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Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23
Mrs. Richard Meade
Interviewed on September 15, 1971
Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com
Tape #7, 8 (1:15:27)
Biographical Information
Mary Alice Martin was born 27 April 1897 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She died on 20 August
1982 in East Grand Rapids. Her parents were John B. Martin, born January 1867 in Grand
Rapids, Michigan, and Althea Winchester, born March 1867 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. John
and Althea were married in Grand Rapids on 11 October 1894. John was the son of Joseph H.
Martin and Mary Alice Lantsberry, both born in England. Althea was the daughter of Samuel
Alexander Winchester and Rebecca Bailey, both from New Hampshire.
Mary Alice Martin married Henry C. Robinson about 1926. As her second husband she married
Richard Hardaway Meade on 30 November 1946. Richard was the son of Richard Hardaway
Meade, Jr. and Eleanor Prior “Nellie” Atkins and he was born 10 May 1897 in Richmond,
Henrico County, Virginia. Richard died 5 February 1993 in Grand Rapids. Mary Alice Martin
Meade died 20 August 1982 at her home in East Grand Rapids.
A finding aid for the Bartholomew Plan mentioned in this interview can be seen at
http://www.grpl.org/wiki/images/c/cd/115.pdf
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Interviewer: Mrs. Meade, you just mentioned that your grandfather came here in eighteen fiftytwo. Where did he come from and why did he come to this area?
Mrs. Meade: My grandfather Martin came here in eighteen fifty-two. He originally came from
England and he came from Southampton, as far as we know. He and another family came over
and then went to Elyria, Ohio. We don‟t know exactly why he came to Grand Rapids from
Elyria, but he did come and there are many stories about his coming. Apparently he had a horse
and a wagon and he went to Chicago and before they came over, the horse fell overboard and my
grandfather jumped in after him and pulled him by his tail and got him back on the ship, but
anyway, they finally arrived in Grand Rapids. Originally I think he went in to the grocery store
business because in old pictures I have seen of Grabs Corners, you could see there was a sign
Joseph H. Martin. I think he started out probably as a grocer and then little by little he became
interested in real estate and he also had a brother named Uncle Thomas. And he and his brother
were very much interested in the Plank Road that went to Kalamazoo. At one point, as you
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probably know, they thought the railroad was coming to Grand Rapids and then afterwards they
decided it was going to Kalamazoo so many people in Grand Rapids sold their land because they
thought it was never going to develop. And they developed this road to Kalamazoo where they‟d
take, I suppose loads and things to ship and my grandfather helped with the regular freight line I
think. And then eventually, the railroad came to Grand Rapids so that road was no longer
important. But it was important at that time and then he went into the real estate business and
then he became a banker. He was on the first board of, I think you call it the Old National Bank
at that time when Harvey Hollister was the president. I can go back that far. Harvey Hollister and
my grandfather were great friends and even took a trip abroad and I have some of their letters
and diaries from that trip. So he lived here and he married a Mary Alice Lantsberry. The
Lantsberry family came over from England with the Martin family then they went to Elyria and
the Lantsberry family also came to Grand Rapids. And he married one of the daughters and I‟m
not sure but I think his brother married one of the other daughters. But anyway, I am named after
my, I am named Mary Alice Martin because of my grandmother‟s name became Mary Alice
Martin, she was a Lantsberry. Their graves are out here in the little old cemetery on Fulton Street
and my great grandfather is also buried there, Peter Martin and his wife and that‟s where most of
the old families are buried over there you‟ll see all of the graves. My grandfather on mother‟s
side was Samuel Winchester. And his family, the Winchester family came to this country much
earlier way back in the sixteen hundreds. They came to Boston and that family is a very large
family, you find the name Winchester throughout the country. Winchester Arms is part of that
family, Winchester, Massachusetts was named after one of the Winchesters; and I have the
history of that whole family. But my particular branch came, my grandfather‟s father I think was
a minister and he went from Boston then to Ashburnham, Massachusetts then to Keene, New
Hampshire and they lived up there for some time. They were farming families and they must
have been interested in furniture making and my grandfather‟s -this is particularly interesting to
Grand Rapids - my grandfather‟s sister Mary married old C.C. Comstock who is very much
involved in the history of Grand Rapids. He also came from Keene, New Hampshire or that area
and they came out here. She had tuberculosis and for some reason they felt that going west,
would help her. So they did come west and they finally ended in Grand Rapids and I should be
able to tell you the number of children, but they had two or three children. One was Mrs. [Mary
Ella Comstock] Konkle and I‟m sure Fran Russell could tell you all this because she died finally
and then Comstock married again and he married Fran Russell‟s grandmother and his mother and
Mrs. Boltwood were the children from that marriage so in a way Fran and I are related.
Interviewer: Mr. Russell is one of the people we are going to be interviewing.
Mrs. Meade: Oh, you must interview him because he has wonderful diaries, written by old C.C.
Comstock and the old building, there‟s still a little old office building one that they show when
they take people on that tour from museum. That little office building is still down there.
Interviewer: Is that supposedly the oldest building still standing in the city?
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Mrs. Meade: No, not the law office. No, but this is another building. It‟s on lower Monroe, but
kind of quite a ways out. The day I went on this tour they pointed that out and I never knew that
myself. C.C. Comstock had a lot to do with it. My grandfather Winchester and his brothers
started, I think the first furniture factories here but they didn‟t do very well with it and his
brother-in-law Comstock had to buy them out and that furniture factory I think originally, or
eventually became the factory that‟s called Nelson-Matter which was a famous well known
factory in the earlier days. I may be a little mixed up on these facts but this is the way I
remember it.
Interviewer: When did the Winchester branch of the family come to Grand Rapids?
Mrs. Meade: Well, I can‟t really tell you, I ought to be able to but I can‟t really tell you but I
think it was after my grandfather Martin came here.
Interviewer: Did they come because they were interested in furniture?
Mrs. Meade: Well, no they didn‟t, I think partly, but they also came because C.C. Comstock‟s
wife Mary was a sister and she wrote back and said this is a fine place to come and would be a
good place for making furniture and so forth and that‟s why I think they were interested in
coming. I think it was a little bit later and I can find that fact out for you I think if I search back
in some of these.
Interviewer: Your grandfather Martin, they had some children and your father was who?
Mrs. Meade: My father was John B. Martin and they had, I ought to be able to tell you, they had
about five children and three little boys, three of their children and one little girl died at a very
early age, all of them buried over here in the cemetery. My father and my aunt Martha lived and
my Aunt Martha married a clergyman and her name was Mrs. Thorton B. Penfield and she went
to live in the East and always lived there and there are great many children. I mean, she had 3
children there was quite a large family from her family and my father and my mother. My father
married a Winchester, my mother‟s name was Althea Winchester and there were four of us, three
boys and myself.
