Scope and ContentNote: The hard-working immigrant and the industrious Wallin family made a hard-to-beat team in the early days. Harkening back, Van A. Wallin, in a family memoir entitled The Wallin Family which was published in 1930, tells the story of a time when the family was repaid for their kindnesses to immigrant farmers and laborers. --- Where there was no pine the settler, clearing the land with no tools but file saw and axe, got very little income from his timber except that which he leeched from file sage of hemlock bark. The tannery often supplied the only cash possible for the pioneer. In many cases this opportunity to turn the product of his land and his labor into money saved the day for the struggling newcomer, paid his taxes, bought his groceries. The settlers appreciated the help that came from the tannery. Illustrating this is an experience of my own. It occurred years ago in the early days of the automobile. I was driving a red, "one lung" Cadillac, the single cylinder engine under the seat, the entrance to the tonneau in the rear. Not often did we take chances and drive far away from town and pavements, but on occasions we would put in a day driving forty miles [from Jenison, near Grand Rapids] to the cottage which we owned on the Lake Shore at Douglas, As I neared Saugatuck, about two miles from the old tannery site, I found that something had gone wrong with the gear shift. The car thumped along all right on high, but I could not throw out into low. I knew that a short distance ahead was a hill which I could not negotiate in high. Obviously the only solution of the difficulty was to stop at the farmhouse nearest the bottom of the hill, get out a team and tow to the top. Once over the hill I knew I could get through to the cottage, as it was level or down grade all the way. So I pulled up near the foot of the hill, at a neat looking farmhouse. A large barn was in the rear. I could hear voices back of the barn and knew the men were in from the fields, getting ready to do the evening chores. So with considerable confidence I went to the back of the house and stated my errand to the elderly Holland woman who came to the door. Immediately I perceived that I was all wet. I had no welcome at all. This farmer's wife wasn't in favor of automobiles. They scared the horses; they crowded the teams off the road; they made dust and noise; they were just a large nuisance; a menace to the countryside. Absolutely any man who drove one of these "Red Devils" could get no sympathy from her nor her family, and besides: "My man, he is in town anyway; mit de team." Well, this was a serious proposition, night was coming on and there was no automobile service nearer than Grand Rapids, thirty-five miles away. I must convert the good woman. I asked how long she had lived on that farm and learned she had been there about thirty years. There was my opportunity, she had come in Dingleville days. I asked if the land was cleared when she came and she said, "No, it was all woods." "I suppose hemlock and hardwood?" "Beech and maple and hemlock, hemlock the most." "Burned the logs, I guess?" "Ja, just safed the stovewood for the kitchen, that's all, all the rest burnt up." "Didn't burn the bark?" "Oh no, saved de bark; ve sold de bark." "Yes, sold the barn and where did you sell it?" "By Wallin's tannery," "Well, my name is Wallin, you sold that bark to my Father, F. B. Wallin." A change came over her countenance like a flash. All antagonism vanished. Eager interest was evident as she exclaimed, "Be you boy from Wallin?" She ran toward the barn and called to her son (her husband was away), "John, get de team, here is a boy from Wallin, get de team, he got to haff his automobile pulled de hill up," and John got the team and pulled us the hill up. Before dark we were at the cottage at Douglas.