a place where judges would stand for horse races. It was said there was a race track there.

I remember there were occasional races between young fellows. One would challenge the other and off they would go to see who had the better horse. In high school I rode a horse from the Rowe farm to town and I used to get challenged. Lucinda Monroe rode a horse to town. One of the Carpenter boys rode a horse.

My father’s business required that he have three teams of horses. They were used to go around to all the country stores hereabouts, Berlin Center, Tremayne’s Corners, Sunfield, Mulliken, Collins, Sebewa Corners and Eagle to pick up the butter and eggs that merchants from those places had collected in trade. He was in the commission business. In the winter time we had two drivers, one named Peake and the other was Stringham. One couldn’t bear to be out without being all bundled up. He had socks and boots of all kinds—I sometimes wondered how the man could walk—and just canvas gloves. The other man, Mr. Peake, was just the reverse. He would drive all day with big mittens on. I always chuckled at the contrast in those two men, the one wearing slippers and heavy mittens while the other bundled his feet and wore canvas gloves.

In the era before our refrigeration needs were taken over by electric power, the horse was at the center of preparation and distribution of the known block of cooling—ice. Something like a cultivator with teeth on it was taken on to the pond in the winter and when pulled by horses would cut long strips of ice that could then be conveniently cut into blocks of ice. The blocks would then be floated to the chute that would then lift them to the ice house out back of the Portland Library. When making deliveries around town in warmer weather, the ice man always had a bunch of kids trailing along, hoping for a chip to suck on. Often the ice man would cooperate with wome extra chips.

Another job for the horse was delivering groceries. When you wanted groceries you would make a phone call to the store, they filled your order in a basket and soon a delivery man was ready to stack the orders into his dray and start making deliveries. Horses got so well trained at this job they could take their cues from the driver without use of the lines. Fred Jarvis or “Curly” supplied the teams and his men made the daily deliveries. Often the school kids scurried around to make deliveries while the horses moved the load that had been picked up at Robinsons or Stones stores.

I remember Alph Allen as a dead ringer for President Taft, wearing a moustache, and driving a truck. He always met all the trains that stopped in town. When people left the train, Alph would call out that he had transportation to the Divine Hotel. He always had beautiful horses. The depot was right across from the present Village Lumber and Supply on Water Street. Alph’s services were used by the drummers, salesmen who came to town with a good supply of sample goods to be offered to the local merchants at the sample room of the hotel. While the drayman was delivering the samples at the hotel the salesman would be calling on the merchants, asking them to visit his display at the hotel. When orders were made and later shipped in on the train, local draymen would make the deliveries at the stores. Leo Treiweiler was one of the draymen. Leo’s team also served on the fire wagon. The minute the fire whistle blew, Leo would run his horses to the fire barn across from city hall, hook on to the fire wagon and race to the fire.

Horses were in Portland in the early pioneer days. My great-great-grandfather Green settled near Collins. When he wanted something special, he would saddle up his horse and start out for Detroit taking a pack horse. Once or twice a year he would go down there to take whatever he had such as maple sugar and barter for whatever he needed that he could not produce at home. My grandmother said, one time, the first time she ever saw white sugar was when Granddad Green packed his returning goods in a wooden barrel and when they unloaded it they found a few of the white grains of sugar in the bottom of the barrel.

MARGE SMITH - - - Do you remember the horse barn that was cooperatively owned between the Congregational Church and the Baptist Church on Warren Avenue?

HAROLD LAKIN - - - It was a shed. When you came to church you drove your horses in the shed. I think some were on Mrs. Bywater’s property. When autos replaced the horses the sheds were torn down. Vel Packard did some of that work.
We used to have bob sleds. Farmers in the winter time changed from wagons to sleighs. It was a common thing for the kids around town to “jump bobs”. We would jump bobs and ride out in the country for maybe quite a ways, not really knowing if we would ever get back again. But eventually we would find somebody going the other way, coming to town. Once in a while we would find a farmer who didn’t like that kind of goings on and he would horse whip us until we got off. Generaly they were quite congenial and did not mind.

The coming of the automobile created strong feelings among the men with sleighs. The autos had their wheels spaced a little wider apart than were the runners on the sleighs and left ruts that couldn’t be satisfactorily followed with sleighs. Eventually the blacksmith got the job of widening the sleigh runners to make them conform to the auto tracks. I remember an old peddler who had a kind of old cart that he carried his goods on. His wheels would not track in the ruts the autos left. He fussed around and swore a bit before spending two or three days at the Russman Blacksmith Shop widening the frame of his conveyance. He left town and I did not see him again.

Another thing the horses help operate was the country grocery wagon. Patterson at Collins operated such a route. The Havens family ran a grocery route through the country. The first Rural Free Delivery of the mail was carried by horses. We have a picture of a mail carrier’s buggy, fully enclosed with a sliding door and window. A lighted lantern inside gave off enough heat to make it comfortable inside. Sometimes a baked soapstone served the same purpose. They were much like the buggies you see the Amish people using now.

One of the thrills we had with horses was to have a runaway. In a runaway, the team of horses would break into a run and they were almost impossible to stop until they had broken their harnesses and vehicles. Once a team had run away it was always risky to give them any chance to start up again. Quite often the occupants of such vehicles were seriously hurt or even killed. Sometimes a horse would have a mean streak and kick with fury. I remember one man who was kicked in the stomach who a short time later died. There was a fellow who bought a stallion at a very reasonable price but the stallion had a reputation as a man killer. Wright said he cured the man-killing instinct by throwing the stallion down on his side and then climbing on and walking over him while shooting a shot gun. He did that several times until, as he said, the horse was cured. Sometimes a horse would break from his shelter and be free around town. You might awaken in morning and find a horse peeking in your window.
I haven’t mentioned mules. We had but few of them in Portland. We had a span of mules on the farm. I did not drive them because we had a Kentuckian who wanted to use them as a team. I drove the Percherons. The mules were flighty. You could not get them near the threshing machine. If they heard a gun go off they would panic.

Old Joe was the mule who was the exception. I used to cultivate with him and he would plod along nicely. But at noon, whether a whistle blew or not, Joe would stop, turn around and head for the barn and his noon time meal. With the stop came a good loud braying before the start to the barn. One thing I learned about mules was that you could work them hard all day long, turn them out to the barnyard for a good roll, they would be ready to go back to work again.

REMINISCENCES Continued by Myrtie Candance Lovell Welch

JUST ODD THOUGHTS.
There used to be lots of big bullfrogs at the pond. I can remember one Sunday afternoon Pa went down by the pond, caught some of them, killing them, dressing them out and bringing them to the house. Ma cooked the frog legs for our supper. They were very delicious. That is the only time I can remember having them.

DUCKS.
Ma always raised ducks. She would set the ducks like you did hens. After the eggs hatched, she would put the mothers in her tiny hen houses in the dooryard. Little ducklings were more fragile than little chickens and took more care, too. We had to watch out for them and see that they were inside their little houses when it rained. A duckling would easily drown in a storm.
When they were a little bigger, Ma would let the old ducks out of their pens. They would parade their babies around the yard for a few days and then head down the lane to the pond, their ducklings following, single file. The old duck would wade into the water, then start swimming around and her babies would follow her right in and begin to swim. They didn’t have to be taught, it was a perfectly natural thing to do. It was such a cute sight. Sometimes Ma put the duck eggs under a hen to hatch and mother. When the ducklings were about half grown, they would wander off to the pond of their own accord.

