"A small settlement grew up, a dam was built across Belle River and a saw mill and grist mill erected ... In 1848 it was felt that a post office was needed and it was necessary to select a name. Considerable discussion arose. Various names were suggested, among others, Belleview, because of Belle River, Riley, because of John Riley, the Indian half breed, after whom the township was named, Birney, in honor of James G. Birney, the anti-slavery propagandist and candidate for the presidency of the liberty party in 1844. Finally the name of Memphis, from the Egyptian city, was suggested and adopted."
—"St. Clair County, Michigan, its history and its people," by William Lee Jenks, 1912.

Laban Augustus Hause

   LABAN AUGUSTUS HAUSE (3/10/1831 - 3/14/1906) was born in Fayette, Seneca County, New York. "Laban" was also a controversial name in Fayette. A sacred Mormon relic called the "Sword of Laban" was held just a few miles away from the Hause homestead during that religious movement's creation in the 1820's.
   The Book of Mormon claims that the twenty-five hundred year-old sword was the ancestral and hereditary sword wielded by the ancient "Nephite" prophets. This Laban was a descendant of Joseph of Egypt, who inherited the birthright sword and handed it down to his descendants.
   Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith, Jr., also claimed to be a descendant of Joseph, and said that the sword was handed down to him as his birthright. Then in June of 1829, Smith "received a revelation from the Lord" permitting him to reveal the sword to Fayette residents Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris. Brigham Young later declared that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery observed the sword of Laban as it "hung upon the wall," and it carried this inscription: "This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and his Christ."
   This, of course, would have been big news in tiny Fayette, or at least a major topic of conversation in the local saloons. Fayette was an extremely religious and superstitious area, and any revelation like this would have been taken very seriously as a miracle or a threat.
   While AUGUSTUS HAUSE remained a Baptist and eschewed Mormonism, he did apparently like the name enough to bestow it on his second son in 1831. Augustus then moved the family to Royalton in Niagara County, while his new son, Laban, was still an infant.

Catherine Dysinger

   Meanwhile, another family living near them in the Royalton area, the Dysingers, also had relations in Fayette. The head of the family, DAVID DYSINGER (his spelling), was born in Pennsylvania, but fought on the Niagara frontier during the War of 1812, and loved what he saw of the open land. Then after returning to Pennsylvania to marry his wife, CATHERINE, at the close of the war, they traveled by covered wagon back to Niagara County in 1828 and started a family.
   But David's parents, Johannes Nicol Deissinger and his wife Eave Catharine, moved to Fayette, with David's brother, John, and settled near the Hause family.
   Whether or not the Hause family in Fayette knew the Dysinger family in Fayette isn't known (there were a lot of Hauses and Dysingers in Fayette), but their branches in Niagara county grew extremely familiar, and on September 20, 1854, Laban Hause married SARAH DYSINGER (24 Oct. 1832 - 16 March 1859), in Lockport. Meanwhile, Laban's brother John married a Dysinger, as well, named Catherine Eve.
   However, by the mid-19th Century, Niagara County was completely settled. So for the next generation of Hauses, finding their own plot of New York land to start a family on was next to impossible, and they weren't wealthy enough to buy developed homesteads. The Dysinger daughters had each been willed about a hundred acres of land in Lockport by their late father, so Laban and John decided to sell the expensive New York land and buy more property in an area where the land was cheaper. They moved west to carve out their own place from the wilderness... where the new frontier of Michigan was beckoning.

