A couple years ago a distant Kenyon cousin sent me a biography of Henry N. Kenyon’s life. Ken K.’s grandfather was Raymond Kenyon, brother to Henry Nathan and he has written such a personal life history, rather than have you suffer through my ramblings this month, I would like to share it with you. Additionally, I added my own notes in order for you to follow the lineage.
Henry N. Kenyon and his wife, Mary A. (Fuller).
“Henry spent his early life on his parent’s farm near Hamlin, New York. He also most likely spent a few years living along the Erie Canal a few miles away in Brockport after his father gave up farming and moved there. He moved to Holland, Michigan as a teenager with his three sisters and parents, Nathan Henry and Susanna. Holland was a town heavily populated with Dutch immigrants and the Dutch normally kept to themselves but Henry became good friends with them; a friendship that continued throughout his life. At first Henry farmed around Holland, but the soil there was very sandy and poorly suited for farming so he moved around 1899-1900 to Ionia County. As the soil there was very good for farming, he convinced the Huizenga family to move from Holland and soon many Dutch families followed. He first lived on Bippley Road near Sunfield working for a prominent farmer (?Merrifield), and then in 1914 purchased a farm and moved a few miles away to Emery Road in Sebewa Township, now 5288 Emery Road. He was able to pay off the mortgage sometime in the 1920’s.
He was a successful farmer and raised a large family many of whom remained throughout their lives in close proximity to each other on nearby farms of their own. Henry and Mary’s (my note: Mary Fuller Kenyon daughter of the John H. Fuller) home became the social center for the family until their deaths. This was also a gathering place for his many Dutch friends on Sundays, where they would all sit on the back porch visiting and speaking Dutch. All the family Christmas celebrations were held there. My mother (my note: Katherine E. Kenyon daughter of Henry and Mary’s son, Raymond V. 1890-1974) said that around 100 people would show up for Christmas dinner. The family had to eat in three shifts; first the children were fed upstairs, then the men had dinner in the dining room and finally the women would eat after the men finished. They each drew one name for Christmas gifts and the cost was not to exceed twenty five cents. After the gifts were exchanged Henry would have all the children line up and each would be given a crisp new one dollar bill, which was a huge amount to children in the 1920’s (my note: worth about $12.00 now). One Christmas there was a bad snowstorm. Because the Peabodys (Susie Kenyon Peabody) (my note: sister to my great great grandmother Martha Kenyon Hiller) lived down a road that would be difficult to get out of everyone assumed that they would not make it. Just before dinner they heard the sining of Christmas carols outside as the Peabodys arrived all bundled up in a horse drawn sleigh. It was a difficult trip but they were not about to miss a family Christmas gathering. This is a testimony to the fact that this was a very close family.
Henry also had a fondness for oysters and every year on his birthday all the family would come and they would buy oysters and celebrate with an oyster dinner. An old homemade movie was found that shows him eating oyster stew as well as running a team of horses on the farm. In addition to growing crops on the farm, he would buy cattle and raise them. Each year he would drive the cattle up north to sell. My mother, Katherine, tells of riding along as a child in a horse drawn buggy as the cattle were driven through Ionia on the way north.
Henry plowing his field and enjoying oyster stew!
My mother says that he was always well dressed in a vest, white shirt and tie whenever he went out. He would dress this way whenever he drove his horse and buggy the six miles or so to town on business. Even after most everyone had cars he would still go to town or visiting in his horse and buggy. My mother said that he was always a congenial, friendly gentleman. The two were very fond of each other and when my mother graduated from high school he gave her a ring and bracelet. She lost the ring but always cherished the bracelet.
He was also very tolerant of my mother’s pranks. On several occasions when her cousin Jimmy Glover (my note: Jimmy was the son of Dorothy Kenyon Glover) was visiting from Dearborn they would borrow a large glass jar from Florence (my note: Florence Kenyon Keefer) and take it down to the creek that ran through the farm. They would spend the day catching frogs in a pond formed by the stream and fill the jar with them. They would take them to her grandfather’s horse trough and dump them in. They would hide and wait for him to come in from the fields and bring the horses to drink. The horses, frightened by the frogs, would rear up and refuse to drink. After a lot of cursing he had to pull all the frogs out and toss them on the ground. He never said anything to them but after a few times Aunt Florence refused to give them the jar anymore so he probably said something to her.
He worked the farm all his life and was still farming until a week before his death from pneumonia. Many people attended his funeral. In addition to the large Kenyon family and friends, many Dutch travelled from Holland and the surround area to pay their respects. The funeral was held at his house and there were so many people that the house, porch and yard were full and cars were lined up down the road”.
I once heard someone saythat “genealogy is a contact sport” and it’s so true. Without reaching out to family members, whether distant or close, opportunities will be lost to find great stories and movies like these. I still remember the day Janis Kenyon welcomed me into her home for lunch and stories of Kenyon family history. While watching the home movie I was struck with the realization of how much the untimely death of my great-great grandmother Martha Kenyon Hiller must have affected this close knit family and, likewise, my grandfather Don Hiller who was only four years old. Although he did visit the Kenyons on and off over the years, I’m sure the relationship would have been much different had his mother not died so young.