• About this time [about 1831] Aunt Emily and her father came and lived in a little log house which stood near where Buttironi’s store stands. Aunt Emily at this time taught school, and was therefore the first school teacher that graced our village. Her life before and after this period was one of useful industry, and no family who has resided in this place for any considerable time but what has been the recipient of her kindness and a witness of her unqualified goodness of heart.283, p 689

• All the excuse my neighbors who supported this scheme gave was that after Cass Lake was drained largely of its waters, “Ward’s place would be no more beautiful than theirs.” And what intensified the meanness of the scheme was, I finally learned, that old Aunt Emily was behind the scenes urging on my envious neighbors who were running the lake-lowering scheme. Aunt Emily had lately moved from Newport, now Marine City, and located near her august brother E. B. W. in Detroit, where she could the better watch and throw envious darts more forcibly through her brother’s then great financial influence and power. Aunt Emily commenced slandering and persecuting me when a boy of fourteen years of age, in the year 1837. This lowering Cass Lake scheme was originated in 1867, and lasted in 1872. So you perceive that said Aunt Emily is still at it, after thirty-five years of slandering me and meddling with my business interest to their injury whenever she saw an opportunity.1643, p 57

• And what became of old Aunt Emily? After the death of E. B. she quieted down, having lost her power and means to chase and persecute the chosen victims that her envious malice selected, and as a consequence, I have not felt her venom since E. B.’s death, which occurred over eighteen years ago. In August, 1891, eighteen months ago, Emily died, some eighty-three years of age. In person she was of oversize, uncommonly coarse and ugly looking in form, and face, with two sharp, intriguing, snakish, treacherous eyes. Her hair was reddish in color and coarse and stuck out in various directions on top and around her head. She was arrogant, egotistical and lively and overbearing in conversation. In intrigue and spiteful, inhuman envy and malice, she seemed to be a monstrosity. She assumed great learning, wisdom and perfection. She was without taste or refinement. She controlled those under her influence and in her power, and made all such do her bidding as she desired, assited by the will, patronagte and power of her brother, E. B., the Czar. She was especially envious, venomous and vindictive against all fair or handsome marriageable women as if she imagined them to be in her way, as she was never married. She was full of personal vanity and given to causing her name and the good deeds which she ususally had not performed to be lengthily displayed in the newspapers of the day. She was largely devoid of human sympathy or benevolence, or the making of charitable gifts to any except to her personal toadies and tools, and to the children of her sisters, to whom she left her property, from thirty to fifty thousand dollars which had been given her mostly by her brother, E. B. Her assumptions and the prestige that E. B.’s wealth, power and patronage gave her, she made many imagine, ignorant of her real character, that she was not only wise, great and learned, but that whe was also about the perfection of wisdom and goodness. She being a human monstrosity in looks, form and size, physical strength and general appearance, caused many to imagine that she was some indescribable new kind of goddess. She was always, planning and scheming to the injury of Polly, E. B’s first wife, encourage and championed E. B. in getting his divorce from her, while she stood at the right hand and acted as a hireling tool for Kate against Polly’s children in her will contest. But the Lord in his mercy finally rid mankind of this unparalled anomaly.1643, p 65

• Her obituary is in the Detroit Free Press, Aug. 29, 1891.1623, p 3

• Never married.3283