Wilfred S. Hannah Page 570-571 - Wilfred S Hannah, who has developed a very prosperous and well ordered business as a gardener and poultry grower, has his headquarters at, 2109 Eastern avenue, Grand Rapids. He was born in this city February 14, 1879, and is a son of Alfred and Jennie Orrell (Steel) Hannah, the former of whom was born in Cambridgeshire, England, in 1850, and the latter of whom was born in Richmond Center, New York. Alfred Hannah was reared and educated in his native land, and as a lad of seven years he began to work in the fields of his home county, so that he gained early knowledge of land cultivation and thus equipped himself in a preliminary way for the successful work he was to do as a market gardener in Grand Rapids. He was about twenty years of age when he came to the United States, in 1870, and he passed the first year in the state of New York. He then settled at Schoolcraft, Michigan, and he learned the blacksmith and carriage making trade, but his predilection was for productive gardening enterprise. In 1876 he came to Grand Rapids, and here he was for forty-five years engaged in the market gardening business, of which important line of enterprise he became a prominent and successful exponent. With well equipped greenhouses for the propagation of vegetables, he was a leader in the production of the fine Grand Rapids lettuce, now known far and wide through the United States. He specialized in the raising of the finest type of cantaloupe, and became locally known as the melon king. He applied himself diligently and faithfully during the long years of his business career in this community and was well and favorably known his products for many years. When he retired he was the owner of one of the largest greenhouses in the city. Mr Hannah received but limited educational advantages in his youth, but he read much, profited greatly by observation and experience, and became a man of broad mental ken, as well as of sterling character. He served many years as a member of the school board of Paris township, and prior to their marriage his wife had been a successful teacher for several years in the Seymour school in that township, her death having occurred in 1911, and Mr Hannah having passed away April 15, 1921, when about seventy years of age. In 1913 he contracted a second marriage, when Sarah Etta Allen became his wife, and she still maintains her home in Grand Rapids. After completing his high school studies Wilfred S Hannah became actively associated with his father's business, and thus he learned thoroughly all details of successful vegetable growing, a line of enterprise in which he is proving an able successor of his father, his greenhouses and gardens being in virtually the same location as those long conducted by his father, in Paris township. Mr Hannah married Miss Mary Malone, of Gratton township, Kent county, and they have four children: J.A. is assocate professor in the poultry department at Michigan Agricultural College, and the year 1925 finds the other sons students in high school -- Arthur C., and Wilfred Harold. The one daughter, third in order of birth of the four children, holds a position as bookkeeper in the Grand Rapids Savings Bank. It was about forty-five years ago that Alfred Hannah purchased his home property in Paris township, and trees that he planted on the land grew to large size, with the result that recently some of them have been manufactured into lumber that has been been used in the construction of houses on the old homestead farm of the Hannah family, this tract having been platted into city lots and George A. Hannah, the other son, being the contractor and builder who is in charge of the development of the property in accordance with plans that had been formed by the honored father some time prior to his death.

Transcriber: Terry Start
Created: 13 December 2002