Ionia-Eaton-Barry County MI Archives News.....BUSINESS AND INDUSTRIAL LIFE IN WOODBURY (MI) IN THE MIDDLE TWENTIES October 1981 ************************************************ 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 March 17, 2008, 1:46 pm THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR - Bulletin Of The Sebewa Center Association; Volume 17, October 1981, Number 2. Submitted With Written Permission Of Current Editor, Grayden D. Slowins October 1981 THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR - Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association; Volume 17, October 1981, Number 2. Submitted with written permission of current editor, Grayden D. Slowins BUSINESS AND INDUSTRIAL LIFE IN WOODBURY IN THE MIDDLE TWENTIES By ViVerne Pierce - According to stories told me as a youngster by my parents and grandparents, Woodbury at about the time of 1900 to 1910 must have been a bustling thriving community, due mostly to the fact that two railroads met there. The business places consisted of an elevator, one or two sawmills, two cider mills, stockyards, barbershop and poolroom, two or three saloons, one of which usually burned down every two to three months for "insurance purposes", Grandpa Wells used to say. As I was born in 1919, I don't remember a lot of these places but I will endeavor to tell what was there in the twenties--- places actually in business and buildings that were vacant. First, there was the elevator owned by Smith Bros. & Velte. A lumber yard and coal yard in conjunction made this a very busy place. But the part I remember best was the “bean room”. This was where the ladies in town picked up their pin money or better known then as ‘bean money”. They sat at a long canvas belt on which white navy beans were run. They had to pick out cull beans, stones and other trash and were paid by the pound for what they removed. This room was located on the second floor of the elevator with a potbellied stove in it. Each lady had her own chair with her own cushion for comfort. The most uncomfortable part of the job was the restroom accommodation located downstairs, about 50 yards from the door. It was the traditional three- holer and always was well supplied with Sears Roebuck catalogs. It wasn’t heated, so in winter when most of the beans were being picked, Mr. Smith did not have to worry about the ladies not putting in a good day’s work. The bean room was the noisiest place in the elevator, what with 15 or 20 women all talking at once. This was the place where dresses were made and remade, hats decorated and redecorated, family problems aired and re-aired and, yes, babies born and reborn---but they got the beans picked. The stockyards were a most interesting place for a boy. Allen Behler used to ship cattle from Woodbury, cattle he had purchased from farmers in the surrounding area. I remember Andy Dirr used to ship from there also and Ralph, “Rube”, Jordan shipped a few loads in later years. Most of the hogs around the area were taken to Jake Miller’s slaughterhouse where he did custom butchering or would buy the animals from the farmer and then feed and fatten them for butchering later. When a person took a hog to Jake Miller he got everything back but the squeal. His wife, Lillie, would render the lard, make headcheese, clean and wash the intestines to be stuffed with sausage, smoke hams and do anything else that could be done to utilize every pound of the animal. John Gerlinger had a woodworking shop located in an old schoolhouse (Gerlinger School) that he had moved to town. He powered the big wood lathe with an old stationary gasoline engine. He would make whippletrees, eveners, wagon tongues and ladders for people in and around Woodbury. He made me my first fall bat and it was my treasured possession for many years even though it was not used very much. It was so long and so heavy that even Pete Rose would have had trouble swinging it. Across the street, I can just remember a vacant building that had housed Miller’s livery stable. This was run by Jake and Eli Miller and my Grandma Katie Pierce’s folks. They lived overhead and kept the horses and buggies down below. This building was torn down and Forrest DeCamp built his garage there. The garage was built of cement blocks and Forrest made every block by hand. He purchased a form to make the blocks and every night after he had already put in a day’s work at his old garage, he would hand mix gravel and cement and press out cement blocks. It took him quite a while to complete it, but the building stands where Tom Livermore now has his machine shop. The other old livery barn was owned by my father and grandfather and from here they operated a poultry and egg business. It was reported at one time to have been the largest poultry business in Western Michigan. I remember many times in the spring when they could not buy enough chickens here in Michigan to supply their dressed poultry orders in the cities, they were forced to send trucks into southern Ohio and even Kentucky to bring back poultry. Oftentimes it was necessary to hire between 50 and 60 men and women at holiday time and work around the clock to process their orders. Then there was the old blacksmith shop, which was run by a man named John Easley. (This was later purchased by my father and he built a gas station and grocery store on the site in 1938). The shop was located behind our home and, naturally, I spent a lot of time there. I marveled at how such a small man could manhandle those big draft horses when sizing and nailing shoes to their hooves. Another thrill for me was to see red hot steel pulled from the forge and with a few well placed blows from his hammer with a shower