Interviewer: What did your father do, John B. Martin?
Mrs. Meade: He went into business with my grandfather. My grandfather worked so hard as
young man and as he grew up, also he lost his wife at a very early age and he didn‟t marry again
for quite a long time and when my father came back from being away at school, he was sent east
to Andover. I‟m mixing this all up, I‟m afraid, but anyway my father because he had no mother
they were both sent away to school and my father to Andover and the he was to go to Yale. In
the meantime, he went to school in Brooklyn and he met, well his best friend was a boy named
Irving Bush. His father was Irving Bush, who built the Bush Terminals in Brooklyn and if you
have lived down there and know New York at all, they were the big place where they brought
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freight in and everything. His father had overworked and they told him he had to take a year off
and not do anything. So he built a yacht and the yacht was called the Coronet. I‟ve grown up on
these stories. He told his boy of his that he could invite one of his friends to go with him on this
trip and they would be gone a year and they were going around the world. My father was invited
at the age of eighteen and he asked his father, my grandfather, Joseph Martin, said you may go
take this trip or you can go to college but you have to choose one or the other. So naturally he
took the trip around the world. I have all the diaries of that trip and it was the most amazing trip.
It was the first private yacht that ever as far as anybody knows that had gone around the world.
He went around in great fashion. A hundred and twenty foot yacht, a crew of I don‟t know how
many. My father had the most marvelous time in the world and we were all brought up on the
stories of this trip. Especially about China and Japan and the Far East, that was what interested
him the most and many of the things you see in this room, he brought back. The bronzes and
things, my father at the age eighteen brought those things back. He had enough sensitivity, I
don‟t think he knew a thing about them, but he did buy and bring back these lovely things and
we grew up on this trip, so I‟ll show you why this ties in eventually. When he got back, he
couldn‟t go to college because he wasn‟t supposed to but my grandfather was almost worn out
and so he had to give up business and in the meantime he married again a lovely person, the only
one I ever knew as my grandmother, her name was Rose Brooks and he married her. So he was
in and out of the business, more or less retired and father just took over. It was, how do I say it,
mortgages and loans and things like that. For instance, if somebody came and many, many
people like the Dutch and the Italians, people like that who came and needed a little money that
has nothing to do with the bank and borrow money you know that had no collateral or anything,
they‟d come to father or my grandfather and they would loan them enough to get started. Mr.
Russo got started that way, that Italian. A great many of the people that I have met since have
said to me “Oh, your grandfather, your father were the ones that helped us.” He loaned them
enough to get started and eventually they got into different kinds of business and particularly
banking. My father, you know was Vice President of the bank changed names so no longer the
old Grand Rapids Savings and it became Peoples Bank, but my grandfather was on the board of
the Old National which is now Old Kent Bank and my son Oliver is now in the Union Bank so
we‟re all mixed up in banks. Well, I probably have not told you what you wanted to know,
branching off here.
Interviewer: No. That‟s good I like to find out background about how families arrived in Grand
Rapids. Where did you grow up as a child?
Mrs. Meade: I grew up, I was born in Grand Rapids; I was born right on Madison Avenue, fivefifteen Madison Avenue. And I grew (up) in that house on Madison. We were all born there and
we all grew up there. We loved it, it was a wonderful house. It‟s in the Heritage Hill area and it
was a house that was built by I think his name was Stockwell and I think he was related to the
Belknaps. I think he was either a son-in-law or something, but he married a Belknap and built
that house. And after two or three years he sold it or wanted to sell it and my grandfather bought
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it for my mother and father and gave it to them, for a wedding present. My mother nearly died,
if you could go see it, it‟s a huge house with the ceilings ten and-twelve feet. To just even curtain
one window, was expensive to let alone all this. Anyway this was a gift, so they lived there and
little by little they furnished it and my grandfather and grandmother would come back part of the
year and live with them. They had a room, we had one big living room and then another room
and a bath that was my grandfather‟s and grandmother‟s. We all grew up [with] one bathroom
upstairs, plenty of bedrooms, but one bathroom. I can see it now, it was all lined with tin and
eventually it was very, very sophisticated because we got one of these things called geyser and
we got gas finally and you know you could light it then it heated it. You‟re too young to
remember this it would [heat] the water and then it was nice hot baths. The house had lots of
fireplaces; oh it was a beautiful house to grow up in. We had lovely times and gatherings.
Interviewer: What was the neighborhood like?
Mrs. Meade: Oh, the neighborhood was a lovely neighborhood; all my friends lived up and down
the whole Madison Avenue. We all went to school at Lafayette school down there. Now it has
been rebuilt, but that was the school, dandy school.
Interviewer: You went to the public schools then?
Mrs. Meade: Oh yes, we all went to the public school. There was a private school here, but I
don‟t know, I was never sent to it. Some of my friends were, but I thought we had a wonderful
education, there were marvelous teachers. Then from there we went up to what we called Central
Grammar and that was up, I suppose it was like the Junior High school but it was one year we
had in this school and it is no longer there, but it was right back where the old high school is
now. Not Central but the other one over there on Ransom or something. I don‟t know what they
call it now, a big old building up there and that was the high school and we went to a school right
back of that called Central, Central Grammar. From there I went to the new high school which
was Central up on Fountain and I don‟t know what other high school [was] but formerly it was
that other high school. I‟ll tell you something we used to do. Where we lived, there was a little
bit of pavement, in front of our house and from then on there was nothing but dirt roads and we
had a great big barn which is now burned down. I haven‟t been down to look at but it‟s burned
down. We always had horses, my father was a great horseman; he loved horses. He always had a
saddle horse and we always had ponies. Across from us on Madison Avenue, at that point, there
was nothing between Madison Avenue and College Avenue, it was all open territory. There was
no Morris Avenue at all. We had a big field there that we kept our cow in and our pony and our
horse. You won‟t believe this but we did. And my father was very interested in farming till the
day he died we had a farm. And every summer the entire Martin family would get into a carriage
before we had cars, or eventually when we had cars, and we had our first farm out near
Plainfield. If you go out the new Beltline, it was called Peach Ridge or Peach something, but it
was where Mr. [O. W.] Braman‟s farm and our farm was [Section 35, Plainfield Township]. We
had peaches and fruit and everything else. We built a cottage, a house out there and it is still
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standing there. We would have these Dutch families come over to work on the farm and my
father brought over any number of these families and the children would work, you see for their
father. Father never paid them but any way they‟d work on these farms until eventually they got
enough money so they could buy the farm. One of these farmers bought that farm from my
father. Then we bought another farm which we still own a little bit of land out here near Ada, the
Alta Dale farm, which is now called the Holiday farm.
