THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of the
Sebewa Center Association;
FEBRUARY 1996, Volume 31, Number 4. Submitted with written permission of Editor,
Grayden D. SLOWINS:
SURNAMES: STORY, POSSEHN, MOL, TOWNSEND, STENCEL, MERRILL, FRIEND, TODD, CURTIS,
HALLADAY, CARPENTER, MEACHAM, COMBE, BARTOW, SNYDER, COOPER, PALMATIER, DRUMM,
BOWMAN, PROBASCO, SINDLINGER, WILLIAMS, DOWNING, BRAKE, SLOWINS, GIERMAN,
PETOSKEY, MEYERS, KLAGER
RECENT DEATHS:
GEORGE A. STORY, 91, widower of Amy and husband of Lucille, father of Ronald
STORY, Sharon CROMARTIE and Royce STORY, brother of Frieda PITSCH. Born on the
family farm on WARE Road, Sec. 18 & 19 Boston Township, Ionia County, he was a
descendent of the pioneer STORY & WARE families. He was the Standard Oil Agent
in Lowell for many years.
BERTHA J. POSSEHN MOL TOWNSEND, 99, widow of Ernest MOL and Lynn TOWNSEND. She
was born August 16, 1896, on NE ¼ Sec. 9 Odessa Township, Ionia County, 12th of
14 children of Amelia STENCEL and August POSSEHN, and the last survivor. She
attended LIMERICK School, COON School, and St. John’s Lutheran School in Ionia.
MILDRED L. MERRILL, 88, widow of Royce W., mother of Sandra L. JONES, Royce H.,
Ralph M., Gary M., Dean R., and Stephen J. MERRILL, sister of Lawrence FRIEND
and Lucille TODD and the late George FRIEND, Evelyn COURSER and Beatrice CURTIS,
daughter of Lucy E. HALLADAY & Ralph E. FRIEND, son of Jane E. CARPENTER &
George E. FRIEND, son of Polly Ann MEACHAM & John FRIEND, son of Betty COMB &
John FRIEND Sr.
ROBERT WILFRED GIERMAN, 86, brother of Christine JARCHOW, Pauline LILLIE,
Maurice GIERMAN and the late Charles GIERMAN, son of Nellie E. MEYERS & Robert
E. GIERMAN, son of Christina KLAGER & Charles GIERMAN, son of Frederick GIERMAN,
uncle of Deanna BOLES, Carolyn ANTOKEE, Evelyn KOENIG, and Jon GIERMAN. Memorial
service will be held in the spring, probably on Memorial Day Sunday or Monday at
SUNSHINE Park.
HOUGHTON COUNTY, MICHIGAN, COURTHOUSE: (with photo on front
page)
Houghton County was names for Prof. Douglass HOUGHTON, a geologist in Michigan,
and organized in 1845. Commencing
in 1849 all meetings of the Board of Supervisors were recorded as being held in
the office of the Lake Superior
Copper Co. In 1853 the meetings were held in the office of the County Clerk in
the Phoenix Copper Co. building. Eagle
River was named the County Seat in 1853, but was not legally established as such
until 1856. When the Legislature separated Keweenaw County from Houghton County
and provided that Houghton County’s seat be established in Portage Township, the
village of HOUGHTON became the County Seat. Meetings were in the Post Office.
On July 21, 1862, a contract was let for the construction of a frame Court
House, Jail and Sheriff’s quarters on the present site. This was used until
1887, when the present Court House was constructed at a cost of $75,568. This
also contained the Jail and Sheriff’s quarters, but in 1961 that part was
condemned and a new jail constructed in 1963 at a cost of $200,000. The
opulent High Victorian design of the Houghton County Courthouse testifies to the
prosperity the copper boom
brought to the area in the late nineteenth century. The building’s irregular
form and poly-chromatic exterior make
it one of Michigan’s most distinctive nineteenth century courthouses. The red
sandstone trim and copper roof were
products of the Upper Peninsula. The bricks could be VanderHeyden of Ionia.