DELWOOD POSTMASTER.
I didn’t really mind the crowded conditions or the uncomfortable seats at our school. It was just a thing to be accepted with no complaints. Our school was no different than any other around. I just wanted to tell you there were no luxuries in those days. Our children’s children take so much for granted. Their schoolhouses with all the modern conveniences make them no happier than I, at least. I just plain loved going to school.
I liked to get all my work finished, so I could maybe have a book from the library to read, or maybe look at assignments on the blackboard for other grades than mine. Maybe I would solve an arithmetic problem or two or see how many words I could find in that motto “Kindness Makes Friends”. I liked to listen to the other classes, reciting their lessons. One could learn a lot by just listening. I even enjoyed the long 1 ¾ mile walk back and forth from home each day.
Bismark had quite a large enrollment of students. It looked like a small army when we all came out to go home at night. The schoolhouse, being on a corner, some went north, some south, some east but the majority went west with us. Some of them lived in homes along that first mile, but I can think of fifteen who parted company at Delwood Corners, a mile to the west.
We always went into the Post Office there, everybody checking for their mail. The Postmaster, Wesley Wright, a bachelor, lived there with his sister, Mary, who was also unmarried. Mr. Wright was a cripple, using crutches excepting when just walking around the office. Then he could walk quite well by just crossing his legs. Now you try crossing your legs and then step first with one foot and then the other. It was quite an accomplishment. It took me a while to learn it but I finally made it. It was lots of fun. My mother told me not to be making fun of a cripple. She said “Supposing something happened to your legs some day and you had to walk that way, it certainly would not be funny”.
Something has happened to my legs, all right. I can’t even walk like Wes anymore. A judgement, maybe. Oh, no, the good Lord knows I wasn’t making fun of Wes, just making fun for me. Of the tales that stretch of road could tell, this would be one of them.
One morning in early May we awoke to find the ground covered with snow. The weather had been so nice and warm Grace and I had been going barefoot to school. This morning Mother said we must wear our shoes, so we put them on. Before we got to Delwood, Grace came up with this clever idea. “When we get to the Corners let’s take our shoes and stockings off, hide them in the scraper shed and go to school barefooted. Then when we grow up, we can tell our grandchildren how we had to go to school barefooted in the snow”. We did just that but, of course, the snow was already starting to melt. It was just a “sugar snow”, gone entirely by the time we arrived at school. I don’t know if she ever did tell her grandchildren but I have told it to several of mine.

SNOW ON THE WEST ROAD.
One winter we had so many bad storms day after day, the snow was drifted over the fences. In front of one farm there was a board fence. Snow was really piled on this one. After a few days of thawing and cold nights the top of that fence was just as solid as a rock. It looked like a narrow sidewalk. We used it as one anyway. We’d walk single file along this stretch, up in the air four or five feet higher than the road and didn’t mind the cold at all. Sometimes, looking out the schoolhouse windows, we could see the snow coming down hard, blowing and drifting. We sort of dreaded starting out on our long walk home.
Outside the schoolhouse, what a welcome sight greets us. Mr. Garinger has come for his family in a big sleigh pulled by his team of pretty horses. Of course everyone going west received a ride as far as Delwood Corners. Mr. Garinger lived about ¾ mile on west. What a break for us! One whole mile we didn’t have to walk! Gliding along over the snowy roads, sleighbells jingling, we soon reached the corners where we hopped out, Lovells and Frantzs going south, Walshes, Wrights and VanBlarcoms head north. “Thank you, Mr. Garinger, Good Night and See you tomorrow” and on we trudge to our respective houses. Lifelong friendships were formed on that mile west and now they are all gone out but I shall never forget them.

SPELLING BEE.
Back in the earliest days of school, very few boys ever attended high school. They were supposed to be farmers when they grew up and didn’t need anything beyond the 8th grade. They had a hard time getting through that. In the September starting of school, the boys were kept home to help harvest the corn and drill the wheat and in the spring they were kept home to get the spring crops in. After the fall work was over, the 8th grade boys would come back to school, taking up their studies where they had left off. Boys might do this every year for several years. It was boring. School or anything was better than sitting around the house.
I don’t remember that Arby ever came only once. He was quick to learn and probably finished in the one time. Three other boys, probably more but these I recall were Ernie Benedict, Ralph Walsh and Allie Denel, all Arby’s pals.

WE USED TO HAVE SPELL DOWNS.
Quite often Arby and Ernie would choose up sides. If it was Arby’s turn first, he’d choose me and if Ernie’s turn came first he too would choose me. I learned to spell before I ever went to school. That was one of our evening sports at home. Someone would pronounce the words and the rest of us would spell.
I can hear some of you say “And you called that fun?” We did, no T.V., no radio, no nothing, we had to get our fun out of little things and make up games sometimes. This spelling at home made good spellers of every one of us. We loved it.
To get back to the school contest, everyone, no matter what grade you were in, was chosen, the entire school divided into two sides opposite the other. Arby chose me first because he wanted to be close by. If a hard word came up that he thought I might not be able to spell, he would say “now Rufus, you stop and think” or maybe it would be “divide it into syllables”, etc. I sometimes disappointed him but not always. If I couldn’t spell the word, he’d keep at me at home until I learned how. Ernie would always encourage me, too.

FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.
Quite often on Fridays we would end the week with singing. Most of our songs came from a book called a “knapsack”, filled with ballads, hymns, patriotic songs and humorous ones. There was no music written, just the words, everyone seemed to know the tunes. Someone would hum the keynote and we were off on a fun ending for the week. Here is a humorous one the boys especially loved to sing:
Twenty froggies went to school, Down beside a rushy pool.
Twenty little coats of green. Twenty vests all white and clean.
We must be in time said they. First we study, then we play.
That is how we kept the rule. When we froggies went to school.
Master froggy grave and stern. Calls the lessons in their turn.
Sitting there upon a log. Taught us how to say “Ker Chawg”.
That ending was what the boys liked so much, coming out with the loudest “Ker Chug”, they sounded very much like the bull frogs on Lovell’s pond. We had no organ, no piano, just the book with words. I had a knapsack but I don’t know whatever became of it.
I had a book with the music written for the songs, also. Everyone knew the tunes anyway, so it didn’t matter. Right now I think I’ll say goodbye to good old Bismark school. I’ve finished the 8th grade by passing the County Examination and am now ready for 9th grade. So, look out Vermontville High School, I’m on my way. It will probably never be the same again.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association, APRIL 1988, Volume 23, Number 5. Editor Robert W. Gierman. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: NIELSEN, SLOWINS, FLEETHAM, McDONALD, ELLIOT, RATHBURN, LOVELL, WELCH

SESSIONS SCHOOLHOUSE (With photo)
Jordan Lake Road and Riverside Drive, Berlin Township, Ionia County – Three miles west of M 66, across from the State Park parking lot picnic area.
With the Ionia Association of Retired School Personnel, Steve Dice, manager of Ionia Area State Park and interested citizens of Ionia County, we are joining to raise some $1,400 for the restoration needed to keep the Sessions Schoolhouse in good repair. That much money is the estimate for the materials for a new roof, a door and a window. Funds donated will be deposited in the account of The Ionia Association of Retired School Personnel in The Ionia County National Bank. Some $700 has already been pledged for that purpose.