Interviewer: Is that the one that is now owned by the Crawfords?
Mrs. Meade: Yes, that was our farm; it only had two ownerships before my father got it. One
belonged to Rix Robinson; he owned all that land from where our farm began all the way to Ada.
Then Philo Fuller, who was one of the former mayors of Grand Rapids, owned it for many years
and then my father bought it. It was four or five hundred acres. It went all along the river, very
rich bottom land. We had a dairy farm and then we had a grain farm. It was not a fruit farm; the
other farm was a fruit farm. I grew up on the farm at Peach Ridge, but that isn‟t quite it, out there
[It was called the High Lands (1907)]. When I was about ten we bought this other farm and we
all went out there to live. The first year we all lived in tents, we camped on top of this hill we
still own. We still own this place. The war came along although they had plans to build a house
and you couldn‟t build in those days. They wanted everybody to have War Gardens. You are too
young to remember this, but we all thought this was a fine idea to be patriotic. We hired a farmer
and I got all these girls, I was in Vassar at that point and I got all these girls from college to come
out and some of them from here, ten or twelve of us and we all lived in a big tent out there.
Father and Mother put up just a little tiny place where they could sleep and we could have a
kitchen and dining room where we could all eat. We had a War Garden and we had a great fun
along with the war I guess. Eventually they added on to that and eventually I built a house out
there. Father‟s finally burned down many years later and my house is still standing but is slightly
going to pieces I think. We still own that hill top.
Interviewer: Do you still use that cottage you have out there?
Mrs. Meade: I don‟t. My brother Joe, do you know my brother Joe?
Interviewer: Yes.
Mrs. Meade: Well, he‟s a great naturalist and he‟s always loved country and knows everything
about birds and everything else, so he used it as a sanctuary. He has the Audubon Society out and
everybody goes out and we go out of course and picnic and things like that. We have a place
down by the lake now so that I haven‟t used that cottage.
Interviewer: Yes, I grew up right in back of your brother.
Mrs. Meade: You did?
Interviewer: I used to be over there all the time; we used to be down…..
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Mrs. Meade: You mean on Cambridge?
Interviewer: On Plymouth.
Mrs. Meade: He has trouble with his eyes and he hasn‟t been able to do much. It‟s been pitiful
because he has such interest in things like that.
Interviewer: He‟s a great photographer.
Mrs. Meade: He is a great photographer and he has more hobbies and could do more things with
his hands; nobody in the else in the family could do anything but he can. He‟s marvelous with
children but he has used that a lot. And we still own the hilltop which is by far the nicest part.
When we got it, there wasn‟t a thing on it. There had been marvelous trees and marvelous forest
there and someone that I talked to one time, remembered when it was forested then they cut it all
off so when we got it there were no trees on top. Father had this old Mr. (?) well, he was the first
landscape man, hmm; this shows I‟m getting old here. Anyway, we imported, he imported
everything. In those days you couldn‟t buy all these shrubs and things in this country so he
imported something like twenty thousand shrubs and trees for that place. There are all sort of
unusual things on that twenty acres that we had where houses were. They used to come up from
Lansing and all over. He was very interested in different kind of conifers and we have a lot of
them. The birch trees in there are European Birch and the most beautiful trees. Our birch don‟t
last the way these do. Mr. [Mathias] Alten, the painter used to come out and paint those Birch
trees. You go in there sometime it‟s really beautiful.
Interviewer: I will, I know where that is.
Mrs. Meade: I‟m afraid we haven‟t kept it up lately because we haven‟t been able to get
anybody to do anything.
Interviewer: Did many of the families in your neighborhood and in the Hill District have farms
in the country like that? Summer retreats?
[Audio gets bad here 26:00]
Mrs. Meade: Well, I don‟t know many, I can think of for instance the Wilcox family. This place
right over here was the Wilcox farm. Where, do you know which was Mrs. Wilcox‟s house? The
original house is one that what‟s his name lives in, you know, the man who owns that motel.
Interviewer: You mean the large house that sits in off the road right near the quad where they
have the swimming pool? I know the house is for sale but I don‟t know who bought it. He owns
a motel?
Mrs. Meade: He owned that townhouse thing. He and someone else have an interest in that. I
don‟t know why I can‟t think of his name. That‟s the original Wilcox house, farm house they‟ve
done a lot to it but it was a farm house and this area was farm land. My family was always
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interested and I don‟t know why particularly because I don‟t think they came from farming
families in England but they were just interested. [For] my father it was a great hobby. Up to the
day he died, he was getting up to ride his horse at the age of eighty-nine when he died, he had a
stroke. So he was always interested in farming.
Interviewer: That sounds like George Welsh. He was riding till he was eighty-five.
Mrs. Meade: I knew George; he didn‟t die, did he?
Interviewer: No, I said up until he was eighty-five.
Mrs. Meade: Oh, I knew George, so did my father. He put me on the Planning Commission in
Grand Rapids at one point. If this wasn‟t a tape recording, I‟d tell you the rest of the story. I
always had a great deal of admiration for him as well as not approving for some of the things. I
think that he was very, never made a nickel out politics. I think he was very honest in that respect
and I think he saw what was happening to Grand Rapids and when he went to Boston, he saw the
problem of parking that they were having in Boston. He came back to Grand Rapids and he
immediately began to push for people having parking lots and buying up areas that weren‟t being
used and making parking possible. He was certainly the one that decided that we had to have
planning in Grand Rapids and my father had been chairman of the Planning Commission for
many years and they had done in the beginning a good job when they had some money. Little by
little, they [had] practically no money. He saw the importance of planning and that Ken Welsh
became the chairman of it and asked me to be on and some others. We got a good planning
commission and he backed us right to the hilt on everything we did. I have very high feelings
towards him. He did some things I didn‟t think were right too and I told him that but anyway by
in large.
Interviewer: Did anybody plan Heritage Hill out?
Mrs. Meade: I have the earliest plans here. All of that area was studied; I don‟t think as it
developed, how it was developed, that it was planned… I know the first plans were nineteen
eight, probably. There was a plan before the Bartholomew plan. And I have that plan. Then there
was the Bartholomew Plan which was about [nineteen] twenty-seven. Then when we took in (it?)
about nineteen forty-three I think it was, that plan was rolled up in the attic in the city hall. On
the other hand, I think if it had been effective in some ways and it was good planning for the
period.
Interviewer: Was this the plan for the Heritage Hill area?
Mrs. Meade: Well, no.
Interviewer: Or was this a plan for the city?
