Clarence Bessey married his first wife Laura in 1906 when he was 27 years old. She was a local woman who was 17, ten years his junior. Laura’s mother had passed away when she was just 12 years old, and she was living with her father and her siblings in Ionia. I am not sure where the story came from that she was a “high flying socialite”. Perhaps she just didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife. In any case, Clarence and Laura divorced five years later. She then moved to Grand Rapids and worked various jobs. Her brother lived in Grand Rapids and was an engineer with the railroad. One of her sisters died in 1912 at the age of 19, one sister got married and moved to Lansing, and another sister got married and moved to Grand Rapids. Laura remarried many years later in 1926 at age 37. Her second husband was a man from Detroit who was originally from Ionia. He was two years her junior so perhaps they knew each other years ago in school. They did not have any children. By 1926 Clarence was remarried to Ethel and they were expecting their fourth child (Dorothy).
Murell’s memory of EMF was a little off. The E-M-F Company was an early American automobile manufacturer that produced automobiles from 1909 to 1912. The name E-M-F was gleaned from the initials of the three company founders: Barney Everitt , William Metzger, and Walter Flanders.
In every census record Hugh Galloway is listed as being a farmer. If he had a delivery business, it must have been a side business, perhaps short lived.
Ancestors Across the Ages 