My mother did get the lumberman/lumberjack part correct and was close in the area, which is Bay County, not Saginaw County. Her great-grandfather's name was Robert Spencer, not Alonzo Spencer. Logical assumption, given Walter's forename. New information as of 12/12/19 has been noted on my Spencer page. No more Spencer "brick wall."

The following is a biography of her early life and her father, Walter Alonzo Spencer, written by Lorena Spencer Huntoon Lindahl, in 1989.

(1.) He was born on a houseboat in the Saginaw River on August 16, 1866. His father's name was Alonzo Spencer and his mother's name is unknown. He had a brother, Frank, who was two years older, and a sister Edith. Family history says that Edith was an epileptic and died when Frank and Walter were 18 and 16 years old. The boys both left home at about that time.

(2.) Two boys, Delbert and Charlie, were born to a second wife of Alonzo. This mother was not kind to Alonzo's other children, and legend has it that she threw a butcher knife at Walter (it missed) but he picked up a chair and hit her over the head. Edith grabbed a leg of the chair and prevented its impact.

Zora (Kennedy) Spencer, Walter's daughter-in-law (Burrell's wife), says Frank worked in Saginaw (with) race horses. Frank and Walter saw each other only once since they left home.

Before the boys left home, they and their family grew up in a lumber camp near Mullett Lake. Walter's mother or stepmother was the camp cook. Walter learned to cook there and was very good at it. He never measured the ingredients. When I was growing up I took home economics at school. My father complained that when I cooked I dirtied all the dishes in the house. During those early years, my father also learned to carve cedar fans, which are now classified as folk art. There are two of his fans still in existence. During this time, he helped lay the railroad tracks that go by Mullett Lake.

He (was) hired as a farm hand at the Clark Beach residence and played the fiddle at dances. He fell in love with Lodema Olive Beach, who was the oldest daughter of Clark and Mary Anne (Madden) Beach. They were married November 22, 1892, when he was 26 years old. The Beaches may have been against the marriage as my father never went to see them. However, they were always welcome to our home and were frequent visitors. Walter and Lodema lived with William and Lena Carpenter in Pontiac for some time. Two sons were born to Walter and Lodema while they lived in Pontiac, Burrell Beach Spencer, born Sept. 27, 1893 and Frank Gales Spencer, born December 17, 1895.

Walter came to Bellevue in 1900. His nickname was Mike and he thought when he moved he could shed his nickname. However, someone he knew from lumbering days was at the train station when he got off and said, "Mike, what the hell are you doing here?" So the nickname stuck. Mother Lodema soon followed, as their daughter Evolyn (Evelyn) was born February 9, 1901, in Bellevue.

My father never owned property and paid five dollars a month rent in the home where Evolyn and I were born. We moved to a larger home about 1915 or 1916 when I was perhaps five years old. The rent was eight or ten dollars per month. Our home had music, as my dad played fiddle or banjo and Charlie Waters, a friend, came and they had music lessons. I did not ever hear of him playing for dances in the Bellevue area. However, I have been told that he tuned the wires of a bicycle wheel and was able to play a tune on it. He also knew a little about playing a musical saw.

When my parents moved to Bellevue, my father made a beautiful oak chest. It was later refinished by my husband, Carl Lindahl, and Walter's name was inscribed on the back with the year 1901.

My father's one luxury was a boat and a boathouse. He handcrafted two of his own boats that I know of. His hobby was fishing, but he took me up the river every spring to pick wildflowers and taught me the names of them all. The water of the river was high then, and many times we were able to go as far as Hall's Bridge which was way beyond Sherwood Bridge. We gathered every nut and berry that was free, for economic reasons, but it was also a wonderful outing. And I learned about nut trees.

I, Lorena Spencer, was born September 18, 1911. Walter's wife, Lodema, died January 29, 1920, in a diabetic coma. Walter was 54 years old with an eight year old girl to raise. Because of memories of his own mean step-mother, Walter never remarried. I can remember my father working at the cider mill owned by H.M. Weed. My mother peeled apples for apple butter. She also worked cleaning beans at the elevator - both seasonal jobs. I have a postcard from a family ordering cider and welcoming me, the new baby.

A Rural Directory of Eaton County, dated 1916, lists Walter as janitor of Bellevue Public Schools with wife (Dema) and two children - Burrell and Gales must have been out on their own at that date. Both boys entered service for World War 1 in 1917. Burrell was 24 and Gales 22.

Evolyn was married in June of 1920 and went to live in Flint. My father gave his wife's sewing machine so she could make school clothes. Evolyn's husband, Frank O'Brien, was soon laid off from his job in an automobile plant and they came back to Bellevue to live.

Bellevue had its own power plant for electricity. It was owned by Ed Robinson. Burrell worked there when he was 16. My father worked there in 1920 and kept that job until Consumers Power purchased the right to supply the village of Bellevue with electricity. While the local power plant was in operation, Bellevue had lights from 4:00 pm until midnight.

Walter never had a steady job after that, but one of the jobs I can remember was him making cement vaults for Volney Johnson, the local undertaker. He made his own forms, and usually made five at a time. He received $20 each and considered that one of his better paying projects. Each time he said, "I wish I had one of those for Dema."

(3.) My father, with only a fourth grade education, was able to keep his family together and his home was always available for his kids if they were in need. We always had a newspaper and my father spent hours reading. There was no radio or television. Radio came about 1927 to Bellevue - a guess. My father could make anything or fix anything he needed to. Paying bills was his bible. I don't think anyone ever lost a cent that trusted him. His daughter-in-law, Zora, says of him, "He was a very kind, unusual gentleman." Lodema's sister, Elsie, said, "If there was a new product on the market that would make life easier for his wife, Walter was wondering where he could buy it." Eula Shaler, on her 90th birthday, said, "Lorena, your father was such a good man."

I have wonderful memories of our life together and to me he was all that others said and more. He raised that last child for Dema. Walter died January 27, 1938, in Mio, MI, (at the home of his son, Burrell) where he had lived the last five years of his life, from the complications of a stroke.

Lorena Spencer Huntoon Lindahl, 1989.

Transcribed by Jim Ward, grandnephew of Lorena Spencer Huntoon Lindahl.