   Michigan had originally been colonized in the 1600's by the French, but in 1759 the English conquered their posts along the Great Lakes and the territory passed under British rule. After the American Revolution, the land was ceded to the United States as the Northwest Territory, although the forts protecting the locals from Indians stayed British for another decade.
   Michigan itself was finally established as a territory in 1805, and boasted a population of around 3,000 French fur traders living around the Detroit River under a very undemocratic centralized government, with three judges and a governor (Revolutionary War hero William Hull) appointed by the United States government making all of the laws. Most of the territory outside of Detroit actually belonged to the Indians, and until a treaty in 1807 the land was unavailable for claims.
   Detroit was actually lost to the British for a time in the War of 1812—the United States government forgot to notify their frontier posts in Michigan that the country was at war. So when 520 British soldiers crossed St. Mary's River on July 17, they took Fort Michilimackinac without a shot being fired, then overtook Detroit in August. But the United States won Michigan back in the Battle of the Thames in 1813 and started over fresh in the territory.
   In 1818, the question of local government was put before the people, and in what has to be considered the greatest French joke of all time, they held a free election and voted NOT to vote anymore, or have a voice in their own government.
   Finally, in 1824, a legislative body was established that would be appointed by the people, and the residents of Michigan finally were able to control their own destiny.
   The Erie Canal opened the next year, which combined with the beginning of steam navigation on the Great Lakes, and brought a rapid increase in settlement. The new government immediately went to work screwing the Indians out of more land, and by 1840 the last Native American land was turned over to the United States, except for a few small, scattered reservations.
   Michigan became a state in 1837, after a near-war between its militia and Ohio's over their respective boundary lines (the prize being TOLEDO, of all places).
   Expansionism was the word of the day, and the Hause family, including our line, was moving west again, and screaming that word from the mountaintops (if they could find an actual mountaintop in Michigan). But while Michigan had few mountains, it had plenty of flat land, perfect for farming, and there was still plenty of wilderness in Michigan from which to carve out a home.
   So later that same year, three of Augustus' children—John, Laban, and Basheba—and several of the Dysingers headed to the new state—either taking a steamship up the Erie Canal, or by land using teams of oxen or mules, towards the untamed wilderness (read: cheap land).
   They were starting over again—much like Johann Christian Hauss had done 150 years before when he sailed to this country from Europe.

Deed Information Image Granter: Catherine Dysinger; Laban & Sarah House County: Niagara State: New York Date: 4/6/1855 Price: $500 Page 1, 2, 3 SOURCE INFORMATION: Niagara County Clerk's Office, Lockport, NY.

CHILDREN OF LABAN AUGUSTUS HAUSE AND SARAH DYSINGER

ELMA HAUSE was born in 1857. After the death of her mother, Sarah was raised by Laban and his second wife, Melissa Sanderson-Hause. Elma married William Jackson, a prominent railroad man in New Jersey, on 14 Nov 1874 (wedding announcement). They had two sons: Charles Hause Jackson was born on 25 Sep 1875 (many of the photos in this family history are from his scrapbooks, now in the collection of Jerry Hause) and died in 1962; and Carlisle, born on 7 May 1884, and died on 27 Nov 1885. Elma died in 1942 (Elma in her old age).

   Laban was not prepared to raise an infant daughter by himself in the wilds of Michigan. His sister, Basheba, and brother John had settled nearby and probably helped with Elma, but Laban needed a more permanent solution. Like his father Augustus, he wasn't the type to mourn his loss for long—he set about looking for the next Mrs. Hause. Laban was a practical man, but also demanding and strong-willed, and he began looking for a suitable wife to raise his children properly.
   The outcome of this search can be found in the 1860 census. The official enumeration day was June 1st. There were a total of thirty-three states in the Union, with Minnesota and Oregon being the latest additions.

Personal Information Census Image Name: Augustus Haus Age: 56 Birthplace: New York Home in 1860: Royalton,  Niagara,  New York Estimated Birth Year: 1804 Post Office: Reynales Basin Roll: M653_822 Page: 559 Value of Real Estate: 6250 View image View blank 1860 census form Personal Information Census Image Name: Laben Hawse Age: 29 Birthplace: New York Home in 1860: Riley, St Clair, Michigan Estimated Birth Year: 1831 Post Office: Memphis, MI Roll: M653_559 Page: 0 Value of Real Estate: 1500 View image View blank 1860 census form SOURCE INFORMATION: 1860 United States Federal Census. M653, 1438 rolls. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC

   Augustus still remained in New York, listed as a 55-year-old farmer, now married to 35-year-old Fannie Christopher. Augustus Jr., his last child from Jane Jones, still lived at home with him. But Laban has moved to Michigan, as had his children John, Laban and Basheba. John was Justice of the Peace in Riley from 1859-66 (but he would move back to Royalton before 1880). Laban is listed as a farmer living next to his ex-brother-in-law Nicholas Dysinger, with $1500 of real estate and $447 in personal estate. But Sarah Dysinger Hause was dead, however, and Laban had married again, to a remarkable woman...

