Gary Cleaveland

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Biography

Gary Cleaveland was the son of George Daniel Cleaveland. He was the middle son of seven children. Gene Cleaveland was a child of Hilda Scheffler and Richard F McAdams. George Cleaveland adopted Gene. George Daniel Cleaveland Jr. was the first son of George and Hilda Cleaveland. The children followed as listed, Frank Robert Cleaveland, Gary Richard Cleaveland, Gregory Michael Cleaveland, Susan Margaret Cleaveland and Rebecca Jane Cleaveland.

When I was 5 years old my brother Frank found some matches in the dog house of a neighbor. Frank, who was 6 and 1/2 at the time, decided it would be fun to light the matches. It was very windy that day so Frank piled the matches between my legs. I was wearing cordaroy pants at the time and when Frank lit the matches they caught my pants on fire. I ran down the road screaming and a neighbor saw me and put out the fire. I spent the next three months in the hospital undergoing multiple skin grafts. I have no memory of this. I'm told my mother spent the entire 3 months in the hospital with me. When I was about 8 a neighbor's German Sherpard bit me. I got to ride to the hospital in a Washtenaw Sheriffs partol car. The only thing I remember about that incident was staring at the Patrolman's gun. My childhood existed of a series of normal events. One was fishing in a local pond. My friends or brothers would pack a sleeping bag with eggs and bacon and take our fishing poles. We would sleep overnight in the field by the pond and wake up in the morning and build a fire and cook our breakfast. Then we would catch our bait of grasshoppers that were very slow moving in the morning dew. We caught a few fish and the ocassional turtle. We would cook the fish for lunch and then go home. This worked well until they put the expressway in, which blocked our access to the pond. For a while we just crossed the expressway until a Washtenaw County Sheriff stopped us and told us we couldn't do that anymore. We found another way across the expressway. The culverts were big enough for us to fit, so we went under the expressway. For many years our lives consisted of fishing and riding our bikes down the back roads looking for returnable bottles. We turned the bottles in at Ruth and Chucks store for RC Cola and Baby Ruth candy bars. At Halloween Ruth and Chucks would give out the "Big" Baby Ruth candy bars.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Gary Cleaveland at registration.