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Mrs. Meade: This was a plan for the city, it wasn‟t just Heritage Hill. Heritage Hill was
probably part of it but it wasn‟t. I think they probably have those plans at the library. I don‟t
think Heritage Hill was planned as such it just grew up to a certain point. Then there was a great
deal of interest of planning in the early days when they saw the way Philadelphia was developing
and New York and so forth. I can remember my father got very interested in the fact that we
should do something here. They brought in the planners and but the trouble was then no one
realized that planning was and everyday process and that couldn‟t just have someone do a plan
and then go off. It has to be brought into operation.
[32:40 the Audio clears up]
Interviewer: Why does Heritage Hill have such a diversity of architectural style?
Mrs. Meade: I‟m very interested in domestic architecture because I do think it reveals the history
of a city and when it developed and I think for instance if you will notice southern Michigan and
Northern Ohio, you find a great many houses that are similar to the houses you find in the east,
the early American houses. The reason for that is I think that after the war many of those men
were given land out in this area and many of them wanted to build the same type of houses that
they were very familiar with and I think that is one reason for many of those early American
houses and for Greek Revival there. Up here we were a little bit later in developing, from
eighteen thirty-seven on and where as you get a few Greek Revival houses, now the Greek
Revival period was from about eighteen twenty till about eighteen fifty. You get such as the Dix
House for instance and there are other houses here that were purely Greek Revival. Then Grand
Rapids was a little bit later and we went into the Victorian Era and we went into, the house I
grew up in was a Victorian house, late Victorian. Which I think called the Gothic Period. It was
really covered with little gargoyles and scrolls they developed the scroll saw you that did all this
fancy work and our whole house was filled with that sort decoration and it‟s not certainly not the
best period of architecture, little cupolas and those things. You found the Gothic Revival; you‟ll
see quite a few of those houses here. You also saw quite a few houses built out of river stone for
instance that little house next to the Art Gallery is built out of river stone. We had some other
lovely houses like that but many of them have been taken down. I think Grand Rapids to me is
interesting, because of the variety of architecture. It wasn‟t just one period but it was drawn from
all these various periods. Most of it not really the best period, I don‟t think.
Interviewer: Was there competition perhaps between people of means in the Hill District in the
Heritage Hill area in the design of their houses? I walk down the street and like you say the
diversity of styles, they will be a house here of one particular style and right next door is a house
just as large but it‟s a completely different style. Do you have any idea of why that [happened]
from your knowledge?
Mrs. Meade: No, I don‟t think I‟m old enough to have that knowledge. Most of those houses
were built when I grew up. For instance, I can remember going to all those houses, where all
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these friends of mine lived, [and] practically all of them had a ballroom in their attic, all those
houses. You‟ll find the old Wilcox house that was given to the YWCA, has a lovely ballroom.
My aunt, Mrs. Walter Winchester‟s house, wasn‟t a very big house down on Madison, they had a
ballroom. The Waters‟ house, which is now made into apartments, that had a beautiful ballroom.
And our parties as we were little children, we were quite young, they had parties at their houses.
We always walked to these things and we‟d dance up in these ballrooms. The Russell house, I
don‟t know about the Boltwood‟s, but the Russell is still standing, they had a beautiful ballroom.
That‟s where we used to have some of the best parties; there were never anything at school. We
had to go to somebody‟s house but everybody, so many people had ballrooms you see that that‟s
where we would, and they were big houses. I don‟t think there was any thought of competing
with somebody else. I think in those days, things were so much less expensive and there was
plenty of help, plenty of help. Even though they were paid only three dollars a week, that was
good pay you know. Our house which was a big house, we always had two people; I mean
usually a cook and a maid. That was much less than most people had. I mean everybody lived
that way, the hired girl you know.
Interviewer: What nationality were these hired people?
Mrs. Meade: Well, mostly Dutch and mostly they‟d come in from the farms and their family
would want the girl to have a job in town and would learn about housekeeping and so forth and
they‟d come in and you‟d train them. They wouldn‟t know anything usually when came to most
of us I mean some of them got very sophisticated help, but most of us didn‟t. Even when I was
first married, I had girl after girl that would come from up north or some little town and they‟d
come and you‟d teach them how do everything. To this day, I have any number of these girls
living right here in Grand Rapids and every so often they come and now they are now married.
And they come and bring their children. I‟ve even had one or two of daughters work for me since
then. It was a wonderful relationship, you did all sorts of things for them, but they weren‟t, I
wouldn‟t say they were meant to be part of the family, they cooked and wait on the table and do
that sort of thing but that‟s all gone now, there‟s nothing to that anymore. I don‟t think that was a
bad thing because they all learned and they went on to their own little houses and did things
nicely and brought up their children nicely. I‟m just proud of the ones I had.
Interviewer: Then it was a socializing process as much as it was a working?
Mrs. Meade: Yes I think so. There was no thought of being inferior or anything like that. The
same thing I think, my husband comes from Richmond, Virginia. There‟s nothing more “south”
then that and he grew up with a mammy that looked after all of them. These families just
worshipped these mammies. They took care of them till they died and his mammy couldn‟t read
or write, he used to teach her, try to teach her to read and write. There was a wonderful
relationship between these people and of course now it‟s all gone.
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Interviewer: Were there quite a few parties when you were young? Was there more partying
than there is today?
Mrs. Meade: Many. I don‟t know that there were more parties but I would say that we had a
great many parties. At Christmas time, if we were away at school or college and came back and
before that, each family gave a little party. They were usually quite early in the evening, and of
course we never had anything to drink or smoke or anything like that. I mean they were nice
parties and we thought they were absolutely marvelous but we certainly didn‟t know anything
about what they are doing today. I‟m sure today they think they, well they ask what you did. It
sounds absolutely silly when you tell them. We all thought we had a marvelous time.
Interviewer: What did you do at your parties?
Mrs. Meade: We mostly danced, I think.
Interviewer: Were they pretty formal affairs?
Mrs. Meade: Some were quite formal; yes some of them got to be quite formal, in those days. Of
course there was a great deal of wealth here in Grand Rapids and there were all these families
who I, our family never belong to the country club but I knew a few people who did and once in
a while somebody would give a party out there and then it was very formal and we all got
dressed up and went. Always chaperoned, in fact all the older people would come out and watch
us, dance and everything else. We didn‟t like that very much. Anyway, it was fun. To begin with
before that we didn‟t have any cars but after we had cars. For instance we used to have these
ponies and one of the things we did that was most fun, we had a sleigh and we had a long, long
bob sled and we would all pile on that bob sled . Somebody would drive the ponies and we‟d pull
this thing along behind. Eight or ten people or more than that could get on it you see. We‟d go all
over town with that or else we‟d take it out and we‟d slide down Washington Street. You know
Washington Street was the best one to slide on that there was; you didn‟t run into something at
the bottom. We‟d zip down that thing and all around the corner where the museum is now.
