Throw Back Thursday

John Sowle

     This is my Great Grandpa John Sowle.  I can't trace my family history any further back with him as he came to Ithaca, Michigan on an Orphan Train from New York City.  That is all that he knew and when he reached St. Johns, Michigan, a farm family plucked him off the train.  In his early teens he ran away from the Sowle farm as he was basically an unpaid laborer more than an adopted son.  For a while he worked in a livery stable and slept in one of the horse stalls, but that ended abruptly.  The undertaking had a shop above and one night a body fell down the oat shoot into the stable below.  He left.

Sowle Farmstead

     He eventually made it to Ithaca and set up in farming and married Viola and they had my Great Aunt Mable.  Viola  died young and he then married Pearl and my Grandpa Leland Sowle was born.