JOSEPH KENDALL SAWYER
April 23, 1885 - Dec. 27 1980
Joseph Kendall Sawyer was born on April 23, 1885 in Roxbury (Boston) MA.
Since my mother was divorced we lived
with my grandfather and he was my father figure growing up.
He was the middle son of five boys and two girls of Charles and
Sarah (Willard) Sawyer.His father was an inventor and the superintendent at the Perkins
factory of the Dennison Brothers, a paper products company. He and a Mr. Charles
Moore, of Moore and Wyman designed Dennison Brothers first
shipping-tag manufacturing machine (see A Memorial by Eliphalet Whorf Dennison Mfg ).
The family was well off since the 1880 census shows that they had two young women as household help.
Below is a picture of the gold coin given to Joseph by his "Nursery Maid". He attended "The Dudley School".
His father became ill around 1900 and they moved to Sarah's home town of Harvard MA. They lived across the
road from his maternal grandfather and name sake, Joseph Kendall Willard. The grandfather was the fifth Joseph in the family
line. The second Joseph in the line built the Willard house. Charles moved
his family into. Joseph lived there until he moved to Wausau, WI.
In the early 1900.s Joseph went to Wausau, Wisconsin with his brother
Charles to join his oldest brother Perley to work in the sandpaper
business. The 1910 census shows both brothers living at the Wausau Y.M.C.A. Joseph is listed as a bookkeeper and Charles as a factory worker.
His oldest brother Perley was superintendent and general manager of the Wausau
Sandpaper Company. Wausau Sandpaper and Wausau Quartz Company, which
crushed the quartzite for grinding and polishing, eventually merged to
become Wausau Abrasives. Perley was president and general manager of
Wausau Abrasives. The second oldest brother, Herbert, was treasurer and
Joseph was the plant manager. They built a road up Rib Mountain (8 mi. SW of Wausau)
and quarried quartz to make sand paper. The company was taken over by 3M in 1929.
Joseph married Ida Smith Jones on April 12, 1919.
Ida had a daughter from a
previous marriage named Bernice Jones (married to Joseph Orint). Joseph and Ida
had one daughter, Ruth on March. 17, 1921.
Ruth is my mother.
They first lived at 615 Adams St. They later moved to 808 Grant St in Wausau
.
During the depression Joseph was unemployed for several years. He tried
various pursuits; putting gumball machines around town; working for the
city as an assessor. Looking for more lucrative work he went around to
local industries to find anything he could make that they were sending
out of town. The "Marathon Battery Co." set him up with loft space to make
battery parts. He had a die made to stamp parts and soldered them together
on the dining room table. The business grew until he was also making battery
parts for Eveready and Ray-O-Vac. During World War II he employed about a dozen employees.
In 1940 Joseph and Ida moved to a converted Cottage on Pine Island
outside of Wausau. My mother and I came to live with them on Pine Island.
Ida died on Mar 29, 1947. The following year we all moved to 509 Adams
St. in Wausau Adams St. house.
Joseph converted the second floor to an apartment and rented
it to his sister-in-law, Ione Skinner Sawyer, the widowed of his brother
Charles. My mother and I lived there until she got a job in Lansing, MI in 1954.
Joseph retired in 1955 at the age of seventy. The next year he moved to
Lansing to be with my mother and myself. He purchased a ranch house at
"6102 Abbott Rd "
E. Lansing Mi. Grandpa, mother and I lived there from 1956 till 1957.
We then moved to Jenison Ave,and Klamazoo street.
"Jenison Ave. " in Lansing Mi.
My mother remarried in 1959 to Keith D. Wright who owned a farm outside of
Maple Rapids, MI.,abnout 40 miles north and a little East of Lansing. Joseph joined us there the following year. He first lived in the farm house.
Before Keith retired in 1973 he built his retirement home on the little lake
he had buit by damming up a creek that was just in back of the original farm house. You can see the tip of the lake at the top of the farm house picture.
"Wright Farm Houses ".
Joseph lived on the farm until his death on Dec. 27, 1980 at the age of 95. He is buried next to his
wife at Restlawn Memorial Park in Wausau, WI.
If I had to pick one word to describe my grandfather it would be moderation.
He was always very thrifty, but would indulge his pleasures. He loved to
go out for a chicken dinner followed by a slice of apple pie with a little
cedar cheese on the side, but usually at a moderate priced restaurant. When
I was old enough and got an allowance to buy my own cloths he would admonish
me "you should go shopping at least once a month, but don't buy anything you
like until it goes on sale."
He never drank, but I was told that he did smoke in his younger days. He was
a devoted Christian Scientist. He rarely attend church while I knew him, but
he read his bible and the Christian Science book Key to the Scriptures by Mary
Baker Eddy regularly.
JOSEPH SAWYER and IDA SAWYER GRAVE STONES
Restlawn Memorial Park
Wausau, Wisconsin
