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Kristie DeVlieger
3/28/20
We were part of the way into Illinois, a few hours into our trip to San Antonio on the second,
when my notifications began going off. It was the group of other attendees for AWP, upset about
messages seen on twitter that the conference was maybe being cancelled. Since we were already enroute, we decided we would be attending either way; we had taken the time off, booked the hotel, and
already driven through two states. It is exactly a two day drive to drive from Holland, MI to San Antonio,
TX.
The drive was exhausting, but uneventful. It was like many of the other road trips we had taken
before. We’d take turns driving. The driver selects the radio selections. We gave in every early on
Tuesday morning, sleeping in our VW Jetta on the side of the road.
We arrived in San Antonio mid-morning on the third, noticing how many trees there were in
Texas. Early in the morning through Arkansas I had counted almost 100 white tailed deer on the sides of
the highway. We checked into our hotel at noon, a few hours later. We finally got some food, trying
What-A-Burger.
We walked along the Riverwalk several times over the week, quickly gaining knowledge of
where our hotel was in relation to the conference center, the mall with the only liquor store downtown,
and the Alamo. It was impossible to miss the loud, continuous noise of the birds in San Antonio. They
sang and called to one another from dawn until late in the evenings.
I’ve always thought of Texas as dry, like a desert, with trees dotting the landscape in the
distance. So it was a surprise when it was more like Tennessee or Georgia. And there was water
EVERYWHERE. Logical, considering the state’s proximity to the ocean, but baffling to my midwestern
mind.
As we walked along the Riverwalk, we discussed drinking in the bars. It seemed like it would be
glamorous, drinks at the Hard Rock Café, right along the water.
3/29/20
On Wednesday, the fourth, we headed to the convention center at noon-ish. I had been advised
that the registration could take a while, but when we arrived, the registration area was completely
empty aside from the workers. In 5 minutes I had registered, picked up my badge, bag, and program. I
peeked at the book fair, but there didn’t seem to be anyone setting up. Disappointed, we headed to the
Alamo.
It was the commemoration of the Battle of the Alamo, so admittance was free. I looked forward
to this in advance and was both interested and disappointed to see that it was undergoing restoration.
After all this time, the Alamo’s limestone substrate was dissolving. Placards around the interior detailed
discoveries the restoration team had found, like Civil War soldiers’ inscriptions and the remains of
windows that no longer existed.
We ended up driving around San Antonio, looking for thrift stores. I needed a cardigan, it was
colder than I had expected, and that was the only thing I hadn’t packed. The first one we found was only
as wide as a hallway, but we were successful at the second one, picking up a gigantic grocery sack of
vintage matchbooks from around the country for only $5. We had asked locals if they were concerned
�Kristie DeVlieger
about the state of emergency that had been declared, but no one was worried. When we went to the
grocery store though, it was a mad house, filled with people frantically buying all of the boxed dinners
they could find, shelves empty of certain items.
3/30/20
Thursday the fifth was when the conference properly began and I spent my time applying
makeup before I headed to my first panel. The panel was headed by Dinty Moore, on persona. I found it
enlightening and relatable; I too struggled with which persona to speak in. I then attended a panel on
podcast creation. I don’t have an interest in podcasts, but as a quickly growing market and with my
interest in digital humanities, I thought it may be something I would do someday. I walked away with
many “reputable” examples of podcasts. My favorite panel of the conference was the NBCC’s panel on
writing book reviews. I didn’t really think about how other people were doing it professionally—I had
always just written mine to share my opinions on the books I was reading.
While there were stations for hand sanitizer everywhere at AWP, nobody was wearing masks. I
saw people that were afraid to shake hands, but that seemed to be the extent of the concern that
attendees had regarding COVID-19. I felt like there were more people worried about it online than there
were that had showed up.
We rounded out the day by attending the first of our off-site readings at the Cherrity Bar, where
we met the three other GVSU students who attended. As we showed up they were reading, and we
caught only the end of the showcase.
3/31/20
Friday the sixth was a harder day to get up and face, but I did. I felt like I went from panel to
panel, only to find that each was either cancelled or too full to attend. I attended an MfA panel and the
Q & A with Louise Erdrich.
Later that evening I attended the AWP dance party. We had gone downtown and finally had a
drink down along the Riverwalk, checking out a basement bar that had a dedicated Ms. Pacman console.
I couldn’t pass it up, and we slowly drank while I played a few rounds. Don had passed out early that
evening, so I decided to check out the last hour of what was supposedly a pretty wild event.
Attendance at the dance party was modest, small groups of people dancing to ‘90s dance hits. I
ordered an $11 drink, then sat at an empty table and watched. As the dance closed, I stepped out and lit
a cigarette before following the sidewalks back to my hotel alone, with the chirp of the Corvids.
I was told the conference was smaller this year. All but two of the attending professors had
cancelled. We sailed around the conference like ships, adrift. I watched people afraid to hold handrails,
open doors. Amidst it all, spring had begun to bloom in SA, fragrant hyacinths blooming everywhere.
4/1/20
Saturday the seventh was a day of panic. Checkout appeared a day early, alarmingly so, as I was
in bed. Quickly we packed our belongings into the car, racing towards the conference’s last day. We
parked in the mall’s parking garage then registered for the public book fair.
�Kristie DeVlieger
Side-by-side we approached the moment I had waited a year for: the AWP Bookfair. It has such
a large footprint- even this, the last day, when every third and fourth table seemed to be empty already.
We tackled half of the fair, then stepped out for Jimmy Johns before returning. As we returned we could
see booths beginning to pack up, offering free copies of their journals to anyone who wanted them. No
one wanted to have to bring them home. we ended up collecting 4 bags of swag, literary journals, and
information. While at the bookfair we had run into one of my former classmates, who was hosting an
offsite reading that we later chose to attend.
After we had left the bookfair we debated on whether to attend some of the other off-site
readings or whether to just begin heading home, early. We decided to visit the Japanese tea gardens, a
tourist attraction that wasn’t really nearby, but which had been recommended by another one of the
attending students. We walked through its picturesque gardens, taking selfies just like the dozens of
other couples and families. We went off the beaten path and climbed along a dirt trail to discover a feral
cat colony, and I tried in vain to pet one.
I hadn’t wanted to check out anymore readings. We had attended a few of them, nearly always
ducking out of the bar after a few minutes and heading to the next one. I felt like readings were just as
awkward as they always seemed at home; clumsily standing in front of others trying to pace yourself as
you read your material. But this reading was different from the other ones. It was informally hosted,
with just a small group of attendees, maybe 7 other people, who all read as well. I think that it was my
favorite event of the entire week.
4/5/20
The transition from traditional format classes to remote learning was one that was difficult for
me. I had just gotten back from AWP in Texas when the decision was made, so I was grateful for the
brief break. In Texas it had seemed like the only people truly concerned with COVID were the organizers
of the conference, so it was surprising to me when classes were so abruptly cancelled and then
restructured.
Initially I took the time to clear space in my home and set up a desk to work at. I had hoped that
by collecting everything in one area and having a dedicated space it would help improve the chances of
actually getting work done. At the least it would keep me from losing all of the files and notebooks that
went with my coursework. Fortunately I had already picked up the books I needed from the library
before break, so I had the research project materials I needed for finals.
I didn’t realize how much I would miss seeing people who were not living with me but that was
the first thing I missed about attending on campus. The second was the library itself; this time where I
am forced to work at home has made me realize that my working style is very extroverted and I prefer
to work in an environment with other people.
�
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COVID-19 Journals
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Description
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This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled.
The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community.
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2020
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University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project
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Epidemics
Grand Valley State University
College students
Personal narratives
COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020
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COVID-19_2020-04-24_DeVliegerKristie
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DeVlieger, Kristie
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2020-05-01
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AWP 2020
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Journal of GVSU student Kristie DeVlieger's experiences attending the AWP 2020 amidst the COVID-19 outbreak in San Antonio.
Subject
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COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020
Epidemics
Grand Valley State University
College students
Personal narratives
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University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project
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Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives.
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1
Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23
Mary Baloyan
Interviewed on November 13, 1974
Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com
Tape #44 (1:10:47)
Biographical Information
Mary Baloyan was born 13 October 1899 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was the daughter of
Martin (Mardiros) A. Baloyan and Nouvart Kurkjian who were married in 1897. Martin was
born in Palu, Armenia (now Turkey) in 1868 and died 6 January 1931 in Grand Rapids at his
home at 639 Cherry Street SE. Mrs. Nouvart Baloyan was born 3 December 1877 in Palu,
Armenia (now Turkey). She survived her husband and died 7 March 1971 at Blodgett Hospital.
Mary Baloyan died at Pilgrim Manor in Grand Rapids 21 January 1984 at the age of 84. The
Baloyan family plot is in Greenwood Cemetery.
___________
Interviewer: This recording is made on November 13, 1974 at Pilgrim Manor on East Leonard,
in the apartment of Miss Baloyan who is a lifelong resident of Grand Rapids. I’m now going to
ask Miss Baloyan to tell about her family, her background and her early years as she recalls them
in Grand Rapids.
Miss Baloyan: Thank you. I am very proud to be able to talk on this subject because I’m so
proud of the accomplishments of my parents and other relatives. My parents came to this country
in 1897 from what was referred to as Old Armenia. I have seen their passport and it interested
me at the time that they could leave the country but could never return. When some years later I
took a trip abroad, my relatives were divided on the subject of whether I should revisit that part
of the world or not. Since some thought it might be dangerous. My father always used to say,
there must be great wealth and resources buried in the mountains of that area since so many
Armenians buried their wealth rather than let the enemy Turks take it. My parents had to leave
everything they possessed where they had come from, and these days it’s ironic that so many
people ask for a hand out or easy access to a living where as I know from firsthand experience
that my parents and family had to start with nothing, worked hard and availed themselves to the
opportunities of this country. In time, they had three children. My brother was the first Armenian
born in Grand Rapids, I was the first Armenian girl born in Grand Rapids and all three of us
including, Alfred, my older brother. Alexi, my younger sister who eventually went into interior
decorating, and I a middle child. All of us were given outstanding educations and special types of
instruction such as in music, dancing, theatre training, interior decoration and my parents too
took an active participation in so much of the civic life.
�2
Interviewer: I just want to interrupt you a moment and ask, why did your parents happen to
choose Grand Rapids? Was there any particular reason?
Miss Baloyan: Yes, indeed. My grandfather, who had come to New York in 1890, which is my
maternal grandfather, was a steel cabinet maker and as he attempted to work in his craft in New
York, he was told he should be in Grand Rapids where the furniture industry was flourishing,
and specifically, should be with John Widdicombe. He became the first Grand Rapids settler
when he had promised Mr. Widdicombe that if he went into his employ he would never leave
him. Widdicombe began taking an interest in him and a very old-fashioned and charming kind
of loyalty came about because it was, in time when Grandfather wanted to bring his wife and
grown up children to this city to join him, it included my maternal grandmother, my parents,
newly married the year before, and a couple of the aunts and an uncle who came to be known
locally as Armen Kurkjian. They came to Grand Rapids, Mr. Widdicombe had been instrumental
in finding a home for Steven’s family to come too and it was in that home that my brother and I
were later born. In time….
Interviewer: Where was that, Miss Baloyan?
Miss Baloyan: Where?
Interviewer: Where was that?
Miss Baloyan: On Fifth Street, on the west side at that time, not too far from Grandfather’s place
of employment, at that time. And so we three children grew up, on the west side, until I
graduated from the University of Michigan, some years later.
Interviewer: Could we back up just for a moment, I’d like you to describe your relationship to
Mr. Armen Kurkjian whom I, whom I knew and rather well, because of my family’s early
association with Fountain Street Church.
Miss Baloyan: Yes, Uncle Armen had come to this country as a boy of 14.
Interviewer: He was your mother’s brother?
Miss Baloyan: He was my mother’s brother. He brought certain old-fashioned principles to this
country with him. Such as the belief that young people shouldn’t smoke and other principles that
he sometimes got laughed at. But he used to retain a very lofty kind of set of principles.
