THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association, August 1988, Volume 24, Number 1.
Editor Robert W. Gierman. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: PETRIE, VAN HORN, HATHAWAY, SLOWINS, RYDER, VANHOUTEN, WAY, BARCLAY, EVANS, LOVELL, WELCH

1918 PHOTO ON COVER; MEMBERS OF THE FIRST CLASS OF THE SESSIONS SCHOOL – Shown are members of the first class of the Sessions school who attended the dedication ceremonies of the placing of a bronze plaque on the front of the old cobble-stone school by the Stevens Thomson Mason chapter of the D.A.R. September 29, 1918. Some of the students have been identified by relatives of the former students, but a number are still unidentified. Perhaps some Ionia residents can identify the rest. Those identified are, from the left, first row, William Howard, Clinton Gates, next two unidentified, Mrs. John E. Morrison, Mrs. Riley Harwood and Edith Allen; second row, first two unidentified, Mrs. Thomas Mitchell, Wade Allen, Phoebe Adgate Scheurer, Minnie Adgate, Chester Adgate, the next two unidentified; third row, Mrs. Bertha Brock (DAR representative, Philo and Milo Adgate, Mrs. Arthur Loomis, Rev. F. P. Arthur, who delivered the dedication address, and a son of the first teacher of the school, Amasa Morrison, John E. Morrison, Walter Meach and John Morrison.

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD.
Merl Petrie, Carlton Van Horn and Bessie G. Hathaway.

ACROSS IONIA COUNTY BY PRAIRIE SCHOONER By Grayden Slowins

Wilfred has told about the arrival of the Levi Hissong family in Sebewa Township about 1920 by covered wagon. Here is a story about the Slowins family, who began preparations 51 years ago this month, in February, 1937, to move from a rented farm in Boston, across Berlin & Orange, to a newly purchased farm in Portland. And we were so hard-up in the Great Depression that we even lacked a canvas to cover the wagon.

Dad was an unemployed auto worker who had returned to his ancestral trade as a shepherd. I was born near a sheep barn in Sec. 30 Boston, and the first sound I heard after my mother’s voice was probably the “Baaa” of a newborn lamb. We lived on three different rented farms in my first 5 years of life, all on US-16 (Grand River Ave.)

In the Fall of 1936, the auto factories began to roll again, but the work was seasonal, mostly Fall & Winter, so Dad sought a small farm to buy, closer to Lansing. They had dickered with Charles & Cora Ryder VanHouten, who had sold out and moved from Sebewa to a smaller farm at Portland. But they weren’t quite ready to sell yet. So my family bought Albert (Ab) Way’s farm across the road. It was in Sec. 28, all inside the Village, now City, of Portland. Dick Watkins lived nearby and was working it.

All summer Dad & Uncle Frank Slowinski farmed both places. They got the crops in first on the Boston farm. Four men, including two neighbors, planted 10 acres of corn in a day with hand planters. The field had been marked both ways (check-rowed) the day before with a horse-drawn marking horse. Then they began to load plow, roller, disc, drag, etc., on the wagon each day & go to Portland. Each morning they would milk before daylight, then head east toward the dawn. After working in the fields all day, they headed west with the setting sun. The 14 Brown Swiss cows were milked by hand and the milk hand cranked thru a cream-separator. The skim milk went to the calves, hogs, & chickens.

They put village electricity & water in the house and prepared for that first hard winter. Mother home-schooled me, and on October 10, 1937, it was time to make the move and live “there” not “here”. All farming tools and supplies that couldn’t be spared earlier were now loaded on the wagon. They milked early that morning, and the 5 cows who were to make the move were strung out like a “wagon train” behind. I can’t recall just how they were tied.

We did have the use of Grandpa Slowinski’s flatbed truck to move the household goods and some other things, but in those days trucks usually came with no cab and a homemade affair served without doors – like Randy Wolverton’s silage wagon. Since seat belts had not been invented yet, and without doors, I was instructed to squeeze over next to Dad and hand onto his belt. Because sometimes we reached speeds of 30 MPH on the downhill!

But on this final grand moving day, clothing, kitchen supplies, Mother, and Baby Sister Sandra rode in the care with Uncle Frank. As eldest son, I was allowed at age 5 to “ride shotgun” on the team & wagon. When I rode a horse, I always rode the “off mare” and hung on tight to those knobs on the collar. We started east along the shoulder of US-16. The high wooden wheels with steel rims clattered on the stones and on the cement when we had to duck around culvert abutments. There were cars & semis passing, but you had time to reach safety when you heard one coming.

There were also laying hens in crates on the wagon. We had not received a share of the Boston sheep and would buy a new flock from Mr. Martin, father of Walter Martin who bought the Charles VanHouten place. The farm we left belonged to Mattie Cool, mother-in-law to Uncle Elwood Brake, Sec. 22 & 27 Boston. We were headed for Sec. 28 Portland.
The first sight of interest was the historical marker for the first roadside picnic table in Michigan, or the USA, or maybe the whole World! Next was the beautiful, deep, winding valley of Lake Creek and then Miltenberger’s Pond, from which we had hauled water when the well went dry.

In Berlin we passed the farm, general store, and gas station of County Clerk Lylia Patrick, grandmother or great aunt of Duane Patrick. Then past the farm of Walter A. Lee, whose brother Reuben Lee had an insurance fire in Boston about 1932. Two elderly people removed every item of furniture in the dead of night, including the piano, without assistance from firemen or anyone else! Then past the farm of (William) Henry Harrison Sherwood, whose youngest son is Wayne. We American farmers were a proud & patriotic lot back then, before the disastrous wars in southeast Asia. We named our children after Presidents and Generals, not Rock Stars. We had William (Tecumseh) Sherman Keefer, Ulysses (S.) Grant Keefer, and Sheridan Wilson Keefer still living in Orange & Portland Townships at that time.

Next came the farm home and gas station of Charles Rudd, grandfather of Leon. Then the Martin & William O’Beirne sheep barn, said to be the longest barn in Ionia County when it was built, being older than the Ed & Emory Townsend sheep barns. It was owned by Mary A. Gierman when we passed that way in 1937. It fell down some years ago and the land is now mostly owned by Leon & Janet Gierman Rudd. If you turned south at this point, before I-96 Freeway cut thru, you would have passed the neat & thrifty farms of the Schnabel & Slowinski families.

Heading east instead, we passed the Robert Schnabel, Paul Hausserman, & Minnie Sarlouis farms, and crossed into Orange (township). We passed the Fred W. Brickley farm, and those of Thomas Christianson, Alfred Ferris, Guy Lapo, Riley Sandborn, A. Fred Klotz, Alfred Whitlock, Lucinda Burhans, Warren Rowe and George Rowe. As we neared Portland, we passed what had been the Prine* Barclay showplace and had recently been purchased by Edwin Rowe. He too had an insurance fire in Sec. 11 Orange. Uncle Frank got a job working for Ed Rowe, but within the year Ed hanged himself & his dog on a big oak tree down the lane. Josie continued to run the farm for a while and died just a few years ago at almost 100 years of age. Uncle Frank went to work at the prisons of Ionia & Jackson and retired with 40 years service.

In 1942 at age 10, I became Master Shepherd and in 1957 moved the operation to Sec. 27 Sebewa. During the 45 years since 1942, I have hauled more than 10,000 lambs to the Portland Stockyards. Every one of them was born on our farm. We never purchased a lamb. The first trips were made with an Allis-Chalmers “C” tractor and a little red 4x6 trailer that held 9 fat lambs, since I was too young to drive a car or pickup. The yard was owned by Stiles & Co. before Michigan Livestock. Guy Harwood was manager and then Charles Croel. Both are now dead. Sydney J. Brown was their trucker and he became manager for MLX. He has been succeeded by Larry Squires. At today’s price, around 81 ½ cents/#, 10,000 lambs would be worth almost $1 million. But of course many went at 15 cents – 18 cents back then and when they reached 25 cents we thought we were in heaven! I have never missed a lambing season, even while in college or the Korean War. But the land where I tended my sheep so many years ago is now covered with houses & condos. Slowins Avenue crosses the creek approximately where the farm lane bridge stood. END

*Prine Barclay was married to Rosetta Gunn, daughter of Joshua Gunn. Prine had come to Sebewa to help build the Sebewa Center Methodist Church. His penciled autograph is to be seen on a brick, high on the north west corner of the church. When Joshua Gunn died around 1900 there was controversy over the settlement of his estate between the Barclays and Fred Gunn. The Barclays sold the east one half of the north west quarter of section 22 to James Cassel. The Barclays then bought the property just west of Portland on Grand River Avenue.

As Prine was a first class carpenter, he proceeded to build for Rosetta and himself a beautiful and well finished home. With some persuasion and surely some money, this home became one of the first in this part of the state to have rural electric service from the Portland electric plant.

As luck would have it, my brother, Charles Albert Gierman had a birthday on the same date as was Rosetta Barclay’s. Our family was once invited to the birthday dinner celebration with the Barclays. I remembered we borrowed Uncle Carl’s car and went there for the dinner. We where shown around the new house, which was as yet not quite finished.

Rosetta died before Prine did. He sold the house and moved to Oregon where he also died. I never heard of a reconcialiation between Rosetta and Fred. RWG.

We have enough material to fill our ten pages but how could I do this without mentioning the hot and dry weather of the summer of 1988?

There is more to the Joshua Gunn and other Gunn and their stories but that will have to wait until another issue.

A TEACHER LIST, School District #1, Fractional District of Sebewa and Danby. Courtesy of Fannie Sandborn, who compiled it from old school records.

4-17-1865 Julia Olmstead; 11-20-1865 Lucy A. Warren; 5-14-1866 Anna Dorin; 11-12-1866 J. H. McClelland, 11-18-1867 J. H. McClelland,
11-16-1868 Oma C. French; 6-8-1868 Frora (Flora?) Lewis; 5-4-1869 Harriet Howe; 11-8-1869 Grace W. Brooks; 5-2-1870 Ella Meredout; 11-14-1870 James Stringham; 5-1-1871 S. Tillie Carpenter; 11-13-1871 Jerome Sterling;
5-27-1872 Elvina Probert; 11-2-1872 James A. Stringham; 5-25-1873 Elvira Probert, 5-1-1871 L. Tillie Carpenter, 11-13-1871 Jerome Sterling; 11-18-1872 James A. Stringham; 5-19-1873 Elvira Probert; 11-17-1873 Wesley Meyers;
5-5-1874 Elvira Probert; 11-2-1874 John W. Davids; 5-3-1875 Effie Kibby; 11-8-1875 J. H. McClelland; 5-1-1875 Mary Merryfield; 8-21-1876 Julia Cartright; 11-13-1876 J. H. McClelland; 5-17-1877 Liddy Shipman; 5-7-1877 Nellie Colburn; 11-11-1877 Ransom J. Taylor; 11-5-1879 Susie M. Bedlow;

12-8-1879 S. A. Wyman; 4-12-1880 Cleophus DeCamp; 8-12-1880 Cleophus DeCamp; 4-11-1881 Cleophus DeCamp; 11-14-1882 S. F. Deatsman; 8-1-1881 Della Brown; 10-3-1881 Della Brown; 11-14-1881 Cassius Sacket; 11-7-1883 Della Brown; 11-22-1884 Edward D. Way; 1885 Edward D. Way; 1885 Jas. D. Burkhead; 4-11-1887 W. J. Hutchison;

9-12-1892 May L. Spaulding; 11-14-1892 S. F. Deatsman; 3-6-1893 S. F. Deatsman; 9-4-1893 Jennie Lyda; 9-10-1894 Levi A. Burhans; 9-9-1895 Levi A. Burhans; 9-7-1896 Lottie Erdman; 11-2-1896 Lottie Erdman, 4-5-1897 Edith Henry; 9-6-1897 Edith Henry; 11-1-1897 Edith Henry; 4-4-1898 Edith Henry; 9-5-1898 Ora C. Allen; 11-22-1899 Nellie High;

6-12-1900 A. Bruce Gibbs; 1901 A. Bruce Gibbs; 9-1-1902 Agnes Erdman; 8-23-1902 Agnes Erdman; 9-7-1903 Agnes Erdman; 6-1-1904 Loren Grieves, 4-25-1904 Reva Benedict; 9-5-1904 E. M. Roy; 8-31-1905 E. M. Roy; 9-3-1906 Dorothy Samain;

6-8-1907 A. Bruce Gibbs; 6-20-1907 Anna L. Wilton; 1908 Maude Samain; 1909 Maude Samain; 9-30-1911 Elizabeth J. Cornell; 1913 Belle Young; 1917 Ruth Morganthau; 1918 Gladys H. Pickens; 1919 Gladys H. Pickens; 1921 Don McCormick; 1922 Don McCormick; 1923 Ruth M. Grieve; 1924 Thelma Keister; 5-22-1925 Marguerite M. Stiles; 8-16-1926 Claud J. Scott;

4-22-1927 Don McCormack; 6-4-1928 Don McCormack; 1933 Gladys Baum; 1937 Gladys Baum; 1938 Margaret Wainwright; 1939 Esther Mosser; 1940 Esther Mosser; 1941 Margaret Braendle; 1944 Elaine Kohn; 1945 Clara Wise; 1947 Esther Bonhagel; 1948 Ivah Aikens; 1949 Lula Dushee; 1955 Lula Dushee; 1955 Eleanor Branton; 1957 Lula Durkee; 1957 Alice Martin; 1958 Lula Durkee;

1958 Nora Peters; 1959 Nora Peters; 1959 Mildred Halladay; 1961 Mildred Halladay; 1961 Mildred Halladay; 1961 Paul Webster; 1969 Mildred Halladay; 1969 Mason Ward.

From 1930 on where dates are missing, the same teachers served as listed on the line above.

The schoolhouse was sold to Richard Wolf for use as a dwelling after remodeling. Since his death it remains as a place that used to be.

Here we have the address of Frank H. Rathbun: 11308 Popes Head Road, Fairfax, VA 22030.

FLOYD EVANS INTERVIEW By Grayden Slowins:

I’m Floyd Evans, live on Emory Road in Danby Township, 6577 Emory Road, born November 19, 1908. My parents were George Evans & Anna Evans, formerly Anna Gibbs of Sebewa Township. It’s the E1/2 of SW ¼ Sec.7 Danby Township. Then I’ve got, across the road in Sec. 18, another 57-58 acres that I added later.

At the present time I have on my head a cap that my granddad wore in the Civil War. He served in the Civil War and had come from Pennsylvania originally, and then landed in Bath, Michigan. I don’t know how long he lived in Bath, a short time anyhow. Then he came over to Sebewa Township Sec. 11. His name was Jake, Jacob W. Evans, and Susan was my grandmother’s name. They got there, I don’t know just what year, about 1880s. (Note: They appear on the home 40 in the 1875 Plat.)
Dad was born over there. He had brothers, Joe was the youngest one, and Bert – Herb’s dad and Mildred Brown’s dad, and another brother, John, was the oldest one, and a sister, Carrie. John lived in Owosso for years and ran a candy store. He wasn’t a farmer. The rest of them all ended up being farmers. Along about 1923 or 1924, in that area, he went to California, and that’s where he died. He had a daughter, an adopted daughter, named Grace Ewing. I never saw her after they went to California either. We used to get a letter from her, but haven’t for several years. She was a little older than I am. She’d be probably 85 or so.

Joe stayed on the homestead. Bert, after he got married, lived 2 or 3 different places. He lived over where Ron Arnesen does; and someplace before that, but I don’t know where it was. Then he ended up where Sid Brown owns now. That was across from Bill Rosevere. Bill was Supervisor of Sebewa for years. I used to go over and cultivate his corn for him while he went to Supervisors’ Meeting. He was quite a fellow, William Rosebere, he lived for being Supervisor.

Of course I helped thresh back in those days, over in that neighborhood. Usually I drove Uncle Bert’s team, and I hauled bundles quite a bit for some reason over in that neighborhood. Herb was working here & there. He worked I the milk plant quite a few years, so he wasn’t around at threshing time and I drove their team.

That 80 over in Sec. 12 Sebewa became for sale in the Knox estate, and in 1940, I think it was, I bought it to add to our farm operation. I thought I needed a little more land, which I did. I bought this across the road here in 1936-1937. Got it from Ed Buck. That was known as the Gene Mathiesen place. Mathiesens lived in Portland, you’ve probably heard the name. I don’t know what business they were in, but they were business people and they owned some land around the countryside. I can’t remember when they owned it. Buck owned it all the time I can remember. He was a stock buyer and farmer, owned a big farm over in Orange Township. He had 40 acres over on Tupper Lake Road where Louis Folkerson lives now. Ed used to pasture his cattle over here, that was how he came to buy this. He used to ship in his cattle and drive them out and start them on pasture here, then when pasture got short, drive them on over to that 40. Then in the Fall, at time to house them, he’d take them back over to Orange.

There was a house & barn down the road here, but he rented the house mostly to thieves. They never had a well down there with water fit to drink. So they had to come up here to our well to get water. They’d drive my mother’s old hen & chickens home and that sort of thing. When I started farming, I rented it from him. He had run out of renters. Various ones who had lived there did dabble at farming it for him, too. About the last one that did the farming was Albert Coon. He was a bachelor. He lived all over the countryside here, wherever he could get inside someplace. He seemed to have a team of horses and a plow, and he’d do a little farming. That wore out and the barn got in pretty bad shape and someone tore it down. Then I bought the place. I had rented it 3 or 4 years from him. One day he came out here and he said “You’ve worked this place for (however long it was), why don’t you buy it?” I didn’t have much money at that time and I said so. I had it to beans that year & we did have a pretty good bean crop, it looked like we were gonna get some money. Anyhow he said “well, come on down to the Bank tomorrow morning and that’s all there is to it”.

“Gee!” I said, “I still don’t have any money”.
“Well”, he said, “You’ve got a stack of beans over there”.
“Ya, part of them are mine and part yours”.

“Come on down to the bank in the morning”. So I went, and darned if he didn’t give me a Deed to the place and said “You can pay me for it someday!” He wanted to get rid of it. It was only $3000 or something like that. It didn’t amount to anything, and yet in those days it was a lot of money. So I’ve owned it ever since.

When I got out of High School in Portland in 1928, I started that Fall working on the Clarksville Road over here. That’s when they graveled from the city limits out to Sunfield Road. I worked on that all Fall, worked in the gravel pit down by Portland-Danby bridge. That’s where the gravel came from for that road originally. Then I worked around the farm here that winter. I intended to follow that contractor. He had a big job the next summer up north, road building. He was Sam Solomon from Lansing. I liked the work. But in the Spring of 1929, Laban Smith came out one day & wanted to know if I wanted to work in the Hardware quite a bit with the rest of the kids, and it sounded pretty good. Paid $18.00 per week and I was staying at home. Solomon stopped in one day when he heard I was working at the Hardware, and wondered if I was going to work there. That was alright with him, as he had plenty of help anyhow. So I worked there four years. (To be continued).

REMINISCENSES Continued By Myrtie Candance Welch

MY ENGLISH TEACHER
Miss Aldrich was never married. Her name was Charlotte Z. Aldrich. She always signed her assignments in this manner: Cza. Someone in our class decided it would be fun to play a joke on Cza. On our next papers we turned in to her, each one, instead of signing our names, signed our initials, joining the letters together in the same manner she used.
Next day, before Cza began our class, she stood at her desk and said “Girls, don’t ever sign your names like that or you’ll turn into an old maid like me”. Next time we turned in our papers we signed our full names, even the middle one, like Myrtie Candance Lovell. Miss Aldrich, after looking at our papers, said “Now, that’s much better. I felt I just had to warn you”. She was full of fun and we did our best to please her.
Miss Aldrich lived across the street from our house. I used to help her look over papers and mark them on Saturdays. I liked that. We had her as a teacher only in my Freshman and Sophomore years. She moved away to California. The whole town hated to have Miss Aldrich leave as she had taught in Vermontville for years. She was a very dedicated teacher.
When she left, she gave me her bicycle. I was certainly thrilled with that. Later in my school live, Ma moved back to the farm and I used to ride my bike back and forth to school.

CRAZY RULE
Coaster brake bicycles were never even heard of at that time. No brakes at all, every time the wheels turned, so did your legs on the pedals. The only way you could slow down was to stop pedaling and drop your feet to the ground, letting them drag.
On the way to school was a very steep grade called Corey Hill. I couldn’t pedal my bike up that far, so I walked, pushing the bicycle along side of me. It was a long hard climb. On the way home, going down, you had to fight the speed of your bicycle by dropping your feet to the ground every now and then. This to me was rather boring and I just had to do something outlandish to liven up the trip home a bit. From the tope of that hill you could see a long way down the road to the north. I thought “I’ll bet it would be fun to put my feet up on the handle bars and ride on down”. So, looking to see that no one was coming or that no one was anywhere around to see me, my next thought was “I’ll do it” and up went my feet. Perched on that small bicycle seat, with both my hands and feet on the handlebars, I began rolling down that hill, gaining speed at every turn of the wheel. I felt like I was flying like a bird and I must have looked like one, too.
Now the road at the bottom of this grade was covered with white sand, just the kind you put in sandboxes. I’ll bet you think I fell off. Well, I didn’t. Hanging tightly to the handlebars, I plowed right straight through. The sand did break the speed of my bike, slowing it down just enough for me to drop my feet down to catch the pedals.
I reached the foot of the grade just in time, for around the curve in the road came some people driving toward town. I rode my bicycle along past them like a perfect little lady, which certainly I was not. Hypocrite, I think.

JOHNNIE WELCH AND SYLVIA LOVELL MEET.
Time August 17, 1904. Place---Sunfield Farmers’ Picnic. Mable Wright, Sylvia’s friend (their friendship formed on the west road from Bismark (invited Sylvia to come to Farmers’ Picnic that year with her and her boy friend, Arthur Dow. Sylvia accepted.
Arriving in Sunfield, the three were walking down the street and met Johnnie. He and Art were second cousins. Naturally they stopped to visit a little, introducing Sylvia to Johnnie, who was alone. Soon they decided to make it a foursome and spend the day together. Before the day was over, Johnnie asked Sylvia for a date. Telling him she would think about it and write her answer to him later, Sylvia came home with Art and Mable.
On the way home, she fired questions at Art to find out what she could about Johnnie. After all, he was a perfect stranger, never had heard of his parents, didn’t know anything except that he was a farmer. She knew Ma would want to know a little about him before letting Sylvia go any place with him.
Next day, after repeating all the things Art Dow had told about this stranger, Ma decided he must be quite a bit older than Sylvia but he was a farmer and that, of course, pleased her. Finally Ma asked “How old is he?” Sylvia said that his birthday was the day before hers, but left unsaid their specific ages because Sylvia was two years older than John. Ma never knew until their license to be married was published. Sylvia didn’t lie. Ma didn’t ask for years.
So, after the talk with Ma, Sylvia wrote to Johnnie and gave him permission to come over. Addressing the letter to Mr. J. W. Welch, not knowing that was his Grandfather’s name and she should have added Jr., she touched off some fireworks. The girl Johnnie had been dating for some time lived right across the road from his grandparents. She picked up the mail, delivering it to them. Always if there were any letters, Grandma Rachel and Grandpa John would have Sadie (the girl friend’s name), open them, reading them aloud. Sadie did just that with Sylvia’s letter. Johnnie always said that her reading it saved him the embarrassment of telling Sadie himself.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association, October 1988, Volume 24, Number 2.
Editor Robert W. Gierman. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: SAYER, YOUNG, RISCHOW, CARTER SMITH, PEABODY, DUTCHER, RANDALL, KYSER, EVANS, SKINNER, HAY, ADAMS

Front page: Photo of a barn raising. “This picture is from the Sayer collection of photos and seems to be that of the erection of the barn on the E. A. Demaray farm near the corner of Kimmel and Musgrove in the SW corner of Section 21. You can see why the barn still stands straight despite its shabby outward appearance. This is how they used to do it.

1816—THE YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER by Alice R. Young

Speaking of unusual weather, meteorological observers generally agree that the spring of 1816 was the toughest ever. Vermont was probably the hardest hit. On June 8 of that year snow fell in all parts of the state and on the highlands and mountains attained a depth of five or six inches.

Icicles a foot long were seen and many vegetables were killed on the ground. Frost and snow were said to have occurred during every month of that year in Vermont. Respectfully submitted, Alice (R.) Young, 10555 W. Portland, Clarksville, MI 48815
Earlier Miss Young had told me that her genealogy reached back to John Alden and Priscilla. She spends her summers at her farm home but in the winter she goes to Cumberland Home near Lowell to be easily comfortable. When I visited her early this summer we talked of the Sessions School. Alonzo Sessions owned the land that became school property. He had become prosperous and at the time of his death he had made a will with the various heirs duly designated. Also as a last item in the will he instructed that no settlement be made until after he was buried on his farm land. So, the will was carried out and he was buried on a little rise in his farm land. With the property distribution made, the heirs then had him disinterred and removed to the Highland Park Cemetery.

In the August Recollector, you will find the name of Miss Young’s sister, Belle Young, as teacher in the High School at Sebewa Corners school in 1913. The above “Year Without a Summer” was from a clipping pasted in an old scrapbook. RWG

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD: Tina Rischow, Stella Carter Smith, Harold Peabody, Lettie Dutcher and Alta Randall. All were members of The Sebewa Center Association. Donald Kyser is also on this list.

AHOY LONDON AND THE BRITISH ISLES

Many of you knew I was taking a vacation trip to the British Isles in late August and early September for two weeks. Here are some of the highlights. We were a party of 32 with only two couples not retirees. Some 21 people with only two others from Michigan boarded a British Airlines 747 at Chicago for the direct flight of seven hours to London. We left Chicago at 8 P.M., E.D.T, and arrived in London just a while after daylight. London clocks are five ahead of ours. Only three of us were from Michigan.

It was a considerable ride from Heathrow Airport to our downtown hotel in London. My first impression was of the many, many four or five story buildings with the dozens of chimneys protruding from the roofs. Coal was banned as a fuel for heating in the 1950s and that pretty well cleared the city of its notorious fogs. At the same time it was mandated that the chimneys be kept. Housing many, many buildings is in condominium type flats. Rentals are mostly unavailable. Start walking and you do not come to the end of it.

The city is full of statues and monuments—even one for Abraham Lincoln. So many relics from the Roman occupation late in the first century to 400 A. D. and on to the present that I kept my pictures and story of the 141 year old Sessions School rather quietly packed.

The Thames River has many bridges, occupied house boats and historic buildings along its banks. Time restricted us from visiting many places of interest. Many streets were lined with Sycamore trees. We missed seeing very many Sycamore trees on leaving London. We did visit Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London where many tour groups watched. Windsor Castle was an important tour with many large halls with exhibits of arms and weaponery, great dining and entertainment rooms, costumery and famous paintings and murals. London has many parks, even a square mile in size.

My encyclopedia gives London’s area as 620 square miles (compare that with Ionia County’s 576). A green belt has been established around the city where development is prohibited and farms prevail.

Fairly recently a motorway (freeway to us) a double three lane road was built around London. As soon as it was built, traffic became so heavy that it was decided a double five lane road was necessary and the extra lanes are now being built. No billboards are allowed along the highways of Britain. I started looking for unpaved rural roads but none showed up in all our trip. There were no muddy cars. Even the trails to off road farms were paved. The roads were well marked with signs directing traffic to every cluster of houses that had earned a name.

As you travel roads here you expect to find houses hidden by trees and shrubs. Not so in Britain. Many houses are obvious duplex arrangements with a chimney at each end decorated with a strapped-on TV antenna of small size. You see whole villages and towns with the houses well exposed and only an occasional tree of any size near them.

Again I was surprised to see so much wheat and barley as yet not combined. Nearly every field had a pattern of tracks where spray rigs had treated the crop to limit the growth of the straw. Big round bales of straw followed the combining. Often these were stored, wrapped in shiny black plastic. More another time. RWG

FIFTY YEARS OF TRI-COUNTY ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE

Tri-country Electric Cooperative got its start at Eaton Rapids where Miller Bros. Ice Cream Company had some hydropower at their plant on Grand River. In the depression years of the 1930s, President Roosevelt created by executive order the Rural Electric Administration May 1, 1935. A year later Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act. At that time, only one out of ten farms in Michigan had electric service and there was no push from the utilities to better the ratio.

At Eaton Rapids, William V. Clegg and others under the leadership of Lynn Walkling of East Lansing began thinking of getting a start with lines from Miller Bros. to tap their supply of power. On March 26, 1937 they formed a cooperative named after Eaton, Ingham and Jackson counties with the name of Tri-County Electric Cooperative. The first meeting of the Board of Directors was held in Lansing on March 27, 1937. They applied for funds from the Rural Electric Administration to build service to their farms. A first loan of $400,000 was granted them by John M. Carmody, R. E. Al administrator. Construction soon started. Meantime Lynn Walkling, Manager, promoted membership applications across the county line into Ionia County, stirring interest in the townships of Campbell, Odessa, Sebewa, Danby, Portland, Lyons and Ionia. Farmers were ready to receive the service. Miller Bros. were able to install some diesel generators to take care of what they could see as an expanding load. Lines were energized and the first group of farmers had their service.

Mr. Walkling resigned as manager in July of 1937 and Dolph Wolf was named to succeed him. Areas in Barry, Ionia, Clinton and Gratiot counties were planning to get electricity from Tri-county Electric Cooperative.

More generating capacity was added by a diesel operated plant at Vestaburg in 1939. In February of 1941 another diesel generating plant was built with offices for the cooperative’s headquarters in Portland.

With the load every expanding and lines extending into Clare, Clinton, Gratiot, Isabella, Mecosta, Osceola and Saginaw counties, the Board of Directors along with the cooperative organizations such as Ottawa and Allegan, Cherryland (along Lake Michigan below Traverse City), Presque Isle, Top of Michigan and Western Michigan at Scottville, pooled their generating capacity and transmission lines to form Wolverine Power Supply Cooperative in 1982.

Wolverine has 1,500 miles of transmission lines and more than 100 substations. It has contract sources of power from Detroit Edison and its own steam plant on Lake Charlevoix and several other sources including the Consumers Power J. H. Campbell plant near Grand Haven.

In April of 1988 Tri-county Electric Cooperative had 17, 221 customers, 13,689 of them residential with average bills of $55.83 per month. It has 2589 miles of distribution lines with a total of 13,383,990 KWH sold for that month.
Robert W. Matheny of Portland is Tri-county Electric Cooperative’s manager.

FLOYD EVANS - GRAYDEN SLOWINS interview with FLOYD EVANS, continued:

In the meantime my mother died, so Dad and I lived here. In 1932 was when we got married and Dad lived with us. We started farming. He was getting to the point where he wanted to quit farming & do something else. Sid Brown was getting going in the trucking business and Dad was going with Sid quite a lot on the truck. He liked that pretty well and it gave him something to do. So we started farming, and in 1935 he died and we inherited the 80 acres. I was an only child.

In the gravel pit I had been paid 45 cents an hour. I started out at 40 cents working in the pit down there, running the screener and stone crusher and loading the trucks. They had a bunch of old Model-T Ford trucks. They didn’t have any cab on them. All they had was a dump box on the back and a seat. Some didn’t even have a windshield, you set right out there. They held about a yard and a quarter a load. The gravel, after it went over the screener and thru the stone crusher, went up into a bin. They backed in under the bin and I pulled the lever and that would load the truck. They dug it out of the bank with a drag line and up into a hopper. A conveyor moved it up on top of the screener. The big stones went on down thru the stone crusher and then into another conveyor to the screener and kept going and into the bin. Mainly I had to keep the crusher and screener going and keep them greased. I’d get in an hour or so before the trucks got started in the morning and an hour or so after the truckers would stop at night. I was tightening the belts and greasing the equipment around there.

I always wanted to drive truck. Really what I aimed for when I went there, I though I’d get to drive truck, on those old Model-Ts. I could drive our old Model-T, that’s what I learned to drive on, to drive a car. I asked the boss one day, after I’d been there a while. There was an extra truck or two sitting there. The drivers, I don’t know what happened to them, but anyway they were idle. I asked him if I couldn’t drive truck. He said “Why do you want to drive truck?”

I said “Well, I always wanted to be a truck driver, and they’re getting 45 cents an hour and I’m getting 40 cents.
He said “Well, there’s no problem there. You can just as well get 45 cents and stay where you are”.

So that took care of that and I stayed right with the crusher the rest of the time. There was no limit to the hours, from daylight until dark or a little after. It was along the last of August when we went to work there, and they did all that graveling from then until the first part of December. When we finished up, I remember that it was pretty cold and there were a few days when we were hauling gravel when we had a little problem with freezing on the conveyors and so on.

Then at the last end when they got finished, they sent everybody out, the truck drivers and including me. We took the shovels and went out and trimmed up the shoulders of the road. What shovel work there had to be done, we did that for a couple days, and that ended it. I think, if I remember right, it was about the 12th of December when we closed up altogether down there. Then the next Spring, of course, was when I went to work in the Hardware.

My mother’s dad was Norm Gibbs; his stone is up there in the cemetery. There were actually three Normans in the family. Norm Sr. was my granddad, his was Lillian, Lil. They lived up on Knoll Road where DeBruyn’s property is. Or not DeBruyn’s, but the junkyard there- Piercefield’s. Tom was their boy, my mother’s brother, and he lived where DeBruyn’s are. I don’t know what year, but anyhow when he got married, he married Walker Downing’s daughter from up west further there and that’s where they lived all their lives.

The other Norm Gibbs, Mother’s brother, lived where Linda Sandborn does now, or Linda Russman. He’s buried up here too. He went from there over on US-16 and sold out the Knoll Road place to Art Elvert. He was getting to the point where he wanted to quit farming. So they went over there, that was a smaller place, and they sold produce, garden produce, there on US-16 for a few years and that’s where he died. His wife was Emma Luscher, a sister to Edna McNeil Wenger.
Mother’s sister, Nellie, married Hans Arnesen, a Norwegian and they lived on Petrie Road there, where Ron does. Mother’s older sister, Martha, was Del Northrop’s wife and lived on Knox Road. They didn’t have any kids, but Arnesen’s had one boy and his name was Norm.

I’ve got one boy. He’s a school teacher. He’s lived all over the country here. He started out by going to Church School up at Cedar Lake and graduated there. From there he went down to Berrien Springs to college and graduated from there. That’s where he started teaching public schools, down there. He taught in various country schools around there for 3 or 4 years, I guess. Then he went to Benton Harbor and was there about 2 years, I think. He didn’t like that very well, it was pretty rough in Benton Harbor Schools, a pretty rough situation at that time. He didn’t care for that, so then he got into their church school. He went over to Adrian and was there, I don’t know how many years, several years. Then he went up to Cedar Lake & taught up there where he went to school and had graduated from High School. That’s the Advent Church and School. Then he went from there to Battle Creek and taught in the Advent School down there, too. He went from there over to Gobles and last year he moved from Gobles—was only at Gobles a couple years. Now he’s at Holly, Mich. His name is Gordon.

He has just one boy, Scott. Scott followed him around and always went to school with his dad. He graduated from Battle Creek High School and never thought much of going to college. He started college once in Berrien Springs, but for some reason or other he didn’t like school that well and he gave up. He wanted to work, so he did. He worked at various things around Battle Creek for a few years there. He worked for contractors and his last job was in an oil station outside Battle Creek, east on I-94. He worked there quite a little while. He got it in his head, when he quit Berrien Springs College, to go with another kid hitch-hiking all over the country. I don’t know where all they did go, but they went west and down into Texas and back. For some reason, after working in the oil station and not liking it very well, just a job, he decided to go out west again to Utah. So he and another guy went to Utah and went to work there. He seemed to know people everywhere, from his hitch-hiking travels, I guess. Anyhow, he’s been out to Utah ever since, about 5 years now. He’s a pipe-fitter. He worked on dams and other construction work when he first went there. He went to Salt Lake City first and then went out from there to where-ever the jobs were. He actually camped on the job, and here about two years ago he got in a pretty big outfit and they wanted him to learn the pipefitter’s trade. So they got him to take a correspondence course and he got licensed to be a pipefitter.

I was born right here and lived here all my life. My wife is Angela Adams Evans. Her mother was Calla Skinner, and her grandmother Skinner was a Hay. The Skinner family lived down in Shimnecon. Angela’s mother married Oral Adams. They lived in Shimnecon too, when they were first married, and Angela was born there. Also she had a sister Margaret, 14 months younger, and then her folks separated and he went into the Navy. Soon after Angela was born, some Indians came by and blessed her, and she’s pretty proud of that. Mrs. Skinner was widowed and married Casper Schaeffer, who lived there with Margaret and her. They went to the Knox School and lived there with the grandmother and Cap Schaeffer. He was a pretty big farmer there for a few years. He finally sold out and went down into Indiana.

My wife and her sister lived with them a little while down there and they got grown up, but neither of them graduated from High School. Then her mother married an architectural engineer and of course he was shipped all over the country. That’s how they lived here and there for a few years. Then Margaret married a man down in Indiana and stayed there. She had stayed with the grandmother and never did move around with her mother and step-father quite as much as my wife. But Angela got tired of it, too. So she contacted Nora Wheeler over here, who is Cap Schaeffer’s daughter, and came to live with them. That was when the old shirt factory was starting in town, when I was working in the Hardware. She came over there to live and she got a job in the shirt factory, and that’s how I met her. She wanted a ride back and forth to the shirt factory to work every day. So that’s how I met her. Her sister has been married to three different guys, lived all over the country. She lives in Georgia now.