That‟s where we used to slide. We did that kind of thing. I can‟t remember anyone skiing but we
tobogganed and we slid and we skated. We skated out here all the time. I can remember Don
Baxter, who you remember Howard Baxter, of Baxter Laundry. Don was his brother and he
invented things. He invented something that had a propeller out in front just like an airplane you
know and a little box and we‟d sit in this thing behind and this thing would go across Reed‟s
Lake. It was terribly fast and we‟d all take turns riding on that. They had those ice sails and we
all did that. We did lots of things out of doors.
Interviewer: Getting back to those parties, those dances, someone mentioned to me that in one of
those houses they had a kind of floating dance floor, it bounced, it moved when you danced on it.
Did you ever?
Mrs. Meade: No, I don‟t remember that, which house was it?
�12
Interviewer: I can‟t remember. There‟s a name for that kind of dance floor.
Mrs. Meade: I‟ve been on them in New York, where they whirled, they moved slowly around
but I‟ve never been on one….
Interviewer: It was built so there would be a flex to the dance floor.
Mrs. Meade: That might be, but I don‟t recognize that, I don‟t remember that.
Interviewer: Were the families in your neighborhood when you were growing up quite close?
Was there a lot of interaction between the families?
Mrs. Meade: Yes, I just knew everybody up and down street.
Interviewer: Did your parents?
Mrs. Meade: We all did, right where I lived for instance, we knew the May family, and across
the street lived the Wallin family, the Van Wallin family. Do you know who Franklin Wallin is?
Well, his family was quite a prominent family and his grandfather was. There‟s a Wallin church
and so forth. They lived there and my aunt and uncle, Walter Winchester lived near us; the
Tietsorts, the Dean family lived on that street. Well, just that whole area. Senator [William
Alden] Smith lived up about a block from us. I don‟t think, but the place we thought was the
most elegant was Lafayette Street where the Fullers lived there and Mr. O‟Brien who was our
Ambassador to Japan and the Holt family. In that area right around there, I would say probably,
our most distinguished families or the most socially prominent families that lived there,
Lafayette up to Fountain right along there. It‟s all ruined now, more or less. You know that one
house, [with] that Jewish thing built out in front of it. I don‟t know, I haven‟t been along there to
notice but that was where they lived.
Interviewer: Who lived in that house, that the synagogue is built on to?
Mrs. Meade: Well, I don‟t know. There was the Fuller family, ones the Fullers and ones the
O‟Briens. It‟s the one or the other I can‟t remember which one. I think it was the O‟Brien House.
The Holts were a very distinguished family and well the Booths lived out there. They came a
little bit later but they were there. Jo Bender would know all that because she was more that
group you see. I mean I was a little bit younger, I was scared to death of them but she knew
them. They were the kind that looked you up and down you know and you never felt you were
properly dressed. They used to come out to country club and watch us dance. The Waters family
and the Hollisters and the White family were another very fine interesting family. You should
really sometime talk to Rugee White. He‟s caustic, but anyway his family, I mean there‟s
Stewart Edward White, who was the writer and there‟s Gilbert who was the artist and there was
Rod who was the violinist and they all did things, except Rugee.
�13
Interviewer: There‟s a funny story about him. He was at a party one night and a woman came up
to him and said, “Oh, you‟re one of the White family” and mentioned his brothers and she said,
“But you, what do you do?” And he looked up and said, “Oh, I freckle.”
Mrs. Meade: That would be just about what he„d say something like. But, on the other hand, he
was probably the best fisherman and hunter in Michigan. I mean he knew more about it, he‟s
never written anything, he could of, but he really knew everything, he was very good at that.
Interviewer: You mentioned you were scared to death of this older group, why was that?
Mrs. Meade: Well, only because people, I don‟t know why I always felt they were of the
ultimate socially and I didn‟t probably think, you know there is a certain age where you are
terribly shy and you don‟t feel you have any poise and you don‟t feel as though you probably are
dressed as you should be if you went to the party or something. Girls I know especially go
through a period like that. It makes me laugh as I look back on it but anyway, I can always
remember the first time I was invited to the Holt‟s house for lunch and I was so impressed that I
got asked.
Interviewer: You didn‟t make any blunders, did you?
Mrs. Meade: I hope not, but I was afraid I‟d might you know. Well, of course there was the
Blodgett family, and the Lowe family; the Blodgetts and the Lowes were the ultimate of the
whole thing, they were the wealthiest of all. But they couldn‟t have been nicer families, just
wonderful families. They were very nice to all of us, and were the Blodgett family, Katherine
Blodgett who is now Katherine Hadley was just my age and she‟s one of my closest friends now,
but I didn‟t know her as a little girl. She went to high school along with the rest of us and so I got
to know her very well. The Lowe family, there was no one exactly, Jimmie was a little bit
younger than I was and others were a little bit older but I knew them all. Mrs. Lowe was a very
gracious lovely hostess and so was Mrs. Blodgett. They lived beautifully and we used to always
love it, if we were invited there.
Interviewer: Was status a very important thing then?
Mrs. Meade: As compared to now or what, I don‟t know?
Interviewer: Yes, as compared to now?
Mrs. Meade: Well, I don‟t know how to answer that. I suppose it was. I was quite aware as I
grew up of the people who were in society so to speak. We had a society. It was a real society
then, there‟s no society anymore
Interviewer: How does that period of time differ from this period of time? When you say there is
no society today, what do you mean exactly?
�14
Mrs. Meade: I don‟t know every family that I think that was socially prominent was socially
prominent for some real reason. I mean the father was a distinguished person that had done
something important. It wasn‟t necessarily money. Well, you take the Campau family. I knew
them very well. Did you know DuBarry or any of that family? I mean they weren‟t a family of
wealth at all, but they were an old, old Grand Rapids family who helped found the city; we all
knew that you see. The Butterfield family, all of our families helped start this town and we all
had little part in it one way or another, some maybe more than others. Now you take for instance
some of the Jewish families that I grew up with here, the Wolf family and the Amberg family
and the Mays and the Housemans. We couldn‟t have had nicer Jewish people any place than
these families that I grew up with. Budge Hyman, Art Wolf, and Elizabeth Wolf and these
people were our close friends and they were part of our little group just as close as could be. In
the long run, most of them did marry into the Jewish, but I can remember wondering why in the
world people talk about, feel as they did, about the Jews when I never know anybody but the
nicest most generous cultured people. We were lucky to have and some of those families are still
here.
