By: Jim Fitzpatrick

Email: jim@nunica.com

Local Farmer in Polkton Township writes for the Coopersville Observer.

Along Brandy Creek

By Jim Fitzpatrick

 

The Coopersville Observer  June 13, 2005- - No. 52

"Grandma's Woods" is as flat and as square as any forty acres in the township. There has never been a house, or a barn, or an outbuilding of any sort on the place. It is one large woodlot and most likely has been, since way back in time. Red Oak trees grow there, lots of them. A few White Oaks, too; along with scatterings of other common hardwoods. The soil is a sandy loam, drains well and quickly after a good rainstorm. Here and there a few pockets of White Pine have survived the wood cutters saw. Likely, the entire area was at one time a lush growth of these stately and pleasing evergreen trees. Those that remain are large and stand tall in the wind that blows through the oaks that surround them.

 

Grandma Minnie inherited the place when Great Grandma passed on. Great Grandpa had already been dead years and years before that time. The story is, that he died young after working out there in the woods. A tree fell on him and broke up his bones. "Died of Tuberculosis," they said, "on account of having so many bone fractures in that woods accident."

 

So, Grandma married Grandpa somewhere along the way; raised a couple of daughters, stayed on the place for most all of her 74 years. The daughters, all of the grandkids and great grandkids that came along, refer to that forty at the back of the farm as "Grandma's woods." The young ones spent summer days, and nights too; with Grandma, whenever they could. From the bedroom windows, late into the night; they could hear the Whippoorwill calling, far out there in the dark of the woods. During the daytime it was a place of high adventure for any kid worth his or her salt.

 

Grandma's Wood's is much the same as it was a hundred years ago. The land over there along 92nd Ave. is still in the family. Stop by there late in the evening on a summer's night; you'll hear the call of the Whippoorwill from somewhere deep within the forest - if you’re lucky!

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