According to family records, Charles James Downing was born December 15, 1859, in Canandaigua, Seneca Township, Lenawee County, Michigan. His mother was Nancy Getty. Nothing is known of his father except his name, Charles Henry Downing, and that he lived in New York. Countless efforts have been made to obtain records from various counties in New York and in Michigan which would give some insight into the circumstances of Charles' birth.

All inquiries have been answered in the negative except one  a military record from the Civil War: "Charles H. Downing of Rochester, New York, enlisted in the Union Army on August 23, 1862, in Co. D, 140th Regiment of New York. He fought in the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and was discharged on July 13, 1865, at Alexandria, Virginia. He died in Rochester on March 24, 1874." It is believed that he was the father of Charles James Downing, but unfortunately there is no documentation to prove it.

Charlie spent some years of his boyhood in New York, then again when he was a teenager, at which time he worked on the railroad.

The following is from an account written by Nora E. Downing Squires in 1964.

"Charles James Downing was born in Canandaigua, Lenawee County, Michigan. He spent his early boyhood at Elmira, New York State, returning to Seneca, Michigan, a t the age of ten years. At the age of eighteen years he came to Ridgeway Township, Lenawee County, Michigan. He farmed here the remainder of his life.

Mother and Dad met while they both worked at the Irving Osburn farm. After a courtship of three weeks, they were married. They first settled on the J.F. Pilbeam place for a short while and then purchased forty acres on the comer of Lenawee County Line and Kniffen Roads. They gradually expanded both family and farm until they owned 400 acres and had raised eleven children.

Marion, my youngest sister, was born in 1905 in the two story building Dad built for us to live in while they were building the big brick house which is now occupied by Leland's family. To accommodate our family, Dad included twelve rooms in the house. The other building that Marion was born in was then used as a granary. Dad's main love and source of income was fattening cattle. One time he bought 25 steers in Detroit and had Irv and Charlie drive them all the way home, making it in two days. They stayed the night on Michigan Ave. with a family named Willinger. Dad met them on the second day with old Pearl and the buggy."

Charlie was just nineteen when he bought his first land on May 1, 1878. He purchased twenty acres from his mother. It was the north half of a forty acre parcel on the County Line just north of where Leslie Downing lives. Later that same year Nancy sold the south half to her second son, Alonzo Titsworth, and Alonzo in turn sold it to Charlie in 1887.

On the following page is the marriage certificate of Charles Downing and Estella Carman.

"This is to certify that Charles J. Downing of Ridgeway Township, Michigan and Estella Carman of Ridgeway Township, Michigan, were united in Marriage according to the Ordinance of GOD and the Laws of the State of Michigan at East Ridgeway on the 24th day of February in the year of OUR LORD One Thousand Eight Hundred and eighty three." B. F. Rapp, Minister of the Gospel

Witnesses: Lettitia Rapp and Mary Grace Rapp

Estella was the daughter of Lewis Major Carman and Mary Christina Mourison of Petersburg, Michigan, formerly of Morris County, New Jersey. The Cannans and Mourisons were two of the older families of New Jersey, their ancestors having fought in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Their story will be printed at a later date.

Charlie and Estella set up housekeeping on the Ireland farm north of Deerfield. They were tenant fanners for Irving Osburn. They then lived for a time on their farm on the County Line, which was to become Harry Downing's place later. On November 2), 1896, they bought the old George K. Getty homestead from Thomas VanDuzer, where Albert Wielfaert now lives, and lived there for a few years.

Charlie thought so much of his Grandpa Getty, and always spoke highly of him. It was his dream to one day make his home on his Grandpa's homestead. George K. Getty had acquired the James Getty property shortly before James died. He sold it to James Curry and, I believe, Curry sold it to Beecher Lighthall. Charlie bought the 40 acre homestead from Lighthall on August JO, 1904. Over the years he bought more acreage on both sides of the homestead, as well as additional land adjoining the old George K. Getty farm, extending to the land he owned on the County Line.