Interviewer: The ethnic groups, for example, Jews and Dutch, I would imagine that Dutch at that
time were mostly immigrants, is that correct?
Mrs. Meade: Well, no, because for instance the Steketee family certainly I wouldn‟t call them
immigrants. I grew up with all of them, knew them very well. I would of, yes I grew up with
them. I don‟t think, they maybe were as socially prominent as the Holt family or something like
but they were wonderful families. We all knew them well. The Keelers, they weren‟t Dutch were
they? There were a great many Dutch families of course that came to this area who were the
farming families but then there were some of the others that came too.
Interviewer: In other words there was a lot of social interaction between all groups because you
were a member of a particular ethnic group, you didn‟t stay in your own group at all? There was
mixing?
Mrs. Meade: No, I would say maybe the Polish. For instance, we got quite a big Polish group
that live on the West side, and we may have some little groups like that because they have Polish
Clubs I know and so forth. I don‟t remember knowing any Polish people that I think of. I don‟t
know why I didn‟t but I didn‟t.
Interviewer: Was there a great division between the west side and the east side?
Mrs. Meade: I, perhaps, think so because I grew up on this side for instance we owned a house
over on Mt. Vernon Street and [one day] somebody said to me, "What are you doing?" I said
“Oh, I am having a wonderful time. I‟m redoing or painting this house that we owned. It must
have belonged to some family, wealthy family; it‟s a beautiful house and its lovely old carved
stairway.” I was going on in great length and she said, “Where is it?” I said, “It was on a street
you never heard of. It‟s called Mt. Vernon Street.” She said, “Let me tell you that I lived on Mt.
�15
Vernon St. and all the people you know lived over there. Siegel Judd lived there; then all of the
Stewart family lived there.” And then she went on everybody I knew had lived on the west side
right in that area. Scribner, Mt. Vernon and all along there see and I didn‟t know that. I think
they all moved eventually to this side but many, many of our well known families started right
there on the west side.
Interviewer: How would you define society today? Today you said that today there is no society,
why do you feel that way?
Mrs. Meade: I don‟t know if I should have said that.
Interviewer: You said the thing that distinguished your society was that your position or
entrance into society did not necessarily depend on wealth, but on achievement
Mrs. Meade: I think, I just think that the families that we knew, nearly all were families that were
a real part of this town. Going all the way back from the Campaus on up to John Ball. Now for
instance, John Ball was one of our wonderful people in the early days. I have a marvelous book
about him. His children, his family were still living here. I knew some of them, Miss Ball one of
them worked down at the library for years and years and years. Another sister married a man
named Hopkins. I knew them because I think because they were a part of Grand Rapids. Yet, the
people I knew, the very small group compared to whole side of the city.
Interviewer: That society that was in existence when you were young, that isn‟t in existence any
longer, what can you attribute to the demise of that?
Mrs. Meade: Well, a lot of it, I mean should we talk about gracious living and so forth. That
takes time, leisure and money. Many of those families did have a great deal of money and they
did have the time to travel and they lived nicely because they had servants and so forth. I can
remember this time; I don‟t live that way anymore. Oliver says I would like to have the children
come in occasionally to see gracious living and all we do is have four candlesticks on the table,
and I get it, see. I don‟t call that gracious living. But we did live through a period where you
didn‟t talk about, you didn‟t think about, that‟s the way you lived, everybody lived that way,
practically.
Interviewer: What caused it to end?
Mrs. Meade: I don‟t know because they talk about the affluent society, I must say a lot of people
have plenty of money. First of all I think one thing that causes a lack of gracious living, is the
lack of help. Now nobody wishes to do this sort of work; nobody wishes to come in your house
and act as a servant, no matter how nicely you treat them. You can get a young student to come
and work so many hours a day or I can get my grand-daughter to come and help me or you know
that kind of thing. You can‟t get that kind of thing. If you want to give a lovely dinner, we all of
us had silver and the things you could do it with, you can‟t get anybody to come and do it for
�16
you. You can‟t do it yourself so you don‟t do it at all. So what you do is have a cocktail party or
you have somebody in Sunday night. I have just as much fun Sunday night maybe more, have a
casserole dish and everybody sit around the fire and eat on their laps and that kind of thing.
Maybe it‟s better; maybe everybody has a better time. I can‟t but I don‟t think when I watch
these kids, all of them have to have something, they have to have the television turned on or the
radio or all of these things. They don‟t know what to do if they haven‟t got something like that it
seems to me. We made up things to do.
Interviewer: What about the closeness of these various families that had a long history of
achievement in the city, why aren‟t those families still interacting as they did when you were
growing up?
Mrs. Meade: Many of those families are right here now. The Hutchins family was one of the
families that I knew well. They were a bunch of as you know his father was very community
minded and his grandfather and his father and that whole family. All those families that lived
along there; the Keelers, the [Victor M.] Tuthills, all of them I think have gone on. For instance,
Marguerite Inslee who was a Tuthill, she‟s been very interested in the Art Gallery, very generous
in music and so forth and all of them have taken jobs on boards of the hospital or Community
Chest or you know. I think all of us were brought up to feel if we happen to have a little more
than someone else, that you had a responsibility to the community. It made a difference as to
what you went into. I mean I happen to be interested in planning and that type of thing. My
brother John was interested in politics, my sister-in-law Helen had interests in all sorts of things;
everything there was to be. I think all those families had gone on taking their part in the
community.
Interviewer: Do you think the splitting up of the neighborhood, for example it sounds as if the
families were located in a relatively close distance of each other spread of the suburbs and so had
an effect on this?
Mrs. Meade: I guess an effect on their interest in the city and then what they wanted to do.
Interviewer: What about in terms of social interaction just with each other?
Mrs. Meade: I know that I‟ve carried on with all the same friends that I‟ve had. I belong to
something that a reading club that we started forty, fifty years ago. The same people are there are
in it, some have died you know. I think we had very close associations then and I think it is
always carried on. I don‟t know that now there‟s the closeness that there was when we grew up.
We didn‟t have all the things; we couldn‟t go off and do all the thing that people… these high
school kids now think they have to go abroad. Even in high school the tour, my grandchildren
have already done that. Why, I never went abroad till I was way out of college. There are so
many things that kind seems to shatter closeness now. I think it‟s hard for families to keep close,
harder than it was, it seems to me.
�17
Interviewer: Why do you think it is?
