otistour

The night that Mark called to tell me that Bob had died was a long, long night. I not only had a horrible cold, but I couldn't get to sleep for hours, thinking about how great a part Bob, the Otis family farm, and the Glass Creek community had played in my life.

This is a very special place: the creek, the marsh, the woods, the ponds, and the rolling hills formed by the last glaciers. And Bob was a very special person in my early years. I should say in our early years since my cousin Harold and I spent most of our weekend, holidays and vacations at the farm until the war took Harold away and I went off to college.

The whole Glass Creek community was very special to usfor mile sin every direction almost every farm had aunts and uncles and cousinscousins by the dozens! And other shirttail relative where we could visit and spend overnightsometimes in a wet bed, especially during watermelon seasons.

Of course, my brother Chuck had more in common with Bob, as they were closer in age. Chuck hitchhiked up to the country every week and they hunted, fished, and worked together for years Until Chuck discovered girls, especially Mary.

The farm had little similarity to modern day farms. Your alarm clock was a rooster crowing. Chickens ran free all over the place, finding new nests meant finding out which eggs were fresh and which were rotten. Aggressive roosters, or worse turkey gobblers, and even gander geese scared the hell out of little kids.

What boys don't like horses? There was Midget, a pony that we could ride and that Grandma used to pull a pretty little buggy while making neighborhood visits. There was Bess, an one-eyed somewhat uncontrollable animal who once took me straight at a power pole at full speed until she finally saw it. She went to one side of the pole and I was airborne on the other!

Bench and table under

oak tree on east side of

sanctuary

When we were too small to really control these horses they often would go to Goodwill Road and suddenly get homesick, taking us at break neck speed back to the barn, through the stable door with us hanging tight an laying low to keep from losing our heads. We used to have to mount the horses from the cream stand, or if in the marsh from a bog, often riding bareback with no bridle. Our rides were often quite short!

Occasionally there were run away teams. Once I cannot forget a three horse team took the grain binder all the way from the hills, down to and thorough the barn yard fence. Horses not raised on the farm were not used to soft ground and would panic when mired in the marsh. The resultant tangle of horses, broken harnesses and equipment were a sight to behold.

Making hay in itself could be quite an adventure. You never knew for sure how high you could load the wagon and still get through, down and around the hills without tipping over. If you made it to the barn and were lucky, you could drive the horses to pull the hay up with the slings. If you were unlucky, you had to help stuff the hay back over the horse stables, the hottest job I ever remember. No hay bailers or choppers here!

View from north part of sanctuary

to the northeast. The tree line is

the border between the sanctuary

and the Barry State Game Area

Memorial Day weekend was when Uncle Ray, Uncle Lyle and my dad and anyone else available came up to plant cornagain the hard way, one hill at a time with hand planters.

There was plenty of excitement to fill our days: shearing sheep, breaking colts, seeing calves born, seeing a large sow deliver nearly a dozen piglets! Later we saw the earlier side of sex on the farm and got the answer to why you do not you get milk that big cow w with the ring in its nose? No need for a sex education course in the country.

And then there were the rattlesnakes--not many, but how many does one need to get the adrenaline flowing? When we were bringing the cows in from the marsh, they would sometimes circle out around an are and you had better follow their lead since nine times out of ten there would be a rattler buzzing its warning. Finding one sunning on a haycock, or worse pitching one up on load of hay was excitement enough for small boys.

North side of

marsh

When we were very young we would hear insects buzzing in the marsh and ask Grandpa if it was a rattler. His answer was always "no, but you will know when you hear one". He was right. Later he was lifting a stump while clearing the marsh when no doubt that was a rattlesnake. Grandpa, who was nearly deaf, had not heard it at all, but when he flipped the stump over, there it was coiled and ready for action!

Once when Aunt Lucille was home from the Art Institute in Chicago, Bob had just killed a large rattler. She told us that rattlesnake meat was a delicacy in the finest restaurants. So Bob cleaned it and she fried the round white meat. Harold, Lucille, and I tried it and it tasted just like frog legs, we knew because we had just had some after a night o frog gigging on Otis Lake. Bob's comment was "If you ever clean one, you'll never eat one!" Grandpa told Grandma never to cook in that pan again!