of red hot sparks, form a wagon wheel or countless other things the farmers of the area needed. Over on the northeast corner of Kalamazoo and Walnut Streets stood an old two storied wood frame building that housed Forrest DeCamp’s first garage. Earlier it had been a grocery store owned by the Van Houten family. On the northwest corner was Orley Middaugh’s pool room and barbershop. Needless to say, my folks didn’t let me hang around there as a child---except to have my hair cut--- but I do remember the magnificent back bar and mirrors, made of fine grained oak and varnished with glasslike finish, and of Orley spinning me around in the barber chair a few times when he had finished my haircut. On the southwest corner of the same two streets stood the old hotel, a very impressive 2 ½ story cement block building with slate shingles. It was never used for a hotel in my lifetime but one section was used once a month when the Ladies Aid Society put on their family style dinners. Boy! What a meal they served! Then after dinner they had a quilting bee. Harlan Sweitzer (father of Mrs. Lester Lake) used to rent some of the building to itinerant Mexican families that came up from Texas and Mexico to work in the beet fields. The Mexican children couldn’t speak much English and I couldn’t speak any Spanish, but somehow, we made our thoughts known and spent many happy hours playing together. It was in this hotel building that Cobby and I perfected our basketball prowess. We nailed a peach hamper to the wall in the dining room and though the ceiling wasn’t too high, we would shoot baskets hour on end. In its heyday it was a very busy place, what with all the drummers (salesmen) using it as a central location and branching out to other small towns to sell their wares and then getting on the Pere Marquette or the C. K. & S. and move to another location. Mr. Sweitzer also owned the old implement store, a two story wood frame building just south of the hotel. It was vacant when I was a young boy and naturally I thoroughly explored it. Irol Wells and Kenneth Geisel would hide in the upstairs part of the building. When I began looking for them, they would lean out the upstairs windows and shoot their BB guns onto the sidewalk so that the BB’s would ricochet up onto my legs. It stung worse than a bee sting. They were quick to hide from me again because my temper made up for my lack of size. On the corner was Horn’s store, which had formerly been occupied by Dr. Loughlin (Gaylord Loughlin’s father). It was the usual small town general store with groceries, drygoods, hardware, etc. But the think I remember best was the horseshoe pitching courts at the side of the store. Cobby and I had the opportunity to practice days on end and when the men in town could congregate at the store for an evening of competition, Cobby and I would invariably beat them all, until my father told me that it was enough that I pitch in the daytime, since most of the men did not care to be beaten by a couple of kids all the time. The last place of business I will describe was the W. R. Wells General Store and as he was my grandfather, it naturally was the most impressive. Even in these modern days it would have been considered a large business place. It was actually the same as four stores with a common roof, with living quarters upstairs over the two end buildings. The section to the east housed the hardware store, the two middle sections the Post Office, groceries and drygoods and the west section the farm implements and supplies. I remember the crackers that came by the barrel and the coffee that was ground in the big two-wheel coffee grinder and a huge round potbellied stove right in the middle of the store. The two middle sections were so large we kids would ride our bicycles and tricycles around in it on winter days. My cousin, Kenneth Geisel, would ride around behind the candy counter, slide open the door, then my uncle, Irol Wells, would come next and grab a handful of candy and then I would follow and slide the door shut. We would meet over behind the drygoods counter to share the spoils. We thought we were getting away with something but I now think that Grandpa knew what was going on. He also operated a grocery wagon out of the store. It was loaded every morning before making its rounds through the country, calling on people door-to-door. Many people yet today remember my uncle, George Geisel giving them, as kids, a stick of gum or a piece of licorice candy after filling an order for their parents. This grocery wagon was stored in another old wood barn-type building next to the store. My Grandpa never had to paint this building, since it was so covered by circus posters, tobacco advertisements and the like that there was no wood showing. How we kids used to look at those circus posters of lions, tigers, elephants, trapeze artists and daredevils and could hardly wait until Grandpa would pack us off to see the show. His store was opened every morning at 7 and Grandpa seldom went home before 10 or 11 in the evening, depending on when the last of the town men had finished their nightly ritual talks that encompassed politics, taxes, farming, girls and other subjects. I have wondered over the years whether I had an advantage over children raised in the city, being raised in a small town where all daily actions were concentrated in a smaller area and lives went at a slower pace, giving me a chance to really see my small part of the world. I think so, and I’m glad and proud to have been born and raised in Woodbury. It’s my hometown.” File at: http://files.usgwarchies.org/mi/ionia/newspapers/business130gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mifiles/ File size: 11.7 Kb