Mrs. Meade: Well, I think it‟s just, maybe restlessness; everybody has it, maybe we all have it,
maybe I have it now. We used to be satisfied and happy with things that were simpler. We didn‟t
know about these other things; we didn‟t listen to the Today Show every day and know what was
going on in the world. I don‟t know; I‟ve always been a person with a lot of adventure. I‟ve had
an interesting life because I‟ve had that maybe more so than my friends but that‟s why I lived in
China and did different things. We‟ve always liked it but I should ask you some questions, I‟m
afraid I‟m giving a terribly bad impression. When I‟m talking about society, you know there are
so many misconceptions about the word society.
Interviewer: Why don‟t I stop this tape and I‟ll start another. I‟d like to hear what these
misconceptions. I don‟t want you to feel like you gave a misconception on this tape.
Mrs. Meade: I don‟t know if I did or not. Is this being done just for Heritage Hill?
Interviewer: Yes, just for Heritage Hill.
Mrs. Meade: You‟re trying to get a picture of just that area there?
Interviewer: I think that the farm for example, Alta Dale that you had, what people did in the
summer time, where they went is important too, because it gives a picture of the style of living?
That‟s what we are trying to get.
Mrs. Meade: Well, it wasn‟t so stylish to go live on a farm as it was to go to Ottawa Beach. I
always longed to have a cottage at Ottawa Beach but the Martin family never had one. Anyway
our friends used to love to come to the farm, but I don‟t think by and large most people did that
in the summer. They were much more apt to go to Ottawa Beach. Only one or two friends of
mine that I ever remember ever took a trip abroad were sort of set apart if you were, to be able to
do that you know because people just didn‟t do that in those days. My mother, when my mother
became engaged to my father, my grandfather took her abroad for six months with his daughter.
This was before father and mother were married and she had the grand tour and I have her diary
about that. That was just a beautiful trip. Imagine going for six months. When people went
abroad they stayed that long. My mother‟s family didn‟t have very much: my mother taught
school and she would never have had a trip abroad ever, you see, and I think my grandfather
wanted her to, you know have all the background possible probably, so he gave her this trip,
which of course she just loved.
Interviewer: You were mentioning while we were changing tapes about the difference in parties
today. You didn‟t have liquor at your parties?
�18
Mrs. Meade: I can‟t ever remember anybody having liquor. The first time I remember anyone
having anything to drink at anything, even a house party at Ann Arbor. I can remember the boy
who had something to drink was taken away, nervously taken out. We were none of us supposed
to realize he had anything to drink but he was drunk, I guess. But, we never in the early days
ever had anything like that.
Interviewer: What about...?
Mrs. Meade: I think I‟m trying to think all the way through high school, I can‟t remember; now
maybe they did and I didn‟t know it, because I was pretty innocent. But anyway I don‟t
remember them. We certainly never had stunts pulled or anything of that kind, of course I
remember lots of it since, but not….
Interviewer: What about your parents parties, did they?
Mrs. Meade: Well, my parents never had it. I think there were families that did, but my family
were very anti, any kind of drinking, so we never had anything in our house, we never had
anything to drink. But I „m sure probably people like the O‟Briens and Holts, people like that,
they‟d lived abroad a good deal and everything I‟m sure they must have had. I don‟t know if they
would have cocktails but I‟m sure they‟d have a wine probably, with dinners. But I was too
young to ever go to anything like that, and I don‟t think that, I know my parents didn‟t, but I
think there were probably some that did.
Interviewer: The parties that were held for the adults, and your parents and so on, the parties that
they attended, can you ever remember them going to a cocktail party?
Mrs. Meade: I don‟t think they, they didn‟t have things that was such a thing called a cocktail
party until within the last number of years. You‟d maybe have a cocktail, I had, the first time I
was confronted with cocktails I remember, was when I was twenty-two or three years old. And
we went to China, the whole family and we went to the Embassy in Peking and we went to
various, we were invited to various places and we were served cocktails, which I took, whether
my family liked it or not. But anyway, but what I thought when in Rome do as the Romans…
But my father never enjoyed drinking anything, we tried to teach him but we couldn‟t. No, no, it
was something, I think probably their friends, maybe some of their friends did but most of them
did not drink, and we just weren‟t confronted with it and finally when we were we just had to
figure it out, whether we would or we wouldn‟t, I guess.
Interviewer: Besides parties that were held at people‟s houses and skating and so on and Reed‟s
Lake in the wintertime, or traveling across the ice on a propelled bike, what kind of
entertainment did people pursue?
Mrs. Meade: You mean did we go to the movies or something like that?
Interviewer: Were there movies?
�19
Mrs Meade: Well, when I was very little I was not allowed to go, but the first thing was called a
vaudette, they cost five cents. You were not supposed, I was never supposed to go in one, but I
did. And it was just one of these flickery things you know, somebody playing the piano and…
Interviewer: When was that?
Mrs. Meade: Oh, I can‟t, I don‟t know how old I was then, and I know just where it was right on
Monroe Avenue, but I can‟t, I don‟t know how old I was.
Interviewer: What was downtown like in those days?
Mrs. Meade: Well, I can‟t say Monroe was like it is now, but that was the main part of the
shopping area, was right down what‟s now the mall. And of course we had streetcars; that was
the nice part, we could if we didn‟t have a car to drive down, which we didn‟t mostly, we‟d go
out and get on the streetcar at corner of Madison and Wealthy and ride downtown and get off and
shop and then you‟d get back on. We had mailboxes on the streetcar that was another thing that
was wonderful, you could mail your letters there, stop a car there if you wanted to put „em there,
a letter. We often rode down on the streetcar and then they took those off and then the era of the
bus came. But I loved the streetcar era. Another one of the families that was quite prominent was
the Hanchett family. They were the ones, of course, that owned the street railway company.
That‟s somebody you ought to talk to is Brownie Hanchett, if you want back history, she‟s very
good.
Interviewer: I‟ll remember that. When did they do away with the streetcar?
Mrs. Meade: Well, I should remember, you know you can‟t remember dates when they did
things like that, I can‟t remember when that happened.
Interviewer: Was it in the twenties?
Mrs. Meade: I wouldn‟t, I‟d hate to tell you. I don‟t really know, they just disappear and then
you realize they‟re gone.
Interviewer: Did the First World War have an effect on society, the way people lived, and the
way people thought?
Mrs. Meade: Well, it certainly did while the war was going on, very much so. I mean because so
many of the boys that we knew were in it, you see. I mean well, all the Cassard boys and Randy
Rogers, and George Hollister and all the sons and my brother and all the people my age were all
in that war, and a number of them that were killed, of course. So that we were all working in the
Red Cross and doings things like that. No it wasn‟t very gay, we did do that, we did have that
War Garden, that one summer.
Interviewer: What was it like after the war? Do you remember any kind of a change that you
might have noticed in the tempo of living, and so on?
