Following are some of the little stories that Margaret Gebarowski remembers hearing over the years. Margaret, her brother Charles, and her parents, Fenton and Marion Downing Barrett, lived with Charlie and Estelle.

Grandpa would sit on the back porch, tapping the floor with his cane. Grandma would call: "Charlie, quit that pecking!"

Grandpa raised pigs as well as cattle, and kids. Leland and Marion being the youngest played a lot together. One day when sliding down a new straw stack, they decided to try to slide a little pig down. They did several times, 'til one 0f them caught his foot or something and went end over end and broke the pig's, neck. Needless to say, they stopped. When Grandpa came in that night, he said, "Stel, a steer must have stepped on one of the pigs and broke his neck out by the straw stack" • Nothing more said.

Grandma told about Emery and Chuck locking the Gypsy peddler in the out house and then going back to work in the' fields. Grandma had to let him out.

Emery left the horses standing in the field, while he answered nature's call.

Up in a tree something frightened the horses. They ran away with the plow behind. He had to explain to Grandpa.

Nora wanted some gold fish. When Grandpa asked her where she would keep them, she told him "under the bed". He answered, "Norie, gold fish can't live in salt water".

When just a little girl, Marion got mad at Ransom and Nora because they wouldn't take her on their wedding trip. She ran away and got lost in the corn field.

When he was a young man, Lou was involved in a hunting accident. According to Grandpa, Lou got shot in the thigh because he hunted crows on Sunday.

When Oliver Titsworth died, Marion, Leland and Fannie went to Flint to the funeral. Upon arriving in the city, they went to a florist to arrange for flowers and to get directions to the funeral home. They found the place and went in and up front to view the remains. It was a red haired woman rather than an elderly man. They did eventually find the right place in time for the funeral.

Grandma set her pans of milk in the cellar way on shelves. She skimmed the milk in the morning. One morning she skimmed the cream into a crock and promptly emptied it into the swill pail which was waiting for the skimmed milk. She threw the cream skimmer and said, "Oh, shit a meat axe!" Grandpa said, "What's the matter, Stel?" She told him. He said, "That cream won't hurt the pigs at all."

Chuck took his nephew, Charles, with him on a boat ride (Chuck made the boat) down the Macon when it was flooded. They rode from Kniffen Road to the County Line. Chuck's own boys wouldn't go.

Lewis, one of Chuck's twins, rode his pony cross lots to see Grandpa and Grandma. The pony got loose and went home. Chuck looked and looked for Lewis and at last went over to tell Grandpa and Grandma about his absence and found him having dinner with them.

Marion, when she was home for the weekend from State Normal College in Ypsilanti, was washing Grandpa's car. Her clothes got caught in the gasoline engine belt and tore them all off but her silk "teddy". Grandpa happened by and said, "Babe, you better go get some clothes on".

Grandpa and Marion were looking for the old boar hog. Upon not finding him, they closed the chicken coop door. Next morning when they let the chickens out, out came the boar, but not too many chickens.

After Grandma was quite old, while being carried out to the yard on a reunion day, she looked at all her family and said, "Just think! I'm the cause of all this".

Alonzo G. Titsworth, son of Elias and Nancy Titsworth, was born in Michigan, June 14, 1861. Little is known about his early life, but it is presumed he grew up in Ridgeway Township, except for a short time in Seneca Township. He worked by the month as a farm hand for the local fanners. After his parents separated, he continued to live with his mother, and bought a twenty acre parcel on the County Line from her on October 29, 1878. In 1886 he married Margaret Jane Stocker, daughter of Aaron Sylvester and Elizabeth (Gilbert) Stocker. Margaret was born December 19, 1871.

In 1887, Lon sold his 20 acres to his half brother, Charles James Downing, and he moved into Britton. He operated a grocery store in the Beasley Block on the south side of M50. On a Friday, September 20, 1888, along with several other stores, his grocery was destroyed by fire.

After his store burned, his outlook was very gloomy, there not being that many opportunities for employment. His uncle, William Getty, suggested he come north to Antrim County, where the logging "business was really booming. So he and his family gathered their few belongings and left for the north woods.

At this time, Lon and Maggie had one son, Charles James, named after his uncle, Charles James Downing. He was born in 1887. A daughter, Adeline Mathilda, was born October 25, 1888. Their second daughter, Sylvia Bell, was born in Antrim County, October 16, 1893.

Lon worked in the lumber camps, and on November 2, 1897, at the age of 36 years, 4 months, and 19 days, he died as a result of an accident in a shingle mill. He was buried in the Bay View Cemetery at Eastport, in Torch Lake Township, Antrim County.

Young Charles, as soon as he was big enough, followed in his father's footsteps, working in the logging industry to support his mother and two sisters. At the age of sixteen he contracted the dread disease, typhoid fever, and died on September 7, 1903, in Torch Lake Township.

