THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR Bulletin of the Sebewa Association (Sebewa Township, Ionia County, MI).
DECEMBER 1999, Volume 35, Number 3. Submitted with written permission of Grayden D. Slowins, Editor:


SURNAMES: Conkrite, Meyers, Creighton, Luscher, Peacock, Vaarberg, Wilson, Cornell, Bradley, Alberts, Evans, Friend, Burkle, Hull, Wooden, Wainwright, Youngs, Derby, Snyder, Smith, Hale, High, Skinner, Showerman, Buchner, Lindsley, Cassel, Fender, Reed, Halladay, Deatsman, Erdman, Lowe, Brown, McCormack, Hiar, Benschoter, Ingalls, Sindlinger, Kenyon, Sears, Greenhoe

RECENT DEATH:

ELFA IRENE MEYERS CREIGHTON, 99, widow of Arthur CREIGHTON, sister of the late Wilma YORK, Lancey, William Jr. and August Valentine MEYERS and another brother, daughter of William & Mary PICKENS MEYERS. Buried in East Sebewa Cemetery.

LUSCHER FAMILY UPDATE:
We misspelled the name of Warren & Gertrude’s daughter last issue. She is Nettie, not Nellie. Her last name is MORTON and she lives in Englewood, FL. Gerald was first married to Cecil WARD and had Larry, James & Kenneth. He was married second to Arlene (SPEED) HOPPES and has Geraldine who married TUMY & MURPHY.

SHERIFF DWAIN DENNIS wrote a nice article for THE SENTINEL
WEEKENDER about previous sheriffs. Sherry PEACOCK VAARBERG grew up in the jail from about one year of age, when her grandparents, the Gary NEWTONS, were Sheriff & Matron/Cook. She rode her tricycle up & down the upstairs cell-block. She always felt safe and found out the reason years later. The word on the inside was that if anyone laid a hand on her curly blonde head, they would pull back a bloody stump, if not by the deputies, then by the other prisoners, for whom she was the only contact with the real world! Riley N. WILSON, who lived in the last house north on the west side in Sebewa Corners, was a long-time local Deputy and was Ionia County Sheriff about the time of the Civil War.

INTERVIEW WITH FERN CONKRITE by Grayden SLOWINS (continued from April, June & August, 1990)
[Also see corrections/additions at the bottom on this page.]

The CORNELLS had a store in Sebewa Corners. (Frank N. Cornell 1860-1927, and Jessie CORNELL 1866-1900, are buried in East Sebewa Cemetery.) John BRADLEY had a store and house north of the Oddfellow Hall. ALBERTS (Marjorie GILDEN’S parents) had the first store & house west of the Oddfellow Hall, and a blacksmith shop. CORNELL’S store and house were next west of that on MUSGROVE Hwy. The AUSTIN boy has all those lots facing MUSGROVE now, but only the Oddfellow building remains. Ward MERRIFIELD moved the CORNELL house over on BIPPLEY Rd., where a house had burned, and then that house burned, too. This was west of the Herb EVANS farm and Don BENSCHOTER owned the land later, then Howard MEYERS. The barn sort of fell down and all that’s left now is a silo.

On the southwest corner was the John FRIEND house; he platted the Sebewa side of town on part of his farm. The next house south was the hotel. The HOLMES family lived in the third house, now known as the DARLING house. The John FRIEND double store building was next west of his house, and that’s where my dad had a general store, in the west half, before I was born. The next house west of the double building was the Gracie MARTIN house. My folks’ first home was just west of that, later was moved away, and now has been replaced by FYANS with the LIPPENCOTT house.

The farm buildings west of these buildings were the John FRIEND farm, later known as the KNAPP farm. Peter, Lawrence and Howard KNAPP had quite an orchard and lots of chickens, as well as cattle and sheep. But back then it belonged to the FRIEND family. I don’t remember John, and his son George had moved from the farmhouse up to the corner house by my time. I think maybe George’s son Ralph was in the farmhouse when I can first remember.