BIOGRAPHY OF HERVEY BARTOW from HISTORY OF IONIA & MONTCALM
COUNTIES by John S. SCHENCK, 1881:
Hervey BARTOW, lawyer and real estate operator, was born in Freetown, Cortland
Co, NY, March 31, 1813. His parents
were William and Grace BARTOW. The father was born in Rutland Co, VT, in 1772.
As a young man he moved to Cortland Co., NY, and was married there, served in
the New York Assembly in 1824, and moved to Michigan Territory in 1825. He
settled in the woods twenty-one miles west of Detroit, in the Township later
organized as Plymouth, in Wayne County. He was elected to the Territorial
Council in 1831, when General CASS was Governor of the Territory.
Hervey BARTOW was twelve years old when his father moved to Michigan. With the
exception of six weeks’ attendance at a neighboring log school-house, he
obtained all his subsequent education by studying at night, after severe hard
labor through the day, by the light of burning hickory bark. In April, 1836,
having earned a few hundred dollars by clearing land and other hard labor, he
headed west. He traveled on foot through the forest, camping-out nights, guided
by Indian trails, section-lines, and pocket compass, to and along the valleys of
the Maple, Looking-Glass and Grand Rivers. Passing near what is now the city of
Lansing, he reached “Hog Prairie” at the junction of the Maple and Grand Rivers
at ten o’clock at night.
Finding the Indians in a dance on the opposite side of the Grand River, and no
sign of a white man, he retired to the bushes on the rising ground at the
eastern skirt of the present village of Lyons.
Thence he went up the Grand River, past the mouth of the Looking-Glass River,
and by compass to the United States Land Office at Kalamazoo. He made the first
land purchase in the town now known as Lyons, and finally in the fall of 1836,
settled with several of his friends near the present town of Lyons. Here he
cleared some of his lands and farmed till the fall of 1840, when he went to
Lyons and commenced the study of law, still looking after his farming interests.
He had been elected school inspector when Portland School District was organized
June 6, 1837, because the district included part of Danby & Maple, now
Lyons, Townships.
In the winter of 1846, having become unable to perform the hard manual labor of
farming, he went to Portland and gave more attention to law studies. He was
admitted to practice in the several courts of the State of Michigan in May 1846,
and opened a law-office at Portland. He was elected Prosecutor for Ionia County
for the years 1855 and 1856. The county being new, the consequently small amount
of legal business soon induced Mr. Bartow to attend to other matters as well.
When an attack was made upon the town of Portland by the County Board of
Supervisors and various officials of the county for unjust claims against
Portland, Mr. BARTOW was Portland’s representative on that board and
successfully defended the township against the almost united efforts of the
County of Ionia. (Editor’s note: Portland still feels persecuted on some
financial matters in 1995.)
Then, when some sixteen citizens of Portland formed a joint company to dam Grand
River at the village of Portland, BARTOW felt it would destroy the water-power
interests on the Grand, as well as flood his land on the west side. He offered
the free use of as much of his land as needed, by damming the Grand at a higher
point up the river and running a race down his side. He said this would give
many times the power of a dam built at the lower point. But jealousy of the
sides of the river being the moving stimulant, their policy could not be
changed. So BARTOW obtained an injunction and secured partial protection from
its effects.
BARTOW served six years on the village board of trustees, with special interest
to establishing by-laws, rules, and precedents in the beginning under the
village charter.
In the summer of 1866 a few citizens agitated the idea of a railroad, and Mr.
BARTOW was chosen to confer with the Hon. James TURNER of Lansing as to the
practicability of procuring a railroad through Portland on a line from Lansing
to Ionia. A company was formed, of which Mr. BARTOW was chosen director. He took
a very active part in its advancement, paying liberally from his own funds,
obtaining aid from others, and getting rights-of-way at little cost. When this
was accomplished, there seemed to be a peculiar falling off of zeal at Lansing
and Ionia, at least in parties having control of the road.