Hog butchering was a big event, scary but big; the killing, the big black kettle, the scraping to remove hair until the hog was as shiny as new ivory, and butchering the carcass. One time the new neighbors on the farm to the south showed up at butchering time and were amazed at how much of the hog was being wasted. They took the head, the tail, the feet, the intestines, the bloodeverything but the squeal. Later they showed up with the most unusual and delicious head cheese, bloodwurst and other results of the their German heritage.

The cabin, built in c. 1962

Fall and the threshing season were signaled by the huff, huff, huff of the steam traction engine coming down the road with the grain separator in two. Neighbors with wagons showed up from all directions and the threshing began. We loved carrying large bags of oats to the grain bins, but wheat was a much heavier problem. Stacking the straw was the worst job; especially if someone ran a nest of rotten eggs up the straw shoot.

Threshing signaled the biggest family meal of the year. Farm wives of the neighborhood helped in the preparationsand ate in the kitchen!

Easter in those days must have been before they discovered candy. Easter was turkey eggs, goose eggs, bantam hen eggs, duck eggs, and hen eggs, often double yolked. Fried, scrambled, boiledchoose your poison and happy cholesterol to you. Of course, the fact that almost all my relatives lived long, productive lives makes you wonder. You just ate until you burst, and we did keep score!

Building projects were usually being planned or underway. All three Otis boys, Ray, Lyle and Bob, were expert carpenters at one time or another and a new chicken coop, corn crib, garage, tool shed or sheep shed was a great way to get together and work together. Lumber from the farm woods, sawed at Whittemores's and gravel from their own pit, and concrete mixed by hand in a trough. Who need Redi-Mix?

A late winter scene, looking to the north, of Glass Creek

Glass Creek, which winds its way through the marsh behind the house, has always been a magic place for me. Harold and I fished for chubs and bullhead with a stick for a pole, and string and a bent pin for tackle. The fish, never longer than 6", were a big deal to us. Although Glass Creek was listed as a trout stream, the creek through the marsh was not good trout habitat and we never caught any there.

We scavenged some old lumber and built a diving platform at a bend in the creek, which had formed a fairly large swimming hole. A tree trunk across the creek was the only way to cross on foot. Finally, two parallel logs made a high tech bridge, so one had half a chance of making the crossing dry.

Ray, Lyle and Bob had a knack for building rowboats, but they were never easy to handle on the narrow, twisting creek. Later, in the 1930's Bob bought a used Old Town canoe and then it was great paddling up and down the creek.

It was usual to jump ducks, great blue herons, bitterns and snipe along the creek. Muskrats carrying cattails to their houses or a mink sliding into the water were always a possibility. Several times in the last few years, Willie and I took Bob up Glass Creek in his canoe, as far as we could go, until fallen trees and brush would stop us. We usually saw sand hill cranes, quite a surprise to me as we never saw them in the 1930's and 1940's. We noticed purple loosestrife growing along the creek banks. Loosestrife is beautiful but quite a problem as it forces out other more desirable vegetation. Bob said Grandma Otis had gotten plants from Aunt Bessie and they had put them out by the creek.

Glass Creek and farm, looking from the Barry State Game Area to the south

In the 1940's, Bob had a large "marl" hole dredged in a straight section of the creek. It was probably 30 feet wide and several hundred feet long. For years it was a great fishing hole and produced many large northern pike. Nevertheless, slowly the creek returned to its original size and the last time we paddled the creek it could not be recognized.

As I remember it, the marsh never had much standing water, except at the south were East and West Ponds were quite large. However, it was always wet enough to mire a team or lose a cow!

Grandpa Otis spent the best years of his life ditching, tiling and draining the marsh in hopes of having a real cash croponions. But after all the clearing, planting, weeding and topping it seemed that every year that produced a bumper crop, the market price for onions was $0.25 a hundred pounds. If you had a lousy year, of course the price was 10 times as high. That's farming!

In later years, the marsh reclaimed itself. The tile lines are probably somewhat intact and draining into Glass Creek. Plugging them would probably return the water table to its original level.

Hunting season was a special time of year. Most of the seasonal farm work was done and there was an abundance of rabbits and squirrels. There were ducks on the creek and the ponds and jacksnipe and woodcock (but nobody shot them, as they were too small). There were a few ruffed grouse in the large woods to the east. Canada geese were very rare in the 1930's, but not now.

