HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS IN TRAVERSE CITY.
The school house was near the river bank, just about opposite to the river's mouth. It stood back far enough for a good wide street. It was in the midst of a pretty grove of small oak trees that reached their branches far out, giving cool shade where we could sit and eat our lunch. The evergreens and maple trees were mixed about, giving it a variety of change. Wild roses grew everywhere. It was truly an ideal spot that we never tired of.
Our teacher was Miss Helen Goodale. I will just mention a few names of the scholars I first met on the morning of my first school day in Traverse City. Alexander, James and Jane Carmicheal, George, John and Tom Cuttler, James, William and Richard Garland, Augusta and Lucius Smith, Helen Rutherford and brother, Albert Norris and Agnes Goodale, sister of the teacher.
The next year more people came and more scholars. Our little school house was filled. We were a happy lot, seeming almost like one family. We drank from the same cup, swung in the same swing, sharing our lunches together, and no matter where we have roamed through the wide world can we forget that little old log school house. I have seen it many times in my dreams, and the happy faces of each as we tried to excel to please the teacher. We all loved her, though trying her patience often. Yet we knew and felt she loved us. Oh, happy school days and pleasant school companions! Only a few of us are left at this writing, many have crossed over on the other side, yet I believe it will be a happy re-union if sometime we may meet where no good-byes are said.
EARLY DAYS OF TRAVERSE CITY.
Very near to our school house east Mr. J. K. Gunton built the house which bore the name of "The Gunton House," and was run with success by himself and wife for a number of years. There was no steamboats coming to Traverse City in those days. The lumber was shipped by vessel to Chicago. The schooner "Telegraph" made regular trips every two weeks. The "Telegraph" brought all the supplies for the Company. At the opening of navigation it was a pleasant sound to hear someone say for the first time, "Here comes The Telegraph." Our mails were brought by a mail carrier from Grand Rapids. An Indian and sometimes a white man carried the mail. It was brought down along the shore, it being considered the safest way to travel alone. Sometimes the rivers had no bridges and the mail carrier had to swim across. Mr. Hugh McGinnis carried the mail on that long lonely route for a long time while we lived there.
No farms were yet cleared about Traverse City at that time. Mr. Lyman Smith being the only family living out at Silver Lake, seven miles south of this city. Soon Mr. Alvin Smith took some land on the west side of Silver Lake with Mr. West. More people moved in, and soon the Bohemians came in, settling on the east side of Silver Lake and made nice homes for themselves. Mr. Rice's family came the next year after we came. There were five girls in their family. The two eldest soon married, the other three entered school. Mellisa, Emma and Annie. They lived very near to us and we girls were always fast friends. We walked to school, picked berries in summer time, played, sang and worked together. And of all the places we liked best to go was out to the "Company's Garden." There we waded the brook, picked the flowers and wild strawberries, and sometimes we caught the horses that belonged to the Company, and climbing on their backs we rode around the field, for it was only a garden in name. It was used for a pasture field for the Company's cattle and horses. Those were days to be remembered. The little water mill, as it was called, had a horse car track laid from it down to the west dock where the lumber was put on the car and the horse drew it to the dock for shipment. Then what fun we all had to run down the track and get the ride back on the car.
The huckleberry plains, as they were called, were between east and west Bay. There on Saturdays, when there was no school, almost everybody went picking and took their lunches with them. Mrs. and Mr. Garland, one of our neighbors, moved to Old Mission on a farm and new people took their house.
MY FATHER ADOPTING A LITTLE BOY.
The same year we went to Traverse City a family came from Chicago. The next week the man's wife died, being very sick when she came. In six weeks after the little baby died, leaving three more children. Mr. Churchill was sick himself. Mother brought them all home. A neighbor, Mrs. Hillery, took the oldest girl of nine and kept her all winter. There were two little boys left, Frank aged seven, and George aged five. Father and mother adopted little Frank, so I now had a little brother for company. Mr. Churchill left the next June for Chicago, taking Amelia and George with him, promising to write us often. We never heard from him again, and always felt anxious to know what became of the two children. Little Frank was very happy with us.