Eventually as various members of the family joined local organizations, he got quite a good
education partly through their encouragement of those who became interested in him. He met at
the University of Michigan, eventually, a man named Melvin Baldwin, who became his college
room-mate. They became very good friends. My uncle was in civil engineering and some years
later, came to Grand Rapids. It must have been mechanical engineering, because he went into
Oliver Machinery Company in which Mr. Melvin Baldwin’s family and the Tuthills had been
very active. My uncle was, for many years, their sales manager and at one time, opened an office
�3
in Saint Louis, Missouri for them. He eventually met, married the woman who left Grand
Rapids as his secretary, whose maiden name was Elvestra Wurzburg and who became known as
my uncle Sid did for her philanthropic work in the city. Both of them interested in both Fountain
Street Church and crippled children’s work, Rotary Rehabilitation work. In the mean time my
father opened an Oriental restaurant on East Fulton Street and an art goods shop, a block east of
there also on East Fulton. They were quite, recognized as quality shops and in the summer-time
when his children had vacation from school, he came to open summer-time resort branches in
such places as Grand Haven or Muskegon, had even gone as far away as Cleveland, Ohio,
Kalamazoo and Benton Harbor. However his primary interest was rugs and related art objects.
My mother took a great interest in music, interpreting for less fortunate Armenians and in
education her children. She herself joined the Lady’s Literary Club, eventually Women’s City
Club and other broadening influences. She took a very active interest in church work. In this
particular branch of the family attended Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church where I have been a
member now fifty eight years. It has made a great many fine friendships for us among other
values. For instance, through the work of my family, my sister and brother also went into related
fields. Through the work of my family, we came to meet people in the various arts, so then we
began taking an active interest. Eventually, I was encouraged to go into Civic Theatre work
where I went on a board, worked in that area for twenty years, and became vice-president.
Through our music lessons we became interested in concerts and help local concert campaigns.
Also I became interested, after many years later, after mother’s death, in establishing some music
scholarships on a college level for Interlochen in memory of my mother. There are also a
memoriam of this at St. Mark’s church in her memory because while she was choir mother there,
it was the consuming interest that meant a great deal to her. The other arts were not neglected.
We had an interest in all of them. I eventually went to the University of Michigan after starting at
junior college, became interested in English, along with several other hobbies such at the theatre,
continuing as a hobby. After I had attained my master, masters in English at the University of
Michigan I started teaching school six months in Zeeland.
Interviewer:
When was this, Miss Baloyan?
Miss Baloyan: The beginning of my career was in 1923. As a matter of fact, when, the following
year I came back, I came to Grand Rapids to start a career in teaching. It was the beginning of 42
½ years in Grand Rapids in teaching—most of it at Ottawa Hills High School. The last thirteen
years at Junior College, so that I taught English 43 years, 15 of those years also dramatics.
Because I went for six years of education to the fine arts department of Yale University, where I
was privileged to attend the famous Yale Workshop under George Pierce Baker, who used to be
at Harvard but moved over to Yale when an enterprising philanthropist named Harkness built a
good building, good theatre for Yale. So the work was transferred over there. I came back to
Grand Rapids, established a laboratory theatre in Ottawa Hill High School which for fifteen
years functioned under the name of mine. We sent out from that theatre people into many artistic
areas. Some of them now professional and it’s a source of great happiness to me that many of the
�4
people who participated and worked so hard, remember it and comment on it with joy to this
day.
Interviewer: Who were some of these people, could you tell who some of them are?
Miss Baloyan: Yes, Jack Thompson, for instance, is on a college staff in New York, he appeared
two or three years ago as the author of an article in the Harper’s magazine in which he attempted
to recall his yesterdays in Grand Rapids, as his title was. “It was my privilege to have him name
me in that article as his favorite teacher”. So, then Lloyd Matoon, he went into the commercial
end of TV work, specializing for a while in the Chrysler ads. Out west, the man who is lighting
the Lawrence Welk show did the lighting for me, in the laboratory theatre. His name is Wallace
Stanard. His name is still seen on TV in connection with being technical manager for the
Lawrence Welk program. There were others who went out west and there a some whose names I
don’t just recall now, but many have commented. Several of the presidents of the local Women’s
City Club have been former members of that group. Shall I name some of them?
Interviewer: Yes.
Miss Baloyan: Mrs. Birch, Mrs. Whittier, and Mrs. the present President, Mrs. Smiley I could
be forgiven, I hope for some delight in their continuing to enjoy memories of those days because
I believe so deeply that the extras in education such as contact with creativity, helped to give
lasting joy in the memories of people who’ve experienced the creativity. Our work has included
writing and designing of costumes, coloring of materials, making of patterns, make, designing
scenery, making scenery, planning and & operating the lighting, and so many other areas. Ann
Kleiner went to Yale after a number of years. She had been a student of mine in the laboratory
theatre and she is now in Detroit doing creative lighting for Detroit businesses.
Interviewer: Is that Bob Kleiner’s sister?
Miss Baloyan: Yes, it is. When she comes to Grand Rapids, she contacts me sometimes. I take
great delight in the fact that the students who had with me in dramatics, had invented the
nickname “Chief” for me because they said my own name was a little long to say back-stage.
Well, some amusing results followed, for instance the Kleiners were so use to calling me Chief at
home, that their aunt Mrs. Seidman, now many years later, when she sees me downtown, says
“Hello Chief,” and I love hearing say it. I am very proud of the viewpoint that my parents
brought to this country from a place where there was so much tyranny. Their attitude was, that
there are opportunities here, let us avail ourselves of some of the opportunities and let us help
ourselves. I’m afraid I’m a little impatient with those who sit around and wait for help if they can
help themselves because I’ve seen examples of members of my family including other cousins
and uncles and aunts, members of my family, get through hard work and enjoy it and become
contributors, not just absorbers, in society. One of the things for which I’m very grateful is that,
though my family came from a land with so much tyranny, they welcomed the opportunity of
freedom here. One evidence of it is that various branches of the family attended different
�5
churches and became active contributors in different churches. Yet they didn’t sit in judgment on
one another because it wasn’t the same as the old Armenian Orthodox Apostolic Church. I’ve
always been very happy in the Episcopal Church. My uncle and aunt, the Kurchins, were always
extremely happy in the Fountain Street Church. And this is just part of the freedom that they
displayed all the way through. Some of them have been very funny. For instance, there was once
a man who traveled all the way from California to this town because he’d heard there were
unmarried Armenian girls in this town. He was a complete stranger, but he had once come here,
during the Near East Relief War. He had come here to lecture and had seen some of us
participating in programs and, decided, this was a good family to be attached to. So years later he
came back, in order to try to make a match, went to my parents, and tried to persuade them to
allow him to begin courting one of us, and to his amazement, instead of arranging a match, my
father told him that they never interfered with the choices and decisions we made. So I’m proud
that my family had acquired so much of the principles of this country. I’m grateful for them and,
if sometimes, I fancy that some of the teaching I have done has been of some value, I cannot fail
to give great credit to the family of character and intelligence that gave me a good start in life.
Other subjects I should have touched on, perhaps, you would like to know, I moved from the
West side to the Heritage Hill area.
Interviewer: I’d like to ask you, I like to ask you some questions about how long did you live on
the West Side and did you, go to school over there and if so, where? That’s the sort of thing, I’d
like to go into now.
Miss Baloyan: I attended Union High School as did my brother and sister both. I was given
many fine opportunities there. Worked on the literary periodicals there, I graduated from Union
High School in 1918. I started attending Junior College two years, where I made some of my
life-long friendships, from other areas in the city and where I came to be a great believer in
Junior College for giving a good foundation of an education. Then I went on to the University of
Michigan for two years to get my BA, first. The year I was graduated from the University of
Michigan, 1922. Our family who then had some stores on East Fulton for some time, decided to
moved to the East side and selected a spacious place on Cherry Street, because it was not far
from the downtown area. We found it a good central location to radiate from and as I taught in
many different localities in the city, starting downtown at North Division two years, the Harrison
Park Junior High on the Northwest, five years then in the Southeast at Ottawa Hills twenty-one
years and interrupting the act for education and then eventually going downtown again to Junior
College for thirteen years. And I radiated to the various schools and to the various Civic
organizations, I had become interested in. Eventually I went on a board of directors and not only
of the Civic Theatre and Community Concerts and Urban League, but I also did volunteer work.
And my sister went into dancing and interior decorating. My brother stayed for awhile in my
father’s business and eventually he opened a retail store of his own for rugs but later he started a
rug servicing place on the side of the building. Mother joined an organization both for American
and Armenian and both my parents tried to be good citizen in both, I feel that one of the
�6
advantages of my background has been that I have been expected to be both a good American
and a good Armenian and I have come to believe that this is for me at least, a better idea even,
than the melting pot idea because I have seen that as various ethnic groups retain their customs
and identity the various groups contribute a great deal of richness to American life. I have
enjoyed living in the near downtown area. There are many advantages. There used to be even
more. The streets are kept very clean in the winter because it’s a passageway through downtown.
Those residences now considered old and large, used to be one-family residences and one knew
one’s neighbors and there were many prime families and it was very….
Interviewer: Who were some, who were some of your neighbors….
Miss Baloyan: Well, across the street used to be some branches of the Alby family and next to
them the Edwin Kleins who became active in a different kind of church, where he helped to
spread the Giddeon Bible around. Next to them was a family whose name now escapes me but
they lived in the brick house a very long time. Just west of us there used to be the Blanchards,
there are many other old families whose names I would have to look up again to recall but, we all
knew one another and it was a personal commitment to one another that I think was fine. It had
another advantage that as people traveled towards downtown for business or religious purposes
or other purposes, they had to pass houses such as ours and they often stopped and became
acquainted and to this day they come and on the yards that are kept up well and the yards that
aren’t. And I feel that I’ve been very many places in my life. I have never felt that the fact that I
was from an immigrant family had handicapped me in the slightest respect because people of
breeding and education apply these qualities to their outlooks and to the way they live. I’ve
encountered people, we have been able to share ideas and laughter and an interest in causes. We
have even found controversial subjects such as sometimes, politics and I have not felt any
barriers to camaraderie and in fact, people of quality are actually interested in the different
aspects of your life and background. Such as mine is full of unique customs and traditions. On
New Year’s Eve, when my grandparents were living, they used to collect the entire clan, cousins,
uncles, aunts, the children, into the living room which ran into the dining room. We’d all get
down on our knees and our grandfather would lead us in prayer, for the coming year. We learned
a great many customs that were unique to us. And I remember one time when I was in grade
school, another custom that puzzled me for awhile, but I’m amused by now, because I was short
of stature, I was to lead a wand drill in a program for relatives. Besides that the very charming
teacher was dating my uncle at that time and I always wondered which was the reason that I was
chosen. But I was to lead and my grandmother decides to come to the program. I was a little bit
shocked when she kissed the hand of the principal, the teacher, and any other dignitaries around
because since I had been exposed to a few of the customs and teachings in school I had decided
very ardently that it was unsanitary for grandmother to kiss the hands of other people. As some
years passed and I reflected what a sweet and loving grandmother I’d had, it seemed to me it was
sweet and humble of her to do it because it was her way of paying respects and gratitude for
what had been done for her members of her family. So though part of my bringing up has been
�7
different, a considerable of it has been the same. I was fortunate enough to win a half scholarship
in piano with Otto [(?) Molly], who started the symphony before the current Grand Rapids
Symphony. He was a magnificent teacher and quite an interesting man, I used to take my piano
lessons in the very room that is now the drawing room for the Women’s City Club. It was then
his studio. Sometimes has as many as three grand pianos in it, usually Steinways. And he was
tall, very strong man and sometimes, especially when I first transferred from an organ teacher to
a piano teacher he felt I was still playing the organ on the piano and he put his knee under the
piano board, would raise his knees and the board would leave my hands and would push my
hands up and, he did many other interesting eccentric things that have to make him picturesque
and that created great affection for him. He used to draw designs on music to show you either the
way he wanted your wrist movement to go or the way he didn’t want your arm to go. He used to
have other musicians come in from Chicago, where he had come from, to make records with him
and if I’d had a good lesson because he knew I was enchanted by these informal sessions he used
to reward me by allowing me to sit in the room on a stool quietly while he and a violinist and a
cellist made beautiful, musical records. He had a hobby of photography that caused him to give
the results of his picture making sometimes to students. Usually however, you knew if you’d had
a good lesson because he wouldn’t say anything. If you didn’t have a good lesson he would point
it out. Oh, I have been grateful not only to special teachers such as that, but, for instance to the
Calle Travis Studio where I studied there from, with Harriet Blood, to study dancing and then
years later after I had trained in dramatics I taught ballet and pantomime to some of Miss Travis’
senior students. It included such people as Marsha Travis, the Goodspeed girls, and so many
other lovely girls whose names, I would have to look up but, some of the lovely young matrons
of Grand Rapids. But teaching ballet, ballet pantomime in Miss Travis’ studio was a great
privilege, since I always thought she had an outstanding ballet studio. I have covered several of
the arts but our interests and activities were even more extensive than anything I have mentioned.