A tin-type of Laban A. Hause with his new bride, Melissa Sanderson, on October 5th, 1859. This image is a tintype, also known as a ferrotype—a photograph printed directly onto an iron-based plate (not actually tin) instead of glass. Tintypes were invented in 1853, and widely used until the 1880s. The process was instantly popular because it was quick, cheap, and durable. At 10-25 cents a picture, they opened up photography to a mass audience who could not afford the formal portraits done up to then. With this process, the print would come out laterally reversed (as one sees oneself in a mirror); people either didn't notice and/or care... or just didn't discover it until after the photographer had slipped away! This photograph is the popular carte-de-visite size, 2 1/4" x 3 1/2".

Sanderson

   That woman was 20-year-old MELISSA SANDERSON, (10/9/1839 - 11/25/1921) who had moved to the area with her family from Bainbridge, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Her father, David, was the man who had witnessed the deed for the sale of Laban's property in Royalton with Sarah Dysinger. Now he would become Laban's new father-in-law.
   Laban and Melissa were wed in Riley Center on October 25, 1859. (Laban's previous marriage apparently never bothered the youthful, always-optimistic Melissa—in fact, Laban is today buried between both of his wives in the Memphis Cemetery.
   Melissa was a school teacher (in fact she was so bright that she started teaching in Memphis at age 15), and she would change the course of our family history. She brought culture and education to the Hause family. Schooling was always important to Germanic immigrants, but not as much to farmers, which the Hause family had mainly become over the previous 150 years in America. Farmers are more concerned with being able to sell crops than being able to spell them. But after Melissa, the Hauses (at least the men) would all be college-educated (I dropped out of Long Beach State in 1984 to write the film Once Bitten after the producers threatened to can me and hire a full-time screenwriter, thus ending the streak. Sorry, Melissa).
   In the early 1860's the Civil War raged throughout the country. But there was no way that Laban could go to war. He was busy trying to start his life again with a new wife, and start a new family (Alice was born in 1861 at the start of the war, and Sarah followed in 1863).
   Laban had four children with Melissa, and the family prospered. In fact, period photographs show them in the stylish clothes of the day—always clean, which was rare for Michigan—and the children are quite healthy-looking and attractive (which you can't always say about frontier families).

Laban Hause and 2nd wife Melissa Sanderson-Hause, around 1870. From the scrapbook of Charles Jackson, the son of Elma Hause-Jackson (from the collection of Jerry Hause).

The symbol of the Freemasons (check Laban's middle button in the above photo).

