Obituary

Mrs. Sarah Bertelson

article dated  1934

   Sarah Ann Crosby was born in New York state Dec. 20 1855, and while a little girl her family moved to Allegan, Michigan, where they lived while the father served in the Civil War. Right after the war, they came to Manistee county and took up as a homestead the farm in Onekama township that is now owned by Henry W. Scheppelmann. There Miss Sarah grew to young womanhood and at the age of 15 she became a teacher, teaching first in the Lake school south of Portage Lake and later in the home district, Onekama No. 2. 

    April 5, 1879, she became the bride of Niels C. Bertelson in the famous triple wedding at the Joshua Bradford home where Mr. and Mrs. Adelbert Chapin, Mr. and Mrs. Howe Bradford, and Mr. and Mrs. Bertelsen pledged their marriage vows. The Bertelsons first lived at Old Portage but soon later settled on the farm in Onekama township that was for so many years their home that the whole community became known as the Bertelson district.  

     Thirty-one years ago they moved to the Dodd farm in Bear Lake township where they built a new home and ten years later moved into the village of Bear Lake which has since been their home until just a few months ago they went to live with their daughter in Detroit.

     Mrs. Bertelson was one of the earliest members of the Bear Lake Methodist church, joining in June 29, 1890, when Rev. P.E. Whitman was pastor, and she and her husband have ever since been its very staunchest supporters. 

    The Bertelson home was blessed with ten children, of whom three daughters died in infancy and one son Alva passed away seven years ago. Besides their own children Mr. and Mrs. Bertelson welcomed to their home a foster daughter whom they raised from babyhood, and for many years made a home for a motherless granddaughter. 

    Besides her husband those surviving her are two sons, William and Prentiss of Detroit; five daughters, Mrs. Bert Elford of Detroit, Mrs. J. E. Olson of Bear Lake, Mrs. Frank Weiman of Detroit, Miss Blanche Bertelson of Baltimore, and Mrs . Milton Brown of Detroit; ten grandchildren and two great grandchildren. 

   Funeral services were held at the Methodist church Wednesday afternoon with Rev. Weidenhammer officiating, and the body was laid to rest in the Crosby-Bertelson family lot at the Onekama Township Cemetery with Mayflower Chapter of the Eastern Star in charge of service at the grave.