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD.
Elaine Y. Broderick (daughter of Edith and Clarence Yager), David Brodbeck and June Heintzleman Courts. Recently Howard Cross has been in intensive care at St. Lawrence Hospital for severe injuries sustained in a headon collision at Mulliken.

SESSIONS COBBLESTONE SCHOOLHOUSE PRESERVED AS AN HISTORIC SPOT by June Nielsen, June 1971:

The structure stands near where the Ionia County Infirmary used to stand. It is a monument to the early educational activities of this county. It was here that the county system was laid.

It was built in 1847 and is believed to be the oldest cobblestone schoolhouse in Michigan. It was restored by the Board of Supervisors in 1918 and an appropriate bronze tablet was placed by the Stevens Thompson Mason Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution of Ionia, on August 29, 1918. This was eventually stolen.

It is a granite building with small windows and typical architecture and design of early days. Many early Ionians attribute their early educational training to this school.

Some of the alumni are Miss Clara Sessions, Mrs. L. P. (Bertha) Brock, Milo Adgate, Philo Adgate, Mrs. L. P. (Connie) Loomis, Rev. F. P. Arthur, Amasa Morrison, Clare Allen, Walter Meech, J. E. Morrison, Wade Allen, Hal Taylor, Chester Adgate, William E. Howard, Clinton Gates, Mrs. Wm. Milligan, Julia Tanner, Mrs. Riley Harwood, Mrs. Edith Allen, Mrs. Fred Arnold, Mrs. Frank Bailey were teachers. The first teacher was Mrs. Elizabeth Sessions-Arthur, better known as Libby Sessions.

Teachers received $2 per week and their board valued at $1.50. Water was carried in a wooden bucket from the homestead of Alonzo Sessions and all used one tin cup.

The teacher got there early to build the fires. The pupils carried lunches in Indian baskets, made by Indians in a camp nearby. There were many snakes in summer, but despite this, nearly all went barefoot. In winter they wore homespun stockings and cow hide shoes, well greased with tallow.

When Mrs. Levi (Addie) Marshall was regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution, shrubbery was planted, presenting a very picturesque appearance.

The annual report of 1848 of Berlin Township said there were 29 children in District #2, 42 in #3, and 34 in #4.
The primary school fund was $17.00. The number of children in the township for 1849 was: District #1 = 23, District #2 = 28, District #3 = 56, and District #4 was 33, making a total of 140.

The annual report for 1856 gave 284 pupils with 7 districts and $149.04 as the amount of money divided among them.
~ Courtesy of Marion Nielsen

M*A*S*H Continued by Grayden Slowins

A word here about the various Master-Sergeants. Sgt. Leavenworth was really just FROM Leavenworth, Kansas, and I forget his name, which is just as well. He ran the E. E. N. T. Clinic, and had a bad habit of getting the inductees to open their clothing to the waist in order for him to examine their eyes, ears, nose and throat???

Sgt. Kilkoska was a farm boy from the Red River Valley and Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. He was good hearted, as was Leavenworth, but he punctuated every sentence with profanity.

Sgt. Ahab was an Arab who mostly smoked big black cigars and read trashy paperback novels. Sgt. Pike was a black man who had been a mail carrier during his brief stint of civilian life in Washington, D. C. Roy Spitzley and I used to observe October 18th every year. In 1974 we realized, while tiling in the west pasture, that day we could have retired at half pay from the Army. He spent “Faarty years in this man’s army” (1915-1955) and refused to leave, even though he could draw full pay whether he stayed or not. He had joined the army as a 16 year old right off the boat from Ireland and knew no other life. His main duty in late years was showing the VD movies to the inductees. He had served in WWI, WWII, and Korea.

The Supply Officer was an ROTC Business College graduate who spent his time reading Playboy Magazine, while I ran the Medical Supply for the U. S. 5th Army in Detroit Area. He didn’t even sign the requisitions, I had a rubber stamp for that. I never negotiated the swaps that Radar did, but I hauled many a purloined sheet of plywood in my ambulance, and C-ration hamburgs canned at Lake Odessa, Michigan in 1943. The Sergeants used them for dog food. All this was in exchange for assorted First Aid supplies.

Another person who looked out for us was the head nurse. She was not as beautiful as Major Margaret (Hot Lips) Hoolihan, but she saw the humor in our situation. She eventually married in the Detroit area, retired with 20 years service, and became shop nurse at Chrysler’s Ordinance Tank plant in Warren, Michigan.

Most of our patients were G.I.’s home on leave, who got into auto accidents or caught the Detroit Crud. Also there were several guided missle stations in Michigan at that time that we serviced.

I never got to go to Germany, but Detroit was better than Korea. Then I had to serve a year of Active Reserve in Grand Rapids, kind of like the National Guard. Weekly training meetings and two weeks at summer camp. In mid-July, 1957, I was in the wheat line in Portland at nine P.M. Dad came to town, worried I wouldn’t make the train. But I jumped into the pickup, went home, bathed, changed, grabbed my duffle bag, and was at Union Station in Grand Rapids in plenty of time for the 1:30 A. M. departure. We took the Silver Chief of the Atcheson, Topeka, and Santa Fe to Denver, where we spent two weeks at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital. I spent most of the time watching open heart surgery in the amphitheatre. It was the same team that had operated on the President Ike a few months before. I saw them lift a man’s heart from his chest, repair it and replace it. No one hinted we would one day see them put someone else’s heart in a man’s chest.

FROM HERE AND THERE by Edgar Fleetham

In life there are a great many things that we know about. But many of them are superficial, only as we have never had any direct knowledge or experience with them. Then there often comes a time when we are suddenly thrust into a position of reality because of personal involvement.

I have known that sometimes people develop a condition in which the arteries going into and out of the heart get plugged up. This creates a situation in which a person becomes threatened with a heart attack. Sometimes the knowledge of the condition comes only after an attack. I have known about stress tests, heart catheter, baloons to expand the arteries, by-pass surgery etc. These were the things that happened “to the other people”!

Then came the day when I strode confidently on to the treadmill, convinced that “I would show them how it was done”. After all I have been a pretty active person. And then…I blew the test almost before I got started and heard the doctor say “That heart is starved for oxygen”. That was I, who worked almost every day at something physical, who could walk a mile without difficulty and never had knowingly experienced shortness of breath. All of a sudden I was part of “other people” and scheduled in a few days for a visit to a cardiologist. That day came and went with a date in less than a week for a heart catherization. At this time we are waiting for that date in which the next steps will be determined.

This column is written without the intent of zeroing in on a personal situation that has suddenly arisen. After all, I am not unique. I stated that when the lines above related to the fact that I was no different than others. My purpose is to show that we so often talk about conditions and issues of which we have no real knowledge. Only when we personally experience them can we truly understand.

So often we judge others and the decisions in life they have to make with the criticism “now why did they ever do that” or “I never would have done that”. A pretty good New Year’s resolution would be not to think or express opinions on anything or on anyone until we have first hand knowledge. It would make life easier and the world a better place in which to live. Its surely worth considering.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL. By Edgar Fleetham

Since the above was written, Edgar has had quadruple bypass surgery in the arteries around his heart and is home, slowly recovering from the procedure as is also Ray Elliot. Both are doing mild exercise.
We found the same for Charles McDonald of Berlin Township. He had similar surgery in 1987. During this cold weather he takes his walking exercise at the Meijer Store and is “feeling good”.

