History of Wexford County, MI. Compiled by John H. Wheeler Published in 1903 by B. F. Bowen Biography Page 182 - 183

MRS. CYNTHIA (WHITMORE) DAYHUFF

Thirty-five years ago what is now the county of Wexford was a wilderness. There were a few settlements, where people, willing to undergo the privations of pioneer life in the hope of a brighter future, came and availed themselves of the privileges of the homestead laws, settled on land and awaited the advance of civilization. At that time the population of the county consisted wholly of hard-working people. Conditions were then entirely too primitive for the event of professional men. Occasionally a minister of the gospel might be encountered, but he was one of those pious laborers who employed six days out of each week doing manual labor on the farm, in the woods or in a saw-mill and spent Sunday preaching salvation to those who cared to come to listen to him. As to lawyers, there were no questions for litigation and generally when the services of a doctor were required, through sickness or accident, he had to be called in from another county. These were the conditions prevailing in this locality when Mrs. Cynthia (Whitmore) Dayhuff, with her family, located in what is now Colfax township. At that time she was a woman forty-seven years of age, the mother of six children and with an abundance of experience in ministering to the sick and afflicted. She possessed a fair education, had read much, particularly standard medical authorities, and being blessed by nature with excellent judgment and a fund of rare common sense, the people in the vicinity of her home soon found her services far more valuable to the sick and suffering of the locality than the doctors whom they could induce to come in and prescribe for them. In this way she began the practice of medicine and devoted much of her time for many years to the profession, often being called from a distance of fifteen miles or more to attend a patient and almost invariably, when the call was not urgent or the distance great, making the journey on foot. In this way "Grandma Dayhuff," as she is popularly known, has been an angel of mercy to many a poor sufferer. Cynthia (Whitmore) Dayhuff is a native of the state of New York, born at Shelby, Genesee county, December 15, 1821, and is consequently now (1903) in the eighty-second year of her age. Her parents were Obediah and Betsey (Van Riper) Whitmore, also natives of the Empire state. In 1827, when the subject was six years old, the family moved to Chautauqua county, New York, where they lived for four years and then migrated to Ohio, locating in Sandusky county, where Mrs. Dayhuff grew to womanhood. She attended school in her native state and in Ohio and, being intellectual and naturally studious, readily learned all the lessons that were set before her. Mentally and educationally she was, on reaching maturity, more advanced than the average girls of the times and the places wherever she lived. In St. Joseph county, Indiana, she was united in marriage to Enos C. Dayhuff and in that county they settled and there made their home for a number of years. Six children were born to them, viz: Amos, Nathan, James, Mary E., Jennie and Milton. Jennie is now the wife of Elijah Smith, at whose home the subject resides. In another part of this volume will be found a brief biography of Mr. Smith. In 1864 the family moved to Michigan, locating in Grand Rapids, where they remained for three years. In November, 1867, Mr. Dayhuff and family came to what is now Wexford county; satisfied himself as to the possibilities of the place and bought and located upon a tract of land which is now a part of Colfax township. Here a modest home was erected, the land cleared and a productive farm took place of the forest. From here the six children went out into the world in quest of their own fortunes and there the parents continued to reside until the autumn of 1899, when, yearning for a less rigorous climate than northern Michigan, they moved to Tennessee. Their enjoyment of the balmy breezes of the sunny south, however, was of short duration. September 26, 1901, Enos C. Dayhuff breathed his last, at the venerable age of eighty years. His aged and disconsolate widow soon thereafter returned to her old home in Michigan, where she was heartily welcomed by her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Elijah Smith. Always religiously inclined, from the time that she was fifteen years of age, Mrs. Dayhuff has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. In her younger and more active years she was zealous in every species of church work, particularly in that part of it which is included in deeds of charity. When engaged in ministering to the sick, the suffering and the dying she was actuated more by a love for humanity than by any hope of material reward. Few lives have been simpler, purer or better than hers has been, and now, standing on the outer verge of time and with a confidence not born of earth, awaiting the glorious dawn of eternity, she has no reason whatever to doubt that the greeting of the Master will be other than "Well done, good and faithful servant, possess the kingdom prepared for you."