Milo Lee Hutchins
A Sketch created in 19th Century History
.....MILO "LEE" HUTCHINS was the youngest chiled of Henry and Harriet (Robertson) Hutchins and a grandson of Harrison and Laura (Hudson) Hutchins, early settlers in Ganges Township.  Lee was born April 21, 1888 at the Ganges home.  He graduated from Fennville High School in 1905 and attended college in Kalamazoo.  for a time Lee served as teacher at the Peach Belt School in Ganges Township.  He then attended the Agriculture College in East Lansing (now Michigan State University), graduating in 1913.  Lee worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture until World War I when he enlisted in the Army Medical School, serving as a bacteriologist in base hospitals in the United States and in France.  He also was attached to the American School Detachment at the University of Montpelier, Aurault, France where he studied for several months.

.....After the war, Lee returned to the Department of Agriculture where he was in charge of field laboratories investigating fruit disease.  He also enrolled in Johns Hopkins University, from which he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1924.   Later Lee became chief of the dicision of forest disease research for the Forest Service.  He authored many technical papers on virus diseases of fruit trees and plant pathology.

.....Lee made many trips to Europe and Latin America in the course of his career.  After retiring from U.S. Government service, he had a second career developing a plant reasearch laboratory in Costa Rica, where he was investigating diseases of the cocoa bean plants.  He died in Costa Rica about 1978 or about 90 years of age.

.....Although Lee had a busy career, he found many opportunities to return to his childhood home in Ganges, visiting his father, his brother, and later his cousin, Evert, as well as many friends in the area.  He was a delight to visit with, having a broad range of interests and maintaining a good mind in his later years.  Although he did not become a farmer himself, his early years on the farm led to his work as a plant pathologist.  He kept up a correspondence with his family and was interested in knowing that later generations were maintaining his family home.
by Dorothy Hutchins


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