THE STORY OF SOLOMON LITT (1889-1977)

(Son of John Fredrick Litt, Sr and Elizabeth Gruber)

Last Revised: 1/30/00

Solomon Litt was born on May 2, 1889, the youngest in a family of 13 children. His second oldest brother, John Jr., died in 1896, so Solomon never had a chance to know him. However, Solomon grew up with his siblings on the family farm that was acquired by his father, John Litt, Sr. While his other brothers and sisters had been born in West Canada, Solomon and his sister, Sarah, were born and raised in the original log cabin structure that his dad had built, when he first permanently settled in Michigan during the 1880s.

The Litt log cabin home was of simple design. The lower floor was basically two rooms, with the kitchen being the main family living space. There was an upper loft for the kids to sleep, with pull down stairs for them to climb. There was no electricity, no running water and no indoor plumbing. Chamber pots and an outhouse were used. Water was pumped from a well and carried inside. It had to be heated for bathing and washing clothes. While schooling was available, Solomon never attended. As a result, he was basically illiterate, unable to read or write much more than his name.

At around age 17, Solomon met his beau, Irene Mary (Becher) Beecher, who was working at the Cass City Hotel. There were no automobiles in the area, so he courted her in a horse and buggy. Irene was only 16 years old. (However, she is listed as 18 on the marriage certificate.) They were married on November 4, 1907 in Argyle. Solomon converted to the Catholic religion to marry Irene. It is unconfirmed whether they were actually married in one of the two Catholic churches in Argyle or if they were married at home. However, Reverend A. J. Coms, a Catholic Priest, officiated. Local friends, Stanley Foote and Pearl Holstein acted as their witnesses.

Though Solomon was able to buy his new bride a modest gold ring, he had only fifty cents in his pocket the day he got married!

After his wedding, Solomon brought his new bride to live with him and his parents in the original homestead farmhouse. Two years later, in 1909, when Sol was around 20 years old, his father died. Solomon continued to primarily work the farm with his oldest sibling, Joseph, and his wife, Irene.

In that same year, 1909, in the log cabin and with only the aid of a midwife, Solomon's wife gave birth to a daughter, Pearl Agnes. A son was born the following year, but he was stillborn. In 1912, Irene again gave birth to a second daughter, named Beatrice Sarah, who was described as a "blue baby", because she did not breathe immediately. They thought they were going to lose her, but with the help of a good midwife, she survived. In 1915, Irene had another difficult birth. Though the baby girl, Wilma, initially lived, it only survived for a few months after birth. These children were the last people to be actually born in the old log homestead.

Although he was the youngest son, Solomon ended up assuming the responsibility of the family farm after his father died in 1909. Farming was hard work. Solomon had no machinery. When tilling the soil, horses were used to pull the plow. Solomon walked behind the plow to guide it. He raised a few milking cows, a pig, and some chickens and grew basic crops: corn, beans, hay, and vegetables to feed his family. These had to be harvested each year by hand. Irene shared in the work, rising early each day to go into the fields to milk the cows, feed the chickens and collect the eggs to sell. These extra chores were added to her already full day of washing, baking and tending to children. She baked homemade bread and pies, churned her own butter, canned, and sewed the children's clothing. She used to salt pack eggs and wrap apples so they would be preserved to eat and sell in the winter.

The dreariness and hard work of farm life was sometimes broken by the sound of the wagon wheels belonging to the "Shanty Man", a traveling salesman, often of Jewish descent. The hoofs of his horse could be heard from a long distance, as his wagon clambered up the dusty road, heavily laden and swaying with everything from clothing to pots and pans and medicine. Sometimes the peddler would stay overnight, giving Irene yet another mouth to feed.

Also after his dad died, Solomon's mother, Elizabeth, often went and stayed with her oldest son, Joseph, who lived in a building that once was also a dry goods store, just a half of mile or so up the road in a hamlet, called Hamburg, where a grist mill and blacksmith shop once operated. Elizabeth was staying with Joseph, when she died in 1916. In her will, Elizabeth divided her property equally between all the children, allotting each one $99.28.

By this time, Irene had tired of the hard farm work. She had recently developed a lump in her breast that grew quite large. The doctor all but gave up on curing her. However, he did come up with some sort of medicinal compote that he applied and she eventually recovered. Shortly after, Irene's mother (who lived with her dad at 103 Sydney Street in Bay City) passed away. It was at this time, that she decided she had enough of farm life. She became determined to move to Bay City "with or without" Solomon. Solomon was not about to let his wife leave him.