Emma FRIEND married Alonzo (Lon) EVANS and they farmed where Bruce & Vivian WALKINGTON later started. In later years he got a Civil War pension and moved to that house behind Jim BEDELL at the corner of Jefferson & Madison, in the Danby (CORNELL) side of town.

Jim BEDELL had the Nancy CHASE PUFFER house at Madison & KEEFER. The CHASE farm was just west of the United Brethren Campgrounds (now Bible Missionary Camp). Nancy CARBAUGH was born on what is now the Joe & Doris PUNG farm. That place is all one now, but at one time there were two CARBAUGH families and two sets of buildings up there. She married MURPHY first and had a son, who got the farm, so that’s why they call it the MURPHY farm now. But the husband she had the longest was George CHASE. They farmed there by the campground and are buried up in the East Cemetery. But he died, too, and she married PUFFER and they lived on EMERY Road amongst the KENYONS for a while. I hadn’t thought about that for a long time; you know, you get to talking about these things and a lot of things come back that you hadn’t thought of in years. Later they moved to that house in town and when he got in poor health, she sent him to Texas to be with his boys by a previous marriage. But supposedly, when he died, his sons buried him back up here someplace, maybe with his first wife. That first Lon EVANS house burned and they moved next south, in a HOLLENBACH house.

George FRIEND’S children were as follows:
Ralph was the oldest, and he married Lucy HALLADAY from just south of the Methodist Church. That farm south of the church was the old Charlie HALLADAY farm (once Clerk of Ionia County). After the HALLADAY family, the KARTUSKI (CARR) family lived there. They didn’t have much when they came here from the old country and their first children were being born. The youngest FRIEND boy was Jesse, and he married Bessie somebody. They’re both up in the cemetery, but only she has a stone. They didn’t have any children. That’s what caused her death, childbirth. She wasn’t very old (25). There were several FRIEND boys in-between; Fred lived in Portland and is buried north of Ralph, without a stone. There is a stone for Herbert, age 3, and Archibald, about 16 or 17.

My cousin, Ethelyn BURKLE (pronounced “BURKLEY”), was hired girl at Lon EVANS’S at the time of Bessie FRIEND’S death. Ethelyn was the daughter of George DOOLITTLE & Minnie HORNER, daughter of Hosiah HORNER & Marie CONKRITE, my dad’s sister.

They all lived on TUPPER Lake Road just over into Danby Township, and just east of my Uncle Manley CONKRITE. Marie & Hosiah had three daughters, Minnie, Clara and, er, uh, well, that bird flew out the window too (Annette). When Clara was three months old, her mother died. In less than a year, Hosiah married his wife’s sister, Fidelia CONKRITE, who was only 16 years old, and they had three boys, Ben, Arthur & Tom. Ethelyn was hot for the recently widowed Jesse FRIEND, but nothing came of it. Jesse eventually died at his parents’ home in Portland, where they retired to the house between Doc BENEDICT and Ed GOODWIN’S Monument building that was torn down to build the theater.

My grandparents, William CONKRITE & Calphernia HULL, lived on the first place south of Centerline Bridge on the west side of the road. Later they moved to TUPPER Lake Road, where Keith MERRYFIELD is now. That’s where most of the kids were born, I guess. Milton was the oldest child and he was four months old when they brought him from New York State to this little hut up there on Charlotte Hwy. Then there were Charlie, Manley & George.

The girls were Marie, Fidelia, Mary – (Jerusha); and Luella, who married Ransom TAYLOR. Oh, and Nancy, who married John COULTER. That makes ten. Then Grandpa died young and left her with a big family to raise. George never married; he was a brakeman on the railroad and got hurt. When I was born, they chopped off both ends of Calphernia and named me Fern.

The children of Mary CONKRITE & Truman WOODEN were: Margaret, wife of Fred MAUREN, Sr., of the Portland Review, Etha, wife of Ionia banker Willard HAWLEY, and Robert, who married Lottie McCRUMB. Lottie’s mother was an AZELTINE. Mrs. Tom FROST, Sr., was her sister, and when that FROST family ran out, the WOODENS ended up getting the land at FROST Corners. Robert WOODEN’S children were Robert, Jr., and Richard. Richard WOODEN’S children were Margaret, Richard, Jr., Catherine & John.

