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 INGHAM COUNTY

intensely religious, very precise and eccentric. She was a devout
Presbyterian and thought it a sin to do any work on the Sabbath
day, or even to have a fire built in the kitchen. So little Elizabeth was sent early each Saturday morning with the brown bean
pot and one quart of beans carefully measured out to the public
bake house where they would be prepared for Sunday. (This old
bakery was built in 1663 and still stands on Washington street
and is well preserved.) Early Sunday morning the baker boy
would drive up with a pot of steaming hot beans and a loaf of brown
bread, which constituted their Sunday menu. If it was winter
the old lady would fill her little foot stove with hot coals from the
sitting room fire and they would start for church.
The meeting house, as they were called in those days, was very
large, cold and desolate, often without fire. The minister had
a large hour glass, filled with red sand, that took an hour to run
through. The elders of the church required their minister to
preach a sermon one hour in length, whether he had anything to
say or not. It was very hard for little children to sit and watch
the sand run through, and the time seemed very long.
Another very hard proposition the little girl had was concerning her mother's grave clothes. They were made of the finest
linen, kept in the spare bedroom upstairs, in the upper bureau
drawer, with lavender laid between their folds. Once or twice a
year they were taken out, washed, bleached and carefully ironed
and again packed away, ready for the time when they would be
needed.
Elizabeth lived to be ninety-three years old, but to her dying
day she never forgot the terror and awe with which she used to
gaze on those grave clothes of her grandmother.
The child had some very happy experiences. Her Uncle
Abraham Millett owned boats that sailed to the West Indies,
Central and South America.
Once when he returned from a trip he brought her a monkey,
much to the horror and disgust of her grandmother, but he was
kept in his cage the most of the time. Once each year her grandmother invited the minister and the elders of the church, with
their wives, to tea. That year there were twelve in the party
invited. The best table cloth and the finest china and silver were
taken out and the table set. She had three kinds of sauce at each