We started farming when we got married in 1932. Dad was away with Sid. Then when he died in 1935, we really got into the farming in 1936. To start with we had cattle, we milked cows for a few years. I never was a good milker and never liked milking very well. Dad always had a few cows, 4-5-6-7, and after he died I thought there ought to be a better way to make a living than milking cows. So I got rid of the cows and increased the cattle business and the hogs. We had a lot of hogs for a few years and feeder cattle. Used to buy quite a lot of feeder cattle from Ed Townsend over there on Kelsey Road. He sort of took us in under his wing. We sold hogs to him and bought cattle of him and sold cattle to him.

Then the sheep business, I don’t know just how we did get started in that. When Dad was alive, he always had sheep, too. There were a few yers I got rid of the sheep. I don’t know why, but I did. Then got back into them again. When I really got into them was thru Ed Townsend. He came over one day and said he had a carload of old Western ewes coming. I had rented the old Wakely place down east there across the road, starting in 1936 or 37. I used it for pasture. It was hilly and stony and everything else undesirable for farming. So he knew I had that place and he wondered if he could pasture those 300 ewes on it. I didn’t have anything on it right then, so we made a deal. I can’t remember for sure just how it worked out. But he brought the 300 ewes, those old wrinkly Ramboulettes, and left them there for a while. Then one day he came over and said “Well, I’ve got a deal on. I’ll give you half of those ewes, so that will make you 150 for pasturing them, and take the other 150. I’ve got a place for them. Make up your mind, what you don’t want of the 150 or can’t house them during the winter, I’ll find a place for them too”. It hadn’t been only 2 or 3 months they’d been there on pasture, so it was a pretty good deal.

He found a home for a few more, and I mixed the rest in with my other ewes and bred them to a good Suffolk buck and we got some pretty good lambs. Finally the old ewes got pretty aged and they went to market. What really put us out of the ewe business was dogs. That went on for one summer at least. We had had pretty good luck, for as much as we pastured back around the river there. That one year tho, they started right out when I turned the sheep and lambs to pasture in the Spring. They hadn’t been out there over a week. I went down there one morning and there was a lamb on the wrong side of the fence, on the Huizenga side, and dead ones scattered around here & there all over the place. So I hunted dogs all that summer. I’d bring them home for a while, but didn’t have room, so I’d take them back for a while. Then the dogs would get after them and I’d lay over there nights. But I never could get the dogs. Finally, along in September I sheared the sheep and got rid of what lambs we had managed to raise. Along in November we got kind of a wet snow and I went over to see if they were all right. They had a little growth of wool, were huddled down in a hollow, and seemed all right. But while I was over there, here came a couple of dogs over the hill. I got a shot, had a shotgun along, but they were too far away. The dogs took off and went east, but there was hardly enough snow to track them. I came home and ate dinner and got to thinking maybe I could find them down the road to the east here. So I got in my pickup with my rifle and an old German Mauzer belonging to Sam Fryover. So I had three guns with me. I drove clear down to Portland-Danby bridge and back, but didn’t see a dog. The sheep were 40 rods from the road, because I had a fence across and a gate, where you see that green lane between the fields. I had alfalfa in that front field and 5 dogs were going across that field over toward the sheep. I drove up and stopped and rushed over with a gun. They had a ewe down just out from the gate a little ways.

REMINISCENCES OF MYRTIE CANDANCE LOVELL WELCH – Continued

Johnnie Welch. At this time everyone, even his own people, called him Johnnie. John Welch was his Grandpa. It was a long time after Grandpa John died before people began calling him John. The Lovell family never did. My Mother and all of us certainly approved of Sylvia’s new friend, a favorite of everyone all his life.

John William Welch, Jr., was born to Perry John Welch and Lucy Bishop Welch on March 18, 1886. He had one brother, Perry Ray, 1889, five sisters, Myrtle, 1893; Hazel, 1896; Ethel, 1897; Helen, 1898; Lucy, 1902. Also Perry and Lucy’s first baby, Cora Mae was born on April 30, 1863 and died June 25, 1865. Her death was an accident. Sitting near the table in her high-chair, she pushed against the table, tipping the chair over backwards, breaking her neck. She died immediately. Her Father took the high-chair into the woodshed and completely demolished it. The high-chair was not to blame but her poor Mother raised all seven of those other children without the help of a high-chair. Cora Mae’s Father never allowed another in the house.

At the age of twelve, Johnnie went to live with his Grandparents, John and Rachel on the old Welch homestead located the first farm south of the Welch cemetery. His parents, Perry (more often called P. J. or Fred) and Lucy owned the eighty acres, the first farm north of the cemetery, living there at the time.

Johnnie worked his Grandmother’s farm from 1898 to 1918. He and Sylvia were married in 1905. Juanita was born to them in 1907 and Lucille in 1909. During this time the old, old Welch house burned and the now standing one was built in 1909. Johnnie owned eighty acres on Dow Road, the first house south of the Dow Church, and lived there while the house was being built. He sold that place, he bought a farm on M-43 down near Grand Ledge. Later he traded that farm for the one just north of the Dow Church and lived there for the rest of his life. Johnnie died of a heart attack September 19, 1945.

JOHNNIE AND SYLVIA.
In 1903 when Sylvia started “keepin’ company” with Johnnie, we lived on East Main Street in Vermontville. Now Johnnie, being a farmer, had chores to do, so he came to see Sylvia on Sundays in the afternoon, arriving in time for dinner but always leaving early enough to take care of his stock and do the milking. This was back in the horse and buggy days with no car to whiz over to Vermontville and then whiz back. It took a little time in those days.

Although Johnnie was only a little past seventeen at this time, he had worked Grandma Rachel’s farm since he was twelve and had some money, more than a lot of other boys had at twenty-one. He even owned a small farm out on the Smock Hills east of Sunfield near Gates Road. He used it mostly for grazing his young cattle. There were too many hills for plowing the soil.
Johnnie was a very neat dresser, had a rubber tired buggy and had a pretty, fat bay mare he called Molly. The Lovells were always proud when Johnnie came into our driveway. Sylvia’s beau, no other girl in town could match this one.

At the east end of Main Street, you come to a fork in the roads, the right hand going to Charlotte, the left going north was the road Johnnie came into Vermontville over. I used to walk out to this fork in the roads to meet him, just so I could ride in that rubber tired buggy behind his pretty little Molly horse, hoping all the neighbors would see me.

Time moved swiftly, soon Sylvia was planning her wedding. I felt lonely already, first Mae, then Arby and now our fun-loving Sylvia, too. She loved her old home so much that she wanted to have her wedding there. Mae and Fred were living on the farm, so, of course, Sylvia was welcome to come home to be married.

Sylvia and Johnnie set up housekeeping at Grandma Rachel’s in the same two rooms that Grandma and Grandpa John built for Johnnie’s parents so long ago. Grandpa John was still alive. He liked Sylvia so much, I presume Grandma Rachel did too, but she never would say she cared for anyone.

Grandpa called Sylvia, Susie. He died the night before Juanita was born. Sylvia sat by his bed all that night. His mind went way back to his boyhood days in Vermont. He talked most of the night. Sylvia said he’d say “Listen Susie, can’t you hear that brook splashing over the stones? It’s right behind our cabin, you know.”

When in later years Ray and I went east, we were in Vermont several days. We looked for an overnight cabin until we found one with Grandpa’s babbling brook behind it.

Living in just two small rooms took a bit of doing. Sylvia soon had them looking so cozy and neat; they didn’t mind. They were happy and starting down the road of life together made this a real home. To be continued.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association, December 1988, Volume 24, Number 3. Editor Robert W. Gierman. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: CARROL, R (K?)USSMA(UL?), KAUFMAN PEW, WISKEMANN, HENDERSON, TAYLOR, BRANDSON, GIERMAN, EVANS, LOVELL, WELCH

PHOTO OF SESSIONS SCHOOL
Sometime between 1898 and 1918 this is how the Sessions School looked when it was used as a sheep shed. In 1918 the Board of Supervisors did a restoration that replaced the south wall that had been opened.

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD are those of Floyd Carrol, Stuart K(R?)ussma(ul?), Thelma Kaufman Pew, George Wiskemann, Olive S. Henderson, Guy Taylor and Robert J. Branderson.

MORE ABOUT BRITAIN AS I SAW IT by Robert W. Gierman
As I promised last issue, here is more about Britain as I saw it. As I grow older and now at 79 I can notice that I do not function quite as well as when younger. It seems that when I have one thing well in mind, I pursue it and other things are somewhat neglected or forgotten. We look at Britain on a map and at a glance think it is small and we could drive around it in a day or so. We toured in a 49 passenger Volvo COACH and chalked up 1600 miles on our trip.

London is at the southeast part of the isles and has a warmer climate than most of the land mass of the British Isles. Sycamore trees grow freely there but, go north a bit and those Sycamores or Plains Trees disappear as in Michigan crossing Grand River to the north, climate allows very few Sycamores. I was keeping an eye out for a Gingko tree but did not find one though Ginkos are listed in “The Trees of Britain and Northern Europe”, a book I bought there.

Britain, too, lost its elms to the Dutch Elm Disease. The demand for ship building timber there, followed by clearing for many, many small farms on any previously forested acres eventually ended Britain as a forested land. That way of cutting accounted for the great amount of clear cutting in our east as the great timbers fell and headed for Britain for ship building. Nobody seemed to know the importance of leaving some of the land to keep growing a forest.

Even up into Scotland the forests had been cut and not until the last 30 or 40 years have the highlands there been replanted through a government scheme. Now, traveling those highways we could see small mountain after another covered with pine plantings.

On our tour we had three stops at farms. The first one was a large one of 300 acres. The family was expecting us and had coffee, tea and light dessert for everybody. There were a surprising number of chairs throughout the house. I asked our hostess how old the house was. She said 250 years while the one next door was 300. After that I did not again show my picture of our 141 year old Sessions School. Houses in Britain are generally built of stone, the available material. If once they had timber, now most of it is gone.

The farmer there in his mid eighties had spent his life on that farm. His wife had died and he was remarried. Two sons worked the farm. It had been that way for two or three generations, the same family renting from the same family of owners. That, apparently was the custom there. Two little granddaughters flitted around having a good time with the visitors.

Outside we donned our disposable plastic boots and went to the outbuildings. Barns and sheds were of more recent construction, a bit similar to our newer farm buildings in Michigan. In one building there was a grain drier, droning to prepare the wheat crop for market. Farm tools and tractors were evident, some with familiar names and others quite functional but different.
In the farm yard was a large bed of silage with wood reinforcement at the sides covered with a huge plastic with nearly a hundred old tires whose weight protected it from the disturbance of the wind. There was a herd of Holsteins here but they were out to pasture. Only the bull and some young stock were in sight. A mow of large round straw bales filled one building. We had seen many round bales of hay or straw stacked at field edges, tightly wrapped in black plastic. More later. RWG

IONIA COUNTY HAS OLDEST COBBLESTONE SCHOOL (THE SESSIONS SCHOOL)
Ionia Sentinel Standard 10-11-60; Reprinted with permission

An old landmark in Ionia county was restored the past year, by action of the Ionia County Board of Supervisors.
The oldest cobblestone schoolhouse in the State of Michigan, the Sessions school, is located in Ionia county on West Riverside Drive on the south side of the road across from the county infirmary.

All that remains of the old schoolhouse is the outside structure and the roof, which was replaced by workers in the last restoration project. Vandalism over the past 100 years has caused much concern to members of the Ionia County Board of Supervisors, who have tried to preserve the old schoolhouse as a memorial to their ancestors. Decay and vandalism over the years have removed wood floor, plaster, windows and the front door. Vandalism in recent years has caused damage to the east side, the south end of the building with part of the stone walls knocked down.

Workers have relayed the walls and boarded up the windows. They have also placed a new plank door to prevent entrance to the old building. A new shingle roof to help maintain some of the original appearance was also placed on the building.
It had been forty years since the building was last restored. The Ionia County Board of Supervisors voted in 1918 to have the old schoolhouse put back in shape.

September 29, 1918, the Stevens Thompson Mason chapter of the DAR placed a large bronze tablet on the outside wall of the schoolhouse, which is known as the Sessions School. The tablet has since disappeared.

Inscription on the tablet read as follows: “Sessions School House, Built 1847”. Doubtless the oldest cobblestone schoolhouse now standing in Michigan restored by the Board of Supervisors of Ionia county in 1918, tablet placed by Stevens Thompson Mason chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution of Ionia, Michigan, August 28, 1918.”

Taking part in the 1918 dedication ceremonies besides Rev. Arthur were Mrs Oliver Kidd McGannon, who was regent of the Ionia chapter of the DAR, Mrs. Bertha Brock, after whom Bertha Brock county park is named, Mrs. Marion Hosford, granddaughter of George Hosford, a well known early settler of Ionia county, Mrs. Carrie Sessions Loomis and Mrs. Levi Marshall.

An old clipping from an Ionia Daily Sentinel of August 30, 1918 lists some of the first students of Sessions school who attended the ceremonies. They were Clinton Gies, Mrs. Lewis Tanner, Mrs John E Morrison and William H. Howard. Old scholars from way included Clare Allen of Jackson, Mr. Marsh of Muir and one woman came from Illinois to attend.

Residents of Ionia, outside the DAR at the ceremonies included Judge A. B. Morse and wife, K. R. Smith, A. R. Lode and many others.

Restoration work in 1918 included individual fashioned windows, hanging of the old door with a latch, placing of a new roof and miniature corduroy road laid across the deep ditch in front of the school, which was left after the road was built.

The schoolhouse was built in 1847 by Alonzo Sessions, former lieutenant governor of Michigan and the Crane brothers, James and Nathan, masonry workers, who had worked for Sessions in payment for some land they had bought. It was built entirely of field stones on the 1,000 acre farm of Sessions. Sessions also had a home built of cobblestone, which was taken down to make way for the county infirmary (1907).

For 51 years the Sessions school continued in operation. A new brick school was built on the north side of Riverside Drive on the county farm about 1898 as the Sessions school was too small to take care of the increased enrollment.
After Chester Adgate bought the Sessions property, he sold 326 acres to the county which included property where both schoolhouses and the present county farm are located.

An old class roll book which is owned by Robert Patrick whose mother-in-law, Mrs. John E. Morrison attended the Sessions school, listed 30 students in 1875. Although Patrick did not attend the Sessions school, he said he knew many of the students, living in Berlin Township all his life. He said he attended the Eddy school which is located near the Patrick farm, which has been in the Patrick family for 100 years. The farm is located on the David Highway near Jordan Lake road.

He said the youngsters attended school differently in his time than they do today. The only time they went was when the farm work was done. Thus, most of the older boys only went to school for a few months in the winter and late fall and early spring. He said some of them went while still in their twenties to finish school. The roll book Patrick has shows the ages of the students from five to twenty years of age.

Responsible for the last restoration plans were members of the Welfare Committee of the Ionia county board of Supervision of Keene township, chairman Gary Newton of Otisco and Jerry Burns of North Plains township. Harold Bennett of Berlin township was appointed to serve on the committee of the restoration of the school.

LLOYD EVANS’ INTERVIEW, Continued:

I didn’t want to hit the ewe, but I took a shot and missed the first shot. The dogs were 2 or 3 beagles, a mixture, and one big yellow collie. I had never seen any of them before. One beagle started coming back and he got pretty close to the gate. I got him with the old Mauzer, he wasn’t over 10 or 15 feet from me. Couldn’t help but get him. Then here was another one behind him and I got that one too. I got all the beagles. I couldn’t see the collie and I had to load the gun by that time again. While I was loading the gun, here comes the collie along the fence, to see where his partners were. So I got 5 dogs right there in a pile, had them laying touching each other. But the sheep were ruined and after that we just bought feeder lambs, quite a lot of times.
Now we are approaching the E. C. Derby farm. That’s Turner Creek coming across Keefer Hwy. from the west. It starts up in Sec. 12 Sebewa, where the Stiffler boy just built that new house on the land we used to own. It comes down across Floyd Carroll’s and across where George Livingston lives, that was the Bill Turner place. The upper end is called the Sweet & Semaine Drain. The Derby barn set right there close to the road, where Hitchcock’s south driveway goes it. You can sort of see the old barn grade coming in right off Keefer Hwy. The house was up on the hill to the south, right across from the old Hart house. Now they have sold their son this part where that pole toolshed is and that north driveway. Ray just has a 50 ft. drive out to the road. This old road that curves around here is where they came in when they took gravel out of here years ago. The son is a heavy equipment operator by profession and he changed the lay of the land to smooth over some of the mess made by gravel digging. The old Hart place was Ingalls before that. Doc. Morse owned this whole thing and then this half was sold to Skip Spurgeon and Devereaux got the south half. Spurgeon was going to develop this and sell lots, before he got that from your dad’s place. I came out here with Steve Smith to appraise it and at that time there were no roads visible. The County or State had taken gravel out from the south side, too, but the roads were all grown up to brush. You can see some of the road was up at the next higher level there. Hitchcock’s started cutting their way back to the river, built a shop back there, and lived in it while they built the house.
We never hauled gravel out of here, on this side, when I was young. We got it over on the south side, where Pat Laughlin owns. My dad was Township Pathmaster and he always worked out most everybody else’s road tax. After using the horses and wagon, he bought an old Model-T Ford truck and built a dump box on the back of it and hauled gravel with that. He and I shoveled and hauled 18 loads of this gravel onto Keefer Hwy. one Thanksgiving Day, and that’s the last gravel I ever shoveled out of the bank with a shove.

When I was a kid going to school, this was pretty clear land. Derby used to farm back in here and pasture, and most of these trees weren’t here. He didn’t really have much flat land. Of course it’s been dug up and changed around. I hadn’t been back in here for years, until that time with Steve Smith, and it had all grown up to trees.

That gravel there came out of that hole. There’s still patches of gravel here. They got gravel out to build their private road. Gary, the boy, bought two old cranes, got them for practically nothing. He was a crane operator for Brown Bros. in Lansing for years. They cut their way back to the river, built their road, built that shop building, and lived in that for a year or two, while they built the house. The boy lives here, too, he never married. They have a daughter, too, in Florida. She’s an attorney, graduated a couple years ago.

This was quite a gully, a regular waterway to the river, before they changed the lay of the land around and filled in. That big gully going down to the river used to go all the way up thru here. This was old Clanty Derby’s pasture land, all this. When we go back, I’ll show you where I used to cut across on the way home from school. There, this is about the area where I used to cut across. From where that pond is over there, I came down in here and the old brick yard was right in this area where the house is now. I can remember a few boards and maybe part of a roof of a building setting here. I used to cut across here and there used to be an old hoot owl on a tree in that washout lots of times. He would hear me being kind of quiet and he would hoot, and after a while take off. He may still be there – some big hoot owls are here yet.

When they built the house, they found pieces of brick & tile. There was a piece of tin from the roof still here. Apparently they mined clay first for the bricks, then got down to gravel. Right there are some of the brick fragments, by that wild cherry tree. About a 20 ft. radius has never been dug up. There is some old iron from the equipment, and that looks like some pieces of the tile they made. This corner piece is part of a brick. Wish we had pictures of the clay & gravel mining and the brickyard. Someone said Deveraux had some. (The Don March house in S ½ of SE ¼ Sec. 36 Sebewa would appear to be the only house still standing that was built of Sebewa Brick. It was the home of Henry & Eva Snyder, parents of Winnie Benschoter, now 92, and later was owned by her brother Vern. There was at least one more house of these soft red bricks in Sebewa. It stood on the NE ¼ of NW ¼ Sec. 6 Sebewa, although the bricks were mostly fallen away already 30 years ago, and all is gone now. Our Odessa Township neighbor, Ray D. Farrell, was born in that house 98 years ago, on February 4, 1890. He married Hattie Eldridge November 15, 1917, and they honeymooned by horse & buggy to jobs at a logging camp at Seney, U.P. Mich. They have been married over 70 years. Sebewa has always grown them tough! Ray’s mother & baby sister are buried in our west cemetery.)

I never got back in here when they were really hauling gravel- I was working in the Hardware then. That was after Derby’s time – along in the 30’s. I don’t know where they went with it, where they used it. I know the County got some of it, but where they graveled the roads, I don’t know. Hitchcock found a 1924 Ionia County Road Commission license plate around the remains of an old truck. They had a stationary drag line in here to dig the gravel. You can see where it pulled back up to a rock or stake with the cable wrapped around it, and a pulley. The buckets went out on one line and back on the other.

I don’t know what relation Clanty Derby was to Carl & Hugh Derby in Portland. Some, I think, and Carl & Hugh were cousins, not brothers. Clanty & Millie were old people when I was a kid going to school. (They owned the farm in the 1875 Plat Book and the 1906 Plat Book.) I don’t know what year they died, nor if they went to a home or anything, or whether they died here. People always called him Clanty, even tho the Plat says E. C. Derby, probably Clancey. He died first, I know that, because she lived there in the house alone for some time. One day we had a school picnic, the last day of school in the Spring. It was an awful hot day and my folks took me up to school with a lunch basket and our dish to pass. Expecting the basket to be pretty empty, I could carry it home. But it was hot and I got awful tired. I stopped and went in and asked Mrs. Derby if I could have a drink and if she would take me home. She drove an old Model-T Ford. But she said I could walk home. She wouldn’t take me. But I got home and didn’t die – thought I was gonna! She was a different old lady, she didn’t want to have anything to do with kids. “Don’t step on my grass” she would say. The kids never bothered here, they knew enough to keep away.

No-one lived in the place after her that I know of. It more or less fell down. It was once a show-place too. Why nobody ever got ahold of it and restored it or kept it up, I don’t know. Must be the family paid no attention and it kind of disappeared. The barn was torn down or the wind blew it down. I don’t think either building burned. I can still see, in my mind, the trim on the front of the house. There was a cement sidewalk from the road to the front porch, with all its curly-cue carvings on the railing and around the eaves. It was a yellow house, with the trim in white, I think. It had been painted quite a few years before.

I never could see that he did much farming when I walked across here. This was all cleared and pastured, but I don’t know how he ever raised enough winter feed for his stock. The most farming he did was over on the Laughlin area on the south side. A little hay and some oats for his horses and cow, 6 – 8 acres at most. He ran a threshing rig for spending money. There used to be parts of old Separators and Steam Engine boilers lying around in the grass.

REMINISCENCES OF MYRTI CANDANCE LOVELL WELCH – Continued

With Johnnie and Sylvia living in just two small rooms took a bit of doing. Sylvia soon had them looking so cozy and neat. They didn’t mind, they were happy and starting down the road of life together made this a real HOME.

The kitchen was a little cramped at times. Johnnie always had a hired man who lived with them, besides threshers, corn huskers, etc. Always called for a gang of men. We managed. I say we because at vacation times I was there helping Sylvia about as much as I was home.

The new house was built after I graduated and I spent the whole summer there. It was Sylvia’s pride and joy. I was always sorry about the old one, but so happy with this one. It was better for Grandma Rachel too. The north room with a nice big bedroom adjoining was planned especially for her. I really think she was proud of it herself.

Grandma’s life ended in this house on June 1, 1918 at age 95. Soon after this a big change came up in Johnnie’s life. He was asked to move. Myrtle, his oldest sister, had been married a couple of years to Robert Steadman, living in rented rooms in Grand Rapids. I cannot remember what Bob did but Myrtle was a telephone operator.

Coming home to her mother, asking for help, Myrtle said she was pregnant and they would not be able to live on Bob’s salary, no home to call their own, etc. Johnnie’s mother asked him why he and Sylvia couldn’t move to their farm down by Grand Ledge. If they would, she could rent this farm to Myrtle and Bob so Myrtle could have a home.

Of course it was a shock to Johnnie but he really thought he’d be better off on his own place than renting here. It was a much better farm than the 120 he was working so he told his mother he’d leave. He told Sylvia and she didn’t want to go so far away from the Dow neighborhood. Going to Grand Ledge into a strange place with strange people, Sylvia said she just could not do it.
In talking to a very special friend, David Parker, who lived on Dow Road, the first house north of the Dow Church, David solved his problem. They decided to trade, farms, David saying that Mrs. Parker would just as soon go down there.

Sylvia was so happy, they moved, Johnnie remodeled the house, making it really nicer than the new house on the Welch place. It was here that Sylvia died from the terrible disease of cancer on July 31, 1922. It was a sad ending of a happy marriage.
“Ped” and Lucy Welch, Father and Mother Welch to me and I shall call them that in this chapter. I, never in my life, called them by their first names and I cannot do that, even now. “Father!” Sylvia and I were so fond of him and we enjoyed calling him that. I think one reason was that having lost our own father so long ago, we were happy to have one now. I know he was as fond of us as we were of him. He never spoke an unkind word to either of us.

When Father and Mother Welch and Ray bought the grocery and shoe store in Sunfield, Father asked me to go with him to the wholesale house in Grand Rapids to help him buy the shoes. We went on the 11:00 train, coming back on the 6:00 P.M. At the wholesale house he introduced me as his daughter, not daughter-in-law or he could have said Ray’s wife. But, no, I was always Daughter to him and Sylvia was too.

Now I’ll try and tell you what I can remember of the life of Father and Mother Welch. I’ll need to skip dates for a few years. I have written before that they went to housekeeping in the two rooms built by Grandma Rachel especially for them. By the way, this old house of Grandma’s was the first frame house built in the township. I am just assuming it was here that little Cora, their first child was born and died. Next was Johnnie.

This I do know, on October 16, 1889, Ray was born in Shaytown. At that time the folks had a general store there and also the Post Office. Father was Post Master. They sold this business to Will Wells. Living there for three years, Mr. Wells moved to Woodbury, operating a general store there for years and became quite prominent in the affairs of Sunfield Township.

Whether the folks bought the eighty acres north of the cemetery before or after they lived in Shaytown, I cannot tell you. This is where they moved when they left Shaytown and where their five girls were born. Father was a farmer and owned and operated a grain thresher with a big steam engine, bean thresher and a portable sawmill. In those days, if you needed a barn, usually you had the material right on your own land. Every farm had a big woods. The trees could be sawed into the lumber without buying it.
Father had this portable sawmill and many barns around the area were built of the lumber he prepared. The big beams, the rafters, the flooring, with every piece cut for its proper use. It was a good deal like the ready-cut houses of today. About this time in the early 1900’s people began cutting down their woods, just having the trees cut down and sawed into logs. Clearing off these woods gave the farmer more land for cultivation.

In 1906 Father was on just such a job as this, when a terrible thing happened. An accident occurred, resulting in the loss of his right leg. Father and his crew of men were working on this big job down by Quimby, Michigan. It was so far away they would stay for a week, just coming home from Saturday until Monday. This Monday morning, he and his engineer, Ora Moore, arrived before any of the others. Fire must have built in the engine and kept going to get the steam up to a certain pressure for power to run the saws.

Father stepped up to the conveyor to do some oiling. Ora, being busy with the engine, didn’t see him, turned the switch to start the saw and, quick as a flash, Father was carried to that powerful saw just as though he was a log. It cut off his foot just above the ankle.

Someway Ora, with help from the people where Father was working, managed to get him into town where the crew was boarding. The doctor from Hastings came soon enough to stop the bleeding. Johnnie was called by telephone. He and his mother left immediately.

Ray was left behind but couldn’t take it, not knowing what was happening, he hitched up one of their horses and started for Quimby. Ray’s folks didn’t have very good horses for driving, just big clumsy work horses. I guess Ray must have thought he’d get there just as soon by walking. His slow progress was making him more nervous than ever. My brother Arby lived on the old home place on Ionia Road. Ray was going there; he knew Arby had a good driving horse, so he stopped, telling the story and asked to change horses there. Ray was only fifteen years old and Arby thought “I wonder if he knows how fast to drive a horse that far”.

If a horse were driven at top speed without a slowing down every little ways, you could “break their wind” and they would be no good again. Arby said he took another look at Ray and thought “He can take my horse, if he spoils her it’s all right”. He said Ray looked so young, so frightened and sad. He loaned him the horse. Ray returned it that night in just as good shape as ever. Arby told me this himself. Ray and I were “keepin’ company” at the time, so I was glad to have Arby say that.

Ray and Johnnie brought Father’s foot back; made a box for it, burying the foot in Welch cemetery on the Welch lot. Father kept complaining of the pain in his foot that wasn’t there and someone came up with the idea the boys had not buried the foot in the same direction that Father was lying in that bed. So the poor boys had to dig up their box and see whether it was lying straight or not. Of course it was just a superstitious whim, for the foot kept right on paining him.

The next thing, gangrene set in. The doctor had to cut Father’s leg off below the knee to stop the spreading of the blood poisoning. This didn’t stop it, so later they cut it off again about six inches below the hip, leaving a stub just long enough to fit a wooden leg. Those nerve spasms that bothered him so much in just the foot, kept on in the whole leg and did at times all the rest of his life. Father was only 42 years old when this happened. The doctor was pretty wonderful, working under the conditions of the times, to have saved his life. It was just a private home, no electicity, no running water, nothing convenient for anyone. Mother Welch stayed there to care for him with Mrs. Caslelein helping her.

I don’t remember how long it was before Father was well enough to come home. He used crutches for a while, then later he got an artificial leg. He became very clever with that leg, could walk so well that you could scarcely detect it.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association;
FEBRUARY 1989, Volume 24, Number 4. Submitted with written permission of current editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: LEAK, GRAY, DODGE, SARGEANT, BRODBECK, CAVANAUGH, GOODRICH, PEABODY, GIERMAN, WILLIAMS, DOWNING, SINDLINGER, CARR, LOVELL, WELCH

Here below is the picture of Gerald Joynt and Wilfred Gierman on the back of our 1922 $350 new Ford Runabout. Charlie and I drove it to Lake Odessa to High School for four years. Note the rim for the spare tire. Crates of eggs and crates of chickens were hauled on the left running board for shipment to the Detroit Commission House for marketing. The train left Lake Odessa just after high school morning assembly and we could look out the east windows to see our produce on its way to market.

OUR DEATH LIST PEAKED AT THE END OF 1988. They were Maurice Leak, and extending to Lake Odessa and Portland, Duane M. Gray, Dean Dodge, Ila Sargeant Brodbeck, Elouise Cavanaugh and, reaching to Sunfield, Loretta Goodrich

MY TRIP TO TENNESSEE by Robert W. Gierman:

I’ve almost worn out this story among people tht I see but many of our 470 members are not that close, so, here goes.
Many will recall that Maurice and Vera Gierman sold their house, farm buildings and 16 acres from their farm, had a sale to dispose of the remaining farm tools, and took leave with wanted furniture in a Ryder rental truck for a new summer home at Fairfield Glade, some 100 miles east of Nashville. Come cool weather in mid October they invited me to make a visit and I accepted. I had my plans to get up early on Friday, drive the 660 miles, be there for Saturday and return on Sunday.
I did get up at 4 a.m. and by 4:30 I was on the road, finding my way through Charlotte to Interstate 69 headed for Fort Wayne. By the time I reached the state line, daylight had come and WKAR FM began to fade. Foliage was truly beautiful all the way. The fall colors had arrived.

Through Fort Wayne and on toward Indianapolis I got acquainted with the rest stops along the road but somewhere along there, my mind buzzed an unpleasant thought. In my rush to get going I had left my billfold, including my various identification cards, in my every day trousers, flung across the arm of the davenport, and here I was, well away from friends, without even a penny or drivers’ license. I knew there was no point in turning back, for I could run out of gas going north as well as south.

On past crowded Indianapolis I knew I was going to have to beg when my gas tank got low. At Shepardsville, Kentucky my time was up and I had to turn off and be the begger. I found a gas station close by with a modern grocery store and approached the cashier with my sorry tale. She said “you had better see the lady at the counter”. Her reply to my now established story was “Every now and then we get such a sad case and we send them on to the (Southern) Baptist Church”. So there I went, trying several doors before I found the office in the building out back.

I was met by a very pleasant secretary, told my story (third time) and was told I could see the pastor in a moment. When that time came and I started my story the fourth time I began feeling like I was way down here looking up at him away up there. He said they sometimes had to help folks out and he asked a few questions so that I got the impression he was sure he’d never hear from me again after I got my tank of gas “If it didn’t come to more than ten dollars”.

He called the gas station and I got my fill and signed the book and went on to a hundred miles plus east from Nashville to Fairglades and found the friendly faces of Maurice and Vera and Deanna, who was visiting there.

It was a nice trip but I would not start again unless I knew for certain I had cash instead of a story I had to tell four times to get unstranded. Coming home, it rained all the way from Louisville, Kentucky. File this away in your memory the next time you start out.

SOME THINGS I REMEMBER ABOUT SEBEWA CORNERS by Mamie Williams Downing:

I, Mamie Downing, was born about three quarters of a mile west of Sebewa Corners, on the farm of my grandmother, Barbara Sindlinger. She owned about 50 acres. Her husband had been killed when the horses started up and threw him off the tank wagon that he was returning to the next threshing farm. My grandmother kept the farm and raised two girls, Esther and Theresa on this place. She had her own cows, chickens and garden and did her own work. She rented the fields to farmers around.
When her husband first got killed, her brother from Saginaw County came to Sebewa Corners and bought the farm that was later owned by the Knapp family, right by the mill pond. They stayed there until he got her straightened out and got her farm running. He worked the farm for a few years and then returned to Saginaw County. I think his wife died when he was living here and was buried in the Sebewa Cemetery. After several years when he returned to Saginaw he removed her body from this cemetery and took it there.

Grandmother then rented the fields to the farmers in the area but she did her own milking. That is how I learned to milk, helping her. Also I helped her raise chickens, at least I thought I was helping. She lived there and raised her two girls. Aunt Esther married a man by the name of Willis DuBois at Oneida Center near Grand Ledgge where they lived the rest of their lives. Later my mother married Lewis Williams, I think about 1898 in Sebewa. I was born to this union on February 22, 1900.

My father helped my grandmother with her chores but during that year he was sick with what they called TB. He went to Utah where he was much better. He was so homesick he came back here and was worse and he died when I was about eleven months old. Again we were without any man on the farm. My mother and I still lived with my grandmother.

At that time, as I remember, there were two stores at Sebewa Corners. One was on the north side of what is now Musgrove Highway and that was owned by Frank N. Cornell. It was a two story building, the upper part being used as an Opera House for Sebewa. The lower part was divided. The west side of the building was groceries, hardware and anything that the farmers needed. On the east side was dry goods and ladies hats. In the corner of the east side of the store was a lady who was the bookkeeper. She was sitting at the desk most of the time. The one I remember was Lillian Alleman. The Allemans were Sebewa residents. She owned a little building across the road. I think probably that she stayed nights there.

I do not remember so much about my mother working in Cornell’s store. Around the corner facing east on Keefer Highway was a store owned by John Bradley. This was quite a small store but it had everything one would need, groceries, hardware as well as the Post Office. My mother worked in both stores at different times but I remember her working in Bradley’s store. She worked in the Post Office.

There was no R. F. D. yet, so all the mail was distributed there at Sebewa Corners after it was brought in by Star Route from Sunfield as I suppose, every day. I remember the big barrels of crackers and the shelves of cookies. They had a glass front so you could see what kind of cookie on each shelf. There were very few crackers and cookies in packages. The Uneeda biscuits were in packages. They were a cracker and they were very good and people thought that was quite a treat. There was a little building built on the north side of the store where there was an ice refrigerator. I think they kept some meats and ice cream. I remember having an ice cream cone and probably more than one.

Later the R. F. D. was started and different people took the civil service examination. Lawrence Knapp who owned the farm just west of the corner of Musgrove got the mail route that served the area north of Sunfield. The Sebewa Corners residents still picked up their mail at the Post Office but the people in the country got their mail in their mailbox beside the road. Lawrence Knapp was the mailman for many years. Peter Knapp, Lawrence’s father, had a part of the route for a while. Peter lived across the road from my grandmother in the place we now call Sunshine. I used to go over to the Knapps and Mrs. Knapp would warm potatoes for me with butter. I thought those were the best tasting potatoes I had ever had.

The Sebewa stores were still running. I think the Cornell store burned later and the other store was sold but kept running. The Odd Fellow hall on the corner was built several years later. A lot of the men of Sebewa Township were Odd Fellows. The hall was used for different things. There was a small blacksmith shop between the Bradley store and the hall. The first house north of the Bradley store was a house owned by Cornells. It was quite a large house. The Bradley house was the next one.
On the south side of Musgrove there was a building, an old building that Cornell used to house his ckickens that he had bought from people around the Corners. Right on the corner quite a good sized house that was lived in by the Friend family. I think they used to raise horses. There were several houses on south of the Friend house and then the Sebewa Methodist Church, built in 1876. That church was closed in 1966.

On the east side of Keefer Highway there was a farm on the southeast corner owned by Arthur Halladay with no house there except his house. There were more houses on the east side of Keefer Highway, more than were on the west. That road is the division between Danby and Sebewa Townships. I remember the north house on the Danby side as being used by the doctors of the village. Sebewa almost always had a doctor. I don’t remember Dr. George Snyder. I thought he built that north house. He lived there and doctored in Sebewa for several years, in fact I think he brought me into the world.

The next one I remember was Dr. Moore. He came after Dr. Snyder removed and went to Mulliken where he practiced for the rest of his life. Dr. Morse married a Sebewa girl, Nellie High and they lived in that same house. He later removed to Lake Odessa and practiced there the rest of his life. The next doctor was Dr. Crawford, who lived in that same house. When he left, he went to Sunfield where there was one other doctor. He stayed there the rest of his life.