80 acres of

old fallow

field

Rabbit hunting on weekends and holidays was a real family affair. My uncles and cousins, my dad and brother Chuck would comb the countryside. Jack and Queenie, the black and tan hounds, and Dixie Dobber, the beagle, were experts at bringing rabbits around to the expectant hunters. The sound of hounds running through the marshes, pond edges and woods was a sound I will never forget. Rabbit and squirrel were fine eating and pan frying was all that was needed, no marinating, no wine added, just pan fried brown on the outside and great on our insides.

In those days, everybody shot hawks and owls because they got into the chickens and kept game bird populations down. A muskrat trap on a tall pole near the chicken pen was a common sight and was very effective in eliminating hawks and owls, but not in keeping with current thoughts about the benefits of these birds.

Deer were unheard of in the early 1930's in southern Michigan. I found a fossilized deer antler in the marsh but it wasn't until the late 1930's when someone saw the first deer near Uncle Harry's on Gun Lake Road. Now they are commonplace. A trip north to hunt deer was an annual event for Bob and most of my relatives. In late years, a trip to the back woods could be just as effective.

About 100 years ago my father found a huge elk antler buried in the marl along Glass Creek on the Parker Erway farm. He was watering horses at the creek and he was casually kicking at what he thought was a branch sticking out of the marl. However, the material kept getting increasingly polished as he rubbed against it. Curiosity aroused, he got a shovel and after much digging found this antler what was 5-6 feet in length. Perhaps this was from the prehistoric huge elk, which roamed the area thousands of years ago. Now elk have been reestablished further north in Michigan and the state has given Wisconsin 25 or 30 elk so a Wisconsin herd in now thriving.

Brome grass

Although we have not seen them, Bob told me those wild turkeys are in the area, a real success story in wildlife management.

Bob certainly did his share in making the farm a wildlife haven. If you have walked the many paths he kept mowed you cannot have missed the wildlife areas he has planted with Russian Olive and other game food, and the evergreen trees planted to provide cover for game and songbirds. The wood duck boxes and other birdhouses speak of his devotion to the cause of conservation. Bob could not bring himself to shoot a doe in his whole life even though harvesting does to keep the deer numbers in balance is a well recognized wildlife management tool.

Fishing usually started by getting up at about 3 a.m. In addition, driving to Otis Lake, Pine Lake or Podunk Lake where Harold or I was granted the pleasure of rowing the boat while Bob and Chuck cast for bass along the lily pads lining the shores. What did we do with the fish we caught? Same thing we did with our ducks. Toss them in the sink for Grandma to clean. She needed something to do in her spare time . . .

Then it would be milking time, carry milk, feed the cow, turn the cream separator, put the cream out on the cream stand an d head for breakfast: fried potatoes, eggs, salt pork, and sometimes hot cereal with whole milk.

A winter sunset

Panfishing was great because there was less rowing involved and we could all fish at once. We fished with can poles and gagleworms on Head Lake, Pine Lake or perhaps Erway Lake and it was a very leisurely operation, as it was usually on Sunday and no farm work was to be done.

When we were making hay or weeding onions a little rain was excuse to tell Grandpa "You can't expect us to work in the rain!" Then we would head for the creek or the lake to go fishing.

One year Bob planted 5 acres of cucumbers and one week Harold and I made $20 each picking cukes. Not bad for kids in the depression years.

We often thought that one of the reasons Bob married later in life was that Harold and I badgered him into taking us to the movies in Hastings with him and his girl friend. Pretty tough making out with two fourteen year olds in the back seat!

Once in a conversation Millie said "They told me about the hunting and they told me about the fishing, but no one told me about the trapping!" Yes, he was still planning to trap the year he died.

Bob really liked canoes. Several years ago Willie and I took him canoeing from Charlton Park to Hastings on the Thornapple River. He said it was the first time he had seen the river in the daylight. Previous trips on the river had all been at night, spearing suckers and red horse with a jacklight.

At a family reunion at Gull Lake, Bob called me over to his car where he was sitting. He said, "Norm, I think you would appreciate my Old Town canoe more than anyone else, so when I'm gone, take it out of the sheep shed." I said I could not do that unless he put something in writing. As I started to walk away, I suddenly returned to say, "Of course, you realize I'm in no hurry to get it."

