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From "Belding Banner News" [Belding, Ionia Co., MI], 13 Jul 1939, p.p. 1, 4:
DEATH COMES TO AGED RESIDENT AT FARM HOME
Only Illness in Lifetime Is Fatal to Well Known Pioneer Man
Smith Nichols, age 90, long time local resident and pioneer of Ionia county, died Saturday morning at 8 o'clock at his farm home north and east of this city. He had been ill for nine weeks. Mr. Nichols had never before suffered an illness and had never, before the illness that took his life, required the services of a physician.
Born in New York State January 9, 1849, Smith was one of the nine children of Trowbridge and Rhoda Nichols. At the age of 10 he came to Michigan with his parents and settled on a farm near the Ionia-Montcalm county line.
On December 8, 1875, he was united in marriage to Julia Walker of Orleans, who has been his faithful companion in their 63 years of married life and who survives him. Two children were born to them, a daughter, Ola, who later became Mrs. Peter Martin, and a son, Ross, who died in 1898 at the age of 19. The couple also had an adopted son, Willis, at present a resident of Indianapolis, Indiana, and who because of illness was unable to attend the funeral.
For 63 years the couple have resided on the same farm to which they went immediately following their marriage.
Mr. Nichols was a man who cared little for things outside his home, and the woods and fields which he loved. Wise was he in the lore of the out-of-doors and the youthful trapper and hunter asking advice from his elders was usually admonished to "ask Smith Nichols." Early in his life he learned the stone masons trade and built the foundation for many of the older houses in town. The monument which marks his grave was chiseled by his own hand from a hugh (sic) field stone shortly after the death of their son Ross. Last summer, at the advanced aged of 89, he made the markers for his own grave and that of his wife.
Besides the widow, the daughter and the adopted son, Mr. Nichols is survived by a brother, Cary, of Ionia, 4 grand-children, 5 great-grand-children and a number of nieces and nephews.
Funeral services were held on Monday afternoon at 2:30 from the Fales Funeral Home with Rev. H. S. Ellis officiating. Burial was in the family lot in the old cemetery in the southeast part of the city. Six nephews, Roy Nichols of Grand Rapids, Myrn Nichols of Ionia, Ernest Leach of Orleans, Clement Dexter of Chicago, Pete Timmers of Fremont and Austin Dexter of this city, acted as pall bearers.
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From "Belding Banner News" [Belding, Ionia Co, MI], 14 Dec 1944:
GRIM REAPER SUMMONS RESIDENT
Mrs. Julia Nichols passed away very suddenly Monday morning at her home, 820 James St. She spent the day and had dinner on Sunday with her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Vern LaDow, and was taken ill that afternoon with an attack of acute indigestion which resulted in her death.
With her husband, the late Smith Nichols, she spent her entire married life at their farm home north-east of the city, moving to her town residence about three years ago. She would have been 88 years old today. Her only child is Mrs. LaDow and she leaves four grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held today at Fales funeral home with burial in the old Belding cemetery. Rev. Clyde Flewelling will officiate at the service.
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