   St. Clair County became more cultured and civilized, as well. It was the home of a few notable people, including inventor Thomas Alva Edison, who lived there with his family in the village of Port Huron until the age of 16, when he got a job with the railroad and left home. (The "Edison House" burned down in 1867—but not because of any of Thomas' experiments.) Although farming was still the major industry in the area, businesses were started, the population grew, and education became more important. (From what we can draw from the wills of Augustus and Esther, Laban was probably the first male in our line to be able to write his own name!) The Hause family became part of that new society and culture.
   Laban became a Freemason,² reciting his oath to the Memphis Lodge: "To the high purposes of universal Masonry, to brotherly love, relief and truth, to the upbuilding of this Lodge; the promotion of harmony among its members, to the realization of its highest ideals of character and of life; to the stretching forth of our hands to aid and support a fallen brother, and to the vindication of his character behind his back, as well as before his face, we here and now, pledge anew, our most earnest and unceasing efforts." In fact, he's wearing a Mason pin in the above photo (2nd button down).
   The fraternal order in Michigan (the Grand Lodge) was organized in 1826, operating several years before the State was admitted to the Union. (A Grand Lodge is the administrative body in charge of Freemasonry in some geographical area. In the United States, there is a Grand Lodge of Freemasonry in each state and the District of Columbia.) The early Freemasons in Michigan helped create and fund the University of Michigan.
   There are freemasonry lodges in most towns, and large cities usually have several. On January 14, 1864, the charter was accepted for Mason's Lodge No. 142 in Memphis by the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons in Michigan, and Laban became a member. (It's currently located at 35050 Boardman Rd, Memphis, MI 48041.) Laban became an apprentice at the lodge in 1874, earned his Fellowcraft Degree, and a Master Mason Degree, all in the same year, and remained active for the next 31 years.
   There are a great many rumors and myths about freemasonry: That in order to join you must drink wine out of a human skull, etc. But it's really a fraternity dedicated to improving the community through work and education, and Laban and his son, Frank, were both heavily involved in the organization during their lives, so the Hauses were an integral part of that lodge for the next 75 years. 

Personal Information Census Image Name:   Augustus Haws Age in 1870:   66 Birth Year:   1803 Birthplace:   New York Home in 1870:   Royalton, Niagara, NY Value of real estate:   7300 Post Office:   Gasport Roll:   M593_ 1055 Page:   542 Image:   474 View image View blank 1870 census form  (PDF 136K) Personal Information Census Image Name:   Laban Hause Age in 1870:   39 Birth Year:   1831 Birthplace:   New York Home in 1870:   Emmett, St Clair, MI Value of real estate:   2500 Post Office:   Emmett Roll:   M593_ 698 Page:   180 Image:   364 View image View blank 1870 census form  (PDF 136K) SOURCE INFORMATION: Data imaged from National Archives and Records Administration. 1870 Federal Population Census. M593, 1,761 rolls; part of Minnesota T132, 13 rolls. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration.

  In this 1870 census, 66-year-old Augustus remained in New York with Fannie and their two-year-old daughter; Meanwhile, Laban had moved to Emmet, St. Clair County, Michigan, and now had a son: three-year-old Frank Hause, the next in our line, with siblings Elma, Alice, and Sarah.
   Laban decided to earn some extra money off the farm and became the Postmaster in Emmett from 1869 to 1873. But never fitting in with the community there (it was "too Catholic," according to his grandson Basil—much of our family history had been lost, but our Reformist, anti-Catholic bias was apparently still being handed down.) Laban finally moved to Millington Village, Tuscola County, Michigan, to buy and operate a general store.

A map of Riley Center in 1876. Laban's property (#18) is in blue, while the farms of father-in-law David Sanderson and brother-in-law, Edward, are in sections 28 and 29. (Enlarge.)

   Although running the store in Millington, Laban supplemented his income by taking boarders. He also put food on the table the same way every Hause man since Johann six generations before him had: he kept the farm and he hunted. Such was life on the Michigan frontier: Everybody worked at least one job, then hunted and farmed for their own food with whatever time they had left over. Laban did well for himself and his family and fortune both grew—and Michigan grew right along with him, as forest became farmland and townships became cities.
   Laban and Melissa had the following children, who they raised along with Elma:

CHILDREN OF LABAN HAUSE AND MELISSA SANDERSON

ALICE HAUSE was born in 1861. She married Senica Young and had one son, F. Arthur Young, in 1880. A letter by Melissa Hause from 1920 says Alice was living in a tent in California with her husband's sister-in-law at the time. In 1930, Alice lived alone in Memphis, next to Ida Dysinger. Alice died in 1939. She was buried in Millington, MI. Click on the image at right to read Alice's obituary.

SARAH L. HAUSE was born on 16 April 1863. She died from food poisoning that she contracted from canned beans at the reception of her own wedding to Arthur Baker on 11 Nov 1880 (you can read all about it, below). She was named after her father's first wife, Sarah Dysinger, and they all rest together in the Memphis Cemetery.

