Totem Pole Tales- Grace, Michigan- Part 2 Submitted by Nute Chapman From Onaway Outlook November 22, 2013

   CAPTION #1:  The Charlie Schell Stock Farm at Grace, November 1921. The barn is still standing.


   CAPTION #2:  This is how they hauled the big ones, back in the day.  Here is a huge 10-point at the Schell
Stock Farm.


   
   (Continued from last week)

   Some other names from this area are the Charlie Coles, the Dave Greens, the Speakouts, Thomes, Gardners, 
Behms, Millers, Winns, Grandys, Evans and Rogers, to name a few.

   The Chapman homestead is in Section 34, one mile due south from the end of Thome Road, where Schell Road
and Thome Road meet.

   This writer has spent many hours hunting in this area with my Dad and Granddad Wes, and now with my own
children and grandchildren.  Our son Charlie killed is first bear near the south end of Thome Road and our
grandson Dylan killed his first bear near the north end of Thome Road.

   Thome road and Schell Road was one of the late Bill Badgero's favorite partridge hunting areas.  This writer
made a few trips down this road with Bill in his Model A Ford, in the 1970s, until the beaver used part of
the road for their dam, stopping all through traffic.  Wow!

   How did I get from Grace, Michigan to hunting so easy.  Must be the season.

   Back to the main road.  Anyone traveling the area of Grace today has to wonder about the stone built homes
that are still standing today.

   There is the Schell home, now the Chris Garst home, the Thome or Garden home, now the Andy McCreey's, Gilbert
Beddells, the Bearinger Township Hall, and the stone buildings on Balch Road.  We even have the old Stone Road
that goes from the north end of Lake Sixteen and comes out on the Behm Road.  Again between the beavers and the
bridge being out, most of the road has to be traveled on foot.

   Charlie Cole had a bear bait on the Stone Road that is still used as a reference point, called "Charlie's Bait."
One has to wonder if the main crop grown at Grace was field stone.

   Another change in the Grace area was a small lake named Care Lake in the early 1900s.

   By the 1920s this same lake and river system were Carp Lake.  This is the Carp River that we made many trips
to in the spring to dip smelt.

   My dad and mom were smelt dipping on the Carp River April 21, 1940, the evening before I entered the world.
(No wonder I thought I was born to fish).
   

--Onaway Outlook November 22, 2013 pg. 3.



Retyped by J. Anderson.