But the farm had to be sold first. Though Solomon worked the farm, it legally belonged to all his siblings. So after selling the property and dividing the profits between himself and his brothers and sisters, Sol was left with only about $100 to start his new life in town. But there was no turning back. Off to Bay City they went.

When they first got to town, Sol and Irene rented a house in the 700 block of South Henry Street. But the Litts still had no electricity, no indoor plumbing, and no toilet. But this was the only home they could afford. Instead these utilities were shared with the landlord, who lived next door. Irene's widowed father (though there is rumor he remarried, but the woman left him after only a short time), Peter Becher, moved in with the Litts at this time. He would continue to live with their family until he died in 1946. Peter still had one child at home, his daughter Margaret, who was only about six years old when his wife died. She came under Irene's care.

The United States was preparing for World War I, so the economy was holding steady and jobs were available. Solomon found work at the cement plant, which was only one block away. In the summer, he made cement blocks for foundations. In the winter, he worked machinery. This was his day job. At night, he also went to the shipyard down by the river to work. He worked long hours, and the pay was painfully low.

In 1917, Irene gave birth to a fifth baby, Ruth Mary.

In 1919, the family had accumulated enough money to buy their first house in town, relocating just one block, to 600 S. Henry Street. The house cost $2,500. It was a two-story white house, located on a corner lot. The Litts now had electricity, but they still had no indoor plumbing. The city of Bay City eventually required in-town homes to put in plumbing for health reasons, forcing Solomon to finally spend the money for this improvement. It was at this Henry Street address, that his last child, a daughter, Patricia Fidelis, was born in 1922.

Solomon also purchased his very first automobile in 1922. It was a Chrysler Overland Touring Vehicle. It was black and had a vinyl roof. He paid $500 cash for it brand new. He would only drive it during the summer months. In the winter, he would take the tires off, put it up on blocks, and securely cover it. He was very proud of this possession and was known to take impeccable care of his vehicles.

Solomon continued to work at the cement plant until he contracted pneumonia in 1929. It was the dead of winter, so he requested permission to work inside, but his boss denied him this request, so he was forced to walk sick off the job. The boss let him go. This was unfortunate, since he had worked for the cement plant for 13 years and was known to be a good and reliable worker. But within a week, Solomon was able to secure a better job as a machinist at the Bay City Shovels, a company who manufactured bulldozers and tractors.

But life wasn't all roses for the Litts. Solomon got in with a crowd of guys from their church, Holy Trinity, and started to drink too much. There were even rumors of a possible involvement with a woman. Irene, being a strong woman, got fed up and left him, without taking the children. She went to stay with her brother, Bill Beecher, at his home in Flint. Solomon followed her, begged her forgiveness, and convinced her to return home with him, which she did.

After World War I , the country's economy began to slow down. Agricultural prices in the U.S. plummeted as Europe was once again able to return to normalcy. There was no longer any need for the big governmental contracts for war products. So after the stock market panic in 1929, Solomon foresaw that he was going to be laid off from his job at the shovel company. Jobs were quickly getting scarce, but when he found himself out of work, he quickly found new employment in Flint working for Chevrolet (later to become General Motors). Flint was quickly becoming a major center for the manufacturing of automobiles. It was also quite a distance south of Bay City. Because of long work hours and the travel distance, it was tough for Solomon to return home each night, so he stayed over in the Flint area during the work week. He disliked being away from his family, so he decided to quit this job after only having it a short time. Until economic times improved, he thought it would be best to move his family out of Bay City and return to the life he grew up with...the life of farming. So in 1931, he traded his house on Henry Street for a rural property on Worth Road, near the small town of Standish. The deed shows that he paid "$1.00 and other valuable considerations".

The Standish property, which Sol called "Worth Farm", consisted of 80 acres, a house, barn and chicken coop. Solomon also cashed in his life insurance policy for $100, in order to buy a couple of old horses, a cow and enough beans to plant. But he refused to give up his automobile, which was paid for in full.

At Worth Farm, Solomon found good neighbors, who helped him with his work at harvest time and loaned him a wagon to use, when he needed it. America was sliding into the Great Depression. Times were hard...and money was scarce.

It was also prohibition...

