Howard Spiers, Sr - 1971THE DETROIT CONNECTION
By Leslie C. Spiers
My father, Howard W. Spiers, my uncle Norman Spiers, Uncle Arnold Spiers and my father's cousin Ernie Spiers all lived and worked in Detroit for much of their lives.
This transpired because work was unavailable around Huntsville. About 1921 my father went to Timmins, farther north in Ontario, where he found a job working in the Hollinger mine. When he was laid off work at the mine, he cut Black Spruce logs all one cold winter near Kirland Lake. He didn't like the cold, so he went to Buffalo, New York where he looked for, but was unsuccessful in finding work. He then went to Detroit where he found a job helping to plant trees on the new Dodge Estate Rose Terrace. (As a side note, this Rose Terrace was demolished just a few years ago.) He then lucked out and found a job as a pipefitter at the General Motors Ternstedt Plant;. He worked there until his retirement in 1965. It was in Detroit that he met and married my mother, the former Jeanette Summers Pert.
Uncle Norman followed my father to Detroit and took his advice to get a trade job. A short time later his fiancee, Regina Blacnhfield, followed Norman to Detroit where they were married in 1926. Uncle Norman became an electrician at the Chrysler plant, working there until he retired in 1961.
Cousin Ernie wrote to my father to ask if he could come and stay while looking for a job. Ernie took my father's advice and tried to find a skilled job; he became a Die Maker at the Ford Rouge Plant.
Next, my uncle Arnold came from Brantford, Ontario where he had owned a small, and not very prosperous, barber shop. He had previously been in Detroit for a short time, during which he had attended Green's Barber College in order to obtain his trade license. Upon his return to Detroit he opened a shop near the baseball Stadium.