FRANK AUGUSTUS HAUSE was born in 1867. He married FLADELLA RAYMOND (6 Sept. 1869 - 19 July 1961) and went into business with his uncle, C. Oakes (husband of Laban's sister, Basheba Hause), and then with his brother-in-law, George Cottington, husband of Edith. Frank and Fladella had five children, all boys, listed below. Frank died in Memphis, Michigan, on 3 May 1951. The photo at right is from the Hause family Bible, in the collection of Jerry Hause. See his signature here (from the autograph book of William Pincombe, courtesy of his granddaughter, Judy Ingles). Click on the photo at right to access the Frank Hause Genealogy Page.

EDITH HAUSE was born in 1871. She married George Cottington in 1900. They ran a general store in Memphis, Michigan, with her brother Frank and his wife, Fladella (detailed in the next chapter). Edith and Joseph had four children: Josephine Pray, Frances, William H., and John Cottington. Edith died in 1949. At right is a photo of Edith from the Hause family Bible, in the collection of Jerry Hause. See her signature here (from the autograph book of William Pincombe, courtesy of his granddaughter, Judy Ingles).

Personal Information Census Image Name:   Laban House Age:   49 Estimated birth year:   <1831> Birthplace:   New York Occupation:   Dealer General Merchandise Relation:   Self Home in 1880:   Millington, Tuscola, Michigan Father's birthplace:   New York Mother's birthplace:   New York View image View blank 1880 census form Year: 1880; Census Place: Millington, Tuscola, Michigan; Roll: T9_607; Family History Film: 1254607; Page: 229C; Enumeration District: 410; Image: 0478.

   The 1880 census is the only US census available for the last two decades of the 1800s. (Most of the original 1890 population schedules were destroyed in a fire at the Commerce Department in 1921).
   Augustus Hause had passed away in 1875, but Laban, now middle-aged, was still going strong. He's no longer listing "farmer" as occupation, as he was at that point running the store in Millington Village. They also have a boarder at the house listed as a clerk, as well as children Frank and Edith.
   The Hause family was prospering, but the harsh realities of life on the frontier were always present: In 1881, their daughter Sarah—named after Laban's first wife—died from Typhoid Fever after eating contaminated beans served at her own wedding reception to a man named Arthur Baker. (Note to all Hauses: Never name your daughter "Sarah.") She wasn't considered in a dangerous condition by her doctor, L.C. Davis, but suddenly took a turn for the worse and died within a few hours. She is buried today near her father, in the Memphis Cemetery.

Sarah Hause-Baker, left, and the obituary notice³ following her sad, bizarre death.

Correspondence Image From: Melissa Hause To: Elma Jackson-Hause Subject: Genealogy Table View SOURCE INFORMATION: Scrapbook of Charles H. Jackson. (Collection of Jerry Hause)

   Needing a change after that peculiar tragedy, Laban gave up the store (they definitely weren't going to be able to sell any canned beans) and returned to Riley Center in 1882, where he built a substantial brick house with a smoke house and barn, at 13185 Belle River Road, near the Sanderson family. This property incorporated the farmland of Melissa's brother, Edward Sanderson, and would become this Hause line's home base for the next 40 years. There was a windmill in the back for power and an apple orchard for food, and Laban built a smokehouse nearby to prepare meat for the table.
   In one of the more macabre anecdotes in our family history, the stone for Sarah Hause's grave was delivered to the new house, but the inscription on the face of the stone was incorrect. Laban refused to pay for it, but the carver refused to take it back. So the stone stayed in the front yard of the Hause family house, un-bought and unused, until Laban finally made it the step-stone to the front of the house.

Laban and Melissa Hause in later years, in a formal full-figure pose and a close-up; The Hause brothers reunite in New York: (back row) Augustus Hause Jr., Laban Hause, John Hause; (middle row) Hanna Grove-Hause, Melissa, and Eve Dysinger-Hause; (front) unknown child (possibly John and Eve's daughter, Alta May, b. 1871) and Elma. The cost to travel from Memphis to Niagara Falls in 1883: $3.50 - round trip.

