"Perhaps the most often told story of Dewey's Ann Arbor career is that of the trip to the post office with the baby. This story has been refuted by Dewey on two occasions. He has made it clear that he never assumed the role of the absent-minded professor who left the baby waiting at the post office while he read his mail on the way home. Miss Mildred Hinsdale, upon hearing her sister, Dr. Ellen Hinsdale, quote Dewey's refutation of this story, has remarked, `If it didn't happen, it could have happened.'

"Mrs. Alfred Lloyd has recalled an interesting legend about Fred, the eldest son in the Dewey family. One day when John Dewey was having a meeting in his study on some professional matters, Fred became interested in filling the bath tub with water and sailing his boats in it. During the process of this experimentation, the bath tub overflowed downstairs. Fred, oblivious of the visitors, immediately called for help from his father. Everyone heard Fred as he called, `John Dewey, come up here this minute and help me mop this floor.'

"Max Eastman has recorded a somewhat different version of this same story: In his house at Ann Arbor, Dewey's study was directly under the bathroom, and he was sitting there one day, absorbed in a new theory of arithmetic, when uddenly he felt a stream of water trickling down his ack. He jumped out of his chair and rushed upstairs to find the bathtub occupied by a fleet of sailboats, he water brimming over, and his small boy Fred busy with both hands shutting it off. The child turned as he opened the door and said severely, `Don't argue, John, get the mop!'

"...Only one story of the Fenton visits has survived through the years. Mr. John Jennings has given an account of John Dewey's first ride on a bicycle. As a young man assisting his father in the newspaper business, Mr. Jennings also managed a small bicycle shop in the town of Fenton. When John Dewey bought a new Victor bicycle, Mr. Jennings surmised that the philosopher had never attempted to ride a bicycle, so a few instructions were given as to steering and trying out the bicycle for the first time. Dewey was cautioned about riding the bicycle on level ground when he first attempted to ride. Dewey politely thanked Mr. Jennings for the advice, but he proceeded to ride the bicycle down the steep hill on which the Riggs's [Alice Dewey's grandparents] home was built. Observing that he was heading for a tree, Dewey attempted to steer the bicycle. Mr. Jennings said, with a twinkle in his eye. `You know how these philosophers are. They usually have their heads in the clouds. Dewey hadn't paid any attention to my directions. He hadn't even tried the bicycle on level ground before he started down the hill, so he didn't know what to do. He tried to steer but he steered the wrong way and ran smack into a tree at the foot of the hill. Dewey had to bring the bicycle to my shop to have it fixed. It was a brand new Victor.'"--From Willinda Savage's 1950 U-M dissertation The Evolution of John Dewey's Philosophy of Experimentalism as Developed at the University of Michigan.