Van Buren County MI Archives Obituaries.....Lewis, C.E. 1968
************************************************
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:
Melissa Zagrzebski mdzag3@yahoo.com April 19, 2012, 10:51 pm

Lawton Leader 
Mr. C. E. Lewis was editor of the Lawton Leader for 72 years. He lived to be 
over 100 years old. He was active in the development of the community and was 
greatly interested in the school, the churches, the grape industry, and 
accurately reporting the news.

At age 14 he began working in the printing office at Marcellus, and when his 
employer bought the Three Rivers newspaper, Lewis went there and learned to do 
fine printing.

In May 1890, when he was 21 he started walking from Marcellus to Lawton and was 
overtaken by a Porter township farmer (John Cornish) who gave him a lift in his 
lumber wagon and asked him where he was going. "I'm going to Lawton to buy the 
newspaper" was the reply. An 18 year old friend, Ed Drury, went into 
partnership with him and after 8 years decided to go west.

In 1894 Mr. Lewis married Miss Clara Birdsell, a school teacher, and they were 
able to celebrate 62 wedding anniversaries.

Their children were Francis Lewis, who became his father's business partner in 
1925, and Dorothy, who married Lawrence Spencer, a Porter Township dairy and 
grape farmer.

Chancy Lewis' mother, whose maiden name was Millie Bradford, was a direct 
descendant of Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony.

Besides publishing the Leader and doing job printing, Mr. Lewis published the 
state paper, The Sunday School Advance. For several years he was president of 
the Van Buren Council of Religious Education. He held many offices in the 
Methodist church and organized the Bible Guards Sunday School class which still 
carries on. He also helped to start several rural Sunday schools.

He was intensely interested in agriculture, particularly in grape growing and 
The Leader received many commendations from various agricultural agencies and 
the Welch Grape Juice Company for the Leader's coverage of the grape industry.

Mr. Lewis was a life member of the Masonic Lodge and a member of the Lions 
Club. He worked hard to improve conditions in the community and for the 
temperance cause.

For many years nearly every town in the county had its own newspaper and the 
editors were a congenial group which enjoyed a fine fellowship.

When Mr. Lewis was 100 years old the village of Lawton named its south Main 
Street park after him as a tribute to a citizen who was held in high esteem.

Francis Lewis and wife Gladys (Rouse) had three children: Robert who is a 
technical editor for Aerostate of Bell Aircraft Co. in Tucson, Arizona, and is 
the author of several books. Howard is an accountant for the parks department 
of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Betty (Elizabeth Legg) is supervisor of employee 
services in the personnel department of the Brown Company, Kalamazoo.

The children of Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Spencer are Margaret, who with her 
husband, Gordon V. Brown, operates three grape vineyards near Lawton. Rosalyn 
(Mrs. Verlyn Harris) of Goshen, Indiana, a former piano teacher and music store 
owner, and Lewis, a dairy farmer in Porter Township who raises purebred 
Holsteins, while his wife, Lois, raises Appaloosa horses.

In 1962 the Leader was sold to Jas Freer who changed the method of printing 
from movable type to the photographic off-set process. In 1968 the Leader 
merged with the Paw Paw Courier to form the Courier-Leader serving Paw Paw, 
Lawton, Lawrence and Mattawan. 


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/vanburen/obits/l/lewis17655nob.txt

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

File size: 3.9 Kb