So whatever else you would like to know I’d be happy to go into.
Interviewer: Well, I can’t help but realize that, I run into you fairly often in the art museum.
Have you ever had any special role in, in the life of the museum?
Miss Baloyan: Only in the respect that, when a former director Otto Bach was here his wife Ciel
(?) Cile Bach used to write skits sometimes which, I sometimes helped to perform for them. I
remember too that a Dr. Rosenswag and I were together on an interview program one time. I
can’t claim to have helped them in any other respect, except that we have always been interested
in our family in helping in minor ways and just now I have presented them with some of my
father’s fine ancient porcelain vases of Chinese make. Some of them are from the Chung Ling
period, several centuries old. They have been appraised, it’s very valuable, has been accessed by
the appraisers as extremely gorgeous and they will be at the museum in memory of my father. I
have also promised to send them and, very soon, at the beginning of a new year, and send them
and the public museum also, some silk rugs, since silk rugs are not very common here. The one
that will go to the Art Museum is a silk Kashan(?) prayer rug of, some beauty and rarity. I can’t
�8
say I’ve done a great deal for them, but I have enjoyed such contacts as I’ve had. And believe it
is one of local institutions that should be helped. I have also felt that way about the Saint Cecilia
Music Society of which I’m also a member and I wouldn’t know where to draw the line except to
say all the educational and cultural, the artistic organizations in town receive our interest and
support often.
Interviewer: You want to stop for just a minute? I think we’ll turn the tape over at this time and
proceed on side two.
Interviewer: We stopped our interview for a moment and talked about a few other matters and
Miss Baloyan has recalled that there are some other people she would like to talk about and I’m
going to hand the microphone to her now and let her continue.
Miss Baloyan: When my father’s store was on East Fulton the Grand Rapids Press and the
Herald, the morning paper, were both within a block of distance from his store with the result
that as we dropped into the store the members of the family became acquainted with some of the
main writers in Grand Rapids including reporters, columnists, critics and even the editor of the
Press, Mr. Booth and Mr. Frank Sparks from the Herald. They became of such interest to us that
they actually influenced us in various ways and we were very fond of them. At one time since I
had become so much interested in books, my mother used to make sure that when we were
children we were always surrounded by educational material. Miss May Quigley, the children’s
librarian used to tell me that every Saturday afternoon Mother used to walk to the library and say
I would like a book of poems for my Mary and the result was I always had books around me and
it became a lifetime interest so that gradually I became interested in writing. But I had so many
other interests too. So I went to see Mr. Booth, the editor of the Press to interview him on what
he thought of journalism as a possible career for a young lady who was attending the University
of Michigan. And he said to me and he knew us well by then. He said I would like to encourage
you to go into it but he said at this time you would have to limit yourself to obituaries and social
notes and he said if you would find that sufficiently interesting then it would be well to go into
journalism. When I think now of the changes in opportunities for women journalists I recall that
with great respect for his honesty in that period of time. However, as I became interested in other
area such as theatre, I attended various summer theatres, one in Booth Bay Harbor, Maine and
one in the north of this state with one of the directors from Civic Theatre here. And since I had
finished training at the Yale University Theatre, the Yale workshop department and since they
didn’t allow us to specialize, it was a broad thorough training, and at that time as I wondered
how I could use it, Miss Mary Remington, the well beloved drama critic of the Grand Rapids
Press, said to me, if you decide to apply as the director of the Civic Theatre, we will back you.
But by that time I was interested in teaching because I felt I could combine many of my interests
in the teaching area. But to this day I have retained a deep interest in the work of our local
columnists and critics. Don’t find them all equally good. For instance, Miss Margarete Kerns
was a name I came to know well, and I hope that some of the newer people coming will match
the contributions that were made by Mary Remington, Margarete Kerns, and others. I have also
�9
come to respect the work of Jerry Elliot who writes with a distinctive style. And I think that
some of these people who we have taken for granted have, made much more expanded
contributions than we’ve realized. For instance, one of the special interests of the Cyprus
situation to me last year was the fact that former Junior college student of mine, for I came to
teach in Junior College eventually, was a boy who later became cultural attaché with the
American Embassy in Cyprus. I wasn’t sure whether he had been returned to this country or not
during the recent troubles and I knew that after his work at Junior College he had worked for a
while with Mr. Elliot, Jerry Elliot and others at the Grand Rapids Press. I started to investigate
and learned fortunately in May he had been returned to this country and there was a story within
recent months of the fact that his wife and child had followed him. So you see reporters and
columnists have not only done an interesting job for us but have trained some future journalist
and government workers, who have contributed to our daily lives. I think some of fail to realize
what a great town Grand Rapids actually is. Several times in the opportunities that I’ve had I
have had tempting openings in other areas of this country but contrary to Mr. Butts, opinion of
the area, I have loved Grand Rapids and I made the decision to come back here and to stay here
and I’ve never regretted it. I know there are many others. Grand Rapids not too large, not to
small and it’s had all the opportunities that the larger centers offer and it’s a good thing that some
of us do prefer coming back to our town and bringing with us, experiences we have picked up
elsewhere so that through our travels, we can bring a little of Maine, a little of Connecticut, a
little bit of northern Michigan and so many other areas, back to Grand Rapids. I don’t think it’s
an accident that Grand Rapids is foremost in some of the contemporary art projects of recent
years and has shown leadership in other progressive areas I think it’s because, there is an interest
here in good things. I don’t even think that the furniture industry has completely left us, for its
influence on modern life can be shown in our continuing preference for quality in daily life. And
I’m so happy to have known some of the people who have worked in connection with the arts in
Grand Rapids and with furniture in Grand Rapids and with business in Grand Rapids. You asked,
Mr. Hutchins, about my uncle Armen Kurchin one of the smart things he helped to do happened
when the depression was felt so deeply here and some of the furniture factories were wondering
what the future of the city would be. Well, the Chamber of Commerce and my uncle actively
participating, used their skills for helping to bring in new metal industries and other new
interests that have continues here and have helped to keep our commerce, successful as much as
anywhere else in any period.
Interviewer: You mentioned having written Secretary Butts in regard to his rather unfortunate
remarks about Grand Rapids, if you would just like to comment on that.
Miss Baloyan: I was indignant as I’m sure so were others, so I wrote Mr. Butts, that although I
know Mr. Butts that you must have been at least half joking in your reference to Grand Rapids,
when you suggested that, take away a furniture factory or two and the town could blow into
Canada, I said there is a suggestion there that we are provincial. I said far from being provincial,
this is a highly cosmopolitan town in many ways. Where else can you find in a middle-sized
�10
town six colleges, an art museum that is sought out by neighboring communities, a public
museum that goes in, that brings in many ethnic groups and it goes into other communities with
its activities, this is a town of several hundred churches, this is a town which was smart enough
when the furniture industry began suffering, weakening, smart enough to bring in other
industries so that it could succeed if not always in the same way, then in new ways. This is
indeed a cosmopolitan town with all the opportunities that one could find in the larger
communities and so we’re not in the least provincial and I’m sure that although our new
president may have compassion for workers in agriculture he is well acquainted with other
aspects of Grand Rapids life too and so Mr. Butts in our community we like the authentic.
Interviewer: Speaking of the president, do you know Mr. Ford or Mrs. Ford?
Miss Baloyan: I know both, President and Mrs. Ford. In fact, at one time President Ford, as a
choir boy sang in the Saint Mark’s Church Choir. His parents, his mother and his step-father, the
Jerry Ford Seniors were extremely, highly respected both in our church and the community and
they were wonderful people. In the later years I came to know Betty too as a dancer. In fact, in
one of our local dramatic programs, she danced for us very beautifully, very gracefully. They are
very fine people although one may differ with a particular political decision and practice,
anybody who knows Jerry or Betty cannot doubt their integrity and good intentions. I will say
they are very religious people, sincerely religious. I think we are fortunate that there are people
of character who will try to help us out at a time character seems like a lost quality in this
country, I don’t really believe that. I want to emphasize it just seems that way.
Interviewer: Let’s turn it off a minute, Miss Baloyan, when you… I’d like to ask you, how you
first became interested in the Urban League because that’s in, you were one of the first members,
I believe?
Miss Baloyan: I had been doing some work in dramatics when an old school-mate Marsha
Marshall(?) who was in the Urban League work asked if I’d be interested in trying some
dramatics with the minority group and whites working together. It sounded like an interesting
project so I did one year of class work, in dramatics for both blacks and whites together. We met
in the basement of the St. Philip’s Church which is called the Under-Croft and then at the end of
the year, we gave a program at the local YMCA, where we were given an auditorium type of
room with a platform and my students from classes at Ottawa Hills supplied the scenery and did
the back-stage work and we gave a bi-racial dramatic program. Then at the end of that year, I
was asked if I’d like to go on a board. I went on a board for three years at a time when Dr.
Claytor was president at the end of that time I had a kind of collapse, at school and had to go to
the hospital so I thought for reasons of health I should not consider returning to the board so I
served one year of volunteer work in dramatics and three years on the board. And the Urban
League work was most fascinating. One of the great benefits was that I got to know Paul and
Ethel Philips real well and they are to this day among my very good friends and I’m still very
much interested in the welfare of that project. This is just one of several of the civic groups that I
�11
got interested in. The community Concerts Organization showed great promise for awhile
because although there were New York agencies helping us, advising us and booking for us, the
actual campaign work was done locally and we were able to bring international artists at a very
low cost because many citizens helped to sell season memberships. You became a member by
buying this season ticket. This work could have gone on indefinitely if the local group had not
changed from the original plans, it fell through. I think probably the civic organization I worked
for the longest was the Civic Theatre Group.
Interviewer: When did you start to work for the Civic Theatre, were you, was it formed, when
you were originally associated with it?
Miss Baloyan: I joined in the year that Maud Feely was the director. She was a professional
actress here with a professional troupe.
Interviewer: In what year was that again?
Miss Baloyan: Doing it from memory I would say roughly 1924. I was in the second play that
was given called the Doctor, directed by Feely. For a time…
Interviewer: How do you spell her last name?
Miss Baloyan: F-double e-l-y. For a time it satisfied me to do character acting and when
especially when Paul Stevenson came and the movement changed from the St. Cecilia building
over on the west side in Old Germania Hall it was so colorful and the director was so talented
that it became an enchanting and rewarding activity to act for him. In the meantime, he advised
me, to go into some aspect of the theatre, possibly directing and I came to realize that directing
would satisfy me most of all because although we the American public glorify the actors actually
the director is one of those getting the greatest satisfaction because he has to be so creative that
he can pull all the different arts together, that are involved in one unified production and
approach and so because of Mr. Stevenson’s suggestion that I go on with work at Yale
University, I did so and continued my interest in Civic Theatre when I returned as doing it as a
hobby. I was on their board a long number of years and worked with them twenty years so with
the work at several of the local buildings including the Ladies Literary Club, St. Cecelia,
Germania Hall, before they began hiring public buildings when some of us gave our greatest
devotion to it. The early days were colorful and interesting…..