Mr. BARTOW immediately opened correspondence with Hon. . C. ELSWORTH of
Greenville, A.L. Green of Olivet, and George Ingersol of Marshall, with a view
to constructing a railroad from Marshall through Portland to Greenville. A
survey was made to Greenville through Sebewa, Portland, Collins, Lyons, and
Muir. A company was formed with Mr. BARTOW again as director. This aroused the
jealousy of the Ionia citizens and people on other parts of the Lansing and
Ionia line, and in the fall of 1869 that road was pushed through to Greenville.
Thus one railroad was secured for Portland.
The other, called the Coldwater, Marshall, and Mackinaw Railroad raised its
means of construction in subscriptions and town bonds. But just before these
bonds were negotiated, the courts decided against their constitutionality. The
people then tried to accomplish it by subscription alone. Mr. BARTOW was again
chosen to take charge of the project for Portland. The subscriptions were mostly
obtained, but not fully, and the road-bed mostly graded from Marshall, in
Calhoun County, to Elm Hall, in Gratiot County, being one hundred and twenty
miles, with many ties furnished. The road was never completed.
In politics Mr. BARTOW at first identified himself with the Whig party and later
for many years with the Republican party. He never married. BARTOW’S Addition to
the village of Portland encompassed all that part of Section 28 lying west of
Quarterline Street to the one-eighth line at SLOWINS Addition and north to Ionia
Rd & Lyons Rd, just under 80 acres, and that triangular part of Section 33 lying
west of Quarterline and bounded by Grand River Avenue on the north and Grand
River itself on the south, also 80 acres more or less. BARTOW’S house was at the
very tip, on the corner of Market and Bridge Streets.
BIOGRAPHY OF GEORGE W. SNYDER from PORTRAIT & BIOGRAPHICAL ALBUM
OF IONIA & MONTCALM COUNTIES by CHAPMAN Bros. 1891
The medical profession is represented in SEBEWA, Ionia County, by men of
extended knowledge and practical skill, and an honorable place among them is
held by Dr. SNYDER, who belongs to the Eclectic School. He hung out his
“shingle” here in the fall of 1878, immediately after his graduation from the
BENNETT Medical College in Chicago.Dr. SNYDER is of Dutch descent in the
parental line, but prior to the American Revolution one of his progenitors was
living in Canada and crossed the border to enter the Colonial Army. By so doing,
he lost his property, it being confiscated by the British Government, and at the
close of the war he settled in Pennsylvania. Another of his ancestors was John
COOPER, who also fought in the Revolutionary forces, having emigrated from
Ireland prior to the Declaration of Independence.
John A. SNYDER, father of the Doctor, was born in Schoharie County, NY, and
removed to this State in 1862, settling in Barry County. His wife, formerly
Fanny M. PALMATIER, was of French and Dutch descent, and was a daughter of
Thomas and Martha (DRUMM) PALMATIER. She was a native of the same country as her
husband, and a member of the same church, the Methodist Episcopal. She entered
into rest in 1865. Their family was comprised of seven sons: Thomas, William
Henry, George W., Francis M., Charles N., John L., and James A. of which
William, George and Charles are physicians, John is a minister in the United
Brethren Church, James and Francis are farmers. Thomas died as a young adult.
Dr. George SNYDER was born in Chemung County, NY, August 26, 1845, and with the
exception of one summer spent in Pennsylvania, he lived there until his parents
came to Barry County. At the new home he remained until the last of September,
1864, when his father and older brother went to Hastings, leaving him to finish
cutting the corn, there being but half an acre standing. When this was done he
had nothing to do but follow the bent of his inclination, and so went to
Jackson, and on October 1 enlisted in Company H., Twenty-first Michigan
Infantry. Eight days later he started to the front and joined the regiment at
Chattanooga, TN, whence they went to Dalton, GA, and took the line of march with
SHERMAN to the sea.
