Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Chapman, Melvin A. 1918
************************************************
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:
Sandy Heintzelman sheintz@iserv.net January 15, 2010, 1:48 pm

Belding Banner News, 27 Nov 1918

Summons Comes To Member of Local Grocery Firm.

“Mel” Chapman, a Life Long Resident and Well Known Business Man Passes.

“Mel Chapman is dead.”  This news was spread over the city suddenly on Saturday 
morning and followed the news which passed out Thursday afternoon that Mr. 
Chapman had suffered a stroke of apoplexy shortly after noon that day and that 
he soon became unconscious and the chances for his recovery were very 
doubtful.  His condition continued to grow worse and he never regained 
consciousness from the time when his condition became known as critical until 
the time of his death at 10:25 Friday night.

Mr. Chapman, who was a member of the firm of Chapman & Strunk, the South Bridge 
street grocers, had been at the store Thursday morning attending to his 
accustomed work as usual and at the regular time he had gone home to dinner.  
After dinner he went outside to attend to some work in the yard and shortly 
afterwards came and told Mrs. Chapman that he was sick and asked her to assist 
him with a hot foot bath to warm him up, which, together with some other simple 
home remedies, she did until a few minutes later, realizing that he was growing 
worse quickly, she called for medical aid, but in spite of all that could be 
done for the sufferer, he passed into unconsciousness and subsequent death.

Mr. Chapman was a well known figure in this city and vicinity.  Of a quiet, 
unassuming disposition, he was satisfied to attend to his own affairs and 
although he was a life long resident here, he never mixed much into public 
matters.  As a business man and good citizen he is known to thousands of people 
in this city and vicinity, who will learn of his untimely death with genuine 
regret.

He is survived by his widow and two sons, Charles, in the grocery business at 
Hart and Clayton, a druggist located in Detroit, both of whom were at his 
bedside when death called and who with the widowed mother, other relatives and 
friends are left to mourn the death of a splendid husband, father and friend.

The funeral was held Monday afternoon at 2 o’clock from his residence, the 
local Masonic order of which Mr. Chapman was a long time member, conducting the 
services and interment was in the family lot in the Otisco cemetery, where 
sleep so many of the friends of former days.

Melvin A. Chapman was born on the farm now occupied by Chas. Rich, on October 
2, 1854, and grew to manhood there.  After a time he went to Grand Rapids and 
later on to Greenville where he engaged in business.  In 1869 he returned to 
the farm and the following year he was married to Miss Elma Green.  After eight 
years spent on the farm, they went to Chicago, where he engaged in business for 
a time, finally returning to Belding where he worked as a salesman in various 
local stores, finally forming a copartnership with his son, Charles, doing 
business as Chapman & Chapman in the South Bridge street grocery store.  The 
firm then went to Rockford and after a few years Mr. Chapman returned to 
Belding and re-entered the South Bridge street store with Birney Strunk, as 
Chapman & Strunk, at which place he was in business at the time of his death.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/ionia/obits/c/chapman2499nob.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/mifiles/

File size: 3.7 Kb