It’s funny how sometimes things come about and I end up getting a column out of them.

Not too long ago I took some pictures and the article I had written to show my dentist, Dr. Cripe, of the 102-year-old man who my middle name “Devere” was named after.

Melissa Cox made some copies and shortly after I got home she called to tell me she was related to Ardelle Gard, who was mentioned in the article.

She asked if I would be interested in looking at five books of the Gard family genealogy that was put together by her mother and, I think she said, her mother’s two sisters.

I said boy, would I ever love to see these books.

She brought them here and they were so heavy she had to make two trips to her car.

Melissa’s mother was Marlene Gard and was married to Charles Stuppy, and her sisters were Rhea and Rota, the children of William Casey Gard.

There were 13 grandchildren of Franklin L. Gard and wife Ellen Mae, 11 boys and two girls.

There were William, Maynard, Archibald, Benjamin “Frank” Gard, Leland, Milton, Isaac, Robert, Kenneth, Margaret, Earl, Iven and Mary.

My friend Ardelle (Shanafelt) Gard was married to Frank Gard.

Their son Larry was born in 1930, same as me, and went from kindergarten in 1936 until 1948, when we graduated.

Larry died 10 or so years ago.

I’ve written several of my columns where I have mentioned Ardelle over the years.

She passed away April 27, 2010. She was 101 years old in February.

We wrote many letters to each other over a period of years.

Kenneth Gard was my neighbor for quite a few years here on Orchard Street.

His sister, Mary Gard, was married to Vernon Fester.

Another one of the books was about the James Casey family.

James was born in 1840 at Limerick, Ireland, and my friend Mary Ellen (Casey) Biek is a descendant of James.

Another of the five books was all about the Keesler family.

In these books I found so many familiar names of folks I’ve known for years.

Melissa sure made a lot of happy hours for old Charlie going through those five books she let me look at.

Also, these books had many old pictures of interest, plus copies of old letters.

And inserted in the books were copies of “Looking Back in Dowagiac” that were cut out of the Dowagiac paper of prior happenings of Dowagiac.

I learned a lot of interesting things of years ago that were about Dowagiac.

In these five books I counted 90 or so names of people who were familiar to me, and I couldn’t believe they all were connected to these 13 Gard children.

In my opinion, it looks like those in the Gard family had more relatives than Carter has pills.
On Aug. 13, 1962, 17-year-old Terry Gard, son of Mr. and Mrs. Earl Gard of Twin Lakes, pulled 10-year-old Jerome Zudak out of 12-foot water and gave him mouth-to-mouth respiration for 20 minutes and saved the boy’s life.

He was later joined by Mrs. Dick Baker and Dr. Max Allen Jr.

Archibald Gard and wife were the folks of Sue Ann Gard Janke.

Her husband Art was a classmate of mine from 1936 until we graduated in ’48.

Archie and wife Anna also had a little 4-year-old boy, Durwood, who drowned in the Mill Pond in 1929.

“Cardinal Charlie” Gill writes a nostalgic weekly column about growing up in the Grand Old City.
E-mail him at cardinalcharlie@hotmail.com.