SEBEWA TO WASHINGTON by Frank Rathburn

I moved to Sebewa in October 1936, when I was 12, to live with my father, Frank H. Rathburn, Sr. (1874-1946), who had been married that August to Jessie (Strong) Howland (1874-1969), the widow of William Howland, a long-time Sebewa resident. My father and Jessie had been friends many years earlier in Grand Rapids. They got back together by chance, when she advertised in the winter of 1935-36 for a summer farm helper. He was living in Grand Rapids at the time, and answered the advertisement. He worked for her for several months, and they then decided to get married.

The Howland farm was on the corner of the Sunfield Road and what I think now is called Bippley Road, although there were no official road names in 1936.

I had been living in Detroit with relatives since the death of my mother eight years earlier. I arrived in Sebewa on a Saturday afternoon, and can recall my “city boy’s” excitement of being on a farm, with cows, horses, chickens, outdoor “plumbing” and kerosene lights. There was even a hired man, named Will Meyers, a puppy named Rags and an assortment of cats that lived in the granary.

I went to church (Sebewa Center Methodist) the next day with my father and my new mother, I met a lot of people, but I can only remember one---Gretchen Gierman---who I decided was “pretty cute”.

I also made a decision that weekend about my name. I had been called “Junior” all my life, and detested that nickname heartily. I had attended a summer camp that year, and met a boy named Jerry, who had become my friend. I liked the name and decided that henceforth I would be Jerry. That is how I was introduced, and that is what I was called the next five years.

On Monday I went to the Sebewa Center School to be enrolled in the seventh grade. The teacher was Mildred Ensworth, later to be Mrs. Halladay. My fellow students in the seventh grade were Eleanor Meyers and Margaret Shilton. Ahead of us in the eighth grade, were Howard Meyers, Bruce Downing and Mary Zweep. Behind us, in the sixth grade, were Gretchen Gierman, Virginia Cross and Arlene Sears. Behind them, one year, I think, was Cleo Downing. I don’t remember any of the younger children except Geneva York, who looked remarkably like Shirley Temple.

My major recollection of that first day in school was my embarrassment at being the only boy in knickers and knee socks. That was standard dress in Detroit, but not in Sebewa. I went home that night and gave my Dad an ultimatum—the knickers had to go. We went to Portland that night to buy me blue jeans, or overalls, as they were then called. It took me only a few days to “unlearn” my city language; that roads were not called streets, and the outhouse was not a bathroom.

I am sure there is much to be said for modern education, with big schools and fancy equipment. But I do know that the simple one-room Sebewa Center School was the best thing that ever happened to me. Mrs. Ensworth was a capable and dedicated teacher who really worked with her pupils. I had been a very poor student in Detroit, but my marks and my attitude improved dramatically under her teaching. I still have my old report cards to show it. I also have the certificate signed by Mrs. Ensworth testifying that I was never absent nor tardy during the two years that I attended Sebewa Center.

Mrs. Ensworth conducted frequent spelling bees among her older students, and I had the honor in 1937 of winning the school championship, just barely beating out Gretchen. I went on to the township spelling bee, and lost on the word moccasin.
Early in 1937, the Zweeps moved from the farm just east of us, and were succeeded for a short time by the Jake Van Polen family. My Dad, who was then 62, was too old for farming, so he leased some of our fields to Van Polen to work on shares. I actually did very little farm work, but I do recall at least once plowing on foot behind a horse-drawn plow. And I well remember when I was finally old enough to drive the John Deere tractor the “easy way”.

The Van Polens moved later that year, and were replaced by Alfred and Oma Goodrich and their family of six children—Mary, Orpha, Alfred Jr. (Sonny), Stanley, Byron (Bonnie) and Loretta. The Goodriches moved about two years later and the Ritters became our neighbors.

The other near neighbors were Roy Sears and his family to the north; Frank Bickle, across from the Goodriches; Ross and Gladys Tran to the west, and Harry Meyers and family just north on the Sunfield Road.

My best friends were the Meyers boys- -Howard, Wesley and Harold even though they were all older than I. We spent many happy hours together, playing hide-and-seek and barn tag in their barn or ours, fishing at the millpond, tramping through the woods in the summer, hunting in the fall, and trapping muskrats in Sebewa Creek during December. An eventful spring event was our first “dip” in the icy waters of Sebewa Creek, at our favorite spot in a valley about a mile down stream. We used to follow the creek for miles, from its source in a large swamp somewhere to the south, to the point where it empties into the Grand River.
Harold Meyers had an old Model-T Ford, which served as transportation to Portland on Saturday nights for the movies or to Sunfield in the summer for the outdoor free show. We also drove it to skating parties at York’s pond on cold winter nights. I never quite knew how the word got around, but everybody within miles showed up for the skating parties—young, old and in-between. We youngsters skated and played “crack-the-whip” on the ice. The older folks built fires on the banks and chatted while they sipped coffee and maybe stronger drinks.

Speaking of the Yorks, I remember vividly how impressed I was to learn that Helen York, a “girl”, could skin a muskrat!
PTA meetings at the school were a major social event for those with children. My Dad was elected president in 1937, so we went to all the meetings. My stepmother was active in the Ladies Aid Society at church, and was a major contributor to their wonderful dinners. The food was fabulous. Every woman tried to outdo the others, with fried chicken, scalloped potatoes, baked beans, homemade bread, pies and cakes, and a host of other dishes.

There were also the “box socials” at the church, where the women and girls brought lunches in boxes which were auctioned off to the highest bidder. The winner then got to eat lunch with the owner of the box he had purchased, so there was spirited bidding, especially among the younger set. No one was supposed to know which box belonged to whom, but word somehow got out, especially when it came to good cooks and especially pretty girls.

My Dad was a Republican, and he had a friendly rivalry with Ben Probasco, who was a Democrat. In 1937 Dad was elected justice of the peace, and also treasurer of the school board. (Homer Downing and Carl Gierman were the other school board members. I remember one very nasty winter day when only three students got to school—Cleo Downing, Gretchen Gierman and myself, the children of the three school board members).

My sister Peggy came to live with us on the farm in 1939, but never went to the Center School. She went to grade school and high school in Sunfield, where I also attended high school.

I have so many wonderful memories of those days:

*The threshing season, when a dozen or more men and boys would gather at one farm after another with the old steam threshing machine. The younger men pitched the bundles of wheat in the fields onto wagons for hauling to the barn, and others then pitched them into the machine. Older men handled the horses, watched over the thresher, and took care of the “bagger”, where bags were filled with the outpouring grain. The boys got the easy jobs, such as keeping the water pails full and directing the flow of straw onto the rapidly growing straw stacks. At noon, work came to a halt for “lunch”. And what a meal it was. All the wives of the workers brought food. One woman couldn’t have fed that hungry crew!

