Winnifred "Winnie" Lucille Stehle was the oldest child of Edward Alvin Stehle and Rosa Lamphere. Raised in rural Shiawassee County, Michigan, she married Ward Earl Sugden in Detroit, Michigan on August 11, 1914. They exchanged their vows at the Grand River Baptist Church with Pastor David H. Cooper presiding over the ceremony. Ward's brother and sister-in-law, Claude and Mabel Sugden, served as witnesses. Ward and Winnie had probably met through their fathers, both of whom were Shiawassee County farmers and members of the local Grange. At first, the couple lived with her parents near Durand, Michigan at what was known as the "Lone Pine Farm" in northern Burns Township while Ward worked as an electrician with the Grand Trunk Railroad. Winnie worked for the Pemberton Drygoods Store in Durand. After World War I, the couple moved to Bancroft, Shiawassee County, Michigan where Winnie worked at a canning plant cleaning dirt off of vegetables. She was paid ten cents for every pound of dirt she collected. Once, when she was too ill to go to work, her bosses brought the dirty beans to her house. She was always a hard worker and is said to have also operated an ice cream stand. One story said that she was the postmaster of Bancroft, but records show that not to be the case. During the 1930s Ward Sugden worked as a legal adjuster for the Hegenbeck-Wallace Circus of Peru, Indiana. He traveled all over the country by train while Winnie, it is assumed, stayed behind in Bancroft. Years later, long after Ward had quit his job with the circus, Ward and Winnie lived in a mobile home park until 1963 when they moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Ward died there on March 31, 1971. Winnie did not outlive her husband by longer, passing away from cancer on August 27, 1972.
Both were buried at the Green Acres Memorial Gardens in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Biography compiled by Jeff Stehle. Please credit appropriately.