A tin-type of Frank Hause. (Courtesy of Jerry Hause.)

   Laban and Melissa's son, FRANK AUGUSTUS HAUSE (4/14/1867 - 5/3/1951), is the guy from our family whom everybody had a story about. Legends abound, and they're all pretty funny. Although he looks very serious while holding his puppy at right (what was he doing, trying to strangle the thing?), Frank became an extremely boisterous man, who in family lore burned through two fortunes and a number of businesses (which was probably exaggerated), and as his very last wish, demanded to eat beer, cheese and crackers on his deathbed (which was verified as true).
   Frank never really followed his father's tastes. While Laban was in Millington, Frank returned to Riley Center and worked for his uncle, Ed Sanderson (1831 - 1907). When Laban returned to the town and built the brick farmhouse, Frank carried bricks for his father to build the estate—but even then he refused to work the farm with his father, and stayed with his job with Uncle Ed. (He did, however, become very involved in the local Masons Lodge with his father. Frank signed on as a "Master Mason" on September 19, 1900.)
   Frank inherited his father's intensity (compare Frank's eyes with those of Laban) and his mother's sense of style. A born salesman, Frank had a certain swagger—he would be the perfect man to lead the Hauses into the 1900's. But he couldn't have done it without the help of an amazing woman:

Raymond

   On February 18, 1888, Frank married FLADELLA RAYMOND (11/6/1869 - 7/19/1961). They were wed in the home of the bride's parents in Port Huron. According to St. Clair County records, they were married on "18 Feb 1888, in Fort Gratiot: Frank A. House, 20, W, r/b Riley, Farmer, P: Labian House and Malissa Sanderson; Della Raymond, 18, W, Port Huron, b. Capac, P: A.J. Raymond & Matilda Kilbourne; Geo. Johnson & Hattie Davis, both of Port Huron; G.C. Jennings, Min." Fladella's son, Basil, remembered Fladella as a very creative person who was very interested in education and culture. Her parents were also remarkable people.
   Fladella's father, Albert, was in the Union battalion that captured Jefferson Davis at the close of the Civil War. He was a blacksmith (which makes you wonder if he knew the ancestor of his new son-in-law was the great silversmith Robert Sanderson), and also worked in the Port Huron customs office. But soon they would live near the Hause family in Riley Center.
   Fladella was something of a warrior herself, who fought to protect her family throughout her long life. She even teamed with Melissa to run a boarding house in Ypsilanti, so that her sons would have money and lodging for a nearby college, in order to make sure that the next generation of Hauses would have opportunities that their ancestors were denied.
   Laban was elated over the engagement of his only son. Around 1888, he built a fine brick house across from his farm property for Frank and Fladella. But much to Laban's disappointment, the newlyweds instead moved into an old log cabin—actually a sheep barn—on the Raymond property, which Fladella's father had converted into a home. They immediately started a family, and produced the three sons that would carry the Hause family into the Twentieth Century.
   Here are the children of Frank and Fladella Hause:

CHILDREN OF FRANK AUGUSTUS HAUSE AND DELLA RAYMOND

RAYMOND "DICK" LABAN HAUSE was born on 23 Nov 1888. He married a nurse, Ethel Maud Yale (1 Feb 1886 - 19 Jan 1988), in Michigan in 1911. They had one child, Lois Yale Hause, born on 7 Oct 1913. "Uncle Dick" moved his family to California and worked in land speculation. He died on 12 Nov 1970 in San Diego, California. Many of his photos and keepsakes, handed down to his daughter, are used in this family history. Click on photo at right to access the Raymond Hause Family Genealogy.

CARLISLE HAUSE, was born in 5 April 1891. He became a schoolteacher and fell in love with MARJORIE E. MARCHANT. She was a maid's daughter, who moved to Minnesota to be with her sister when her mother was killed by a car. But Carlisle tracked her down and brought her to Michigan as his bride. Marjorie died in 1938, and he remarried, to a fellow schoolteacher named EMILY MEISTER and moved to Bloomfield, Oakland, Michigan. Carlisle died on 23 Mar 1972 in Pontiac, Oakland, Michigan. Click on the photo at right to access the Carlisle Hause Genealogical Page.

