Uncle Sile

(1858 – 1952)

Uncle Sile was really our great-uncle, Grandmother Henrietta’s sister Ella’s husband. But since all of our real grandparents were gone by the time I was three, he was always like a grandfather to us. And, since he and Aunt Ella never had any children, he kind of adopted us Baird kids as grandchildren.

And what a grandfather he was! Dr. Silas McClelland was a fine man who practiced medicine as an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist for more than fifty years. He was a prominent man in Decatur and lived in a fine house at 904 West William Street. We loved to visit there because it gave is a wonderful window into a completely different kind of life. Indoor toilets. Doorbells (and there was a little glass-front box mounted on a wall in the kitchen that showed which of the four doorbells had been pressed). A button under the rim of the dining table that signaled the maid in the kitchen. Beautiful linen napkins in silver napkin rings engraved with our names. An electric refrigerator. A handsome music box that played great songs like Ben Hur Chariot Race. A pair of private telephones for talking between upstairs and downstairs. Lincoln logs and sets of colored blocks to play with. Giant Hershey bars that you didn’t have to share with anybody. Visiting Uncle Sile’s was an exciting adventure--and boy what a contrast to life on the farm!!

Each summer Paul and I would get to spend a week visiting with Uncle Sile, Aunt Ella and Aunt Mary--Dad’s sister who lived with them--and we loved it. Meal times were a lot more formal than at home; breakfast was promptly at seven, lunch was at twelve and dinner was at exactly six. (Even the names of the meals were different; at home we called the noon meal “dinner” and had “supper” in the evening.) Other daily routines also followed a fixed pattern. For example, Uncles Sile believed that getting lots of sleep was vitally important, so he went to bed promptly at seven every evening, although we were allowed to stay up until nine. (He may well have had the right idea about sleep--he lived to see his 94th birthday.)

There were special toys for us to play with at Uncle Sile’s and several children’s books to read. Aunt Ella and Aunt Mary would play games with us. Aunt Ella liked to play Rook. She was such a fine, genteel lady that even after all these years I find it hard to believe that she would sometimes cheat a little at Rook--but she did, and thought this was a great joke.

Uncle Sile would drive “down to the country” for a short visit almost every Saturday afternoon and he usually brought a big bag of bananas as a treat for us. He always wore a nice suit, white dress shirt and a black bow tie--even on hot summer days. One incident that stands out in my mind was a visit just after I had brought home an Adirondack-style lawn chair that I had made in Manual Training class in high school. Uncle Sile sat in the chair and had generous praise for my workmanship. However, when he stood up it was evident that the paint hadn’t completely dried--and he had two or three spots of white paint on his suit. He was a real gentleman and just joked about it.

Uncle Sile managed the south farm and owned an adjoining farm to the west. He was always interested in driving around to check progress in the growing crops. Even in his last years he still had a keen interest in the weather and the crops around Prairie Home.

Uncle Sile had been a good personal friend of James Millikin, the founder of Millikin National Bank and Millikin University. He was a director of the bank and trustee of the university. He established a scholarship at Millikin that took care of the tuition for Donald, John and me while we were in school there. We also lived at Uncle Sile’s while attending Millikin. I’m not at all sure that we would have been able to afford college during the depression years if it had not been for Uncle Sile.

Uncle Sile was a fine, kindly, generous man with a good sense of humor. He was a wonderful surrogate grandfather.