My Grandmother WAINWRIGHT was also a WOODEN. Floyd WAINWRIGHT’S father, Joe, was a brother to my mother, Emma. Joe married Mae HUDSON. Uncle Joe used to be the street-sweeper in Portland; had a big bushy mustache. He had one of those barrel-like carts with two big wheels and all the brooms & shovels standing in it. He had a pointed shovel, and a square shovel, and a push broom and a hand broom. He and road-apples passed away at about the same time. James WAINWRIGHT, brother to Joe & Emma, married Edith YOUNGS, from the Henry YOUNGS family, on what is now the Victor WILSON farm. They also had a sister, Jane, who was only 16 when she died of scarlet fever complicated by meningitis. Mrs. William PRYER, Sr., was a WOODEN, too, but I think theirs was spelled WOODIN.

When I was growing up in Sebewa, I became pianist at the Sebewa Corners Methodist Church. Well, after I came down here to Portland, I went to the Methodist Church, Gertie and I did, for a while. And, I don’t know, we got very well acquainted with Mrs. NELLER (Minister at the Church of the Nazarene). I hadn’t been going, neither of us had been going to church. I don’t know, there was something, one of the preachers or something, and we just drifted away. One day, Mrs. NELLER and I were talking and she said “Fern, I don’t like to see you waste all your talents, and we need a pianist just awful bad. Mrs. FENNER had been praying for a couple of years for somebody to come and take her place. Won’t you come and do it?

And I said “Well, I guess I could”. So I just started going to the Nazarene Church, and I played there for many years. I even played up here, after they built the new church a few years ago. That old church down in the valley was built by the Presbyterians. The Congos (Congregationalists) had a little disturbance years ago and there was a bunch of them broke off. They built that church down there and called themselves Presbyterians. Well, then, they got back together again, and they sold that building to the Pilgrim Holiness people, that have that Bible College in Owosso. Then the United Brethren got hold of it, and then the Nazarenes.

F. C. (Clancey, Clanty) DERBY and his wife Millie lived north of Sebewa Creek on the Danby side. There were two daughters by his first wife: Rose, who married Dr. Ed SNYDER, son of Dr. George SNYDER, and lived in Sunfield and then Lake Odessa; and Nellie, who married John MORRISSEY, a blacksmith in Sunfield. After Clanty died, the second wife, Millie, sold the farm to Dr. George MORSE of Lake Odessa and moved uptown. She lived in that house back in the northeast corner of town. Later she took care of Lon EVANS and got his last house at the southwest corner of Washington & Jackson. After Lon EVANS quit farming, he lived up there west of you, you know, (WALKINGTONS’); I never knew him to do anything when he moved to town except live on his pension, his Civil War pension. Didn’t take much to live, those days.

When Ben SMITH & Mabel HALE got married, they moved away from town for a while and lived on the Frank LINEBAUGH place up on EMERY Road. Then they lived in that house across from the Methodist Church and famed there when the boys were born. I remember him coming to the door one awful night, the snow was a-blowing and it was cold. He said “If a baby is going to be born in Michigan, it will be tonight!”

Ben was right, a SMITH baby was born that night. Ben took the horse & sleigh and went to Sunfield and got Dr. CRAWFORD. Then he got Louise (Mrs. Oren) REEDER, who lived on the north edge of town on the Danby side, where Gorma BAILEY lived later, and brought her to assist. I never delivered any babies, nor even assisted, when I was babying.

George & Mahala HIGH lived next north of the Clanty DERBY farm. She was a sister to Sadie (Sarah) COOPER, who lived where Sunshine is now. They were HOLLENBACH girls, daughters of George HOLLENBACH. His wife was a COLLINGHAM, sister to Elizabeth, second wife of Oliver SMITH, Sr., daughters of Jacob COLLINGHAM that had the first sawmill. George HIGH and his brother John both lived there on the Danby side, where Vaughn & Janet CARTER live now. I think Vaughn tore the house down. (He says there was just a shed and open well.) George & Mahala’s daughter was Nellie, who married Dr. Fred MORSE, and their son was Dr. George MORSE, who came back out from Lake Odessa and bought the DERBY farm for his cottage retreat on Sebewa Creek.