Dr. SNYDER was at Savannah during the seven-day siege, after which the troops
rested thirty days before starting on the return trip. They marched to
Goldsboro, captured Fayetteville, and reached Bentonville March 9, 1865, meeting
the combined forces of Gens. BRAGG and JOHNSTON. The hardest fight in the march
to and from the sea took place there, and was the last engagement led by Gen.
SHERMAN. In one charge made by three hundred men, nearly a third were left on
the field, so great was the slaughter. Continuing on toward the North after
witnessing the surrender of Gen. JOHNSTON, Dr. SNYDER was afflicted with
rheumatism and was sent to Washington via Newbern, NC. He was placed in the
hospital at Alexandria, VA, where he received his discharge June 16, 1865.
Returning to his home in Barry County with the $600 he had carefully saved from
his soldier’s earnings, Dr. SNYDER bought eighty acres of wild land in Maple
Grove Township, and for two years labored at its development and at the
carpenter’s trade. He then sold the property, bought in the town of Barry, and
began the study of medicine under Dr. WATSON, of Bedford, Calhoun County. He
entered the medical college before mentioned, and after his graduation and
establishment at Sebewa, exchanged his Barry County property for land in Ionia
County. He now owns one hundred and thirty acres in the north half of south half
Section 36 Sebewa, which he superintends, having the work done by hired help.
In February 1866, Dr. SNYDER was united in marriage with Mary C. BOWMAN,
daughter of Henry and Mary BOWMAN of Johnstown, Barry County. Mr. BOWMAN was by
birthright a member of the Society of Friends, and never departed from his
faith, although he was deprived of association with any body of Quakers after he
came West. Doctor and Mrs. SNYDER are the parents of five children – Edwin M.,
Fanny E., Winnie B., George W., and Henry P. Edwin was graduated from a Detroit
Medical College in the Class of ’88, and is now a practicing physician and
druggist at Sunfield. Henry married Eva, daughter of Benjamin PROBASCO Sr. (by
his third wife, Dora, and they became parents of Winnie BENSCHOTER and farmed on
the eighty acres south of his father). Fanny is a student in Portland. Winnie
died at age seven. (George Jr. married Lois M., and after her death at age 27 he
married widow Maria Theresa SINDLINGER WILLIAMS, mother of Mamie DOWNING.)
Dr. SNYDER belongs to Henry RICE Post, No. 151, G.A.R., at Sebewa, and is a
member of the Odd Fellows Lodge, in both of which he has held all the chairs. He
has always taken an interest in politics, and has frequently served as a
delegate to county and state conventions, where he has been quite active. He is
an unwavering Republican. END
Dr. George W. SNYDER died July 20, 1927, and his wife Mary died November 27,
1926. George W. SNYDER Jr. was born in 1878 and died February 14, 1929. His
second wife, Maria Theresa (Tracy), was born in 1874 and died June 15, 1972.
Henry P. SNYDER was born in 1869 and died September 7, 1940. His wife Eva M. was
born in 1871 and died March 21, 1944. They are all buried in East Sebewa
Cemetery and still have many descendents in the area.
THINGS I REMEMBER (conclusion) by Crystal Lovina BRAKE SLOWINS
1904-1984
In November 1924 there was an opening in the Hoppough School on White’s Bridge
Road, south of Smyrna. Because there were never more than seven pupils –
sometimes only five, I wouldn’t have much close work, and Elwood thought it
would be a good place. My father took me up there, they hired me, and I started
teaching on December 1. I stayed at Clayton and Flossie BAKER’S. They had a
little girl, Helen, in the first grade. I received $85 a month and paid $3.00 a
week room and board. I didn’t get home much there during the winter, in fact all
of the time I taught there. Roads weren’t passable part of the time. A couple
times that I did go home in the winter, I went on the train. The station was
south of Smyrna, and I’d ride down to Elmdale, where my father would meet me.
