Ross Cretsinger
The record of the Cretsinger family in its older generations has been written elsewhere in this publication. Attention is here called to the vigorous and enterprising young farmer, Ross Cretsinger, who has been identified with Grant County practically all his life, and has made a particular success as a crop raiser and stock grower and now directs the activities of a fine farm located along the rural free delivery route No. 11 out of Marion.
Ross Cretsinger was born on Sunday, October 5, 1884, the third son in the family of Holmes and Sarah Cretsinger, whose careers are sketched elsewhere. His childhood was spent on the farm known as the Old Joe Oates farm on the Lagro Road north of the Country Club and now owned by Holmes Cretsinger. His place was under the parental roof and at the side of his father as his assistant farmer until he was twenty-two, and up to the age of about sixteen he attended the No. 4 district school in Washington Township. The school which supplied him with early training in the fundamentals was the same which his father had attended in his boyhood. At the age of twenty Ross Cretsinger got his first real start in life, when his father gave him a fourth interest in twenty acres of corn. His share of the crop he traded for his first driving horse and during the following two years he was given one-fourth of all the grain raised on the farm.
On July 27, 1908, Mr. Cretsinger married Zona A. Endsley. She was born January 17, 1887, on the William O. Endsley farm near Van Buren, and lived there until her marriage. Her schooling was received in the No. 3 schoolhouse in Van Buren Township until she was fourteen years of age, and then left school in order to assist her mother in the care of a large household. She was the oldest child of William O. and Susan Endsley, and has five brothers and one sister, two of whom are married, while the others are still at home. The Endsley home is one of the most attractive in Van Buren Township, and its delightful hospitality makes it a favorite resort for the many friends of the family. Mr. Cretsinger and wife have one child, a sturdy young son, Holmes F. Cretsinger, Jr., five years of age, and already proving his willingness to assist his mother in her work and the idol of the household.
After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Cretsinger lived on the old home place for two years, and then with his father bought eighty acres of land on the county line in Huntington County. After a year and a half residence there the father and son traded the Huntington County farm for the Frank Mullen farm in Grant County, and that is the seat of Mr. Cretsinger's activities as a farmer and stock man. He has the direction of one hundred and thirty-seven acres, and has lived on that place since the fall of 1912. Some idea of his enterprise as an agriculturist is obtained from the record of his last year's crop of about three thousand bushels of corn, and most of this is fed to his hogs, the big type Poland China.
Mr. Cretsinger when twenty-one years of age joined the Odd Fellows Lodge No. 96, and has been a faithful member of that order ever since. He manifests a helpful interest in everything connected with the welfare of his rural community, and while his prosperity has already been noteworthy the promise for the future is even greater.
Centennial History of Grant County Indiana 1812-1912. The Lewis Publishing Co., 1914.