�20
Mrs. Meade: That would be twenty… Well, I tell you, I think after the war it was gayer in a
different kind of way, the kind of a keyed-up gayness. You hear, they talk about the twenties
now and I try to think back and there was a period there when everybody was kind of, you know,
terribly keyed up. And I forgot when, I‟m trying to think about when Prohibition came in. I guess
that was later, but this was when all the dances, you know, the Charleston and all those different
things came; and jazz and we all wore the short skirts and that kind of thing. We hadn‟t realized
we were lively through an era, but I guess we were. I don‟t, I think the tempo of life has changed,
but maybe that, maybe that‟s when the, that may be when all the big parties that, the really
formal parties and things, that may be when they really did stop. I think it was then probably.
Interviewer: This is off, away from parties, but what church was your family affiliated with?
Mrs. Meade: Park Congregational. My grandfather went there; my father went there, until he
was the oldest member of the church. We all went there, sat along in a line…. I guess in those
days everybody had a pew, all the families, different families had pews. I can just see us now, the
Keeney family sat back of us, and then we sat there and then the Irwin family and everybody,
and then afterwards they gave that up too, but in those days that was what you paid for your pew,
see.
Interviewer: Was the church, was that important at all to, was that an important input factor in
the community?
Mrs. Meade: I think the church, especially in the era when my mother and father grew up, that
was the social center of the town. I think from reading her diaries and letters and things like that,
where people went to meet each other and the young people‟s meeting and that kind of thing,
which in my era was not as important. I mean we went to church, but our whole social life didn‟t
depend upon what was going on at the church. But my mother and father, that was where it was.
Now it may not have been with all the families, but my families were very strong
Congregationalists and my father was the head of the Sunday school, and I don‟t know, Mother
was the head of the United Workers. I always feel guilty now because I‟m not any of those
things. In fact, most of the family well, we‟ve had, great changes, around. My brother John
became a, went to Fountain Street Church and he was a great worker in that, and my brother Joe
doesn‟t go at all, and I‟m the only one that stayed in the Congregational Church. And yet they
had such a battle down the old Park Church that I had to move out here to the Mayflower
Church. Oh, heavens I, now listen you‟d better take that out…
Interviewer: Well, that won‟t be that important. I think that, I think we covered about everything
I wanted to cover. One last question though, and you don‟t have to answer this if you don‟t want
to, but how old are you?
Mrs. Meade: I am seventy-four. I wish I weren‟t, but I am….
�21
INDEX
A
F
Alta Dale farm · 7, 19
Alten, Mr. [Mathias] · 8
Amberg family · 16
Art Gallery · 10, 18
Audubon Society · 7
First World War · 22
Fountain Street Church · 23
Fuller family · 14
Fuller, Philo · 7
B
G
Bailey, Rebecca · 1
Ball, John · 17
Bartholomew plan · 9
Baxter Laundry · 13
Baxter, Don · 13
Baxter, Howard · 13
Bender, Jo · 14
Blodgett family · 15
Blodgett, Katherine · 15
Blodgett, Mrs. · 15
Boltwood, Mrs. · 3
Booth family · 14
Braman‟s farm · 6
Brooks, Rose · 5
Bush, Irving · 4
Butterfield family · 16
Gilbert, artist · 14
Gilbert, Rod · 14
Grand Rapids Savings bank · 5
H
Hanchett, Brownie · 21
Heritage Hill · 5, 9, 10, 11, 19
Holiday farm · 7
Hollister family · 14
Hollister, George · 22
Hollister, Harvey · 2
Holt family · 14, 16
Holt‟s house · 15
Houseman familiy · 16
Hutchins family · 18
Hyman, Budge · 16
C
Campau family · 17
Campau, DuBarry · 15
Cassard boys · 22
Central Grammar school · 6
Community Chest · 18
Comstock, C.C. · 2, 3
Crawford family · 7
I
Inslee, Marguerite · 18
Irwin family · 22
J
Judd, Siegel · 17
D
Dean family · 14
Dix House · 10
K
Keeler family · 16, 18
Keeney family · 22
Konkle, Mrs. · 3
�22
L
Lafayette school · 6
Lantsberry family · 2
Lantsberry, Mary Alice · 1, 2
Lowe family · 15
M
Martin, grandfather · 1, 3
Martin, John B. · 1, 4
Martin, Joseph H. · 1, 2
Martin, Mary Alice · 1, 2
Martin, Peter · 2
Martin, Uncle Thomas · 2
May family · 13, 16
Mayflower Congregational church · 23
Meade, Richard Hardaway · 1
N
Nelson-Matter Furniture Company · 3
O
O‟Brien family · 14, 20
O‟Brien house · 14
O‟Brien, Mr. · 14
Old Kent Bank · 5
Old National Bank · 2, 5
P
Park Congregational church · 23
Park Congregational church · 22
Penfield, Mrs. Thorton B. · 4
Peoples Bank · 5
Plank Road · 2
Prior, Eleanor · 1
Prohibition · 22
R
Reed‟s Lake · 13, 21
Robinson, Henry C. · 1
Robinson, Rix · 7
Rogers, Randy · 22
Russell house · 11
Russell, Fran · 3
Russo, Mr. · 5
S
Smith, Senator [William Alden] · 14
Steketee family · 16
Stewart family · 17
T
Tietsort family · 14
Tuthill family [Victor] · 18
U
Union Bank · 5
W
Wallin church · 13
Wallin family · 13
Wallin, Franklin · 13
War Garden · 7, 22
Waters family · 14
Waters‟ house · 11
Welsh, George · 9
Welsh, Ken · 9
White family · 14
White, Rugee · 14
White, Stewart Edward · 14
Wilcox family · 8
Winchester family · 2, 3
Winchester, Althea · 1, 4
Winchester, grandfather · 3
Winchester, Samuel · 2
Winchester, Samuel Alexander · 1
Winchester, Walter · 11, 13
Wolf family · 16
Wolf, Art · 16
Wolf, Elizabeth · 16
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a8ea3040c939b34b8cec954c312c451e.mp3
99df13c02b98b1a3889c4998f4ac63be
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Grand Rapids Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Local histories
Memoirs
Michigan--History
Oral histories (document genre)
Description
An account of the resource
Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Various
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; audio/mp3
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text; Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-23
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1971 - 1977
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-23_7-8Meade
Title
A name given to the resource
Meade, Mary Alice
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Meade, Mary Alice
Description
An account of the resource
Mary Alice Martin was born in Grand Rapids in 1897. She returned home from Vassar College during WWI to farm.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Michigan--History
Local histories
Memoirs
Oral histories (document genre)
Grand Rapids (Mich.)
Personal narratives
Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Grand Valley State University
Women
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
audio/mp3
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1971