In preparation for moving to the homestead, Charlie built a two story building which was as nice as any house even had matched flooring of solid oak. The family lived there while the large brick house was being built. It was later used for a granary, and still stands behind the house. The old log cabin which James Getty built was drawn down back by the creek and the logs were burned. The new brick home was built on the same site where the log cabin had stood. All the bricks were hauled from Azalia and Maybee and the lumber from Kohler's Lumber Yard in Petersburg. Anna, Charlie's oldest daughter, baked fresh bread every day for the carpenters and masons.

The workers were careful not to disturb the pear tree which James Getty had planted many years before, and the stump is still standing in front of the house today. The tree was badly damaged by a storm a few years ago and had to be cut down. However some shoots grew up from the roots and bore a few of the Gleckley pears, sweet as ever. The new well was put down and the windmill erected just north of where James' original well was. Charlie Downing's homestead was one of the show places of northeastern Lenawee County.

A small country church of frame construction stood on the southeast corner of Milwaukee Road and Shaw Highway. It was called the DeSpelder Church, named for the first minister, Rev. DeSpelder. Even though it was of the Presbyterian denomination, it was served from time to time by ministers of other faiths. The Gettys and the Downings, as well as most of their Irish neighbors attended this church.

The Ladies Aid Society prepared home cooked dinners periodically, and even all the school kids, at lunch hour, had a chance to go and partake of the delicious food. It has been said that when Nub Getty was moving his threshing rig from one farm to another that sparks from the steam engine ignited the long horse and buggy shed on the church lot, completely destroying the shed as well as the church. Soon after the fire, another church was built of bricks. However, in years to come, the congregation dwindled to such a small number of members, and eventually disbanded. The building was torn down and removed. Early this century there was another small church on Pennington Road, across from Irv Downing's farm. Old Mrs. Charlie East had donated the land on which it was erected. It was a zealous little Free Methodist Church.

Charles and Estella had eleven children.

• Irving Henry (1881 to 1956) married Ella Hazel Frost.

• Anna Matilda (1886 to 1919) married Charles Anspach.

• Nora Belle (1887 to 1973) married Ransom Earl Squires.

• Charles Clayton (1889 to 1962) married Camilla Jane Wilson.

• Joseph Emery (1891 to 1972) married Iva Elizabeth Spencer.

• Martha Ellen "Nellie" (1893 to 1929) married Emiel Wegner.

• Louis Ezra (1895 to 1954) married Mary C. Williams.

• Walter Harry (1897 to 1976) married (1) Vera Mae Grant, (2) Helen Craig Pierce.

• Leland George (1901 to 1971) married Fannie Ellen Wadsworth.

• Leon James (1901 to 1903) was Leland's twin. He died of indigestion and whooping cough when he was less than two years old.

• Marion Estelle (1905 to 1977) married Fenton Lafayette Barrett.

During the days when Corlie's children were young, they didn't have to go away from home to have fun, especially where there were large families. They provided their own entertainment. As soon as they were big enough the boys did the chores and helped with the work in the fields, and the girls helped with the housework. After the day's work was finished, there was always plenty of leisure time for games and reading.

Before this area was settled, Indian tribes used to camp on ground which was now part of Charlie's farm. The boys found lots of arrowheads and other stone artifacts out back on the hill and, also, in the garden.

Threshing season started in July and lasted for several days, until all the wheat and oats in the neighborhood had been threshed. It was a busy and exciting time for everyone. Sometimes the boys got to tend the blower of the separator (or threshing machine) which blew the separated straw into a stack like the one pictured on the previous page in the barnyard behind the barn. It was fun to play on the straw stack, but you better not get caught because the folks considered it too dangerous. The older boys usually had to drive the wagons through the fields of shocked grain, while the men pitched the bundles up onto the wagon. Another man, with a pitch fork, always stood on top of the wagon so he could load the bundles evenly. The loaded wagons, coming up from the field, would pull into the yard and line up by the threshing machine. As the bundles of grain were fed into the separator, the separated kernels of grain came out of a chute into bags which men then carried on their shoulders to the granary, where it was dumped into the clean bins. Or sometimes the chute emptied directly into barrels, as pictured above, and they were hauled to the granary in a wagon.