Interviewer: Who were some of the people in the early days that you remember?
Miss Baloyan: Well, of course, the one that many Grand Rapids citizens would remember would
be Mrs. Myrtle Coon Sherman. When her son who was a professional actor died, she decided to
have a Saturday night salon, a weekly salon meeting in her apartment. And so she invited as a
kind of memorial to him a group of local people which included Millicent Mackaway now
Millicent Hubbard, Nacib Demusse, the former city manager of Battle Creek, Camilia Boone,
�12
who married Nacib Demusse, Paul Stevenson, me and several other people who used to meet in
her apartment weekly. We would meet professional people that came through the town briefly.
We had a literary, artistic, theatrical interest and this group was part of the bowl work of Civic
Theatre. Not the only ones but part of the bowl work and well, among some of the main people
in later years, Mr. Phil Buchen was on one of the boards. Mr. A…I believe Harold Hartger was
on the board, of course Allen G. Miller was an active member, it’s I’m afraid trying to go back
without notes or doing and research leaves a great many gaps of important names, But these are
some of the people.
Interviewer: You must have known Louise Hirst?
Miss Baloyan: Of course Louise Hirst, was a good friend of mine, and and a very active member,
so was Mrs. Steketee and a….
Interviewer: Which Mrs. Steketee?
Miss Baloyan: John Steketee’s mother.
Interviewer: Oh, yes, yes.
Miss Baloyan: And well, there were such well known names in Grand Rapids, such devoted,
loyal people that’s it’s a shame that right now I don’t recall all the names too readily but, they
worked hard in those early years.
Interviewer: I like to ask a question, I know you’re a long, long time member of St. Mark’s
Episcopal Church, are you, in any particular church group or guild in that, in that church?
Miss Baloyan: I’m delighted you asked me this question because in the three years since my
mother’s death, in the years that I’ve been alone, the opportunities at St. Mark’s Episcopal
Church have meant survival for us. I am in some of the adult classes and they are taught by
various members of the clergy. I am also in a Tuesday night discussion group, which takes up
interesting, topics. I am also a member of Cathedral League, it was my mother’s guild and as I
started taking her in later years, I was asked to join and did. Mrs. Harry B. Wagner is the present
president of it. I have been extremely active in the classes conducted by the Reverend Mr.
George Howell and the presently Mr. James (?) and presently the evening, Tuesday evening,
group is being conducted by Mr. Peter Winter. So all three of our clergy are participating in a
very fine learning opportunity for adults as the enrollment of the young people began dwindling.
The so called task force planning, the educational program for the church created an enlarged
program for adults and it has been extremely well received so that there are at least seventy-five
adults enrolled in the Sunday morning classes now and I participate regularly, and feel that I
have learned a great deal and one of the incidental bonuses is the delightful fellowship with
church members. At one time when we were younger we knew the people in a young people’s
group real well, but then as years followed we didn’t always have the opportunities to come to
�13
know our fellow churchmen, intimately. These adult classes have provided fellowship together
with what I consider a very beneficial part of our church program, the Sunday morning coffee
following the church service which is an opportunity for visiting with one’s friends and I will say
I have come to know dozens of church members well as individuals and they have come to be so
important in my life. They’re so kind and considerate and thoughtful. And it’s such a joy to meet
them out, say on a symphony night or other nights. One feels that one has acquired a second
family. The church program has come to function very well. A part of it that I hadn’t expected to
enjoy so much but do enjoy is the opportunity to serve on the community involvement
committee I was asked to visit some of the agencies to which our church has contributed and I
have interviewed their directors, written up reports of their answers and of the activities of these
social agencies and we have started a file on some of the agencies that our church is interested in.
We are going to make our next project the effort to get more individuals involved in active
volunteering for some of the organizations that we feel are worthy. And this opportunity has
been so interesting, so satisfying, as one gets so tremendously interested and then one reads in
the paper that this or that group had to give up because they couldn’t continue financially. It
became a personal disaster because one has become so much convinced of the worthiness of that
project.
Interviewer: Can you think of a particular one that has suffered, gone out of existence?
Miss Baloyan: Well, the Baxter Community has, hadn’t releases and news stories saying that
they’re having problems. I have heard a recent story that there may be funds coming to their
rescue. But as a former teacher I am especially distressed because part of their programs
consisted of the effort to educate all people of all races who live in a particular under privileged
community, who wish to go to that center. The Baxter Community Center, offers education in so
many areas and including some of the basic education work that may be found in quite a number
of other centers also but it does not limit itself to that. I think that’s one of the most notable ones
that has suffered for lack of funds.
Interviewer: All right, I think we’ve covered quite a multitude of subjects, I’d like to ask you a
question now, you just moved in the last few days I believe, Up to this new facility, the Pilgrim
Manor, you lived, I believe, up to your move in the, your old family home on Cherry Street, is
that correct?
Miss Baloyan: Yes. We lived in that home fifty-two years.
Interviewer: What was the address?
Miss Baloyan: Six-thirty-nine Cherry Street. And I have now been at Pilgrim Manor two weeks
and it has solved a number of problems for me. One certainly can no longer be alone and if one
wishes to leave the group and other people one has one’s room and numerous places he can
escape to lovely courts, with beautiful views and classroom, the activities don’t completely, fill
one’s interest, some of us are allowed to drive, I continue to drive my car so that I can still seek
�14
other areas where other interests of mine are but, this is a very friendly place to be with
numerous opportunities, it is a concept that I was lucky enough to have in existence in my time. I
shudder to think what people used to have to do in their retirement years a few years back. What
a blessing that now, there are retirement homes often started by churches and sometimes built
partly with federal funds, but what a blessing this particular retirement home has a hundred and
fifty eight residents. There is a bus that is able sometimes to drive us to shopping centers or to
other areas of the interest, if there are as many as nine persons interested. It’s easily available to
downtown. There’s considerable freedom one is urged to continue attending their church of his
choice, is urged to continue seeing his own physician and yet there is a good health center here
too. It’s of course requiring some adjustments from a home that I have known for fifty-two years
but, although many happy years were spent in that home, the time comes when one looks
forward to the time when he may want and need more help, Thank God there is such a thing as a
retirement home concept. And Pilgrim Manor is a very friendly one.
Interviewer: I think that’s perhaps a good place to close our interview. I’m delighted to have had
this opportunity to learn about many of your activities and interests over the years. You certainly
had a fascinating life, and you’re one of the best beloved people in our community. I’ve heard
that from many, many people. So, it’s now, I believe ten after three and, I hope maybe someday
we can have another chat.
INDEX
A
C
Alby Family · 6
B
Bach Family · 8
Baldwin, Melvin · 3
Baloyan, Alexi (Sister) · 1
Baloyan, Alfred (Brother) · 1
Baloyan, Martin (Mardiros) A. (Father) · 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11
Baloyan, Nouvart Kurkjian (Mother) · 2, 3, 9, 11, 13
Baxter Community Center · 14
Birch, Mrs. · 4
Blanchard Family · 6
Blood, Harriet · 8
Boone, Camilia · 13
Booth, Mr. · 9
Buchen, Phil · 13
Butts, Secretary · 10, 11
Cathedral League · 13
Civic Theatre · 3, 6, 9, 12, 13
Claytor, Dr. · 11
Coon Sherman, Myrtle · 12
D
Demusse, Nacib · 13
E
Elliot, Jerry · 9
F
Feely, Maud · 12
Ford, President and Mrs. · 11
Fountain Street Church · 2, 3, 5
�15
H
R
Hirst, Louise · 13
Howell, Reverend George · 13
Hubbard, Millicent · 13
Remington, Mary · 9
Rosenswag, Dr. · 8
K
Kerns, Margarete · 9
Klein Family · 6
Kleiner Family · 5
Kleiner, Ann · 4
Kurchin Family · 5, 10
Kurchin, Armen (Uncle) · 2, 3, 5, 7, 10
Kurkjian, Armen (Uncle) · 2
Kurkjian, Grandfather · 2, 7
Kurkjian, Grandmother · 2, 7
L
Lady’s Literary Club · 3
Lawrence Welk Show · 4
M
S
Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church · 3, 11
Seidman, Mrs. · 5
Smiley, Mrs. · 4
Sparks, Frank · 9
St. Cecilia's Music Society · 8, 12
Stanard, Wallace · 4
Steketee, Mrs. · 13
Stevenson, Paul · 12, 13
T
Thompson, Jack · 4
Travis, Marsha · 8
U
Matoon, Lloyd · 4
Union High School · 5
University of Michigan · 2, 6, 9
Urban League · 6, 11
O
W
Oliver Machinery Company · 3
Ottawa Hills High School · 4
Wagner, Mrs. Harry B. · 13
Whittier, Mrs. · 4
Widdicombe, John · 2
Winter, Peter · 13
Women’s City Club · 3, 4, 7
Wurzburg, Elvestra · 3
P
Philips, Paul and Ethel · 11
Pilgrim Manor · 1, 14, 15
Q
Quigley, May · 9
Y
Yale University · 4, 9, 12
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3dd900e17fcd265d94690c4b044354af.mp3
b03ddd1898ce3aed565de7606de81310
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
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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
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Format
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application/pdf; audio/mp3
Language
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eng
Type
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Text; Sound
Identifier
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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
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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
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RHC-23_44Baloyan
Title
A name given to the resource
Baloyan, Mary
Creator
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Baloyan, Mary
Description
An account of the resource
Mary Baloyan's parents came from Armenia in 1897. She was the first Armenian girl born October 13, 1899 in Grand Rapids. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1922. She later was a teacher at Ottawa Hills High School, JRCC, and in Zeeland for about forty-three years total. She was involved with the Urban League, Community Concerts Organization, and Baxter Community Center. She was Vice-President of the Civic Theatre, and established music scholarships to the Interlochen Arts Academy. Mary Baloyan died on January 21, 1984.
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
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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
1974
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0d524f1bd59826290b2b963f2065cdb2.pdf
34df8570903a64bdc3aa64a5ff4364d6
PDF Text
Text
Behind The Scenes During Covid-19
By: Kathryne Kuhlmann
�When patients walk into the waiting room, they
are wearing masks and gloves. The waiting
room is empty when they first arrive. What is
normally bustling with people is now dead
silent except for the hum of the computers and
the classical music playing in the back. The new
recommendations from the CDC and the ADA
have turned the usually friendly atmosphere
into a cautious and wary space that smells of
harsh cleaners and medical supplies.
�It’s as though all trust has been tossed through
the window. In addition to updating medical
forms, patients now have a three question form
in regards to their social distancing habits and
any symptoms they may be experiencing. If that
wasn’t enough, before and after each encounter
with a patient, all surfaces are wiped down
repeatedly. The employees who work the front
desk cannot greet patients with a smile, as they
are wearing level three surgical masks and
gloves. These new barriers are not only physical
but also emotional.
�As everything else changes, one thing that has
remained the same is the sterilization
technique. After instruments are used they are
placed in the Ultrasonic Cleaning System. After
soaking for the designated time, they are
placed in self-sterilization pouches so they can
be placed in the Autoclave. The Autoclave heats
up the pouches to 121°C to ensure all
instruments are sterile. With everything that is
going on, it is comforting to know that some
things are still the same.
�On a typical week day these rooms are full of
people, conversation, music and proper oral
hygiene instruction. Now, there is only one
occupied room at a time. The music and
instruction remain the same, but the topic of
conversation has shifted. The only thing
people want to talk about is the pain that
motivated them to make an appointment, the
lack of necessary supplies, who is sick and
when the shutdown might end. Any older
patient who arrives requires constant
reassurance that the environment is sterile
and all other new regulations are in place, as
they are extremely anxious. These
conversations are draining as we try to focus
on the positive and encourage our patients.
