Marcellus Memories

Marcellus Ladies Basketball Team about 1897

Top row, left to right: Lydia Taylor, Jessie Beebe, Ella Schall, Dora Schall, Vera Jones, Maude Terry

Middle row, left to right: Vone Kester, Edith Glager (sp?), Helen Palmer, Minnie Nash, Minnie O. Hall (teacher), Florence Munger, Ethel Jones

Third row, left to right: Mayme Andrews, BeeDee Poorman Russell, W. L. Arnold, Beatrice Haskins (teacher)

Front row, left to right: Carolyn Stern Rosenbaum, Florence Sill, Bertha Hoisington, Ollie Jingles (teacher)

Photo courtesy of the private collection of Donna V. (Jones) Schurtz

Below is an excerpt from an email the Editor received January 23 concerning the story on the Marcellus Ladies’ Basketball team in the January 6 edition of The News.

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   “Now to my latest interesting find in the paper. The January 6th issue came this week. Usually I get the paper about a week after it is published but sometimes it gets held up and comes two weeks later. There on the front page was the photo of the Ladies Basketball team of the past. As I read through the names of the players, three jumped out at me. The first two were Ella and Dora Schall. They were of interest to me, because my great grandfather Dr. C. E. Davis, one of the founders of Marcellus, had a first wife named Lonia Schall. In my writing of my families’ history, she has been a mystery and only appeared in one of several obituaries of the doctor. She appears in the Mormon records and in Ancestry.com, but with only the marriage date of 1868 and a death date of 1877, with the death being in Niles MI. I have been searching, without success, for some hard piece of evidence of her existene. At her early death, she would have been living in Marcellus with the doctor.  Berrien County has no death record and the Berrien County History Center could shed no information. But now I have evidence there was a Schall family in the Marcellus area and maybe that will lead me to the family and Lonia. Who knows that perhaps the doctor chose to start his practice in Marcellus because his wife’s family lived in the area.

   The third name that jumped out was BeeDee Poormann Russell. My grandfather on my mother’s side was Floyd Russell. HIs wife died in the flu pandemic of 1918 leaving 4 children, the youngest, my mother, was only 3 years old. Also, the doctor, semi-retired at age 72, died of overwork trying to take care of the sick and dying. FLoyd Russell did not want to bring up the children andy were brought up by the doctor’s widow (his 3rd wife). The story I got was the Floyd was a “ladies man” and he went his own way and had little to do with the family. In the summer of 1923, he married BeeDee Poorman who became BeeDee Poorman Russell. The marriage didn’t last long. Floyd died in January of 1924 of a burst appendiz that was misdiagnosed. What is interesting, as you have probably noticed, why is she listed with her married name? Only one other lady in the photo is listed that way, “Carolyn Stern Rosenbaum.” Stern is a well-known Marcellus family. Also, these two ladies are the only two in the photo identified with a middle name. Those captions must have been added at a later time or perhaps the new married name added later. Anyway, it is interesting.

   Sorry to be so long winded, but see how this one historical photo was of such interest to me.

Best,

Willard Robinson (Class of 1949)

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   The Editor concurs with Mr. Robinson’s thought that the names were added to the photo later than the date it was taken. Some conscientious person prompted someone’s memory to ensure their names wouldn’t be forgotten. KSM

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