Sol's sister, Sarah, and her husband, Felix Shagena, discovered that despite the dry laws, there was still a big demand for alcohol. Making and selling whiskey could be a profitable business, supplementing their meager income. She convinced her brother that he too could make some extra cash, so they entered into a joint business bootlegging whiskey! Luckily, neither Solomon nor his sister were ever caught by the authorities for this illicit behavior. Solomon, himself, also had a knack for making good homemade beer and wine. His customers often came right to the farmhouse to buy his product.

The house on Worth Farm was far better than the log cabin at the old Litt homestead. It was a classic farm house made from solid wood. Though it was wired for electricity, there still was no interior plumbing. The old fashioned outhouse could be seen in the back yard. There was a well and pump for water and the Saginaw Creek ran adjacent to the property line. While Pearl had moved to Utica, New York and married, the remaining two oldest girls were big enough to help with the farm chores. Beatrice was too fair skinned to send into the fields, so she did the housework. Since Patricia was still a little girl, she also attended classes at the one-room school house about 1 mile east of the house. While still living on the farm, Ruth married Joseph LeVasseur and moved back to Bay City.

During the depression years, Worth Farm often became a hostel to Irene's single brothers, who would come and stay between jobs or when work was not available in the towns and factories.

The Litt family would remain living modestly on the farm, until the depression began to lift in the early 1940's and Solomon could get his old job back in Bay City.

Just before the U.S. involvement in World War II, when the economy was beginning to take a giant shift upward, Solomon sold the farm and returned what was left of his family to Bay City. By now, his three oldest children were married and settled into homes of their own. With the war raging in Europe, the factories were bustling. Government contracts were once again plentiful and Solomon went back to his old job at the Bay City Shovels.

Now with her children almost all grown, Irene decided to become an entrepreneur. She decided to buy and operate the Rex Bar, located on Henry Street at the N.E. intersection of Mosher (an odd choice of profession for a woman who never drank!). Solomon helped her at the pub on weekends. However, it wasn't long before he once again started to drink too much. Irene finally gave up on the business and sold it. In March of 1944, Solomon and Irene reinvested the proceeds from the sale of the business into a house at 905 N. Henry Street...which cost a whopping $1,500 (though the warranty deed only shows the sales price as $1.00).

The house at 905 N Henry Street, was a modest one story wood frame home, with two bedrooms, one bath, and a basement, totaling about 1,200 square feet. An open porch spanned the front of the house, where they could sit on warm days and watch the traffic pass and see their neighbors walk by. Over the years, Henry Street has become a major thoroughfare, busy with automobile traffic. Sol set up the basement space with an area for Irene to wash clothes, cook and can in the summer, and a bedroom for his father-in-law, Peter Becher. The house was originally heated by coal, which was delivered to the house and poured into a basement room through a window. Sol would have to shovel the coal into the furnace to keep the house warm. Over the years, the Litts converted the house from coal heat to electricity, and remodeled the kitchen and bath. They added new windows and kept the exterior freshly painted white. Irene planted flowers in the spring. In the warm months, she could be seen hanging her laundry out to dry, strung on lines in the back yard. 905 N. Henry Street would be Sol and Irene's last address.

Solomon retired from the Bay City Shovels in 1954, when he was 65 years old. Within a few years, the company went out of business and he lost his pension, forcing him to live on only his Social Security benefits and the little bit of money he and Irene had saved.

1954 also marked Sol and Irene's 50th Wedding Anniversary. They renewed their vows at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Caro. Their twin grandsons, Ronnie and Donnie Dillon, acted as altar boys. The ceremony was followed by a reception at the house of their daughter and her husband, Patricia and Steve Matuszak.

In 1954, Sol and Irene once again assumed a parental role, when their daughter, Beatrice, became an unexpected widow and mother at the same time. Three years after giving birth, Beatrice and her daughter moved in with her parents on Henry Street and would live with them until she remarried in 1967.

The house on Henry Street was built next to a mine shaft that had once been excavated for coal. The abandoned mine left a depression in the earth that formed a small hill. Solomon would spray the hill with water in the winter, icing it, so his granddaughter and the neighbor children could ride their toboggans down it. In those days, the railroad also had tracks that ran about two blocks northwest of the house, so the sound of the trains could be heard as they passed through town.