*The April Fool’s joke I played on my Dad about 1940. He had just bought some new chicken feed that was supposed to increase egg production. That morning, I took all the previous day’s eggs, and added them to those already in the hen’s nests. When he went out to gather the eggs that afternoon, he came bounding in all excited. “That new feed is great”, he announced. “Look at all these eggs.” Then I told him what I had done, and shouted “April Fool!” He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

*The time George (or was it Rob?) Gierman bought some young pigs from my Dad, and asked me to help him load them on his truck. After he had most of them aboard, and was gathering the last one or two, I somehow let them all jump off the truck and was gathering the last one or two, I somehow let them all jump off the truck and scamper away. He had to round them up again, and was very disgusted with the “city kid” who couldn’t handle baby pigs.

*The time somebody’s dog started killing sheep throughout the township. There were some mighty angry farmers who wanted to find that dog and shoot it. My dog Rags was a suspect for a while, but then one night it snowed, and a group of men followed the dog’s tracks from some newly-killed sheep to its owner’s house. I don’t remember whose dog it was, but it was shot on the spot. My Dad, as justice of the peace, had to negotiate a fair price for the dog’s owner to pay for the dead sheep.

*Neighbors for miles around came to our place during haying season with broken hay ropes. My Dad was an old Navy man, and the only person around, I guess, who knew how to splice broken ropes. He tried to teach me how to do it, but I never caught on.

As I look back, I realize that I was living in those first years on the farm during the very last days of a life style that had existed with little change since the last century- -the outdoor pump and windmill, the kerosene lamps and candles that lit our rooms, the outhouse, milking our own cows, making our own cream, shearing our own sheep, butchering a hog in January, making maple syrup in March and apple cider in October, storing apples, potatoes, cabbage and carrots in the cellar for winter, taking a warmed-up soapstone to bed on cold winter nights, waking up to a rooster’s crowing in the morning, cooking and heating water on a wood stove, cutting and splitting wood for the winter fires, raising our own vegetables in Dad’s garden, and even an old-fashioned corduroy road to bump along on near the Cross farm north of the Center. And a final touch—Frank Bickle driving by in his horse and buggy! My great-grandfather, who died in 1875, would have felt right at home in the Sebewa of 1936.

*My first car, a 1931 Model-A Ford that I bought in Portland about 1939 for $65, using the money I had made trapping muskrats, skunks, possums, weasels and an occasional mink. (Howard Meyers and I made a few extra dollars weeding onions for ten cents an hour at a muck farm somewhere in northwest Sebewa). I drove that car to high school for two years, then in the summer of 1941, drove it to my grandmother’s in Maryland, to relatives in Boston, and then back to Maryland, where it broke down. I sold it for $5 and bought a bus ticket home.

It was that December that I listened to a radio report one Sunday afternoon that said the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I asked my Dad “Where’s Pearl Harbor?” He replied, somewhat sadly I thought, “In Hawaii, and I have a feeling you will be seeing it one of these days.”

He was right. I enlisted in the Marine Corps a few weeks later, and spent 26 months in the South Pacific with the Second Marine Division. On my last night in Sebewa, Gladys Tran had a farewell party for me and Howard Meyers, who had joined the Navy. A year later, my sister Peggy married Burt Daniels, her high school sweetheart, while he was home on leave from the Merchant Marine. A short time later, he was dead, one of the first local boys to die in the war.

After the war, my Dad offered to give me the farm if I wanted to be a farmer, but I was not interested. So he sold the farm and moved to Lowell, where he died a year later, aged 72. Mom lived to be 95, and was lively and alert almost to the end. She was a most remarkable lady, a fact that, sadly, I didn’t appreciate in my years on the farm with her. We grew quite close in later years.

I lived in Toledo for a while, then Detroit, where I went to Wayne University under the G. I. Bill of Rights and earned a degree in journalism. I was a newspaper reporter for 13 years, and then a Congressional aide in Washington for 16 years. I have now been retired seven years.

Except for an occasional visit, I have seen very little of Sebewa, where I lived so happily for five years. My Dad and Mom are buried there in the little cemetery overlooking Sebewa Creek, among the graves of so many of their old friends. Whenever I do visit there, I stop at the cemetery and reflect on those long-ago days when life was so simple, uncomplicated and self-sufficient. End

REMINISCENCES Continued by Myrtie Candance Lovell Welch

HIGH SCHOOL YEARS
My mother always mourned the fact that she, who wanted so much to have an education, never had the opportunity. When she was a girl, anyone who could read well and add, multiply, subtract and divide figures formed a class of pupils qualified as teachers.

My mother became a very good reader, also quite adept with figures. The teacher informed her she was now ready to teach a class of her own. Also the lady said she would help my mother to find the pupils. Ma said she was so thrilled; but her mother wouldn’t allow it. Ma would have to leave home to do this and Grandma Croy wanted all her girls nearby. She allowed time to work for their near neighbors but for no one else.

Ma in later years had five daughters and a goal to make each one a schoolteacher or at least go through high school. Mae graduated from Woodland, only ten grades there, and went directly into teaching.

Then Sylvia and Grace both finished eighth grade, but the tables turned on our mother. Instead of her not wanting her girls to leave home, the girls didn’t want to leave. She tried making them go on to high school but they absolutely refused. As I look back, it was probably more fear of having to associate with all of those town young folks. There was such a discrimanation between town folks and farmers at that time. Town folks did really feel above the farmers. That feeling was there until quite recently.

Anyway, when I was ready for high school, my mother simply rented the farm, bought a house in town, moved in with her four daughters. When school started, Grace started in along with me. Ma tried to get Sylvia to start, too, but she didn’t want to. She, Grace and I in the same class? Sylvia would have been a senior if she had gone on from eighth grade and Grace a sophomore.
Grace got through the tenth grade and then quit. She was such a good student but too proud for her own good. She was so ashamed to be so far behind girls of her own age. Sylvia found a job right after we moved to town. She was a typesetter for the local weekly newspaper, The Vermontville Echo.

The first house we bought was the second house on the south side of the street east from the Opera House corner. We were practically on Main Street. It was a very friendly neighborhood and we soon felt right at home.

The people next door soon became our best friends. This friendship lasted the rest of our lives. They had a daughter named Ethlyn, Sylvia’s age, and the two girls became pals. It was this girl that Sylvia named Lucille for. Her last name was Kidder. She kept in touch with our family long after Sylvia was gone. She was a wonderful friend.

Ma didn’t care too much for this place we bought. It would soon be spring with no room for a garden. Ma without a garden? That would never do, so she began looking for another house.

Soon she found just what she wanted except the house was very small, a living room, dining room, two bedrooms and a kitchen. Otherwise it was perfect, so she bought the place at once. It had a nice big garden, a large lawn, the house back off the street, a barn to keep a horse in, chicken coop—we now could raise chickens again. It was just what she wanted. We would just have to get used to that small house. It was located on East Main Street with the schoolhouse just around the corner, practically at our back door. We sold our first house, moved and tried to tuck ourselves into this little place. It took some doing but we made it. This is where we lived when I worked in the restaurant. I told you about that earlier in this history of memories.

V. H. S. RAH! RAH! RAH! September of 1903—There I was registering as a freshman in Vermontville High School. I was scared but happy to be back in school again tackling the strange subjects of algebra, Latin, history and English.