There were no stores on the Danby side of Keefer. If ever there were, it was before my time. West of the Knapp farm was a grist mill and a flour mill. I think it was a good flour because everybody used it. They used to come from quite a distance to get flour there. There was a small house right in the yard of the mill, which was used to house helpers in the mill or they rented the house to someone else. As I remember, the mill was owned by the Lowe family. They ran the mill for several years.

The house the manager lived in was just west of the creek and dam. It was a nicer building than the other little house. The little house was later moved away by Gordon and Rachel Binns over onto Keefer Highway on Sebewa Creek. Later Howard Knapp bought another house and moved it in and landscaped the yard. Howard passed away last winter in Florida. On the farm they built a big chicken coop and delivered eggs into Lansing.

Across the road and a bit west was a camp grounds owned by the United Brethren denomination. In the summer they had two weeks of camp meetings. At that time everybody went to the camp meetings both Sundays. I think they had a cafeteria. The meetings were in big tents with benches for seats, at least before they built the tabernacle. I suspect they used gas for lighting. They had a barn where they could care for their horses.

There were several churches in Sebewa Township, the Methodist at Sebewa Corners, the United Brethren just west of the Halladay school, the Sebewa Baptist church on Musgrove Highway, the Church of God nearby and the Church of Christ at West Sebewa.

I attended the Sebewa Fractional District Number One (School?), the High, being at the High family farm. My Grandmother’s farm was in the Halladay district but the distance to that schoolhouse was quite a bit more than to the High, so grandmother got her farm annexed to the High district. I started school at the Sebewa High. I would go with my mother in the morning when she went to work and wait for the rest of the crowd to go to school. I went there until I was eight years old when my mother married again to George Snyder, a son of Dr. George Snyder. We moved to about three quarters of a mile south of Sebewa Corners and I went to the Halladay School until I graduated from the eighth grade. Sometimes we would want sardines or bologna for supper and I would walk to the store and get it.

The Sebewa Cemetery was a little west of the corner on Bippley. The school on Memorial Day would march over there and place bouquets on the Veterans’ graves. There were several veterans buried there. The Baptist Cemetery behind the Baptist Church was also kept up by the Sebewa Township Board. As I remember when I was little, the sexton lived on the Danby side at Sebewa Corners. He was Dan Collingham, sexton for many years.

I made a mistake on the churches; there were two more churches than I listed. One was the Sebewa Center Methodist Church which is still running. They share their minister with the Mulliken Methodist Church. The Christian Reformed used to be a very active church but it has been closed and the building is used as an antique shop and they also finish antiques. The Christian Reformed people attend churches at Lake Odessa and Ionia now.

My mother used to do quite a bit of sewing for people, especially for families that had girls. When she was not working at the store, that was her occupation. When Mother remarried, Grandma sold the place to Joe Bliss. END

GOING TO JAMAICA WITH A PURPOSE by Kendall Carr

This is Kendall Carr’s account of his and seventeen others efforts to repair damage to churches suffered in hurricane Gilbert last August. Jamaica is located south of Cuba in the Caribbean Sea. It is the largest Caribbean island after Cuba and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) 4232 square miles, population estimated at over two million. Kingston, on the north side of the island, is the capital, population of 112,000 plus. It is on one of the finest harbors in the West Indies. The island has large deposits of bauxite, the ore from which aluminum is made. Sale of bauxite, tourism and tropical agriculture are the exports.
Jamaica was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1494, conquered and settled by Spaniards under a license from Columbus’s son in 1509. Spanish exploitation decimated the native Arawaks. It remained Spanish until 1655 when Wm. Penn, father of the Pennsylvania Wm. And Robert Venables captured it and in 1670 was formally ceded to Britain. A huge sugar industry was built up in the 1700s. Slavery was abolished in 1833. In 1962, Jamaica won complete independence from Britain. The language is a creole English.

HERE ARE KENDALL’S WORDS:
It was a project through our church for a man to go with a group. The United Conference had it set up and had already sent another crew there in November. We started talking about it about the first part of November. Our one worker soon turned into two and that soon became three. Dale Collier was the first, the second was our pastor Kevin Cherry and finally, with a little persuasion, I became the third. We were the team from the Sunfield U. B. Church.

Ticket arrangements were made by Dale Collier’s wife. We flew from Lansing to Dayton on Piedmont and from there to Miami on Eastern. Then Eastern Airlines took us to Kingston, Jamaica. Kingston is the capital of Jamaica. We were told to be prepared to sleep on the church floor. We each arrying a sleeping bag, one traveling bag filled with canned and dried food and another bag filled with our clothing. When we got there we did not have to use our sleeping bags because we had a nice home to stay in. There were two ladies who cooked our big variety of food. We did get tired of the food, a lot of macaroni and cheese.

The project was to be working on churches where roofs had been blown off by hurricane Gilbert. We replaced two church roofs, one school roof and a ceiling in a church and some work in a parsonage. One church was in Kingston and two where in the adjacent mountains. The Conference rented a big van-bus to transport workers and all the materials we needed at the job site. Sometimes it took two trips to get all the men and materials there. The driver was a Jamaican, pastor Warren. He did all the driving and all the running around for us.

Every day after work we would return to Kingston, have our supper and then split up to the home assigned to us for the ten days. Four of us stayed in one home, three in another and the others similarly in other houses. There was some language problem. They talked English but faster speaking with a little bit of slang mixed in. It took me a while to really catch on to it. They would talk more clearly when speaking to us. It was fun. We had a good time trying to understand each other. After two or three days we did pretty well together.

There were some workers from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio and even one from Canada, our crew leader. All had the same time of three hours, going through customs and immigration. We had to be very patient. They checked all our tools, hammers, screw drivers, tin snips and such. We did not need a passport but had to show a birth certificate.

We did not see many of the tourists for which the island is noted. We got down town in Kingston and found it impressive in some locations. They had nine stores but also nearby were trashy stores, sometimes just across the street. People dressed nicely but often we would see these same people standing in front of a fenced in lot with a very poor shack for a dwelling.

The downtown area was nicely decorated for Christmas, Christmas trees decorated with lights, an inviting place to hang around with your friends. The temperature was in the 70s and to us not reminiscent of the Christmas season. They hung lights on trees they had around there with no pines or spruce that we were used to. They had some poinsettia trees that they decorated. There were coconut palms. Outside of town the bananas were just recovering from the hurricane damage.

The city had a big cement factory, a coco-cola factory and battling plant and we could see that a lot of people worked at the harbor where the ships came in. There were a lot of contractor type of people to repair homes and such. We had a good reception and nobody showed any disrespect for what we were doing. Many expressed their thanks for the Americans coming so far to make the church repairs. They were impressed with our ability and the speed at which we did the work. The largest church we worked on took us about three days. They said it would have taken them three weeks if not longer to do the same job.

The building materials had been sent over from USA in a big container. There was steel roofing to be used in replacing the old steel. It was fastened by quite long screws. It was easy to work with but first we had to tear off the old steel. That was work to do that but we had good materials to work with. We had electricity there but up in the mountains we had to use a gas generator to power our electric screwdrivers. I think all the Jamaicans were impressed with how we worked together and how we worked to make something that looked bad came to be looking pretty nice when we got done.

After we had finished the one church in Kingston we mowed the lawn with machetes. Some of the Jamaican young boys helped us do that. They enjoyed that and made fun of us for the way we cut the grass. We had a good time together; they knew we were not used to using machetes. I brought one home but I’m not going to use it to mow my grass. That Washington Gardens Church with the new roof and yard cleaning looked pretty nice. Another crew was scheduled to come in for painting in late December.

Roads there were generally paved though sometimes rough. One think we saw a lot of was dogs. I think they have burglary problems as each family seemed to have from one to six dogs, mostly three or four. The homes were enclosed by fences and often the gates were left open or the dogs could jump the fence. The homes had burglar bars on the windows. Sometimes when we were walking down the street, the dogs would start barking and we would have up to ten following us. There were also a few cats, roosters and pigeons in their back yards. The pigeons were for eating. We were told that after the hurricane the birds were fewer. There were some cows and pigs running loose in the streets, pasturing what they could find.

The people there were mostly black people. We were working with them as Jamaicans. So far as going any farther than Jamaica, I have no interest in doing that. Some of the workers were going to Haiti in January on a similar project and others mentioned Sierra Leone in Africa. But at this point in time I do not have that interest.

We had to walk four blocks from the house where we lived to the house where we ate and had devotions. Elderly ladies would stop us and say “boys, you are doing a good job in coming over here and fixing up our church and making it look so nice”. They would ask how we liked the weather. There are a lot of different denominations of churches there and I think at other times they have had outside help with their buildings.

There were a lot of automobiles there but a lot of people did not have them for transportation. People just walked to their employment or rode the bus. When we walked we noticed that several of the homes had no cars. They would walk to a main street corner and catch a bus to go to market, downtown or wherever. Like the British, who were there when cars came, they drive on the left side of the road and the driver sits on the right. They drive at a pretty good speed.

Going up and down the mountains was an experience for us. The traffic on the narrow roads, the horn honking going around blind curves and people walking the edge of the road all drew our attention. The roads were busy. On Saturday our whole work crew took the day off and Pastor Warren, a black Jamaican, drove us across country to the northeast to Ichos Rios, a tourist center and exporter of bauxite. The countryside was mountainous. We saw some banana groves and coconut groves as we did not see in Kingston.

I bought a newspaper, read it and found it much like ours. They had a lot of papers and a lot of paper boys selling papers when cars stopped at a traffic light. The mountain people live quite differently from the city people. Their homes are shacks made from wood, steel, cement or whatever they can find. They do some terracing but not a lot. Many make craft articles and catch a bus going to Kingston and try to peddle their products to make money that way. They have electricity in some spots but water has been a problem. Water is brought up to mountain people in big tanker trucks. The people stand at roadside stopping points with their pails and other vessels to get what ever they can handle. They lug water to their homes over their heads. We were careful not to drink the water. We had water shipped from Miami in gallon plastic jugs. None of us got sick from impure water.

The local people wanted to sample our water and wanted our empty plastic jugs. Rev. Kevin Cherry and Dale Collier were along with me on the trip. Rev. Cherry did not want to climb but busied himself cutting boards and picking up the things we threw down.


Coming back to Miami we again had to go through customs with a list of the contents of our bags. Rev. Cherry had listed the coconuts in his baggage and had to give them up. I did not list mine and brought them on home.
Ten days was long enough to stay away and it was good to get home.

JOHNNIE WELCH AND HIS GIRLS; Continuing Myrtle Candance Welch’s Story
At the time of Sylvia’s death, Ray and I owned the John Deere Implement Store in Sunfield. We stayed with Johnnie and the girls the night of the funeral, remaining for several days with Ray driving back and forth daily to work. We didn’t know whether to just come and leave them alone or stay on.

One morning as Johnnie and I were watching Ray leave for town, Johnnie turned to me saying “Jim, this is not treating Ray right. It’s time the girls and I start building our lives together. The longer we put off being alone, the harder it will be”. He was right. That is just what Ray and I had been wanting to hear. We knew it was just what they should do but until Johnnie decided, we couldn’t leave. Next day we came home.

Juanita could cook very well for a girl her age and with Lucille’s help the house looked so nice and neat. All of our family were very proud of them. Sylvia, feeling ill so much of the time, had trained the girls to help her. Consequently they knew how to do most everything connected with running a home.

The only thing that I thought they did wrong was never talking about Sylvia. If they only had, their grief would have been easier to bear. I know so many memories that should have been shared with each other. It is hard, I know, but the more often you talk about different things that have happened, the easier it becomes. First thing you know, youmight think something funny and you can even laugh about it. I have faced so many losses over the years. I try to face them all in this way. I love to talk about Ray, especially to my children. We have had many a laugh together about things that happened when Ray was here. It keeps the memory of him so fresh and precious.

Of course everyone has a special way of facing these things. That was Johnnie and Juanita’s way, just bottling it up inside. Lucille was always so eager to talk to me of her mother. She would think of things that used to happen, then ask me if I thought she was remembering it correctly. Johnnie was very proud of his girls and they had many happy times together.

When Juanita and Lucille started in High School, they always came here for their noon meal. I quite often hurried around at noon, baking a big Johnnie-Cake for Juanita to take home. Her Dad always had Johnnie-Cake and milk for his lunch. I worked in the store every day.

Juanita quit high school, learned the art of hair dressing, opened up a shop in Ray’s den here in this house. Permanents were unheard of in those days. Her trade was called Marcel Waving; an electric curling iron was used. Juanita was very good and soon she had aplenty of customers. She always went home in time to prepare her Dad’s supper.

It wasn’t an easy job. Some people’s hair was so fine, like mine, and you would have to spend about an hour before the waves would stay. Coarse hair was easier and the wave would stay in longer. She soon had regular weekly customers. I cannot remember the charge but I think it was fifty cents.

Later on, Johnnie rented his farm, moved in to town, working for Standard Oil Co., delivering oil and gasoline to farmers. I think he kept this job just one year. The heavy lifting he was required to do was affecting his back, so he decided farming was easier and moved back home.

Three things happened around this time. Lucille and Edward Trowbridge married. Johnnie remarried Daisy VanHouten and Juanita married Wesley Dorin. Lucille and Edward had two boys: Wendell was born in 1927 and died September 16, 1955. Duane was born in 1929 and lived in Lansing with his father, Ed. Juanita and Wesley had eight children: Larry, Kenneth, Mick, Wesley, Jr., Jim, Raymond, Sally (so much like her Grandma Sylvia) and Dianna. Ethlyn Lucille Welch Trowbridge was born July 17, 1909 and died in May of 1980. Juanita Grace Welch was born March 22, 1907 and died April 26, 1984.

Johnnie and Daisy. Daisy VanHouten, daughter of Neil and Ida VanHouten was a brother of Johnnie’s Grandma Rachel Welch. Neil and Ida, near neighbors and close friends of Sylvia and Johnnie, so Daisy was no stranger. Sylvia always thought so much of her, I often felt Sylvia would have chosen her to look after Johnnie and the girls if she could.

Of course, everyone on the Welch side of the family were well acquainted with Daisy, but to the Lovells, she was a perfect stranger. Upon meeting Daisy, they all liked her and were happy to welcome her into the family. Even after Johnnie’s death, we always asked her to our family get togethers.

Johnnie and Daisy had a son, J. W. Welch or Dub, as everyone called him. He was born October 28, 1928 and was a natural born farmer, just like his dad. When Johnnie died on September 19, 1945, Dub took over the farm just like a man. He was only 17, not through High School yet, carrying on for his mother. He was always so kind and thoughtful of her. Dub graduated from Sunfield High School in 1946. A year or so later he married Zeda Catlin. Her parents, Forrest and Noma Catlin operated a store in Hoytville for a number of years. Dub and Zeda had two boys, David and Douglas and an adopted daughter, Pamela. The boys are both married now and David, living in Florida, has two children. Zeda’s parents spent their winters in Florida. Soon Dub and Zeda were going down there, too. Zeda would go first to put the boys in school, then Dub left as soon as his fall work was done. They bought a home near Naples.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association;
APRIL 1989, Volume 24, Number 5.
Submitted with written permission of current editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: GIERMAN, SEYBOLD, LOVELL, WELCH, PHILLIPS, BUCHNER, JOYNT, WILLIAMS, BRANDSON, GOODRICH, PEABODY, SAYER, PETRIES, EVANS, SLOWINS, VanHOUTEN, BARY, LaPORTE/LADOR, HOPKINS, DUNSMORE, WILSON, BRAKE

FRONT PAGE PHOTO of 1922 Ford Roadster: “Here facing up from 63 years ago is the 1922 Ford Roadster pictured at the front of the February Recollector. Maurice and I are pictured here in the whittled down and slightly built up version of that car that Charlie Gierman and Claude Williams fashioned for a vacation trip to the Upper Peninsula and around Lake Michigan. With very limited funds they managed to pay their fare on the ferry across the Straights of Mackinac and then worry as to where the 25 cents gas was coming from. Twice they stopped for a few days to work for farmers harvesting their fall crops. Somehow they made it around through Chicago and home without getting their necks chopped off on that no windshield piece of tin in front of them. I once drove it to Lansing—with no driver’s license. Imagine trying that stunt today!

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD. Alfred Brandson, Loretta Goodrich Peabody and Edna Sayer, who died February 16. Interestingly, her birth “twin” (Myrtie Lovell Welch) as for date (both born July 5, 1890) died March 7, 1989. We have published Mrs. Welch’s story of reminiscenses by installments. She wrote these when she was 94. The remainder of the story will follow.

This winter has been one of travel for many of Sebewa for a touch of summer as a break from winter. I was in Florida the last week in January, Ruth Seybold is there with the Dale Petries; Wilbur and Marcella are visiting the George Giermans and Galen and Bernie Phillips were in Mexico for two weeks. It used to be that it was the Buchners and Mrs. Joynt who wintered in Florida.

INTERVIEW WITH FLOYD EVANS, continued ~ by Grayden Slowins

“10” - I used to cut thru here to avoid the dog at Raymond Kenyon’s. His boy, Norman, was just a little kid when I was riding my bike to school. But he used to sic the dog on me. He would stand out by the house and say “Get him!” to the dog. The dog bit me a couple times. So I cut thru here and made it home just as quick or quicker than by road.

Herb’s dad used to work that place of Mrs. Spencer’s on the north. There was a pretty good swimming spot in the river about straight out from this new house. On a hot summer day, Herb & I would take our dip in the river down there between the two gullies. Strip our clothes off and jump in and cool off, then go back to work again. Spencers got that farm from Highs, I think. The house on the lot out of it were Vaughn & Janet Carter live was built by Fedewa, who lived where George & Jan Livingston do, on the Turner place. He built it and sold it to Vaughn. That was the George High farm, according to your old Plat Book, but his older brother John lived there when I remember and George lived in the town of Sebewa. Harry Gibson ran the grist mill and left it to start that orchard. He bought the farm from Bill Turner or after Turner died. Gibson sold the farm to Fedewa and then Fedewa built across the road.

Now we can walk down to the pond and around the back of Pat Laughlin’s house. That pond wasn’t there when I used to pick my way thru here – it was just mucky & wet. This path led to the house owned by Melvin Chapin, back on the creek at the foot of Erdman Road. Chaplin lived on this side of the creek. Later he built a bridge across from Erdman Road, first a swinging foot bridge. He forded the creek at low water with his car. Later he had a better bridge. At one time there was a second house back by Chapins, or maybe before his. There was a root cellar in the hill too. On the south side of the creek, on what is now State land, there is a big hill. We used to call it “The mountain” when we used to go over there to play during noon-hour from school.
Here is where the old Derby house was. That Juniper was in the front yard. There good wild blackberries here in summer. There is a little outbuilding foundation, probably a chicken coop. Here is the house foundation, with another room that joined corner to corner. Almost like a separate building, but they were joined. Perhaps a woodshed. Over there is a well or cistern. And there we are, back to the basement barn foundation.

I started school at the Sebewa “High” country school about 1915 or 1916. When they called the roll, you answered by number not by name. My number was 36, I was the last one called. It was a one-room school with a big old furnace in the west end. The platform and entry were on the front or east end. The baseball diamond was between the schoolhouse and the road. The road wasn’t as wide as it is today. I don’t remember how many was the most that attended, but there were 11 or 12 in the 8th grade class when we graduated. My first teacher was Miss Bell. I don’t know where she came from, but I believe she stayed at Spencers. Don’t remember how long she was there. Then we had Miss Kiester, Fred Kiester’s sister from Ionia. Then Don McCormack taught. He lived with his mother, Maude, over on Musgrove and rode a horse to school. My last teacher was a woman named Grieves from Ionia, sister to Russell Curtis’s wife. She stayed at Lindsley’s, where Tena Rischow lived.

There is no-one around here now that was in school with. Cornelius was the youngest of the Huizenga’s and he was older than me. That family was John, Fred, Grace, Tom, and Cornie. Cornie and I roomed together at Doc. Benedict’s my first year at Portland High School. Doc was Coach, too. There was a whole army up and down these roads back Charlie Kenyon, the Bishops. Oh yes, Kenneth. Buster Stemler is still around. His brother Herbert moved over to Sunfield, I guess. He did live down at the end of Erdman Road, but sold out to his son last year. Melborn Sandborn probably attended 1 or 2 years at this school. His folks, Lon’s, had lived next-to-oldest son, Jake, who was down here. The old-timers around here are about gone. Charlie Wheeler is the only one older than I am. When I want to talk to the old-timers now, I just get in front of the mirror and that’s it.
I was elected Supervisor in 1947. But I was Justice of the Peace 2 or 3 years before that. (Note: Justices occupied the seats on the Township Board now filled by the Trustees.) I’ve been Supervisor the longest of any Danby Township Supervisor, and longer than anybody that’s Supervisor in Ionia County now (Ed Nash started in 1951.) My first meeting of the old Board of Supervisors was in 1947, just after the Spring Elections. Carl Gierman, Supervisor of Sebewa, was about the only one I knew, although I had heard of some of the others. His seat was just a little way from where old John Alleman used to sit. (Charles McNeil became Sebewa Supervisor in Spring of 1949.) Lloyd Burger of Lyons Township had been Supervisor a long time. It was quite an experience for me, going up there to that meeting. I didn’t know where to go or what to do or anything about it. So Burger got me by the hand and took me over by the window and says “That’s your seat there, that’s where John sat”. So that’s where I spent all the years I was on the Board of Supervisors. Gierman was next after Rosevere in Sebewa, I believe, then Charles McNeil. They haven’t changed Supervisors too many times in Sebewa either. Then Evelyn has been on 11 years now – Boy! She does a good job over there!

We had a lot of splits of parcels in the 1970’s when I was Assesor in Portland City and Danby too. Just a lot of small parcels around the township here. Then it slackened off a little. But now for the last couple years again there have been really more splits. I just about get snowed under, this last summer especially. You pick up the Deeds from the Equalization Office. Then you look at your map and try to decide where the property is and where it’s out of. Then you write up a description of it. Then type a card. Then type up a form that goes to the computer. You have to change the old card too, and if they split it 3 or 4 ways, then you make 3 or 4 changes to the original card. I worked for Portland City for about 4 years, and for Equalization for about 4 years before that. This was after the Board of Supervisors was replaced by County Commissioners. Bernard Ardis and I had been Supervisors together and knew each other pretty well. His first day as Supervisor was the same as mine. When they started the Equalization Department, he was hired by the Commissioners as Director. And of course that was when they had Gem Survey come in and do the whole county. So he didn’t need anybody for a year or two, until they got done. Then he found he needed some help and wanted to know if I was interested in some part-time work. So the first year I started in September and worked thru the winter until April. That kept growing, and I was doing this out here in Danby too and trying to farm a little. When I went to do Portland, I let Petrie start farming the land and he has ever since. Harold Buck had been Assessor in Portland and I had worked with him when I was at Equalization. Then he died and they had to have someone. I became 65 years old and the policy of the County Board of Commissioners was you wouldn’t work for the County after age 65. Alyce Durak Mulder took over after me and became full time. She had been Ionia Township Supervisor and was well qualified.

When my dad came here, part of the present house was here and part of this shed—from this side of this door over to that door where the strap hinge latch is –that was the barn. He built on the left end. Then I helped him build on the part to the right to house the old Model-T truck when we got it. He bought this place in two long 40’s. That log house was back in the woods on the west 40. The well is still back there. The farm was owned by Holbrook Bros. and one lived here and one back there in the woods in the log house.

Dad was quite a tinkerer, fixing farm equipment, plow points, putting a cold shut in a log chain, etc., and he needed a place to tinker. Also he needed a grain bin. The log building set on skids back in the woods. So in the winter when snow was on the ground, he hooked onto it and skidded it up here. He put stones under the skids. Later the skids got rotten and he & I jacked it up and put it on stones again. It set up there quite good for a lot of years. Then a few years ago, it got to moving in the Spring and slid off the stones. I just left it. There are some antique irons hanging on it. One thing I would like to get out is one of those old Terriff Perfect Washer Machines made in Portland of wood.

I remember Ab Way, who lived where your folks bought the farm. I believe I would recognize him if he came walking in the driveway right now. And his brother, Myron Way, who lived where Vanderveen was later. He was a nice, quiet, easy-going fellow, but his neighbor shot him thru the bedroom window. Came down the road on crutches carrying a shotgun to do it. That’s how they tracked him home.

Another old guy over in that neck of the woods was Ed Rowe. He farmed a lot of land, a hard worker. First guy to have a two-row cultivator with horses. You’d see him on the road with it. His wife came to town to shop, but he very seldom came with her. She did all the shopping, bought all the repairs and hardware, Josephine (Josie) was her name. He was a working guy, but he got tired of working and hung himself in a tree back in the lane, he & his dog. Tied the horses to the fence.

One last project I would like to see competed before I retire is blacktopping those south two miles of Keefer Hwy. It would cost $100,000 per mile and neither of us could pay the whole shot on our mile. But we could pay more than the one-eight share townships have paid in the past. You and I are about the only ones left on the Boards who remember the deal when we did the north four miles. When we are gone, it may never get done. We need to go after the country jointly and get the job done. END

FROM OUR FAMILY HISTORIAN, JANICE E. WILLIAMS OF PRAIRIE VILLAGE, KANSAS. My roots all started in Ionia County on both sides of my family. My great grandmother Mary Anette Bary was born in Orange township in April, 1859. Her parents were John Bary and Olive LaPorte or Ladore. Olive’s mother died in Ionia on a visit from Sebewa. She was Eliza Rubore Lador. One of her sons, Francis Lador died in Sebewa. On my mother’s side, Alice Marie Hopkins was born in Palo to Charles Albert Hopkins and Anne Dunsmore Hopkins. My daughters’ father, Gary Neff as also his mother, Lillian, were both born in Sebewa. She was the daughter of Oren B. Reeder and her mother was Sarah Louise. My roots are deep there. J.E.W.

ANOTHER IN A SIMILAR LIGHT. 2-11-89. Dear Grayden and Anne Slowins: Have I ever written to thank you for the information on Riley Wilson and Sebewa Township? My father, Max, was born there before the family moved to Ionia where Riley was sheriff. He is remembered for cleaning out the Red Light District down by the railroad tracks. I never knew either of my paternal grandparents although I have pictures of them. Love, Jane Brake.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association;
JUNE 1989, Volume 24, Number 6. Submitted with written permission of current editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: LOVELL, WELCH, BENSCHOTER, KLOPFENSTEIN, WILLIAMS, DOWNING, PIERCEFIELD, SNYDER, SHUMWAY, HUNT, COE, PATTERSON, ELLIOT, WELLS, CROSS, PHILLIPS, SLOWINS, NASH

Pictured here (photo on first page of current issue) is the Sebewa Center Methodist Church where for 23 years past the Annual Meetings of the Sebewa Center Association have been held. Previous to that the annual school reunions since 1923. The picture here was taken by Clarence Sayer with his glass negative camera soon after the church was built in 1891. Located at the intersection of Bippley and Shilton roads we shall have our Annual Meeting there on May 29, 1989 with a potluck supper at 6:30 P.M., followed by a short business meeting and then the Amish program by G. VanderMark and wife of Belding. They have become well acquainted with the Amish community north of Greenville and give an interesting account of their religion and way of life. They show a collection of clothing, toys, books and such things. If you don’t like pot lucks, just come a bit later for the program. The VanderMarks have given their program in both Ionia and Lake Odessa and were very well received at both places. Everybody is welcome to attend. Bippley Road runs east and west four miles north of Sunfield and Shilton intersects both Clarksville Road and Musgrove Highway one mile west of the Sunfield Road…

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD: Myrtie Welch, Don A. Benschoter, Glendull C. Klopfenstein and Mamie Williams Downing. So far as I could see it was Allen Cross and I who were the only ones attending Mamie’s funeral who had also been her pupils when she taught the Sebewa Center School the year of 1918-19. Glendull Klopfenstein was married to Bernice Shumway, our Sebewa Center teacher from 1934 to 1936. Wilma Hunt Coe is now the oldest surviving teacher of our school. She taught from 1920 to 1923. Wilma is now at the Ionia Manor.

THE WEST SEBEWA COUNTRY STORE is open and displays the welcome sign. At the time of her death, Mrs. Letha Patterson turned over the operation of the store to her son-in-law. He kept it running for a year or two when he went to a convalescent home in Coldwater. Soon the Robert Elliot family took it over and have been running it since. The WEST SEBEWA INDEPENDENT ORDER OF ODD FELLOWS was the builders of that building and they dedicated it December 6, 1910. The first floor of the building has always been used as a country store. From 1914 to 1917 the store was rented to W. R. Wells for $160 per year.

ALLEN CROSS spent one day at Pennock Hospital for a hernia operation, one day because that is the time allowed by Medicare for paying for that operation. He will go back soon for stitch removal. His neighbor, Mrs. Galen (Bernie) Phillips is in a Lansing hospital suffering from a leg aneurysm.

SERMON FOR FUNERAL FOR MAMIE DOWNING by John Piercefield (her grandson)

Psalm 46:1-11. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; He lifts His voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations He has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bows and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire. ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth’. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

Psalm 116:15. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”
We do not always see things the way God sees things---through our eyes Death is never a precious thing but to God who sees everything as it stands in eternal order, death is a passageway to life eternal. Let’s look through our eyes first.
The time was 1858, as Adolph and Barbara Schaupp, brother and sister, left Germany to come to America. They settled in Saginaw County where Barbara met Fred Sindlinger and moved to Sebewa Township. Theresa, born in 1874, was one of two girls born to Fred and Barbara. In 1898, Tracy married Lewis Williams in a double ring ceremony with Ralph Friend and Lucy Halladay. Mamie Lucille was born on February 22, 1900, the third generation in Sebewa.

Her life had begun at one of the most dynamic periods in American history, the beginning of the 20th Century. Medicine had recently discovered immunizations for typhoid, leprosy, tuberculosis, malayria, and the plague. Ten million bicycles were the rage; and the automobile and airplane were still dreams and drawings for the most part.

The Panama Canal was being purchased and built as America followed Teddy Roosevelt’s Big Stick policy through the Spanish-American War and on to China with the Open Door policy on trade and overseas expansion. While Mamie was growing up in Sebewa, America was growing up in the world.

Mamie’s father died when she was 11 months old and for seven years she learned to help her mother, milking the cows and learning to sew. She wasn’t so sure she was all that helpful but her mother was patient. It was these early years filled with love and trials that developed in Mamie her near endless patience and contentment. Her ability to remain unruffled yet caring, despite the circumstances, is a monument that will never be erected but will never be forgotten.

On March 4, 1908, Tracy married George Snyder, a widower with two boys, Clifton and Max. To Tracy and George were born three boys and one girl: Don, Dale, Dorothy and Leon.

The time was 1910. A women’s rights movement was in its infancy, Teddy Roosevelt was out and William Taft was in. The 16th Amendment was passed authorizing the levy and collection of taxes on income. To show how times have changed, people were standing in lines for the opportunity to pay their taxes – cheerfully. The Federal Farm Loan Act authorized funds and accepted agricultural land as loan collateral which helped farms grow but put them in debt.

It was at this time, at the early age of 10 that Mamie’s house burned, and they escaped with very little but the clothes on their backs. Out of necessity, Mamie was learning to work hard, save money and stay out of debt. These principles of productivity, thrift, and living within your means would become the trademarks of her life.

The heroes in those days were local and real. Neighbors would get together and play Flinch, many books were read, and a vacation was when another family would come over and spend the night because the travel was so far. Mamie’s earliest memories begin at this time of horsepower, hard work, and happiness. She was learning one of the most difficult lessons in life, being content with the simple pleasures of life. She developed character with callouses, patience with contentment, and grace through giving her all to the task at hand.

It was 1917, Mamie had met Homer Downing and graduated from Sunfield High School. She went to work cleaning at Petrie’s for $3/week. She went on to Central Michigan College, receiving her teaching certification and began teaching at Sebewa Center School. Homer asked her out soon after.

They were married on June 7, 1919, in Ionia and returned home the next day to do chores. World War I had ended, women had won the right to vote, and radio broadcasting grew from a single station in 1920 to 500 by 1924. Americans everywhere were now able to listen almost immediately to events far away. The world was becoming smaller in many ways.

Automobiles were replacing horses on the streets and tractors in the fields. The heroes were Babe Ruth, Charles Lindburgh and Henry Ford. Homer and Mamie were to spend the next 64 years together before his death on February 14, 1984. They had three children, one who died at birth and a son and daughter. Bruce and Cleo became the fourth generation in Sebewa. Community picnics and plays were their social life. Their life was touched with the Great Depression, the aftermath of two World Wars and many economic recessions, but through it all their bond one to another not only stood the test of time but flourished.
The time was 1965, I was 10 years old; the threat of Soviet Nuclear missiles in the Western Hemisphere became evident in the Cuban Missile Crisis as the Cold War went into a deepfreeze. Michigan was solidly entrenched as the car capital of the world, as car manufacturing was on a roll. Many left the farms beginning work for the car companies and its associated industries.

 Television, that invention that would not last, was sweeping the country as we tuned into the Ed Sullivan Show, Bonanza and I Love Lucy for relaxation and entertainment. Our heroes were John Wayne, Elvis Presley, John F. Kennedy and G I Joe, all bigger than life and the music on the radio air waves was not hymns or polkas. It was called rock & roll. Leading the British invasion of music were the Beatles, the Yardbirds, and the Rolling Stones. The Civil Rights Movement was underway after years of struggle and discontent was evidenced in the cities on the campus and the workplace. Drugs such as marijuana, LSD, and speed were sold to the youth as a mark of rebellion and independence.

It was in this dynamic time in history that my earliest memories begin. We would learn at Travis School and from the media all the happenings in the world but when we left school and walked home to Grandma’s house her world became our world. We evidenced the patience, the caring and the tremendous energy she expended on her husband, her house, and her grandchildren. My life was not filled with discontent but with a living understanding of peaceful contentment. Life became a dichotomy with the viewing of discord in America on tv but the living of harmony in Sebewa.

We seldom discussed world or national problems but we always discussed the details of our day, sharing wisdom lived out in their years. I remember learning to eat shredded wheat, drinking Vernors ginger ale and cleaning my plate at dinner with a slice of bread. All these things learned respect and consideration realizing that as a youth I did not have all the answers to life, but with my grandparents I knew where to get many of them.

Mamie was a woman of grace with that ability to live and experience the dynamic changing times and yet remain unassuming, somehow untouched by the turmoil that may be around her. She was never discouraged or downhearted. She was not a seeker or a dreamer of some better world but she was always seeking to please living her dreams. She was always prepared for whatever came, ready ½ hour early, listening rather than talking, watching rather than sleeping. Her love for fishing and bowling probably illustrates it best. She would rise early with her cane pole and straw hat and fish till nightfall if necessary. If they caught fish they would eat them for supper, if not, something else was fixed and they would go again tomorrow, never giving up. And her bowling continued until she was 88, consistent regular practice and enjoying every minute of it.

She never ran for public office or held powerful positions in society, but her grace and patience and duty was the real strength of America. Among all of America’s military, geographic, political and economic achievements none will stand out in my mind greater that her life and the principles she lived by. There is always the sorrow we feel at the death of a loved one but with Mamie even her death is a victory. She had sins and to walk in the newness of life knowing she had through obedience to God gained the greatest victory of all – LIFE OVER DEATH –Even in her death she was prepared to meet with God not as Judge but as Lord and Savior. It is to this entrance into eternal life that we now bid our farewell. Your lessons of life will never be forgotten……

John 14:1-2. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

INTERVIEW WITH EDWIN NASH by Grayden Slowins

This is Edwin Nash. I was born May 16, 1907, son of Ernest Nash & Lynn Weston Nash. Mother was originally from Grand Rapids. Dad was born on this farm, at NW ¼ Sec. 10 Campbell, and so was I, but I wasn’t born in this house. This house burned, the old house burned, the winter before I was born. I was born in that house right over there next north. That house was built quickly and cheaply and I was born there. They must have put it up early in 1907, because I was born in May. Later it became a tenant house for the farm help.

The old house burned right in the middle of the winter, in January. They lived for a time, I think, over Charlie Marvin’s Hardware Store. A lot of things they didn’t get out of the house. They didn’t get their clothing out. They got some dining room furniture out – that china cabinet was one thing, and the dishes in it. I guess they got all that out, and even the living room things. But they lost all their clothing except what they had on. Evidently they couldn’t get into the bedroom.

At that time the Benedicts worked the farm. There was another house right back here to the south-west behind this one, where they lived. Mother got the canary out and took it to their house. It was right in the dead of winter and deep snow and colder than the dickens, I guess. That’s why it burned. Everything was fueled with wood stoves and one got overheated. It was a big house, on this same foundation, just that extension to the north on the living room is extra and the bathroom. So, practically the same size. Most of the old wall was re-used. You can see it in the basement.

This is a photo of the old house. Same shape, only the bay window was moved from the front room to the dining room. The old house was about the same shape, but it had a different roof – gable type now instead of the old hip roof. You can stand up in the attic of the front part now. It was big. I don’t know when that old one was built. It must have been here quite a while before it burned. These trees are here yet from the old house.

My grandfather, Edwin Nash Sr., and grandmother, and my father’s sister, Aunt Emma, are in that photo of the old house. Also Emma Headworth is there, the woman your mother (Crystal Brake) roomed with when she came to High School. She and her sister, Mable, drove a Shetland pony (Lady) on a basket-type cart to High School from the country in good weather and tied it in our barn. There used to be a horse barn here in front where that workshop is now. That’s how all the country kids got to High School, and on bad nights they stayed over. Your mother may also have stayed with a doctor’s widow (Gaylord Laughlin’s mother, I think).