Around 1956, the Litt's acquired the retired person's dream...they bought a small, two bedroom house on 1/2 acre of land at 152nd Street, near N.E. 2nd Avenue, in North Miami Beach, Florida. Now, like snowbirds, they had a place where they could escape the Michigan winters. Every fall, they would pack up the care and drive down to their Florida home. Their property line was adjacent to an acre of land owned and lived on by their daughter, Pearl. Their lot was large enough so that Solomon could be kept busy during the winter months working in the yard. There were orange and grapefruit trees, finger bananas, coconut trees, and a wide variety of foliage for him to tend to, which included a variety of roses. He even bought himself a riding lawn mower, which he enjoyed using. They kept this Florida home, until 1965, when the drive back and forth was becoming difficult.

While living in Florida, several family members would visit them there: Edward (Junior) Dillon, DeRussell (Sonny) Dillon, Verna and Lawrence Beecher, Edward Dillon, Sr. and his twin sons Ronald and Donald, Ruth and Paul Epstein.

Always a farmer at heart, Solomon's best loved hobby was the garden he planted on an unused piece of land next to his house in Bay City. He and Irene planted everything: rhubarb, raspberries, strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes, scallions, radishes, squash, carrots, celery, and beets. Irene would turn the berries into wonderful pies and can the vegetables for later use. Sol faithfully planted his garden every year, until the property was sold and developed into a gas station, making the land no longer available for his use. He was quite sad to lose his garden.

Solomon also loved his automobiles. He was brand specific and only purchased Chrysler products. He always paid cash. They were his pride and joy. He would dust his vehicle before taking it out of the garage and dust it again before putting it back. He changed the oil every 3,000 miles faithfully and never ran the gas tank below a quarter of a tank. His cars were never parked overnight in the driveway, instead always carefully tucked into the garage. He never owned a car with a radio, "too much racket", and they could only have a manual transmission. Sol bought his last vehicle, a blue Dodge Dart, in 1967. When he passed away ten years later, the body on it looked brand new. His granddaughter, Connie Matuszak-Enos, took over its ownership and drove it for several more years.

Solomon was also known for his impeccable personal care and hygiene. He shaved and exercised daily, always washed and changed into a clean shirt before dinner (he wore a 15 inch collar), and never left the house without wearing a brimmed hat. He loved to smoke cigars and a pipe, and was rarely seen without one or the other. He was a creature of habit, rising at the same hour daily (5:00am) and preferring his meals at the same time. In the winter, should it snow overnight, he could be seen out before dawn shoveling his sidewalk for people walking to school or work. He was uncomfortable eating in a restaurant, preferring home cooked meals, and wasn't much on traveling other than to Florida once a year or to visit relatives that lived out of town. His was a simple life. He never traveled by anything mechanical other than automobile. On occasion, family would come to visit them at the house and he would enjoy playing Pedro, a favorite family card game. He would also help Irene host large dinners, inviting lots of family. Sol particularly loved his color TV...enjoying western shows, Saturday wrestling and the Lawrence Welk Champagne Hour. He was a talented handyman, who could fix anything, including small appliances. Every Sunday, he and Irene would attend the 6:00 AM Mass at Visitation Church, often arriving 45 minutes early (so as not to be late!). Solomon was quiet, a man of few words. Throughout his life, he maintained his old-fashioned beliefs and way of thinking, which could make him appear stubborn and opinionated on occasion. Most important, he had a strong faith in God.

On October 30, 1977, at age 88, Solomon was outside by the house, watching his great-grandchildren clean the rain gutters, when he collapsed and died...just 5 days shy of his 70th wedding anniversary to Irene. At his funeral, his oldest grandsons acted as pallbearers: Edward "Junior" Dillon, Theodore "Mart" Hoefler, Victor Matuszak, Robert "Jim" LeVasseur, Ronald Dillon, and Donald Dillon.

A long, active life, Solomon could be added among the early Michiganders who toiled the land and worked in the factories to obtain for himself and his family a small piece of the American Dream.

Solomon Litt lived over 40 years on Henry Street in Bay City; he died in the front yard of his house at 905 N. Henry Street; and he is buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery on Henry Street.

LEGAL DESCRIPTION OF 905 N. HENRY STREET:

50 ft. N & S by 100 ft E & W bounded E by Henry St & S

by a line parallel to Ann St if extended & 100 ft N there from.

Section 17, Township 14N, Range 5E

Taxes $6.96/county property tax