�Limbo is any doctor’s least favorite place for
patient files. This is where all patients who do not
have any future appointments are organized. Each
addition to the shelf is like a stab through the heart
and as each day of quarantine gets longer, more
charts are added to the shelf. Only emergency
appointments can be made so any preventative and
cosmetic appointments must be delayed until
further notice. This is especially heartbreaking
because some of the preventative appointments are
needed to help people prevent these emergency
appointments. Some diagnoses like periodontal
disease might seem minor but these symptoms are
actually extremely important to the overall oral
health of a patient as can affect tooth and bone loss.
We want to help these individuals before they are in
pain but we can’t due to the stay at home order and
it’s devastating
�
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COVID-19 Journals
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
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This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled.
The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community.
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2020
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University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project
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Epidemics
Grand Valley State University
College students
Personal narratives
COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020
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Behind the Scenes During Covid-19
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Kuhlman, Kathryne
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Class project of GVSU student Kathryne Kuhlman, illustrating effect of COVID-19 pandemic on a dental practice, where she worked as a dental assistant.
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2020-04-16
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
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COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020
Epidemics
Grand Valley State University
College students
Personal narratives
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COVID-19_2020-04-16_KuhlmannKathryn
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eng
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4104ebfdbffd1447b36d087807b92e25.pdf
4612d87fb5ee4f075e4db9695a6a41c1
PDF Text
Text
1
Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Kent County Oral History Collections, RHC-23
Josephine Bender
Interviewed on September 9, 1971
Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com
Tape 1 & 2 (30:40)
Biographical Information:
Josephine Bender was born 17 April 1894 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the daughter of Charles
Henry Bender and Sally Knapp. Josephine died aged 101 years old on 26 March 1996 in Grand
Rapids. She and her parents are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.
Charles Henry Bender was born 11 September 1860 in Batavia, Genesee County, New York, the
son of William Bender and Josephine Hamberger. The parents were born in Bavaria and Baden,
respectively. Charles Bender came to Grand Rapids in 1881. He died 28 March 1936. Charles
married Sally Knapp 5 February 1891. She was born in 1871 in New Orleans, Louisiana, the
daughter of Theodore J. Knapp and (_____). Sally died in 1953.
___________
Interviewer: Where did you grow up as a child?
Miss Bender: I grew up in Grand Rapids and I was born in a street called Terrace Avenue,
which was an extension of Prospect Street, south of Wealthy. There was one block in there
which was all built up, beyond that, it was mostly vacant lots and an occasional house here and
there. A good many prominent people in Grand Rapids, at that time, lived there. For instance,
the Wilder Stevens lived on that block. He was in Foster Stevens [Foster, Stevens & Company],
which was the big china, silverware, and that sort of thing store. Then there were the Leonards,
the Frank Leonards, Mr. Leonard had another big china store. The Mormans, they were the big,
or one of the big, coal companies S.A. Morman & Company. The parsonage for the Baptist
Church was right across the street from our house. I can remember that there was a Mr. Randall
[Rev. John Herman Randall] who was the minister, very popular man. A good many people
came up there of the evening to get married. My father would be sitting on the front porch in his
smoking jacket and slippers in the evening and Mr. Randall would come across the street and
say, “Bender, come on over and stand up with these two.” So, my father [Charles H. Bender]
would go over and be the best man, for someone he had never seen before. It was a very
interesting block. Then just north of Wealthy, it was almost all a Dutch population. That was
where Kos’s grocery store got started, it being, to begin with, just a little addition on the front of
the Kos’s house. They had things like needles and thread and bread (there wasn’t much bread
bought at that time). Yeast cakes I remember well because I was always being sent over for a
yeast cake or two. There was a very fine street of substantial Dutch (Holland) people.
Interviewer: Now the neighborhood that you lived in, was that, you said a very short street?
�2
Miss Bender: Yes, it [Terrace Avenue] was only between Wealthy & Logan.
Interviewer: About how many families lived on that street?
Miss Bender: I suppose maybe twenty families lived on that street. They all owned their homes,
of course, they didn’t change hands much. Much of the neighborhood life consisted of going
over of an evening and sitting on somebody’s porch. There was a good deal of exchanging of
food. Someone who had had a particularly good pie made well, they would take it over. If there
was anything the matter with anybody then everybody took things to them, and saw that they
were all right. It was probably more of a neighborhood because it was somewhat isolated than I
would imagine, maybe, some other streets were here. It was a real closely knit little community;
it was part of what was known as the Penney Addition. There was an old Colonel [Joseph]
Penney, a Colonel in the Civil War, who bought up a great deal of property, and it would all have
been south of Wealthy and about from Jefferson up to Morris, or College, along in there. This
was known as the Penney Addition. Colonel Penney lived on the corner of Lafayette and
Wealthy. He was very proud of the children. He would always talk about the wonderful children
in the Penney Addition. Very few people in that neighborhood had horses. The street cars went
down Wealthy. There was the Wealthy-Taylor Line, and the Wealthy-Scribner Line, and they
both went down Wealthy. If you didn’t walk, which most people did, you took the street car, and
then you would have to transfer frequently, but both these street cars, or both these lines, went
down to Monroe Street, which was where everybody headed for shopping. But, I really can’t
remember anybody in that block that owned horses. The kids had a lot of pets. We had a goat,
which we had a little vehicle, known as a “do-se-do”, which we harnessed the goat to, and rode
around. Everything was fine until the goat ate the neighbor’s laundry (the wash that was out one
day), so unfortunately we then had to give up Billy, the goat. But, everybody of course had dogs,
and everybody had a lovely garden. The lots happened to be quite deep on that street, and there
were beautiful gardens in the back, and some at the side.
Interviewer: Do you think the close-knit fabric in that neighborhood was due to its being
somewhat isolated?
Miss Bender: Somewhat, yes, I think so. I think of Madison Avenue, which was more of a
through street, more built up further to the south than this little block of Terrace Ave. was.
Although they were friendly, I think for one thing this was a rather narrow street, the street itself
was fairly narrow. I do think that had something to do with it. It was a block that people wanted
to live in. I remember the [J. Boyd] Pantlinds. I suppose they built the house which actually was
the one I was born in. The Pantlinds moved up on College at that time, and so my parents bought
that house. That one was little, not quite as large, I guess, as the one we lived in for probably ten
or twelve more years after I was born, and then we moved next door. But, people were always
wanting to move into that neighborhood. It was very closely knit.
Interviewer: What business was your father in?
�3
Miss Bender: Well, at that time my father was a court stenographer. He came here from Batavia,
New York.
Interviewer: Excuse me, what county is Batavia in?
Miss Bender: Very near Buffalo, Genesee County, New York. He went to work when he was
fourteen years old, I know, and he went to Buffalo to work. He worked in a place where they had
just invented the typewriter. At this time, he was a boy, probably around fifteen or sixteen along
there some place, and he was put in the window. He always told this story, about how he was put
in the window of this store where they had this strange thing known as a typewriter, and he was
made to work the typewriter in the window. Of course he didn’t know one key from the other,
but it didn’t make any difference what he wrote. Large crowds of people would gather, and he
would get in more flourishes as time went on, he said, pounding the keys. That got him into this
kind of business because, of course, shorthand had been invented. There was an opening here.
There was a Mr. [Melbourne H.] Ford who had a stenography and shorthand office, and he [Mr.
Ford] went into Congress.
Interviewer: Went into Congress?
Miss Bender: It made an opening. He wanted someone to come into the office. In some way, I
don’t know, my father heard about it and so he came out here. That was about 1883 or 1884, or
somewhere around there [Ford served in Congress 1885-1886]
Interviewer: Down at the library when reading some of those old history books of Grand Rapids,
where they would give profiles, autobiographical profiles on some of these old people, I noticed
that a considerable number of them came New York, and particularly out of Otsego County,
New York. I was just wondering whether you know why so many of these people came from
New York.
Miss Bender: One thing, of course, that brought a great many people to this part of the country
was the Erie Canal. Because, they could put their household goods on barges and go down the
Erie Canal. Of course they would go into Ohio, not coming directly to Michigan, but then they
came up from Ohio. I can remember quite a few old pieces of furniture in my friends’ houses and
they would say this came with my grandfather on the Erie Canal. I think this opened up a great
deal of migration from New York State. My father didn’t happen to come that way, but I can
remember a lot of people that said that their ancestors, their grandparents usually, had come that
way.
Interviewer: What did your father do then?
Miss Bender: He established an office here and was a court stenographer. He had an interesting
time because the judges would go all around in Michigan on their circuits holding court, and my
father would go along with them, and many of them became his very close friends and many of
�4
the leading lawyers did, for that reason, because they would go, too. He would usually go
Monday morning and he’d be gone all week. Newaygo was one place he went where they held
court, then he’d go as far as, well, I know he went to Marquette a great deal. He learned a great
deal of law that way. Eventually he became a banker. He went into what was known then as the
Grand Rapids National Bank. They were the ones who built the McKay Towers. It was during
the time my father was in the bank they built the McKay Towers, which it’s now called. But it
was always called the Grand Rapids National Bank Building
Interviewer: So, it was a bank building at one time?
Miss Bender: Oh yes, it was built as a bank. It was tall and very exciting.
Interviewer: Would you tell me the story again about when you father was on the Police and Fire
Commission?
Miss Bender: Well, that was part of the city government at that time, and it was very much
coveted thing to be on the Police and Fire Commission. He was an ardent Democrat, when there
were practically no Democrats to be found in the state of Michigan, but he was one of them. It
was, probably, a Democrat mayor who appointed him. I think, he was appointed during the
nineties [1890’s]. At one time very early in his career as a commissioner, they had an unfortunate
thing happen, in which the fire department, which of course was horse-drawn at that time, was
called to a fire along someplace on Monroe Street. At that time the Salvation Army held nightly
meetings down on Campau Square. The Salvation Army was down there tooting away on their
horns and holding their meeting and all of a sudden the fire department came tearing down what
was known as Canal Street the (later know as Lower Monroe) and turned the corner. The man
that was driving the horses saw that if he kept in the street, he would simply run right over the
Salvation Army, so he went up onto the sidewalk which was against all the rules, and bypassed
the Salvation Army and got to the fire. In 1936, our house burned, and we were living on College
at that time. My father had died the spring before and we had this very bad fire. They did heroic
work in saving what they could. Well, my mother was very grateful and so she called the chief of
the fire department and he [the Chief] said, “Oh, Mrs. Bender. I’ve been waiting for many, many
years to repay an old debt.” Then he told her what had happened the time that my father had
sponsored his cause and pleaded his cause with the department. He had been discharged for
doing this awful thing. My father pleaded his cause so enthusiastically that the man was
reinstated, but a fine had to be paid, and I believe he said that my father went so far as to pay the
fine for him. So he said, “It’s been many, many years, probably forty or more,” and he said, “I’ve
just waited to repay that debt, and I’m glad I could have done what I did.”
Interviewer: The Fire Chief was the one who ran the horses up on the sidewalk?
Miss Bender: Yes. He said he was a young man at that point, of course. He was reinstated
because of my father’s eloquent pleas, and he advanced so that at the time of the fire in 1936, he
was the chief of the fire department.
�5
Interviewer: You mentioned taking the streetcar downtown, what did people go downtown for
mainly?
Miss Bender: I can remember that it seems to me we made a daily trip downtown. There were
things to be bought at the dry goods stores. There was a good deal of personal shopping to do
that went on then, and I think also it was kind of exciting to go down and see what was going on.
There was a dry goods store, which is now out of existence, which was called Friedman-Spring,
which was down on Campau Square about where one of the 5 & 10 stores is now, Grants or
along in there. It was a very good store. In the store they of course had all kinds of departments.
The people were in them, year after year, and they grew old clerking in these stores. We used to
go to that one a great deal. Then the Boston store was right next door to it. That was run by a Mr.