Through perseverance, ambition and excellent planning, Charles and Estella acquired a great deal of material wealth, especially land, of which they owned at one time close to a full section. In later years the road running past the homestead was named Downing Highway, at the suggestion of Leland's wife, Fannie. The road had been named Putnam, for a school teacher in Britton. But this man had long since moved back to Ohio.

Charlie and Stel were both well liked in the community, being friendly, thoughtful and neighborly. Charlie was also very kind to his mother, Nancy. Nancy lived in a small house in Britton, which Charlie and Lon had bought for her. She had no income, so Charlie paid the taxes, brought firewood for her stove, and saw to it there were always groceries in the house.

They worked hard from daylight to dark, but managed to retain their sense of humor. They helped their sons get set up on farms and also helped their daughters as much as they could.

Charlie and Stel’s oldest child, Irving Henry Downing, was born April 25, 1884. On June 10, 1909, he married Ella Hazel Frost. They set up housekeeping in a little old house on a farm which his dad owned near Curry's Comers. After living there a short time, they moved onto a 120 acre farm on Pennington Road near the intersection of County Line, across from a little country church. They had three daughters: Beatrice Irene, Estella Marie and Rena Mae. The year that Stella was born, 1917, Irv built a new house for the family.

Irv died June 25, 1956, at the age of 72 years of arteriole sclerotic heart disease. Hazel continued to live on the farm until she married Alva Myers. Since Alva's death she has been living with Beatrice and is now 95 years old.

Anna Matilda was born January 13, 1886. She married a man from Detroit named Charles Henry Anspach, who had a son, Charles, Jr.  Charles and Anna's first born, LeRoy David, was born May 10, 1914, but lived less than three months. He died on August 1, 1914, with spinal meningitis.

After their daughter, Grace Laura, was born, Charles quit his job in Detroit, and since all the Downings were prosperous farmers, he felt obligated to try his hand at making their living off the land, too. They lived on several different farms in the Ridgeway area, but he finally realized he was no farmer, so he gave up that occupation. When she was only 32 years old, Anna developed cancer. She thought it was the result of an accident she had some years before, where she was thrown out of a buggy. During Anna's last weeks, Estella took care of her in their home. It was at this time that Fannie Wadsworth of Petersburg came to work for the Downings, and this was of course where she met Leland. On December 10, 1919, at the age of 33 years, 1 month, and 3 days, Anna succumbed to the dread disease.

Nora Belle was born October 16, 1887. She graduated in 1905, in the first class which graduated from Britton High School. The class is pictured on the previous page. She met Ransom Squires at a card party, and they were married November 26, 1908.

Nora and Ransom started housekeeping on the old Dan McFall place On Cone Road, and in 1915 they bought the Fred Greener farm on the east side of North County Line, just south of the Pennington Road intersection. It was here On their farm that they raised their four children: Alice Estelle, Leon Jerome, Elsie Genevieve and Ransom Earl, Jr. Ransom died July 16, 1961, and Nora passed away on February 26, 1973.

Charles Clayton was born August 26, 1889. He was the fourth of eleven children, and with his family, grew up in the Downing Highway County Line area. As was the case with all farmer's children, he and his brothers helped their father with whatever was to be done clearing and working the land, planting and harvesting the crops, building and maintaining the dwelling as well as the barns, granaries, corn cribs, and hen houses. In 1904 and 1905, he and Irv hauled all the bricks from Azalia and Maybee to build the big brick house on Downing Highway.

On December 6, 1911, he married a school teacher named Camilla Jane Wilson.

Camilla was born December 28, 1889, and was always called "Millie". Charles was nicknamed "Chuck".

