A Move to Michigan

Some time in the 1850s, Flower and his parents and older brother migrated from Ashfield to Ronald, in Ionia County, Michigan, over 600 miles to the west. 

In moving west, the family followed Consider's older sister Louisa, who in 1844 had married Volney Belding and moved with him to Otisco, in the same county in Michigan. The Beldings were neighbors of the Flowers in Ashfield. Volney had first gone to Michigan earlier, in 1837, one of many young men of Ashfield moving west in search of opportunities. In 1841 he purchased 160 acres of land in Ionia County. After farming and building lumber mills, he returned to marry Louisa. Back in Michigan, he continued farming and lumbering, as well as working as a postmaster.