[Charles] Trankla and owned by him. That was also a very good department store. Then there
was Steketee’s, which was where it is now. There was Wurzburg’s, which was on lower Monroe.
Well, it’s all been torn down now, it was down by Crescent on Lower Monroe. Then [here was]
Herpolsheimers which was where Wurzburg’s downtown store is now. Those were the main
department stores. Then there was a wonderful candy store named Miss Peale’s and it was run by
Miss Peale and, I think, her sister. That would have been up a little east of Ionia on the south side
of Monroe. I know she was open on Sundays because the Post Office was open on Sunday. If
you wanted to go and walk to the post office and get your mail, which my father did every
Sunday after church, and a great many other people did, you would walk down to the post office
and then you would stop at Miss Peale’s and buy a box of candy. There was a wonderful
chocolate candy called Allegrete. I can remember this was the great treat of the week when we
would, after getting the mail at the post office, stop at Miss Peale’s and buy the pound box of
Allegrete chocolates.
Interviewer: Where was the post office located?
Miss Bender: The post office was located where the Federal building still is on the corner of
Pearl and Ionia. Of course, at that time it was not what the present building is. It was a smaller
building. I know that the present building was built around 1908 or 1910, along in there. But, it
was in that same location. There was another very interesting place that was along there on Ionia,
where the Shepard garage used to be. It was called Lockerby’s Hall. I think the hall was on the
second floor. A great many things were held there. Among other things, I can remember my
parents telling me they learned to bicycle there. They had an indoor bicycling rink. This is where
they went because, of course, bicycling was very popular around the nineties and around the turn
of the century. My father apparently, made one trip around and ran into the wall, breaking the
bicycle. That was the end of bicycling with him. But there was a great deal of bicycling that went
on. I can remember this Lockerby’s Hall. Then there was Power’s Theatre where the Midtown is
now, in the same building really. That was where the legitimates came. Grand Rapids was a great
theatre place, one reason being that we were midway between Detroit and Chicago. They would
do a “split” week. They would usually stop in Jackson for part of the week and do the rest of the
week here in Grand Rapids. Companies that played in Detroit and were going to play long
�6
engagements in these places, they were going to Chicago, so then they would stop off here. We
had the great stars, they all came here. I think one reason is they liked it a lot here because by
this time what used to be called Sweet’s Hotel had turned into the Pantlind and Mr. Boyd
Pantlind, who was a most delightful, genial person, was the proprietor of it. He became great
friends of all these leading actors. I think they would sort of arrange it to be sure they came to
Grand Rapids. I had a lovely collection of autographed photographs that these men had given
Mr. Pantlind over the years—Crane, Joe Jefferson, and all those great old actors. Mrs. Pantlind
gave it to me after Mr. Pantlind had died. She gave me the collection of photographs. I gave
them to the Civic Theatre, and just where they are now, I don’t know. I am sure that [Mr.
Pantlind’s friendship] was one reason we got wonderful plays here. Of course, it was
geographically important too, their stopping here. I’m sure. Now, then, over here on Reed Drive
there was Ramona. Now whether that was really going on at the turn of the century, I don’t
know; but very soon afterwards, certainly. The Pavilion, which was on the corner of Wealthy and
Lakeside, was owned by the Street Railway Company, and they had wonderful vaudeville here,
all the big vaudeville acts were here. I’ve always heard one reason why they also wanted to come
here was because, on the south side of Reed’s Lake, there was a little resort thing called Point
Paulo. I don’t know who ran it, maybe Mr. Paulo for all I know. Anyway, he had a series of
cottages and this was a wonderful place for them to come and stay for a week. They always
stayed for a whole week. They could be out on the Lake during the daytime, fishing and all.
(Pause in tape)
Interviewer: Did you ever come up to the vaudeville shows?
Miss Bender: Every week. The Pavilion was a very pleasant place. I know they had boxes along
both sides, with rattan chairs in them that were very comfortable and loungy, in the main part. I
don’t remember that there was a balcony. There may have been, but [this was] the main part of
the auditorium. All around it was all open and there were little soft drink places and that sort of
thing along the outside beyond the auditorium part. But it was a most pleasant place to spend an
evening and also see very good vaudeville. That was all part of Ramona, which was an
amusement park with roller coasters and Tunnels of Love and that sort of thing. [To go] back
you took the Wealthy-Taylor Line. That was the only thing that came out to it. It was very well
patronized, [and] went for many, many years.
Interviewer: Were there very many people living out in this area at the time?
Miss Bender: No, all of Reed’s Lake, where these lovely homes are around the outside of the
lake now, had a lot of cottages, but they would be just little (quite flimsy, I suppose) cottages that
people came to in the summertime, some place to go weekends. There were no permanent homes
at that time. Of course, East Grand Rapids was, I guess, non-existent. There were two things,
there was the O-Wash-Ta-Nong Club, which I think was called the Lake Side Club to begin with,
and that was over here on the shores of Reed’s Lake. That was a very popular club. They had a
�7
very good orchestra and excellent food. There was a good deal of boating went on. Speaking of
boating, most of the boating on Reed’s Lake, aside of the fishing and that sort of thing, were
these two steamers. One was the” Major Watson” and the other was the “Hazel A. Major
[Amasa B.] Watson” was a prominent Civil War veteran here and he lived in a big house down
where Jacobsen’s downtown place is now. The “Hazel A.” was named for Hazel Amberg. They
were a very prominent family here. Those two boats plied around Reed’s Lake, all day long, I
guess. There was a big kind of banner along the side that said, “AS LONG AS YOU LIKE FOR
TEN CENTS.” So you could get on in the morning and keep going. Over at what is still called
Manhattan Road there was a (?) My grandmother used to take my brother and myself out on the
Wealthy-Taylor streetcar. She loved the water and she loved these trips. So, I think we’d go and
spend the whole afternoon. There was a captain, the so-called captain of one of them, an old
character That was around here. He was always known as “Mr. Poison.” His name was spelled
P-o-i-s-s-o-n. My grandmother was Southern and so we would come home and my father would
say, “Mother, what did you today?” She’d say, Oh, I took the children for a lovely ride with
Captain Poisson.” My father would say, “Do you mean “Old Poison?” This would go on every
time we made the trip, “Old Poison” to my father but “Captain Poisson” [John H. Poisson] to my
mother. Then of course there was Rose’s, which still is in existence. Old Mr. Rose taught
swimming. He had a dock. It was kind of a catwalk that went out from the shore and this rather
long dock. His method of teaching swimming was to put a belt around your middle and a rope
from the back part of the belt. He would hang on to that, and then you would float like a minnow
on the water and he would count. I can hear him now; he would say, “One, two, three, one, two,
three.” This was how you would learn to do the breast stroke for Mr. Rose. That was also where
the skating was in the winter. Rose’s had this building. You would go in there to change your
skates. In there, there was an old pot- belly stove. Then you would go down a kind of little
gangplank that you went down, a little wooden thing. I suppose it was Rose’s who cleared the
skating rink, because I am sure nobody else did. But, that was where we skated in the winter.
(Pause in tape)
Miss Bender: Do you want me to start over again?
Interviewer: Sure, if you want to.
Miss Bender: Well you were asking me about some old furniture I have here. It came mostly
from my grandmother who was a Southerner. She and my grandfather were married during the
Civil War. She was actually put through the lines, war lines were very loose, I guess, during the
Civil War. He was a Confederate. She, in some way, was given a pass to go through the lines,
because the part of North Carolina she was living in was occupied by Northern troops. They
were married. Then after the war, this was in a place called Edenton, North Carolina, which was
on the sea coast, my grandfather [Theodore J. Knapp] came back there and had a parish there.
This probably was the late seventies, around seventy-five or eighty maybe. At that time oil was
discovered in Pennsylvania, so he went there as a minister to all of these mushroom towns that
�8
sprang up as a result. He was there for quite a number of years, about four or five maybe. Then
the men who had gone in to the oil rush lost interest, and I think the oil business sort of gave out.
Just at this time, gold and silver were discovered in Colorado. So, all these men he had
ministered to began writing him from Colorado and telling him how he was needed out there;
and I’m sure he had an “itching” for it. So he “felt the call” to go. He went down the Ohio River
and then down [sic] the Mississippi to St. Louis and over land from St. Louis eventually to
Denver. I have all the letters which he wrote my grandmother, who was left back in Pennsylvania
with the four children and practically nothing to live on, as far as I could make out. He was a
very brilliant person. All these letters were very encouraging to Granny that at any moment then
he would get a real parish. At this point he was a Baptist, and “Brother This” and “Brother That,”
as they seemed to be called in these parishes, were always about to get a great plan for him; but
this took quite a while. He adored Colorado, absolutely fascinated by it. This was Denver in the
very early days, with Indians riding through the streets and the streets were just little tracks,
really. He talked about how dirty and dusty it was. Finally he did get a parish and Granny and the
children went from Pennsylvania out there. I can remember one of the letters said, “Don’t bring a
lot of kitchen equipment and things like that but remember all the theological books.” Granny,
equipped with four children and the furniture she wanted to keep that had come from her family,
went out there. He then became an Episcopalian minister and took the examination and was duly
ordained as an Episcopalian minister. He got a parish in a place called Ouray which is way up
there. Fascinating place; there were marvelous mines at that point around there. So, they went up
there. He built a little church. During his ministry they had no church. He got this church built
during the time he was minister there. My mother and father and I went back there one time, and
here was this cute little stone church that they said my grandfather had been instrumental in
having built. It just happened that they had a service on the Sunday we were there, and we asked
if there was anybody who would have known my grandfather. They said there was one man left.
It was a ghost town when we were out there, just nothing. But there was this one man, a Mr.
Simpson, who was a surveyor. My grandfather used to go out on these trips with him (?). “Well,
I guess the only reason that I stayed was I was too lazy to get out, and I loved the country.” So he
stayed all these years there. This was in the twenties. He said, “I’ve got a little present I want to
give Sally (Sally [Knapp] was my mother’s name) and another for Josephine.” So he gave me
some uncut garnets which I thought were very precious, quite a handful of them. Then he said to
my mother, I want to give you this stone.” Madame Curie at that point was working on uranium.
He had had a meeting with her in Denver when she came to this country. We took our treasures
away and I put mine in a safety deposit box because I thought they were so valuable. When the
atomic bomb took place, uranium was all over the front pages. I read my mother this article from
the New York Times all about it, and it told about the few deposits that there were in this country
and that one of them was very near Ouray. My mother said, “Well, I must get my uranium out.” I
thought, oh heavens, what’s she talking about? So I said, “Now mother, I’m going to read this
article all over to you again and explain it once more She said, “I understand. You know Mr.
Simpson gave me a piece of uranium.” So she went into desk, and done up in a piece of Kleenex
�9
was this piece of uranium, which then became very important in Grand Rapids. It was shown in
the museum and all kinds of places.
Interviewer: In the summertime, some people came out to Reed’s Lake. Where did the other
people go; where did they spend their summers?
Miss Bender: A lot of people had cottages on Lake Michigan, even then. There was an
interurban line that went to Grand Haven and also to Muskegon. I can remember going down to
visit people who had places on Lake Michigan on the interurban. Then there was a train that
went to Ottawa Beach and a great many people had cottages at Ottawa Beach. This train used to
come up in the morning and go down at night. It was a kind of dummy line. I know we had a
place down at Ottawa Beach for quite a number of summers. The men used to go up on the train
in the morning and come down at night. I think that to all these small lakes around here all up
through northern Michigan the G.R.& I. (Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad) was the railroad
that went up there; and also the Pere Marquette. We were a number of summers in Charlevoix
and I can remember going up, that was on the Pere Marquette, but the G.R.& I. also went up
north. Those were the days when it was fun to go on a train, you know, the parlor cars and the
dining cars. I think there was quite a lot of activity on the Grand River. The “Boat and Canoe” is
still in existence, I guess, isn’t it?