BASIL FRANKLIN HAUSE was born on 4 Nov 1895. While he was young, he worked in his grandpa Raymond's blacksmith shop. He married Hazel May Gilmartin in 1920. Basil and Hazel had two children: Gerald Franklin in 1926 (our family historian), and Barbara Joan in 1928. Many of Basil's family photos, and his recollections (recorded by his son, Jerry) form the basis for the Michigan chapters in this family history. Basil died on 7 Dec 1985 in Royal Oak, Oakland, Michigan. Click on image at right to access the Basil Hause Family Genealogy.

FREDERICK CLINTON HAUSE was born in 1900, but died from an undisclosed illness while still an infant, in 1901. There are no known photographs that were made of Frederick before his death.

MAURICE CALVERT HAUSE (pronounced "Morris") was born on 5 April 1910. "This laughing baby is the youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. Hause, Memphis, Mich . . . He was one year and four months when this picture was taken." Maurice died when he was 16 years old. "Funeral services, conducted by Rev. S.H. Townsend, were held at 2 p.m. Monday for Maurice Hause, 15, who died Friday night after a short illness. He was a junior at the high school, also a member of the Young Men's club and the high school orchestra, the village band, the football and basket ball teams."

Left-to-right: Raymond, Carlisle and Basil Hause.

   Raymond, Carlisle and Basil Hause were so close that they nicknamed themselves "Tom," "Dick" and "Harry"—but only the "Dick" moniker stuck permanently, as the family's nickname for Ray. They were raised strictly—when they visited grandpa Laban and grandma Melissa on Sundays, they had to wear their finest clothes from church, sitting for hours with barely a twitch for fear of wrinkling them, before leaving by horse and buggy from Memphis to their grandparents' red brick estate in Riley Center. But occasionally they would skirt the rules, rebelling against authority like characters out of a Mark Twain novel: When ordered by the departing Fladella to do the dishes, they soaked them in the backyard creek instead of washing them properly—which would've been a nice solution if they hadn't quickly lost interest and forgotten to take them back out. After the few remaining dishes still left in the creek's raging current were retrieved about a year later, you can be sure beatings were in order. They were pranksters and adventurers. They were born salesmen like Frank, but with Fladella's work ethic and iron will.

LEFT-RIGHT: A baby photo (if you see all the early photos of the Hause sons, Fladella seemed particularly keen on dressing them up in ridiculously feminine outfits); Carlisle with a pup in 1910, visiting Mount Clemens, where he would eventually live; A formal portrait in proper teaching attire, giving much the same "get-it-over-with" stare that he had in the baby portrait.

   When CARLISLE HAUSE (4/5/1891 - 3/23/1972) was about two years old, he was exploring the land around the Raymond house at 12987 Belle River Road, when he fell into a thirty-foot well. Luckily, he landed on his back, which kept him from drowning. The fire department was called, but these were primitive times, so the fire trucks were horse-driven and slow in coming. So Fladella decided that she couldn't wait any longer and climbed down the well herself—rescuing Carlisle and in the process saving this family line.
   The well incident aside, Carlisle grew up loving the outdoors—especially hunting and fishing—but he always appeared in public dressed formally and immaculately, with starched collars, tailored suits, and perfect ties. He was a noble rustic, who took as much pride in stalking and catching a large buck as he did in discussing literature or tying the perfect Windsor knot. That he would sometimes ruin those clothes sliding down the roof of the store to the ground below didn't seem to bother him (nor the spanking he got for it from Frank), or ruining his shirt while tapping the maple trees around the house to make syrup.

A map of Memphis in 1896, showing that Laban (in blue) has moved into town. (Enlarge.)

Correspondence File Image From: Laban Hause To: Elma Jackson-Hause Subject: The Grip Date: August, 1892 Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4 View file SOURCE INFORMATION: Scrapbook of Charles H. Jackson.

