Amber Rosella Skinner was the second (first girl) of four children born to William and Marion Maude (Keene) Skinner, both of Allegan County in Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Willie and Marion married in 1897 in Bloomingdale, Van Buren Co., Mich., and within five years made attempts to move to the Upper Peninsula. Their trips via train and covered wagon between 1904-1908 with children Harry, Amber and Clark and other relatives make for interesting reading, culminating with a final covered-wagon move in 1908 to the "Job Singer Place," where Gypsie was born in 1914.

Amber first appears in the 1910 US Census, age 8, in Pickford. In Jun 1916, when Amber was fourteen, her father Willie took ill and returned to Allegan County to seek treatment, going to Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and eventually, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where he died in August 1917 during surgery (colon cancer and diabetes). Marion made arrangements during this time to be with her children and husband in Cheshire, staying with relatives.

After Willie's death, Marian returned to the U.P. and bought the farm he'd chosen for their family before he became ill. By the 1920 US Census, Amber was 18 and appears in Pickford with her widowed mother, siblings Harry and Clark, and three Clegg children. Gypsie is living with the Crawfords. Marion sewed, sold eggs, cooked for the Edgerly Logging Camp near Pickford, and farmed her land for what she could; it was a tough existence.

It is in this season that Amber was courted by Roy Hart, whose family had moved from Raber to Pickford probably about the time of Willie Skinner's death in 1917. Their families appear on the same 1920 US Census page, so they would've known each other as neighbors, perhaps also from church.

Roy and Amber married 14 Aug 1922 in the Soo (Sault Sainte Marie, Chippewa, Mich.) and raised seven children and took in a foster child, Rosalie Marshall as a teenager:

Shirley William (1923-1998) m. Eleanor Gretton (3 ch.)
Marion Clair (1925-2013) m. Joan Gretton (3 ch.)
Francis Dean (1928-) m. Billie Jo Tanner
Muriel Jean (1930-) m. George C. Allen (3 ch.)
Merna Fay (1932-) m. Paul Barbado "Skip" Mudgett (4 ch.)
Marlene Lillian (1934-) m. Grover C. Akers, Jr. (4 ch.)
Infant daughter (1937-1937)
Jackie Leroy (1939-) m. Sue Ann Jean (2 ch.); m. June (Beckwith) Macchia
Rosalie Marshall (1940-) m. Lora Wilson (4 ch.) m. Jerry Mier

S.W. ("Bill") and M.C. ("Clair") were born in Pickford, and Francis ("Frank") and Muriel were born when the family moved in the late 1920s to the Lower Peninsula, to Hamtramck, Michigan, where Roy worked in the auto industry near Detroit.

By 1932 Roy and Amber returned to the U.P., where Merna, Marlene, an infant daughter, and Jack were all born in various small towns in Mackinac County, just west of Pickford. Bill and Clair graduated from Pickford High in 1942, and entered the U.S. Navy shortly thereafter to serve in World War II.

Roy and Amber moved one last time, to Mason, Ingham, Mich. about 1944/45.

Amber was known far and wide (okay, within her large and wide family) for her homemade jams, jellies and white bread. Although she might not have shown it outwardly, her actions spoke loudly that family was important. Roy passed away in Mason in 1980; she in 1993. Both wanted to be buried in Pickford near their families. Amber and Roy's legacy of family continue through the annual Hart Family Reunion in Mason, held each August, that began in the mid-1970s. Amber was well-loved, remembered, and greatly missed.

Bio updated: 08.06.2013 by Debra Hart Blackgrave Tyre, granddaughter. Additions, corrections welcome.