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A PIONEER MINISTER BY REV. SUPPLY CHASE
APRIL 21, 1873
Then began privation. Then came the opportunity for the exercise of female tact and ingenuity in making the old and worn garment look "almost as good as new; " making the last year's bonnet do double duty, and getting a nice pair of pants for Johnny out of father's old ones. The courage with which the women bore these privations was admirable. Always cheerful and hopeful, looking forward to better days.
Often the whole outfit given the daughter by loving parents, when she left the parental home a happy bride, would be piled up in a single room, bruised and damaged by the long journey and rough usuage it had received, yet, there was no complaining, "We shall have a letter house by-and-by. " After the cabin home came the school-house, also a cabin, often surrounded with the primeval forest, and here the little groups of youth received the rudiments of their education, for these fathers and mothers knew the value of knowledge. These were the men and women who had laid the foundations of civilation in Michigan. Such, to a great extent, were her pioneers. No nobler material ever entered into the composition of any people. From homes like these have come the, men who are filling places of honor and trust in this and other States of the great west. From these families have come the business men, the intelligent farmers, the lawyers, physicians, clergymen, and educators of the present, who are giving to Michigan her exalted position of the foremost State of the west, in all that pertains to a progressive people. No wonder that in the late rebellion the commanding General could say: "We are safe, for Michigan is on guard to-night. "
Michigan
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