By David Curtis

In 1945 there was no Home Depot to go to and buy lumber. When a Canton farmer needed lumber, what was his option? This is the memories of 13-year-old Raymond Schultz going with his father Elmer Schultz to the saw mill. This Schultz family lived on Proctor Road when it was east of Denton Road.

“One afternoon last spring I went to a sawmill at Whittaker. In the morning my dad and the hired man went into the woods for the logs. When the logs were on the truck and up by the barns we peeled the bark from them because they were muddy. Then we went into the house to eat dinner. We left at about 12:30. It was about a 25 mile drive. It took about an hour to get there. When we arrived we saw the manager. He told us to roll the logs off the truck.

“The saws were in a big red barn on the second floor. On the first floor they made boxes and crates. The big saws were also run by electricity. To get the logs up to the second floor they put them on a little car that ran on a track like a train. It was pulled up by a cable run by a motor. After they were up there my dad told them how he wanted them sawed and then the sawing began. It took about half an hour to saw them. When they were sawed we put the cut lumber back on the little car. On the way down I rode on the lumber. After my dad and I had it all loaded we started home.

“The lumber was for a rack for the new wagon we had received. When we were as far home as Ypsilanti we stopped at a hardware store to buy some bolts with which to put it together. When we got home we started to put it together.”

After Henry Ford purchased Cherry Hill School it became part of the Edison Institute at Greenfield Village. At that time The Edison Institute was composed of 22 schools. Besides education, they published The Herald magazine which included articles by their students writing about life events. The above article is found in The Herald, Vol. XII, No. 26, page 406.

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