Headworths lived on Ferney Street here in town, where Esta Slater Stuart Kole lives now. Emma was a good friend of our family. Her father was Georgie Richardson and he had worked this farm at one time. He lived across the section in SW ¼ Sec. 11. He was quite a character, an old Scotsman. Used to dress up in his kilts for special occasions.

Grandfather was born in Schenectedy, New York, and later the family moved to Lapeer, Michigan. We still have relatives there, but I never went to visit them. He didn’t farm for long, I don’t think. He found out there was more money in lending money! Grandfather was fortunate. He came in here and was farming during the Civil War and made some money then. After the War he opened the Bank when the town started. Of course he cleared the land, he and his father and brothers. Great-grandfather was Amasa Nash and he lived right here and had four grown sons when he came here.

Campbell was part of Boston Township until 1849, a good 10 years after Sebewa and some of the other Townships were organized on their own, even tho the Campbell family came in 1840. Amasa Nash and his sons: Calvin, Marcus, Edwin, and Charles, came here in 1847. Also William Mercer, who became the first Supervisor and was grandfather to Thaddeus Mercer, who in turn was grandfather to Margaret (Mrs. Ron) Story. Thad Mercer lived just over the townline into Boston Township on Darby Road – some of what Larry Behrenwald owns now, on the west end of Morrison Lake at SW ½ Sec. 35 Boston. But the original buildings were out on Darby Road.

Amasa Nash was the first Township Treasurer. The Township was named after the first family, the Campbells, who later moved to California in the gold rush and have no descendants left here. But the village was named after Clark L. Howard, who built a General Store and Post Office in 1875, just in time for the railroad. Then Grandfather and the McCormacks and Ferneys platted the corners of their farm to start the village. Trowbridge was in on it, too. He was a stonemason and builder, I think. Alva McCormack was the pioneer of that family. He had two sons, Chauncey and Fay, and a daughter, Carolyn, who married Otis Ackerson, and that’s how it comes down to Maynard Ackerson and family. Margaret Ackerson Rush, who was in your mother’s class, was Otis’ daughter.

Charles Nash was the father of Alien (Allie) Nash. He lived right south of here on N ½ Sec. 10 and Allie did too. So Allie and my dad, Ernest, were first cousins. June (Mrs. Gardner) Compton is Allie’s daughter and second cousin to me. Charles Nash Jr. was a brother to Allie and father of Warner Nash, another second cousin to me.

Calvin Nash was the father of Orvin and grandfather of my second cousins, Calvin Nash Jr. and Fay Nash. Calvin and Orvin lived on the land that surrounds the cemetery. The buildings are east on the side road. It’s N ½ NE ¼ Sec. 15 and later was owned by Charles Nash Jr.

Marcus Nash lived just east of town on Darby Road, at W ½ NW ¼ Sec. 11. There’s no-one left of that family. One of them went up by Lapeer, I think. An old bum called Peg-leg Nash, I think his name was Frank, lived on that Marcus Nash place when I was a boy. Must have been his son, and a first cousin to my dad. The old house was still there then.

I started school in an old building behind the present building. Here’s a school picture when I was in Kindergarten, wearing an Indian costume out in front of the old building. I remember when this one was built. It was built about 1916. My dad worked hard to promote building it and I think they had to borrow $20,000. It’s on a lot platted out of our land. Before that they had only 10 grades. I think the first class graduated in 1902, but only from 10th grade. Mable Brake may have been in the first class of 12 grades, about 1918. There was also a private school called Transue Academy. My mother went to that. They sent my dad to Detroit to High School. I think that’s why he worked so hard to get one here. It wasn’t very popular and that $20,000 bond issue was a lot of money. It was only one district, District #2, the size of a country school district. Just the farms and this little village. Batchelors were on the Schoville farm north of town and fought the bond issue. But they wanted the big drain cleaned out and the two issues kind of get tied together.

I graduated from High School in 1925. Your mother was 3 or 4 years older, graduated in 1921, I think. Her brother, John Brake, Jr., was in my class and their cousin, Burdette Livingston, was too. Burdette’s second wife, Alice Preston Jackson, was a year behind us and Don Braendle was a year ahead.

Grandfather had these rooms on the north front of the house that are the living room and music room now. The fireplace was his heating stove. They had heated the old house with stoves and he didn’t like the new furnace. He died in 1909. Dad was married twice – his first wife had sugar diabetes and no kids. My mother was younger than him, but he wasn’t an old man when he died in 1923. To Be Continued

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association;
AUGUST 1989, Volume 25, Number 1. Submitted with written permission of current editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: WALKINGTON, HAGER, SANDBORN, NASH, SLOWINS

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD include the names of Verl Walkington, Merton Hager and Allen Sandborn.

HOW ONCE IT WAS!

1st ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT – Districts No. 4 and 7. Sebewa - Sebewa Center and Johnson – SEBEWA CENTER CHURCH – Tuesday Evening, June 12, 1894.

CLASS MOTTO – We climb the ladder round by round
TEACHERS: S. F. Deatsman, Dist. No. 4
Miss Hattie Olry, Dist. No. 7.
CLASS OF ’94.
Graduates Dist. No. 4: Gladys M. Olry, Rhoda M. Deatsman, Nellie E. Meyers, Ada B. Luscher, Clare Murphy.
Graduates Dist. No. 7: Carrie B. Daniels, Ella P. Deal, Jessie M. Baldwin, Sam’l L. Kauffman, Fred C. Sindlinger
PROGRAM:
March Anthem-Quartette
Prayer – Rev. No E. Gibbs
Music - Give the Passing Hours to Pleasure – Quartette
Salutatory, Welcome, Thrice Welcome – Carrie B. Daniels
Recitation – The Boys of Our Country – Beach Estep
Essay – Biography of Lincoln – Clare Murphy
Solo – Bertella Bradley
Essay – One Step Higher – Ella P. Deal
Recitation – After Examination – Mary E. Green
Essay – Evils of Ignorance – Rhoda M. Deatsman
Mouth Organ Solo – Hugh Showerman
Essay – Biography of Napoleon – Fred. C. Sindlinger
Recitation – Being a Boy – George Gierman
Essay – Pleasures of Knowledge – Ada B. Luscher
Music – Adieu, Adieu, My Mountain Home – Quartette
Essay – Citizenship and Education – Samuel L. Kauffman
Recitation – John Maynard – Barret E. Armour
Essay – Choice of a Profession – Nellie E. Meyers
Music – Quartette – Deatsman Brothers
Essay – We Climb the Ladder Round by Round – Jessie M. Baldwin
Recitation – A Chicken Quarrel – Orvil E. Brown
Solo – Blanche Townsend
Recitation – Little Golden Hair – Winnie Estep
Valedictory – Yesterday and To-Day – Gladys M. Olry
Duet – Misses Bradley and Sindlinger
Presentation of Diplomas – S. F. Deatsman, Miss Hattie Olry
Music – Good Night – Quartette
Benediction
Organist – Mrs. S. F. Deatsman

BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS – Sunday, June 3d, at 2:30 P.M. – Rev. N. E. Gibbs.

THE SESSIONS SCHOOLHOUSE, built in 1849 on Riverside Drive three miles west of Ionia, will have to wait, at least until September, for the dedication of its restoration. We have the duplicate of the bronze metal marker placed on the building by the D. A. R. in the 1918 restoration. The original was soon stolen and never replaced.

Mrs. Berta Brock provided the D. A. R. spirit to get the Ionia County Board of Supervisors to make the 1918 restoration. The D. A. R. was so wounded by the theft of the marker that nothing further was ever done to keep that historic building.
It was closed as a schoolhouse in 1898 when the brick schoolhouse across the road was built. In the year of 1907 the farm, including the schoolhouse was purchased for the location of the Ionia County “poor farm”. Sometime in that period a large opening was made on the south side of the building to make it usable as a sheep shed. The 1918 restoration filled that opening.
Once it had lath and plaster on the walls. The new door is yet to be made and put in place. Watch the local papers for notice of the time and details of the new restoration dedication.

VERL IRENE WALKINGTON – FUNERAL SERMON by John Piercefield

Verl Irene Walkington was born May 25, 1910, passing away on May 18, 1989, at the age of 78. It is for this reason we are here today paying our last respects.

Psalm 103: 2 – Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. John 14:1-4 – “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going here to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Opening prayer was by David Flagel.
Mary Liverton married Louis Sage in 1871 and born to this union were 3 sons, Alonso, Samuel, and Louis. Father Louis Sage died in 1874 and Mary Liverton, with three young sons, married and became Mary Anderson. Young Louis grew up, married Iva Mae Clark and took care of his mother and step father as they lived on a farm outside Winn, MI. Born to Louis and Iva were 2 daughters, Verl & Lucille. It was growing up on a family farm that taught the principles of hard work, personal integrity and patient persistence. Verl Sage graduated from Mt. Pleasant H. S. and began taking courses at Saginaw Business College. It was about Nov. 1930, at a local dance in Winn that a young man caught her eye and she his. He was a local boy and she a local girl but until now they hadn’t noticed each other.

They danced, dated & fell in love. On Aug. 22, 1931 Verl Sage became Mrs. Ora Walkington. The newlyweds moved early in 1932 to their present farm & home on 1711 Goodemoote Rd. Later that spring of ’32, Ora came down with blood poisoning while fixing a fence row. The plowing needed finishing, the team of horses were waiting and Verl took the reigns. She finished plowing and began fitting the field for planting as well as caring for Ora. Verl seemed always able to meet the needs of the situation and quietly control them towards the desired goal.

She was not afraid of work—hard work—farming like many other vocations in the 1930’s was tough. By 1929, with the stock market collapse, and banking crisis, there was also an ongoing crisis in agriculture in the US that was started after WWI. Many Europeans were returning to their farms & the demand & prices for American grains had fallen by some 30%. “American farmers had overexpanded acreage under cultivation during the war years, bringing marginal land into production, so as prices fell, farmers had to produce more to meet their expenses” 1.

But hard work and farming have gone hand in hand for years, since prices were depressed, trading commodities (eggs, grain, vegetables, for sugar, coffee, fruits and seeds), became the way of business in the rural communities. The times were hard but the people were enduring. It was that enduring, persistent quality of commitment that was so much of Verl’s life. These qualities were what enabled Verl to be the faithful, loving wife and eventually mother of six children.
1.”Generations of Americans”. P. 642-643.

At the end of 1935, Verl was expecting the birth of their first child. She was afraid that the child would freeze to death in their present home which was a converted granary. Ora consoled her and promised a house by fall. Their present house was started in July and finished Cot. 1936 before Loren, their first son was born. They built their life and farm together during some of the hardest economic times in our country’s history. Verl and Ora, as many others, survived by being committed to each other and to their common goals. That commitment was lived out for nearly 58 years.

Verl could be both a leader & a follower. Her seemingly endless energy, with her commitment to quality, enabled her to be a leader in the local PTA, the West Sebewa Community Club, Farm Bureau or Orange Thimble Club. She became a leader by her example, her enthusiasm and her ability to always be in control of the situation at hand. She was always busy, an organized busy, not like some of us who are busy all the time and never get things done. Stopping into her house she would offer you coffee & a piece of pie or cinnamon roll while she had bread baking in the oven, dough rising on the counter, dinner on the stove, and as she sat and talked she would be crocheting, or mending. Somehow, she always seemed to get things done on time almost as if having more hours in a day than the rest.

She was a good leader because she taught not only how to work but how to enjoy working. With a husband and six children to feed, especially on the farm, there was always laundry, baking (7 loaves of bread every other day), canning, fixing the meals but Verl also had time for gardening & her flowers (glads & iris’s) and her chickens. There was pride in her work and it was evidenced by the grocery money earned from her egg sales and by the care of her flowers, beautiful flowers, everywhere. Around the house, in the yard, the barn, granary & out buildings. It was her message to her community that she enjoyed living life and the beauty that God provides in nature, she would nuture and share. The back-breaking work was overshadowed by her commitment to enjoy the work placed before her and to do it well.

These characteristics also made her a good follower. Devoted to being the best wife, mother & eventually grandmother of 23, great-grandmother of 12, she hand-made gifts for presents, the knitting & crocheting & quilt making yielded gifts that were more than money, they were from the heart. Good followers are devoted- despite the circumstances or the task & Verl was devoted to her husband & her family. Good followers do not have to have the spotlight and are often overlooked but can be found as the support and foundation for several other lives and events. A typical Sunday may begin with Verl playing a favorite hymn on the piano and one by one of the children would file down the stairs and eventually gather around and sing along. Good followers focus on others, rather than themselves. Verl’s focus was on her family. There was no room for selfishness and there was no room for waste – whether food, money, cloth or time. She would save the last cup of soup or make mash bags into sheets, then cut into hand towels – nothing went to waste but at the same notion, if anyone, family, friend or stranger, needed what she had saved, she would gladly give it and more. There always seemed enough.

There is a story of one sunny day that Verl and some of the children picked a manure spreader full of sweet corn. Ora saw the task and declared they would never get that much sweet corn canned in one day. Verl stated they could and they would settle the matter at suppertime. Verl and the children worked feverishly but as supper drew near, they could see no end in sight. At suppertime, Ora was amazed that the job was complete with all the quart jars of corn in the kitchen. Little did he know that for one of the few times, if not the only time, Verl had wasted anything. She carted the uncleaned sweet corn and dumped it in the ditch across the road, then parked the spreader where it was before.

Verl & Ora enjoyed their friends and neighbors, in fact they even played match maker to some. As the story goes, a new school teacher had began teaching at Kilmartin school about 1950 which schooled five of the six Walkington children. The schoolmarm was in need of a place to stay and was invited to the Walkington house. She lived in an upstairs room & while watching out the window one day, she spied a young man in the field across the way hunting & she wanted to go hunting. Ora informed the young man of the school teacher’s interest in hunting, they were introduced, and they got along pretty good. Eventually, they got along so good that young man asked the schoolteacher to marry him and they became good friends and neighbors to Verl and Ora ever since, as Richard and Marion Goodemoote. Friendships in this community go back far as generations build upon the previous foundation. In close communities, time can build monuments to friendships or barriers of mistrust. Verl built monuments to her friends & neighbors with her genuine caring and generosity.

Verl was interested in her past – it may have been sparked by an assignment Bonnie had in school but, she wrote letters and gathered information on the Walkingtons & the Sage families. Her genealogy information traces the Walkingtons back to England and it was her interest that influenced my grandparents, Homer & Mamie Downing to do the same and now my sister Lori, has been sparked – who knows how many others. But Verl also made time to follow local events and people. She accumulated files on literally hundreds of families from newspaper clippings & public announcements, complete with cross references for marriages, births & deaths.

Later in their lives, Ora & Verl were traveling more to Niagara Falls or Florida, even Hawaii, but upon every leaving Verl would fee bad leaving family behind as there was work to be done. Verl and many people here today are the last of the generation where thrift meant more than possessions, where devotion to husband & family meant more than personal interests, and where love, loyalty and hard work were things families shared together, rather than self-seeking, short-lived personal freedoms to do your own thing.

If we learn and remember nothing else from the life of Verl Walkington, let us learn the true meaning of commitment to others, backed by love and labor, no matter what the costs. Death is seldom timely, convenient or anticipated, but all of us will pass through death to either eternal life or eternal separation from God. The preparation is up to us.
Let us strive to say with the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:6-8---“For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is lad up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day---and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

This poem was written by Great-Grandma Mabel Walkington to Cynthia, and was read at Mabel’s funeral:
“When the golden sun is setting, And your life from care is free.
When of others you are thinking, Will you sometimes think of me?”
Wife, Mother, Grandmother and Great-grandmother, neighbor, friend or relative such as Verl will not be forgotten, but remembered by her influence, her life.

Psalm 62:1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12---“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him. My salvation and my honor depend on God; He is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is my refuge.”

GRAVESIDE: Psalm 103:13-19; 104:1-5---“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children’s children---with those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts. The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all…O Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothes with splendor and majesty. He wraps Himself in light as with a garment; He stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of His upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds His chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds His messengers, flames of fire His servants. He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.”

It is never easy to say goodbye but we know there is a better resting place. We will all leave this world by way of death or until the Lord comes and we can take nothing with us. What we leave behind will be shared with others, what we share with others are our memories. They can never by taken from us.
“When the golden sun is setting, And your life from care is free.
When of others you are thinking, Will you sometimes think of me.”
Verl, the memories you’ve given us will be remembered and never forgotten.
Closing prayer.

EDWIN NASH INTERVIEW by Grayden Slowins

CONCLUSION:
Charlie Benedict came here to work for grandfather and continued for Dad and then for Mother when she was widowed. Grandfather and Dad and Mother all worked in the bank and she continued to do so. When Charlie, an old lumberjack, died, his son Frank kept the farm going. Then when he quit, I took over.

Grandfather married a Markham girl, whose family lived where my son, Jim, does now at S ½ S ½ Sec. 10. I bought it of Allie’s estate from Oren, his son, who wasn’t a farmer. He lived in Grand Rapids and sold lumber. He was a brother to June. Gardner Compton bought the west 40 from Lenhard, who got it from the Markham estate. Dad had one sister, Emma (Mrs. Arthur) Stevenson, whose family owned the department store in Ionia. Later she lived with her daughter in St. Croix, Wisconsin. I had one sister, Adelia (Mrs. Leo) McAlary of Ionia.

After High School I had gone to work across the road at the elevator, except for one year when I was laid up with TB. Bed rest was the main cure. They collapsed the lung to rest it.

I had worked in the office at the elevator. They sold it to the Farmers Cooperative and they burned out and later sold to Roy Smith of Caledonia and he sold to Carlton H. Runciman of Lowell. Norm Stewart ran it for Roy Smith and I worked for him too. He married my mother and died about a year later right here in this house. He was the father of Lester Stewart, Esta’s husband.
My wife was Marion Pardee from a pioneer family in Bowne Township, just over the line in Kent County. We were ready to get married about 1928-29, but the Depression hit and we waited almost 8 years. We got married in 1936 and moved right in here. Mother had rooms here, just as Grandfather had with her and Dad. Dad died when I was 15 and she kept on working in the bank. It was called the Edwin Nash State Bank and the old checks had a photo of these barns and house – even into the 1960’s when they merged.

I have emphysemia now and dust has always been a problem for me. First it was the threshing crews. Allie Nash had a threshing rig and did ours. Later we had our own threshing machine, but didn’t do much custom work. For many years we used chopped hay. It was a mess to put up and worse yet to feed. It was handy if you could put it down right where you needed to feed it. We had dairy cows back then and milked until Jim came in with me. Now we raise beef cattle.

Jim went to college four and a half years. He went 2 years to Grand Rapids Junior College and had lots of credits, but Michigan State wouldn’t accept all of them toward his degree in Crop Science, so he had to go an extra term beyond his 2 years at MSU. Jim has one child, a boy Sam, who is 5 years old and just started school. None of his grandparents are very big, nor his parents either, so he isn’t very big. Jim’s wife, Pam, was Sam Bustance’s daughter. Her sister Nancy is the wife of Larry Patrick, Campbell Township Clerk.

My daughter, Mary, used to work for Kathleen Maloney in the County Treasurer’s office. She married Russell Foster, a minister in the Fundamentalist Bible Church. They lived in Nebraska for 9 years, but are back in Michigan now. They have 3 sons and 2 daughters. One granddaughter has a child and the other is expecting; so we will soon have two great-grandchildren. Marion plays the piano and cello and used to give lessons and played in Verdier Joslin’s string trio in Ionia.

I first go on the Township Board in 1951 as Supervisor. I was appointed to fill out Lou Todd’s term, think it was in November, 1951. Those on the County Board of Supervisors at that time or soon after were: McGinn, North Plains; Sam Detmers, Keene; Alex Sibley, Easton; Frank Stout, Ionia; Lloyd Gibbs, Orange; John Avery, Portland; myself, Campbell; Gerald Williams, Odessa; Charles McNeil, Sebewa; Floyd Evans, Danby; Bernard Ardis, Fred Keister, Frank Sharp, and one more from the City of Ionia; and a couple from City of Belding.

Portland was not a city at that time, so didn’t have it’s own Supervisor. Fred Keister used to photo the entire Board once a year or at least every two years. It was a good historical record, but the later editors just photo the Chairman, Vice-chairman, and Clerk.

Over the years there have been a lot of changes. I was on the Building Committee when we built the second jail. The old jail had been let go bad. They had half the money for a new jail and bonded for half. I think the total cost was $250,000, but that may not be right. The boiler was under the jail to heat the Court House too, same as now. The boiler was under the jail to heat the Court House, too, same as now. The custodian and his wife lived in the west end of the basement of the Court House and kept the Juvenile Detention kids too. Leo and Clarabelle Edwards were the last. Every department except the Road Commission was in the Court House or Jail, there were no other buildings, owned nor rented.

I remember when we had to cover the skylight in the rotunda. It was unsafe, you could walk on it in the dome room, and a terrible heat loss too. We lowered the ceiling in the Court Room. The plaster was bad because of roof leaking. They removed the chandelier and sold it for $5, I think. The center part is out at the Ionia Fishing and Hunting Club and Floyd Evans has the rest. Russ Gregory wants to restore the ceiling and get the chandelier back up. Later we replaced the windows with double-pane thermal type and replaced the radiators. The windows were loose from drying out all those years. We stripped and refinished the woodwork and walls and restored the mural at the top of the landing. There had been other decoration in gold leaf, but not all could be restored. We found the shutters and put them back up. We finished and re-finished the third floor for Prosecutor and Board offices. The elevator was a big expense, but it was necessary.

I remember when we were mandated by the State to establish the County Public Health Department. We started with one nurse, Mrs. Gallagher, and housed her in the Court House Basement. I was on the Health Board and we bought the Perrone Building for $50,000 for the Health Department.

I remember when we were mandated, in late 1966, to establish the Mental Health Department. Gerald Williams was Chairman of that Board. There was just one man and secretary. You what it’s like now!

The District Court system was also mandated. Taking it away from the Justices of the Peace was a mistake. It got too far away from the local individual and the costs soared. Gardner Compton was a good one here in Campbell, Fox was in South Ionia, and Asa Burnett in Ionia. They did arraignments for criminal cases to Circuit Court and everything.

In 1968 we had to switch to the County Board of Commissioner system. The old Board of Supervisors was the best way! But we couldn’t be on both the Township and County Board, so had to choose, and the County Board became a smaller board. It has varied from up to 24 people and of course some didn’t do very much work. Someone from another county even sued the State and tried to prove that the “One-man-one-vote” principle didn’t prevail, because they are an administrative body and not legislative. Quick as they start legislating, they get into trouble. But the Circuit Court and Appeals Court and eventually the U. S. Supreme Court ruled against us. It was a blow to local governments across the nation that recognized regional needs as well as population. It was Okay for the U. S. Senate, but no-one else I guess.

Gary Newton became Sheriff. Sam Detmers had gone to the Road Commission. We were required to establish a County Equalization Department. Bernard Ardis became head of that and Floyd Evans assisted him. Lloyd Gibbs had been Township Supervisor, Member of County Board of Supervisors, and State Legislator, all at the same time. Others had before him also, Clyde Stout for one, I think. That really gave liaison between units of government. Lloyd died in those offices. Gerald Williams became Drain Commissioner. I am the only one left who has served continuously as Supervisor and then as Commissioner. Evans and Sibley are still Supervisors. Floyd has four years seniority on me, forty two years in the harness!

Now they want to take assessing away from the Supervisors. Some people are always dissatisfied. They have always fought over taxes and assessments. They did with Grandfather in 1849, when he collected $200 to run the entire Township including the School. They did it with Dad in 1916, when we raised $250,000 to build a Jail. And now it’s costing $4,000,000 to build another Jail.

The State will make it a lot worse, with no knowledge of local conditions. Locally you can appeal your assessment, and if something is really wrong, you can change assessors every 4 years. They were mad at Charlie McNeil and now at Evelyn David. But she is sharp! Good head for figures! We disagreed on the Allocation Board, but I never held it against her. She maybe was right in some respects. The Schools ARE hard up. But they give in too easily to the teachers’ unions. Ken David was pals with Jim in school. He will do okay as Supervisor, but no one can do better than Evie!

Jan Livingston is another good person – in the Friend-of-the-Court office. She does her job well and never complains. Ann Eberstein – our Administrative Secretary – is another good one. The gal before her was, too. Barb Trierweiler is a real good County Clerk. She came in with 20 years experience under a good teacher.

MISCELLANEOUS:
Kah-Wah-Dee-Weh is an 87 page publication by Mrs. Jean Frazier. It is a study of Michigan’s major Indian tribes, the Chippewas, the Potawatomies and the Ottawas. This is an interesting treatment of Michigan’s Indians and may be yours for writing Jean Frazier and enclosing $6.95 plus tax. Her address is 617 Winifred Dr., Lansing, MI 48917.

A book about Roxand Township and Mulliken’s early history with contributions from many sources is available for $15.00 from Mrs. Wm. Feasal, Jr., 435 Charlotte Hwy., Mulliken, MI 48861. I got mine at the Merrifield Hardware. The Feasels, Merrifields and the Fraziers are all Sebewa Center Association members.

The Eaton County Historical Society is publishing a book of recollections and historical tales along the Clinton Trail. There will be more about the book next time after it is published.

THE GUS MACKER BASKETBALL 3 DAY FESTIVAL at Belding ended July 9 with 4, 169 teams playing with an estimate of 125,000 onlookers for the affair. Kevin David along with a team called B. M. F. of Travis Loes, Jerud Jackson and Matt Steward, all of Lake Odessa took a third place in the event. John Piercefield said that he got into the ball tossing event with another team. Sebewa ranks well in sports as well as in scholarship at Lakewood and Portland.

West Sebewa held its annual pot luck picnic at the home of Mr. & Mrs. Don Possehn Sunday, July 9 with lots of youngsters and their elders present. Strangely, I could not find anyone familiar with the origin or of the early members of that picnic.
On the same afternoon John and Ramona Dickinson celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at Lake Odessa with many family members and friends present. They have moved to a new house across the road from the Clyde Stout farm on Kelsey Highway.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR, Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association. OCTOBER, 1989, Volume 25, Number 2. Submitted with written permission of current editor Grayden D. Slowins.

SURNAMES: SESSIONS, ADGATE, MEYERS, GIERMAN

THE SESSIONS SCHOOLHOUSE – Here is the triumph of the final restoration of the exterior of the old Sessions Schoolhouse. With the fine new Ionia High School and Heartland Institute now opened, it would seem it might be a long time before people would be asked to spend time inside the old building that was closed for school operation in 1898, so long ago that only John Adgate, now near 94, remembers visiting school there as a tad when he was too young to attend school. All the rest have passed on, leaving their descendants aplenty in the Ionia environment and scattered about the country.

After riding in the parade at Saranac as Mr. Saranac in the Bridge Festival parade, John Adgate arrived at the Sessions Schoolhouse September 9 to help celebrate the restoration of the building by talking to the group of some sixty people about visiting the school where his older brothers and sisters were in attendance. It seemed that when his mother had her fill of his enthusiasm, he would be sent across the road to the schoolhouse to be with the older children.

It has been said that the small building accommodated as many as thirty-five children. A wood stove was central with a smoke pipe through the midroof. The walls were lathed and plastered and the children’s desks were around the room.

Since the building was replaced by a larger brick schoolhouse to the west, it had varied uses as a holding place for people with communicable diseases to a place to shelter sheep. It was then that the wooden floor was replaced with concrete and a big hole in the stonework was made for easy entry for the sheep from the south side.

By 1918, under the prodding of Bertha Brock and the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Ionia County Board of Supervisors decided to restore the building as a relic as it was recognized as the oldest cobblestone schoolhouse in Michigan. The work was done, windows were planked closed, and the door also of plank was nailed shut. A marker of bronze noting the restoration was placed in the window to the north east. Shortly there came vandals and the marker was stolen, leaving the DAR with the feeling that nothing could ever be safe in that location.

In 1959 the Board of Supervisors again repaired the roof and then sold the entire County Farm to the Department of Natural Resources for use as part of the Ionia Recreational Area. Because the building is recognized as a State Historical Site, and a National Historic Site, it is protected from demolition by any person, owner or other. Because of this recognition, Steve Dice of the Ionia Recreational Area had figured that the DAR did not own the building. It is now established that the title to the building and the lot passed to the DAR with the purchase of the County Farm property.

Noting the condition of the roof and the door I asked Steve to see if he could get it in his budget for repair. This was tried and failed to be approved. Then Steve said if local people would pay for the materials he would get volunteers to do the work. Last year a group of men from Saranac replaced the roof with care to keep it like the original pattern, but that left the creaky old door as was shown in Dick Evans “Along the Michigan Road” in 1988.

I prevailed on Sherm Pranger to make the door repair. That turned into a project for Sherm’s grandson, David Vollinck, to do the work to earn his Eagle Scout Badge in the Saranac Boy Scout organization. They did a beautiful job. That left another project for Dan Zander another Saranac Boy Scout to earn his Eagle Scout Award. It was the painting up with masonry of some of the stones that had loosened, then with the mowing of a parking lot getting a loud speaker system by Ralph Bartelt who also served as chairman we were ready for the ceremonial program Jerry Roe, a State Historical Commissioner gave an enthusiastic report on this and other ventures in Historic Preservation, recognized people whose near relatives had attended the school and everybody had coffee and cookies that were provided.

The Ionia County Retired School personnel, the Historical Societies of Lyons, Portland, Sebewa, Lake Odessa, Ionia, and Saranac and Boston provided the funds for the restoration along with several private donations.
Fortunately Monroe McPherson had in his collection of Historic Ionia a picture of the bronze medallion that filled the window though later stolen. From that picture we were able to get another like it and David Vollinck securely fastened it to the door as is pictured here. It seems that about once in thirty years the building needs a restoration. We hope that the youngsters as yet unborn will respond when that time comes. Robert W. Gierman

SEVEN WEEKS OF “WHERE’S MY WHATCHACALLIT”

On the first day after my 80th birthday things started out well. Maurice and Vera had been here for ten days, visiting around the community, playing golf and seeing old friends, and attending our Sebewa Center Association free ice cream social, which was twisted around to be my 80th birthday party. Many of you missed that event because it got late before my surprise came, with all kinds of well wishes and the presentation of the Special Edition of the Recollector. More than 20 people waited out the affair before driving home.

Saturday morning Maurice and Vera hustled around and left for their summer home in Fairglade, Tennesee. I left that morning for Ionia to get my car serviced at 9:30 and did not return until 12:30 p.m., playing around a bit after my car was serviced. I know that my “Meals on Wheels” delivery came at 10:45 but I had arranged with the man to bring the food trays inside when I could not be here at his time of delivery and so he did.

One tray for the refrigerator and one for the toaster oven to keep it hot until I was ready for it. But I had forgotten to check the toaster oven. It was left with the switch on “toast” and when the door was closed, it began to heat and heat and heat. Normally I had left it with the toaster switch in the “off” position and the thermostat controlled things so that the food was nearly kept warm. The result was that when it got to boiling and past it still did not shut off and you can imagine what happened to that corner of the kitchen.

When I opened the back door and saw black streaks running down the wall and air so dense with black (plastic) smoke I could hardly see, I knew I had a fire but no flame. Luckily no doors or windows were left open, so there was as yet no flame. Wilbur also poked his head in and backed off quicker than I and the fire department was called. It took them a little time to get here and all I could do was to sit in the lawn chair and await their arrival. I heard a crash and thought perhaps the ceiling had fallen in. Instead when the firemen put up the ladder, broke the window and inserted the hose, it was evident that the kitchen cupboards with all the dishes, canned goods and other paraphinalia had tumbled to the floor. There was no flame until the window was broken.

Solder on the hinged glass cover to the old recently restored clock melted and dropped the cover to the table. Fans were put in place to remove the heavy smoke. Every little cobweb seemed a rope of soot. Although the fire damage was entirely in the kitchen, the smoke accumulated in the rest of the household was terrific. It was then that I began to hear tales of smoke and clean up going back many years.

Next was to contact my insurance representative. My policy allowed keep in a motel but I chose my house at Sunshine. It was good to have a place of my own but without water there it made for many complications. We arranged for a contractor to repair the kitchen and clean up the smoke damage. He sub-let the clean up, the electrical repair, and the plumbing. A big van was placed in the yard to keep the cleaned furniture and boxes and boxes of books and papers.

Once stacked away in there I don’t know where to look for papers that I need, my tooth brush nor comb and all the other things used in keeping up daily life. All closets were emptied of clothes and taken to Ionia for cleaning. Fortunately for me my washer and dryer kept in operation and I could get by with the frequent laundering I could do.

My routine was to sleep at Sunshine, get up and have breakfast. Make my coffee in a hot pot on my bed, my toast in a new toaster resting on the back of an overstuffed chair, cereal and milk from the refrigerator following by fruit and roll, hurry home for a shower, get back to Sunshine to meet the food man, get home at noon for lunch and the mail and keep out of the way of the help.

Now the kitchen has been refinished, the cupboards in place with soon the new floor cover, move in the range and refrigerator. Walls have been gassed with ozone and repainted so maybe before frost I can get back to some kind of routine.

VANDALISM AT THE BIPPLEY ROAD EAST SEBEWA CEMETERY.

If my memory serves me correctly that cemetery has been vandalized four different times in the many years it has served the community. Located as it is, well away from any houses, it seems to attract that something that seems to smolder inside many persons who enjoy trampleling on the cares of others.

A few years ago my great grandmother’s stone along with others was snapped over to the ground. These old and somewhat brittle stones seem to attract the distructors. At that time the Amey Meyers, cut in the rock had become well weathered and hard to read, so I took it to Steve Yenchar who is employed by the Lowell Granite Company to cut a new inscription on the back side of the stone. He brought it back with a legible inscription and showed me how to reset it with epoxy where it had broken and there it has stood since---until a time this summer when vandals went through the cemetery again, snapping and pushing over a dozen or more markers including Amey’s.

I noticed that some repairs had been made but Amey’s stone still laid there. I went back there with my weekend visitor, Jacob Peter and his little son and with his help I planned to apply the epoxy and erect the stone as I had previously done with some others. But to my surprise the job had been done. Grayden Slowins with Steve Yenchar had worked through the cemetery and as much as possible restored the broken markers and monuments. Our good wishes to our township government for their timely works. RWG

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR, Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association.
DECEMBER, 1989, Volume 25, Number 3. Submitted with written permission of current editor Grayden D. Slowins.

SURNAMES: SMITH, OAKS, WALKINGTON, CARR, PLANT, HOWLAND, KENYON, PROBASCO, MEYERS, INGALLS

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD. Gordon Oaks, Ora Walkington and George Carr were the three.

HENRY SMITH:
In dealing with the (winter) weather, here is another approach to it. It is told by Henry Smith.

“On October 9, 1969, I had the misfortune of breaking my left tibia bone. I was in a cast for almost a year. About six months after the beginning of my lay up, my daughter, Marilyn, was crocheting an afghan. I said to her “Do you think you could teach Dad how to do that? I’ve got to have something to do”.

It was difficult, for I seemed to have two left hands. It took me four or five months to complete the job. She got started on different types of afghans and I have followed through by making about 135.

While I was recuperating from the broken leg, I worked for the Kilpatrick Missionary Society piecing quilt tops. I have mad several of them. For the past five years I have worked for Social Services of Charlotte through the Senior Citizens organization of Sunfield. It was my idea to help the under privileged. Five years ago we had seven pairs of mittens that we gave away in Sunfield. Each year we have increased the number.

It worked up to going to nutrition dinners around Eaton County to get volunteers to work at the program. Last year the group of people who worked with me donated 418 items at Christmas time. This included people from an area of some 7 or 8 square miles in the northwest corner of Eaton County. This year we plan to fill a quota of more than 500 items and we are getting close to that fulfillment. We make stocking caps, mittens, scarves, blankets, anything to make youngsters comfortable. Social Services furnish the yarn. The Church of the Brethren makes the quilts. Lucy Wright of Sunfield has made several. It is remarkable what Senior Citizens can and will do.

My neighbors, Wayne and Blanche Jackson are making stocking caps. As of last week they had about 135 completed. I can do two or three pairs of mittens a day. I have received several awards for volunteerism from our Governor and his Committee.

THE PORTLAND AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY has made application for a State Historical Marker recognizing Eda PLANT as the first woman in Michigan to vote for elected officials. Portland in December of 1918 had its first village election after previously operating as part of the township government. The constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote was adopted August 26, 1920 but Michigan had recognized that right in December of 1918. It will be April 1990 before the application is recognized.

MRS. RAYMOND (EDNA HOWLAND) KENYON recently celebrated her 99th birthday at her home in St. Petersburg, Florida. She writes in a good hand “I am comfortably situated here in a building 21 stories high and I am on the 7th floor. My only exertion is to prepare my breakfast. Everything else is provided. Some times I long for the good old days but realize, of course, they are no more. I am fairly active yet but use a cane now for walking is rather difficult. I will keep in touch with you. Sincerely, Edna Kenyon”.
Should she make it another year she will be Sebewa’s third to make 100 after Ida Evans and Florence Cassel.

STORIES TOLD BY MR. & MRS. BEN PROBASCO, SR.

These stories were told to my mother when she was yet Miss Nellie Meyers early in the 1900s. She carefully copied them and they have been kept since. Here are the stories. – Robert W. Gierman.

