Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1917-04-11
BELD|NG
RESIDENT WRITES
BANNER A LETTER
c. M. MARTIN, WHO WAS A RESI-
DENT HERE MANY YEARS
AGO GIVES GOOD DATA
Wash. March %, 1917.

Bellevue, Wash, March 20, 1917.
Editor Banner:
1t must be that the average old
man likes to be told how young he
looks, and how Spruce" he appears.
generally, else, such batteries would
be less common.
My son tells me he sent you a
copy Of local paper containing an
item in which figured, and now /
am doing what have otter thought
would do-writing the Banner a
letter.
/ spent nine years of my boyhood
and early manhood, during the spring
Of 1856 to the spring of 1864, on a
partly-cleared farm in Southeast
Otisco. Nearly thirty years later i
lived in Bedding and enjoyed two
most pleasant years there.
When sixteen years old COM
menced teaching and taught three
successive winters the school in my
home district. Later i taught one
term in what was Familiarity known
as the Cooley district, west of Cooks
Corners, one term in the Green dis
trict in Orleans, and one term in
Smyrna.
Recalling to memory the names of
other teachers in Otisco and neigh
boring townships, who taught in that
long ago, | can think of but one, A.
B. Morse, besides myself who is now
living. Henry Hill, William Just,
Dan S. Root, Charles Anderson, Ly-
man Grove, A. w. Slaytorf, p. A.
Latta, N. p Hustled, Sarah Mason,
S. II. Crowell, Oscar Clute, Lemuel
Clute, Erwin WatkinsA G.. w. Borst,
Peter Mclean and Wesley Moon,
have passed on.
/ received as compensation for
teaching the first winter, twelve dol
lars a month and boarded round"
living a few days at time in the
homes of the scholars. This prac-
tice was quite general at that time,
and to me pleasant and profitable
experience.
When | was a teacher, / was also a
scholar learning human nature, by
becoming intimately acquainted with
the trials, the anxieties, the sacri-
fees and the herioc devotion of faith
ers and mothers to the welfare of
the members of their households.
knowledge of this kind is not ac-
quired by casual meetings. My views
of life were not little influenced by
my experience along this line and
III DO UltdSuIc W
my sympathetic regard for the in
terestS of the numerous homes /
have visited, in forty-elght years of
the practice of medicine.
We hear much of the high cost
of living now, and of soaring prices,
which make hard times for some,
compared with five years before the
rebellion in 1860, the average labor
err can buy more now for his days
wages than he could then, when a |
good carpenter and joiner was paid |
SIPS to $3.50 for ten hours work, |
who now gets $500 for eight hours
work. In one case realizing at the
most fifteen cents an hour, and in the |
other fifty cents.
In one of those years, | think it |
was 1865, -four was twelve dollars a |
barrel. Johnny cake was the staple |
article of food as a substitute for
bread, when it took a carpenter
eight days, or eighty hours to earn
a barrel of flour. If "as man
thinketh so he is" a little of this !
ancient history may be helpful to
one who thinks his lot at the present |
time is the worst ever
l read the Banner from week to |
week with great interest, finding in
lbs columns, as do, the names of |
many old-time acquaintance and
friends.
There is one thing very noticeable
that these rowing days, when "fixed |
habitations" are so often unfixed, |
many Belding people know a good
thing when they see it are stayers,
and all showing deep interest in the
growth of their home city.
notice that Howard, Hethering-
ton. Leonard, Washburn, Lapham,
Hall. Wilson, Albert Spencer, Lloyd,
Bricker, Fales, Reed, Webster, Harry
Connell, Wise, Tom Bracken, Luck,