Anne (Howlett) Potts treasures family memories, growing up in Gregory

Anne (Howlett) Potts enjoys reminiscing about her 80 years in Gregory, Mich. Photo Credit: Mary Jo David.

Another in SCN’s “Tales from our 50-Year Residents”

As told to Mary Jo David

Visit with “hometown girl” Anne (Howlett) Potts, and you can’t help but yearn for the days when Gregory was a budding metropolis with three grocery stores and two soda fountains. And although it was a busy town, it was a place where everyone knew one another and if you were a Howlett, you were surrounded by family.

Along with her parents, Tom and LeAnna, Anne grew up with her older brother Henry (now deceased), her sister Christine (“Tinnie”), and her younger brother Joe. Until she was 16, she and her family lived on Stockbridge Street surrounded by great-aunts and a grandma who was just a couple of streets away. Anne remembers that Stockbridge Street was called “Kid Street” because of so many children living on that stretch of road. As a teenager, she moved to the family home on Unadilla Road, the same house that Anne and her husband, Jack Potts now call “home.”

Anne is 80 years young and loves to reminisce about growing up in Gregory. One of her fondest memories is walking to school each day with Tinnie and stopping at their grandmother’s house on Webb Street, where Grandma Howlett would braid their hair before school. (At that time, Gregory School—later renamed Howlett Elementary—only had three classrooms.)

Family means the world to Anne. Growing up with two brothers who were diagnosed with cerebral palsy has provided her with different life experiences than many and an appreciation for good health. Anne and Tinnie are devoted to their younger brother, Joe, and regularly join him to visit and assist with his meals.

Anne also has developed a great appreciation for family history, and Howlett history is chock-full of teachers, including Anne, her husband Jack, their son Sam, Anne’s parents, an uncle, four first cousins—and the list goes on—all the way back to her great-grandmother Charlotte Leeke Howlett, who taught in the 1860s. Recently, Anne was given a very special memento—an antique school slate that was used by her great-grandmother in the classroom. Anne’s sense of wonderment and appreciation was palpable as she showed off the slate—and even more so when she held up the small piece of chalk that had survived more than 150 years.

Many in the area have heard the tragic story about Anne’s grandfather Henry Howlett, a state legislator, who was killed in a fire in the Kern Hotel in Lansing back in 1934. What people may not know is that Henry entered politics later in life, and, in addition to running Howlett Brothers Hardware in downtown Gregory, Henry also spent time as a farmer and—you guessed it—as a teacher.

Anne likes to recall another daily family ritual she and Tinnie treasured as young girls—this one involved their dad, Tom Howlett, who, along with his brother Dan, became the next generation of Howlett Brothers to run the hardware store on Main Street.

“Each day, when it was time for Pa to close the store, we’d walk downtown and meet him to walk back home, hand-in-hand.” And although she was the older of the two sisters, she still remembers, “I loved those moments, but I could never keep up with Tinnie and Pa.”

If you’re conjuring up episodes of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry, you’re not far off, and the comparisons don’t end there.

“Back when we were kids, the Gregory operator would connect callers,” Anne explained. From “downtown Gregory” It wasn’t unusual for the operator to respond to a connection request with, “I could connect you, but why bother? She’s out; I just saw her walk by.”

Other fun memories Anne recounts from growing up in Gregory:

• Making hollyhock dolls (It’s a thing…Google it!).
• Mayday celebrations that included leaving anonymous wildflower arrangements on neighbors’ doorknobs.
• Hours and hours spent in the playhouse with Tinnie at their Aunt Bess’
• Sunday school and participating in the church social group as she got older.
• Town Hall dances and box socials where young ladies would make up box lunches, place them in decorated boxes, and auction them off.
• Anne’s Pa leaving the keys in the truck parked in front of the hardware store on Main Street, just in case anyone needed to borrow it.
• The story, handed down through generations, about Anne’s great-great-grandfather attending a Unadilla Social and passing a note to his sweetheart asking “Will you have me?” His sweetheart responded “Yes” to the note, and the rest is Howlett history.
• The day Jack Potts said to Anne, “Let’s get married!” while they were sitting in the kitchen of her parent’s home on Unadilla Road. (Spontaneous proposals seem to run in the family.)

Anne also relayed a delightful story that harkened back to her own days as a teacher. Beginning as an elementary school teacher in Howell, Anne took 15 years away from teaching to spend time raising her own children: Jack, Nathan, Sam, and Laura. When she returned to teaching, this time in Stockbridge, she had the opportunity to educate her elementary students about the different presidents of the United States.

One day, she explained to her students about Abraham Lincoln being assassinated. She also told the students that she’d had the honor of shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy, another of our presidents who, like President Lincoln, was assassinated. Upon meeting the mother of one of her students some time later, the mother commented, with a smile, that Mrs. Potts appeared much younger than her years. Apparently after the lesson on the presidents, the woman’s son had gone home and told his mom that Mrs. Potts had shaken hands with Abraham Lincoln!

Is it any wonder that Anne Potts has so many memories of life in bygone days in Gregory?

Left: Circa 1860s antique slate and chalk used by Anne Potts’ great-grandmother, teacher Charlotte Leeke Howlett. Photo Credit: Mary Jo David. Center (l-r): Anne Howlett and younger sister, Christine (“Tinnie”) Howlett. Photo provided by Anne Potts. Right: Anne Howlett (far right) and her sister Tinnie (left), join their mother, LeAnna Howlett (second left), to visit Grandma Christine Howlett (second right). Photo provided by Anne Potts.