Everett Judson Bentley was born in Kalkaska, Michigan, on May 20, 1915, to Harry Everett Judson Bentley and Frances Florence Getty. Jud's father, Harry, was the son of George Clayton Bentley and Sarah Jane Thompson, both of Scotch Irish origin. George Bentley and his brother, O. D. Bentley, had come to Peshtigo, Wis­consin, in 1870 from Fairfax, Vermont. They set up a sawmill and had just started operations when they were wiped out by the great forest fire which started the same day as the Chicago Fire, October 8, 1871. They moved to Hancock, Michigan, and organized the Sturgeon River Lumber Company, and later built the sawmill town of Chassell. Having practiced law in Vermont, George was elected Judge of Probate in Houghton County.

Jud's mother, Frances Florence Getty, was the daughter of William John Getty and Adeline Baird, pioneers of Antrim and Kalkaska Counties. Frances was an accomplished musician. She had a studio in Kalkaska where she taught several different musical instruments, and she traveled allover the country with the Boston Ladies Symphony Orchestra and the Navassar Band of Texas and New York.

After her marriage to Harry Bentley, they moved to Hancock where she held a position in the Judge of Probate's office for many years.

E. Judson Bentley attended the Central Primary School in Hancock. He lived with his mother in an apartment in Hancock, which was destroyed by fire in Feb­ruary of 1923. All but a few items went up in smoke. This was reminiscent of the time many years before when Frances' music studio in Kalkaska had burned taking her entire library of music. Jud graduated from Hancock Central High School in 1933. He attended Michigan College of Mining and Technology in Houghton for seven years, graduating in 1940. After graduation he was offered a job at a paper mill in Park Falls, Wisconsin.

On January 25, 1941, Jud married Mary Churchill Sheldon in Duluth, Minnesota. Mary came from a long line of Irish Catholics who had come from Ireland during the famine in the 1840's and had settled in the Upper Peninsula. They had three children: Stephen Judson, Barbara N. and Nancy Jane.

Jud joined the U.S. Navy in February of 1942. During World War II his unit, the 4th Beach Battalion, went through campaigns in Africa, Sicily, Italy and France. They were sent back to the States, only to be reassigned to the Asiatic Pacific Theater. He was discharged in October 1945.

In 1948 he went to work for Reserve Mining Company in Minnesota. At the time he retired, June 30, 1975, he was head of the land department, and had worked for the company twenty seven years.

Jud's wife, Mary, was in ill health, so they moved back to Hancock. Mary died May 4, 1984.

(I have corresponded with Jud since October of 1981. During this time, he has helped me in many ways, in the researching and publishing of this family history.)