When Mr. Probasco was only sixteen years old he, although he was not a Mexican War soldier, bought a Mexican War soldier’s warrant, signed by Zachery Taylor and took up 160 acres of land in Sebewa. It was some years after that he came here from Ohio accompanied by Emory Gunn, Theodore Gunn’s brother, hunting his own land.

They went to Eleazer Brown to get him to act as guide, which he was accustomed to do, but, being sick, he was unable to go. He directed them to John Estep, who lived on the place now owned by Mrs. Greiner. Besides directing them to his land he offered Mr. Probasco a tame deer. But as Mr. Probasco had no way to take care of it, he was obliged to refuse the gift. His 160 acres proved to be where Fred Gunn now owns. He cleared sixty acres here, building a log house and the barn, which are still standing although remodeled.

Mr. Probasco can tell stories of Johnston and Jackson, the Indian interpreter who preached to the Whites and Indians at an old log schoolhouse between Eugene Probasco and Hugh Showerman’s houses. Mr. and Mrs. Probasco can tell of the meetings of the Shimneconing Indians. They had singing books with the hymns in English on one side and in Indian on the other side. Whites and Indians sang together in their own language. The Indians seemed to be good Christians and their prayer meeting and preaching services were good.

There was an Indian village on the bank of the river just east of Sebewa Corners known as Meshimneconning or “Little Apple Orchard”. Here there was a mission and school for the Indians.

Charles Ingalls, Hall Ingall’s father, who then owned the Greiner place, finally bought out the Indians at Shimnecon. In payment for their land he built them a saw mill somewhere north of here. The Indians didn’t understand running it, some of them were killed and they abandoned the mill.

Mr. Probasco told how they tried to get the schoolhouse at the Center instead of a mile east. One year they fitted up his cooper shop for a schoolhouse, Lurette Brown, afterwards Probasco, teaching there. One day the teacher and scholars became frightened at a huge black snake and set for Mr. Probasco to come and kill it. He shot it and for quite a while and at some distance away they could hear it lash the ground with its tail. It measured over six feet.

This brought out another story. It seems he measured the snake by a tin horn six feet long. He brought the horn with him from Ohio and when on his way from Charlotte to Sebewa astonished the natives by playing a tune at every settlement. He could play pretty and the horn could be heard a distance of three miles. Every man, woman and child within hearing ran out to see what was coming.

All of which proves that the old time settler had a taste for fun even in a wilderness. They used the horn to call the men to dinner and the horn could be heard a distance of three miles. When someone got lost going after cows, to help them find their way home, the horn was a help. It was also found to be invaluable at chivarees.

They tell how the door was left open and the woman of the house was busy, when she looked up might find an Indian standing, wrapped in his blanket. He would always ask for something to eat and, being supplied, if anything was left would be put in his wamus or hunting jacket. The Indians used to make a good deal of sugar. They didn’t put much of it into cakes but stirred it off mostly. To hold the sap they used troughs made of logs hollowed out or bark. Once a Shimnecon visitor saw a papoose in one of the troughs taking a bath in the sap. A buyer of one of the cakes of sugar found a coon’s foot in it. Probably put in as we put in butter to keep the sirup from boiling over. Nevertheless their sugar looked and tasted nice.

The animal stories are interesting also. Mrs. Probasco tells how she used to go after cows alone when a young girl. Having no fences, all the cattle in the country ran loose in the woods—the only way to distinguish them was by the sound of the bells. She would catch the sound of their bell and start out, soon losing herself in the woods---the only way to distinguish them was by the sound of the bells. Always pursuing the bell until she found her cows, she would follow the cattle home.

Sometimes the cattle would take a circular route and she would come home in the opposite direction than for which she started. Once when after cattle she found a bear’s nest in a hollow tree. Another time she found a fawn in the road, picked it up and carried it home. Her father would not allow her to keep it, so she gave it to a neighbor girl. Deer were very plentiful and could be shot from the windows. Mr. Probasco tells how he used to kill deer easily after he moved on the place where he lives now. There was a high rail fence along the road by Mrs. Greiner’s place and the deer didn’t care to jump. So he would chase the deer down that way and they would be an easy catch.

His bear stories are equally interesting. When he lived where Fred Gunn now does, he had a yard partly fenced off on the north side of the road. One day he heard a drove of hogs barking and making a terrible noise as if frightened. His wife told him he had better go see what was after the hogs. When he went he discovered a big bear. It would stand up on its hind legs and then drop down on all fours a little closer to the pigs, trying to get the pigs to make a grand rush so he could grab one. Mr. Probasco but having a revolver, only scared it away.

Benjamin Probasco, Sr., was born in 1831. RWG

MEET MY GRANDFATHER, ALBERT W. MEYERS by Robert W. Gierman

I have but the faintest memory of Grandfather, Albert W. Meyers, as I was less than four years old when he died. But the stories I heard from time to time pictured an interesting man. He was the eldest of seven children whose mother died at an early age. His father and one of his two children of that marriage were younger than my mother.

Grandfather Meyers sort of took over the family for a while and my Great Grandfather pursued his career with his new family and his profession as a United Brethren Minister. In 1878 my Grandfather married Lydia Shipman, who, after finishing the rural school of the time, went on and taught the Baldwin School at the intersection of Kimmel and Musgrove Highway. My mother, Miss Nellie, was born in 1879. Another eleven years went by before Archie was born, followed by Harold (Harry) two years later.

I had heard the stories of Grandfather’s threshing rig, with the dusty straw carrier instead of a blower. It was common then for farmers to stack their grain bundles so that they would keep dry until the thresher might reach them. Threshing season ran from early August until well after frost as the machine covered a large area. Grandfather had a crew that went with him and often slept in the barns where the machine was operating. As I recall it, at least one steamer that he had was hauled about by a team of horses. He had a reputation of never wasting the daylight hours of summer.

Grandfather, with his yen for machinery, had a portable sawmill. He located it near the road where the drainage ditch crosses Bippley Road a bit east of Sunfield Road. There he sawed pickets for the fences that were popular at that time. Also he and his crew followed about Sebewa and neighboring territories sawing lumber for barns and houses about to be built.

Recently Howard Meyers showed me the account book Grandfather had kept covering some of his activities. I had seen news items in the locals of the old Portland Observer and some other papers that told where the sawmill was working and where it would move next but somehow I had missed seeing the account book.

Here from that book is a list of the people Grandfather dealt with and the products he had made for them. Maybe you will find the names of some of your relatives and neighbors of that time.

In the year of 1900, December 15 to 21 was James Morariety for sawing, Will Barnes December 20 & 23, Dec. 21, A. M. Barnes, Dec. 21, George Bower Dec. 22, and G. Wilkins Dec. 24. Skipping on to Dec. 29 and January 5, 1901 was Fred Yager. George Davis Jan. 3 and 25 as well as Geo. Alleman on the 8th of Jan.

There follows David Figg, John Hammond, David Leak, Frank Torpy and Rufus Goddard, all on the 10. These are followed by Charles Ralston, John Olry on the 25th. On February 2 was O. V. Showerman, Gid Stinchcomb, Ancil Green, Will McClelland, Alfres(d?) Cassel, Jack Brown and Harvey Sleight. Skipping to March 9 was Geo. Thorp, I. A. Brown, Leon Williams, Frank Guy, Ike Baughman, J. Lippincott, Clayton Petrie, Jacob Sayer, Ed Townsend, Guy Lapo, George Gunn, Wm. Heintzelman, Chas. Estep, Chas. Kauffman, all in February.

In March it was Elem Tran, Chas. Cook, Archie Beaver, Frank Harper, Ed Leak, J. Luscher, J. D. Johnson, James Cassel, Ed Demaray, E. S. Deatsman, Leonard Cross, Frank Kimble, Chas. Kelly, Henry Pettingill, C. Roust, Prine Barclay, Fred Gunn, Wm. Priestman, M. Brown, Byron Estep, Alfred Coe, Chas. VanHouten, John Brownfield, John Leak, Sam Gunn, Ben Lowe, Charles Gierman and Jess Van Sicklen.

For April it was Merrit Allen, Frank Way, Clark Haskins, J. Roseveare. For May it was John Benschoter, James Pierce, S. C. McClelland, C. L. Halladay, E. Duffy, Arthur Halladay, Jacob Stemler, Allen Culver, George Wheeler, Manley Conkrite, Lambert Cramer, Wm. Rogers, C. O. Hiar, Emmet Marcy, George Chase, Peter Knapp, Herb Brown, James Brown, Elmer Marcy, Fred Brown, Sherry Hubbard, W. W. Merrifield, H. Townsend, V. Franks, T. H. Gunn, James Johnson, Wm. Smith, L. A. Olry, Ike Baughman, Joseph Gragg, Eugene Halladay and Alva Deatsman.

Just imagine all that trek to the Bippley Road sawmill in the mud and the slop it must have been.
Grandfather suffered a dehabilitating injury by a sawmill-tossed piece of lumber and later was severely kicked by a horse in Lake Odessa. It all contributed to his death in late December of 1912 at the age of sixty.
(Followed by a photo of Albert Wesley Meyers and Lydia Shipman Meyers.)

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR - Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association.
FEBRUARY 1990, Volume 25, Number 4. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: STOEL, GUNN, CROEL

First we note the death of Andrew L. Stoel at Williston, Florida, where he had lived since 1968. He had attended the Sebewa Center School and Lake Odessa High School. His family and two brothers survive viz Raymond of Denver and Gerald of Sebewa.

Recently Wilbur Gierman, while going through some of his Mother’s relics, came across this business card of his great grandfather, Theodore Gunn. Together we have put together the story that goes with it. Some quotations from the Portland Observer are helpful as well as an excerpt from the 1890 Ionia County Album recounting Joshua’s life.

BUSINESS CARD: “GUNN BROTHERS, Portland, Michigan. Cutting Hard Wood Lumber, Ash, Basswood, Grained Oak, Cherry, Black Walnut, Rock Elm, & C. PLEASE GIVE US A CALL.”

September 19, 1869 was the day on which Joshua Gunn and Miss Rachel Rider were married.
Turning to a couple of items from The Portland Observer we have:
May 18, 1881---Messrs Gunn Bros. haul their lumber to Portland and ship by rail about a million board feet annually.
November 11, 1882---We understand Mr. Theodore Gunn has shipped his sawmill to Pine Lake. He removed it to the railroad last week.

Another item tells of dismantling the building of the Gunn mill and its being hauled to the Staples farm for use in erecting the Staples cane mill where cane sirup was to be made.
Theodore Gunn rented his farm to his son-in-law and moved his family to Pine Lake as did Henry Pettingill and some others from Sebewa. Wilbur explains that Pine Lake was at or near East Jordan at the lower part of Lake Charlevoix.
Miss Ella Gunn remembered seeing sail boats come in to be loaded with lumber for shipment. Pictured below is the mill crew and the building housing the sawmill.

OUR EUROPEAN TRIP by Grayden Slowins

June 25, 1989, was our 35th Wedding Anniversary and we had been planning a trip to Europe, especially Switzerland, for most of those 35 years. So Wednesday, July 5, we left Detroit Metro Airport on Pan Am Flight 054 at 6:10 PM, non-stop to London. We had dinner & breakfast on the plane and tried to sleep in between. Ann had flown to Los Angeles two years before, but this was my first flight. We took Antivert to avoid air sickness, but were a bit apprehensive, especially when the plane was delayed in loading and takeoff. The real discomfort was pressure and popping in the ears, which gave me an ear-ache for a couple of days.

Arriving in London on Thursday morning, we were met by a Brendan Tours hostess, who put us in a taxi to Novetel London, in the Hammersmith & West Kensington area. After lunch we took an optional bus tour to Windsor Castle, about 20 miles west of London. It has been home to British Royalty since William-the-Conqueror came in 1066. It was beautiful inside and out. Almost every monarch has added something to the structure and Victoria’s statue guards the gate.

Friday morning we had a guided bus tour of London. Then on our own via “Underground” (Subway is simply a tunnel for crossing the busy street) to St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral, the largest in London, where Diana & Charles were married. Took photo of Ann with statue of Queen Anne-the-Good out front. Got some beautiful pictures inside, especially of the organ, choir loft, and transept.

At 5:30 PM we met our main tour guide, Patricia, at the hotel and headed for Harwich on the North Sea. Then overnight on the ship Koningin Beatrix (Queen Beatrice) to Hoek Van Holland. After dinner and sleep on the ship and an early breakfast Saturday, we disembarked, passed thru customs, and boarded our nice bus with driver Ari and 37 other tourists, to Amsterdam. There were many youthful travelers on the ship who did not book a cabin, but simply slept everywhere in the halls and lounges with their sleeping bags.

The hundreds of acres of glass greenhouses were unbelievable. Then we began to see Dutch Texel sheep on pasture everywhere. They resemble Dorsets in body, but their ears are more like a North Country Cheviot or a Montadale. We also saw tame rabbits pasturing in a large flock. Friesen cattle (Don’t call them Holsteins!!:) pastured everywhere. Another black & white breed, which we call Dutch-belted, are called something else in Dutch. Many of the fences are small canals or ditches and they move the animals to pasture by small boat with stockracks like our trailers.

Next a tour of Amsterdam by canal boat. Many of the buildings along the canals were built for home industries and have several stories with a freight door at each level and a hoisting beam-and-pulley at the peak for “Removals”. Most are homes or apartments now and there is one lane of traffic on the 20 ft. strip of land on each side of the canal, plus a parking lane. The ancient arched stone bridges are works of art.

Most buildings rest on pilings driven into the sea bottom. Willow is used for this, because it is resistant to water. Then a tour of a diamond-cutting factory and the Rijksmuseum with it’s many Rembrandts, the Dutch Masters, etc. Also an early church organ and a stained glass window portrait of Dutch organist, Sweelinck.

Next to Volendam, a small fishing and sailing resort village built behind the dikes on the Zuider Zee. And to Edam & Zaanstad & Purmerend, where cheeses are made in cottage industries and windmills still grind away and wooden shoes are made by lathe from willow wood, which is light weight, workable, and water resistant. Our hotel for the night was 10 ft. below sea level! Boats were tied along the canals by each house like we park cars. Also there were bike paths everywhere, with a centerline for two-way traffic.

“Amsterdam has been the capital for the last 200 years already – since Louis Napoleon, brother of Bonepart, was king!” said Patricia. For the last 150 years they have been ruled by queens. “We love her and say that if we become a democracy, we will elect her president!” But now there is a royal son and heir to the throne. Amsterdam is named for a dam on the river Amstel, first built in the year 1270. The Dutch West India Company was headquartered here and sent it’s most famous governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, from here. The canals are the city’s sanitary sewer system and get “flushed” 5 times a week. For reasons of fire prevention, all houses but two are built of brick.

On to Cologne, Germany, and the famous twin-spired cathedral with it’s great pipe organ. We got to hear it finish playing the Sunday Service at noon and then walked around and took photos. It began to rain just as we photographed the Glockenspiel performance across the street, so we found a welcome refuge and lunch at McDonald’s next door. Only a small area of the stone façade was damaged by WWII and has been left to show the exposed bricks behind it.

We traveled thru 2000-year-old Bonn, now the capital of West Germany. Then an afternoon cruise on the Rhine showed us many beautiful castles, villages, and vineyards. A tour of beautiful old Heidelberg Holiday Inn, one of the nicest hotels and dining facilities we had. Photographed Kaiser Wilhelm II’s portrait on the lobby wall. He was, after all, the grandson of Queen Victoria and not an evil man like Hitler. And he was their last monarch, which stirs a bit of nostalgia. Outside our bedroom window we could see and smell a freshly combined wheat field.

Monday took us to the ancient city of Rothenburg, with lots of crafts to shop and Black Forest Cake to eat! We saw people cutting hay with a sickle-bar mower and then forking it onto a wagon or gathering the hay and straw with a front mounted, three-point, pickup attachment – a thrower, not a chopper. The largest tractors in Europe were not over 60-65 HP, usually Massey-Ferguson, Deutz-Allis, or Case-International. We stopped in a small town called Meitingen, really just a cluster of low-roofed barn-houses, for a drink called Spaetze. It was made by mixing Cola and Fanta Orange half and half. This gave us a chance to photo the farm buildings and machinery close up. The sheep in Germany were like our crossbreds, with black and white spotted faces. Then on to Munich, capital of the German State of Bavaria, to spend two nights.

Tuesday, we toured Old Pinakothek Art Museum with it’s collection of Rubens and other great masters. Especially appropriate for us was Rubens’ “Schaefer Stunde” (Shepherd’s Hour). The maiden appears to push the shepherd away, yet holds onto him with both hands! Toured the other public buildings of this old capital city, including Nymphenburg Castle and the Olympic Tower. Also several old churches here, as we had at Rothenburg, and another Glockenspiel.

Wednesday we left Munich early for trip to Oberammergau and more shopping. Bought an Alpine hat here. Oberammergau has put on Christ’s Passion Play every 10 years for 350 years, as thanks to God for saving them from the Black Plague. Every resident of the little town has a part in the play and gets to be on stage – at least as an extra, even the sheep and Brown Swiss Cows. Guests stay in private homes, eat there, and get their tickets for the play there. The next event will be in 1990. Then to two of King Ludwig II’s three castles: Linderhof – which we toured, and Neuschwanstein – which we didn’t (too much climbing for tour groups). Also saw Hohenschwangau castle, home of Ludwig’s parents. His third castle we had seen on an island in the Rhine. Ludwig was the last King of Bavaria before they joined the German Unification in 1871.

Thru the Black Forest of Bavarian Alps and a corner of Austria. We saw the entire country of Liechtenstein and it’s capital, Vaduz, in about 5 minutes. There are 9 villages and we didn’t visit all of them. Their ruler, Prince Hans Adam, is also the banker, and the entire government is located in a building about the size of Hall-Fowler Library in Ionia. Liechtenstein uses the same money and same army as Switzerland. During our entire trip we changed our dollars 5 times; British Pounds, Dutch Guilders, German Marks, Swiss Francs, and French Francs. Brought home some of the smaller coins as souvenirs, especially Swiss. Most of the larger denominations are paper. The true name of Switzerland is The Confederation of Helvetica.

It is sometimes said that Switzerland is always neutral and has no army. The more accurate statement is “Switzerland IS an army!” All able-bodied males aged 18-55 and many women volunteers are in the 650,000 person army. They train 3-4 weeks every two years and their salary is paid by their regular employer, just like vacation pay. Then they take their uniforms and weapons home with them. You may laugh to see a man or woman riding off to defend their country on a bicycle, with an anti-tank gun strapped to their back; but don’t laugh if you are riding in a tank at the time! Their weapons are as accurate as their watches!

There are fortifications which can rise up from steel covers in the pavement of all major freeways and other highways around the country. The median dividers recede into the pavement to provide take-off strips for planes. There are underground shelters with beds, food, and medical supplies for 85% of the population to survive several years. The military bicycles are 3-speed models that can carry a soldier with 65 pounds gear on their back. Horses are also drafted, as were the Mennonite horses in our War of 1812. They even have career army Carrier Pigeons!

No-one has attacked Switzerland since Napoleon tried it 200 years ago. And he only conquered the valleys, no-one has ever conquered the Alps in 1000 years of trying. Today most neighbor countries have too much money in Swiss Banks to risk blowing it up. Only the Russians are considered a threat. And just as the Russians learned and everyone since Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, & Alexander-the-Great learned in Afghanistan, “It don’t pay to mess with those shepherds!” Whole regiments of invaders have been swallowed up on mountain ledges & caves. And even if invaders succeed in perpetrating a Scorched Earth Policy, as sure as Spring brings the dandelions there will be an old snaggle-toothed ewe who was left for dead, became pregnant by Immaculate Conception, and brings forth twin lambs. And there will be a shepherd who survived the winter in those hills and will take care of that ewe and her lambs, and the nation is born again!

We entered Switzerland from Austria & Liechtenstein in the north-east, passed by Wolensee and the eastern end of Zurichersee, saw pea combines at work in the fields, and then began to see Swiss Weisse Alpenschaf (White Alpine Sheep). We toured Lucerne and around it’s lake called Vierwaldstattersee to spend the night at Vitznau.

Thursday morning we left the tour group and took a ferry boat back to Lucerne, stopping at numerous resort towns to pick up or discharge a passenger or two. Scenic farms on the mountainsides; the tractors in Switzerland are more the size of large garden tractors back home. They pull a small whirligig type of hayrake or hay rack. Much hay is cut by hand scythe, raked by hand, and forked by hand onto a wagon or hay truck. Hay looked bleached by rain, same as back home. Much hay is dried on small stacks around a teepee of poles. There are numerous small sheds in the lower hills for sheltering sheep & cattle. We did see square bales in Holland and round bales in northern Germany & France, but only loose hay in Switzerland until we got close to the French border.

There is no official Swiss language. They speak Sweitz-Deutch in the north, French in the west, Italian in the south. Romensch is spoken in the east, and since it is spoken no-where else, could be said to be a Swiss language. Most European elementary students learn German, English, French, and Dutch or Italian. Patricia said her native Dutch is sometimes called a throat disease, because it sounds like clearing the phlegm when they speak.

After buying our tickets and taking a quick photo stop at the famous Capell Brucke (Chapel Bridge) covered bridge with paintings inside, we boarded a public train to Interlaken. We could get off and on at any small towns along the route and did so at the woodcraft town of Brienz. Europass tickets can also be used on these trains, but not on the smaller private trains into the Alps.
To be concluded in the next issue.

WRITTEN BY Marian Miles Croel; Ionia, Michigan

On August 3rd, 1989, Russ and I left for Istanbul, Turkey. Our route was Detroit, New York, Zurich, Switzerland – Istanbul.
Our daughter, Angela, who had spent the month of July with us, and her two small children also left for Istanbul the same day on another airline carrier. In Turkey we were met by our Turkish son-in-law, Dr. Aziz Tayfun.

The trip took 22 hours, not all spent in the air. We arrived in mid-afternoon at the apartment of Aziz’s mother. Angela and the children arrived about 4 hours later – tired but happy to be reunited with their husband and father.

We wasted no time to begin sight-seeing, starting with Istanbul. The city was called Constantinople in 330 AD when it was declared the Capitol of the Roman Empire. Many beautiful palaces were built. In 413 AD a wall was built around the city. Most of that wall still stands.

Istanbul is on the continent of Europe and Asia. The two parts of the city are separated by the Bosphorus. The Bosphorus is a 19 mile long tributary of the Black Sea. At one end is the Black Sea and at the other is the Sea of Marmara, with currents flowing in both directions. Many beautiful summer homes are built along the banks.

Several beautiful palaces are open to the public. Built by Sultans with absolute power and unlimited money, they are unforgettable. On display were furnishings and dishes encrusted with jewels. Lots of diamonds, gold and silver were used in glassware – all on display behind glass.

The Mosques, loosely compared to our churches, are beautiful, too. Build centuries ago and still used for the practice of the Islam religion.

The call to prayer (a wail) is given five times daily. The faithful must wash their feet, hands, arms, and faces before prayer. One cleanses the body before cleansing the soul. Only the men enter the most sacred area. Women can pray but must go to the side or mezzanine, as they cannot go in with the men. The mosque has no furniture but the floor is covered with Turkish rugs. The prayer posture involves kneeling and putting the forehead on the floor. Some of the faithful have a permanent black circle on their foreheads. Their bible is the Koran. Central to their belief is Muhammad who is Allah’s Prophet and Allah is God. They recite “I believe there is no God but Allah. I believe that Muhammed is Allah’s prophet. There is no God but Allah”. They also recognize five prophets preceeding Muhammed: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.

The Covered Bazaar is not to be missed. Built in 1461 there are 5,000 stalls, or vendors. There were rugs, antiques, gold, silver, leather goods, copper, brass – endless objects. One could easily get lost. We bought souvenirs after bargaining with vendors.
Turkey has undergone some major reforms over the years. The person responsible was Ataturk, who laid the foundation for the Turkish Republic. Ataturk introduced reforms such as the Gregorian calendar, monogamy, Sunday as a holiday and voting rights for women. Ataturk was president of Turkey from 1928 until his death ten years later. He is revered by the Turks, as the person who has done the most for the advancement of Turkey.

Unlike the USA, Turkish vehicles do not use unleaded gas nor do vehicles have emission controls or catalytic converters. I was also aware there are more cigarette smokers there. They don’t seem to share our concerns about health problems.
After a week of daily sight-seeing Aziz, Russ and I left by night-bus for an eight hour trip to South Western Turkey. One day ahead of the rest of the family. Our destination was Ephesus. Aziz had been there several times before and would act as guide.
 
From Selsic we took a taxi to the Mother Mary House near Ephesus, believed to be the house where Mary, the Mother of Jesus, spent the latter years of her life with John. In the New Testament book of John, chapter 19 verses 25 to 27 Jesus charged John with His mother’s care. The house is a small brick building of two rooms with an altar, where people light candles and stop to pray. The past 100 years there have been regular pilgrimages to the house. In more recent years Pope Paul VII and Pope John Paul ** have visited this special spot. From Mary’s house we taxied to Ephesus. In the south it was about 90 degrees. About 10 degrees hotter than Istanbul. Ephesus probably was once about the size of Ionia. It was a principle port on the Aegean Sea. Build before the 10 century Paul traveled and preached there many times after his conversion to Christianity. I got goose pimples thinking I might be standing in the same spot where Paul stood to tell the Ephesians about Jesus. Over the centuries the Sea has filled in until Ephesus is about six miles from the water. Beautiful statuary still remains there also a long marble street and remnants of buildings.

A theater which seated 24,000 people still remains. Excavation is constant and ongoing. Hope we can go back in a couple more years.

We next taxied to Kusadasi where we met Angela and the children, Aziz’s mother and sister. They rode all day by bus to meet us at a ship where we had a reservation for an 8-day cruise.

After dinner our ship left port. Our state rooms were very hot. Not much air-conditioning in Turkey. The ship stayed close to the Turkish border. The Greek Islands are very close to Turkey and the ship was required to stay within its territorial limits. The Turks and the Greeks don’t always see “eye to eye”.

Our ship stopped daily for swimming once we got in the beautiful blue Mediterranean. Our two grandchildren, five year old Ayshe, and one year old Aylin both loved it. The water was calm and the daily temperature was in the 90s. Swimming seems to be the national sport. Everyone swam, except me.

The ship would tie-up and a launch would come out from the villages to take us ashore. Some of the villages were 2,500 years old. Building 400 to 500 years old were still in use. We loved roaming the narrow cobblestone streets looking for souvenir bargains. Sometimes a bus would pick us up to take us up a mountainside to view ancient tombs which were burial sites of past rulers and kings. Every day we went ashore to view some antiquity that we would never see any other place in the world.
Our ship destination was Antalya, the second largest city in Turkey. Upon arrival there in the early morning we had breakfast then the launch picked us up to go to a museum where various statuary, art and antique costumes were on display. The workmanship on all was beautiful.

Back at the ship we packed up for our all-night bus ride back north to Istanbul. About 6:00 am our bus stopped for breakfast. Turkish breakfasts are: two kinds of olives, two kinds of cheese, bread and tea. Coffee and preserves were also available for foreigners like us. Bread was especially good. Baked several times a day, fresh bread was always available. Since I’m talking about food I should say most everything we ate was different or uncommon for us. Lots of eggplant dishes, zucchini combinations, all using garlic and/or oregano. Oven cooking is very uncommon. Pies, cakes, and cookies are almost unheard of. Fresh fruits and vegetables were abundant and excellent. Lambe was the most often used meat. Russ especially enjoyed the foods – he likes everything.

Back in Istanbul Angela wanted me to make an American breakfast for our Turkish family and friends. Our last full day there I stirred up a big batch of pancake batter and also made maple-flavored syrup. The necessary baking powder had been bought special and was sold by the tablespoonful and put in a plastic bag. The maple flavoring Angela purchased here and took with her in anticipation of a pancake breakfast. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, especially our two granddaughters.

On August 24th we started our flight home. We had to be at the airport by 6:00 am. After many security checks, scans and questions we were cleared for boarding. It was sad to say goodby to Angela and Aziz. We had said goodby to our grandchildren and Aziz’s family the night before.

Angela, Aziz, and girls would stay one more week before returning to Kuwait to begin their ninth year there. Aziz to Kuwait University where he is a Professor in the Engineering Department. Angela back to her job as a Certified Records Manager and Ayshe to begin kindergarten at the American School in Kuwait.

Every flight we took was late so it was inevitable we would miss some of our connecting flights. Our arrival in New York was so late we missed boarding for Detroit where our son Danon was waiting for us. The next flight was five hours later. A long wait for all of us. Pan Am was never on time but they got us there and back without incident and without losing any of our luggage so we can’t complain. There’s so much we didn’t see – we can’t wait to go back. (End)

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR - Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association.
APRIL 1990, Volume 25, Number 5. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: CONKRITE, SLOWINS, TRANS, PROBASCO

On Saturday March 3, Fern Conkrite had her 95th birthday celebrated by more than 90 guests at the social room of the Portland Housing Complex. Since Fern broke her hip last fall she has had a difficult time getting mobile again. After an unsatisfactory stay at Belding Christian Nursing Home, she returned to her apartment for care. Things got worse and she cannot remember her trip to Blodgett Hospital in Grand Rapids. There she was put in intensive care, the surgery redone, this time properly and was soon back at Portland. She recovered nicely, is mobile with wheelchair and can keep up with the others with her almost unlimited store of remembrances of things past.

OUR EUROPEAN TRIP, Conclusion by Grayden Slowins:

At Interlachen we switched to the smaller train and began the climb circling Wengernalp – our very own family mountain! Grandma Brake was a Wenger, und “Ich bin Ein Wenger too!”

First to Grindelwald, where we had to switch to an even smaller cog train. Then we began to catch a breathtaking view of Eiger Glacier & Jungfrau, and as we approached the town of Kleine Scheidegg, we could get a good view of the twin peaks of Wengernalp. They are not high enough to have snow in summer. We usually saw no more than 4-12 beef or dairy cattle in a herd, possibly 20 at most. Even in high pastures near the tree line, we saw few sheep. They were in higher sparse pastures reached only on foot or horseback. Everyone’s cattle roamed freely together in the mountain pastures and drank from hollowed-out-log community water troughs set in springs. There was birdsfoot trefoil pasture at the little town of Wengernalp, and other wildflowers. Tourists are encouraged to hike on the same paths the cattle & sheep use, and the distances are posted in hours & minutes, not miles nor kilometers.

Finally we approached the picture-postcard resort town of Wengen. It is a bit larger than Wengernalp – perhaps 600 year-around residents. But there are always tourists around, skiing in winter and hiking in summer, so population counts are mis-leading. The air and streams are cool and clear, the scenery is magnificent, and the people are surely the kindest, gentlest, and most friendly in the world. This is what we came halfway around the world to experience! The people and their small farms are thrifty and prosperous. They make their living by sales & services to the tourists. But they continue to raise sheep & cattle & hay in the old-fashioned way. The women were raking & forking hay by hand – but they were not Babushkas. They were wearing alligator T-shirts and designer jeans to do it!

We did not talk to any Wengers – who would have been 8th or 9th cousins at best – but we saw the family name (Wenger), not just the town name (Wengen), on a storefront, on a tour bus, and on a tradesman’s pickup truck. We purchased 5 Genuine Wenger Family Manufactured Swiss Army Knives in Wengen, and 28 picture postcards of the town, and ate ice cream cones. Then back to Interlaken in early evening for supper and shooping for Anniversary souvenirs. Then relaxing on the outdoor balcony of our room in the luxurious Royal St. George Hotel dating from 1491, and addressing our postcards. The hotel, which was not part of our package tour, was reserved and paid thru our Lansing travel agent before we left home.

Friday morning our tour group picked us up in Interlaken and we headed for Geneva. Saw United Nations Peace Building, Red Cross World Headquarters, Flower Clock, and Monument to leaders of the Christian Reformation. Nice dinner in our hotel, where Ann & I got to visit with a father & teenage son from the HongCong contingent of our tour group. They were eager to hear about our life-style and knew much about Seattle, Washington and Toronto, Ontario. They have relatives in both cities and consider emigrating to escape takeover by Mainland China in 1995. He works for a Travel Agency and arranged the tour for his relatives. They have a comfortable like in HongCong, including a week at a beach-house every summer, but their living conditions are crowded by our standards.

Into France Saturday morning, heading for Paris. Stopped for juice in Poligny, saw hometown of Louis Pasteur at Dole, and saw sign for the road to Nancy. Stopped at Fontainebleau Castle, south of Paris, and to Sacre Couer (Sacred Heart) Church in Paris. Also Mont Martre Cemetery above ground. I had also spotted cemeteries along the Rhine in Germany and on the train to Grindelwald. They bury head-to-toe there, with no alleys nor space between. I suspect if you are over 6 ft. tall you might have to scrunch your knees up a bit! We had a nice glazed duck dinner in a restaurant with lots of atmosphere, didn’t try the Escargot! This was the weekend of Bastille Day and the peak of the Bicentennial of the French Revolution. So crowds were everywhere and some sights, such as the Louve, were closed to us because Bush, Thatcher, and the other Heads of State were there for the celebration and GATT trade conference. But sometimes it worked to our advantage. The freeway into & across the city had been cleared for them, but they let our tour bus pass. Also Notre Dame Cathedral was closed to tourists so big wigs could attend Sunday Service, but they opened it just as we drove up. Also many Parisians left town, like we do during Ionia Free Fair Week.

After seeing the Cathedral, with it’s organ and stained glass Rose Window and flying buttresses, we saw the Arc-de-triomphe, Mary Magdalene Temple, and Opera House. Then to Versailles Castle, with it’s Great Hall of Mirrors where peace treaties are signed, and it’s gardens where negotiators stroll and argue and compromise. Our last view of Paris was from the Eiffel Tower at the 200 ft. level on a clear sunny day.

North to the coast at Calais on Monday morning. The wheat fields of Picardy, France, approach the size of those in the American Midwest, but still no tractors over 65 HP and New Holland Combines with headers not over 4 meters (13 ft.) wide. Saw fields of hops, corn, oats, sugar beets, and potatoes, and a few sheep and Charlais cattle. The trees and field hedge rows reminded us of Michigan, but the buildings were still in village clusters. Passed small cemeteries in the fields, where Ionia County men fought in the trenches in WWI and some are buried there.

From Calais we took a Hovercraft, Princess Anne, to the white cliffs of Dover in 35 minutes. We began to see sheep in Dover, large white-faced sheep and Shropshires and Suffolks. First there were lots of small flocks and then some big flocks.
After going thru customs and eating lunch, we went on the Underground to Westminster Palace, home of Parliament and Big Ben, and into Westminster Abbey Anglican Church. Ann got to listen to Evensong Service on the organ, while I rode to the Tower of London and saw where Ann Boleyn was imprisoned and executed and later her daughter, Queen Elizabeth I was also imprisoned.

Then home on Pan Am Flight 055 non-stop from London to Detroit. Lunch on the plane and Dan met us at Metro in late afternoon, Tuesday.

BACK PAGE by Robert W. Gierman:

In 1852 Benjamin Probasco Sr. bought the land just east of the Sebewa Center Schoolhouse on a warrant he had purchased from his brother, who had been in the Mexican War. On the corner he had built a cooper shop and used it in making barrels and other items that could be sold locally. Then a little later Ben sold the property to Gunn Bros. Prior to 1856 when the schoolhouse was built on the northeast corner at Sunfield and Bippley roads, the cooper shop had been used for at least one term for a schoolhouse and Ben had married the school teacher.

Sometime in the mid 1880s, the Trans came to Sebewa and, needing a house, bought the cooper shop and moved it around the swampy area to the north a half mile to where yet it stands as my garage. Here continues the story told by Sarah Tran, Elem’s wife, told to me in the early 1950s on tape.

“When Elem’s people lived in Ohio there was a slave woman, whom they called a cow and calf. There was a great reward out for her capture. Elem’s mother couldn’t think for the reward. She thought more for helping her. The woman came to the house for something to eat and for something to put around her baby. She gave her a plaid shawl.

Elem’s mother swept the path to a pond of water where the woman got to an overgrown stump for safety. A year or so later when Elem’s people got to Canada, on the street they met the slave woman and remembered her on account of the little plaid shawl that she had around her baby at that time.”

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR - Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association.
JUNE 1990, Volume 25, Number 6. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: HOWARD, VANBUREN, WHEELER, BIPPLEY, LUSHER, SNOW-HUNT-MOLTMAKER, TORREY, SLOWINS, WALKINGTON, CREIGHTON, LENON, GIERMAN

AMONG THE OBITUARIES FOR THE PERIOD are Bernice Reed Howard, sister of our member Lloyd Reed, Martha VanBuren, Charles Wheeler, Donal Bippley, Gerald Lusher and Irene Snow Hunt Moltmaker.

Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Torrey celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in Lake Odessa on April 7, 1990.

ALICE JOHNSON’S WHEAT or WELFARE IN AN AGRARIAN SOCIETY by Grayden Slowins:

On a hot day in July or early August about 1943, they threshed Alice Johnson’s wheat. She was a widow lady and the last resident member of a once proud pioneer family. The little one-room schoolhouse at the SW corner was called Johnson school. Almost every kid in school was a Johnson or their mother was a Johnson. Now Alice received “Public Assistance” to survive thru the year.