They set up housekeeping in an old log house where his mother and father had lived several years before. They lived here until their new house was completed on the east side of the Monroe Lenawee County Line. This is where Thelma Henning lives now. Here they made their home until 1921, when they moved across the road to another new house where Robert and Bonnie Downing now reside.

Chuck was a farmer all his life, starting out on forty acres. During his lifetime he was able to accumulate 260 acres. Much of this land had to be cleared. From his early training with his father and brothers, he had become quite an accomplished carpenter. He built two houses, the outbuildings, and in later years two cottages at Portage Lake. Neighbors and friends for miles around helped in the "barn raising" during the summer of 1926, when his big hip roofed bam was built.

Chuck and Millie had eight children:

• Doris Ann

• Gwendolyn Floy

• Mary Gaynell

• Clayton Alfred

• Betty Jane

• Lewis Charles

• Leslie James

• Joan Carol

Chuck served as treasurer of the Getty School for many years. He was instrumental in getting Detroit Edison to extend electrical service to the community. They were considered a progressive couple in the neighborhood. In later years, they both enjoyed traveling and spent many happy days at their cottage at Portage Lake.

Millie died at the age of 65 of metastic carcinoma, On March 6, 1955. Chuck died October 26, 1962, age 73, of broncogenic cancer with metastasis.

Joseph Emery was born September 12, 1891. He married Iva Elizabeth Spencer, daughter of Fred Simeon and Alice Kriedler Spencer. Their first home after they were married was a log cabin on the second 40 acres south of Downing Highway on the County Line (where Geigler lives now), and they had their first child, Donald, while living there. Helen Arlene was born in the big two story brick house just east of the County Line on Milwaukee Road, where they were tenant farmers.

At the time when the cyclone went through on the Ridge, in 1920, they were living in an old house at the end of a lane on County Line north of Welch Road. They watched the cyclone as it passed. Shortly afterwards they bought a farm on the east side of North County Line, a short distance south of Nora and Ransom’s farm. They spent the rest of their lives here.

Emery and Iva had six children: Donald Charles, Helen Arlene, Audrey Louella, Charlotte Leone, Dean Spencer, and Shirley Ann. Iva died from injuries received in an auto accident on August 29, 1955. Emery (called "Bun") continued to live on the farm, well known in later years for the great number of prime hogs which he raised. He died May 8, 1972.

Martha Ellen "Nellie" Downing was born August 2), 189). She married Emiel Wegner in Ontario when she was only 17 on September 2), 1910. Emiel was a son of C. F. Wegner of Wellsville, whose family had emigrated from Germany in 188). They settled on a forty acre farm just south of Immanuel Lutheran Church on North Blissfield Highway, in the area known as "Dutchtown".

Nellie and Emiel had ten living children: Alberta Louella, Lillian Opa, Frederick Charles, Mathilda Estelle, Marvin Emiel, Melvin Louis, Anona Rachel, Georgiana Marie, Josephine Marion and Monita Madeline.

On August 28, 1929, when Nellie was 6 years old, she died in the University Hospital, Ann Arbor, in childbirth (with the eleventh child a son). A few lines from her obituary follow: "Together with her husband she made her home in Palmyra Twp. at the home where the fatal illness overtook her and here their hopes and joys centered on their farm home and the family God gave to them. In later years she also embraced the faith of her husband and was baptized into the Christian faith after she had familiarized herself with its doctrines. So she and her husband lived happily together, she rendering him a loving helpfulness of a faithful wife, caring for her children and her home.

In an entirely unforeseen manner this home life was interrupted by the grim figure of death when she was suddenly taken ill one week o last Monday. Medical aid was summoned and she was taken to the University Hospital at Ann Arbor. She had almost won the battle for life when she grew worse and was taken to her eternal reward."

Nellie and Emiel were my parents.

Following is an excerpt from a letter written by Emiel to his oldest daughter, Alberta, in 1963.

