Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Butcher, Clair July 21, 1952
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Patricia Currigan currigan1932@comcast.net July 31, 2023, 12:30 pm

Belding Banner-News Thursday July 24, 1952

               CLAIR BUTCHER DROWNS MONDAY AFTERNOON

The vast number of drowning which are reported each week in state papers are a 
cause for alarm but when one of them is a local person it brings grief to the 
community. This was the feeling of everyone when it was reported on Monday 
evening that Clair E. Butcher, son of Rev. and Mrs.Floyd Butcher, former local 
pastor of Belding's Free Methodist church had drowned in Swain's Lake near 
Concord at 12:30 Monday afternoon.

Clair graduated from high school here in 1951 and was known as a top athlete. 
Last year he was a ministerial student at Spring Arbor Junior College. This 
Summer he had been working at Jackson and with other young people from Spring 
Arbor, had gone to Swain Lake near there to go swimming.As he was swimming from 
a raft toward one of their number standing on a sand bar, he suddenly gave a 
loud call for help and sank into 30 feet of water, indicating that he may have 
been seized with cramps. The body was recovered at 5:30.

He is survived by his father and step-mother, Rev and Mrs.Floyd Butcher of Sault 
Ste. Marie, a sister (Betty) Mrs.Kenneth Weiler of San Diego, Cal. and a half-
sister, Alice and a brother, Terry at home, and his maternal grandmother, 
Mrs.Alfred Wilson of Barryton.

Funeral services in charge of Woodworth Funeral Home at Concord, were held at 
Spring ArborFree Methodist Church, Wednesday at 2 p.m. The body was brought to 
this city and will lie in state at the Belding Free Methodist church from 12 
o'clock noon until time for the funeral service at 2 p.m. Thursday. Rev.William 
Erickson will officiate and burial will be in Saranac Cemetery beside his own 
mother. The ministers of the West Michigan Free Methodist church conference will 
act as pallbearers and ministers of the conference will furnish the music.

Additional Comments:
Saranac Cem.

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