Red Cross activities in Munith during World War I

I recently ran across this column entitled "Red Cross News and Notes" in the Jackson Citizen Patriot on May 8, 1918.  It includes a short report on the activities of the Munith Branch, which states that Annie Carley's three daughter had pieced together three quilts for the Red Cross.  While the article don't get their names correct--Ida Pearl (should be Ila Pearl), and Eva May (should be Iva May), and Clara Bell...it helps me confirm some of the stories my grandmother shared concerning community involvement during the war effort.  Sometime about 1992, I interviewed grandma about this subject and she told of how the women and girls would collect rags, clean them, and bring them to the Munith church where they would cut them into strips for bandages.  What she didn't tell me was about the quilts that she and her sisters made!  Can you image a 11, 10, and 9 year old sewing something for wounded military personnel today?  Not sure I can.

Two things this brings to the mind--How even a small community like Munith was empowered to contribute to national wartime efforts and secondly, the great traditions of Munith women coming together to make at difference in the world, whether it was their activities in the Red Cross, the 4-H, the Henrietta Helping Hands or the Waterloo Needlework Club...well done!

Lillian Reams Smith and the Greenwood Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church

In the last few years, I've developed a desire to collect vintage postcards related to the communities where my ancestors and extended family took up residence.  Searching Ebay is always a lot of fun during my hunting for postcards and once in while I find a gem...particularly if its an image that I had

Greenwood Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, c1910

always hoped to find, but had little hope that one existed.  Last week was one of those great moments when I made a rare discovery....a real photograph postcard of the Greenwood Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church.  This congregation was the home church for Lillian (Reams) Secord Smith, the oldest sister of my grandmother Mabel Reams Grinnell.  Aunt "Sis", as she was called by my dad, appears to have moved to Jackson about 1916 from Decatur.  In Decatur, she had been married to a widower, Mr. Royal A. Secord, who was a carriage painter and wall paper hanger.  While living in Decatur, Lillian worked as a milliner and in the 1910 Census it is recorded that she owned her own shop.  Sounds pretty remarkable for a married women...you rarely hear about married women owning their own business.  Leads me to think the Mr. Secord must have been at least somewhat supportive of his wife's entrepreneurial endeavors. Mr. Secord died in 1915 which must have been a financial blow to Aunt "Sis".  Just a few months over a year following Secord's death, we discover that Aunt "Sis" has married again, to Mr. Rufus Carlton Smith, a traveling salesmen residing in Jackson.  The marriage is recorded in the records of the Greenwood Avenue Church on May 15, 1916 and indicates that there was a 20 year difference in their ages.  Mr. Smith, like Mr. Secord, was a widower so It appears that Aunt "Sis" must have been fulfilling a role as a mother and housekeeper in the family.  While in Jackson, it is clear that Aunt "Sis" ran their home as a boarding house, but its not clear if she maintained her career as a milliner.  Soon, her mother, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Burling Reams would come to live with her and Mr. Smith at their 1019 Griswold Avenue home.  It is here where Mrs. Reams would spend her remaining years and where she eventually passed away on November 24, 1918.

Lillian S. (Reams) Secord Smith

Aunt Sis would once again finder herself a widow in only a few short years, for Mr. Smith passed away in 1921, only 5 years following their marriage.

I believe that Aunt Sis was the person who laid the groundwork for my grandparents, Amos and Mabel Grinnell, to relocate to Jackson.  Jackson was a booming town and there were many opportunities for work.  Amos had previously worked at Kellogg's and Post's in Battle Creek and then found himself as a farm hand in Assyria.  Upon moving to Jackson about 1925, we find Amos as a truck driver.  Eventually, Amos and Mabel would be living in their own home on Levan Street in 1929, but we know that they arrived in Jackson several years earlier and Aunt Sis would have had the space to provide the Grinnell's a temporary home.

During her life spent in Jackson, Aunt Sis became an active member of the Greenwood Avenue Church, which was located only a few blocks from her home.  Dad remarked that as young adults the family would attend church with Aunt Sis....even though the only thing that really interested him and his brother Merle were the girls who attended. 

Membership at the church had a lasting impact on Aunt Sis, for when she became too old to live on her own, she moved to the Methodist retirement home in Grand Rapids.  The M. J. Clark Memorial Home on Sherman Avenue in Grand Rapids became her residence by between 1938-1940.  She passed away on December 10, 1954 at the Clark home, just 5 days shy of her 86th birthday.  She was laid to rest next to her first husband, Mr. Secord at the Lakeside Cemetery in Decatur, Michigan.

Aunt Sis was held in very high regard by her numerous nieces and nephews.  Although she had no children of her own, she had a very special place in the hearts of her extended family.  Today, the Greenwood Avenue church is known as Trinity United Methodist Church and it remains an active congregation.  The Clark Home also remains in Grand Rapids and provides many services to meet the needs of the elderly.