"…but think 80 years ago when ma an pa come to this country no money no place to live no job, but a big family and kept on getting bigger all the time. Just look at the difference in the last 50 years, when your Ma and I were married. I had $150 to run us till the next spring, the winter after we were married chuck (Chuck Downing) & I cut wood all winter for 6o¢ to 65¢ a cord the most we could cut in one day was 3 to 5 cord a day. The next spring we moved in that old house, then I had to buy one horse and plow, but then we were still happy. Then I don carpenter work with your uncle Bill Prilipp building barns turn that boring machine 10 hours day four $2 but they were still happy. I think it was in 1913 we build the barn. Then in 1917 we built the house. Them were still happy days but we were still poor. "

Emiel went through the third grade at English school. He was then taken out of school and was sent to German school at the church, taught by the minister in German. This was the case with all the children of the neighborhood which was primarily a German settlement. The duration of German school was usually four years, with the preachers being strict disciplinarians. The taskmasters were so strict that sometimes they would whip the children unmercifully. However, as the years went by, each succeeding minister proved to be a little more lenient.

In 1931 Emiel married Aurila Shipley. After 27 years together they were divorced. In 1959 he married Irene Bachtal. They had two children; Susan and Debra. Emiel died October 27, 1966.

Louis Ezra was born November 13, 1895. In 1913 he was accidentally shot in the hip while hunting crows with a couple of neighbor boys. In 1918 he was drafted into the army. He took his training at Camp Custer. After World War I, he worked for farmers in the neighborhood. He married Mary C. Williams, and they had four children: Russell James, Anna Ruth, Katherine Eudora and Roland Louis. Lou never owned a farm. He went to work for Ford Farms and he and his family lived on various farms in the Macon area. Later in life they moved to Britton and he worked several years for the Tecumseh Products as a guard. Lou died February 25, 1954, age 58; cause of death coronary occlusion.

Walter Harry was born August 23, 1897. He married Vera Mae Grant on January 1, 1919, and they had a farm on the west side of County Line where Geiglers live. For a short time Harry traded places with his dad. Charlie had built a brand new house on the farm on the County Line and he and Stel moved there. Harry and Vera moved onto the homestead, where Dorothy Jean was born in 1919. Around 1921 they switched back, after which Harry sold the farm and went to work for the Ford Farms at Macon.

They had three more children: Duane Grant (died at birth), Lois Emma and Merlyn Harold. Vera died January 21, 1929. Merlyn was less than two years old. He went to live with Leland and Fannie and was raised as their own son. Harry married Helen Craig Pierce June 11, 1932, and later in life they built a new house in Britton. Harry retired in 1960 from the maintenance department at Ford Motor Company in Rawsonville. He died at the age of 78 years on May 3, 1976. Helen died July 4, 1985.

Leland George and Leon James, twins, were born July 1, 1901. On April 4, 1903, Leon died of indigestion and whooping cough. Leland married Fannie Wadsworth of Petersburg on June 1, 1926. About this time, Charlie and Stel moved into a small frame house on a farm they owned on Kniffen Road, the old Tuttle Place. Leland and Fannie moved into the big brick house and took over the homestead. They had one daughter, Madelyn Eunice. After Vera died, Merlyn came to live with them, and they brought him up as their own son. Leland farmed the homestead until his death, April 6, 1971. Fannie taught school for many years, and since her retirement, she has continued to live in the big brick house.

Marion Estelle was born October 5, 1905. On June 2, 1931, she married Fenton "Bob" Lafayette Barrett, son of Edward and Maggie (Rockwood) Barrett. They had two children: Charles E. and Margaret Estelle. Marion taught school for forty years until her retirement in 1967. They made their home with Charlie and Estelle on the farm on Kniffen Road. Bob died September 21, 1975, and Marion on December 21, 1977.

Charlie Downing died of a stroke of apoplexy at his home on April 11, 1932, age 72; cause of death arterial sclerosis, chronic nephritis, and cerebral hemorrhage. Estella died of cardio respiratory failure July 21, 19.50, age 88 years. They are both buried in the, Ridgeway Cemetery.

Charlie and Estelle were my grandparents.