You know that CARBAUGH farm north of STONE’S corners we talked about, where Nancy CARBAUGH MURPHY CHASE PUFFER grew up? Well, after the CARBAUGHS were gone, a widower named Caspar SCHAEFFER lived there. Angela EVAN’S grandmother, Callie SKINNER, kept house for him and I think maybe married him. Bessie & Adrian ALBERTA farmed for a long time on another CARBAUGH farm on Sunfield Road, up in Orange.

Grant CARBAUGH came from up there someplace, the one that married Minnie LOWE SOUTHWELL. He ran the LOWE Mill for a while and she drove Star Route mail between Sebewa and Sunfield. Her daughters were Goldie JACKSON and Helen CAMPBELL GILBERT. Helen was only 14 when she got married to Charlie CAMPBELL. Goldie was 16 and already married, so Helen sent her with Charlie to get the marriage license. SOUTHWELLS lived on the east side of town, on CASS Street, where Kenny ACKERSON lives now.

Ernest SHOWERMAN lived in a little yellow house west of Robert & Clarice, and he was followed by Edward. Elmer (Jay) SHOWERMAN lived in the big house and he married Lydia HENRY, and had Robert. His cousin Frank SHOWERMAN married her sister, Cora HENRY, and had Louise, who married Melvin BUCHNER. Orlando V. SHOWERMAN was the father of Ernest & Elmer Jay, and had all their land. He and Lucius, Frank’s dad, were early settlers. James H. McCLELLAND had the Fred HART place across the road on the north side of MUSGROVE, and had twin sons, Wilton & Willis. Chase McCLELLAND had the Herb EVANS land on the north side of BIPPLEY Road.

Rollin DERBY was a brother to Clanty. He and his wife, Bernice, lived on the west side of Jefferson Street, just north of MUSGROVE. He had a Star Route to Sunfield before Minnie CARBAUGH and also hauled to Portland, but went straight through without delivering along the way there. Carl & Lola LINDSLEY owned the old HIGH farm on the west side of KEEFER Hwy. north of town. One daughter died in the Flu Epidemic and then he died. The other daughter married and her mother moved back up north with them. Carl’s brother Luther & wife, Grace PEAKE, ran the Farmers Gas Station in Portland, and they asked me to have the grave dug when Carl’s wife died. Their brother Perry married Grace’s sister, Nora PEAKE.

Melvin & Jennie CASSEL FENDER were in the tenant house on your place, the OLRY farm. When Glenn was born, I washed & dressed him. I don’t remember about Dick. Oh, that Dick was a little peeler.

I was going to tell you about Elizabeth CORNELL. She was the daughter of Frank & Jessie CORNELL. She was the teacher when I graduated from the eighth grade, in 1910. Elizabeth DORIN was in my class and we had quite a splash. They had just finished the Oddfellow Hall there on the northwest corner; it wasn’t quite done; I remember they had to get the floor put down in order for us to have exercises there. The actual lodge hall was upstairs. Downstairs was just a big auditorium; they used it for a dining room. Dances, or anything they wanted to use it for. Elizabeth CORNELL came to teach when I was in the eighth grade. I think she taught there for four years, then she went west. She never married. Both of her brothers were out there and they both died there. Agnes ERDMAN was my first teacher and a Miss WILTON came in between.

There were two of the REED families in our neighborhood. Ernie & Minnie BRADEN REED lived on BIPPLEY just west of COLLINGHAMS. Their kids were Vern and Bertha, who married Howard KNAPP. Earl & Blanche TOWNSEND REED lived on the ERDMAN farm east of town in Danby, at the corner of ERDMAN & MUSGROVE. They had Lloyd, Bernice & Iris. Earl & Ernest were sons of Thomas HOSEA REED over on the west townline (State Road). Blanche was the daughter of Henry TOWNSEND, who lived where Hazel FENDER did later, on CASSEL Road.Talking about the LAKIN children; Etta WHITMAN took George, and I think one of the girls, when their mother died. One of the other boys, he kind of drifted around and he got ---, he married one of the MEADE girls.

