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| MELVIN A. WELLS, farmer, sec. 26, Deerfield Tp., is a son of Nelson and Jane (Austin) Wells. The parents were natives of New York and settled in Washtenaw Co., Mich., about the year 1838, afterward going to St. Joseph Co., Mich. There the senior Wells died at Centerville, May 11, 1881. The mother died May 7, 1863. Mr. Wells was born in Freedom, Washtenaw Co., Aug. 6, 1848. He remained in the parental home until 22 years of age, occupied in farming and acquiring his education. He was married in Ellenburgh, Clinton Co., N. Y., Dec. 5, 1863, to Mrs. Ellen Jerome Wells, widow of Henry Wells and oldest child of Lewis and Lucy (Dragoon) Jerome. It falls to the duty of the compiler of personal records to transcribe much that bears the impress of a deathless sorrow, but it is rarely incumbent to record the loss of nine children in one household, as in this instance devolves. Wells had laid away from her motherly arms, one after another eight infants, a mercifully rare event. Can one believe that her terrible experience lessened the weight of sorrow when another child, the joy and hope of the household, passed away at the dawn of her early girlhood, when life and health seemed assured? Louise B. Wells, born June 14, 1868, died of diptheria, Aug. 16, 1881. She is not fogotten; the anniversary of her death is kept and sacredly observed by the parents and sisters to whom her memory will ever be a living presence. Mr. and Mrs. Wells have three children living: Lucy J., born Aug. 5, 1866; Idella, aug. 25, 1870; and Cora, April 21, 1872. Mr. Wells is an earnest Republican and was a soldier of the Union in the war of the Rebellion. He enlisted in the Third Mich., Vol. Inf., Oct. 14, 1864, and received honorable discharge in September, 1865. |