Maggie remarried a man by the name of Oliver Henry Titsworth. He was born near Adrian, Michigan, on June 30, 1873, to William H. and Fannie E. (Carmer) Titsworth. It is believed that he was Lon's cousin. Maggie and Oliver continued to live in Northern Michigan. They had five children: John, Lawrence, Bernice, Fannie and Marguerita.

Alexander "Elick" Titsworth was born to Elias and Nancy Titsworth on Christmas Day, December 25, 1863, in Elmira, New York. His family soon moved back to Michigan. However, it appears he spent some of his teenage years in New York state, for in approximately 1884, he married Eunice Bennett in Elmira, New York. Eunice was born July 7, 186J, to Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Bennet. Eunice's sister, Jennie, married Joseph Daykin, whose father had emigrated from England, and had settled near Britton. The couple remained in New York for a few years, and it was there that their first two children were born. James H. was born in 1885, and Ella M. was born April 8, 1887. They moved back to Michigan where Elick worked as a tenant farmer. They lived on various farms in Ridgeway and Milan Townships, including the Ben Ball place southeast of Britton, and farms on the County Line and near Cone. Their third child, Nancy, was born in 1890, and Martha was born in 1892. Elias was born in 1894, Walter in 1898, and Harold R. was born February 4, 1902.

Elick was a tall man, but not quite as tall as Elias. He was thin and raw boned, but lacked his father's rugged good looks. He was a kindly man; he worked hard, was good to his family, but times were not easy.

Eunice was well liked, friendly and helpful to all her neighbors and relatives. The old saying goes, "A man works from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done." This held true for Eunice, just as it did for all farm women of that time. There were no modem conveniences in her day to make life easier. Many early farm homes were crudely furnished, some with nothing more than dirt floors. They were poorly heated with fireplaces or wood burning stoves that lost a good share of the heat up the chimney. Even so, the people were comfortable for the most part because they wore heavy woolen clothing, including long underwear, and long woolen stockings. They slept on warm straw ticks or on fluffy feather beds, three or four kids in a bed, covered with several heavy comforters.

Washing for a family of nine was done by hand every Monday, if it didn't rain. First the clothes were boiled in rainwater from the cistern, with homemade soap, in a copper boiler to loosen the soil and to whiten them, and then they were dumped, scalding water and all, into a galvanized tub and rubbed on a washboard until they were clean. Of course they were rinsed in icy cold water, blue with ball bluing, for further whitening, and were rung out by hand, before hanging on the line to dry. It was always a race to see who in the neighborhood could get her clothes on the line first.

As soon as the washing was finished, the bread dough, which had been set to rise right after breakfast, was kneaded and formed into loaves to rise again, so it could be baked in the big cook stove in time to have warm bread and butter for dinner, or at least for supper. There were three large meals a day, breakfast at 6:00 A.M. right after chores, dinner at 12:00 noon, and supper at 6:00 P.M.

A large kettle of potatoes was boiled for dinner, to go along with fresh side pork or whatever other meat was on hand. The left over potatoes would be chopped and fried in lard or meat frying for supper, along with plenty of bread which had been kept warm in the warming oven on top of the range. There would be homemade butter and jelly, sometimes cooked vegetables, and always dessert, such as pie, cake, cookies or canned fruit. If there were any fried potatoes left over from supper, they would be warmed up the next morning for breakfast. In most farm homes there was never enough meat to serve daily, but always an abundance right after butchering. The liver, side pork, and sweet breads were eaten up while fresh. The heart and tongue were cooked and pickled. The poorer chunks of pork were ground into sausage, then seasoned with sage, salt and pepper, and mixed in a huge pan and formed into patties. These patties, as well as the pork chops, were fried down in a large iron spider, put in crocks, and covered with lard, which would preserve them.

Ball jars were filled with the more choice chunks, and then the jars were covered with water in the clothes boiler, and processed for several hours.

The hams, shoulders, and bacon were smoked in the smoke house, and the lard was rendered and run through the iron lard press, then poured into large covered metal cans and stored in the attic or the cellar.

In between all the washing, the cooking, baking, ironing, and canning, there was gardening, churning, cleaning, sewing, and even helping with• the chores and in the fields in the summertime.

Evenings were usually spent mending clothes, darning socks, and doing fancy work. The long winter months were always looked forward to because it gave time to sew clothes for the children, piece quilts, sew carpet rags, crack and pick out hickory nuts and walnuts, and still have a little leisure time for reading the continued story in the monthly Michigan Farmer, and cut out recipes and patterns from the daily paper. 

