Many of us have fond memories of the lovely, well-furnished home of Edwin and Anna Gruner (G-24), built in 1914 on the River Road near Coldwater, Michigan. To be taken on a tour of the house was something like a visit into wonderland. The most mysterious to a child was the spinning wheel. To be told about how the wool from a sheep could be turned into yarn was no more understandable than had I been told it was used to spin gold.

In recent times, I asked their granddaughter, Dorothy (G-24-21) about the history of that spinning wheel. Below is what she wrote.

Clara Gruner, wife of Glen (G-24-1) told me that the large spinning wheel in Anna Gruner's upstairs hall had belonged to Anton Gruner’s mother-in-law, Anna Khiell Pilz Wanar, who was born in Reichenberg, Bohemia in 1814. Her first husband was Franz Pilz, by whom she had three daughters, one of whom was Anton’s wife, Caroline. After Franz died in a fall from a roof, she married his business partner, Franklin Wanar.

Anna Khiell Pilz Wanar came to America around 1857, lived with her daughter Caroline and her husband Anton Gruner, and became helpful in raising her four grandchildren. Her second husband, Franklin Wanar, did not come to America until some 25 years later, around 1882. William Wanar (son of Anna and Franklin) had first come to the Auburn, NY area in 1854 and later to Branch County around 1857, coincident with the date of his mother’s arrival.

Anna Wanar also helped local families, going from farm to farm to spin wool clip, for use in knitting and weaving.  The big wheel was transported by wagon. She died in 1886 and some time after Edwin's marriage, the wheel came to his house where his wife Anna Cherdavoine Gruner learned to work it, using wool from their sheep.  I remember how she washed, dried, and carded the wool, then spun it on the big wheel that required her to walk back and forth as the spindle would reverse the wheel's turn.  (I expect there are re-enactors who can describe this better than I can).

As I understand it, sometime later Mable Gruner Norton (G-24-4) passed the wheel on to Edwin’s granddaughter Ellen (G-24-16).

By Marian Zang and Dorothy Mc. D.