Scope and ContentBiography of a Boy by Florence (Shiver) Shriven [About 1925 Florence (Shiver) Shriven undertook to write a biography of her son for his 16th birthday. She wrote it was in order to make amends for not keeping a baby book. She was the wife of Will J. Shriven, a son of Henry Shriven who built the white house near the road at what is now Ox-Bow. An identical house, built by Henry's brother, Charles, was later expanded to become the Riverside Inn, now Ox-Bow Inn. The recipient of the letter was the couple's son, William George Shriven, born in 1909 in Saugatuck.] Sixteen years old! You will soon be a man; and a good one, I am sure. Sixteen years ago on May fifteenth in the big corner bedroom at Ashton I saw you for the first time. As your father lay you in my arms he smiled at us both and said: "I'm so proud of him, Florence. He has the chest of a prize fighter and see how straight and strong he is." "I'm glad of that," said I, "but what I want most is that he grow up to be a good, noble man like his father." As you see our first wish for you was not for riches, fame or power, but just to be good and noble. The strong fine-shaped little body of which your father was so proud was not made in the nine months in which you had been near my heart, but in several generations of clean, right living and was given to you by not only your father and mother, but your grandfathers and grandmothers as well. Isn't that a wonderful heritage for any boy, and I am sure you too will give your little boys and girls, when that time comes, the same chance. When you were six weeks old we went down to the old homestead where your father and Hope were both born and all that summer you slept and crowed and grew down among the crabapple trees and ripening grapes. [This would have been the old Shriven home near the Ox-Bow Road, later owned by Alice Bogart and acquired on her death by the Ox-Bow art school. The building has had hard service the last few years as a painting studio, but an Ox-Bow official said there are plans to restore the it for use as an once and visitor center.] That was a dear old place, William, and one you too would have loved could you remember it as it was then, but the last time I saw it it made my heart ache with its rundown decayed look. In the autumn we moved up town just in front of Grandma's and many little tracks your feet made in a day between the two houses. Even before you could walk one day when I left you on the grass in the front yard while I ran in to attend to the dinner, you crept over there, across the dusty street, in your little white dress and white shoes and stockings. Grandma never forgot that and always said that your first voluntary visit was to her. ]The elder Shrivers moved into Saugatuck Village about 1907. Their home, called Ashton, located at 346 Mary Street, still stands. It has been recently refurbished but the square tower is intact. Applecrest, the house across the street occupied by Will and Florence and their family, has been destroyed.] When you were eighteen months old you had your first journey of any note. You and Hope and I went down to Arkansas to see Grandma Lou and Grandpa Walter. You were wonderful in traveling and so patient for such a little fellow. I remember Hope was then about eight years old and she had been warned bout kidnappers so she watched you pretty closely on that trip. There you grew acquainted with your other grandfather and Grandmother and aunts and uncles tho' you were too young to remember them. As Florence noted earlier William 's f other, usually known as Will, was a Michigan native, born in the old Henry Shriven house near the lagoon. William's mother, Florence Shiver, was a native of Hope, Arkansas, a town more recently in the news as the hometown of William J Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States. When you grow up and are making a great deal of money I hope that you can go there again for there is where mother was born, where she went to school, where she romped like a tomboy through the sleepy fields and woods after persimmons, nuts and berries. You would find Hope a sleepy little town and it will seem odd to you after Chicago's busy whirl, but you will like it for a little while tho' Grandpa isn't these any more to spoil you. ]The Shiver family of Hope, Arkansas, was related to the Shriven family of Michigan. The Arkansas end of the family lost the "r" in the name during the Civil War service of one of its members, when the name was misspelled on a military record and it was easier to go along with the error, than take the steps to correct it. Florence met Will during a visit to Michigan to visit relatives.] When you were four years old your father had found the fishing unprofitable and had gone into the inspection work with the Globe Indemnity Co. and the following spring, 1914, we moved away from Saugatuck to Grand Rapids and in that same year you started to kindergarten. How well I remember that morning. Jennie, a girl who used to live with Grandma and was staying with me for a few days, took you to school for the first time. Things went quite well that morning until the teacher told you to march one way and you marched the other and she punished you by standing you in the corner. While you were there you formed a resolve never to go to school again and when you came home you told me so. My resolve was quickly made that you had to go back as it would be hard to ever start you again, altho' I will admit that the teacher could have been just a little more lenient with a first day pupil. I had to use persuasion and even a switch to get you started but after you had become accustomed to going I never had anymore trouble tho' one time when there was a circus in town with Jess Willard, the pugilist, one of the attractions. You and a little chum forgot all about school and tramped nearly the whole afternoon trying to find his private car and getting a glimpse of him. That was one time that my hair nearly turned gray and I searched the whole afternoon for you until you came home tired, dirty and hungry, but happy that you had seen your hero. We lived at 1402 Russell Ave. Our landlord's name was Hotchkiss and he had a little boy not much older than you were and how you two did scrap. There was always excitement between you two. In the autumn of 1914 your father started to work for the Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York and has been with them ever since. At first his territory was Indiana and Illinois and he was not home at all, so finally in 1915 we moved to Chicago where for two years you went to the Ravenwood School...