Ode To an Older Time 7/1/26

Fred Michael, 92, sits on his couch in his home in the Williams Lake valley with one of several notebooks describing the history of his family open on his lap. He flips through photos, newspaper clippings, and pages documented with a typewriter, illustrating his family’s journey in a voice filled with nostalgia.

Michael’s daughter and family archivist, Trini Michael-Heese, sits across from him. Michael has the honor of being the oldest living member of his family. This month, he plans to host the 70th annual Michael Family Reunion on his property, and said he is excited to share his legacy with his family. “I was born on Feb. 2, 1934, in Colville,” said Michael. “Those were the days when people weren’t born in a hospital, unless there was some kind of problem.

I was born at Mrs. Martin’s Maternity Home, which was located where 4th and Maple Streets are now. That’s what country women did. They came to town a few days before they were due, and they stayed at Mrs. Martin’s.” Fred Michael said that his family story in the United States began in 1861, when his great-grandfather John Fredrick Christain Michael came from Germany.

His marriage to Maria Elizabeth Malchow, also from Germany, produced eight children, one of whom was Henry Carl Lewis Michael: Fred Michael’s grandfather. Fred Michael said his grandparents, Henry Carl Lewis and Cora Michael, were corn farmers in Westville, Ind. After a memorable visit in 1909 to Ferry County, Wash., where his great-grandparents, the Reeds, had settled, Henry and Cora packed up and headed west in 1911.

“Dad was only about 5 years old when he made that first visit,” said Michael. “But he remembered the big apples and crossing the river on the ferry. The land was at the river near Beulah. When the Grand Coulee dam was built, much of that land was flooded.

In the 1890s, the Reeds branch of our family had worked for a nursery in Indiana selling fruit trees.” He continued, “But they liked the country out in Washington. In 1900, the government opened the north half of the reservation for homesteading, and the Reeds took that opportunity. They ran a game farm on land that is where Highway 25 near Inchellium is now. But when the river came up, it flooded that part.”

Michael selects one particular notebook and opens it to an array of photographs. “We started 13 books, one for each child of Cora and Henry,” Fred said. “My father, Amos Russel, was born in 1909. Three years after they arrived, the local bank broke, and my family lost all of their money. Since the checks were now worthless, my Aunt Rita used the checkbook as a scrapbook.” Trini Michael-Heese added, “When they came West in 1911, they had put all their money in a bank in where Kettle Falls is.

After the bank broke, they managed a way to pay their rent for one year and buy a cow from the widow they rented from.” Fred Michael said he grew up along the fruit trees and river separating Ferry and Stevens county.

On Aug. 16, 1957, he married Marilyn Stevens. “We met at a dance at the Grange Hall on Spanish Prairie,” Michael said. “She passed in July, 2023.” Michael said he made his living as a bookkeeper, handling the accounts for Barman’s between 1956 and 1964.

He attended Washington State University (WSU), studying accounting and finance. “Then I sold the house, returned to WSU, moved to Sacramento, and started a large accounting firm. I moved back to Colville in 2003. I wanted to retire, and I had so much family here. But the time I spent away is a story for another time,” Michael said.

“The Michael family reunions started in 1957, the year after Grandma Cora died,” he explained. “We got together in the hospital before she died. Everybody decided that we should have a reunion. One of the reasons was because some of the Michaels were still in Indiana, and they’d been having reunions for a while.”

“The amazing thing about the Michael family reunion is all the practice,” Michael-Heese said. “In 1958, we started keeping minutes. The reunions rotate locations over the years. We’ve had them in Colville, Chewelah, Coeur d’Alene. We have a planning committee. It is very well organized.”

Besides family time to gather and reminisce, there are several reunion events planned. “There will be a Michael family driving tour, called ‘Cruising Through Family History,’ accompanied by a narrative CD,” said Michael-Heese. “Everyone will meet at the Kettle Falls warehouse where the old train station used to be. We will drive to important locations in our family history, and when we stop, Dad (Fred Michael) will get out and talk about it, because he remembers it.

He is the oldest living Michael. He lived it.” There will also be a family history presentation with roots to Germany, with research provided by a genealogist, according to Michael-Heese. A trip to the Garden Valley Cemetery is also scheduled, where generations of the Michael family are buried. “We are looking forward to a weeklong celebration. People can come and go,” said Michael-Heese. “More of us are retiring,” said Michael. “This is a time for people to get to know each other.”

Cora and Henry Michael with their children in Indiana before coming to Washington. Photo provided by Fred Michael.