Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

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PIONEER HISTORY OF ING-HAM COUNTY

youthful ears stories were told of her birth in a New England
state, her migration into Missouri with her sister and their trials
and failure to start a select school for girls there, their horseback
ride of a thousand miles north and their founding a school here in
the woods, how she went before the Legislature of State session
after session for means to carry on same and how her death occurred before she could reap the fruits of her labors and life work.
Can you imagine such a woman letting a German brewerer get
the best of her in a deal or argument? No, he had to give way and
his dream of a beer garden, on the German plan, vanished as well
as his profits and customers. I can imagine that in their discussion she told him that beer was a plebian drink-her ancestors
drank nothing but New England or New Bedford rum-the smell
of his brewery and sauer kraut disturbed her digestion and the
nights were too noisy for sleep by the drinking songs of his customers. Her way prevailed and she carried the neighborhood
with her, so gradually the smoke from Weimann's brewery was a
thing of the past and only by a hitch of memory from some of the
old pioneers is it remembered.
Miss Rodgers was then the pioneer in this temperance movement. She showed by her work that beer making and beer
drinking as a factor of entertainment and sociability was a foreign product and could not be grafted upon our American social
life.
GARDENS.
For the past four years and especially at this season of the year
we hear a lot about gardens, high school gardens, municipal gardens, gardens for workingmen, directions to plant, what soils are
suitable, how to enrich the same if soil is poor, instructions in regard to fruit trees and flowers, also a word about injurious bugs
and how to curb their destructive propensities.
All this talk, all these directions, all this publicity about benefits to be derived or profits made-if the season is right-are well
and will awaken an interest in those who have never gardened, but
it would be well to publish these directions in installments, spread
them out over the whole growing season. The preparation of the