Leland H. Phelps

Tried the creamery business for a while. Family moved from Flint to Brown City to Yale to Detroit.

8-5-2012 Notes by Karin Phelps Murray, from a conversation with Leland Richter Phelps LHP's son: Leland Hobart Phelps grew up in the town of Mayville, MI with 6 siblings. His gramma and grampa Nelson and his wife lived on the farm outside of Mayville but my dad had no contact with that farm His father worked as a carpenter and his mother took care of the vegetable gardens and fruit trees. When he was a boy, LHP learned the butter making business in Mayville and worked in a creamery there.

He left Mayville in his late twenties and moved to Flint Michigan. There he worked in an automobile factory as an upholsterer of leather autmobile seats. He was called a trimmer and LRP still has the hammer he used, with a magnetic head. He would fill his mouth with tacks and put a tack on the head of the hammer from his mouth, to attach the leather to the seats working very swiftly. There he met his future wife Esther Richter who was sewing the Eisenglass side curtains in the same factory. They got married.

After he got married he left the factory job and went into business with a friend (last name Christianson) selling butter and eggs. LHP had a Ford truck and brought eggs and butter from Mayville to Detroit. His partner sold the products in Detroit. LRP remembers going on these delivery runs with LHP before LRP went to school. LHP left the side doors off of the truck so in rain storms they got very wet and the truck would from time to time get mired in mud. LHP would leave LRP in the truck and go find a farmer to bring a team of horses to pull him out. In the winter LHP put the doors back on but it would be bitter cold as there was no heat except a little door that led to the manifold. They put heavy blankets across their laps. The windshield wiper, driver's side only, was operated by hand by the driver.

LHP and Christianson dissolved the partnership and LHP went to work for A+P in the main office for several years. Then he managed A+P stores, eventually responsible for supervising a group of 16 stores from Detroit north. He remained with A+P until he retired at age 65.