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- Iron Mountain News, Friday, December 17, 1943
Mrs. Bassett Greets Friends On 90th Birthday
?I?ve seen Iron Mountain dead, buried and resurrected many times,? Mrs. Samuel Bassett said yesterday afternoon at a party given for her by members of the Uren-Cooper auxiliary at the Fred Mitchell home, 805 Margaret street, on the occasion of her 90th birthday.
?Even in its beginning, when the city was only a mine shaft with a small group of houses clustered about it, it was a fine place and the people were good,? she added.
Mrs. Bassett, who still retains her soft, Boston accent, was born not far from Harvard university in Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 16, 1854, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Power. She and Mr. Bassett, with whom she had 60 years of happy married life were wed in Boston, June 13, 18975. In 1881 they journeyed west to new territory and stopped in Marinette, where they lived for a year. Mr. Bassett then went to work in the general store of A.F. Wright in Quinnese.
At that time, a trip to the woods lumber camp back of Lake Antoine was an all-day journey over corduroy roads. Mrs. Bassett made the trip with her husband just once, and returned home so tired she didn?t come to Iron Mountain again until they moved here, shortly after the old Chapin hospital was opened.
Mr. and Mrs. Bassett were steward and stewardess at the hospital. which, with other buildings, inter slumped into the Chapin mine cavein, ?I saw the first house go from my bedroom window,? she related yesterday. ?It began to slide very slowly and I could hardly believe my eyes. Suddenly there was a roar and the house disappeared. No one was hurt in the actual cavein, but four men, riding a newly-installed mine trolley, were pulled from their seats by low-hanging cables which had been loosened by the fall of earth?
The Bassetts returned to their native Boston for a time, but came back to Iron Mountain when the Carnegie library was completed. Mr. Bassett, who served as library custodian until 1916, helped clean up the debris when the new structure was finished.
Caring for her home and helping the sick were Mrs. Bassett?s greatest pleasures .During the World war, when nurses were scarce and hospitals were crowded, she was doctor and nurse to some 60 newborn babies.
?My memories are all happy ones,? she said.
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Bassett Family Association Database
- Deceased
, d. 29 Jun 1941, Iron Mountain, Michigan