   At the close of the Century, Laban retired from farming and moved into Memphis, while Frank and his family moved to an estate called the Bywater house (later the Vlasic Pickle factory). But there were bigger changes on the way. With the onset of the Twentieth Century, Michigan itself would change: The technological age would change the way people lived. Agriculture would no longer be the state's main industry. Detroit would become an industrial city, thanks to mass production and an influx of southern labor.
   Soon farms would be replaced by factories; and beyond that there would also be airplanes, televisions, telephones, movies, organized sports, psychotherapy, organized crime, and most importantly for Michigan, the automobile. And many say the first auto was built in Memphis:
   Thomas Clegg and his English-born father, John, built "the thing:" the first recorded self-propelled vehicle in Michigan (and perhaps in the country) in 1884-85 at the John Clegg & Son Machine Shop, located at 35412 Bordman at the southeast corner of Bordman Road and Cedar Street in Memphis. "The thing," driven by a single cylinder steam engine with a tubular boiler, seated four. Leather belts transferred the power to the 5'8" rear wheels. Soft coal was used for fuel. At first Clegg called the machine a "contraption" but finally settled on "the thing." It was an appropriate name, because it turned out to be "the thing" that ate Michigan! Soon the first cars in the United States were being built by men in the Great Lakes area—Henry Ford, Ransom Olds, Charles B. King and David Dunbar Buick all lived in Michigan. In 1897, Olds Motor Vehicle Company, Inc., was organized by Ransom E. Olds with capital of $50,000 (5,000 shares of stock at $10 per share). Soon after, the first Oldsmobile was produced, and became the first mass-produced car in the country. Within ten years the company would be folded with several other brands into a corporation called General Motors, which became so prosperous that in 1909 it bought Cadillac for $5.5 million.
   But it was Henry Ford who soon dominated the industry. He introduced automated production and in 1908 Ford decided to focus his company's efforts on the construction of only one model—the Model T. To help lower costs and speed production, he began moving toward assembly line production.
   But Clegg didn't profit from any of this: He said that after his father's death, four years after the car was build, he had "neither the time or money to continue the experiments along." In an exceedingly uncharacteristic fit of generosity and gratitude, Henry Ford reportedly offered to buy the Clegg machine shop for Greenfield Village, but the offer came too late. Clegg pulled down the building in 1936, just a short time before the offer by Ford was made. He died in May 1939 and his wife the following March.
   Our line of the Hause family changed with the times as well. No longer a line of farmers, they became educators, land speculators, and entrepreneurs. "Tom, Dick and Harry" were born salesmen like Frank, but with Fladella's work ethic and iron will, and they adjusted easily to modern society. But Frank's sons never forgot the family roots as they carried our family into the modern era in...

TITLE PHOTO: Sunset over Memphis, Michigan, by William Biscorner.

¹—One witness to Laban and Sarah's land sale agreement in Michigan was named DAVID SANDERSON, appearing on the second page, who would become very important in Laban's later life.

²—No one knows just how old freemasonry is, because the actual origins have been lost over time. Probably, it arose from the guilds of stone masons who built the castles and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Possibly, they were influenced by the Knights Templar, a group of Christian warrior monks formed in 1118 to help protect pilgrims making trips to the Holy Land.
   The society's influence is everywhere: Presidents George Washington, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, James Garfield, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Warren Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George Bush were all Masons (Bill Clinton was in a freemason youth group). Others included Winston Churchill, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ben Franklin, John Hancock, Paul Revere, Davy Crockett, Walt Disney, Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain), most of the Kings of England, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, Orville and Wilber Wright, Billy Graham, Jesse Jackson, Mormon Church heads Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and FBI head J. Edgar Hoover.

³—The first newspaper in Memphis was the Daily Bug, established in 1877. The name of the paper was later changed to the Memphis Tribune, and again in 1882 it was changed to the Memphis Banner. It was published once a week on Fridays and was sold for $1.00 per year. Next came the Memphis Bee, founded in about 1893.

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