The Woods Is Full Of ‘Em

Leonard Carl Richard Till married Madge Eleanor Treat 08 November 1925

Madge Treat Till was the sister of my grandmother Christie Treat Thomas

Photo: Madge, Massie Treat (their mother), Christie

Here are some memories of Madge and Leonard Till (from my book Secret and Resolute):

Christie and her sister Madge were telephone operators and knew everyone’s number in Bangor. If someone would call and ask to talk to whoever, they knew the number.

[John Treat] had a good ear for music and learned to play the fiddle which later involved joining his sister Madge who played piano and a drummer, John Brown, to form a trio that played for round and square dances, they were also in demand to play for "Silent Movies" because they played by ear therefore did not require lights which interfered with the show.

Leonard Till was born 30 Jan 1903 to August and Augusta Till on the Till homestead in Bangor, Michigan. He grew up on the farm, third in line, with four sisters and one brother. He graduated from the eighth grade from the Jericho Country School. He had Bright’s disease, a form of kidney disease, when he was a teenager. The doctor said he knew of no cure and didn’t expect him to live. Someone told his mother to boil up a big pot of navy beans and feed him the watery broth off the beans. She tried this remedy and it worked and he soon got better. While he was in bed so long, his mom taught him to crochet to pass the time. He got quite good at it, making table cloths and doilies. Later in life he and his wife Madge made squares for an afghan which she sewed together. When he was 18 years old, he drove his car into a large tree in front of Dr. Gano’s office on Monroe Street in Bangor. He remained unconscious for many days. He helped his father and brother on the farm until he married Madge Eleanor Treat, daughter of Marcus and Massie Parker Treat, 08 Nov 1925, at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in South haven, Michigan, where he had been baptized in 1903 and confirmed in 1919. They got married in the parsonage, with his sister Elsa and her husband Ernest Muske as witnesses. Early in their married life, Leonard was doing some building work at the Sleepy Hollow Resort, north of South Haven, and he met the gangster Al Capone, who was visiting there. In the 1930s he worked as a mechanic for Nick Bian in Bangor. He also worked on some farms in the area and managed a couple, the last one a 640 acre fruit and grain farm on 16th Avenue in South Haven, from 1939-1952. This farm was owned by Somner Sollite, a construction company owner from Chicago. Leonard then worked at the Everett Piano Company in South haven, until he retired in 1965 at age 62. When his son Ralph bought the Till farm in 1963, where Leonard had grown up, he and Madge bought a trailer and moved from Monroe Street in Bangor to the farm the next year. He was very happy to be back on the farm that he loved, helping with the pigs and working the land again. Leonard was a handyman, and could fix most anything. He was easygoing and dependable. He wasn’t fussy about what he had to eat. Before Ralph and Joann married in 1955, when Ralph lived with his parents in Bangor, madge would pack his lunch, and if he didn’t eat everything she had sent, she’d send it with his dad Leonard the next day in his lunch. He also took the cold coffee left from supper to work the next morning, and liked it. Leonard died in 1968 from head trauma sustained in an automobile accident.