But today was threshing day and some English Common Law applied to this event. William Resevere, Sebewa Township Supervisor, tended bagger on Daniel Crieghton’s Port Huron separator, powered by an IHC-Titan tractor. The first 20 bushels must be saved for her seed. Every school child knew you planted 7 pecks of wheat per acre, so 20 bushels would provide enough cleaned seed for 10 acres. The next 4 bushels went for her year’s supply of flour at the Valley City Milling Company. Can you believe that a 60-pound bushel of good wheat got you a 25-pound sack of white flour in trade? Then one bushel of wheat for each mature ewe at lambing time – 12 bushels needed. Then one bushel for each laying hen – 24 bushels approximately (Screenings from the rest would do for this, you couldn’t feed a chicken straight wheat “because it would paste up her vent!”

So 60 bushels of un-cleaned wheat belonged to Alice Johnson. The remaining 200-300 bushels would be sold by the Township to pay Alice’s back taxes, grocery bill, fuel bill & Doctor bill. Anything left over was her spending money for the new year. There was probably not enough to cover back bills, but Alice was a contributing member of society and no one noticed the shortfall. Besides, they ate as well at Alice Johnson’s as anyplace. She had killed her best roosters, made baking powder biscuits, mashed potatoes & gravy, and fresh garden peas. For dessert there was pie made from Yellow Transparent summer apples!
And by the way – every Memorial Day a big black Lincoln Continental pulls into the West Sebewa Cemetery and a well-dressed man places flowers on her grave. Alice Johnson was indeed a contributing member of society! End.

I’ve had a letter from Alice Johnson from Portland Road west of Clarksville in which she included her dues and a verse from an old clipping which she regarded worth publishing. But alas, I have her letter but cannot find the verse, so Alice, please send the verses again and I’ll try to do better. RWG

FUNERAL SERVICE FOR ORA WALKINGTON by John Piercefield

ORA WALKINGTON – Isaiah 54.7, 8, 10
“For a brief moment I abandoned you but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you says the Lord your Redeemer. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord who has compassion on you.”

We are here today paying our last respects to Ora Walkington and his family. When Ora Walkington’s life began, the fireworks & celebration of Independence Day was barely over. Born on July 5, 1908, growing up on a farm near Winn, MI, was similar to most any small Michigan town; hard work and long hours were necessary, but pleasure was taken in the simpler things. Simple doesn’t mean easy; it means that they didn’t have to be entertained or impressed by electronic inventions as we do. It was a part of life, a part of pride, a part of themselves and they had pleasure in their work. It was out of this upbringing that Ora learned to believe in what he knew and trust in what he believed. These attributes would be a part of Ora the rest of his life: hard work, pride, and determination.

Confidence and determination may have been what caught the eye of a local girl, he had never seen before. That dance in Nov. 1930 in Winn, MI was the beginning of a romance that would envelope over 58 years. On Aug. 22, 1931, Ora & Verl Walkington were married and less than a year later the newlyweds moved into the grainary, on what was the beginning of their life and their farm in Orange Township.

Ora Walkington was a farmer. Farming is the oldest occupation known to man. It began at the Garden of Eden with Adam & Eve: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Gen 2.15). Because of Adam & Eve’s disobedience and rebellion, God cursed the ground and caused it to produce thorns and thistles and declared “by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were formed, for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Gen 3.19).

From Adam’s sin death became the end for all men and the earth would no longer cooperate in harmony. This is not saying that farming is cursed by God, but rather the whole earth was cursed and was placed in disharmony with man because of sin, opposed to man’s work, whether it be thorns & thistles, drought, hurricane, or earthquake.

Knowing that hard work lay ahead, Ora & Verl Walkington, newlyweds, began living in the only building, the grainary, in 1932. They were farmers in the truest sense of the word, committed and ready to work. Farming like many other vocations in the 1930s was tough. By 1929, with the stock market collapse, and banking crisis, there was also an ongoing crisis in agriculture in the US that was started after World War I.

Many Europeans were returning to their farms & the demand & prices for American grains had fallen by some 30%. “American farmers had over-expanded acreage under cultivation during the war years, bringing marginal land into production. So as prices fell, farmers had to produce more to meet their expenses”. But hard work and farming have gone hand in hand for years, since prices were depressed, trading commodities (eggs, grain, vegetables, for sugar, coffee, fruits & seeds), became the way of business in the rural communities.

The times were hard but the people were enduring. It was that enduring, persistent quality of commitment to hard work that was so much of Ora’s life.

At the end of 1935, Verl was expecting the birth of their first child. She was afraid that the child would freeze to death in their present home. Ora consoled her and promised a house by fall. Their present house was started in July and finished Oct. 1936 before Loren, their first son was born. They built their life and farm together during some of the hardest economic times in our country’s history. Verl and Ora, as many others, survived by being committed to each other and to their common goals.

Their farm became their testimony to the community of commitment. From the care of the animals to the flower beds around the house. How many people mow the roadside bordering their land for nearly a mile, as Ora did? These structures were built and maintained with discipline and pride. From the original grainary to the house built in 1935 to the 100-year-old barn bought at 40 Acre Town, where it was disassembled board by board then reconstructed on site. Building a farm is no easy task. Those of us driving by can only see the results of their labors, I want us today to appreciate and honor their labors and the quality of work and character it took in building literally from the ground up.

There was no doubt that Ora considered himself the ruler of the household. He had a definite mind set and when he set his mind to a task or idea, a team of horses couldn’t change him. He was a determined man and gave 100% to the cause at hand. A good friend and neighbor of Ora’s, Duane Pinkston, told me a story about a farmer and a friend who one hot July day were sitting in an air-conditioned restaurant. And as the conversation turned to the weather, the one asked the other what his sons were doing. He replied that by now the one would be putting up hay, and another would be cultivating, and the last one fitting up another field.

When the friend said to the farmer “Don’t you realize that it’s going to be 90 degrees in the shade?” the farmer replied “That’s just what my boys said to me this morning, but I told them not to worry, they wouldn’t be in the shade”.

That in itself illustrates how some view work and their family, but that was not Ora Walkington. He was not one to make others work while he sat and watched. The Walkington family worked together & Ora was the leader by example. He was not opposed to discipline either for himself, his family, or others but he never imposed harder requirements on them than he expected from himself. Sometimes Ora’s authority was on challenged by another like the state milk inspector, or an insurance salesman, but there was no doubt in their minds as they left whose property they were on or where Ora stood on the issue.

Discipline and overriding authority were Ora’s way of expressing his concern and affection in raising up a family that would know the meaning of hard work, honesty, and determination. To the rest, it was his way of getting the job done best. He may not have been long on diplomacy, but he was rich in commitment.

The true test of love is time, time spent and time in duration. Ora’s life was focused on his family. He didn’t have the goal to be a public official and travel the area for his own interests. Rather he served for years on the Board of Education at Kilmartin School where all six of the Walkington kids went to school. Education was important and Ora spent time encouraging and assisting the children to do better. So important that one spring, rather than call off school because the roads were filled with mud and impassable by automobile, Ora & August Hoort hitched up the wagon to a team, threw a tarp over the wagon and took the children to and from school.

And time was spent giving the kids an alternative to the high school pressures to have drinking parties after the J hops, or driving the miles to Lansing or Grand Rapids for prom night. Ora & Verl would open their home to the kids for ice cream & cake or chicken dinner at their own expense. You may not have heard the words “I love you” but you could see it in action everyday.
Another honorable trait of Ora’s was that of routines and loyalty. He didn’t like change much; he was one who ate meals at the same time everyday. If you came for lunch at 12:30 you missed out or if the preacher wasn’t done at 12 noon, he would get up and leave, and he and Verl were never late to anything. Once, going to a relative’s wedding up _________________________________. ______________see Grandpa & Grandma Sage and maybe take in a matinee. This routine was upset when the grocery store quit staying open late! This upset Ora as everything was working well the way it was. He was loyal to his family, friends and businesses in the community. Trading at the same hardware, car dealership or elevator until a major problem in service or availability changed his pattern. His loyalty went hand in hand with service as he traded with the Portland Coop, and served on the Board of Directors for 23 years. With his leadership and loyalty as well as the others on the board, the Coop prospered and grew.

With all his work and discipline and persistence, there was an overriding optimism. No task was too big and time was better spent working rather than complaining. There was always time to rest later, but now there was work to be done. Ora’s labor was not selfish, if a neighbor had a need and required assistance, he would be there and do anything for you. Private and frugal in some respects, yet open and generous in others. But throughout his life, very little was done without the family in mind, for their benefit and their training and their future.

Later in years, the children grown and now with children of their own, Ora began to mellow, not slow down but somehow the tough exterior was giving way and changing in the expression of love and concern that had been there all along. He and Verl enjoyed going to Florida where they could relax without the work at the farm challenging them to get it done. They also enjoyed their grandchildren and loved them dearly.

Ora’s testimony of love in later years could be exhibited in his whittling. Taking a solid plank of board and whittling out a length of chain with an anchor was no easy task, and the care that went into each stroke of the blade is apparent. Wooden crosses were carved and donated to the church choir members. Even as Verl was struggling with Alzheimer’s Disease in the Belding nursing home, Ora would visit every Tues. and Thurs. for almost three years. He was determined and faithful, standing by the wife who had loved and labored with him for nearly six decades.

After Verl’s death, Ora accepted a challenge by Bill Weisgerber to match donations for a new bulletin board outside the LeValley Methodist Church. Ora helped install that sign.

Ora lived in a generation that I believe will never be duplicated, with the amount of change scientifically, technologically, socially, or financially. But few history books record the lives of individuals that make up the majority that live through the changes, and no book will probably be written of anyone from the West Sebewa Community, but if there were such a book written, Ora Walkington, and the Walkington family would be prominent in its pages as a pillar in the community attesting to all generations who follow of the importance of determination, loyalty and ___.

As we opened we will close, Genesis 3:10.....”by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were formed, for dust you are and to dust you will return”. We will all come to the end of our lives by either death or the return of the Lord and the judgement follows, and our spirits will pass into either eternal life with God or eternal separation from God.

The choice and preparation is left to us. The offer is made by Jesus the Christ, Himself sacrificed for our sins, allowing us access into God’s presence, grace & goodness. Let us strive to say with the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:6-8….”For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which is the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day – and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing”.

What was said of Verl can also be said of Ora Walkington, let us learn from them and remember the true meaning of commitment to others, backed by love and labor, no matter what the cost.

Wilbur and Marcella Gierman belong to the SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETY OF GREATER LANSING. That society is hosting the TVETA FOLKDANCES from Joh?k?oping, Sweden on the day previous to our Memorial Day holiday meeting. Wesley and Lucille will be hosting two of them and Wilbur and Marcella another pair and all will be attending our meeting. The FOLKDANCES have been on a world tour and after concerts in Singapore, Australia, Fuji Islands, California and Las Vegas they are making a stop at the Lansing Society before leaving on June 1 for Epcot Center, Disney World and back to Sweden. Here will be your chance to try out your limited Swedish or their English. As you may guess, Grandma Hannah Heintzleman was Swedish.

The year 1900 was a good one for producing long lived babies. First came Mrs. Elfa Meyers Creighton and Theo Lenon, both born in May. Elfa has already celebrated with a trip to the West Coast and Theo is having a big party at the Sunfield Methodist Church in the afternoon of Sunday, May 27. Then along in September Elmer Gierman will have his 90th birthday at the Masonic Home in Alma. We wish the best to all of them.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association –
AUGUST 1990, Volume 26, Number 1. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: HEINTZELMAN, LAKIN, ARNOLD, SLOWINS, CARR, SHAY, CREIGHTON, LENON, GIERMAN, KENYON, CATT, McDONALD

EVERETT HEINTZELMAN did not survive his heart surgery shortly after he attended our annual meeting. MRS. MARIAN LAKIN of Clark Home in Grand Rapids, is also 90 years old this year.

G. W. ARNOLD & SON by Grayden Slowins

The death of George Carr reminds me of a story from our family about the death of George Arnold many years ago. George Wesley Arnold had founded the Arnold Machine Shop when he arrived in South Ionia with the Dexter Colony in 1833 at one year of age, with a little help from his father, Oliver Arnold. The business eventually became G. W. Arnold & Son, and is today the oldest continuous business in Ionia County and one of the oldest in the State of Michigan. I think Sanford Yeomans Farms and Dexter Arnold Farms have equal claim, but in this case I guess farms don’t count.

George Arnold had a blacksmith shop and foundry, and made plows, land rollers, dinner bells, sledge hammers, knives, cultivators, folding stepladders, and the green cast-iron frog doorstops many of us still own. They also repaired steam engines and boilers. Later his son, Fred Arnold, made gas engines, at least one automobile, and also sold Maxwell automobiles.

When George died in 1888, the family wanted to preserve their heritage and also hold true to the thrifty ideals of their Schnabel relatives. So they went into the foundry with hammers and chisels and changed all the molds from G. W. Arnold & Son to G. W. Arnold’s Son, by changing the & to ‘S. Perhaps Geo. Carr’s Sons will want to do the same.

Few of us will be as well respected when we pass on as George Carr. He was the first neighbor to offer help when we moved from the Portland Township farm to Sebewa Township. He baled our first hay until our own baler arrived. Someplace in the Bible it says: “No greater deed doth any person than to feed my sheep”. The first beans I ever saw him thresh, he poked thru a little old Allis-Chalmers Model-40 combine. When he died he had one of the three largest farming operations in Sebewa and a dozen satisfied landlords, because he always treated everyone fair & square. His work on the Board of Review was exemplary. His is a heritage worth preserving! End.

FOR OUR 1900 BIRTHS, the few left to enjoy their birthdays are Marie SHAY of Portland, Elfa CREIGHTON of Lake Odessa, Theo LENON of Sunfield and Elmer GIERMAN of Alma. Elfa celebrated with a trip to the West Coast. Theo had a big celebration or two, one at the Sunfield Lions Club and the public one at the Sunfield United Methodist Church with his son and daughter arranging. Elmer awaits the 5th of September with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren for his celebration at the Masonic Home in Alma. His address is the Masonic Home, 1200 Wright Ave., Alma, MI 48801. A HAPPY BIRTHDAY WISH TO ALL!

We are looking forward to Edna Howland Kenyon reaching her hundredth birthday in December. It should be mentioned here that Vertie CATT McDONALD still lives at a nursing home in Hastings at well past 100 years. She was once a Sebewa resident.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association –
OCTOBER 1990, Volume 26, Number 2. Submitted with written permission of current Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

SURNAMES: HEINTZLEMAN, CARR, CREIGHTON, HYNES, HARLE, BENSCHOTER, LEHMAN, FIRSTER, INGRAM

THE SEBEWA ASSOCIATION NEWS: With two balloon ascensions interfering, the postponed annual meeting was held on July 21 and Raymond Heinzleman was elected for a 3 year term and LaVern Carr was elected also for 3 years as to the Board of Directors.

ELFA CREIGHTON is having the buildings, both house and barn, torn down so that the former home of Jimmy Creighton and his baseball team of sons becomes a part of the field. At the same time the Alton GUNN tenant house has been jacked up and moved to Berlin Township on the Clarksville Road. LaVern CARR sold it or at least disposed of it to the son-in-law of Lynwood HYNES. At its previous location to the east on the north side of Bippley Road, it had been the BRITTEN home. Pete always came back to the school reunions and delighted in telling of old times. His sister, Mattie, married a Grand Ledge doctor and she, too, became a doctor.

HOW SEBEWA FARED AT THE IONIA FREE FAIR IN 1990

Fifty years ago Henry Kenyon and his wife, Hilda, were married at the Fair. This year they were featured in the parade and were honored by being congratulated by Governor Blanchard and his wife. (The picture shown is by courtesy of The Ionia Sentinel Standard.)

HERE IS HOW NICELY EDNA HOWLAND KENYON WRITES in response to my request for permission to “make something of her 100th birthday, which comes up on October 19, 1990.

She left Portland a few years back to be within easy reach of her son, Norman and her daughter who both live in Florida.
Edna lives in the Majestic Towers Retirement Community as pictured below. To address your greeting cards, make it: Mrs. Edna Howland Kenyon, 1255 Pasadena Ave. S., St. Petersburg, FL 33707, Apt. 710.

She writes: “Dear Friend – I didn’t suppose that anything of note in my life could be worthy of putting in the Recollector. However if you wish to include something of my birthday of one hundred years I will feel honored. Birthdays of that length are becoming so common now as to be hardly of interest. Some have asked me to give them some advice how I have managed to live that length of time. But I have no answers. Living a simple routine life with plent of work on the same farm for over seventy years, might be a factor. After my husband Raymond’s death sixteen years ago, I continued to stay there, until eight years ago. The family decided I shouldn’t be living alone so I left the old homestead and since have been living in retirement homes. What the future holds whether short or longer time of ____ is the question. Thanking you for considering my one hundredth birthday of enough interest to write about. Truly, Edna __ Kenyon.

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD:
JAMES HARLE, husband of Marjorie Thuma Harle. James had taught mathematics at Davison for his entire career. Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a so far untreatable genetic disease, is what took him.

WINNIE BENSCHOTER after a long and pleasant life, capped by two or three years’ illness and a long stay in a nursing home.

LEWIS A. LEHMAN, 83, of 10340 State Road, Lake Odessa. He lived just across the road from Sebewa Township in Odessa.

GRETA A. FIRSTER, 84, of 138 West First St., Vermontville, passed away Monday, August 6, 1990, at Springbrook Manor, Grand Rapids. Because so many varied people have taken bus trips with her we include her obit here: “Mrs. Firster was born on February 10, 1906 in Castleton Township, the daughter of Gillman and Anna Harvey Linsea. She was a lifelong resident of the Vermontville area and attended local country schools, received her teaching degree from Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo.

She was married to George Firster. He preceded her in death in 1983. She taught school for 48 years, retiring from Maple Valley High where she taught World History and Government. After retiring she sponsored and organized Firster Tours for Senior Citizens, who traveled all over North America. She was also a nurse at Pennock Hospital and the Bliss Company years ago. She received many educational awards and hosted many foreign exchange students in her home. She was always helping people. She was a member of the Vermontville Congregational Church and the National Education Association.

Mrs. Firster is survived by her sister-in-law, Maxine Linsea of Grand Rapids; nephews, Michael Linsea and David Linsea of Middleville; niece Suzanne Smith of Grand Rapids; also several cousins.

She was also preceded in death by a brother, Vincent Linsea, in 1965.
Funeral services were held Thursday, August 9, at the Vermontville Congregational Church with Reverend Sally Nolan officiating. Burial was in the Woodlawn Cemetery, Vermontville.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Maple Valley Scholarship Fund or Vermontville Library.
Arrangements were made by Maple Valley Chapel-Genther Funeral Home, Nashville.”

I, VIRGINIA INGRAM, would like to dedicate this memorable experience (ALASKA BOUND – OUR 3,650 MILE BUS TRIP TO ALASKA) to several people:

First of all my dear husband, “Bill” who encouraged me to go “and enjoy yourself” and I did. My daughter Marilyn without whom I would not have been able to go.

Last, but not least, the “Indian Chief” and his four little Indian bus drivers, in line as they drove:
BUS #8, Gerrit Douma, Charlotte, our fearless leader, Head Honcho, Wonderful Guide and Pace Setter, who at bus driver meetings, or at our evening meal, would say “now here is the good news and the bad news” or “We’ll get there before dark” as we advanced to different time zones.
Bus #4, Kathy Adams, Charlotte---our “Sweetheart” who turned every young man’s head with her bubbly personality. Her many calls home because of her concern for her young family---must have given the phone company a big boost.
Bus #17, Beverly Zuantrell, Charlotte---a “Sweetie” always concerned about everyone, keeping an eye on both front and back buses to see that we were okay. She never used the rest room but got some great camera views of those who did.
Bus #36, “THE BUS” Marilyn Disch, Charlotte, our darling who provided everyone with laughter during our stops, and looked after her mother (me) with non-stop devotion as luggage handler, tornado buffer, hair dresser, etc.
Bus #1, Gladys Mitchell, Nashville, Our Faithful Guard, who brought up the rear and watched over all of us. With her CB, kept Gerrit informed of any of the needs of the group. “A good job done, Gladys”.

Virginia Ingram, mother of Marilyn, passenger in her bus, and enjoying myself to the n’th degree. My only regret was that Bill wasn’t along to share it with me.

All of these people made my trip an enjoyable one. Gladys told everyone we met, “This lady is 70 years old and making this trip”. I didn’t think it unusual except that I was allowed to go. If health permits, I will enjoy traveling until I’m 85 or 90---if I am permitted to live that long. I might add it is always wonderful to get back home. Gerrit stopped at many points of interest along the way (sort of like seeing things through his eyes) so we could enjoy the beauty of both the USA and Canada. In Canada the horizon was endless. The beautiful as well as ominous sky was a wonder to behold. Marilyn and I saw many pictures in the billowy clouds. The people of Canada are very courteous and gracious, more laid back than we, more relaves and not hurried.
I will travel any day with any of you little Indians.

An added thanks goes to my granddaughter, Pam Disch, for her contribution in typing and compiling this account.
My best to all of you, Virginia Ingram

Mr. and Mrs. William Ingram live at the site of the closed Goodwin bridge in Portland Township.

ALASKA BOUND; OUR 3,650 MILE BUS TRIP TO ALASKA:
The object of our trip was to deliver five buses to the Fairbanks school system in Fairbanks, Alaska. The trip was contracted by Gerrit Douma of Charlotte, who arranged for the participation of four excellent bus drivers from the Charlotte and Nashville school systems. We left Charlotte on Sunday, June 24, 1990 at 1:03 p.m. Gerrit drove his car and his son, Tom, a pickup and a trailer to transport us all to the point of departure. Tom then returned, using the trailer to haul the car back to Charlotte.

We went through Indiana and reached our point of departure at Aurora, Illinois, about 5:30 p.m. Three rooms were reserved for us at the Comfort Motel. Marilyn, Kathy and I roomed together with Gladys and Bev sharing another. Gerrit roomed by himself---for obvious reasons. We arose at 5:00 a.m. on Monday, June 25 and enjoyed a continental breakfast before being transported to the terminal at Plainfield by bus. There are three such delivery terminals around the Chicago area. I watched the luggage while the others checked out their year-old buses for the trip. While sitting there a gentleman who had transported buses from Arkansas to the terminal, came and visited with me. The ones he delivered were built in Arkansas. Our buses were Ward body and GMC.

I was the only passenger, going with my daughter, Marilyn. The seat backs were high so I had to sit on my sleeping bag and a blanket that Marilyn had brought along, to see over the top. We left the terminal. Along the way we stopped for fuel and had breakfast at Denny’s. Denny has a policy where if your breakfast is not served within ten minutes, it is free. We were served twenty minutes after ordering. Marilyn suggested to Gerrit that we tell the waitress. He did. She took their bill (Mine was always separate due to just being a passenger—all the group had their expenses paid). The waitress came back and they had deducted $10.00 from the $17.00 bill. At l0:00 a.m. we were on the road for a most memorable trip. We were in Wisconsin at 12:30 and stopped at a large food store at Beloit for fruit, munchies and ice. Each of the buses had a cooler.

Every couple of hours were given the opportunity to stretch our legs and get some relief. At these times the buses were fueled and checked over. Gerrit, having been over this route many times before, knew all the points of interest, which made it very enjoyable. I will try to hit the highlights of this trip then each person can add their own thoughts.

We passed by the Wisconsin Dells. At 7:30 p.m., we stopped for dinner in Wisconsin and reached Minnesota at 8:30. Our “fearless leader” asked the girls (at a drivers’ meeting) if they would like to drive on to St. Cloud, Minnesota. They said “okay”, not realizing how far St. Cloud was. They drove until 11:00 p.m. Though the extra mileage was exhausting on a very hot day, it gave us an opportunity to enjoy a beautiful sunset as we approached St. Cloud. It was well worth it. By the time we had finished the first day, we had traveled 501 miles. Once in the motel, which was very nice, we were ready to collapse. It was a very long day and aside from being tired, I felt good.

Tuesday morning’s wake-up call came at 6:30 (Tuesday, June 26). Throughout the trip Kathy did her usual ironing, hair styling, etc. each morning. Marilyn also spent the morning showering, fixing her hair, applying her make-up and packing. When time permitted she did my hair as well. Quite often after a long day of driving, showers were enjoyed in the evening as well as the morning.

This particular morning presented itself with a bit of trouble. Marilyn’s bus would not start. After much discussion, and 20 minutes of working on the problem, the other drivers persuaded Geritt that the choke lever should be pulled out. Once this was done, the bus started right away. Before leaving we enjoyed a cup of coffee from the motel. Breakfast and a bus drivers’ meeting came after a couple of hours on the road. Everyone along the way was interested in what we were doing. We had many interesting topics of conversation. Before leaving we purchased more ice and groceries.

Two good meals were consumed each day with our noon meal consisting of munchies. Marilyn kept me busy getting her ice to suck on or a piece of fruit to munch. The other drivers kept their ice chests next to their seats for easy access. Mealtime was never boring, with good conversation from all. Gerrit always started the day with a silent prayer at breakfast. It was a happy up-beat group. Everyone enjoyed the trip and all the happenings that surrounded it.

I had planned to write on the bus and keep my diary up to date. This quickly became an impossible task due to the jarring. Some of my notes are illegible.

We crossed into North Dakota at 2:00 p.m……I called Bill at Red and Jean’s and found out Loina passed away today. We arrived in Minot, North Dakota at 8:00 p.m. The buses were fueled for the next morning and we checked into the Select Total. We enjoyed a relaxing dinner at the “Rollin’ Pin”. At one of our stops during the hot day we treated ourselves to a “Tastee Freeze”.

Wednesday, June 27, 1990 we started early once again and were on the road at 7:00 a.m. We stopped and took pictures of the beautiful rolling hills of North Dakota. The scenery was breathtaking with cattle grazing everywhere and hay all put up along the roadside ditches. The temperature this morning was 63 degrees. We fueled up just before the point of entry into Canada. Our departure from U. S. was not a pleasant experience. Not only was it raining, but we had an unforgettable breakfast. Gerrit had prepared us for a fancy restaurant at Portal, USA. The waitress was a real winner. Of course we all had to use the rest room, which might have upset her. Anyway, she was quite rude.

We arrived at Canadian customs at 9:00 a.m. (gained one hour). Bev and Kathy were called into Customs since they had never been in Canada. We took pictures in the entrance building and picked up some interesting material and signed the register. The lady there was very nice and helpful. As we entered Saskatchewan we saw coal strip mining. We stopped at historical Weyburn Museum for a few minutes where we picked up some cards, etc. A lot of road construction and pumping oil wells were encountered along the way.

As we traveled north on Highway 2 toward Prince Albert, Kathy picked up a tornado warning coming our way just a short distance from Saskatoon. We could see it billowing in the sky. After a brief drivers’ meeting we decided to try to run it out. The storm was moving in a southeasterly direction as we traveled northwesterly. As we got back into the buses the wind came up and hail and rain were coming down. We drove a short distance and the weather became increasingly worse.

Marilyn would not drive any farther. We could see the tornado coming toward us. The other drivers continued on, Gladys stopped a minute, then went on ahead with the others. Marilyn stopped the bus and we got into the ditch down from the bus. She threw her rain coat over me and crawled under the rain coat with her body over us. We remained in the ditch for several minutes. Once the rain, hail and wind subsided, Marilyn looked over the top of the ditch. The tornado was not moving very fast at that point. We got back in the bus and took off like a big bird.

We caught up with the others not too far down the road. Everyone was frightened in his own way, not really knowing what to do. I’m sure the tornado passed right over where we had been. When we got to a gas station in Saskatoon, the stores had been evacuated.

There had been quite a bit of destruction in and around the city for about six miles but no bodily injuries. Two of our drivers, Kathy and Gladys, took pictures of the tornado. We all saw a tail separate from the larger mass, but it disappeared as fast as it came. When Marilyn and I got off the bus, we looked like drowned rats. We had a laugh over that at dinner that night---about Marilyn throwing her mother in the ditch. I think they were all equally frightened and much relieved when it had passed. We had the distinction of being called “ditch inspectors”. This was around 3:00 p.m.

We stayed overnight at Imperial Motel in Lloydminster. We had an enjoyable time swimming and relaxing in the hot tub. Gerrit, Kathy and Marilyn went down the water slide several times. Gladys and Bev went shopping. Marilyn called Rosie. Kathie called her family.

June 28, 1990 found us on the road at 6:30 a.m. We entered Alberta, Canada at 6:55. Yesterday we drove 580 miles, about half the way through our trip. There are huge farms, many with their own drying bins and silos. Oil wells are pumping and many ponds along the road as well as beautiful lakes---but no fishing. I inquired about the reason for not seeing any boats or activity on the lakes. They are shallow and freeze to the bottom in the winter. Therefore no fish can live. Many two lane highways, much road building. Trees are used for field boundries, very few fences. They use women as we do for flag persons for road building.
We stopped for breakfast in Vegerville, “Smitty’s Pancake House”. I liked these restaurants as they had senior citizen menus just right for me. Regular meals were far more than I could eat. Gladys shopped for some items, Bev bought a camera since Gerrit had left his jacket home, he bought one as it had started getting cool. There are more riding horses in Alberta than we have seen elsewhere.

We stopped at 10:20 so Gerrit could fix Glady’s CB. At Whitecourt we filled up with fuel, got a few munchies and checked the gift items. While there Gerrit stuck his head in Marilyn’s bus and said “what’s that?”. I said “garbage” (thinking he was referring to a small bag we had setting there to throw into a container).

He said “No, that” referring to Marilyn’s rock collection. I don’t think he could believe his eyes. I said “yes, she collects rocks”. He just shook his head. Whitecourt is the snowmobile capital of Alberta. We also saw a field of buffalo and deer.

At 7:10 p.m. we entered British Columbia and took pictures of the Canadian Rockies. The Canadian Rockies are breathtaking. You would think there was nothing more beautiful; then, around the bend there was one to surpass the previous one. The horizon was endless.

We took pictures of signs about 12 miles down the road. After fueling the buses we called it a day and stayed at Fort St. John. It is 10:00 p.m. (1:00 a.m. our time)---now three hours difference. Our Fearless Leader---at drivers’ meetings always told them we’d get there before dark. About the second day the girls caught on to that one. Since daylight lasted longer each day, we made good time. Our lodging was at Coachman Inn.

We were up at 4:30 a.m. on Friday, June 28 and took off at 5:35. Breakfast was enjoyed at Fort Saint John where we left at 6:55. Gerrit treated me to a roll and coffee along with the whole crew at Pink Mountain at the foot of the Canadian Rockies---a nice long rest stop.

When we reached Dawson Creek we were at the beginning of the 1523 mile Alcan Highway. We parked the buses and Gerrit took us to the middle of town to the monument of the Alaskan Highway. At the middle of the thoroughfare traffic stopped all four ways to let us take pictures. One of the girls remarked that that had been Charlotte, the motorists would have gotten us all. A short distance beyond Dawson Creek we ran into road construction---again. We stopped and took pictures of one of the highest points on the Alcan Highway. Farther down the road we took pictures of a beautiful gorge and saw Rocky Mountain Stone Sheep. Shortly after, Gerrit pulled off at a gas station (set somewhat back from the road).

Kathy didn’t see him (winding roads along the whole route, and could not always see the lead bus) and barreled right on by. The other buses noticed him and stopped for fuel. Bev filled up and went on ahead, finally catching up with her. Kathy had stopped, waiting for those behind her. We always traveled in the same order---Gerrit, Kathy, Bev, Marilyn and Gladys. Marilyn asked the gas station attendant if he would call the police and have Kathy stop. He said they do their own policing. The remaining buses left and before long we found our runaway girl and Bev waiting for us at a turn off enjoying the beautiful scenery. TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT ISSUE.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of The Sebewa Association;
DECEMBER 1990, Volume 26, Number 3. Submitted with written permission of current Editor, Grayden D. Slowins:
 

SURNAMES: JACKSON, COE, FOLTZ, GOOD, PATRICK, HAYNOR, FLEETHAM, LENON, SLOWINS, BENSCHOTER, PROBASCO, SNYDER, SANDBORN, GIERMAN, INGRAM, DISCH, ADAMS, MITCHELL, QUANTRELL, DOUMA

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD: Wayne Jackson, long time member of TSCA.
Wilma Coe, 87, my 8th grade school teacher.
Blanche Foltz, 84, long a Sunfield resident.
Eunice Good Patrick, 84. Her obituary credits her as having been a Sebewa Center teacher.

The SUNFIELD SENTINEL has a new life. The old hot lead linotype maching press. A small personal computer-type of press has taken over. A new grade of white paper improves its appearance.

From the SENTINEL, we learn that our member, Kerry Haynor, has received an ACE award in recognition of five Angel Plane missions he flew to transport patients to treatment centers in other states.
His Angel Plane missions have taken him to Rochester, MN; Phoenix, AZ, and Chicago, IL. He began flying in 1971.

This month marks the retirement of Edgar Fleetham from the Eaton County Commissioners. He had served also on the Eaton County Board of Supervisors making a total of 68 years.

Theo Lenon continues to live at River Inn in Sunfield some six months after his 90th birthday.

THOUGHTS FROM THE CEMETERY by Grayden Slowins

Recently I buried Winnie Belle Benschoter, age 95, widow of Don A. Benschoter. I buried him a year and a half ago at age 93. Winnie was the granddaughter of Benjamin Probasco the elder, by his third wife, Dora, and of Dr. George W. Snyder and wife Mary. Winnie’s parents were Henry P. and Eva M. Snyder. Don was the great-grandson of Cornelius and Diana VanBenschoten. He was the grandson of Oliver P. and Mary M. Benschoter and of John M. and Mary A. Bradley. Don’s parents were John M. and Bertella Benschoter.

Don & Winnie and his sister & brother-in-law, Annis & Riley Sandborn, were among my most frequent and welcome visitors at the cemetery. Don & Winnie usually brought two flats of petunias before Memorial Day. That was 120-144 plants and any less would mean omitting some of the shirttail relatives. They honored six generations of Benschoters from Diana to Delores and loved to tell me their history. They also paid tribute to all the Snyders, Probascos, Bradleys, Sindlingers, Williams, Downings, Phoebe Shay, Theodore Shay, Alexander Morgan, Benjamin Smith, Henrietta Collingham, Nancy Hollenback, Elizabeth Smith, William Resevere, etc., etc.

Don had founght in the World War (There was only one back then). His grandfather Bradley and Winnie’s grandfather Snyder were in the Civil War. Neighbors Ernest & Elmer Showerman and Carl McClelland were in the Spanish American War. So Don always identified with us ex-servicemen and women.

Don had been a fairly large farmer for his day, some 320 acres, and raised a sizable family. But he was about 50 when I first knew him & his horses around Portland, and he always had time to lean back and visit. His grandfather Bradley ran the general store at Sebewa. His father John, grandfather Oliver, and great-grandmother Diana all farmed where Don did, and his son Jim is retired there now.

The west half of the cemetery was a logyard for Jacob Collingham’s vertical sawmill when Don was a boy walking to Sebewa “High” School. The school was named for Jacob High, from whose land the schoolground and all the cemetery came originally (It was never a High School). When I recently smoothed the dirt on the grave of Greta Stambaugh, age 91, I found an Indian arrowhead, the first I have found in probably 40 years.

WILFRED’S PLANE TOOK OFF FOR FLORIDA this morning, Monday, December 3, 1990, in a howling snowstorm, the first of the season. We fully expect him to continue to contribute to the Recollector in a meaningful way, although perhaps not quite like in the past, because he has dozens of unfinished stories lying around in his home and in his head. As I wrote on the occasion of his 80th birthday, no-one can succeed Robert Wilfred Gierman as “The” Recollector, but we will continue to provide history, biography, and genealogy.

TAKING LEAVE (by Wilfred Gierman)

There seems to be a few things indicating I should get out of the field a bit and let someone else do the sweating for a while. On Saturday, November 23, been ill with a stomach disorder and after not feeling well all day, I had Wilbur come over and we decided that to see a doctor then I would have to go to Ionia Hospital emergency.

They took me in for an inspection. A little earlier I’d had a fall from low blood pressure after arising and walking. They put on the blood pressure cuff and for several minutes the cuff inflated and the readings were recorded. Meantime another case was prepared and sent to Blodgett Hospital by aero med by helicopter.

I was taken for x-ray, three of them and finally to a hospital bed for the night. Nurses again did the checking for blood pressure, pulse and temperature and I went off to sleep as my room mate began barking then and at about every half hour, only to report next morning he’d had a wonderful night’s rest. Soon they were back checking and I thought I’d soon be discharged. But, NO. They had to see if I could walk. I proved I could and a discharge was given with the proviso I would be in next morning for an Upper GI x-ray. I came in for that and reported next day to my doctor.

He checked me and gave some pills and prescribed more as well as a four point cane which I tried to get at Meijer pharmacy counter. I spent a half hour and got only a few more pills.

Then came Thanksgiving and Zack York dropped in and brought a Thanksgiving tray of food. Next day I finished it. Next day he came again. I heard him at the door and got up from the davenport to meet him. I got as far as the kitchen door when my legs collapsed and I fell. He got me back to the davenport and I never realized quite what had happened.

He did not like that kind of procedure and called my sister, Pauline. Soon it was off to Blodgett Hospital Emergency with all the checking, x-rays and C A T Scan and a few others before putting me to bed---a matter of some three hours. I was told not to get out of bed unless a nurse was present.

By late Monday my blood pressure had increased enough so I could walk properly without a cane and on Tuesday I was released and Pauline and Bob brought me home. There was a bedside telephone and I could use it when I got all the numbers straight. Sometimes I got places I knew not where but they were charged to my home phone and when I get the bill I’ll find out where I had wrongly dialed.

