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| Bessie Gross Gulick, age 25 (in 1909) [estimated] |
Bessie may be the most difficult great grandmother for this project, by no intention of her own.
She was the mother to my maternal grandfather. She was born in 1883 in my mother\’s home town of Ithaca, Michigan. She married her first husband, my great grandfather Will Gulick (Willard Franklin Gulick, born 1875, the oldest of six children), when she was 18 and he was 26 in 1902. Bessie was the oldest of her mother\’s eight children, born when her mother, Orpha Mae Rolfe Gross, was 16 years old; siblings Ersa, Elma, and Henry Gross were born to her parents in the years after Bessie married and began having her own family; her father, Warren E. Gross, died in 1918, in the flu pandemic of that era (see this blog post about the flu pandemic in Gratiot County, with information about Warren Gross).
The 1920 census shows Bessie living with her husband at the home of her in-laws; Will Gulick\’s occupation is shown as \”farmer.\” The 1940 census shows that she and her husband completed the 8th grade and not higher education; at that time, they were renting a home and Will, at age 64, was a laborer on the county highway, working 60 hours a week. In 1939 his earnings totaled $504 (less than $10,000 in today\’s dollars).
In most family photos of Will, he is hiding the fact that he is missing his right hand.
From my aunt Vera, I\’ve learned that Bessie was a beloved mother. Once, when my grandfather Frank was suffering an illness, she reports that Frank wanted his mother to nurse him rather than my grandmother, to some disappointment for my grandmother, who quite adored her husband.
The 1940s would have been hard on Bessie. In 1940 her only daughter Helson May Gulick Hill died at only age 36 of complications of diabetes; in 1942 her oldest son, my grandfather, died (Warren Franklin Gulick, 1906-1942); then, in 1943, when Bessie was 59 years old, her husband of nearly 40 years also died (Willard Franklin Gulick, 1875-1943). In 1948 however, her acquaintance George H. Gruesbeck became a widower, and some months later, George and Bessie began their own marriage.
Newspaper records tell me that George delighted people. Hopefully he and Bessie delighted one another. This quote from a 1974 article in the Fort Myers News-Press, a newspaper in Fort Myers, Florida, quotes one member of the Fort Myer FL Seventh-Day Adventist Church about George and Bessie:
\”He and his second wife [emphasis added] used to sing duets at the church together. They both sang quite well. He never got up and talked, but he was quite active in the church. He was quite a radical and believed in things our church didn\’t go along with, but he was a hard worker and was well-liked.\”
A neighbor is quoted saying: \”I think he had a string of service stations and was well to-do, but you\’d never know it. He was a regular farmer type — medium build and very strong. And he liked to work. He was the type to come over and if you were working in the yard, he\’d say \”Can I give you a hand?\” He\’d yell over to us sometimes and say he had a cold watermelon in the refrigerator. … He\’d come over in the afternoon sometimes and ask us what we were making for supper. One would say roast and another would say she had pie in the oven…he\’d say \’Well, let\’s combine them and have dinner together tonight!\’ No, you couldn\’t ask for a better neighbor.\”
Later owners of the home decided to keep the sign restored, and dedicated to George Gruesbeck\’s memory. \”My husband and I thought that any man who had created that much good will deserved to have a sign that restored his memory.\” Mrs. Daughtry, the owner of the \”God Is Love\” house in 1974, worked with migrant children and used her fluent Spanish to interpret for families in courtrooms, doctors offices, elsewhere. The paper quotes her saying: \”They knew that if they could just make it to the God Is Love house, they could find help.\”
You can still find the sign in Fort Myers, although more recent newspaper articles speak of it sometimes being targeted for abuse (bullets, trash).
The funeral for Bessie\’s first husband, my great grandfather Will Gulick, was held at Lafayette Presbyterian Church, where many of my family members attended. I wonder if Bessie converted to Seventh Day Adventist upon marrying George. But as noted in post 17, because my grandfathers both died long before I was born, I know little about their parents.
Both Bessie and my maternal grandmother were married to Gulicks in their first marriages, and to Gruesbecks in their second marriages after their first husbands died. My grandmother remarried in 1945; Bessie remarried in 1948. George H. Gruesbeck was uncle to my (step)grandfather, Earl Sylvester Gruesbeck (1898-1983). My aunt explains that there was some estrangement from the Gulick side of the family after her mother (my grandmother) remarried.
I have two photos of my great grandmother Bessie:
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| Will, my grandfather \”Frank\”, baby Leon, Helson May, and Bessie Gulick |
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| Bessie and Will Gulick |
If you go back far enough 