Fred M. Utley is well known to Grand Rapids people. He was born in 1869 at Hesperia, Michigan, and spent his younger years in the active work of a lumberman, including river driving which was more or less of a daring and hazardous occupation enjoyed by young men. The picture shows Mr. Utley when he was 17 years old, wearing his river boots and holding a peavey, an implement used by all river drivers.  In 1886 he became associated with the Grand Rapids Post Office as a mail carrier and made a  host of friends in the many offices he contacted in that capacity. In 1920 he broke his ties with the post office and entered the insurance business with Aetna Life Insurance Company under the name of the F. M. Utley Agency. He has been very successful as he has the ability to make and keep friends.

(NOTE: Fred Utley's wife and two children were buried in White Cloud, Michigan.  "When the White Cloud Train Depot was sold in 1981 and moved to our resort on M-20, a broken headstone for a Shara Utley and two of her children was found under the depot."  (Per Harriet Peavey)