There was one large assembly room and two small classrooms behind this big room. All grades ninth through twelfth were seated in the big room. The principal, a man, conducted his classes at the front, watching over the students who were not in class. Two classrooms, one for each lady teacher, were located behind the assembly. Classes passed into these rooms to hold their sessions. It was so different from Bismark. It really made me proud to be a part of this big school.

Vermontville had literally a high school. The building was on a very steep grade. Looking down from the west windows, one looked right over the tops of the houses on the next street. We could see all over that end of town and way out onto the farms located north of town. It was a beautiful view. The hill made a wonderful place to slide with our sleds, not only at recess and noon time but at sliding down hill parties when the children played there on Saturdays.

On the lower floor of this building were two rooms for children from kindergarten to eighth grade.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association, June 1988, Volume 23, Number 6. Editor Robert W. Gierman. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: Peacock, Wilson, Patterson, Leak, Aves, Kaufman, Archer, Goodenough, VanHouten, Cross, Shaffer, Gunn, Sayer, Torp-Smith
SUBJECTS: SESSIONS SCHOOL; GINSENG GROWING IN PORTLAND

FOR A LIST OF DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD we have the names of Ella Peacock Wilson, Letha Patterson, Mildred Leak Aves, Alice Kaufman Archer, Reva Goodenough VanHouten, Howard Cross. Reva was stricken at the morning service at the Baptist Church but with artificial resuscitation her heart beat lasted until the ambulance had moved her to Pennock Hospital where she expired. That reminds us that there have been two such deaths at the Sebewa Center United Methodist Church over the 97 year history. First came that of Rachel Rider Gunn and almost a generation later was that of Belle Gunn Sayer.
Another late death is that of Elmer Shaffer, 94. He was the husband of the late Gladys Tran Shaffer.
Here is a reminder that on July 5, 1988, Mrs. Myrtie Welch of Sunfield 48890 and Mrs. Edna Sayer, Masonic Home, 1200 Wright Ave., Alma, MI 48801 will be celebrating their 98th birthdays.

Our Board of Directors at their meeting made a $100 contribution for the restoration of the Sessions Schoolhouse at the Ionia Recreational State Park……John Adgate, 92, of Saranac born at the house across the road, made a substantial contribution and added to the funds of the Ionia Association of Retired School Personnel left the $1500 goal a breeze for the rest of us. If you are doing some local touring, make a trip on West Riverside Drive at the Jordan Lake Road intersection to view the 1847 construction of our early settlers.

NOTE: In a notation written by Mrs. Bertha Brock, attached to the following article regarding Sessions School and John Adgate, is an additional notation: “Edgar Fleetham’s mother, Mrs. Lauretta Shaw Fleetham Gragg, born in 1891 in Ontario, moved with her parents and family to Berlin Township and entered the Sessions School. Shortly the school was closed with the new schoolhouse across the road taking its place. Again, shortly, the Shaws moved to Henderson Road in Odessa Township. In her reminiscences Mrs. Gragg wrote “We had valentines boxes when Feb. 14 came around and one year this boy, JOHN ADGATE, gave me a very pretty lace trimmed valentine. I treasured it very much but it came up missing. Years later it was discovered back of a drawer in one of our dressers. I don’t remember of seeing this boy again. I have heard he went into business in the village of Saranac.”

PIONEER SCHOOL DAYS IN WESTERN MICHIGAN by Edith Ver Sluis
NOTE: This article by Edith Ver Sluis was clipped by Bertha Brock from the COMMONWEALTH magazine, dated November, 1926.

In her scribbled note at the head of the article, Mrs. Brock wrote: “Mrs. Ver Sluis was Edith Wilcox, a daughter of Eben Wilcox, whose wife was Aunt Libbie to the whole neighborhood when I knew them---1870…”
Mrs. Brock’s mother attended school here.
Edgar Feetham’s mother, Mrs. Lauretta Shaw Fleetham Gragg, born in 1891 in Ontario, moved with her parents and family to Berlin Township and entered the Sessions School.
Shortly the school was closed with the new schoolhouse across the road taking its place. Again, shortly, the Shaws moved to Henderson Road in Odessa Township….”

From Mrs. Ver Sluis’s article, PIONEER SCHOOL DAYS IN WESTERN MICHIGAN: “A DESERTED stone school house by the side of the river road between Ionia and Saranac, where it has stood for almost a hundred years, is the oldest cobblestone school house in Michigan and one of the state’s historically colorful land marks. It is not entirely deserted, for an ancient oak that has been its staunch and constant companion through the changing seasons for a century, still spreads somewhat decrepit branches protectingly above it. Across the road, its contemporaneous neighbor, a stone fence, fulfills its function as successfully as if it were built yesterday.

The school house was built I the days when the remnants of the Pottawatomie and Ottawa tribes still roamed the adjacent forests, when the wigwams of the Indian village of Chief Commoosa and his people were pitched along the banks of the Grand river less than a mile away. Building material, taken from nearby fields, was transported on ox-drawn stone boats by the settlers of the district. The school site was donated by Alonzo Sessions, an enterprising pioneer, who later became lieutenant governor of the state.

Probably those early builders were apprehensive of having to fight off hostile Indians for the structure is as strong and forbidding in appearance as a fortress—its walls two feet in thickness, its windows deeply embrasured, its door of solid oak. The interior was roughly plastered, floor, desks and benches being originally of natural unfinished oak.

There were long benches on two sides of the room, with smaller benches for the younger pupils at the foot and parallel with the larger ones. The heating plant, an iron box stove of huge capacity, occupied the center of the floor. There was nothing remotely suggestive of decoration; nothing more unlovely could possibly have been conceived. Plainly it was built for service, and so invaluable was that service to a crude, growing country, so faithfully was it rendered and so dear the homely, intimate associations clustering about those grim old walls, that its ugliness becomes transfigured in the mellow glow of retrospect.
But if the old school house has withstood the ravages of time it has not escaped those of progress. It is no longer the center of learning it was in the days of when the three R’s comprised the highest cultural standard of a pioneer community. It has long been supplanted by a modern structure that stands less than a modern structure that stands less than a hundred yards from it in actual distance, but which is a hundred years removed from it in educational methods.

The old building not only served as a day school, but it was a gathering place for holiday festivities, spelling matches, town meetings, and occasional religious revivals; it had no gymnasium facilities, but it stood on the edge of a ten acre lot of level meadow had land that was reserved for a playground. Here the youngsters played pompom pullaway, anteeny-over, one old cat, leap-frog, the needle’s-eye and many other games that have become obsolete.

Along the road fence, stretching some distance from the school house, may yet be seen a row of partially over-grown stone piles, which to the casual passer-by mean merely so many piles, but, to the few who still remember, they represent the ruins of a once pretentious and populous street of play-houses which they, with their erst-while school fellows, tugged and sweated over; the remembrance of those strenuous by-gone noon hours spent among the bustling activities of that little make believe village, with its stores, postoffice and blacksmith shop, remain among the most cherished recollections of pioneer school days.

Across the clearing, back of the school house, there stood in those early days a large tract of timber, a portion of which was utilized every spring as a sugar bush. During the season’s run of sap the children were allowed to visit the sugar camp and learn from observation how the sweet-tasting water that ran from the maple trees into buckets was converted into maple syrup. It was a thrilling experience for them when the teacher led them deep into the dusky wood, where fires blazed under great pans of boiling sap.

