Hi Robert,
I was cruising through the MIchigan list and just on a whim thought I would enter Manchester, MI where I live. Your queries came up.

My great grandfather was Ernest Christian Jenter and he started the Jenter Funeral home here in Manchester. He died in 1926 and at that time it was taken over by my grandfather Arthur Ernest Jenter. My dad Ronald Arthur Jenter joined his father Arthur in the business in 1946 after serving in the Pacific in the Marine Corp during the second wrold war. My dad died this past March.

I have 2 of the original cemetery books for Oak Grove Cemetery. They belonged to Ernest, my great grandfather. I have been transcribing the books. The second book is in good shape although some of the edges on the pages are birttle. I have it all in page protectors.

I am now in the process of transcribing the first book older than the second. Most of the entries in this book were transferred to the second book. Some of the entries are faint but readable. Some are so faint I cannot read them at all. I have tried to enhance them on my scanner with my photo software. I am also going to try scanning them through a blue clear sheet, sometimes it makes light print darker.

The 2nd book I can photo copy with no problem. I do have a page on the Henryt Gilbert family, it has about 8 or 9 deaths listed, one of the names of Fargo. They include dates received in the cemetery, not necessarily the date of death, but could be within a few days of it. All entries shows ages at death. I also have entries for a lot with the name Edwin H. Gilbert. Four deaths on this entry.

I also have a number of pages of the Root family. There is an Allen Dryer who is the curator of the "Manchester" room at our local library and he lives in the old Root house. It is a red brick house. The red bricks in town here were made by the great great grandfather Frederick Schaible.

There are also several references to Fargo and Force. There was an old cemetery east by several block of the present Oak Grove Cemetery. There is a listing of people who were buried in this old cemetery that was gathered from pages found in the Benteley Library Ann Arbor in the works of the DAR. There are Fargo and Root originally buried in the old cemetery and later moved to Oak Grove. I can supply you with a copy of the old cemetery listings.

I was talking to the sexton of the cememtery a week or so ago. He is a very good friend of mine. He told me he thought the oldest grave in Oak Grove was a Force.

I could not find any Hoy listings in my books, but do have a couple of Hay. I also thought I saw something like Bostedor. But I don;t find it using my word serach in the documents I have transcribed. I am going to go through each page.

I do have some Smiths also, but don't see any William.

If you would like to have some scanned pages, just let me know
my email is
jenterkar@aol.com

Karen Jenter
Manchester, MI