McDowell: 1896, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1936? Fire, 1945, 1946, 1948, 1949, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957
In October 2009, I heard from Dan Stebbins. He says: "That's Jean (Crocker?) between me and Judy Blanchard. I think that's Jean's brother (Charlie Crocker) between Terry Fowler and Rodney Wilkinson. Jean and Charlie were the children of farm workers and were only in school in the fall for the apple harvest, as I recall." Dan lives in Tucson, AZ where he is "an editor with Western National Parks Association, a non-profit dedicated to helping the National Park Service with educational and interpretive programs. We write and edit books, make films, trail guides, etc. for the park service. We operate the visitor center bookstores in 66 national parks west of the Mississippi. Profits go back to the parks." He has worked there for the last 2 years. In the 35 years before that, he worked as a newspaper editor. This picture is of a group of dancers who performed at a spring program at the McDowell church, next to the school, and the year was probably 1950. I'm not sure on some of these, but I think left to right is Marshall Mesecar, then John Bredikis, Jack Berry, Dan Stebbins, me (Steve Harry) and Dick Ogden. By the way, both the school and the church are gone. In place of the church is the township fire station.
I got an email from Ruta (Bredikis) Buckingham in May 2009. She helped me with the names of her family and says "I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan and wanted to let you know that I saw the old McDowell school picture of all the kids, including the six Bredikis kids and was moved by the picture (1949). Wow, that was a long time ago, but so grateful to see this picture . . .We were little farm kids, but that has all changed. All of the Bredikis kids now are city dwellers. My sister Vizbulite (next to the oldest) still keeps in touch with the Compton family. All of us live in Grand Rapids, except for Ilze (the baby) lives in New Jersey and my brother (only brother) lives in Paw Paw." The family was from Latvia and lived on the Harry Cogdal farm. Before the Bredikis family, there was the Litus family, also from Latvia. They also lived and worked at the Cogdal farm. This picture was taken when they visited years later:
Judy Fowler, Becky Warden, ? Litus, Acea Litus, Steve Harry, Walter Harry, ? Litus. Email me at stevenrharry@gmail.com if you have additional information or corrections. |