We mentioned Charlie HALLADAY earlier, that was Ionia County Clerk at one time. His wife was Mildred (Mandy) SEARS. I think maybe they went to Alabama later in life, where their son Ernest lived, because they aren’t buried here nor in Danby. Another one of the older HALLADAYS made quite a fortune in California. I don’t know, I think he had gold and oil. About 1917 or 1918, he died, and when the property was all settled up, it made some of the HALLADAY family quite well-to-do. Not all the HALLADAYS benefited, but Edgar did, and Lillian MERRILL, and Anna DRAVENSTATT, and George HALLADAY.

Arthur HALLADAY had the farm on the southeast corner of town. He was a son of Charlie HALLADAY. His wife was Martha Jane DEATSMAN and their daughter Bernice married Jake SANDBORN. Martha Jane’s parents were Charles & Elizabeth DEATSMAN. They lived down there on the northeast corner of MUSGROVE and Sunfield Hwys., and are buried in the east cemetery. He was a Civil War Vet. They also had Farrel, who married Grace ERDMAN, and Alva. One of them was father of Forrest DEATSMAN, who lived in Lake Odessa and had Carlon, LaVon, and another boy, and Mrs. Dallas BRADEN & Mrs. Bob COOK.

I have been talking mostly about the Sebewa Corners I knew about 1900-1934. There were about 35 houses and some 90 people, more or less. John BRADLEY was the Postmaster and he had a grocery store. Frank CORNELL had a general store. Will ALBERTS had a hardware store and blacksmith shop. Sometimes we had a meat market. Some of the clerks in the BRADLEY store were Harley ROGERS, Tracey WILLIAMS, Rhoda DEATSMAN and Reva SNYDER. Lillian ALLEMAN was bookkeeper in the CORNELL store and Leighton DeGRAW, Alva DEATSMAN and Orson DRAKE were a few of the clerks.

There were two churches – Sebewa Corners Methodist and HALLADAY United Brethren. John FRIEND gave (for $100!) a corner lot from his farm for the Methodist Church in 1876. Daniel HALLADAY gave land from his farm at the south end of the mile for the U.B. Church in 1892. The United Brethren people also had a campground just west of town that drew from quite a large district for Camp-Meetings in summer.

Sebewa HIGH School was named for the Jacob HIGH family, from whose farm the land came, and was located just north of the Corners on the west side. The HALLADAY School was located south of town near the HALLADAY Church. When I first went to school, we carried water from across the road. Later we got a well and pump. We used to keep warm with a Round Oak stove in the middle of the room. One teacher had as many as 30-40 pupils, but they had good control – discipline. I thought of more of my teachers: Agnes ERDMAN, Bruce GIBBS, Emerson RAY, Grace KENYON, Dorothy SAMAINE, Maude SAMINE LOCKWOOD, Emma WILTON and Elizabeth CORNELL.

In the early 1900s we had mail once a day to and from the train at Sunfield. Later the delivery was extended to and from Portland for a time. The first mailman I remember was Rollin (Rollo) DERBY, who carried to both Sunfield and Portland. Others were Lida PUFFER, Minnie SOUTHWELL and Jessie FRIEND, all of whom carried only to Sunfield. After the Sebewa office closed and R.F.D. came in, Lawrence KNAPP was our mail carrier for a long time, like 25 years or more. (Sanford LYON took the southwest part of Sebewa Township, out of Lake Odesssa, at that time – 1914 – and carried it for 44 years!)

Lawrence carried by horse & buggy in summer and team & sleighs in winter. He drove one horse to Sunfield in the morning, changed horses and delivered till noon and was back at the farm for dinner. He changed horses again and finished the route, then another change to the first one of the morning at Sunfield and came home at night. That was the summer schedule. Winter time called for two horses on the sleighs, as it was often harder going, but then only two teams, so each made about 20 miles. Later a Model-T did the trick, at least in summer, then a Model-A, and as time went on, a car to fit the times.

