Isabelle was the daughter of William Nelson Sides and Margaret Koontz. Isabelle and Chalkley Sherman Lincoln were married 4 Sept 1895 in Adrian, Lenawee Co., Michigan.

Chalkley and Isabelle had the following children:

Pearl (1895- ), Edward Monroe (1896-1976), Mary [adopted] (1897- ), William Harrison (1898-1972), Gladys Louella (1900-1935), Theodore Roosevelt (1904-1976), Elva Louisa (1907-1926), Flora Lenora (1911-1986), Minnie Mae* (1914-1988), Sarah Anna* (1914-1917), Valentine Luella (1918-2013)

*Minnie and Sarah were twins

No one in the family knew about Pearl or Mary but both appear on the 1900 census with Chalkley and Isabelle. Prior to my Aunt Val's death, I had asked her if she had ever heard of these two little girls but she said 'no' - no one had ever mentioned them. So Pearl and Mary remain a mystery to us.

Isabelle was my mom's grandmother. My mom's middle name was a combination of Isabelle's and her other grandmother, Ellen, to get Ellabelle (kinda grows on you!). After my mom's mom died, mom went to live with her grandparents, Chalkley and Isabelle Lincoln, in northern Michigan near Ocqueoc and Onaway. Mom moved back downstate (Michigan) when she was about 15 and her grandfather Chalkley died about a year later in 1942. Isabelle kept a poem that mom had sent her after Chalkley's death and a relative recently sent it to my mom - 66 years later!

The following is what my mom told me about her grandparents Chalkley and Isabelle:

Chalkley worked in the GM factories in the Flint area before moving up north to Ocqueoc. He apparently bought the house in Ocqueoc sight unseen and was in for a bit of a surprise when he moved up north - the house needed quite a bit of work done to it. Chalkley, Isabelle and their daughter, Flora, and youngest daughter, Valentine, moved up to the small house in Ocqueoc (Val was still a young girl at the time). Val had to go to Millersburg to go to school (mom said Val wasn't in 2nd or 3rd grade when they moved up there - she was a bit older, but at least age 12 because they appear on the 1930 census in Ocqueoc which is spelled Ocqueac on the census). By the time my mom moved up north, it was just Chalkley and Isabelle living in the small house.

Mom said Chalkley and Isabelle had very little furniture in their living room - all they had was an old piano in one corner of the living room, a wood-burning stove, an old rocking chair near the small window, and the kitchen table in the winter time with kitchen chairs - no other chairs or couches like we have nowadays in our living rooms. The rooms were lit by coal-oil lamps - they didn't have any electricity. They had one little window in the living room and a door that went onto the front porch and their bedroom was off the living room. There was one large, open bedroom with three beds upstairs where my mom slept (mom's bed was closest to the stairs) - they had a place to hang their clothes at the other end of the big room. In the wintertime they would put the kitchen table in the living room and sit at it to keep warm - mom said that's where she played cards with her brother, Fred, when he visited or any other relatives that visited.

Mom said that Chalkley and Isabelle were really poor - they did eventually get Social Security benefits when they got older and other than selling milk and cream from the cows they milked - they didn't have any other income. Mom said she and her grandmother, Isabelle, would walk the four miles into Millersburg to watch free movies once a week. Sometimes Chalkley and Isabelle's son, Theodore 'Ted', would drive them into town to sell the milk and cream. Mom would go with her Uncle Ted and grandmother into town - Ted driving, Isabelle riding in the passenger seat and mom riding in the rumble seat. Mom said she doesn't remember Chalkley ever going into town - he usually sat in the old rocking chair in the living room because he had problems getting around. By the time mom moved in with her grandparents, Chalkley was in his 70's and he had rheumatoid arthritis and had been sick (she said he was sick the last year of his life).

Mom said Chalkley didn't say much - he was a pretty quiet man - he never talked about his father or other relatives that my mom remembers. Mom said Isabelle wasn't much of a talker, either, although they would listen to the radio (mom doesn't remember either of them playing the piano). Mom said she remembers her Uncle Bill and Uncle Ed (Chalkley and Isabelle's sons) coming up north and them talking with Chalkley - she said that was about the only time Chalkley ever really spoke - even Chalkley and Isabelle didn't speak much together. Mom said it wasn't that they didn't all get along - they were just quiet people who didn't do a lot of talking.

My mom said she usually had to walk most places she or she and her grandmother went. Mom would walk down the dirt road they lived on which was off the main road to get to a road near Ocqueoc Falls. There's a road now called Lincoln Road that goes by or near Chalkley and Isabelle's old property. Chalkley and Isabelle had 80 acres and their son, Ted, had an adjoining 20 acres which he farmed for hay and potatoes.

They also had a couple of horses and my mom remembers that one time the horses (Danny and Belle) got loose and my mom had to go with her brother Fred to catch the horses. They caught Belle and put her in the barn, but Danny didn't want to come in and it took them a while to catch him. Chalkley and Isabelle also had cows that they milked and made cream to sell and use. My mom used to yodel to get the cows to come in and she also taught a dog to round up the cows so she didn't have to go out and round them up (mom was 11 or 12 years old when she started living with Chalkley and Isabelle and 14 when she left).

Mom would help her Uncle Ted with putting up the hay - she said she loved the smell of hay and she loved sleeping in the hayloft in the barn. She was afraid of sleeping upstairs in the house by herself after her grandfather Chalkley died, so she spent most nights sleeping in the barn. She had an old oil lantern that she would use to light the way, but got afraid that she would burn down the barn, so she would put it out and feel her way to the hayloft. When wintertime came, she knew she couldn't continue sleeping in the barn so she had to make a choice - move back into the house or go live downstate with one of her relatives. Mom was going into 8th grade and she decided to move down to Flint and live with her Aunt Val (and her husband, Hank Aho) - Valenetine 'Val' was Chalkley and Isabelle's daughter. They lived on Yale Avenue about 2 1/2 blocks from Saginaw Street in Flint. Mom took the train down to Bay City and then had to catch a bus to Flint. Unfortunately, she missed the bus and had to take a later one that didn't drop her at the right location. As a young girl of 14 years old, she had to walk - alone and at night - miles to get to Val and Hank's house and she wasn't sure which house was theirs, but as she stood there, she saw one house with a porch light on and as she was looking at the house - Val opened the door looking for mom. Hank had gone to downtown Flint to the bus station to find mom because she was so late getting to their house (it was around midnight).

After Chalkley died and my mom had moved down to Flint, Ted got called into service for World War II. Rather than stay in the house alone, Isabelle moved in with her daughter, Minnie. Ted apparently wasn't in the war very long (probably because of his age) and when he moved back to his home, Isabelle moved back in with him.

Two things stand out for me on the above story - one is that Chalkley and Isabelle were extremely poor and the other is that both were quiet people living a simple life.