Now I have an airplane ticket for Bradenton, Florida, where I shall be with my brother, Maurice and Vera, his wife at 603 Park Circle 34207, leaving Lansing on a 7:00 a.m. flight. Grayden Slowins will have at least one page for this slightly late Recollector. I am sure he will do well with it and the February and April Issues also. I am sure he will have good volunteer help in putting these pages together, stapling, punching, stamping and mailing.

In a weird way I know I shall miss the frosty mornings, blustery days and will contrast them with the summery days of Florida.

SEBEWA’S EAST BIPPLEY ROAD CEMETERY

Located as it is on the east side of the Sebewa Creek, it never seemed right for anyone to place a dwelling near it. The Board of Supervisors established it as a Township Cemetery in the early 1850’s. From time to time it grew up to tall grass, weeds and brush. Occasionally someone would make a stir and the township would get it cleaned and fenced. Fences have a way of not being servicible over a long period so occasionally the process was repeated.

Because of its remoteness, it became a natural target of vandals, not once but several times. Vandals seem to like to hear the crack of the vertical slabs that once were popular as markers on burial sites. In various ways these have been repaired so that we do not have a pile of broken markers as can be seen in some old cemeteries.

For the second time this year a group of juveniles arranged a beer party at this inviting place. Care had been taken so that the new fence along the road had a locked gate for vehicles at darkness. A small pedestrian gate is not locked. Earlier this year the new fence had been attacked by a stolen car. When the car was disabled, a second one made a try at it. The fence held although badly damaged. Insurance covered the damage, and repairs were made.

In early October when the beer party occurred, entrance was through the pedestrian gate. Evidently it was a good night for sound to travel. Mrs. VanHouten, living some three quarters of a mile distant, heard the racket and got into her car to explore. She found cars parked at the roadside of the cemetery. She quickly jotted down the license number of one of them.

She returned home and made a call to the Michigan State Police giving them a license number she had seen on that car. When they came to investigate there was a trail of broken bottles, tipped granite markers and again the broken remains of the old vertical markers numbering to just over fifty.

The State Police were able to trace the license number to the car’s owner and soon to the driver. Further intense questioning brought out the names of the people involved and who had done the destructive work. All were juveniles and justice protects their names. Not even this much has had an airing in local papers or the media.

Parents of the parties involved have agreed to pay for the damages.

The Township hired Steve Yenchar and helper of The Lowell Granite Company to reset the tipped stones and to repair the broken ones and that job has been done and the insurance company absolved from their loss.

Once again present a neat appearance.

SEBEWA TOWNSHIP SETTLED IN 1838, ORGANIZED IN 1845 by Grayden D. Slowins, Sebewa Township Clerk:
INVENTORY OF MONUMENTS DAMAGED IN EAST SEBEWA CEMETERY:

William Rosevere, Jerry Hummel, Adelbert Northrop, Thomas Gibbs, Hans Arnesen, Frank Cassel, Roger Davenport – plus 2 large urns, Irving Brown, Jacob Sayer, Elmer Showerman, James Cassel, Clarabell Smith, Ralph Cross – no stone 1 large urn, LaVern Erdman, Leonard Cross, Temperance Travis, William Heintzelman, Elijah Braley, Oscar Dravenstatt, George Edgar Halladay, Elihu Halladay, Abel C. Halladay, Apollos Halladay, John Friend, Ben Probasco, Sr., Alonzo Evans, Mortimer Trim, Henry Halladay, James Porter, Francis Weld, Albert Weld, Emma Weld, James Reeder, William O. Reeder, Lorence Lumbert, Caroline Gunn, Elias Stambaugh, John Franks, Allinda Reeder, Lilleous White, Nathaniel Buell, Charles Deatsman, Elizabeth Smith, J. Clark Haskins, Jacob Luscher, Walter Luscher, Nancy Hollenbach.

PHOTO of the following people: “Here is the bus driver crew of ALASKA BOUND Author Virginia Ingram, mother of Marilyn Disch, Kathy Adams, Gladys Mitchell, Beverly Quantrell and Gerrit Douma, the leader.”

ALASKA BOUND Conclusion by Virginia Ingram:

We arrived at Liard River Lodge, Mile 498 Alcan Highway. We went to our rooms, ate dinner (had a nice meal). Marilyn, Kathy and Gerrit went swimming at the hot spring Chalet. Gladys rode along. They drove the bus to get there and had to walk about a quarter of a mile. It was raining very hard. Bev and I were very tired so we stayed behind to get ready for morning. I caught up on my diary and rested my swollen feet from the long ride. At this lodge, there was no electricity and the phones were on party lines. Generators were used for lights, etc. On the way back from the springs Kathy stopped to get a roll of film. I understand she had a proposal of marriage while there. How about that!!!

Saturday, June 30, 1990 – We were up at 4:30, had breakfast on the road at 6:30 a.m. Figure we will be in Fairbanks around noon on Monday. This morning we traveled mostly gravel roads. At one point we had to stop for 29 minutes while they worked on the road, huge road equipment everywhere. We talked to some people in the restaurant who said we’d have a muddy road to travel. Lo and behold the roads were great – neither muddy nor dusty. The rain has soaked into the ground. While we were waiting to move on we all got out and visited with people in line. Marilyn and I talked to a young man who had been in the restaurant that morning. He was on his way to a job for the State of Alaska as a helicopter pilot. He had been in two enlistments for the Vietnam war. He had all of his belongings with him, including a pair of cockatoos he had gotten in Louisiana. We were finally escorted through the roughest part of the road. A stone hit Marilyn’s windshield.

We entered the Yukon at 10:15 a.m. and saw three colored fox, a “cross fox”. Our road signs are not in miles, not kilometers. We had a good lunch at Junction Service Café. Kathy used the men’s restroom by mistake.

We stopped at Gearge’s Gorge. Marilyn had a chance to do some rock hunting. Kathy found a beautiful white stone for her. Even Gerrit found some. However they weren’t as large as the others.

There is one thing I would like to mention. The two-lane highways, where possible had an added lane on the right hand side to allow the slow moving traffic to move over and let the faster moving traffic pass by – much like our hill passing zones. I must say the buses held up very little traffic – unless we were stuck behind RVs.

At Teslin Gas Fill I treated most of the group to ice cream. Because Bev’s stomach was upset, she had a sandwich. Lake Teslin is very beautiful. It runs along the highway for 30 miles. We finally found the field of deep yellow grain – Canola – a non-cholesteral grain grown in Canada, which is used for a vegetable oil.

We arrived at Whitehorse at 8:30 p.m. We went to our motel and found the cost about $20.00 more for each room than we expected. Marilyn and Gerrit tried to get it reduced; but to no avail. The rooms were not the best, no fans, no screens and no air conditioning. However, they were very neat and clean. We ate at a very nice restaurant, a super waitress/hostess. Most of us had their delicious chicken.

We noticed the sketched placemats and were discussing them while we waited for our meal. After dinner the hostess came over and said she wanted us to meet someone – the fellow who sketched the placemats and pictures on the wall. He was a very interesting person and he autographed a placemat for each of us. We had thought of going to the “Follies” after eating but it was too late. We walked around Whitehorse and enjoyed the museum (outside) artifacts including a steam train, train tracks and depot used during gold rush days. Whitehorse sets in a beautiful valley.

Sunday, July 1, 1990 – We had our usual coffee and left Whitehorse at 7:15 a.m. We enjoyed the beautiful snow capped mountains for miles and ice-filled ranges. Some lakes along the road were muddy looking. I understand that’s glacial water. Other lakes and streams were clear as crystal. We saw some dry river beds along the route, having dried up after spring water rush from melting snow from the mountains.

We had breakfast at Hines Junction at “Mother’s Cozy Kitchen”. A waitress there told us about the rough road ahead that she and a friend had traveled a couple of weeks before. Of course it was being worked on. While at Haines Junction we visited their museum which had seismographs measuring earthquake tremors. They also had a miniature scale model of the area.

Gerrit then stopped at Kulane National Park at Sheep Mountain. The park has 8500 square miles. Dall sheep, grizzly bears and mountain-goats are protected, as well as the flora – beautiful plants and flowers. I met some very nice people – three park attendants, a young lady and man and an older lady. This being the first of July they were celebrating their Independence Day and were serving cakes to visitors. I had the honor of being served the first piece and also having them sing their national anthem to me. I enjoyed that very much.

This was their 133 birthday. The young man set the telescope for me so I could look at what seemed to be a dall sheep, at this time of year they are usually on the other side, staying out of the heat and looking for greener pastures. The rest of the group, except for Bev and me, had gone up the mountain. I was unable to climb, so enjoyed myself talking to people and watching the others climb. Gerrit and Gladys reached the top. Marilyn had not gone that far. Kathy was about 25 minutes into the climb and looked down and saw a fresh bear track (she snapped a picture and left the scene and yelled at Marilyn to wait for her). The 25 minute climb became a five minute return trop. No one saw the bear; but Kathy got a beautiful paw picture. This was one of the most enjoyable and beautiful stops. Gladys snapped a post card picture from the mountain top of the lake and mountain across from the park.

We entered Alaska at 4:30 – in the USA once again. My hat off to Canada – a beautiful country and some of the most courteous people I’ve ever met.

Today we went through hail, rain and snow. No problems at customs, just laughed when I said I was along for the ride. Arrived at “Tok” at 6:30, our projected destination. Our lodgings were at “Fast Freddie’s Motel”. We also ate at Fast Freddie’s. We shopped at a little gift shop there. I packed some of my clothes in my sleeping bag for our trip home.

Monday, July 2, 1990 – We had breakfast, fueled and I paid Gerrit for my lodging. Only 205 miles to Fairbanks – last leg of our trip. At 9:00 a.m. we arrived at Delta Junction, the end of the Alcan Highway. We took pictures and shopped for gifts at a nice little center. We drove a short way and stopped at the pipeline at Tanana River. At that point we were under surveillance. A man attending a roadside gift stand I am sure was a government employee, his wife was on surveillance. He was very interesting – had a big Husky dog. The pipeline crosses 800 miles and 800 bridges. The Tanana River Bridge is the longest in Alaska.

Approximately half of the pipeline is above ground, built to withstand earthquakes and high winds. It cost a billion dollars to build and runs from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.

Our next stop was the world famous “Santa Claus House” North Pole Alaska. A very nice place to shop if you have MEGA BUCKS. A large statue of Santa greets you as you enter the building. Here is where children’s letters are received from all over the world. The street you leave the building on is called Badger Lane! Marilyn’s road name back in Michigan back of our farm.
We arrived in Fairbanks at 2:40 – found our bus terminal – Gerrit got his paperwork done at the office. He arranged to keep one bus so we would have transportation until we boarded the train the next day. The girls parked their buses and transferred all baggage to one bus. Of course the last pictures of the girls and their buses were taken. We drove to the Captain Bartlett Inn where our reservations for the night were – our most expensive of the trip at $105.00 each in the huge place – three floors. Bev and I got turned around and were lost for a few minutes. The rest had gone on to the bus. Finally we found the right exit, of course everyone was waiting for us.

Gerrit took us to a salmon bake for dinner – outdoor, serve yourself, all you can eat. Salmon, halibut and beef ribs plus all kinds of salads, rolls, beverages and dessert. Very good. The rest of the group toured the park and gift shops. I was tired, so returned to the bus. Gerrit brought me a dish of ice cream. After everyone returned to the bus, we drove to the Information Center, a nice park. The Information Center, of course, was closed. The park had a beautiful waterfall and a huge statue of an Eskimo family, in bronze. All around the sides were plaques of the history of Fairbanks.

Since Russian missionaries had been sent there to convert the native people to Christianity, many priests were named. A very few non-Catholic churches were listed. I did find a Star Chapter. I did not see a Masonic Lodge listed but know there must have been one somewhere or there would not have been a Star Chapter. There were many first settlers and organizations. There were far too many plaques for me to read them all. There were nice benches where you could sit and enjoy the peace and quiet of the waterfall. We returned to the Inn and got a fair night’s sleep as that would be our last until we arrived home.

Tuesday, July 3, 1990 – We arose at 5:00 a.m. and went through our usual morning routine – sitting on suitcases to get them closed. We got a baggage cart for our luggage. We all went down the elevator together. Bev and I stuck close since we had a train to catch – our last ride before the train. We ate breakfast at Denny’s and then on to the train station. It took a large 8x8x4 cart to get all our luggage in. Gerrit got the girls’ tickets. I got my own, used my visa card. Gerrit then left us and went to take care of his business and deliver his last bus. He flew down to Anchorage and met us at the airport.

We girls, using the term loosely, since I’m 70 and the others are 33-55. Oh well, it describes us quite well since “we girls” have set a great pace the last few days with our fearless leader at the helm. We left Fairbanks at 8:30 a.m. and for the next 12 hours had a most relaxing train ride. Our tour guide was a very interesting young lady, Kem Hane.

The Engineer saw a moose and called so our guide, Kem, could point it out to us. At that point she told us that the first person spotting a moose would get a pin from the train. Guess who got the pin? “Marilyn”. She watched very intently for about an hour and a half and saw a mother moose and her baby. We all saw them. So the pin was her’s. I think all of the girls enjoyed the young lady, as she spent a lot of time talking with us of interesting topics. She pointed out on one short stop (we may have been picking up passengers) a square white building – one of the first hotels where President Warren G. and Mrs. Harding stayed in 1923 for a few days.

Anyway, the story goes, that he died three days after returning home. You may take your pick of three stories. His wife may have poisoned him for womanizing. He may have gotten food poisoning or died a natural death.

We went through tunnels, over breathtaking gorges and saw small air strips along the way. While we were eating lunch in the dining car, we watched raters on the river – three boat loads – many small towns and villages near the tracks or we went through them. Off in the distance we could see Mount McKinley, the highest mountain peak in North America. Beaver dams dotted the landscape. They say salmon come out of the mucky glacial rivers and go up the clear blue water to spawn.

After six hours into the trip we came to a train coming up from Anchorage. Both trains stopped at the siding. Our young lady guide changed here and went back to Fairbanks and a young man from Anchorage, Todd Schaeffer, would be our entertaining guide for the next six hours. I might add he was very good also. He pointed out several interesting sights along the way. We were still in the beautiful Rockies. In Alaska at this time of year there is only about ¾ hour of darkness. However, daylight didn’t interrupt our sleep the night before. On the 21st of June there is about ½ hour of darkness, occurring around 3:00 a.m. At Hurricane Gulch we crossed a 918 foot bridge. At one point Kathy made a remark and Gladys said she was having one of her “dumb attacks”.

Much of the conversation centered around Kathy and Todd. The question of age came up. Todd is a senior this fall and 17 years old. He said he had to study three hours a day for 10 weeks to prepare himself and qualify for being a guide on the train. Kathy remarked about her 15 year old twins. That was difficult for him to believe---33 years old. It really blew his bubble. He thought she was in her early twenties. If I remember right, he suggested she might grow up. She sure kept things up beat. (We all love her.) The train stopped for a few minutes at Wacilla, the largest growing city in Alaska. With shopping malls, it is a bustling little city. Alaska’s main industries are oil, tourism and fishing.

About six miles north of Anchorage we passed the largest air force base in North America – Elmendorf. Top defense between Alaska and Russia in the second World War. It was the Civil Air Patrol. We also passed the Army’s Fort Richardson.
Anchorage now has about half the state’s population – 400,000. At the beginning of the building of the Alaska Railroad a tent city was set up for about 2,000 workers. It was first named Woodrow, Ship-Creek, Ship-Creek Landing and Anchorage. Anchorage has the largest port in Alaska.

We arrived on schedule. Gerrit had given Gladys money to transport us to the airport. So while she hailed a cab the rest of the girls carried our luggage to the curb. Todd had given us some advice before we left the train. She finally was able to flag a taxi down. In the meantime our thoughtful guide had appeared on the scene to see that we got off okay. (People are great wherever you go).

You couldn’t believe our taxi driver. He had a big old car. We didn’t believe he could possibly get all of the luggage and us in it; but he did. The trunk was bulging, had to tie it down with straps. We kept saying we don’t think you can do it. He kept saying “I’ve done it before”. Well, he did! With about a three foot gap. I could see it all flying out in the street somewhere along the route.

He then stuffed us all in the vehicle for a ten mile ride to the airport. He only charged $12.00 so Gladys tipped him. A porter “white”, very nice man came out and got our luggage and piled it in front of the Morris Airline counter. I gave him a $5.00 tip. As we were going into the terminal, we could see our friend and Fearless Leader there waiting for us. It was good to see him once again. He was “our security blanket” so to speak. He gave each of us our tickets, including me. I reimbursed him upon returning home. We got to the airport somewhere around 8:30 and didn’t leave until 1:30 a.m. on the 4th of July. No one came to the ticket counter until around 10:30 so in the meantime I went to the cafeteria. Kathy and I had dinner with Bev joining us. I went to the ladies’ lounge and tried to catch a wink or two. I figured I had about three hours to rest my feet and legs. The others took turns watching the luggage and shopping or eating until the ticket taker came.

They checked on me occasionally. I ask you, did you ever try to sleep between 1500 flushes, dressing or changing clothes and putting makeup on? I did talk to a very interesting lady from Australia who had traveled extensively.

I asked her which country she liked the best. Without hesitation she replied – “My own”. A good answer. I think most of us feel that way. A couple of the young ladies did stop and asked if I was okay. Of course, I told them I was just resting. It is nice to know there are concerned persons wherever you go.

Finally we were on the plane (Morris Airlines) to Seattle – to catch US Airlines. When we arrived there, Bev and I went to the rest room and once again were separated from the others. We found the US Air ticket counter and sat down to wait. None of our group was there. We thought “oh, well, they would have to show sometime” and decided to stay put. We must have sat there at least half an hour when I was paged. I went to the airline counter and they told me to pick up the phone in the lobby. I did. No one was there. Anyway, I was getting a little upset and glanced up to see Marilyn frantically looking for us. They had gone to the boarding ramp section in another area of the terminal. For the second time in the last two days Bev and I were with our group.

The girls had called ahead and had a wheelchair waiting for me at the Pittsburgh terminal. I was really grateful for their concern and appreciated their thoughtfulness. I don’t think I could have made another trek through a huge terminal. A car came along and picked up Marilyn and I and four others and drove us to our departure station. It was a four hour trip from Seattle to Pittsburgh. I don’t remember how long we had to wait at either city, but we passed over Charlotte on our way to Pittsburgh.

From Pittsburgh to Dayton was only 45 minutes. From Dayton to Lansing was only 35 minutes. I had told the girls “Please don’t get a wheelchair for me at Lansing”. It would scare Bill to death. Of course at our little airport I didn’t really need one.

HOME---There stood Bill, John Sr., Kathy’s Tom and baby Matt. I don’t remember who was waiting for the others. However, I saw Bev walking with her family and Gerrit shaking our hands at the luggage carrier. Believe it or not, all our luggage arrived safe and sound.

I think I was a little rocky. Not having slept from 5 a.m. July 3 to 10:30 p.m. July 4th. It sure was good to see Bill and relate to him the wonderful experience I just had. I had unwound and, exhausted, slept until afternoon on July 5th. Yes, I would do it again!

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of the Sebewa Center Association,
FEBRUARY 1991, Volume 26, Number 4. Submitted with written permission of Editor, Grayden D. Slowins:


SURNAMES: HATHAWAY, WELCH, SHOTWELL, THRASHER, FARRELL, HAMPTON, ELDRIDGE, FROST, KARRAR, STAMBAUGH, INGALL, GREENMAN, PATRICK, BLOSSER, GOOD, WENGER, PATRICK, STUART, GRABIEL, WINGER, ENGLISH, WHITE, TALLANT, WILLIAMS, FREEMAN, WALKER, TIDD

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD:
Marian S. Hathaway, 93, daughter of Freeman & Sara Welch Shotwell, widow of Alfred Hathaway, mother of Mary Thrasher, historian.

Ray D. Farrell, 101, son of Dennis & Amy Hampton Farrell, husband of Hattie Eldridge, father of Alta Mae Frost, raised in Sec. 6, logger at Seney, U.P., farmed in Sec. 34 Sebewa, later in Sec. 30 Odessa, his mother Amy & sister Nina Mae are buried in West Cemetery.

Marjorie A. Karrar, 54, daughter of Leon & O. Virginia Stambaugh Karrar, granddaughter of John F. & Greta B. Ingall Stambaugh, great-granddaughter of John H. & Sarah Jemina Greenman Stambaugh and William Ingall, great-great-granddaughter of Sheldon Greenman.

Eunice N. Patrick, 84, daughter of Aaron W. & Salome Blosser Good, granddaughter of Martin & Susanna Wenger Good, husband of James Patrick, great-aunt to Dr. Lee Stuart, and cousin to thousands of us who are descended from Christian & Eve Grabiel Wenger (Winger), who emigrated from Wengen & Eggiwil; Canton of Bern, Switzerland, in 1727. Teacher West Sebewa.

EARLY HISTORY OF BOSTON TOWNSHIP, Compiled by Grayden Slowins from HISTORY OF IONIA COUNTY by J. S. Schenck

The first permanent settlement in the township was that portion known as South Boston, and, as the first settler was named English, the neighborhood was first called English Settlement. In the Spring of 1836 Worcester English, Timothy White, James M. Tallant, and Jesse Williams came west from Tunbridge, Vermont, and stopped at Kalamazoo with their families. They looked around, and deciding to settle in the township now known as Boston, they made entry in the summer of 1836 at the Land Office in White Pigeon. They rolled up a log cabin in SW ¼ Sec. 21, where English had made his land entry, and in January, 1837, he and his family became the first settlers. This farm is now owned by the Robert & William Keitzman family.

Next came the Timothy White family, in March, 1837, to E ½ SW ¼ & W ½ SE ¼ Sec. 20. This farm is still in the same family, 155 years after entry, and is owned by the J. Fred Cahoon family. The frame house is sometimes called the James K. Cahoon house, because during its construction in 1844-1845, Timothy White or a helper climbed to the ridge-row and shouted “Three Cheers for James K. Polk” when word of the election of this Democrat several weeks before finally reached the wilderness settlement. For a time Timothy White maintained a place where wayfarers could be fed and lodged overnight, and it was called White’s Tavern.

The James Tallant & Jesse Williams families came in May, 1837. Tallant had W ¾ NW ¼ Sec. 29, and Williams had the next 60 east. The Williams farm became the John Freeman farm and is now owned by Harvey Metternick. James Tallant, Jesse Williams, and Worcester English were married to sisters of Timothy White, so property lines got shifted somewhat as succeeding generations inherited and divided them. The buildings and east 60 acres of the Tallant farm passed to Clarisa Mae & George Walker, and reached Centennial status in the hands of the Walker daughters, Susie Raymond & sister. It is part of the Metternick farm, too, now. The west 60 acres of the Tallant farm passed to the Eva & Guy Perry family and eventually became part of the Perry & Frank Freeman farm located in NE ¼ Sec. 30, under the ownership of Clare Alderink. Recently this became the Robert Roth farm and is out of the family too.

I was born on the Frank Freeman farm and lived the next two years on the Mae Walker farm. Recently I built a bookcase from a walnut board cut in the woods on the Eva Perry 60 acres of the James M. Tallant farm the winter of my birth in 1931-1932.

GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
In the G. A. R. story in this issue, many of the members of the Sunfield Post were Sebewa residents. Some people believe they organized first in Sebewa, at the I. O. O. F. Hall (Independent Order of Oddfellows) on Lots 1 & 2, Block 1, John Friend’s Addition to the Plat of Sebewa. But research has not uncovered any written proof of a Post at Sebewa.

Perhaps they began at Sebewa and moved or merged with Sunfield after the railroad came thru in 1886-1887. Or maybe only the IDEA of a Post originated in Sebewa.

But at any rate, Commander Thomas Leak, Charles O. Hiar, Lyman Peck, Dr. George W. Snyder, Lt. George W. Lusk, John Bradley, Conrad Peabody, and others mentioned were Sebewa soldiers and most are buried here.

In fact we have 41 graves of Civil War Vets in the East & West Sebewa Cemeteries, and they would have made a formidable Company in war or peace.

Their names are as follows:
Heman S. Brown 1838-1923
Lucian J. Heaton 1808-1893
Jacob W. Evans 1844-1919
George Trumpower
No Headstone
Irving A. Brown 1847-1916
Oren W. Daniels 1838-1921
Rollin Derby 1844-1918
Henry Rodegeb 1839-1908
Willam Pettingill 1837-1912
Josias C. Clark 1826-1918
Jacob Showerman 1804-1875
David W. Goddard 1831-
Jonah Carpenter 1817-1911
Hanson Evans 1833-1904
George W. Snyder, MD 1845-1927
Stephen York 1852-1917
Samuel Bigham No Headstone
Hosea Bates 1833-1901
Charles O. Hiar 1850-1905
Elkanah Carpenter1819-1908
Nathaniel N. Tidd 1843-1928
John S. Marshall Peabody 1841-19?5
John R. Petrie No Headstone
 John S. Henry 1844-1888
Charles Deatsman 1830-1903
Stephen Everest 1835-1900
Charles A. Nichols 1848-1903
George Baldwin 1834-1894
George E. Friend 1846-1923
Stephen V. Ryder 1829-1880
John P. Franks 1843-1871
Alonzo N. Evans 1844-1931
J. H. McClelland 1832-1902
John Cross 1841-1898
Orlando V. Showerman 1838-1919
Allan B. Lippencott 1841-1898
John M. Bradley 1849-1934
William H. Southworth 66th Ill. Inf.
A. J. Olmstead 185th NY. Inf.
George W. Lusk 66th Ill. Inf.

WITH PHOTO TAKEN IN G. A. R. HALL: Jim Park, son of Douglas Park, incoming commander of the Curtenius Post, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, stands next to one of the members’ chairs inside the hall. This chair belonged to Charles Hiar, a veteran of Company E, 6th Michigan Cavalry Regiment, who died in 1905. The 6th Michigan Cavalry was commanded by General James H. Kidd, former editor-publisher of THE IONIA SENTINEL.

CHARLES O. HIAR (HIER), 1850-1905, lived near Sebewa Creek in NW w/r SW ¼ Sec. 30 Danby, on the farm later owned by Gerritt VanPolen and now owned by John Sandborn. He was married twice, to Mary E. and Annas M., and raised six children; Ralph, Will, Clyde, Harold, George, and Opal. The children attended Halladay School. Charles, Mary, Annas, Harold, and others are buried in East Sebewa Cemetery.

THE SUNFIELD G. A. R. HALL by R. C. Gregory, Editor, Ionia Sentinel-Standard

SUNFIELD – This campaign is against time and the elements, not the Rebs.

The Sunfield G. A. R. Hall, the only Grand Army of the Republic Hall in Michigan still in use, has stood on Main Street since it was built in 1899. The Union veterans who built the hall have long since faded away, but the hall is decorated and furnished with memorabilia they bequeathed to their successors.

Those successors, members of Curtenius Guard Camp No. 17, Michigan Department, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, are struggling to restore and preserve the hall. The Sons’ problem is money. They’ve discovered in restoring the hall that one thing leads to another – and each thing costs money.

But the hall itself, its story, what both represent, and their own interest keep the Sons slogging along their campaign trail.
SAMUEL W. GRINNELL Post No. 283, G. A. R., was chartered Oct. 6, 1884, and local receipt of the charter and formal installation took place on Oct. 30. Grinnell, for whom the post was named, was a Sunfield Union veteran who had been a prisoner of war at Libby Prison, in Richmond, Virginia, who, nearly starved and ill, walked to Washington, D. C., after his release. His health was impaired thereafter and he died shortly before the post was formed. His fellow ex-veterans gave his name to the post when it was chartered.

For the first few years of Grinnell Post’s existence, the then middle-aged veterans meet at the houses of members or in the hall “above the blacksmith shop”. But they wanted their own building.

In December, 1898, a post member, Ransler Peling, provided $25 for the purchase of Lots Nos. 7 and 8, in Block 7, of the Sunfield plat. Post Commander Thomas Leak announced plans for construction of a post home and D. W. Litchfield, Conrad Peabody and Lyman Peck were named a building committee to oversee construction.

Some evidence suggests that at that time Lots 7 and 8 and land to the west along Sunfield’s Main Street was still heavily wooded. The land provided timber for building.

The minute books indicate that the Women’s Relief Corps (WRC), the auxiliary of the G. A. R., started serving meals – at 20 cents each – and holding ice cream socials to add funds to the building and furnishing fund.

With some lumber cut from the post’s own lots and additional lumber donated by Clark Richards – he served on the federal gunboat Manhattan – the post began construction in the spring of 1899. They worked through the summer and completed the hall in time to dedicate it on October 30, 1899, always observed as the post anniversary.

In the meantime, WRC members continued to raise money. The corps provided the hall with a set of dishes. WRC members also wove the carpet for the new hall. The post had its own home. It cost $836 and was valued at $1,660.

The building is a plain 20 feet by 40 feet frame gable structure, not unlike hundreds of school houses and churches. It has a 14-feet high ceiling. The front entrance opens on a short hall, with the kitchen on the left (east). At the southeast corner, there is a rear door, and across the remainder of the south end of the building, a raised platform, a feature also found in many school houses and churches.

The false front of the building – with the year and the initials G. A. R. – conceals the simplicity of the hall itself, and no doubt was installed to help the building harmonize with other buildings along the street. The false front made the building “look like downtown”. Now it remains one of the best preserved “store buildings” of its era in this area of Michigan, and would deserve restoration for that reason along. That it is a G. A. R. adds another reason for restoration.

Restoration has been slow and painstaking. As one member said “We’ve done a lot of work, spent most of our money, and it’s all been on things that don’t show”.

Working mostly on weekends, post members, led by James Pahl, post commander this year, James Lyons, former post commander, and Douglas Park, incoming post commander, phase one involved work on the floor.

Some floor joists were known to be in bad condition. In all, working in the crawl space, 14 floor joists were replaced. The north ten feet of the main central beam required bracing with wood supports. After that, flooring in the hall and kitchen were replaced.
Then came the false front. “The cap of the false front”, Lyons said “is pressed metal. We found that the top of the deck of the original cap had rusted away. It was leaking badly.”

“So we had to remove the pediment and the flange attaching it, and make repairs. We now have two-inch angle iron securing the deck. When we opened up the deck, we found there wasn’t much inside. The cantilever system had rotted away. So we built a new deck and replaced the cap, or cover, with one piece of heavy aluminum and secured it with angle iron.
Then we replaced the top of clapboard siding on the front.

In everything we’ve done, we took meticulous measurements, and we matched everything we put back on just as meticulously. It’s very hard to tell we did what we did.”

Additional summer work included replacing clapboard siding on the south end of the building. Lyons noted “The original clapboard wasn’t all the same width and it would have been easier to replace it with uniform clapboard. But we didn’t. We took very careful measurements and put back a perfect match for what had to be replaced.

And then the building had not been painted in 10 years or more. We had money enough to do that—and made extensive preparations before we painted. I can’t tell you how much scraping and cleaning we did before painting, but it was a lot.
I even managed to free up some of the windows that, over the years, had been painted shut.

Basically, what we’ve don up to this point is make the building weather-tight and improve its appearance.”
The Sons have plans for the next major job – which is restoring the interior – and no money. “I think right now we have about $16” Parks said.

On the interior, several layers of wallpaper have begun to peel. Lyons, Parks and Pahl would like to remove it to the plaster. “We’d like to repair the plaster – it clearly needs it in some places – and then repaper in what was first used, or as near to it as we can find”, Lyons said.

“We could take a short cut and just paint it after we repair the plaster but that wouldn’t be as nearly correct. We want to match the vintage wall-paper. Work has to be done on the floors, woodwork, windows, and kitchen. The whole inside, really”, he said.
He, Parks and Pahl estimate the work they want to do will cost between $1,500 and $2,000. While they would like to begin the interior work next spring, they have to raise the money first.

Meanwhile, the Helen M. Edwins Tent No. 30, Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, are the senior group interested in the hall’s preservation. They, as the Sons quickly acknowledge, are the group that has kept the building intact, have maintained it, and have begun cataloguing the records and memorabilia.

“The Daughters have been very important” Parks said, “because until the last few years when the Sons came on the scene, they had been responsible for hall. They’ve held bake sales and many other fund raisers to keep the hall intact.

And after we started working on the building, they provided cool meals in hot weather and vice versa. Let there be no mistake about their role. We can’t thank Ruth Forshey and her daughter, Sheila Van Vleck, enough.”

Visitors who drive to see the building may find enough to pause for a few minutes and look around.
A large honor roll, listing Sunfield area residents who served in World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam stands in front of the building, as does a State Historical Marker.

The state marker was granted and dedicated on Decoration Day 1987.
It’s inscription says:
G. A. R. Hall – The Samuel W. Grinnell Post No. 283 was granted its charter by the Grand Army of the Republic (G. A. R.) on October 6, 1884. The post operated until 1934, at which time it was disbanded. Members built this hall in 1898-99. Dedicated in October 1899, it contains flags, medals, photographs and other momentos of the Civil War and of the Sunfield veterans of that war. Furniture, ritual equipment and records of this G. A. R. post are also kept here. In 1899 members planted and dedicated the three maple trees at the front of the property, dedicating them to the memory of Generals Grant, Sheridan and Sherman. The two cannon on either side of the hall were brought to Sunfield by the G. A. R. in 1900.

Now the Sons want to have the hall listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The cannon are Spanish in origin. “The minute books say the cannon were supposed to be here when the hall was dedicated in 1899” Lyons said. “They were available in California and the federal government offered them to the post, if the post would pay the freight”.

One cannon weighs 8,465 pounds and fired a 42-pound shot. The other cannon weighs 7,200 pounds and fired a 32-pound shot. The government also agreed to send nine cannon balls with the cannon but only six were received. The freight proved to be a considerable amount of money.

THE PORTLAND OBSERVER wrote, as quoted in THE IONIA SENTINEL of Oct. 25, 1899:
“The Grand Army Post at Sunfield thought it would be nice to have a couple of cannon which Dewey captured at Manila in their village. As they could have them by paying freight from San Francisco, to which point the government delivered them, they ordered them sent on. They received notice the other day that they were at Lansing – and they were glad. But when they knew the amount of freight charges they were sad – the figure was $303. The guns weigh 17,000 pounds.”

The freight bill was more than one-third the cost of the hall itself. And the cannon may have languished in a freight yard for some months. But the post wanted the cannon and raised $173, although how quickly is not indicated. Perhaps the railroad would wait only so long for its money. At any rate, Clark Richards, instrumental in building the hall, lent the post $130 for the rest of freight charges and took a note. Bases for the cannon cost another $80.

With the freight costs and installation costs, the cannon were not installed and dedicated until Oct. 30, 1900 – a full year after the dedication of the hall. Regrettably, how the cannon were moved into place is not recorded.
A claim against the railroad was entered for the three missing cannon balls – but the post minute book indicates the cannon balls were never located and the claim was never settled. Perhaps railroad officials were heartily tired of Sunfield’s cannons. In due time, the Post paid the note and burned it.

Not less interesting are “Grant”, “Sherman” and “Sheridan”. Those are the three hard maple trees in front of the hall, between the sidewalk and the building. The trees were planted as whips when the post was dedicated and each has its own marker, flush with the ground. The trees keep green the names of three great Union generals.

Inside the walls are crowded with pictures, medals, charters, and other memorabilia. Perhaps the most touching items, though, are the chairs. Each of the charter members of Grinnel Post had a straight chair and subsequent members acquired chairs as they joined, although the chairs are not all alike.

And according to minute books, each veteran painted his name on the back of his chair. Three chairs bear the names of men who served in the Sixth Michigan Cavalry.
One chair says: Chas. Hier, Co. E, 6.Mich.Cav. Died, July 6, 1905.
In August of 1862, a 22-year-old Ionian, James Harvey Kidd, recruited 102 men, mostly from in and around Ionia County. They were sworn into federal service Sept. 13, 1862, as Company E, Sixth Michigan Cavalry, with James H. Kidd as their captain commanding.

The 6th Michigan Cavalry, along with the 1st, 5th and 7th Michigan Cavalry Regiments, make up the Michigan Cavalry Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer. In time, Captain Kidd became Major Kidd and then Colonel Kidd – and when Custer received a second star and a division to command, Col. Kidd, later General Kidd, commanded the brigade.
Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War was officially designated by the G. A. R. as its successor organization. The first camp was organized in Sunfield on May 22, 1918. But that camp was disbanded in 1934.

Meanwhile, in 1926, the Helen M. Edwards camp of the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War was chartered in 1926 and continued the use of the hall.

On June 11, 1983, the current camp, SUVCW was chartered and named for Albert Curtenius of Kalamazoo. A veteran of the Mexican War, he served in Co. B of the 7th Michigan Infantry and later was adjutant general of Michigan. Curtenius’s father had been a brigadier general during the War of 1812 and his grandfather served during the Revolutionary War.

The Curtenius Camp, with members from Sunfield area and east to Lansing meets the last Tuesday of January, March, July, September and November; in May it meets on May 30, the date of Memorial Day. Membership is open to male descendants, in either direct or collateral lines, of soldiers and sailors who served between 1861 and 1865.

Founded in 1881, SUVCW was charged by the G. A. R. with maintaining its memory and monuments. Curtenius camp is one of eight camps in the Michigan Department. In addition to work on the Sunfield G. A. R. Hall, members are actively engaged in identifying, locating and making accessible G. A. R. records, in conducting a state survey of all Union veterans’ graves in Michigan.