We had two grist mills in 1900. John FRIEND had built one in 1894 on the creek at the west edge of town, west of his buildings and near the sawmill built by John F. TERRILL & Anson W. HALBERT. His mill became the LOWE Brothers Mill and passed to Minnie LOWE & Grant CARBAUGH. The WEIPERT family had built a grist mill in 1876 north of town, just below Jacob COLLINGHAM’S sawmill. Various owners followed them, including BENEDICTS and Harry GIBSON.
We had flourishing I. O. O. F. (Independent Order of Odd Fellows) and Rebekah Lodges – about 100 members in each. I went through the chairs to Past Noble Grand and President of the County Noble Grands. I always played for the degree teams.

We sent several boys to World War I: Walter BROWN (Sr.), Otho LOWE, Floyd ERDMAN, Ivan McCORMACK, Clyde HIAR and Don Benschoter. Don was the last survivor. He and Winnie sent two boys, Junior and Norton, to World War II, and Jim went in the Army of Occupation. And one girl, Myrtle Desire SHOWERMAN, R. N. served in WWI.

Our doctors were: Dr. Orville ALBRO, who moved to Portland and has a street named for him; Dr. George SNYDER was next and was with us for a long time, later moving to Mulliken. Dr. Fred MORSE came next and went on to Lake Odessa. Dr. CRAWFORD was the last and he went to Sunfield. By that time, automobiles were in use, so house calls could be made much easier than with horse and buggy.

We did have a little crime. Twice I remember the Post Office being robbed. Not much was taken. The safe was blown open. The last time it was robbed, a horse & buggy were taken. The next morning it was found tied to the fence on the town-line road (KEEFER Hwy.) and all the residents were home in time for breakfast – in other words local talent. In another incident, John BRADLEY had taken several cords of wood on store debts. The wood pile began to get smaller. So a pinch of gunpowder was placed in several blocks of wood. In a few days a guy’s stove blew the door off. No more wood was taken!

On September 18, 1921 the D.A.R. Society of Ionia County erected a boulder along the road about one-half mile south of the corners, in memory of Jonathan INGALLS, our veteran of the Revolutionary War, who died in 1843. Two of his grandchildren, Hall J. INGALLS and Frances INGALLS SPAULDING, were present at the dedication ceremony. They were born in SHIMNECON, children of Charles INGALLS, Sr. Hall played with the Indian children, knew Chief OKEMOS and was present at his burial. HALL & wife Nellie lived some 60 years of married life a mile north of town, just north of the WEIPERT mill.

Some of early Methodist pastors were: T. J. SPENCER, Burch (who drove a horse & cart and wore a linen duster), WINN, ELLINGER, SWEM, Stanley THAYER (who came from England), CARTER & THOMPSON.

My school days ended with the 8th grade at Sebewa High. I went to work caring for new babies and their mothers. Babies were all born at home then. My first baby was Lucille SINDLINGER, later Mildred SINDLINGER, Kathryn KENYON, Arlene SEARS, two GREENHOE boys who were about three-times-great-grandsons of Jonathan INGALLS, Don BENSCHOTER, Jr., Norton BENSCHOTER and Glenn FENDER, to name a few.

In 1927, I came to Portland when Gertrude FISCHELL and I went into the interior decorating business. One year we hung 1000 rolls of wallpaper and spread several hundred gallons of paint. Gracie MARTIN had a crew of boys from Sebewa that painted barns and houses with her. She also did some interior work. Only a few houses are left in Sebewa Corners now and I am the oldest living native! END

NOW FOR THE FINAL REVELATION: About 85 years ago, Fern CONKRITE had a beau! We think his name was Charles KENYON, but can’t be sure, because this was one of several times when she made us shut off the tape recorder.

THE PICTURE on the previous page is Sebewa Corners in 1880, looking west on MUSGROVE Hwy. The Oddfellow Hall was built on the vacant corner lot about 30 years later and still stands.