Flossie would call the stationmaster at Greenville and tell him to have the
train stop at Smyrna for me. Bess Peterson, across from BAKER’S, worked in
Belding. Instead of letting her off at Smyrna, the trainmen would bring her
along down to the Peterson farm and stop in their field, so she wouldn’t have so
far to walk. Down by Freeport and Elmdale we called the train “Old Jerry”. Up
there they called it “Bobby” as I recall.The residents around Smyrna had
electricity, which we didn’t have down our way. Nor did they have it at Limerick
nor North Bell, when I taught there. There were two dams near Smyrna. During the
summer between the two years I was there, they had another little girl at
BAKER’S, Bertha Louise (Betty Lou). Flossie wanted me to help her, but Jackolyn
was born at Elwood’s that same time, in fact a day apart, and I helped Nadia.
After two years Elwood thought I might like to move on to a larger school. By
increasing the strength of my glasses often, I was doing O.K. I applied for the
LIMERICK School, north of Lake Odessa, and was hired for $100 a month. I went
home weekends. During the week I stayed with Frank and Emma O’MARA for $5.00 a
week. At that time they had 3 children, Marie, Tommy and Lawrence. Frank’s home
had been just east of the schoolhouse, but they lived across the road to the
west and north now. His brother Tom, sister Annie, and hired man Bernie MAJINSKA
lived in the old place. Emma and Annie worked together and went places together
a lot. When I went home from school in the afternoon, if Emma wasn’t home I went
to Annie’s. If they had all gone someplace and it came time to start supper, I
added wood to the old cook stove and prepared supper. More than once I baked a
cake for it. The coffee pot was always kept on the back of the stove – just add
more grounds and water. By and by you had to empty the grounds and start over.
The first year I was there I got a bit homesick for Smyrna and didn’t really
know if I wanted to stay a second year, when they asked me at Christmas time. I
said I’d stay for a raise of $20 a month and they immediately said they’d pay
it. And you see, it was a good thing I stayed, for I met Don there. One night
(April 7, 1927) he came to Tom’s while we were all there, to pay the men for
some road work that his dad had been overseer on. It was raining and Bernie (who
was Don’s cousin) said “Donald, you’d better take the teacher home”. Of course I
could have gone with Frank and Emma. The O’Mara’s were distant cousins too, but
I didn’t know it at that time. We went together from then on.
I needed to renew my Teacher’s Certificate, so went to Big Rapids to summer
school between my two years at LIMERICK (1927). Mary MARSH, who had taken the
HOPPOUGH after me, went to Big Rapids with me. We roomed and boarded on State
St. with Mr. & Mrs. Frank STEFFY from Stockbridge. They had come up there,
rented a house, and were taking in roomers while their two youngest children
attended college. Their son received his degree in Pharmacy there. The daughter
never finished college.I went to summer school at Kalamazoo in 1928, rooming
with Olive RICHARDSON. Again I decided to move on to higher wages and was hired
at the North Bell School in Boston Township, for $125 per month. That was the
highest wage paid in any Ionia County rural school at that time. I boarded with
George & May WALKER the first year for $5.00 per week. Their health became poor
and they moved to Saranac to be near their daughter, and I went across the road
to Maurice & Jessie CAHOON’S to stay the second year. For several years when I
was teaching, I was sent girls from County Normal for practice-teaching. They
were Doris PHILLIPS, Eunice KNIGHT, Doris COX, Ruth PEACOCK and Ariel DENTON.
A few more thoughts from my childhood come to mind. We had a croquet set from
the time we lived on Uncle Fred’s. The men would play at their noon hour. I
remember Sime SEARS would come down at noon and play with my father & Elwood &
Uncle Chris one summer when Chris worked there. Sime and Uncle Chris were both
quick tempered. Once in a while the game got a little touchy if they played on
opposite sides. Another game the men played was horseshoes.
