Ancestors

Gordon Day Payne

Gordon Day Payne was born on 17 October 1905 in Michigan. His parents were Thomas G. Payne and Nellie Almetta Makley, who had taken out their marriage licence at Mason, Michigan, in 1892. In 1910 he was four, living with them in Redding Township, Clare County, with his older brother Albert and a sister, Clara.

Clare County sits in the middle of Michigan's lower peninsula. Lumbermen had cut its white pine forests in the late 1800s, and by Gordon's childhood it was a country of stump farms, small towns and second growth timber.

About 1927 he married Mabel Schultz, a girl born in Oklahoma about 1911. Their daughter Nellie Clare was born about 1928. Gerald Thomas was born at Saginaw on 23 November 1929. John G. followed about 1932, and Dale Eugene was born at Saginaw on 18 February 1935.

By 1937 the family had moved back north to Frost Township in Clare County. Their son Lawrence James was born on 1 February 1937. That July they lost Dale. He died in Frost Township on 26 July 1937, aged two, and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery there.

In April 1940 the Paynes were renting a house in Frost Township. Gordon was 34. He had gone through the sixth grade. He was not in a regular job but was assigned to public emergency work, the relief jobs the government created during the Depression, and worked as a laborer on road construction. He had worked 40 weeks in 1939 and earned $400. Mabel, 29, kept house. Nellie was 12, Gerald 10, John 8, Lawrence 3 and the baby Leon 1.

The marriage did not last. In April 1950 Gordon was 44 and separated, still in Frost Township, with John, 17, Lawrence, 13, and Leon, 11. His trade was cutting logs in the lumber business, and that week he was looking for work. Mabel later married Luther Albrecht of Saginaw, called Bill.

Gordon married again. His second wife was Helen Budd, born in 1929. They had two sons, Francis G., who was born in 1955 and died in 1956, and Randy L., who was born in 1957 and died in 1968. Helen died in 1965.

Gordon Day Payne died at Harrison, the seat of Clare County, on 27 January 1982, aged 76. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Frost Township, with Dale.

If Gordon Day Payne is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Gordon Day Payne (1905-1982)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/gordon-day-payne-1905-1982-404c38.