History of the Crocker House

 Letter written by Ann Crocker about her father, George Martin

The greatest miracle of grace, it seems to me, is the gift of faith, and, although it has been my privilege to see five members of my immediate family present themselves for Baptism, the wonder never lessens. My father’s life and conversion brings Mr. Kipling’s lines to mind: “East is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet,” but only to their confounding because no human being ever closed his life with convictions as diametrically opposed to those held in youth as my father.

Born in a little Illinois town in 1849 [sic] of Scotch-Irish parents, who proudly traced their descent from Elder Brewster of Mayflower fame and Thomas Hooker of the colonial literary era, he seemed a long, long way from home. His mother died when he was about ten years of age, leaving his father with two little girls and this young limb of Satan, (if all the tales he told of himself were true) to bring up. It must have taxed his capacities beyond their endurance for it wasn’t long before he married a New England school teacher, thinking perhaps that a little discipline was what his family stood in need.

The most impressive event of his early boyhood was the Civil War which was a source of great delight to the small boy, perched atop of a neighbor’s hay wagon watching the troops go off to war, listening to the bands, drinking in the excitement and wishing that he was old enough to be allowed to at least beat a drum. But the war and the dark days that followed was the cause of the family removing to New Hampshire due to the failure of the bank in which my grandfather was interested.

In company with Harry B. Hutchins, who later became president of the University of Michigan, his education was polished off at an academy in Haverhill, New Hampshire. Filled with mischief and life, bright and handsome, the two boys were characterized by their honest and high sense of honor due to which justice must have often been tempered with mercy in dealing with their misdemeanors. Now life in these New England states is viewed with anything but Catholic eyes. It wasn’t so many centuries since even Roger Williams had been banished from among these righteous, God-fearing people.

At the age of sixteen, with his ticket and ten dollars in his pockets his formal education complete, he was shipped to Michigan to study law in his uncle’s office in Mt. Clemens. But the railroad seemed to hold a fatal fascination for him for at the end of a year his father located him at Fort Gratiot running an engine of some kind, happy, owing no man anything, the proud possessor of one hundred dollars and two suits of clothes.

Despite his success as a railroad mechanic, to his uncle’s office he was taken where for a number of years he yielded the broom and the duster as compensation for being allowed to enjoy the learned atmosphere of the law office. At any rate he must have been something of a success for at the age of twenty-two we find him marrying the richest girl in the town and shortly after being elected mayor of the city, the youngest man ever to hold that office.

Politics, the Masonic Order and raising a rapidly growing family made the next few years busy and successful ones. Masonry was established in the county chiefly through his efforts. At home five small children graced the family; board and city politics were literally his meat and drink.

Then a blow fell that seemed enough to crush any young man. His lovely young wife died leaving him alone with an infant son and five other small children. Dark days indeed followed with a series of housekeepers and inadequate relatives running the household.

It was at this time that a man entered his life who was to have the greatest possible influence in turning the current of his thoughts and point of view. St. Peter’s Catholic parish was in its infancy. Improvements were needed, among them a sewer. Fr. Rickert, under whose direction things were developing, came to my father for help and influence to get things moving. Out of this meeting a warm friendship developed between the elderly Belgium priest, more familiar with seven other languages than with English, a man of wealth and piety who gave dollar for dollar in the building up of his parish, his hearts delight, and the young attorney. I have often heard my father laughingly repeat a remark Fr. Rickert made to him about his time: “George, you get me a sewer and I’ll get you a wife” and he did too.

Mt. Clemens had long been famous for the curative power of its mineral water. One rare day in June a Kentucky lady accompanied by two of her daughters came to Mt. Clemens hoping the baths would be beneficial to the youngest daughter. Being Catholics, my grandmother-to-be and her daughters stopped one evening to call on Father Rickert who seemed to be very well impressed with the ladies and who in turn introduced them to my father. A year or so later my father and the eldest daughter were united in marriage. Then followed a period of brightness and happiness which however was of short duration. In two years my father was again a widower and again followed a regime of inefficient but well-intentioned housekeepers.

But life must go on. Catholic manners, morals and way of life, must have been attractive to my father for after a decent interval armed with letters from Fr. Rickert, he presented himself before Bishop McCluskey, of Louisville, asking dispensations to marry his sister-in-law. A protestant twice married, a mason wanting to marry his sister-in-law! “No, indeed!” said his lordship. Then more correspondence between Fr. Rickert and the would-be-bridegroom who armed with these credentials went on to Washington to visit his sister-in-law Mrs. Z.B. Vance, whose husband was senator from North Carolina, to enlist her good influences with his eminence Cardinal Gibbons who was a very warm friend of hers. 

The dispensations were granted and June 28, 1888, my mother and father were married at her sister’s home in Washington.

Not many years elapsed before there were three more locusts, as my father used to call us, to feed and clothe. As each of us in turn were brought to the church for Baptism Fr. Van Hoomisan was called upon to act as godfather as my father’s friends were all active masons. “Now don’t you lay down and die, Mrs. Crocker, and leave those three children for me to bring up,” the young priest would say. Then came the question of schools or rather there wasn’t any question, for we were just entered at St. Mary’s as a matter of course, although my father at this time was a member of the public school board and continued to be for many years. It must have been an unusual sight to see three of us marching off to mass on Sunday with our collection envelopes tightly grasped in our hands and the rest of the brood off to the Episcopal Sunday school.

From the time of his marriage to my mother, my father’s attendance at Masonic meetings ceased. The subject of religion was never discussed but the weight of example was getting in its powerful influence. It was always a matter of astonishment that we children never had to be coerced into going to mass. My father would exclaim: “Why those children like to go to mass!” He must have been very much impressed with our Catholic school training for I distinctly remember him saying: “If I had my family to educate again I would send them all to a Catholic school; it is the only place they learn obedience or respect, and as to the arithmetic and all the rest of it, I can’t see that they don’t do as well as the other children.” Quite an admission for one who had never up to the age of twenty-three ever spoken to a Catholic and to whom the sight of a priest meant bad luck for the rest of the day.

In county politics he never met defeat. His opponents were known to say that the devil himself couldn’t beat George Crocker for while he was inside treating the boys his wife was outside holding the horse and saying “Hail Marys.”

Among my father’s cherished possessions books, I believe would take first place. Always reading and studying! At one time he was known for having the finest collection of books in Macomb County. I never remember our living room without a Myers General History, Spaulding’s Church History, Josephus, and a small soft covered, thin leafed copy of The Bible. Far into the night he read, first one side of the question then the other. The Catholic Encyclopedia, the Britannica, the Question Box, Faith of Our Fathers, the Ave Maria, Extension, Truth and even the Michigan Catholic came in for its share of notice.

George Crocker passed away in his home at 116 New Street at the age of 69 on January 4, 1918. His death record states that he died from cardiovascular disease contributed from a form of kidney disease then known as Bright’s Disease.