When I was growing up, my chores were hoeing or pulling weeds in the garden,
picking berries or cherries, and cleaning. Mable helped with the cooking. On
Saturdays I had to wash all the lamp chimneys and lantern globes. Sometimes they
would get smoked up and need to be washed more often. Each bedroom had a lamp
and I would gather them on Saturday, wash them, and refill the oil. Mother had
wooden kitchen chairs that had to be washed and always the kitchen sink.
We had autograph albums back when I was in country school. In fact that craze
seems to go in cycles like some others. Back when Mother was in school she had
one too. She gave it to me in later years. My father had written in it “In after
years when this you see, I wonder what your name will be”. Of course, it turned
out it was his name. I can’t remember exactly what my dad wrote in mine, but I
know as we grew older it was rather amusing. He said in all of his travels, I
was the dearest and best. Of course his travels didn’t include much farther than
Ionia, Lansing, and Grand Rapids at that time. Although he had been to
Saskatchewan with Uncle Allen AMON of Sunfield on a land-buying expedition in
1904. END
MORE ABOUT ROBERT WILFRED GIERMAN:
Bob GIERMAN was one of the tru historians of the area. Once he picked up on the
scent of a piece of Michigan history, he worked it through to the finish. Such
was the case with the now-deceased Princess Ella Jane PETOSKEY. Ella Jane was
tiny in size but huge in Indian pride and stamina. She was a college graduate
and had taught in the Indian schools until her retirement. She now survived
summer and winter in a one-room shack near Harbor Springs, living on the hope
that somehow her grandfather, Chief PETOSKEY would be duly recognized.
Bob GIERMAN heard of Ella Jane (probably because Ephraim SHAY, Sebewa native who
invented the SHAY locomotive, also retired and died at Harbor Springs). He
looked her up, talked about the PETOSKEY fossil stone, and he was on a new
pilgrimage. He contacted the late State Representative Stanley M. POWELL of
Ionia and then State Representative Eugene CATER of Ludington, urging them to
have the PETOSKEY stone named the State Stone of Michigan.
Finally, Ella Jane PETOSKEY agreed to come to the Sebewa area. Bob brought her
down June 24, 1965, and she was in Governor George Romney’s office in Lansing
when he signed the bill naming the PETOSKEY Stone the State Stone of Michigan.
The Governor gave Ella Jane the pen used in signing the bill, along with a
medallion. She in turn presented him with a tie clasp and cuff link set made
from PETOSKEY stone. She went back to Harbor Springs the same day, leaving her
mark on Michigan history---with the help of Bob GIERMAN. She did come back later
to stay with Bob’s Aunt Mae GIERMAN and attended church at Sebewa Center United
Methodist. Her grave is now marked by a simple stone placed there after her
death by Bob GIERMAN.---Vern M. BULLEN
IONIA COUNTY INFIRMARY:
On Sunday, October 7, 1984, a bronze marker, set in a ten-ton boulder, was
dedicated at the cemetery which served the Ionia County Infirmary. The marker
bears 55 names. The cemetery is located a short distance off the northwest
corner of the picnic grounds at Ionia State Recreation Area on the north side of
Riverside Drive, approximately three miles west of M-66.
Many remember Ionia County Infirmary was the name of the county poorhouse. It
served the aged, infirm, abandoned and otherwise helpless for almost 60 years.
It was the way the county cared for those who, for one reason or another, could
not care for themselves and had no one who could or would care for them. Men and
women and even children did get taken to the infirmary, lived and died there,
and were buried there. Funeral arrangements were simple: a pine box generally.
There were wooden crosses, but no headstones to mark the graves. When the
infirmary was discontinued in 1966 and the land given to the State of Michigan
soon thereafter, the cemetery---probably last used in 1934---went along with the
rest of the real estate. The grass and brush grew. One had to know it was a
cemetery once, since nothing designated it. The Department of Natural Resources
is in the park business, not to mention fish and game, landfills, streams and
lakes, and a good deal else. It is not in the cemetery business. When the County
Board of Supervisors gave the land to the State, it made no cemetery exception
or provisions in the deed. The cemetery at the County Farm was well on its way
to being erased from memory.
