Coopersville Observer, May 23, 1913
Asa L. Rice
Asa L. Rice was born in Warren, Turnbull County, Ohio, November 1, 1840, where he lived with his parents until they moved to Michigan, settling on a homestead in Wright Township, Ottawa County, in 1847. At the age of twenty-two, he left home and landed in Rome, New York, where on August 13, 1862, he enlisted in Company H, 117th New York Infantry. Here he served his country in actual service until the morning of July 4, 1864, when he received a wound from a cannon ball which disabled him from further service, and he was taken to the hospital where he was constantly under the care of surgeons for nine months. He was honorably discharged at Albany, New York, May 9, 1865.
At the close of the war he returned to Michigan, and in 1868 he was united in marriage to Esther A. Bishop, at Chase, Michigan. To this union were born three children: Celia, who died in infancy, Mrs. Rhoda Yocum, of Grant, and F. E. Rice, of Mesick, who with one step-daughter, Mrs. Frances Wood, of Coopersville, and two brothers, Wm. L. Rice of Coopersville and Sidney Rice, of Chinook, Montana, together with many other relatives and friends are left to mourn their loss.
On February 18, 1910, he entered the Michigan Soldiers’ Home where he died Wednesday, May 14, 1913, aged seventy-two years, five months, and thirteen days.
The funeral services were held from the Home Chapel Saturday afternoon and the remains brought to Coopersville and laid to rest in the village cemetery.