Madge Eleanor Treat was born 15 August 1906 in Morgantown, Ohio, the youngest of Marcus and Massie (Parker) Treat’s 5 children. The family moved to the Bangor (Michigan) area when she was 10 years old. She graduated from 8th grade at a country school near Lawrence, Michigan. She worked at the telephone office in Bangor with her sister Christie when she was 16. She married Leonard Carl Richard Till November 8, 1925, in the parsonage of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, in South Haven, by Rev. Hassey. They had four children, Ruth, Leonard “Junior”, Ralph, and Dallas. In her early married life she played piano in a band with her brother, John Treat, on fiddle and John Brown on the drums. This trio all played by ear, so they could play in the dark for silent movies. They also played for round and square dances at the township halls around the area. She had a wicked left hand on the piano. One song she could really pound out was “Rahpas Bane.” Madge was religious, but didn’t like crowds, so she didn’t attend many church services. After Dallas died in 1946, she was baptized and confirmed in the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, where she had been married. She read and knew her Bible and she listened to Billy Graham and other preachers on the radio and TV. She took adult confirmation classes when she joined the First English Lutheran Church where son Ralph and his wife Joann belonged, and then she went through it again when her granddaughter Rita took the class. She liked the classes and said she always learned something new. Places she worked from the 1950s on included Grant’s 5 & 10 Cent Store in South Haven, Swanstra Drug Store, Bangor, Rosa’s Pizza Plant, Bangor, and the Fluffy White laundromat in South Haven, until she was in her 70s. Our favorite story about Madge is this: She and Leonard would start out for Ohio to visit relatives there. They would get halfway there and she would make him turn back, she didn’t want to go any more. She did this more than once. Leonard would just turn around and head back home. She didn’t like to eat away from home, either. About the only place she would go was to her sister Christie’s house. She always had Sunday dinner ready, though, so if any of her family stopped by, they could eat. She made good everyday food. Madge didn’t like storms and always slept with her clothes on in stormy weather. When the kids were young, she would get them all up, if they were in bed, and make them get dressed and sit on the davenport. Madge was a bit of a hypochondriac and one time at the pizza plant one of the men said he had prostate problems and told his symptoms. So the next time she saw Dr. Gano she asked him if she could have prostate problems, too, because she had some of the same symptoms that the man had told her. Dr. Gano had a good chuckle that day. [Author’s note: Any reader who lived in Bangor, Michigan, in the 1940s and 1950s will remember Doctor Gano. He did all the doctoring there was to be done in that tiny town – back in the days when doctors still made house calls.]

MADGE TILL OBIT

Madge Eleanor (Treat) Till, age 93, of South Haven, passed away Tuesday, march 2, 1999, at Countryside Nursing Home in South Haven. She was born Aug. 15, 1906, in Morgantown Ohio, to Marcus and Massie (Parker) Treat, joining two brothers and a sister. The family moved to the Bangor area in 1916. She has lived ever since in either the Bangor or South Haven areas. She married Leonard C. R. Till in South Haven on Nov. 8, 1925, and they had one daughter and three sons. She was a member of the First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of South Haven. She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Ruth and Ed Heinze, one son and daughter-in-law, ralph and Joann Till, eight grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren, and 12 great-great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Leonard, who died in 1968, two sons, Dallas and Leonard “Junior” Till, her parents, a brother, Ray Treat, a sister and brother-in-law, Christie and Bill Thomas, a brother and sister-in-law, John and Mabel Treat, and two great-grandsons. Visitation was held Friday and Saturday, March 5 and 6, at the Calvin-Starks & Frost Funeral Home. Funeral services were held with the Rev. Robert Linstrom officiating. Burial followed the service at Lakeview Cemetery in South Haven. Memorial contributions can be made to the First English Lutheran Church of South Haven Area Hospice. Arrangements by the Calvin-Starks & Frost Funeral home of South Haven.

LEONARD TILL OBIT

Leonard Till, Sr., 81, Rt. 1, died Monday afternoon April 8, 1968, at Bronson Hospital. He was born Jan. 30, 1903, in Geneva Township, son of Mr. and Mrs. August Till. Survivors include hiw wife, Madge, whom he married Nov. 8, 1925, in South Haven; a daughter, Mrs. Ruth Heinze, South Haven; two sons, Leonard Jr. and Ralph, South Haven, four sisters, Mrs. Elsie Muske, South Haven, Mrs. Agnes Weber, Bangor; Mrs. Ruby Racki, Paw Paw, and Mrs. Vera Didier, Ohio; eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and several nieces and nephews. He was a farmer and former employee of the Everett Piano Co, and resided in the Bangor area all his life. The Rev. Raymond Bartels, pastor of the First English Lutheran Church, will officiate at the 1 p.m. funeral service Thursday, with burial in Lakeview Cemetery.