Au Gres, Mich. — Seventy-seven years after leaving MSU a few credits short of graduation, Fred Sheill stood in the foyer of his house Monday proudly sporting a green-and-white MSU T-shirt.
For the first time, Sheill could wear the shirt as a honorary Spartan alumnus.
MSU recognized Sheill, a 100-year-old Au Gres resident, as an honorary forestry alumnus last week nearly eight decades after he left MSU because of the Great Depression.
Sheill’s state representative and a persistent customer at his day lily farm worked nine months to get Sheill the honor, after he walked out on MSU (then known as Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science) in 1932.
“I never thought I would get my degree,” Sheill said Monday from the Au Gres home he maintains by himself.
Sheill was presented with a framed honorary alumnus certificate, the green-and-white T-shirt and a cake with a Spartan logo last Thursday by state Rep. Tim Moore, R-Farwell, and a small gathering of Sheill’s friends at his house. MSU officials said Sheill received the recognition because of his efforts while in college, but he will not be listed as having received a degree in university records because he did not complete all the necessary requirements.
“Handing him that diploma and seeing that look on his face was one of the most rewarding things I have done on this job,” said Moore, who drove an hour and a half from his Farwell home to visit Sheill.
A college man
Sheill attended MSU from 1927 to 1932, when tuition was $35 per year, men named Butterfield and Shaw were school presidents and the institution had an enrollment of about 3,000. The Farmington native was an aspiring entrepreneur and business owner pushed to attend MSU by his father, a laundry man who left school in the sixth grade.
“A lot of people would become stenographers or follow in their family business, but I was determined to go to college,” Sheill said.
In five years on campus, Sheill learned everything from physics to animal husbandry to economics. He also would sneak into lectures of classes that weren’t on his schedule to mop up every drop of knowledge.
“You might say I majored in education because I took everything they would let me take,” Sheill said. “If you name the course, I probably took it.”
When he wasn’t moonlighting in university lectures, Sheill was president of the MSU Beekeeper’s Club and tended to 200 beehives on campus, a hobby that funded his tuition.
Sheill would package and sell 60-pound bundles of the bees’ honey to MSU fraternities and local hospitals. At night, he would hawk his honey and other sweets to satisfy the sweet tooth of MSU’s night owls.
“I would walk down the streets at night in East Lansing and see a light on in the second floor of a house at 11 or 12 at night and know (the students) were studying,” Sheill said. “I knew it was about time they would want a snack, so I’d go in and peddle cookies and cupcakes and honey then. Anything to make a buck.”
Sheill worked his way through four years of college without problem — save a delinquent $1 tuition bill in 1931 that caused a “C” grade in physical education to be withheld — until 1932, when the Great Depression sent the nation into a financial spiral.
The savvy salesman
Sheill left school after completing about 15 credits more than the 205 necessary for graduation, but he was still a few credits short of receiving a degree because some credits didn’t count toward graduation.
“I didn’t have enough money to go through the graduation expenses — caps and gowns and the graduation parties — so I just walked away from college,” Sheill said.
Sheill went to work on a two-acre farm his father purchased for him, which produced enough crops to keep him afloat during the Great Depression. With his father’s two primary lessons — never pay with credit and be your own boss — Sheill later opened a nursery in Birmingham that he would run for 32 years.
Sheill became a savvy salesman and business owner by following his father’s advice. He wrote for a farming magazine (his pay rate was by the word), traveled state to state advertising his nursery’s exports and offered jobs to anybody looking for an education in economics.
Support student media!
Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
He married his Farmington High School sweetheart, Gladys, and they had three children.
Still learning
Sheill’s wife died about 20 years ago. He sold his nursery and moved to Au Gres, about 125 miles northeast of East Lansing near Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay.
There, Sheill bought the house he still lives in as well as a 10-acre plot where he farms day lilies. To date, Sheill, known around town as the Day Lily King, farms 200,000 of the flowers each year by himself.
Ever the businessman, he sells the plants through brochures and to customers willing to dig up the flowers from the ground. He produces the brochures on a dated manual typewriter and a copier in his kitchen.
At 100 years old, Sheill’s a marvel of health on the farm with a sharp mind, plenty of sage advice and still not a single credit card.
“The secret of becoming 100 is living by the Golden Rule — doing what you think is right,” Sheill said. “And if you happen to do something that is wrong, correct those mistakes.”
With a blossoming day lily farm and a house to tend to, Sheill has kept busy in his later years, going so far as to teach himself how to play piano at age 97.
Yet Sheill still didn’t have the degree he worked day and night for before the Great Depression.
About two years ago, George Strelczuk, 85, one of Sheill’s farm customers, learned of the Day Lily King’s college situation and committed to getting the recognition he said Sheill rightfully deserved. Strelczuk contacted Moore, who persuaded the university to honor Sheill.
Sheill won’t walk during commencement in the spring, but he said he continues to learn every day. In case he needs to revisit his college days, Sheill has stowed several of his old-as-dirt geology textbooks away in a closet.
“I tell people to get all the education they can, never stop learning, ask a lot of questions, listen — that’s important — listen to the answers and then choose your own way in life,” Sheill said.
“And get rid of those credit cards.”
Discussion
Share and discuss “The ultimate lifelong student” on social media.