- - - ways during the season, usually on a Friday afternoon, there was a jolly sugaring-off party at the school house, when the teacher assisted by older pupils poured the thick hot syrup over pans filled with snow, when presto, the syrup changed into a sort of glorified taffy, called jack-wax, which was cut into strips and distributed among an inpatient crowd of greedy consumers. It is doubtful if school children anywhere ever had a sweeter, more gloriously sticky time than these.

Sheep washing provided a spectacle of absorbing interest, the children being afforded the opportunity of watching this exciting procedure on their way to and from school. In former years the creek that runs along the roadside east of the school house was much larger than it is now. A dam was built across it with sluice-ways, through which the water rushed and roared. Each year just before sheep shearing time the farmers of the surrounding country drove their flocks into large pens near the dam, where the luckless sheep were seized upon, dragged, kicking and struggling, to the water that gushed through the sluice-ways and doused and soused in the torrent until they were thoroughly scrubbed and scared, when they were turned loose into an open field to shake and sun themselves dry. One can imagine with what painful reluctance the children would tear themselves away from this fascinating performance.

The creek was a source of unending delight. Two or three of the “big boys” built a raft which they launched at a point above the dam, where the creek had swollen to the dimensions of a small river. Naturally the other youngsters were wildly clamorous to ride upon it, whereupon these canny young navigators promptly turned their pleasure craft into a ferry for revenue, charging their patrons a marble, a piece of slate pencil, an apple, or whatever the traffic will bear, for propelling them from bank to bank. Usually passengers and crew landed safely in port, occasionally they landed in mid-stream, when there would be a mad scramble for shore, but a soaking now and then failed to dampen their ardor and the unblushing young profiteers continued their thriving business.

Farther up the creek, in a secluded nook, was the old swimming hole, where the boys, clad in coats of tan, disported during the summer vacation, and where the girls rarely and only when properly attended, ventured. On these rare occasions the girls would don old dresses in lieu of bathing suits and gingerly, half shamefacedly, try to swim. Naturally their half-hearted efforts met with little success and less encouragement, swimming by girls or women not being considered ia necessary or lady-like accomplishment according to early Victorian standards.

Fishing, on the contrary, was a pastime boys and girls might enjoy together. “The boys and girls would often go a’fishing in the brooks, With spools of thread for fishing lines and bended pins for hooks.”
Those who were the proud possessors of honest-to-goodness fish-hooks and lines were the envy and admiration of their less lucky associates.

Winter froze the water above the dam into an ideal skating park. Skating and hopping passing bob-sleighs were favorite winter sports of the old days.

Then there were the unforgettable Friday night “spelling-bees”, when the crack spellers from other districts would meet with those of the stone school and try to spell them down. During these epochal events the atmosphere of that dimly lit school room fairly seethed with suppressed excitement. The contestants would range themselves in front of the long desks on opposite sides of the room, punctiliously toe the black cracks in the floor, face each other with outward bravado and inward quaking and brace themselves to meet the terrific onslaught of words the teacher would hurl at them, words of three, five, six and more syllables, tricky words with elusive letters, outlandish ones, words spelled with a final “e” and without any, fair seeming words with designing letters artfully camouflaged with a smooth, deceptive pronunciation. How could merely human perspicacity cope with such a disconcerting and eccentric antagonist? Yet these doughy young spellers stood their ground amazingly well. There was no ignominious rout. With their backs to the wall they battled against heavy odds, going down gamely one by one before that relentless bombardment.

Finally, of all those valiant contestants only two were left standing. Followed a tense, ominous silent, broken by the rustling leaves of the old Sanders Spelling Book, as the teacher turned them backward farther and faster, back to the uttermost bounds of the book, where there were words with letters that went marching menacingly, clear across the page, in regiments and battalions. Why dwell upon the harrowing details? Sometimes mercifully the resuld was a tie, again, both contestants would be felled by the same projectile, and once in a blue moon the teacher would run out of ammunition wherewith to vanquish some heroic superspeller; there were those even in that remote time and place with an uncanny sense that could pierce the mystic veil-shrouding from ordinary mortals the mysterious and diabolic machinations or orthography.

There were other red letter Friday nights when the older pupils were permitted to attend an occasional dance at a neighboring farm house. There, floor space would be cleared and after the preliminary throes of tuning up, were over the fiddler and caller would square themselves for action. From then until midnight the dancing waxed fast and furious. The Virginia reel, the money-musk, the lanciers and various square dances were enjoyed with the eager zest of unsophisticated youth. Round dances were anathematized by the older generation, the majority of whom were of puritanical ancestry. It took courage to brave their withering disapproval, yet sometimes when the fiddler, with a wicked gleam in his eye, struck up the seductive strains of the waltz, schottische or polka, the more adventurous young couples would try out the new steps.

At these rural marry-making there was always a generous supply of apples, doughnuts and cider. The girls wore simple frocks of bright colored, full-skirted homespun or print, striped woolen stocking and stout calfskin shoes. Their hair was worn in long and looped braids, sometimes naturally or artificially curled and confined with a circle comb or band of ribbon. The boys were clad in cut down home-tailored jackets and trousers and high topped cow-hide boots, their hair being chopped squarely off on a line with their ears.

The long white winter evenings afforded opportunity for jolly sleigh-ride parties, when the young folks would pile gleefully and go riding and singing over the gleaning bills and along the valley road to the tuneful jingle of sleigh bells.

Santa Claus found his way to the little old stone school house and loaded its popcorn trimmed tree with a whole menagerie of cookie and doughnut animals, quaint looking home-made dolls with their flat penciled features and pudgy arms and legs, woolly dogs and cats with beady eyes, checker-boards and sleds of home manufacture, numerous pairs of knitted mittens, wristlets and ear-laps, knitted clouds or nubias, soft and fleecy with huge tassels finishing the ends, for the women and girls, long brightly colored neck mufflers knitted and fringed, for the men and boys. Nearly all the gifts betokened painstaking effort and careful consideration for individual needs. Ready cash was unbelievably scarce, nevertheless at Christmas time some of it was spent with magnificent recklessness on gaily striped sticks of store candy, tin horns and whistles, jews’-harps, candy hearts, with their saccharine sentiments, and sundry pairs of wonderful red-topped and copper-toed boots. For all its humble setting and homely, inexpensive gifts, when the candles were lighted and the festive gathering assembled, as much genuine Christmas spirit to the square inch was crowded within that rude interior as could be found in far more pretentious places, with elaborate celebrations.
It can be seen from the foregoing that there was no dearth of wholesome recreation among the children of the pioneers. They had their play spells, but one should not infer that life for them was one long holiday, far from it. They played, but their play was incidental, never permitted to encroach upon the time and energy required for serious activities. Lessons must be mastered. If the curriculum of the district school was limited, it made up in thoroughness for what it lacked in scope. School masters were chosen with an eye to their muscular development and disciplinary powers as well as for their teaching ability. The educational stimulus of the hickory stick had much to do with impressing the rudiments of education and good behavior upon the seat of youthful understanding.

