When I was in grade school, I assumed that the biggest story a small-town newspaper would run would be about some local elder turning 100 years old. This assumption certainly came from a place of immaturity, that feeling of “ugh, nothing happens in this small town except old people getting older.” Of course, if this column is a testament to anything, it's the story of communal history told, not just through pioneers and politicians, but through the personal lives of everyday people. And honestly, it’s a blessing to be able to find a centenarian and have those stories told as a first-hand account.
Enter Olive Fordham, born in June 1923, making her 103 years old as of this summer. She was introduced to me by Joanne Kessler - of Claybanks’ St. John the Baptist Catholic Chapel fame - who invited me to join in on a visit to the assisted living facility Olive resides in. A note on the door to Olive’s room, briefing staff and visitors on Olive’s needs, explains that she is happiest when able to talk about history and her life story. We chatted for over two hours.
Joanne’s late Aunt Phyllis and Olive had been friends, brought together by their careers as teachers, and Joanne and Olive remain friends today, brought together by their love of Claybanks, its history and their families. Olive herself is a part of the founding of Claybanks Township. Her great-grandfather, Dr. Thomas Phillips, was an early settler to the area, coming all the way from England. Dr. Phillips’ area of care spanned from Muskegon to the north of Pentwater (an expanse of coverage we both share and one I can hardly manage with a car and can’t believe was possible to do on horseback). Olive made sure to tell us that she still has his tooth-puller.
Olive is the daughter of Floyd Thomas Fordham, a farmer known as “Tom,” and Lydia Butzer, a homemaker. She had two older brothers - Floyd and Clifford - and one baby brother, Charles, who died as an infant. Olive paints a lovely picture of her family - the elder Floyd made violins, mandolins and cellos in his spare time, and she describes him as a “precious soul.” Lydia was a proper German mother who made fresh bread for Olive’s sack lunches every day. Her brother Floyd was a beloved teacher in the Detroit metro area, whose students still come up to visit and decorate his grave. Clifford was the only sibling to marry and have children. He was a brilliant engineer who worked for Continental and was a veteran of both D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. Olive was only 7 when Charles was born prematurely, and though he lived just two days, Olive recalls him as an adorable little baby. They all preceded Olive in death and are buried in Flower Creek cemetery, just a walk away from their family farm.
Also down the road from her family farm was the Flower Creek one-room schoolhouse, where Olive attended classes from first through eighth grade. Olive’s proximity to Flower Creek school is the reason for her attendance, as her family had no car with which to take her farther out. The reality was, in fact, just like you always heard - kids traveled to their one-room schoolhouses by foot or horseback, if they were able.
Olive described her time at Flower Creek. “It wasn’t memorable. You just went there.”
Of her classmates, she said, “There weren’t even 20 kids in the area,” and not many stood out. Well, save for the one boy whose mother “sent him to school every morning… but he never came in. He’d jaunt across the 40 [acres], and…we never did figure out where he went.”
Joanne figures he probably went out fishing.
Olive gave a list of some of the teachers she remembered from Flower Creek: Ellen Morse, Esther Elmquist, Nellie Seaver, Ella Butzer and several more whose names she couldn’t recall. I noted how that was a long list of teachers, to which Olive replied, “Well, they never stayed too long.”
Typically, when the rural teachers got married, they did not continue teaching.
Olive also reminisced on the daily agenda of Flower Creek, which was fairly standard across many of Michigan’s rural schools. At 9 a.m., school started with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by their teacher - if musically inclined - playing patriotic songs on the piano, such as “America the Beautiful.”
“Nothing fancy, I’ll tell you,” said Olive.
Then the students would be read to from a collection of chapter books. Kindergarteners and first graders were instructed first, and after their lessons they’d be released to play in the sandbox. A sandbox, inside the schoolhouse, filled with sand from just down the road at Lake Michigan - which is a detail I don’t think I ever could have guessed. The teacher spent the morning working through the grades. While waiting for their turn to be instructed, other children would have worksheets or coloring sheets (I wonder which they preferred.)
The children would then break for lunch, which Olive recalls how you could tell a lot about the children’s mothers through their lunches, namely, “who the good cooks were and who the bad ones were.”
Olive, of course, “had a German mother, and she made good bread.”
Classes would recommence at 1 p.m. and go on until 3 p.m., giving the children plenty of time to get home and get their chores done before dark.
Following eighth grade, Olive attended nearby Montague High School. Her family still did not have a car, but by the late 1930s, there was a bus that picked up local children from “Lillies’ Corner” and took them to Montague. Olive graduated in 1942 and, like many new graduates, had no clue what she wanted to do next. So her father suggested Oceana County Normal, a story all in its own, which we will explore next week.
