Ionia-Eaton County MI Archives Biographies.....COOK, Gladys (Shetterly) 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
LaVonne Bennett lib@dogsbark.com February 11, 2007, 3:05 pm

Author: Gladys (Shetterly) Cook

THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR, June 1972, Volume 7, Number 6; submitted with written 
permission of Editor Grayden D. Slowins:

A GLIMPSE AT SEVEN GENERATION by Gladys (Shetterly) Cook –
My parents, Ozro B.  Shetterly and Lillie (Rowe) Shetterly came to West Sebewa 
from Orange Township shortly after they were married in 1891.  Our farm was on 
the south side of section 7 on Henderson Road.  Ozro’s parents, Charles and 
Polly (Hakes) Shetterly, lived on Reeder Road north and west of Collins.  They 
came to Orange from Barry County but had previously lived in Ohio.  My mother’s 
parents were Robert and Emma (Barber) Rowe.  Emma’s mother, my great 
grandmother, also named Emma, and whom I can remember before she died at age 
93, came from England.  The story goes that she once got the prize for having 
the prettiest head of hair of any girl in London then.

Ozro B. Shetterly attended school in Barry County and at the Keefer distict in 
Orange.  After my parents were married they spent most of their lives at West 
Sebewa where my nephew, Phil Shetterly and family now live.  My grandfather 
Shetterly lived with my parents in his retiring years.  When my father retired 
from farming, he and Mother moved to what is now my home in Lake Odessa.  It 
was then that my brother, Dale, took over the farming until he, too, moved to 
Lake Odessa and left the farming to Phil’s efforts.

I was born on the Sebewa Farm in 1893 and went to school at West Sebewa.  Clare 
Murphy was my first teacher.  He was followed by Alta Johnson of Lake Odessa 
for two years before Bertha Hagerman taught for the next four years.  When I 
graduated from the eighth grade, Glenn Coe, Leona (Coe) Westbrook, Lailah 
Rebedue, Ella (Peacock) Wilson were in my class.  We had our graduating 
exercises at the Presbyterian Church, just south of the West Sebewa store.  We 
had commencement night and we all marched up on the platform and got our eighth 
grade certificates.  It was a high big night for us.  Previously we had gone to 
Lake Odessa to write the county eighth grade examination and had passed it.  
Other pupils in the school as I remember them were Arthur Creighton, Theron 
McNeil, Bill Downing, Clarice (Goodemoot) Andrews, Jessie (Waring) Oatley, 
Mabel (Sexton) Valentine and Gladys (Snyder) Cook.

After the eighth grade came high school at Lake Odessa.  My folks made 
arrangements for me to room and board with a family by the name of George 
Carr.  He was the baggage master at the railroad depot.  My father would bring 
me to Lake Odessa on Monday mornings and would come for me again on Fridays so 
that I could be home on week ends.  The second year I boarded with a family by 
the name of Cooley.  They were old people who had lived west of Lake Odessa.  
The last two years of my high school I lived with the Ora Lapo family.  Mr. 
Lapo ran a hardware store.  He had a daughter, Iva, who later married Dale 
Griffin.

In my first year in high school, George Downs was the superintendent.  We had a 
teacher by the name of Nettie Van Houten.  In my last two years Kittie Van 
Houten, Nettie’s sister, taught.  They came from Portland.  I think we had a 
baseball team and a girls’ basketball team for a little while, though I never 
played.  There was no gymnasium in that school building.  We had a janitor by 
the name of Heaton.  One of his tasks was to ring the bell, which was then in 
the belfry of that old school building that burned in 1922.  That is the same 
bell that is mounted in front of the present elementary school building.  Mr. 
Heaton was always careful to ring the bell a few taps longer if he saw somebody 
hurrying to get there on time.

There were thirteen in our graduating class of 1910 and there are six or seven 
still living.  They are Helen Cheetham, living in Montana; Dale Griffin, who 
lives in Grand Rapids now and Stanley Dann, Ethel Morrow Jackson and I all 
living in Lake Odessa.  Veda Lapo Blickenstaff lives somewhere near Detroit and 
I believe Lottie Healy is still alive, living in Grand Rapids thoug I don’t 
know what her married name is.  We had class night and graduation in the Lake 
Odessa Methodist Church, one following the other.  I cannot remember who was 
our speaker or what advice he may have given us.

After graduation I planned to teach but the age requirement of eighteen kept me 
home for a year.  In 1911 I went to a six-week summer school at Mt. Pleasant 
and then took the teacher examination at Ionia.  Passing it gave us a teacher’s 
certificate good for one year.  I applied for the job at the Bishop school to 
Snow Peabody and at Sebewa Center to Mr. Howland as director.  Fred Gunn was 
also on the school board.  I was hired to teach the Center school for $40.00 
per month.  I made arrangements to room and board with Fred and Minnie Gunn.  
Alton Gunn was then in high school at Sunfield along with Karl Gierman and Ross 
Tran.

I recall when Harvey Lowery, the county school commissioner called on me.  He 
made periodic visits to all the country schools in the county of Ionia.  I had 
let the youngsters out to play at recess and I was working at the blackboard 
when I thought I heard someone knock.  I thought it was one of the youngsters 
knocking just for fun and I did not pay any attention.  Then I looked up just 
in time to see Mr. Lowery coming in the door.  It startled me.  I said “Good 
afternoon, Mr. Lowery, did you knock?”

He said “well, no, should I have?”  All of that was very embarrassing to me.  I 
think he gave a little talk to the children but I was too embarrassed for the 
rest of the afternoon to remember much about it.

As I remember, my group of pupils there included Verney Cassel, Ray Cross, 
Arlow Aves and Reva Darling in the eighth grade.  Elmer Gierman, Homer, Ione 
and Ilah Downing were in the seventh grade.  Others in school were Margaret 
Blossom, Ethel Tran, William and Muriel Joynt.  John York and Alice Tran were 
in the fourth grade.  Howard Cross was a beginner.  Ethel Heinzleman, Frances 
Sears, Wesley Joynt and Floyd Probasco were there also.  I think Orilla Shilton 
was in the fifth grade.  The Joynts came during the year and were not in school 
the full year.  There were also two Plockmeyer children, who were there for 
part of the year.

We had a last-day-of-school program.  I remember that my brother was about four 
years old and he had learned a piece he was going to speak.  He got up on the 
platform and when he could not think of it, I started to prompt him a little 
bit in a low voice.  He said “Hunnh?”  I cannot remember the piece he spoke.

I had my contract to teach for the next year but my boy friend, Clifton Cook, 
thought he needed a teacher in his home more than the school did.  We were 
married September 28, 1912.  We lived on what is now M-66 in a small house next 
to where Oren Daniels’ home is on the Sebewa side.  We bought the place from 
Fred Andrews and we were there three or four years before we bought the Ira 
Hayes place on Tupper Lake Road.  Fred’s wife was Molly Waring.

My five children went to school in the Bishop district and all of them went to 
Lake Odessa High School.  The last two rode the bus while the first three had 
to drive the car.  There were Gaylord, Ilene, Rose, Merlin and George.  Gaylord 
lives in Muskegon; Ilene (Holland) in Mulliken; Rose (Augst) in Lake Odessa 
summers and Florida winters; Merlin lives in California and George is in 
Texas.  Now with several great-grandchildren I view the seven generation slice 
of history.  





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