Interviewer: I think it’s the American Legion Club, isn’t it?
Miss Bender: Yes, I guess it is. That was a very popular club for a long time. It was known as the
Boat and Canoe Club. Exactly when that was I don’t know. That must have been soon after
1900, along in there. They had very good tennis courts, they used to have tennis tournaments,
State and Western Michigan. Then there was a great deal of boating, canoeing. Quite a number
of people had house-boats out there. They would live on the houseboats, and be kind of hooked
up at the dock of the Boat and Canoe Club. Of course there use to be steamers that went down
the Grand River to Grand Haven. I think they have one now that is a sort of excursion boat.
Interviewer: What kind of steamers were they, were they paddle wheel boats?
Miss Bender: I think so, I don’t remember going on them. People also had places on the [river].
The Kelsey family had one of those houses down in Eastmanville.
We use to go down there a good deal with them. That was a matter of going on the interurban to
what is called Marne now. It was called Berlin until the First World War, then you couldn’t call
anything Berlin, so the name was then changed to Marne. I remember they use to come over;
they would come over there and get us and drive us back. There was quite a number of people,
the Hefferan family here had several houses along there. The Foote family had houses along
there. They were all old houses that they fixed up or converted somewhat—lovely old houses.
Interviewer: Are any of those old houses still standing?
�10
Miss Bender: Oh, yes they all are. I think they’re all still there. They were beautifully located.
But at that time you didn’t have to do much, except to be in one place. I can remember they had
sheep, and Ann Kelseyhas a little lamb that really followed you. Well, it was exciting enough to
go and give the lamb a bath in the Grand River. That was really all the excitement you needed.
There was a good deal of card playing as part of the entertainment here. There were a lot of
Whist Clubs. This was before the days of Bridge Auction Bridge. But there was a great deal of
whist and a great deal of Euchre. There was a thing called Military Euchre where you advance
from one table to another with a flag in your hand. I remember my parents belonged to it, the
Military Euchre Club. That was a great deal of the entertainment in those days where the various
card clubs were.
Interviewer: What other clubs were there?
Miss Bender: What developed into the Kent County Country Club was first, where the
clubhouse is, the M.R. Bissell, the present M.R. Bissell, house on the corner of Plymouth and
Wealthy, on the northeast of Plymouth and Wealthy. And then the golf course was where
Blodgett Hospital is. They had a nine hold golf course. This was one of the very early golf
courses in this country. There were a few men here, one being Mr. Edward Lowe, who was an
Englishman, He had known golf in England--Scotland I suppose. There a few men who had
heard about golf, mostly in England, I think. So, they started this club. The clubhouse was really
the present M.R. Bissell house, and then the golf course was across the street of Wealthy where
Blodgett Hospital and all that area in around 1899 or there abouts, what was called Sweet Farm,
out where Kent Country Club is now, was nothing but a farm house and wheat fields and grazing
ground and all that. It went along Knapp Avenue and Plainfield, about the area it has now. They
established this club and a very good golf course [with an] architect lay-out and the club was
started. After that the next club was Highlands Country Club which is the Elks Club over on
West Leonard. That was the next one, and then I think Cascade was the one after that.
Interviewer: Were there quite a few social functions held at these country clubs or was it just
golf?
Miss Bender: Oh no, it was very social. They were very fortunate at Kent Country Club. Very
early they got this couple, Ida, who was the cook, and Walter, her husband, who was the general
other factotum. She had been a cook as a very young person, who still was very young, with the
Wanty family, the Judge [George P]. Wanty family. Then, they wanted a couple out to run the
club, so Ida and Walter took the job. They were simply wonderful because she didn’t know too,
too much about cooking to begin with but she was one to never say she didn’t know how to do
anything. There were a certain number of women, Mrs. Clay Hollister, Mrs. Dudley Waters,
and my mother, and they said their husbands were all officers and directors of the Club and they
were anxious to have everything go well. So they said, “Now Ida, we will always give you a
hand and help you with everything you want. I always remember the time when Mrs. John
Blodgett was giving a very elegant luncheon for somebody from away, that was going to be here.
�11
Ida called my mother up and said “Mrs. Bender, Mrs. Blodgett is having a luncheon on
Thursday.” My mother said, “Yes, I know.” She said, “She asked me to have soft-shelled crabs.”
She said, “I never even seen one, but,” she said, I wouldn’t say I didn’t know how to fix
them.”So I [sic] said, “Oh yes indeed, they will have to have soft-shelled crabs”. So, she said,
“What do I do?”Then mother said, “Ida, you get the soft-shelled crabs from Dettenthalers,
(which was the great fish market down on (117) Monroe Street) and be sure they’re crawling and
I’ll take the streetcar out and show you how to fix them”. Ida said, “Are you going to the
luncheon?” “Oh yes,” my mother said. “I’m going to the luncheon, but I’ll come out in the
morning”. Well, going on the streetcar from where we were living at that point, on Terrace
Avenue, consisted of going on the Wealthy-Taylor Line then transferring to the Plainfield Line,
then transferring to a funny little thing called Carrier Line, which went from Plainfield Avenue
up to College and out College to the Country Club, and then turned around and went back. So
my mother, nothing daunting, and I know this trip used to take at least three-quarters of an hour
(we always allowed three-quarters of an hour), went out to show Ida how to fix the soft-shelled
crabs. She took the street car back, then took the hack, which was the means of conveyance when
you were going elegantly to something. So, she ordered the hack and the hack came and took her
out to the luncheon, where she ate the soft-shelled crabs. But it was a wonderful club, it had a
wonderful spirit because everybody was enthusiastic and wanted it to go well. I have a lot of
pictures of it of those early days. You can’t believe it now, it looks like a park, you know, in
comparison on to this, what was really just fields. Trees were planted but they were little things.
But they had a terribly good time and awfully, awfully good spirit and lots of parties.
Interviewer: It sounds like living in those days was a very pleasant, relaxed way of living. What
happened to that society, that style of living when the depression came along?
Miss Bender: Well, when the depression came along, life had become much more sophisticated
then it was. I have been talking more or less about things of the turn of the century. When the
Depression came along we, after all, had been through one war. That put an entirely different
light on everything, the First World War. Everybody pitched into war work, and things were
certainly never the same after that. Then came the twenties, which were absolutely wild. I was
young at that point, and was probably in on what it did to young people and the way it changed
their way of living. I mean, I had been utterly unsophisticated before the twenties. Prohibition
had a great effect because, you know, whereas you hadn’t had very many drinks up to that point,
then it became exciting to do it. You would go to New York and you’d go to speakeasies and it
was all a completely different kind of thing. Then of course, the Depression came along. Really
the depression, as I look back on it, crept up on you very slowly. Now I wonder if, you know, if
it’s creeping up on us now the way it did then. After all, the crash came in ’29, but it was several
years before the banks were closed. That in itself took quite a while. The impact of it took quite a
while because you really didn’t realize it. I can remember my father was the type of person who
never had five dollars on his person, and although he was a banker, at the moment he didn’t seem
to have any money on him. So I remember, he said to my mother, “Now Sally, you’re the kind
�12
that would have about one hundred in cash in your safety deposit box.” My mother wouldn’t
admit it for a while, but finally she said, “Well yes, I have put a little cash in my safety deposit
box.” So, I remember we all lived off her for quite a while. You couldn’t believe it, really when
it finally happened. Then, of course, with Roosevelt giving everybody a great deal of hope, really
kind of pulling you out of it. To me it was more the twenties.
(Pause in tape)
Interviewer: You have marked the end of one social era, so to speak, not the depression, but the
First World War. Why do you think it had such a dramatic effect on people?
Miss Bender: Well, because for one thing it had been such an easy life. I can remember Mr.
[Samuel A. Morman saying to my father, during my father’s last illness, he said, “You know,
Bender, any man that had half a brain and any kind of ambition could have been successful
during our era.” This was true. During the nineties and up to 1914 or 1916, any man who was
willing to work, where in many times since then I’m sure it hasn’t stood people in good stead.
You had certain principles that you lived by, and if you lived by them, why, you came out all
right. And it wasn’t easy at times, as we look back on it now. I mean, people didn’t have a great
deal of money most of them. But, on what they could live comfortably and Grand Rapids was a
wonderful community, I think largely because of the Dutch people we have, who were thrifty
and saving and law-abiding. So everything was going along better and better and better. Then we
were certainly influenced by the war in Europe before we got into it. But then once we were in it,
everybody was Red Crossing, in the YMCA, Liberty Bonds were being sold, and rallies were
being held. As I recall, there was very little social life, because everybody was throwing
themselves {sic} into the war effort. And for one thing, I guess you were kind of tired when they
came. So that was the thing that was a turning point. Then when the war was over, certainly
beginning around 1920, everything went sort of, kind of, wild. You know, it was a reaction for
one thing. Of course, then suddenly there was much more money because there hadn’t been a
great deal of production of anything but war stuff during the war. Then suddenly everybody was
getting all kinds of things. I’m sure it was when we all had our first washing machine and
mangle. I don’t think, well, I know we didn’t have an electric refrigerator at that point. But you
were buying a good many more things like that. There was a great deal of travel then, too. People
were always going places. You were not able to go to Europe for quite a while. There was a great
deal of European travel at that time. That made a difference. Planes didn’t come along, of course,
until later, but the trains were excellent. You could go any place and really in great comfort and
luxury and all. Then of course automobiles, many people got their first automobiles along in that
period. That made a lot of difference.
Interviewer: Things were not the same after the war?
Miss Bender: No. I’m sure the automobile, of course, had an awful lot to do with it. You didn’t
live in these little neighborhood communities which were very pleasant and completely
�13
satisfying before that. But when the automobile came along, then you were dashing off to New
York and then dashing off to Chicago, and dashing off to Lake Michigan. If you were real
courageous, you took a trip East. You know, it took you away, then from the local center.
Interviewer: I think that’s a good point [on which] to end.
INDEX
B
Bender, Charles H. (Father) · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12
Bender, Sally Knapp (Mother) · 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12
Bissell, M.R. · 10
Blodgett, Mrs. John · 10
Boat and Canoe Club · 9
K
Kelsey Family · 9
Kelsey, Ann · 10
Kent County Country Club · 10
Knapp, Grandmother · 8
Knapp, Theodore J. (Grandfather) · 3, 7, 8
Kos’s Grocery Store · 1
C
Curie, Marie · 8
D
L
Leonards Family · 1
Lockerby’s Hall · 5
Lowe, Edward · 10
Dettenthalers · 11
M
F
Foote Family · 9
Ford, Melbourne H. · 3
Foster Stevens & Company · 1
Friedman-Spring Dry Goods Store · 5
G
Grand Rapids National Bank · 4
H
Hazel A Steamer · 7
Hefferan Family · 9
Herpolsheimers · 5
Highlands Country Club · 10
Hollister, Mrs. Clay · 10
Major Watson Steamer · 7
Military Euchre Club · 10
O
Ottawa Beach · 9
O-Wash-Ta-Nong Club · 6
P
Pantlind, Boyd · 6
Pantlind, Mrs. · 6
Pantlinds Family · 2
Peale, Miss · 5
Penney, Colonel Joseph · 2
Point Paulo · 6
Poisson, Captain · 7
Prohibition · 11
�14
R
T
Randall, Rev. John Herman · 1
Reed’s Lake · 6, 9
Rose, Mr. · 7
The Police and Fire Commission · 4
The Salvation Army · 4
Trankla, Charles · 5
S
W
S.A. Morman & Company · 1
Simpson, Mr. · 8
Steketee’s · 5
Street Railway Company · 6
Wanty Family · 10
Waters, Mrs. Dudley · 10
Wilder Stevens Family · 1
Wurzburg’s · 5
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6186bdf5047707329090825cecda8092.mp3
48ccb5bdc64bb5637eb301ee176018c7
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Grand Rapids Oral Histories
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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.