Lyons, long active in Curtenius camp, has been state commander and currently is serving as national secretary.
“In 1966 we will hold the national encampment in Indianapolis” he said. The G. A. R. was founded April 6, 1866, so this will be the 125th anniversary of the founding of our parent organization. Indianapolis was also the site of the last G. A. R. encampment in 1949, when 12 surviving Civil War veterans were able to meet” he said.

But the immediate battles for the Sons in their campaign are continuing restoration of the hall, of cataloguing and protecting records and archives. And of encouraging new members to help fight the campaign.
“Some people say to us that we’re not veterans of the Civil War, which is true. But we are the successors of the veterans of the Civil War – and not only is that still the bloodiest war this country has fought, most historians agree it was the Civil War that made us the nation we became, the people we are.

The Civil War is important historically – and that comes right down to the Sunfield G. A. R. Hall. That’s why we’re going to keep plugging away, fighting our campaign, even if, to paraphrase General Grant, it takes us several summers” Parks said. “We are in this for the duration.”

For information about Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, call or write Douglas Parks, 404 Kenway Drive, Lansing, Mich. 48917, (517) 321-6768; or James T. Lyons, 411 Bartlett Street, Lansing, Mich. 48915, (517) 482-9360; or James B. Pahl, P. O. Box 214, Sunfield, Mich. 48890, (517) 566-8037.
For information about Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, call or write Sheila Van Vleck, 8227 Grand Ledge Highway, Sunfield, Mich. 48890, (517) 566-8730, or Ruth Forshey, 67 Grand Ledge Highway, Sunfield, Mich. 48890, (517) 566-8428.
____December 1990, IONIA SENTINEL STANDARD, 114 North Depot Street, Ionia, Michigan 48846 (616)527-2100.

NATHANIEL NEWTON TIDD: Part I by Michele L. Kristin
“There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.//A time to be born, and time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.// A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build,//A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.//A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.//A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.//A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak.//A time to love and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. Ecclesiastes 3, 1-8”

I decided to start my story with this passage as a tribute to my maternal great-great grandfather Nathaniel Newton Tidd because I would like to think that since he was a circuit preacher he would have appreciated an opening that is concerned with the purpose and value of human life.

Before I began my research for this article, my information about this family ancestor was a mix of fragmented family folklore and few documented sources. Although my search is still far from over, I thought the readers might like to know the story of this man because many facets of his life embody the essence of what it was like to live in Michigan during the later half of the nineteenth century. Also, perhaps, one of the readers might be able to direct me to other descendents of this man.

Also, time is an appropriate theme because my search for this man covers a span of 148 years from his birth in Roundhead Township, Hardin County, Ohio in 1843 to the present. He is buried in SEBEWA TOWNSHIP, IONIA COUNTY, MICHIGAN next to his second wife Nancy Elizabeth Smith Tidd, and a son by his first wife, Margaret A. Peoples Tidd. I am a descendent of Nathaniel and his first wife through their eldest son (my great-grandfather), Elmer Eli Tidd.

Fragments of family oral history, faded microfilms, incomplete or missing records form an image of man that are like an old sepia toned photograph. He was a student, a bible teacher, a civil war soldier, the first of my direct maternal family to settle in Michigan, a father, a farmer, a circuit preacher, and a pensioner.

But who was he really? His commitment to his calling as a minister perhaps is the reason why he moved several times in Michigan—to Mecosta County, and to Eagle and Riley Townships in Clinton County. And now, for a reason as yet undiscovered, he is buried in Ionia County. As we travel through Michigan in my story, perhaps, the pieces of Nathaniel’s eventful life will fall into place.

This is the first part of Nathaniel’s story because although I am not related to his second wife, Nancy, she plays an important role in my family history. She was loved by my great grandfather and grandfather. This first article covers the span to Nathaniel’s first marriage and the birth of my great grandfather.

In 1850, when he was seven years old, Nathaniel was living on the family farm in Roundhead Township, Hardin County, Ohio with his parents Hugh and Mary Givens, Tidd, five brothers and a sister. Nathaniel, listed as Newton on the 1850 census, is the fifth child and fifth son in the family. The Tidd family traces its origins to a John Tidd who came from England and was living in the Boston, Massachusetts area in 1637.

The Tidds saw their share of territorial conflicts with Native Americans and two major wars as they moved westward to New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Nathaniel’s grandfather Samuel Tidd was a War of 1812 veteran, and Samuel’s father Martin was a Revolutionary War veteran.

By 1860, the Ohio census shows that Nathaniel was 17 and his parents had another son. So, there was a total of eight children in the family. The children are as follows: 1)William; 2)Jacob; 3)Alexander; 4)Samuel Perry; 5)Nathaniel Newton; 6)Rebecca; 7)Zachariah; 8)Albert.

Nathaniel is listed as a bible teacher. When the 1860 census was taken in June, increasing strife brought rumors of impending conflict between the states. This would be the last summer Nathaniel would live at home.

By the summer of 1861, the conflict between the states had started. Sometime in that year Nathaniel was living in or around Rochester, New York. Perhaps, he was visiting distant relatives, or attending one of the city’s many divinity schools. Maybe he was looking for a job, or maybe he was just swept with the tide of enlistees to that place because he had heard that the Thirteenth Volunteer Regiment of Infantry, also known as the Rifle Regiment or Rochester Regiment, was forming a new Company G.

My great-great step uncle, Ned Tidd, had told my mother that Nathaniel had been a drummer in the Civil War. That has been part of our family folklore for many years. It seems highly unlikely that Nathaniel at age eighteen had been a drummer, although many men and boys of all ages served an important role and drummed orders during the din of battle. I’m still waiting for the confirmation from the National Archives, but if, indeed, Nathaniel was a drummer and had a position towards the rear of the ranks, then that would explain why he seems to have escaped a three year term of service relatively unscathed.

If my information is confirmed, Nathaniel would have seen almost every major battle of the Civil War. Nathaniel enlisted on December 19, 1861. When he arrived it seems his company had an eight month lull that ended abruptly with the second battle of Bull Run. From that moment on, until Company G was transferred to the 140th New York Volunteers on June 23, 1863, the 13th Regiment fought at Antietam, MD; Sheperdstown, VA; Hartwood Church, VA; Richard’s Ford, VA; and finally, Chancellorville, VA.

Most of the 13th regiment had enlisted for two years. But, Company G, having been formed late, had an enlistment time of three years. On April 27th, 1863 all the three years’ men were transferred to Companies H and K, and June 23, 1863, these companies were transferred to the 140th New York volunteers.

That was just in time for the battle of Gettysburg in July 1-3. The following is only a partial list of the engagements of the 140th Regiment, during the period of Nathaniel’s enlistment until December 19, 1864; Gettysburg; Rappahannock, VA; Wilderness, VA; Spotsylvania, VA; Cold Harbor, VA; Seige of Petersburg, VA; Weldon Railroad, VA; Hicksford Raid, VA.

After Nathaniel mustered out of his Company, he returned home to the family farm in Ohio. He was 22 years old. Sometime in 1865 in Ohio, he married Margaret A. Peoples, a young woman born in 1845 or 46 in Ireland. Shortly, thereafter, the young couple moved to Grant Township, Mecosta County, Michigan. My great grandfather Elmer Eli and his twin Ellsworth Elias were born there on December 15, 1866.

Sunfield – Sebewa – Danby Fire Department – NOTICE---NOTICE-
TO CITIZENS LIVING WITHIN THE SUNFIELD—SEBEWA—DANBY FIRE DISTRICT.
911 EMERGENCY SERVICE IS COMING – IN STAGES!
BEGINNING JANUARY 15, 1991
#1 CITIZENS LIVING IN SEBEWA TOWNSHIP WITHIN THE SUNFIELD CENTURY TELEPHONE EXCHANGE WILL DIAL 911 FOR FIRE EMERGENCIES.
#2 CITIZENS LIVING IN SEBEWA TOWNSHIP WITHIN THE LAKE ODESSA BELL TELEPHONE EXCHANGE WILL CONTINUE, FOR NOW, TO DIAL 1-517-566-8211 FOR FIRE EMERGENCIES.
#3 CITIZENS LIVING IN SEBEWA TOWNSHIP WITHIN THE PORTLAND BELL TELEPHONE EXCHANGE WILL CONTINUE, FOR NOW, TO DIAL 1-566-8211 FOR FIRE EMERGENCIES.

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of the Sebewa Center Association,
APRIL 1991, Volume 26, Number 5. Submitted with written permission of Editor, Grayden D. Slowins:


SURNAMES: McNEIL, WALKER, THORPE, MEYERS, WARD, BAILIFF, SHIPMAN, GILBERT, HILTON, MERCER, PECK, PAGE, HOAG, TOW, MOFFET, STUTZ, WENGER, BRAKE, FOX, CONKRITE, WAINWRIGHT, CATT, McDONALD, HERRON, FENDER, RICHARDSON, YORK, TRAN, DAVID, PEACOCK, SCHNABEL, REDFERN, HASKINS, BOWERMAN, LOWE, RALSTON

DEATHS FOR THE PERIOD:
Patricia M. McNeil, 64, daughter of Charles & Gladys Walker Thorpe, widow of Charles McNeil, mother of Clay McNeil and Corinne McNeil Spencer, former Nursing Aide at Ionia County Memorial Hospital, Farm Bureau & 4-H leader.

Patricia K. Meyers, 39, daughter of Howard & Leona Ward Meyers, granddaughter of Harry & Mattie Bailiff Meyers, great-granddaughter of Albert & Lydia Shipman Meyers, Nursing Aide at Ingham County Medical Facility.

Wendell Gilbert, 58, son of Owen & Vernie Gilbert, grandson of Frank, nephew of Burton, brother of Gerald, Korean Vet., died Michigan Veterans’ Facility, Grand Rapids, buried at Fort Custer Cemetery.

William T. Haskins, husband of Marie Bowerman Haskins, son of Henry & Jessie Redfern Haskins, farmer, plumber, excavator, attended Sebewa Center School while staying with grandparents on Ben Lowe or Walter Ralston farm. Parents are in west cemetery.

MORE EARLY HISTORY OF BOSTON TOWNSHIP by Grayden Slowins
The Clinton Trail passed thru the English settlement in South Boston at Sec. 20 & 29, and the Grand River Trail, or Grand River Turnpike, as it was imaginatively called then, passed thru Waterville in Sec. 24. The two trails converged near the Indian trading post east of Ada. Waterville is worthy of some note, more because of what might have been than for what was. Robert Hilton, of Grand Rapids, made large land-purchases in the Grand River valley in 1836, and in his possessions was included a mill-site in Sec. 24, on Lake Creek, in the present township of Boston. The mill-site was on the line of the highway known as the Grand River Turnpike, at that time nothing more than a path thru Boston.

Hilton was convinced that the turnpike must become a highway of popular travel, and he proceeded to lay out a town at his mill-site and christened it Waterville. Having laid out his town, he must of course give it some sort of start. In pursuit of that project he donated the mill-site and some adjoining farmland to J. J. Hoag of Oakland County, conditional upon Hoag’s erecting a saw-mill at that point. Like Hilton, Hoag thought the Grand River Turnpike would be a great affair and promised for Waterville an important place in the history of events. So he gladly availed himself of Hilton’s offer, and in 1837 put up the mill which he set in motion the following year. In 1838 he followed up his mill enterprise with the opening of a store, and confidently awaited the surging tide of travel over the pike. William Mercer, one of the founders of Campbell Township, spent a year in 1842-1843 at Waterville working for James J. Hoag, before going to Campbell.

Fate was, however, against Waterville; for although the surging tide did flow to some extent over the turnpike, it did not get as far as Waterville. Hoag remained there all of his days and eked out an existence with his mill and farm, until 1851, when he was killed by the fall of a tree. Thomas Barber had set up a blacksmith shop a half mile west in 1847, and another sawmill was put in a mile north in Sec. 14 in 1854, by Peck & Page. In 1864, the Page property passed into the possession of A. J. Moffett, who carried on the mill business in connection with a planing mill and a small machine-shop.

Someone along the way put in a stone-ground grist mill at the mill-site in Sec. 14, also called part of Waterville, and its waterwheel was still turning in 1937 when we had our feed ground there. A man named I. S. Tow had begun to manufacture a protein-vitamin-mineral concentrate for chickens there, and to peddle it around the countryside in 100 lb bags on the fenders of his old coupe. But he was not the owner-operator of this Waterville Mill. That person was Charles Stutz. His ancient mill and Currie & Ives style barn and house have been the stuff of many paintings fit for calendars or Christmas cards. After his long life, the mill and buildings have mostly returned to nature, but his heirs are still around and a grandson-in-law, Les Fox, is still involved in the feed business in central Michigan.

MORE TOWNSHIP BOARD SYNOPSIS by Grayden Slowins
In November the Board agreed to share the cost of rebuilding Keefer Rd. bridge over Sebewa Creek with Ionia County Road Commission and Danby Township. Our share will be $13,000 - $16,500. If only we could convince them to blacktop that remaining two miles! Perhaps this will be a co-operative step in that direction. Much of the cost of the bridge comes from the State & Federal Critical Bridge Fund.

Also in November the Board authorized cleanout and repair of the Gunn & Ramsey, Gunn & Luscher, and A. M. Ralston Drains. Branch #1 of Gunn & Ramsey had been authorized in October. After hoping to keep the cost under $1 per foot, the final bid average of 38 cents per foot or about $6.25 per rod was very gratifying. The bidders gambled on good winter weather, little breakage of equipment, a turn-around in fuel prices, and completion in a timely manner. All of these came together and a beautiful job was done. Only some final cleanup of spoils in the Spring remains to be done. Drain Commissioner John Bush will see that it is done right.

Projects for cleaning, widening, deepening, straightening, extending, repairing or replacing tile, and repairing along the roads, are in the works for Wilson & Pumphrey, Sweet & Samine, and Collier & Mud Creek Drains. There are some hurdles to be overcome, some in structure, some legal, but the drains will be maintained. Sebewa’s main business is agriculture, and without drains we would once again be Big Rattlesnake Swamp.

Sebewa residents on Century Telephone thru Sunfield Exchange can now dial 9-1-1- for Police, Fire, and Ambulance emergencies. The rest of Ionia County will have it by late 1992. Our ambulance service is provided by Lake Odessa Ambulance Service. There is no interruption in this service, even tho negotiations are underway on how to administer the service.
We have made our last payment to the Sunfield-Sebewa-Danby Fire District Building Authority for the new firebarn. Our share of the cost was approximately $75,000, spread over the last three years.

Our cost to subsidize the ambulance, as well as many other items of income & outgo, is based on the United States Decennial Census. Sebewa’s new headcount is 1160 – up from 1108 in 1980. Not a significant increase, but about in keeping with the rest of Ionia County and the State of Michigan as a whole.

GRAYDEN SLOWINS:
Our on-going studies into our Mennonite Wenger & Brake ancestors recently revealed an interesting bit of American History. It seems that from September 11, 1777, when the British defeated George Washington’s army at Brandywine, until June 18, 1778, when the city of Philadelphia was evacuated by the British, the seat of our government, the Continental Congress, was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the heart of Mennonite Country.

MONUMENTS
This seems a timely spot for a word about the current Re-monumentation Project in Michigan. That portion of the Northwest Territory which was set off as Michigan Territory, and then the State of Michigan, was surveyed in the years 1815-1855. It was divided into townships as the basic unit, each 6 miles square except where bordering on the Great Lakes or other natural barriers. These townships were subdivided into 36 sections, each 1 mile square, more or less. The townships were grouped into counties, intended to be 24 miles square and containing 16 townships. Many counties and townships were combined into larger groups at first, and for political, economic & geographical reasons were not always re-divided as intended.

At the corners of township sections and quarter-sections, government surveyors placed “monuments”, 4-foot pine posts usually, to mark their measurements. These “government corners”, at half-mile intervals along section lines, have served ever since as reference points for locating and describing every parcel of land, both public and private in every Michigan county. In addition they establish the rights-of-way for roads, utility lines, access easements, etc.

Historically, each county has been responsible for perpetuating the locations of its government corners, usually thru the office of the County Surveyor. Various objects, including stones, concrete, pipes, rods, clay drain tile, plowshares, even gun barrels, have been used to replace them. In other cases, the markers have been damaged, obliterated, or removed, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. But the monumentation has never been coordinated statewide.

Ionia County and much of the surrounding area was surveyed by Lucius Lyon, founder of Lyons and co-founder of Grand Rapids. His work needs to be updated and permanently re-marked with the new standard markers of long-lasting materials. The new State Statute requires each county to appoint or elect a County Surveyor and completely re-survey and re-mark the entire county within 20 years, and check all section corners at least once every 20 years thereafter. Four dollars added to the cost of each Deed registered will build a fund to pay the cost. In the long run the price will be more than worth it in the cost of private property surveys, to say nothing of peace of mind.

Another marker which has not fared so well is the bronze plaque mounted on a large stone at the County Farm Cemetery in Ionia State Park. Vandals have pried it loose and carried it off. Monument-man Steve Yenchar has inquired and found the original mold is still available to make another. Application is being made to the State of Michigan for financial assistance, but local help may also be needed.

LATEST BULLETIN: The lost has been found – by a jogger.
All monuments at East Sebewa Cemetery have been restored after the October vandalism, except for that of patriarch Elihu Halladay and wife Amanda. Their large white marble edifice is badly shattered and will require the use of a large tripod to lower it into place while the pieces are re-built around it and secured with a special adhesive. Rus Gregory plans to photo this event when Steve Yenchar and Dave Fountain undertake it in the Spring. Elihu was Sebewa Clerk 1853-1857.

INTERVIEW OF FERN CONKRITE by Grayden Slowins
My name is Fern Conkrite. I was born March 3, 1895, daughter of Charles Conkrite and Emma Wainwright. My parents owned a farm on the south side of Morris Road, just west of Shimnecon off Okemos Road. It was the W ½ NW ¼ Sec. 21 Danby. My grandparents Wainwright were right around the corner on Okemos Road and my grandparents Conkrite had originally settled in the same Section 21, but around on the Charlotte Hwy. side of the river, just south of the Centerline Bridge on the west side of the road. But they soon moved to the SW ¼ Sec. 28, where Keith Merryfield is now. Granddad died young and left a widow with a large family. He must have owned that farm between the 1875 Plat and 1891 Plat, because he doesn’t show on either book. My parents moved to the town of Sebewa when I was two years old and always lived there after that. It’s that house still standing there on lot 51 Jackson St. on the Cornell side of town. Dad ran a general store for a short time in the west half of that double building on the south side of Mill St. (Musgrove) on the Sebewa side of town. That was just an experiment, I suppose.
Otherwise he did mostly what you’d call day labor. They had set up housekeeping when they first married in the Sam Bigham house, which stood in the same spot where the Lippencott-Fyan house is now. Then they moved to the farm in Danby and I was born there. We moved back when I was two, and yesterday I had a big party for my 96th Birthday!

That’s why I can’t remember the G. A. R. Hall. I told you they hadn’t met in the last 95 years, and that’s true. Your Recollector shows they formed the Henry Rice Post #151 G. A. R. at Sebewa Corners on May 15, 1883, and last met on December 14, 1895. So I just missed it, although I was born then, but not living in town yet. Let’s take a look at that list of G. A. R. members from the February 1984 Recollector. I remember quite a few of them:

J.S.M Peabody – that’s John S. Marshall Peabody.
Z.B. Slater – he lived over on Petrie Rd. (Sec. 13).
G. W. Snyder – that would have been Dr. George Snyder.
A. N. Evans – Alonzo, Lon – farmed at Bruce Walkington’s old place, then lived on Lot 30 east of Nancy Puffer-Jim Bedell house.
Thos. Waddell – lived in town of Cornell Lot 2.
S. DeCamp – lived in Cornell, last house east on Musgrove, north side.
G. E. Friend – George lived in the old homestead on the southwest corner.
F. N. Friend – his brother, lived in Portland, I guess.
L. W. Overley – lived in Sebewa, couldn’t trust them, oh my.
A. B. Lippencott – Allen lived where John did later.
M. Middaugh – lived over on Tupper Lake Rd. (Sec. 33).
J. M. Bradley – John had a store & house north of I. O. O. F. hall.
D. D. Krebs – lived west of Sunfield.
F. Linhart – that’s from Sunfield too.
L. B. Waring – always lived with the Lippencotts.
O. W. Daniels – Old Oren from over on 66.
J. C. Clark – from West Sebewa.
J. A. Britton – also from West Sebewa.
Elkanah Carpenter – lived near you. (Gilbert’s Sec. 28).
Jonah Carpenter – also near you. (Ronald Stambaugh Sec. 27).
Sam Bigham – Fyan house, but Harry Gibson farm before that.
James H. McClelland – Fred Hart’s place, twin sons Willis & Wilton.

CONTINUATION OF FERN CONKRITE INTERVIEW: Other G. A. R. members listed were: Alford A. Garlock, J. W. Reeder, Asa Pike, L. N. King, Elisha Braley, V. B. Polmanteer, L. J. Heaton, Mansil Pike, L. Braley, B. F. Dean, J. L. Shaver, D. W. Litchfield, J. F. Hyde, William Wadsworth, E. A. Truxton, John Arnold, Robert Force, Perry Arnold, Wm. Miner, Burt Judson, C. J. Yeager, Lt. G. W. Lusk, and of course Manley Conkrite, brother of Charles.

CELEBRATING 107 YEARS – VERTIE CATT McDONALD
Vertie Catt McDonald was born in Odessa Township, Ionia County, February 13, 1884, daughter of George Catt and Nancy Jane Herron. That was during the Presidency of Chester Allen Arthur, and a year before the first of two non-consecutive terms of Grover Cleveland, thought by some Sebewa residents to have been the last great Democrat President. Her parents farmed in SE ¼ Sec. 18 Odessa Township, where her father had re-located from Rochester, New York, after coming on a sailing ship from England in 1852.

Celebrating her 107th birthday doesn’t seem so strange. Her brother Orvin Catt, lived to be 97, and her half-sister, Ida Catt, lived to the age of 90. And several other Sebewa women have lived past age 100 in recent years. The most recent being Florence Cassel at 102, who, by-the-way, was great-great-grandmother to little Adam Meyers and his sister Sarah, and Vertie is their great-great-aunt in a different lineage. Those kids have a life-expectancy well toward the end of the 21st century. Adam is namesake of Adam Fender, Sebewa Supervisor 1897-1917.

Vertie and her late husband, Frank, farmed in Sebewa for over 50 years. Vertie also made the rounds with a horse and buggy to teach piano lessons at area homes. She now resides at Thornapple Manor, near Hastings. She never had any children, but she has lots of nieces and nephews, including Hazel Richardson of Sebewa.

NEWS ITEMS:
Hazel Richardson is in the process of selling her farm house, reportedly to Mike Kennedy, and will move to Galveston, Indiana, to be near daughter Kay and family.
Zack and Eleanor York have sold their farm to Mike Cook, son of Gerry Cook on Keefer Hwy. Zack and Eleanor have also sold their home in Kalamazoo, and will move to a retirement home.
The Sadie & Elem Tran house has been sold once again, this time to Eric Howard of Portland. He is a Corrections Officer at Ionia, and is undertaking extensive remodeling, inside and out. Most of the plumbing and interior finish is being replaced, as well as the mis-applied stone facia on the outside, etc. He will add a two-car garage wing, a skylight, and other enlargements.

SEBEWA TOWNSHIP BOARD OF MINUTES for the recent months tells us that Evelyn David resigned as Assessor on June 30, 1990. She had fulfilled this position very capably since July, 1977, when Charles McNeil died. Her husband, Ken, had succeeded her as Supervisor in November, 1988, but he also resigned, as of September 30, 1990. Jim Stank was appointed by majority vote of the Board to complete the un-expired term as Supervisor, and automatically became Assessor. He received a six-month temporary certification from the State, and after successfully completing the classes and exam, has received his permanent certificate. Brian Pinkston was appointed at the October meeting to fill the Trustee position vacated by Jim Stank. Jim is descended from John & Christena Sayer and lives on the John Friend farm. We think Brian is descended from John J. Peacock, he lives on Joe Schnabel farm.

That school picture (on front page of this issue of THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR) is the Frost School (Danby Township Dist. No. 3).
Front row on the left is Marian Pryer Lakin, Gertrude Fishell, Pauline Smith, Della Peake, Dorothy Burgess, unknown, Margaret Pryer, Robert Wooden, Archie Youngs, unknown, unknown, Howard Youngs.
Back row on the left is Ethel Hudson, Clarissa Lyon, Donna Bugbee, Sarah Barrington, Edna Chase – Teacher, Irene Burgess, Leo Davenport, Louis Hunt, Bill Atwell, Ted Atwell, George Hudson.
Edna Chase, the teacher, married Harry Brown and started all that Brown family. She’s the mother of Burton and grandmother of his 13 kids.
(Fern Conkrite Interview will continue next issue)

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of the Sebewa Center Association,
JUNE 1991, Volume 26, Number 6. Submitted with written permission of Editor, Grayden D. Slowins:


SURNAMES: REED, TOWNSEND, ELDRIDGE, FAULKNER, NOTT, SLOWINSKI, McLEOD, SCHNABEL, GOODEMOOT, WOLCOTT, SPENCER, LIPPENCOTT, McCORMACK, HALLADAY, SNYDER, HITCHCOCK, ZANTO, CONKRITE, DERBY, CLANTY, HOLLENBACH, DASE, SANDBORN

PHOTO ON FRONT OF THIS ISSUE: SEBEWA “HIGH” SCHOOL, 1912-1913
Back Row, L to R: Harold Cornell, Russell Halladay, Kenneth Sayer, Margaret Vandepool, Layton Cornell, Helen Southwell, Olive Reeder, Goda Southwell, Gladha Sayer, Zora Ward, Dorothy Kenyon, Fred Huizenga, Kenneth Dorin, Teacher Elizabeth J. Cornell.
Third Row: Ted Brown, Tom Huizenga, Jerry Stairs, Anis Benschoter, Vera Wolfert, Bernice Reed, Gladys Stairs, Nellie Reeder, Lawrence Friend.
2nd Row (Kneeling): Opal High, Alice Webster, Bertha Reed, Ruth Brown, Beatrice Friend, Dora Vandepool, Lucile Howland, Mildred Evans, Lucille Friend, Ida Baker, Elizabeth Dorin, Vern Reed.
Front Row (Sitting: Lloyd Reed, Leslie Wolfert, Cornelius Huizenga, Zene Ward, Wesley Dorin, Donald Ward, Herbert Evans, Ted Webster.

LLOYD REED is now 89 years of age. My interview with him at his Florida home follows:
MY INTERVIEW WITH LLOYD REED:

I was born 89 years ago in Sebewa on the little farm just south of the farm on the corner of M 66 and Henderson Road, then belonging to my grandfather, Thomas Hosea Reed. People called him Hosea. He had a number of sons: Earl, my father, Walter, Ernest, James and a daughter.

Essie Figg was my first school teacher at the Johnson School. I was there two years before my Dad, Earl, bought a place from Anse Green about a mile east of Sebewa Corners. I then transferred to the “High” school of that place and I am pictured as the first in the front row of that photo of the 1912-1913 school pupils. We lived in a log house for a year before my Dad built a new house, which still stands.

We lived there until I had graduated from the grade and went to high school at Lake Odessa. I wanted to be able to go on to College after High School. My grandfather had moved to Lake Odessa and I could stay with him during the week and return home for the week ends. Dad took my grandparents pork, potatoes, beans and other garden stuff for my keep. On a Sunday night I would take the train at Sunfield after walking the five miles to the depot for Lake Odessa and on Friday night I would take the train for Sunfield with the walk back to our farm.

My mother was Blanche Townsend. She lived a half mile east of Sebewa Center and a half mile north on the west side of the Road. She was quite a character. I was surprised when I got a Recollector and in it I saw that my mother had sung a song on the school graduation program. When I check back I find she was 13 years old then. I find so many names of those I read in the Recollector are the names I had heard my mother talk about. I know that she had worked for “Grandma” Olry. Once in awhile, we’d go by there and she would say “There is where I spent some of my days when I was young, working for Grandma Olry”. It was Chuck Little who lived in the tenant house then.

Henry Townsend was my grandfather. He bought and sold livestock. We used to go to Portland summer times to be with our grandparents. I remember one night we had a thunderstorm and I awakened and Grandma Townsend and my Uncle Stewart were in the window, looking toward town. I jumped up and the sky was all lighted. Stewart, who was four years older than I was, and I was about ten or eleven years old, went out in our bare feet. We could see it was the Methodist Church burning. It burned down. She died in February of 1990. I had two sisters. One was Malcolm Tasker’s wife, now living in Lake Odessa. They had a drug store there for years.

My sister Bernice, married Ervie Howard, the coach, had a very interesting thing happen. At the end of the football season an announcer on TV was talking about some football team out on the west side of Detroit that had not been beaten all season. A very few teams could boast a record like that. Just for fun, she called him on the phone and their record in 1919. He asked her a lot of questions and seemed to be writing it down. The next night he came on with his sports program and apologized all over the place. (To be continued next issue.)

A RECENT ROSTER OF IONIA COUNTY WOMEN & MEN WHO SERVED IN IRAQ & KUWAIT during Operation Desert Shield/Storm includes L. Cpl. James Eldridge. He is son of Terri Faulkner & Ed Eldridge, son of Geraldine Nott & LaVern Eldridge, son of Pearl McLeod & Eddie Eldridge, son of Jay Eldridge & Sophie Slowinski, daughter of Louis Slowinski, son of Daniel Slowinski Sr. & Anna Schnabel. Being also son of Terri Faulkner, Jamie is grandson of Peg Faulkner, daughter of Donald Goodemoot, son of Russell Goodemoot, son of Mary Goodemoot (West Cemetery), and as such is a great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Oliver Wolcott Sr., Governor of Connecticut and signer of the Declaration of Independence.

NORMA LIPPENCOTT SPENCER:
Yesterday Ann & I buried Norma Spencer, age 78, in the East Cemetery. She was daughter of John R. Lippencott, son of Allen B. Lippencott, another of our Civil War veterans. Norma’s mother was Blanch Effie Halladay, daughter of Ethelynd (Lynn) McCormack & Edgar Halladay, and on back to David, Apollos, or Elihu Halladay. Norma’s husband is James T. Spencer. Her son James Jr. and her two daughters also survive. Norma Spencer & Martha VanBuren were “Real Granddaughters of Civil War Veterans”.

HITCHCOCK FAMILY:
We have a new neighbor on an historic farm. Back in 1988 we wrote a series of interviews with Floyd Evans. We talked about the Ray Hitchcock family, who occupy the E. C. (Clanty) Derby farm. Floyd & I visited their beautiful homesite on the Grand River and the site of the old Sebewa Brick Yards. Floyd mentioned that the Hitchcocks have a daughter who was an attorney in Florida. Well, she is back in Sebewa (Danby actually)! We met her when she prosecuted the vandals who desecrated our East Cemetery. She has recently been promoted to Chief Assistant Proscecuting Attorney for Ionia County. She expected her husband and their horses to arrive soon from Florida, and her dad has built a nice horse-barn for them. So if you see her riding her bike or her horse around Sec. 24 Sebewa, please welcome her and thank her for getting us restitution for the cemetery damage. Her married name is still Gail Hitchcock.

ZANTO HOME ONCE OWNED BY WILLIAM SNYDER:
Did you know that the large colonial-saltbox house on South State Road, downwind from Herbruck’s henhouse and long associated with the Mary Zanto family, was once a hotel? Owned by William Snyder, the upstairs had a central hall and cubicle rooms about 8’ x 9’. Each had space enough for a bed, chair, and washstand. It was a stage-coach stop for settlers and others coming north on the Bellvue-Ionia Road from Ohio. Later there was a gas station closer to the Portland Road corner that served many of the same needs; food & water & rest for team, driver, and passengers. Schenck says this was the first hotel to operate in Orange Township and also the last, although Israel Wolverton and Ira LeValley each operated at their homesteads for a time also. It was called, appropriately, the Orange Hotel.

The stage coach may not always have been just what you picture from Grade B Western Movies. Often it was nothing more than a covered, or even open, wagon with extra seats. My mother was the last person (actually the only person) I ever knew who had ridden a stage. She went to visit Uncle Elwood Brake in 1921, when he was School Superintendent at Hubbardston and Cousin Barbara was a baby.

She took the train from Elmdale to Lowell and changed lines to Pewamo. She spent the night at a flea-bag hotel above the Bank and took the “Morning Stage” to Hubbardston. The “Stage” was an extended open touring car with side curtains. It almost got stuck in the mud on Hubbardston Road, which we are just now making Class A, All Season, for the sawmill truckers.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES WITH FERN CONKRITE by Grayden Slowins:

G: First thing I want to ask you about today is this Dec. 31, 1990 issue of the PORTLAND REVIEW, 75 Years Ago column, where the old Universalist Church was converted to a two-family apartment. The organ went to the Eagle Universalist Church and the black walnut pulpit went to the Lansing society. Do you remember that church and which building it is now, if any?

F: I think it was torn down and replaced by the bungalow built by Dr. Bradfield, then lived in by Bob Lear, and now Joe Rich. It’s on the opposite end of the block from the Congregational Church, corner of Warren and James Sts.

G: Now, when you lived out in Sebewa, you went to the Methodist Church and were organist there; how did you happen to get switched over to the Nazarene?

F: Well, after I came down here, I went to the Methodist Church, Gertie and I did, for awhile, and I don’t know, we just drifted away. There was something about some of the preachers or something. Then we got acquainted with Mrs. Neller and one day she said to me “Fern, I don’t like to see you waste all your talent and we need a pianist awful bad. Mrs. Fenner has been praying for someone to take her place. Wouldn’t you like to come and do it?”
“And I said “Well, guess I could”. And so I just started going to the Nazarene Church, and I played there for years. And I played up here on Cutler Road, after they built the new church.

G: Do you remember what kind of church that was, down in the valley, before it was Nazarene?

F: Well, it was built by the Presbyterians. The Congos (Congregationalists), they had a little disturbance, and there was a bunch of them broke off; and they built that church down there and they called themselves Presbyterians. Well, then, they got back together with the Congos again, and they sold that building to the Pilgrim Holiness people that have the Bible College in Owosso. When the United Brethren got hold of it, and then the Nazarenes.

G: What do you know about E. C. (Clanty) Derby and his wife Millie?

F: They had two girls, Rose, who married Dr. Ed Snyder, son of Civil War veteran Dr. George Snyder, and they lived in Sunfield and then Lake Odessa; and Nellie, who married John Morrissey, a blacksmith in Sunfield. They were his daughters by his first wife. The second wife was married to him when he died. She sold the farm to Dr. George Morse and moved up town and lived in that house back in the northeast corner of Cornell. Then she moved from there; she took care of Lon Evans and she got that house. Lon Evans and his wife Emma, daughter of John Friend, had farmed up west of you where Bruce Walkington lived with his first wife Vivian. I never knew Lon to do anything after he moved to town. Lived on his Civil War pension. Didn’t take much to live, those days. After his first house burned, he moved into that corner house at SW corner Washington & Jackson Streets in Cornell – lot 45. That was a Hollenbach house. Millie Derby took care of him in his last years and she got that house.

G: What about George Hollenbach and his wife, a daughter of Jacob Collingham? Who were their children?

F: Mahala married George High and had a daughter, Nellie, who married Dr. Frederick Morse and they later moved to Lake Odessa. Their son was Dr. George Morse. Sarah (Sadie) married Charles Cooper and had no children. Wallace never married. The other son (George Jr.?) was the father of all these Hollenbachs around now.
The other Collingham girl, Elizabeth, married Oliver Smith. Their children were: Eva, who married a man named Cook and lived in Montana; Jane, who married a Towner and had Leighton Smith, Bert Towner, Evert Towner, and a daughter; and Ben, who married Mable Baird Hale and had Alzeo (Mike), Oliver Jr., Irvin, and several girl babies who died.
Mable had been married before, and one of her girls, Beatrice, married Wallace Hollenbach, Jr. (son of George Jr.?) and had Georgiana, Robert, Carrie Lee, Richard, Daryl, Roberta, Carol, and Jamie. Mable’s other daughter, Bernice, married LeRoy Darling and had Irene Carr, Wellman Darling, LeRoy, Jr., and Kathlene.
Oliver Smith’s first wife was Phoebe A. Gunn, daughter of Samuel and Caroline Gunn. By that marriage there was a daughter Carrie, who was married to Henry Whorley late in life after her first husband, Fred McNeil, died by suicide. (Whorleys lived where Linda Banker is remodeling now.)
Fred McNeil died with the same rope that killed Ellis Dorin, the constable who investigated. Supposedly a third man used it also. McNeil’s problem was a paternity accusation.
(Fern will continue in next issue.)

Peggy Dase, granddaughter of Meredith Sandborn, writes that Meredith has been at Ionia Manor for almost 3 years and would appreciate hearing from old friends. The address is 814 E. Lincoln Avenue, Ionia, 48846.

The 1991-1992 meeting dates for SEBEWA TOWNSHIP BOARD are:
April 30, May 28, June 25, July 23, August 27, September 24, at Town Hall.
October 29 – Jim Stank home, November 26 – Brian Pinkston home, December 17 – LaVern Carr home, January 28 – Phil Shetterly home, February 25 – Jim Stank home, March 17 – Grayden Slowins home.
All regular meetings at 8:00 PM on Tuesdays.
Annual meeting – Saturday, March 28, 1992: 1:00 PM at Town Hall.