THE PHILANDER H. CADY FAMILY
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Philander H. Cady was a brother of Benjamin Adelbert Cady, and an uncle of Myrtle (Cady) Cottrell. He was born in Granville, Vermont in 1832, and moved to Wisconsin with his parents in 1850. In 1854 he was married to Nancy Jane Hall.
In June, 1857, while Philander was working as a carpenter at Markesan, Wisconsin, he attended tent meetings which were conducted by Elders Loughborough and Hart. Three weeks after the meetings ended he began observing the seventh-day Sabbath. When he returned to his home near Poy Sippi he shared his belief with his wife and with his mother, Betsy Emeline (Coolidge) Cady, who also began keeping the Sabbath.
Philander also shared the Sabbath message with a friend of his, J. G. Mattson, who was the minister of a Danish Baptist congregation in the town of Bloomfield, near Saxeville (9 miles west of Poy Sippi). Elder Mattson was not easily convinced, and went home to search his Bible for texts to refute Cady's arguments. The following Friday afternoon Mattson walked the eight or ten miles to Philander's home, and when greeted at the door he exclaimed, "I have come to spend my first Sabbath with you."
Many of the members of Mattson's Baptist congregation joined him in observing the Sabbath. In 1863, when through the joint efforts of Cady and Mattson the Poy Sippi Adventist church was organized, this group formed the nucleus for the Danish congregation. The new church was made up of two companies: English and Danish. Each group had its own service. Theirs was the first church building to be erected in the village of Poy Sippi, and it was the second oldest S.D.A. church in Wisconsin.
When Philander decided to observe the Sabbath, he could not see ahead to the important work his young daughter Vesta and some of her yet-to-be-born siblings would someday accomplish for the church that he had chosen. Vesta married Elder Eugene Farnsworth, Bible teacher at Union College, and went with him to serve for several years in Australia. She also edited "Our Little Friend" and wrote several books. She had no children, but she and her husband were largely responsible for providing an excellent education for her sister Mary's children.
Benjamin ministered for three years in South Dakota and for five years in Wisconsin, then he and his wife sailed on the "Pitcairn" and served for twenty years as missionaries in the Society Islands. Their final years of ministry were spent in Montana, Washington, and Oregon.
Marion became a minister, educator, and author. He served as chairman of the science department at Union College, as president of Healdsburg and Walla Walla colleges, and as educational secretary for the General Conference.
Marion's twin sister Mary was the mother of four children: Guy, who chaired the chemistry department at Union College; Roy Alfred, a medical technician at Mountain Sanitarium in Fletcher, NC; Vesta, a piano teacher and Iva, a nurse.
Two of Philander's sons, George and Ulysses, were baptized by Elder James White in 1881 at Neenah, Wisconsin.
Philander's oldest son, Matthew, and Myrtie his wife were instrumental in starting a high school in Birnamwood, Wisconsin. After teaching there for several years, Matthew studied medicine and became a physician. In 1921 he died of pneumonia following an exhausting period of working night and day caring for patients during an epidemic of Spanish influenza. The music for his funeral was provided by a quartette made up of one member from each of the four classes that had graduated from high school while he was teaching there.
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