After school hours there were the chores to be done—chickens to feed, eggs to gather, wood boxes to fill, kindling to make ready for morning fires, water to be drawn from the well, and in winter, snow to be shoveled. Girls were taught knitting, darning, mending, how to sew a fine seam, piece bed quilts, sew carpet rags and to assist with the regular household duties.
The superabundant energies of those husky youngsters was turned to practical account in helping their hard-working parents develop and improve their primitive surroundings, a good rule that worked both ways, for these duties and responsibilities in turn helped to develop and improve the children. Study, work, play and sleep, with whatever discipline was deemed essential to the proper functioning of this balanced system, was the daily routine of those who attended the old stone school. Oddly enough, this regime of “licking, learning and working” seemed to agree with them. Their spirits remained unbroken, their intellects unimpaired, their bodies grew straight and strong, while they may have had their shortcomings and imperfections, there was comparatively little moral degeneracy among them. On the contrary, year after year these robust sons and daughters fared forth from that humble portal into the new world of increasing activity, grounded in the fundamentals that enabled them to do their part in developing the glorious possibilities of the middle west. There were few who did not become useful members of society, several achieved eminence, the vast majority of the graduates who have passed from this life into the next school of experience left behind a record of worth-while accomplishment.

Broadly speaking, no more sturdy, dependable or public-spirited men and women ever walked the earth than those who were blessed with only a common school education obtained in the old-fashioned district schools. Plain, practical, courageous, they became trail blazers, empire hewers, statesmen and builders, of whom their country and Alma Mater may justly be proud.
The old stone school house fronting the road in its four square rugged simplicity, is strikingly symbolic of the type of character produced by its simple educational system and uncompromising discipline. It is to the credit of the present generation that it has preserved this ancient and honorable relic of a by-gone age and placed upon its weather beaten front a modest inscription attesting its venerable antiquity.”

OLD TIMES ON EAST GRAND RIVER, PORTLAND by Gerry Pierce Torp-Smith
CHAPTER 1:

My grandfather built the house that I call home at 1105 East James Street, Portland in 1883. The barn on the back lots was on a bank above Grand River Ave. and Charlotte Hwy. That corner was the barnyard for a horse and a cow. They were stabled in the lean-to of the barn where the laundramat is now. The corner has been cut down for a parking lot and an office building. There were three houses on the north side of Grand River and none on the south side inside the town limits. Dad kept a sleigh and a model T Ford in the ban under the hay mow.

In the summer the cow was taken to pasture on the north side of the railroad tracks at the end of Grant Street and I and my brothers, Charles and Leland, used to ride in the Ford with Dad when he went to milk the cow. If the cow wasn’t at the gate, Dad would call “Come boss, come boss”. Then she would appear from some mysterious place down the river. While Dad milked, we kids poked around the river and sometimes fished for bullheads and shiners. After milking, Dad poured the milk into a covered milk can to take it back to the house where Mother dipped it into wide, round granite pans and shelved it until morning. Then she skimmed off the cream and saved it to make butter in the barrel churn. The skim milk was made into cottage cheese. Part of the duties of my older brother Charles was to deliver the cheese to customers. The extra butter was sold to grocers.

My Dad put a furnace in the house with a large register between the dining room and living room. There was a wood range in the kitchen. The upstairs was heated by opening registers in the ceilings. The front bedroom over the parlor did not have a register as the parlor was closed off in the winter. Persons sleeping in the front bedroom took a hot soapstone wrapped in a towel with them when going to bed.

We kids had to wear long johns I the winter. What a chore it was to get the legs smoothed down under cotton stockings.

GINSENG GROWING IN PORTLAND.
CHAPTER II:

My father, Dale Pierce, and my grandfather, Charles Pierce, got started in ginseng growing around 1900. They made trips to Montcalm and Roscommon counties to search for wild ginseng roots. Later on seeds and roots were purchased from other growers in Michigan and Wisconsin.

There was a state ginseng growers association that published bulletins and meetings to discuss methods of ginseng and golden seal culture, plant diseases and kinds of sprays. My father was president of the Michigan Ginseng Growers Association in 1920. Some of the correspondence he had at that time was with Michigan State and Cornell Universities’ plant pathologists. He often spoke of Dr. Bessey at Michigan State.

On the back lots facing Grand River Ave. west of our barn, there was an eight foot high board fence that surrounded ginseng and golden seal beds. I used to get on a ladder to look over that fence to the north. The view of the fields and the river valley was lovely. A little pump house between the barn and fence was the source for the overhead sprinkling system. In the summer, the whole garden was shaded with sno fencing supported on the overhead water pipes.

The raised four-foot ginseng beds were heavily mulched with sawdust. The plants looked somewhat like may apples and each bed was in a different stage of the five-year development. The shaded garden was the coolest place to be on a hot summer day. The whole family worked in weeding the beds.

As there was the possibility of the rare ginseng roots being stolen, Dad had electric wires strung on the inside of the fence. The wires were connected to a bell in the attic. I do not remember the alarm ever going off.
Most of the ginseng was sold to exporting companies in New York that had markets in China where the roots were in great demand as a medicine.

Dad and John Thoomy were partners in another ginseng plot and sugar bush south of Portland at the corner of Market Street and Kent. There was a forest of big maple trees on both sides of Market that produced many gallons of sap in the spring. The whole family helped empty the sap buckets.

One end of the building that John Thoomy lived in was the sugar shanty where the sap was boiled in long shallow pans supported on a rectangular stone and block structure that contained the wood fire. There was often snow in the woods at sugaring-off time. One of our favorite treats was the soft maple candy that formed when the hot syrup was poured onto a pan of snow.
In 1927 my father went into a partnership with a Ludington group to grow ginseng and to raise muskrats on a large parcel of muck and swamp land in Branch county. The 1929 stock market crash and later the Silver Purchasing Act affected the Chinese and American monetary balance so much that the sale of ginseng was not profitable. The fur-ginseng venture was given up a few years later.

Sales list: August 20th, 1917. WILD GINSENG –
Dear Sir: We will pay for prompt shipment as follows:
Strictly wild, dry, good average quality.
Canada, New England & New York..$12.50 to $13.00
Pennsylvania, New Jersey & Michigan…11.50 to 12.50
Wisconsin, Minnesota & Iowa, rough skin…11.50 to 12.50
Wisconsin, Minnesota & Iowa, with smooth bony…8.00 to 9.00
Northern Ohio, Indiana & Illinois…11.00 to 11.50
Central Ohio, Ind., Illinois, Nor. W. Va., Del. & Md…10.50 to 11.00
Southern Ohio, Ind., Cen. W. Va. & No. Virginia…10.00 to 10.50
Southern W. Va., Virginia, North Carolina & Kentucky…9.50 to 10.00
Tennesee, Missouri & Arkansas…9.00 to 9.50
Southern & South Western…9.00 to 9.50

CULTIVATED
Best Grades…$7.50 to 8.00
Good “ …5.50 to 6.00
Medium “ …4.00 to 4.50
Poor “ …2.50 to 3.00

GOLDEN SEAL
Wild, clean and dry, F. O. B., New York…$4.75 to 5.00
Cultivated “ “ …$4.50 to 4.75
Yours very truly,
147 West 24th Street, New York ~ BENJAMIN DORMAN

HERE IS A REMINDER that on July 5, 1988, Mrs. Myrtie Welch of Sunfield 48890 and Mrs. Edna Sayer, Masonic Home, 1200 Wright Ave., Alma, MI 48801 will be celebrating their 98th birthdays.

Last update April 07, 2009