Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Schild, Peter J. February 28, 1933
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Sentinel-Standard - Wednesday, March 1, 1933

                              PETER SCHILD ENDS HIS LIFE
    Well-Known Retired Blacksmith Said to Have Been Despondent Over Poor Health.

Barricading himself within his home on East Adams street, Peter Schild, 80, a 
lifelong resident of this community, ended his life Tuesday afternoon by hanging 
himself to a bed post with a short piece of rope evidently recently purchased.

Declining health is believed to have induced his act.

The body was discovered by his wife when she returned from visiting at the home of 
Mr. and Ms. John Reynolds, a block away.

When she reached home, Mrs. Schild found the front door wired shut on the inside and

the rear door locked. Summoning Mr. Reynolds, entry was gained by forcing a window.

Mr. Schild had been dead perhaps two hours, an examining physician said.

Coroner Orin Stone and Sheriff Herbert A. Ross investigated, but decided an inquest

was not warranted.

Mr. Schild was one of a family of blacksmiths who pioneered in this city. The 
building on the corner of Steele street and West Washington street which was torn 
down withing the past few months, was one of the old landmarks in which the anvil's

sparks flew from the Schilds' instruments.


The family was also of an inventive turn of mind and Peter worked with his brother,

Charles, and his father, Conrad, in perfecting articles that were patented. A horse

boot was one of the contrivances which was a product of their genius and which found

a place in treating some of the ailments to which horses' hoofs are subject. Fifty 
years ago the Ionia Horse Boot company was an Ionia enterprise.

When the oak forests began to show depletion and it was foreseen that there would 
have to be a substitute for the oak split rails for fencing, the Schilds created a 
woven wire fencing and received a patent on it. They never manufactured much of the

product, however, nor anticipated in the profits that later accrued to the woven 
wire fence industry.

He leaves besides the widow a brother, Charles, in Cleveland, and a sister, Mrs. 
Margaret Miller, in Los Angeles, Cal. 

Funeral services will be conducted from the Bradley funeral home Thursday afternoon

at 2:30 by Rev. M. W. Duffey. Burial will be in the Highland Park cemetery.


Additional Comments:
Funeral: Thursday, 2 March 1933
Highland Park cemetery #11-177 (no stone)

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