Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....CASWELL, Denard Orr 2000 ************************************************ 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.comMarch 10, 2006, 3:49 pm THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR, Bulletin of the Sebewa Center Association; Volume 35, April 2000, Number 5. Submitted with permission of Editor, Grayden D. Slowins Denard O. Caswell, 91, husband of Mathilda (Krellwitz) Caswell, father of James & Jon, only child of Mary Pearl (Tew) & Orr Caswell, son of Elizabeth (Leak) & William Caswell, son of Emaline (Briggs) & Henry Caswell, who settled in Sebewa Township on Sunfield Road about the time of the Civil War. Henry & Emaline lived on the 40 acres across from Eugene Probasco and their daughter Emma became his wife and mother of young Benjamin Probasco. William Caswell was age 6, in 1870, when he worked as a nail carrier at the building of our barn here on the John Olry farm, by handing up square nails the carpenters dropped. He was age 14 and working here as a hired-man when this house was built in 1878-1879. He was a horseman in Sebewa Corners, then spent the rest of his life caring for horses in Lake Odessa. He ran the Livery Stable behind the Burke Hotel, drove the black teams on the Weed & Wortley hearse, and retired to the race-horse barns at the Lake Odessa Fairgrounds. He died at age 99 years, 11 months, and 23 days, on May 20, 1964, and is buried in Lakeside Cemetery. Bill & Lizzie Caswell had two sons, Orr & Chalmer. Chalmer had a daughter, Helen Bracey and sons Bill, Richard & Jack, whose death we reported in April 1998. These boys lived in the Sheridan-Greenville area, but Chalmer always worked around the family livery and auto garages and chauffeured for Governor Fred Green. Orr Caswell started working for Sam Kent in the Ford agency in Lake Odessa, as soon as he was old enough to leave the livery stable. Then he had his own agency selling Dodge cars where the Carl Senters & Conrad Lass auto dealerships and Fate's Market were later located in Lake Odessa. In 1926 he advertised Nash Automobiles in the Lake Odessa Wave. He was also Odessa Township Treasurer in 1924. He spent his last years raising Jerseys on the family farm, due to poor health. He died in 1929 and is buried in Lakeside Cemetery. Denard Orr Caswell was delivered March 19, 1908, on the family's kitchen table in Lake Odessa. He graduated from Lake Odessa High School and his Grandmother Hannah Marie (Mari) Tew had left a letter that he was to have $1000 for college. But in the Great Depression years there was not enough liquidity in the Tew family store to fund it. So he lived on the family farm where Montgomery Excavating is located on M-66. But his bride of one year died there of Tuberculosis. She had been Deputy Ionia County Register of Deeds. Denard bore his grief by opening a small gas station on the present site in 1936. He stayed open 24 hours a day and slept at his desk in the wee hours until the bell rang for service. He obtained the Packard franchise in 1946, the Nash franchise in 1949, the Mercury franchise in 1956, and the Ford franchise in 1958. He added RV sales in 1969 and had the Gulf Oil bulk gas dealership all those years. He snow-skied until age 75, swam and came to work every day until age 80. Rev. Father Michael Danner, an Ionia native, officiated at his funeral (See Volume 28 Number 1, August 1992, for more on Denard's Tew, Caswell and Leak ancestry.) File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/ionia/obits/c/caswell743gob.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mifiles/ File size: 3.8 Kb