My paternal family are of German ancestry. In 1852 Wilhelm Memmer Sr. left Europe and immigrated to Defiance, Ohio. Nearly 60 years later, on April 19, 1911, my great-grandparents, Fred William Memmer and Eva Augusta Hire were married. On the same rainy day that they were married they hopped a train from their home in Defiance, Ohio and traveled to the small town of Grass Lake, Michigan. Fred and Eva moved into a large farmhouse in Grass Lake that owned by another family. Fred worked the 300 acres although the land was not very productive; it was mostly woody, hilly, or made of poor soil. Fred farmed with a team of mules in order to raise feed for cattle, pigs, and chicken. Fred and Eva had very little furniture for their home and existed with only a bed, a table, and some orange crates for chairs.
A few years later Fred and Eva bought a small farm eight miles west of their current home. My grandfather, Gerald Ernest Memmer, was born a few years later in the year 1915. In 1921 the three Memmer’s moved again to another farm on the other side of town where they resided until 1955.
Gerald attended Grass Lake High School. There he met my grandmother, Ila Belle Zick, “I saw a gal with black hair, the one that I hoped to marry, and it was and is the greatest decision I ever made,” remarked Gerald. The two met in 1929 and graduated in 1933 with 34 other students (not much smaller than my graduating class of 46 from the same school). Gerald and Ila Belle married in 1940 and rented a house on Wolf Lake Rd. in Grass Lake.
In 1954 my grandparents purchased the farm on which they and my parents still reside. The Dwelle family previously owned the farm.
Below is a picture of the flyer that was posted for the estate sale after my great great-grandfather passed away in 1918. The sale featured items such as "four head of horses," "four head of cattle," "six head of hogs," "a hayloader," "one Janesville riding plow," "one Rock Island corn Planter," "one orchard spray with 20 feet of hose," and most impressively, "one Ford touring car 1917 Model in first-class condition."
To view other pictures of the Midwest, farms, and my family, click here.