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PIONEER RESIDENT WRITES STORY OF EARLY DAYS HERE

– this article appeared in the Stanton Clipper Herald January 18, 1935.

PIONEER RESIDENT WRITES STORY OF EARLY DAYS HERE
MRS. ELLA WIRICK CAME TO MONTCALM CO. SEVENTY-ONE YEARS AGO

   Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Wirick of Stanton will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary Thursday quietly, with a few old friends and neighbors. They have lived all these years, except about 18 months, in Montcalm County. They are very active, she keeping up their housework, washing, etc. and he doing the home chores and errands about town. They have lived in Stanton about 17 years.
   Andrew Wirick was born in Knoxville, O., May 4, 1853; came to Michigan in 1864 and homesteaded at Cedar Lake in 1865.
   He came to Stanton when there were only seven houses and one general store, owned by Meach & Lee.
   His home was in Greenville from his fourteenth year until he was married, at the age of 23.

Mrs. Wirick Tells Her Story:

   I was born in Hillsdale county, Michigan, June 22, 1855, on a farm. My father died when I was nine months old. I was the youngest of ten children, and was five years old when my mother married again.
   In 1864 my step-father and my mother came to Montcalm county to visit my father's brother, Jacob Beard, and family, who lived on a homestead where Graftville is now located.
   The next year, Oct., 1865, my mother and step-father and six children came north to live. My step-father bought a man's claim and we moved onto it, which is one mile west and one-half mile south of Edmore. We shipped most of our belongings and moved with a wagon drawn by a nice young pair of horses.
   We fared quite a lot better than the most of our neighbors, as they came a year or tow before we did, and if they brought provisions (remainder of sentence is blurred and unreadable).
   (Again - unreadable)…..of pork and brought ………….wagon with us; besides, mother brought crocks of butter, eggs, lard, headcheese, etc., enough to last the first winter; besides, we had some money. Tea was $2 a pound and every family drank beechnut coffee. Mother would roast them in the oven and grind them in the coffee mill. But we had no cream to put in our coffee and we could not afford to drink the real tea or coffee.
   Father had to go to Ionia to bring home what we had shipped, as Ionia had the nearest railroad. He bought six chairs, two bedsteads and a cook stove. We couldn't buy ranges then. The cook stove had an elevated oven. Mother brought her spinning wheel with her and some rolls. She spun the rolls into yarn and knit our stockings.
   As we were moving north, when the sun began to go down, Father would stop at a farmhouse and ask if they would keep us over night. He would tell them we didn't want them to get our meals, as we had plenty; all we wanted was a place to sleep and the privilege of boiling the teakettle to make tea or coffee and the use of a table. People were very nice and hospitable and we were never turned away. I distinctly remember the trip.
   One thing happened that always causes me to smile when I think of it. When we got to Sheridan it was getting late, and my folks wanted to get to Stanton that night to stay with John Henning, who kept a blacksmith shop here at that time, and they had made his acquaintance the year before, when they came to visit my uncle. So my big brother and father walked ahead of the team. Father carried a lantern and my brother carried a gun, and Mother drove the team. It was very dark and when one looked out into the dense, dark woods it did look hideous and scary. Where a tree had fallen over other trees and the top had turned brown, it did look like a big animal in the dark. They were walking along leisurely and all at once my brother stopped and said to Father, "Don't you see that?" Father said, "See what?" My brother said, "For gosh sake! Don't you see that?" Then Father said, "If you see anything, shoot." So my brother shot right into a pine tree top that had died and turned brown and fallen, the top toward the road. Didn't we have the laugh on my brother!
   I don't know what time of day we left Stanton for our new home, but we got to my uncle's about 5:00 p.m. As we got in sight of their clearing we saw my aunt out in the yard and she had a fire and a big kettle hung over the fires, stirring pumpkin butter. To surprise her, Father stood up in the wagon and shot off his gun. We stayed with them that night and the next morning we went to our new home.
   The next thing, we children started to school. We had had to walk two miles to Graftville, called the Fair school , because there was a family living on that corner by the name of Fair. We often had to wade snow two feet deep. We didn't mind it. It didn't get cold like it does here. The trees were so thick they kept the wind out. Our teacher was a married lady. The school inspector came from Stanton. His name was Jim Covil.
   Everyone was poor alike, but those were happy days. Our neighbors were from half a mile to four miles apart. Most of them were church-going people and their homes were always open for church and Sunday school. There was a United Brethren minister living near Graftville and he did the preaching. During the winter of 1865 he held a revival one mile south of Graftville and three miles from my home. Father would put the sleigh bells on the horses, and take the big sleigh and we would all sit on the bottom of the wagon box and he would take all that wanted to go. Didn't we enjoy it! I'll say we did. Mother and step-father and myself went back to Hillsdale the next fall, in 1866. My oldest sister didn't come north with us; she stayed with my mother's cousin and in February, 1866 she got married. Then when we went back she coaxed me to stay with here. I was 11 years old and I cold hardly make up my mind to stay, as mother told me, "If you stay it will be a year before you can come back." My brother-in-law went to Hillsdale a day or two before they were to start back and bought me a new dress and some other things, so I stayed. The next fall, 1867, they moved north and I came with them.
   In my absence there had been a new frame schoolhouse built about 80 rods north of my folk's place. Jim Slanker was the teacher he boarded with my folks. I went to school until I was past 14 and in August I worked in Westville for a family by the name of Boyer. There were four of them in the family and I did all the work. When I was 12 years old I knew how to make blackberry pie and could make yeast bread from start to finish.
   In 1874 I got acquainted with Andrew Wirick and Jan. 17, 1875, we were married. We have three children: Mrs. Fern Snyder, who lives in Livingston, Montana; Floyd Wirick, who lives in Vancouver, B.C. and Mrs. Florence Smith of Detroit; also eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Article contributed by Stanton area resident Judy Hardy

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