The children had their share of work to do, too. As soon as the boys were big enough, they helped with the chores, pitching the manure out of the barn, tossing down hay from the mow, mixing the swill in the big barrels and slopping the hogs, and milking the cows, always squirting some at the cats who sat there waiting. Before supper they chopped wood and brought in armloads to fill the wood box. The girls' duties included: feeding the chickens, gathering the eggs, and carrying the potato peelings out to the barnyard. They hoed and weeded in the garden and helped with the housework. It was their job to keep the water pail filled with fresh water from the hand pump across the driveway, and the reservoir on the side of the cook stove filled with rainwater from the cistern. Each afternoon they filled all the lamps with kerosene. They worked hard and they played hard. Even so, it was a fun place, and the little cousins always looked forward to spending a few days at Uncle Elick's and Aunt Eunice's.

Elick's oldest son, James, in his youth, was a handsome man, said to have been the perfect picture of Elias. In fact, he was not only like Elias in appearance, but in actions and personality as well. Jim married a lady by the name of Elizabeth. This marriage ended in divorce. I remember well when I was a kid living with my aunt and uncle, one day on the way home from Adrian, Uncle Johnny picked up a man who had just hopped off a box car on one of the freight trains passing through Lenawee Junction. His name was Jim Titsworth. He said he had no home, no family, and no job, so Uncle Johnny hired him by the month to work as a farm hand. Of course, he roomed and boarded with us. Ma (my Aunt Minnie) told me at the time that he was some shirttail relation to my Grandpa Downing. He was very tall and skinny, at least 6 ft. 6 in. I looked at him with awe and decided he was the tallest man I ever saw. He even had to stoop to pass through the doorways. After he left our place, we never saw him again. Later in life he married a widow who lived down by Wellsville whose name was Mary Prairie. He died when he was :J+ years old of bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis, and is buried in Pleasant View Cemetery in Blissfield, Michigan.

Ella M. Titsworth married Eugene D. Converse. They had fourteen children:

• Jennie (1905  1928)

• Elgie (1907  1909)

• Ethel Irene (1909  1910)

• Elsie (1911), Hazel (1913)

• Martha (1915  1948)

• Nancy (1916  1983)

• William (1919  died in World War II in 1945)

• Eunice (1920  1984)

• Lucille (1924)

• Gustave (1926)

• Goldie (1927)

• Alma (1929  died, age 16, May 11, 1946, with 3rd. degree burns, car accident)

• Eugene (1932)

• Ella died in 1957

• Eugene died March 26, 1934

Nancy Anna Titsworth married Gustave C. Moll on March 10, 1920. They had one daughter, Lillian, born December 10, 1924. Nancy died August 5, 1943, and Gustave in 1969.

Martha Titsworth married Edward. A. Nichols, and had one son, Earl. Earl spent his childhood with Elick and Eunice.

Elias Titsworth, born in 1894, worked in Northern Michigan for the logging industry. On February 13, 1913, at age 16, he was killed in a lumber camp near Gaylord. He is buried in Waverly Township, Michigan.

Walter married Enuna Moore on October 20, 1923. They had one son, Harold E., born July 7, 1924, died in 1966. Walter died in 1934. They're buried in the Ridgeway Cemetery.

Harold R. married Grace Everett. and Elick Raymond (December 9, 1930 ) • tuberculosis.

Eunice died November 7, 1932, age 69, of heart failure. Elick died November 26, 1944, age 81, of acute cardiac failure. They're buried in the Ridgeway Cemetery.

Matilda "Mattie" Titsworth, daughter of Elias and Nancy Titsworth, was born in the little log cabin on the County Line, May 28, 1867. Mattie was a chip off the old block. Like her dad, Elias, she had the wanderlust, and couldn't stay put in anyone place for long. She allegedly ran away from home when she was thirteen to join the circus.

They had Elsie May (December 29, 1928), Harold died on May 26, 1935, age 34, of

While still a teenager, Mattie was married for a short time, but the husband’s name is not known.

About 1890 she married a young man who worked for a newspaper in Detroit. His name was Walter A. Moran. They had two children, Benjamin Jesse, born March 7, 1893, and Estella May, born October 15, 1894. While the children were small, Mattie ran off and left the family.

A few years later she married Jess DePung, and at the time of Charles J. Downing's death in 1932, she was living in Gaylord, Michigan, having been following the lumber camps. She seemed to thrive on all the excitement. She and Jess had three children: Effie, Ernest and Dirk. While these children were small, she supposedly ran off and left this family, too, but Jess managed to find her and bring her back home.

She eventually did succeed in leaving the family, and later married a man by the name of Charles E. Knight.

During the latter years of her life, Mattie managed to keep in touch with Effie, Ernie and Dirk.

On June 5, 1949, while living with Effie, she died in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was 79 years old. Cause of death was bronchial pneumonia and senile dementia. No record has been found of what happened to Mattie's first two children, Benjamin Jesse and Estella May Moran.