One man thought that wrong: Robert W. GIERMAN of Sebewa, historian and writer,
gentle man and scholar, preserver and protector, began work on the county
infirmary cemetery. By searching, he found burial records. By more meetings and
appointments, he won cooperation and support for restoring the cemetery. Ionia
County Road Commission employees moved the boulder he chose from the old
WILLIAMS Brothers gravel pit to the cemetery. Steve YENCHAR of Ionia, who works
at Lowell Granite Co., made arrangements to fabricate the marker and set it into
the boulder. Bob GIERMAN honored those who knew little honor in their dying and
potter’s field as their resting place.--—Rus GREGORY
WILFRED ALSO TRACKED DOWN AND MARKED THE PREVIOUS COUNTY FARM
CEMETERY IN RONALD TOWNSHIP:
It is located on the George & Barbara WITTENBACH farm, long known as the John B.
& Amos WELCH farm, on COOPER Road, at SW ¼ of NE ¼ Sec. 33 Ronald Twp. The land
was settled by Ronald Township’s first settler, Joshua SHEPARD, in 1837. J. S.
SCHENCK’S History says: “He wore himself out and died soon after reaching this
place in the woods and was buried on his own farm”. Title went from SHEPARD to
David BALDIE and he sold it to Ionia County for its first poor farm in 1856.
BALDIE made a reservation of that little quarter acre for cemetery purposes and
that was the last entry in the Register of Deeds office for the cemetery.
In 1871 the Board of Supervisors replaced the original farm house with a $7000
brick building and from 30 to 50 people were cared for at a time. This building
burned in 1907 and the foundations can still be seen on the WITTENBACH farm.
After the fire, the farm was sold to W. NORMINGTON who later sold to John B.
WELCH, and a new $37,000 brick poor house was built on the SESSIONS farm on
Riverside Drive. Frederick H. VanderHEYDEN of Ionia furnished the brick, and 720
feet of six-inch sewer pipe ran from the house to the creek!!! G. WOLVERTON was
the long-time manager of the Ronald Township Poor Farm, and Mr. and Mrs. Harvey
GIBSON were the last managers at the Berlin Township Poor Farm. The little
cemetery in Ronald has been left to itself enough so that little rows of
depressions clearly show where there were graves. Records show 44 burials in
that cemetery, besides the original Joshua SHEPARD. Another boulder was provided
by Colin WILLIAMS and Ionia County paid for the bronze plaque to list them.---
Grayden SLOWINS
SUNSHINE is a land of soft undulation, some natural sloping and
some cuts by the men who mined the gravel for the roads of Sebewa. Bob gridded
his hilltops with pines, planted on the square. First white pines, then he moved
out from this core, planting other pines and spruces, especially the dusty blue
spruces and their turquoise siblings. A string of birches from the Little
Traverse Bay collection of Ella Jane PETOSKEY was curved along a path like a
pearl necklace.
Pines and spruces go about a business generously called “self-pruning”. What
this really means is that all the lower limbs that don’t get enough sunlight
just flat-out die. Then they stay on the tree, looking dead and ugly and make
trying to walk through the woods even uglier. Bob, whose priorities run to
orderly trees and trim lawns, created his own trimming ladder and ever since has
been chasing dead limbs up tree trunks, lopping with his trusty bow-saw.
The result is that he has created an airy cathedral in his woods, a swaying,
glistening, whispering, redolent Parthenon of pines.
Sprinkled around the county are mini-Sunshines. Here and there are Bob’s
chestnut trees, ginkgoes, catalpas, and all else, thriving in gardens, honoring
cemeteries, and gracing hillsides. Who can forget the sight of Bob roaring up in
his Bondex Volkswagon with a palpitating bare-foot ginkgo strapped on the back.
He was present to give another present. ---William B. DAVIS