So, part of Marks' message when he called to tell us of Bob's death was that yes, Bob had put in the trust that I should get the "Old Town". Therefore, it now has a fresh coat of green paint, a beautiful bright wood interior and a resting-place in our boathouse at our cabin in central Wisconsin. It will stay in our family long after Willie and I have taken our last paddle strokes, as all three of our girls are canoe lovers.

A hiking path, ressurected

Oh yes, when Bob offered me the canoe he said he could thank Harold and me for the only damage on the canvas of the canoe. The diving platform that we had built and used on the creek 60 years ago had collapsed years later and sunk into the mudexcept for one spike which reached out to get his beloved canoe.

The Otis Family Farm was quite progressive, considering the time of the century and the small size of the farm and the large size of the family. They had a flush toilet which undoubtedly emptied into the creek (Hey, this was long before the EPA and environmental awareness). They had a 32-volt electric system that had its batteries charged when a gas engine powered the milking machine. In the late 1930's when the REA (Rural Electric Association) put power lines around the area, Bob wired every building and put electric motors on every moving thing except his toothbrush.

The house had a furnace in the basement, but my favorite spot on a cold winter day was on the couch next to the round oak stove in the dining room. It helped to have the family cat cuddle up next to you, and the purring did not hurt either.

Until the REA lines came in, there was no refrigeration. Nevertheless, a little spring in the marsh was boxed in and kept milk, melons, etc., cool, if not cold.

Things were not always so good on the farm. My mother tells of at $600 mortgage on the farm in the early years. Every child and our grandparents too were worried each year over whether there would be enough cash left over to paynot the mortgagebut the interest on it!

Once, a lightning strike killed 22 cows that stood under about the only tree on the marsha devastating blow to a small farm operation. One wonders how these small family farms, so hilly that Bob thought for years they could only be worked with horses, could support such large, healthy and happy families.

They were essentially self-sufficient, supplying all the milk, cream, eggs, grain, vegetables and meat needed. Beyond being self-sufficient, they helped supply vegetables, fruit and dairy products to families which had moved to the city and were in pretty tough shape during the depression. At one point my own family, which included Uncle Ray and his three children, had only one person with a job. Uncle Ray worked as a meat cutter for A & P, only because his brother Lyle was the manager. Uncle Ray was paid $10 week.

I used to wonder why our country cousins always seemed a little smarter that we were. Well, I visited Otis School often enough to remove the mysteryevery pupil from the youngest to the oldest listened to the lessons eight times before they passed the eighth grade. And every student went on to high schoolnot easy to do when you lived out in the country, when roads and cars were not like they are today.

The Otis family certainly turned out its share of teachersGrandpa Otis taught at Podunk School, as did my mother, who also taught at Otis School. Aunt Bessie was so well appreciated that she taught well into her 70's. She had the honor of being the first to be awarded as a teacher who stressed environmental and nature studies in their honor. Several of my mother's generation goes college or normal school degrees and Aunt Edna and Aunt Catherine married university professors, Uncle Edwin at U o M and Uncle Pete at Michigan State. Bob even tried a year Michigan State, but the call of the marsh was too much to resist and he returned to the farm.

I used to wonder why Uncle Edwin and Uncle Pete would take long walks through the fields and woods when they just as well be hunting or fishing. As I get older, I seem to get an understanding. I now get more joy out of seeing a duck fly across the sky than I do shooting one.

Many of my generation got their college degrees and at least two, Kenneth Dunn and John Erway go doctorate degrees.

During the depression, several times country cousins came to live with us in Kalamazoo while attending Western Michigan, and at the same time, fair exchange, some of our family went to live in the country and attend Otis School.

Politics and porcelains were prominent in the family, with Catherine and Peter covering the Washington scene, and Lucille nationally known for her beautiful porcelains.

Bob's death seems like the end of an era for the Otis Family Farm, but it can become a beautiful beginning. The farm with its rolling glacial hills, its woods, ponds, marsh and of course Glass Creek winding its way through the marshes, is really a jewel set in the ring of surrounding state recreational area. That Bob and Millie put this gem in trust with the Michigan Audubon Society made all of my family very proud. Now when we see a wood duck fly by in all its glorious colors we can say "There goes one of Bob's ducks" or better yet, maybe he's flying with it, just checking things out.