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 "The following story was told to me by
Selma Maude (Getty) Moore, granddaughter of George Kilpatrick Getty,
and daughter of George Francis Getty.
"Pa was a very hard worker. He was a farmer, a
builder, he had a saw mill, and he owned two
complete threshing rigs-steam engines,
separators and all. He was a man of small
stature. He had weak lungs, but he neither drank
nor smoked.
My mother was the daughter of John and Cornelia
Merrifield. The Merrifields went to the Free
Methodist Church. John's great grandfather,
Michael Merrifield, sailed from England on the
second boat behind the Mayflower about 1640.
John Merrifield dug the first grave at Oak Grove
Cemetery south of Dundee. Some of the early
Merrifield women were killed by Indians in a
massacre in New York. Grandpa Merrifield was
about fifty years old when he married my
grandma. They had four children. He had been
married previously, and had eight or nine
children with his first wife.
"We lived several places in the Dundee area
while
renting some of the farms, and others we would
buy, then Pa would fix them up and sell them.
First we lived near Petersburg, then on Ida
Madeira's place in Summerfield Township. Russell
was born on Oak St. right near the Merrifields,
who lived on Dixon Road. Some neighbors by the
name of Langshied named me Selma Maude after an
actress in Germany. When I was six years old we
bought a place on Petersburg Road near Rea.
"I remember us walking beside my mother about a
mile and a half to the store one baby in the
buggy and one on my mother's arm. Ruby was born
at Rea. She was named by our neighbor, Jenny
White. Jenny named her Ruby Hortense Jenny White
Getty. The last place we lived was a ten room
house on Rogers Road. From there I walked to
Dundee to high school. In later years my parents
moved into town and lived in a small house
across from the elevator."
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George Francis Getty
was born on January 15, 1869 in Ridgeway Township,
Lenawee County, Michigan as the son of
