Ionia County MI Archives Biographies.....SLOWINSKI, Michael September 18, 1844 - May 1, 1917 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/mi/mifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: LaVonne Bennett lib@dogsbark.com February 15, 2007, 12:21 pm Author: Grayden D. Slowins; THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR, February 1978, Volume 13, Number 4; submitted with permission of current Editor, Grayden D. Slowins THE SLOWINSKI SETTLEMENT by Grayden D. Slowins: On December 9, 1977 a landmark home in Berlin Township was severely damaged by fire, due to a faulty new fireplace and chimney. Long known as the home of "The Old Maids", it stood on Harwood Road just south of Portland Road. This was the home of Michael Slowinski, son of Daniel and Anna Schnabel Slowinski. He was born in Posen, East Prussia, on September 18, 1844 and died in Berlin Township, Ionia County, Michigan on May 1, 1917. He was married to Josephine Kloss, born in Prussia on October 2, 1850, died in Berlin Township on November 24, 1927, daughter of Adam Kloss and Mary Krimrick. After serving three hitches in the German Army fighting against Denmark, Austria and France, Mike and two of his brothers, Chris and Louis, took advantage of the armistice with France to sail out of Hamburg for America in the year of 1870. They landed in New Jersey and worked there at their construction trades for two years, saved every cent possible to send for their families, and brought them to Ionia County in 1872. They came to section 25 in Berlin Township to the home of their Uncle Martin Schnabel, who found them a log cabin on the Henry Houserman farm next north. The men worked in a logging camp in the Stanton-Sheridan area that winter and in a shingle factory in Sheridan in the summer. About 1874 or 1875 they bought land in section 36. Mike got the N1/2 of the NW1/4 and later added the next 40 acres south to make 120 acres. Mike was a carpenter and Chris a stone mason. With their brothers and brother- in-law they built their sturdy barns with wide cut-stone foundations. Next they built frame houses to replace the first log structures. They worked on many of the fine brick and stone homes and public buildings in Ionia city and County in the 1870s and 1880s. In the Old Country they lived and worked on land owned by overlords. Their meager homes and stables were usually of adjoining buildings. The stables were kept as clean as the houses and the manure was carried to country fields each day in a basket on a shoulder. They had raised wheat, oats and barley, kept a cow, a sow and a few sheep on the small plots allotted their own use. These plots, just as in the Russian dominated countries of today, was where the highest production was. In this country they specialized in small grains, sheep, hogs, a few cattle and horses and an orchard of apple trees. They lifted themselves by their bootstraps to become respected landowners in the American community. Theresa, Agnes and Anna were Mike’s old maid daughters and Josephine’s nephew, Leo Fialkowski, was their hired man. Leo was the last member of the community to come over from the old country and was always called “The Dutchman”. Mike gave the south 40 acres to his son, Tom, where he raised two sons: Al, who sold insurance and real estate in Ionia and is now deceased, and Richard, who recently retired from the Arnold Machine Shop in South Ionia. Neither had children, so this line is now at an end. Now, with their story, the house dies also. My grandfather was Daniel Slowinski, son of Chris and grandson of old Daniel, the father of the immigrants. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/ionia/bios/slowinsk515gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mifiles/ File size: 4.0 Kb