NEWSPAPER ARTICLE August 29, 1968 Monroe, Michigan, "Evening News":
"MISS ELLIOTT IS HONORED
Note : NEWSPAPER December 22, 1964 Monroe, Michigan, "Evening News" page 16:
"Couple Has Deep Roots in County
IRVEN ADAMSES MARK 60TH ANNIVERSARY
TEMPERANCE - "Our home is a paradise," said Irven Adams as he looked across to Mrs. Adams, his wife of 60 years.
A deeply religious couple with a fine recall of local history and a great faith in the future, they were interviewed as they sat in their favorite spot at the sunny windows of their home and looked across the land which his grandfather chose in 1833.
The couple celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary today with an afternoon and evening open house at their residence - his birthplace - at 1502 Dean Rd. Neighbors, friends and relatives are invited.
Plans are being made by their five living children.
Sons Sterling and Otis live nearby on land which once was part of the family farm. Son, J. Q., and his family have shared the Adams homestead for 26 years, each family having a six room section. A daughter, Mrs. Leslie (Gertrude) Kidney, lives in Toledo and a second, Mrs. Byron (Arlene) Wilson, at Bay City.
The Adams had a fourth son, Arlon, who was killed in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. He and another soldier, manning a bazooka, restrained a tank battalion until reinforcements were brought up. He was awarded a silver star and a purple heart posthumously.
The couple has 17 grandchildren and 18 great- grandchildren.
Irven Adams, 86, was born April 13, 1878 to John Quincy and Jane Ann Newcombe Adams. He has two sisters, Mrs. Albert (Aurilla) Scott of Samaria and Mrs. Robert (Bertha) McCann, a retired government nurse, of Toledo. He had two other sisters and two brothers who have passed away.
Irven and Dora Elliott were neighborhood friends and went together four and one-half years before they were married in 1904. The romance started one day when he saw her in the yard of her Erie Rd. home after having turned back from the place of another girl where he found two or three "rival rigs." Then, as now, he admired her good nature and loved her for her "lady-like" qualities.
They were married by the Rev. John Tolly at the Temperance First Baptist Church after prayer meeting. It was raining torrents as they entered but had cleared, bright and beautiful, when they left to have supper at her home.
She wore a long white dress and high black button shoes and he his black suit with a white tie. They moved into their place built across from the homestead when it was completed a month later.
While they lived comfortably, money as an exchange was scarce and he worked on the family farm four years without salary. Mr. Adams recalls the only time he went into debt was earlier when he borrowed $65 from his father to buy a buggy.
William and Elizabeth Kinney Elliott were the parents of Mrs. Dora Adams, 82, born April 26, 1882, in Bedford Township.
She has four sisters, Miss Iva Elliott, who shares the family home with Miss Della; Mrs. Carl (Alta) Mayer of Toledo, and Mrs. Lloyd (Rhoda) Whitmill of Caro and a brother, Elton of Bedford. Two sisters, and a baby brother have passed away.
Irven's grandfather, Lucas Adams, lived to be 89. He loved young people, told them many stories and in later years often went about with them, even to singing school.
About 1830 Lucas started out on foot from his home in Boston, Mass., for Chicago hoping to find land near Springfield, Ill. He was joined by a Mr. St. John.
Arriving in Chicago they found only a few buildings set up on blocks. The settlers were anxious to do mason work but had no lime. "There's limestone around and wood to burn," said Lucas. He helped to build a kiln and make the first mortar ever used in Chicago.
While he found desirable land in Illinois he returned to Boston and married Mary Baker who preferred living in Michigan where his brother had settled.
He paid $1.25 for each of the 120 acres which he selected out of the Michigan wilderness partly because it had a knoll offering a well-drained spot for a cabin. The patent from the U.S. government was secured during 1833 when President Andrew Jackson was in office but the parchment was signed by President Martin Van Buren.
Bachelor Peter Martin shared his cabin with the young couple while they built their own to the right of the present residence. They moved in on Lucas's 30th birthday, April 16, 1836.
While clearing the land he also worked at Sylvania helping to build the first bridge over the Ottawa River, then called 10-Mile Creek. He walked the 16 miles at dawn on Monday morning and returned Saturday night bringing salt pork and other foods as his wages. The shade trees around their home were brought from Sylvania by him as saplings.
One time Mrs. Lucas Adams was startled by a huge Indian who appeared in a small clearing around their cabin. She made him a salt pork sandwich after he motioned that he was hungry and when he left his hunting knife was stuck into a log next to the door.
"Don't worry," said Lucas, that Saturday night. "He'll return but not to kill you." Not long afterwards the brave was back with a quarter of venison, taking his knife when he left.
Great- grandfather Samuel Adams joined the Revolutionary forces when he was a boy in Rutland, Vt. Later he came to Michigan to live with Lucas, died here and was buried in Hitchcock Cemetery.
The fall of 1871 the Lucas Adams visited his brother in Missouri. Returning through Chicago, they left their trunks in the depot and spent the night with Gilbert Hitchcock. That night, Oct. 8, Chicago was swept with fire and they lost all of their belongings except those they were wearing. Thirteen years later they celebrated their golden wedding.
Irven remembers his grandfather telling that the trail Gen. William H. Harrison took from Fort Meigs to Fort Wayne went through their property. He himself has helped clear some of the ravines embedded with logs that served as bridges over which the wagons were drawn.
His father, John Quincy Adams, named for the president, as a lad of 18, broke an ox-yoke, while helping to clear one such ravine near Sterns Rd. He replaced it by chiseling a new one out of black walnut.
This yoke today partially supports the "Centennial Home" marker in the Adams' front yard. The marker was given to them at the Monroe County Fair in 1950 by the Michigan State Historical Society in cooperation with the Monroe County Historical Society, Detroit Edison and Consumers Power companies.
Mr. Adams retired from active farming about five years ago. Prior to that he did general and dairy farming. In former years Mrs. Adams made quilts for a hobby. Both are members of the Temperance Baptist Church and she of the Ladies Aid Society."