Before I started this blog, years before, I had already taken note of this stamp, on Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Michigan (the 300 block). It stands out for its old fashioned style and for the nicely styled arch. When I first saw it, I thought it said 1908 and was pleased to find one so old. I talked to my mother about it, and she looked up some information on Ancestry.com as she was a member there.

I had forgotten all about that since starting the blog, and when all the staring at the sidewalk brought it back to my attention several times the last few weeks I could no longer read it. Once again I thought I saw 1908, and once again got excited. But several times running I took photos of it and decided I just could not read the contractor’s name, so I put it aside.

Tonight I took my walk just at sunset, and the way the long shadows fell suddenly made the stamp legible. Sometimes evening shade works in my favor that way. That’s when I remembered, oh yes, B.F. Churchill! Didn’t I decide that it could not, after all, say 1908?

Searching my email found the old correspondence with my mother and, yes, that’s what I deduced then. B.F. Churchill (according to my mom’s research, his name was Byron) appeared in the advertisements for the 1916 Michigan Agricultural College (today’s MSU) yearbook as “College Drayman” and Mom found him in a 1916 Lansing city directory listed as “Proprietor, East Lansing Dray Line,” residence 138 Michigan Avenue, East Lansing. (There are no numbers that low on Michigan Avenue in East Lansing anymore as they seem to start in the 200 block, so I am not sure where that would have been. Perhaps near Mary Mayo hall?) By 1928 he was married and now worked for Reniger Construction. His residence at that time was 1623 Lyons Avenue, which is a cute house in the Baker-Donora neighborhood (built in 1908) that currently looks like it needs some TLC. In 1934 he appears in the directory with an unspecified address on Whipple Court and an occupation of “cement finisher.” I was puzzled by my inability to find Whipple Court on a map but found a site giving name changes of Lansing streets which advised me that Whipple Court was changed around 1940 to Alger. The houses on Alger mostly look too young to have been there in 1934.

From mom’s research, I had previously concluded that I must be misreading the date. I come to the same conclusion again, sadly, and suspect that the zero I’m seeing there is most likely a 3. I tentatively give this one a date of May 1938. (I wouldn’t rule out 1939, either.)

I have also found his death notice in the Lansing State Journal. He lived in Bath in his later years and died in 1964 at the age of 86. He is described as “a retired cement contractor.” It says he had lived in Clinton County for 35 years, which is puzzlingly inconsistent with his appearing in the Lansing city directory on Whipple in 1934. He is buried at Mount Rest Cemetery in St. Johns.

Update 9/30/20: I’ve becoming increasingly sure that it is, after all, 1908. I’m not sure how that makes sense of his history but that is really what my eyes see in it.