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Various
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a>
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RHC-23
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1971 - 1977
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RHC-23_1-2Bender
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Bender, Josephine
Creator
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Bender, Josephine
Description
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Josephine Bender was born on April 17, 1894 in Grand Rapids. She graduated from Vassar College and was a member of the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club. She died on March 26, 1996.
Publisher
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Subject
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Michigan--History
Local histories
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Grand Rapids (Mich.)
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Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Grand Valley State University
Women
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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1971
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/128a73014e7dc2064f78d7b188077d64.pdf
80aa0821e5cf63474bb4cc5f4cd6cac1
PDF Text
Text
1
Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23
M.R. Bissell
Interviewed on Sept. 16, 1971
Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com
Tape #9 and 10: (43:22)
Biographical Information
Melville R. Bissell, Jr. was born in Grand Rapids on 7 April 1882. He was married on 29 April
1907 to Olive E. Bulkeley in Grand Rapids. Olive was the daughter of William F. Bulkeley and
Abby A. Marks natives of New York. She died on 6 August 1964 at the Bissell home at 350
Plymouth SE. Melville died on 20 December 1972 in Grand Rapids and is buried in Oak Hill
Cemetery. Melville and Olive had three daughters, Barbara, Anne and Eleanor.
His father, Melville R. Bissell, Sr. was born 25 September 1843 in Hartwick, Otsego County,
New York and died 15 March 1889 in Grand Rapids. He married Anna Sutherland on 29
November 1865 in De Pere, Wisconsin where Anna’s parents had moved to from Nova Scotia.
Anna was born 2 December 1846 in River John, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, the daughter of
William and Eleanor Sutherland. She passed away on 8 November 1934 at her home at 112
College Avenue SE, Grand Rapids. Besides Melville R., Jr., the Bissell’s were parents to
Dorothy A., Harvey S., Irving J. and a daughter, Lillie May who died at the age of seven years.
___________
Interviewer: Mr. Bissell, where did your family live in Grand Rapids?
Bissell: Originally they lived down on Sheldon Street, eighty-five Sheldon. That was the Bissell
home at that time. I was about, oh, seven years of age at that time, but I can remember it.
Interviewer: Where is eighty-five Sheldon, approximately; is the house still standing?
Bissell: The house is still standing. I can't tell you exactly where the streets are 'cause I don't
remember. Well I'll tell you, it is pretty near where, you know where the hotel is now, the hotel
on, the corner on one of those streets? I'd say it’s in the next block above the Woman's City
Club.
Interviewer: Oh, I see.
Bissell: That's where it was. We lived there until I was about seven years of age. It was in
eighty-nine or eighty-seven my father bought the house up on College Avenue; and it was fixed
up and we lived [in it] from then on. My father had caught cold and died of pneumonia at that
time, so he never lived up on College Avenue; he always lived on Sheldon Street.
Interviewer: Was your father born in Grand Rapids?
�2
Bissell: No; no he moved here. He moved here from Kalamazoo - mother and father and
grandfather moved up here. And the old house that they lived in was here for a good many
years; and now, of course, it’s got a building on it, [?across from?] St. Mark's Church. You
know where St. Mark's Church is? Well, it’s on that corner there; that was the old house that I
remember my grandmother and grandfather lived there; and we used to go there and see them.
Before that, that house was where the Post Office was. They moved that house out from the
Post Office site to build the Post Office down there - the old Post Office. You know where that
is. The house was originally built there.
Interviewer: How did your family get into the carpet sweeper business?
Bissell: Well, that's very simple; my father was in the business of china - had a china shop.
When they opened up the stuff there was a great deal of, you know, rubbish along with the
china, from the unpacking and all like that. He wanted to clean it up and he tried to get a box
and a brush that would do it. And that's the way he got started. It really started as a bare floor
proposition, but it didn't work so well on the bare floor as it did on the carpet. So, he started
making carpet sweepers. He kept right on and my mother worked right along with him and they
worked it out together.
Interviewer: When your father died, did your mother take over the business?
Bissell: Yes, she was always a business woman. Even in a lot of years when I was a young boy
growing up, she was interested in her children but she didn't want to take care of them. She had
someone take care of us and she did the business, she ran the sweeper company.
Interviewer: How long did she run that business?
Bissell: She ran it until I came along and took over.
Interviewer: When was that, sir?
Bissell: Oh, let's see; when did I start? I don't remember - a long time ago.
Interviewer: How old are you now?
Bissell: I'm nearly ninety.
Interviewer: When you lived on College Avenue, what was it like growing up there as a child?
Bissell: Well, it was fine. There was just a few houses, people had barns and had horses in them
and coachmen and everything for the horses. Automobiles; I can remember when automobiles
first came in. I knew every person that had an automobile at that time, and the make of car he
had. When you'd hear a car coming, you'd run out to the street to see it go by.
Interviewer: Do you remember the first car you ever saw?
�3
Bissell: Well, I think it was Charlie Judd’s; I think that was called the U.S. Long Distance or
something like that. I can't remember exactly the name of it.
Interviewer: Was it quite a thrill?
Bissell: Oh, I'll tell you, cars were scarce, there weren't very many of them. There weren't
probably more than three or four cars in Grand Rapids. People tried to make them, you know.
They'd take a light carriage and try to put a motor in it, connect it up; that wasn't very
satisfactory, though. They had to start and build them up from the beginning to really run.
Interviewer: Were there any people manufacturing cars here then?
Bissell: Well, Austin was the only car man that was making cars here. They were shipping them
in from Detroit and so forth. But, Austin was the only one making them, the Austin, and that
was a very good car and it was a large car. We had one and my wife's family had one and they
were good cars. But of course it had the Planetary System; they didn't have a gear shift. You
know what a Planetary System is? Well, it's a set of gears down under the foot boards of the car
that run there; and they throw a lever on, that is sort of like a brake, and they run through that.
Interviewer: Why did they call it the Planetary System?
Bissell: I don't know. That was the way they did it at that time; that's the only kind of cars that
were running at all, didn't have gear systems. Of course, the cars were [had] two sitting in front
and then you went around in the back and got in through a door that was about that wide, just
big enough to get through, and sat in there and sort of on an angle like this or like that. This was
the door here, and they shut this, and then they had another little door that dropped down so you
could sit on the door. You could take five people.
Interviewer: What was the reaction of horses to the first cars?
Bissell: Well, they didn't like them; they didn't like them, I shouldn't say that. They were scared
of them, of course they made quite a noise and they were scared of them. The regulations were
that if you were in a car coming, you had to slow down for horses; if they shied or showed any
scaredness, you had to stop. And, in fact, once in a while you had to get out and lead the horse
past the car.
Interviewer: What was it like living on College Avenue in those days? I mean, what was the
style of living like?
Bissell: Well, it was very quiet in there. When we bought this house we even lived in it at that
time the house was being fixed up. The house had been there for a long time. It was built, I
think, by Foster of Foster and Stevens. [In the 1868 city directory, Wilder D. Foster’s residence
was listed as 7 College-av. It was also described as located on the east side of College-av.
between Fulton and Rose – Rose being Cherry street at that time.] Originally we lived there in
his house. It was built in two sections, the first section had the back that was mostly wood and
the next section was a brick section. Mother, when I was a boy about eight or nine years old,
�4
ripped off the back and built a section of brick in there for the house. We had one tub, bath tub,
that was downstairs and in a little room off the hall and this was where we took our baths and
had some kind of a heater in there, run by gas and that would heat up the water for you. We
took our Saturday night baths there.
Interviewer: Were there many children in the neighborhood when you were growing up?
Bissell: Oh yes, quite a lot of them. Fred Pantlind, Ralph Voigt -Ralph Voigt lived directly
across the street from us. I knew Ralph Voigt very well. There was a boy who lived in that
small brick house right next to or three houses over from the Voigt's. I can't think of his name
now, but I used to play with him all the time. And later on when Fred Pantlind was born, they
came over and had a house right next to ours.
Interviewer: Did the families interact as well as the children? Did the families have activities
together?
Bissell: Oh yes, my mother was a widow and so she always had somebody with her. She had
her sister a great deal with her, her niece and people that lived there with her so as to be with
her because she didn't want to live alone. Of course, they did some bossing of the children
because we were pretty young at that time.
Interviewer: Did your mother attend parties that were given within society?
Bissell: Oh, yes, she would go to some of the parties that were given. Of course Kent Country
Club was in this house. This is the old club house. Kent Country Club was organized here
originally, it was a boat club, and a tennis club, and everything, and finally got into a golf club.
I think golf is [an] all the way around game here you know, when I was a boy.
Interviewer: Was it a very good course?
Bissell: Well, not good in the way the clubs are now, but it was all right.
Interviewer: Was golf a relatively new game at that time?
Bissell: Very. I'll tell you how golf started here. Mr. Blodgett or somebody went abroad, and
saw golf, and bought a set of clubs and brought them back here. Everybody that played golf
used that set of clubs. Then of course they had to make more of them and everybody had their
own sets.
Interviewer: You were just talking about Wealthy Street.
Bissell: Wealthy was originally right straight through into Reed's Lake, I mean Fisk Lake. Of
course, there wasn't any way for us but to go back that way and go along that [?] road. You
know where Mrs. Avery lives out there on Plymouth? [Corner of Plymouth and Lake Drive]
Well, that was the toll gate for this district. That was a toll road and that was the road that went
out to our farm and to Reed's Lake. And then the [Mr.] Hanchett came along and wanted to get
�5
out to Reed's Lake with his cars - streetcars - and so they had to curve around here to get to
around the lake.
Interviewer: So, instead of Wealthy Street ending up at Fisk Lake, they changed the road so it
ended up at Reed's Lake?
Bissell: Yes. Of course first it was a dummy line. Then they got the streetcars running out there.
Then you’ve got Ramona and all in there.
Interviewer: Did you buy this house?
Bissell Yes.
Interviewer: How long have you lived here?
Bissell: About forty years.
Interviewer: When you bought this house, was this all developed out here like this?
Bissell: It is exactly how it was, and the way this house was. I imagine I'd made some
improvements on it. I built that window there. It went right from the post there and right across
on the other side of house, I built a porch over there, of course, but as far as the grounds is
concerned and the house itself, why it is exactly as it was before. It's a three story house and it
was the Kent Country Club. They used to play golf here and they played golf all around here.
All these places around here, they played golf on.
Interviewer: When you bought this house, did you buy it as a residence, or did you buy it as a
farm?
Bissell: No, I bought it as a residence. Mr. Hanchett owned it. And he used it as a home and it
was originally brick. It was plastered and I think Hanchett took that off and fixed it up.
Interviewer: Did Hanchett have his own private streetcar to take him downtown to work in the
morning?
Bissell: He had a private car that was run on the street here. He used it as, not as just going
downtown, but he used it to have parties on. He'd pick you up downtown and take you out to
Reed's Lake and they would have a party; and it was an open car and he had a driver and it was
run by electricity. The open cars were very nice; I've been on it. He went downtown, down
Monroe Street and right down a few times to Ottawa Beach. When they did that, they put one
of the drivers on that ran the electrical cars down there, 'cause they knew the route and they
wouldn't run too fast and control it.
Interviewer: You mentioned that up there at the corner of Plymouth and Lake Drive where Mrs.
Avery lives there was a toll road there?
�6
Bissell: There was a toll gate there.
Interviewer: Where did the toll road go?
Bissell: [The road] went right out that street there, you know where the ___ that section of the
[?] houses right out that way; that’s where our farm was. That’s where they used to go out,
drive out to the farm, out that street.
Interviewer: Where was your farm located, Mr. Bissell?
Bissell: Right out the street there.
Interviewer: Plymouth?
Bissell: No, not Plymouth, but . . .
Interviewer: Lake Drive?
Bissell: ... Lake Drive. It ran right out there on, about three or four miles. Of course, we had to
pay toll when we went out on the line.
Interviewer: How much was the toll?
Bissell: Well, I'll tell you. My father made arrangements with the toll gate; he paid them so
much a year and all the Bissell’s who had cottages and could come out there and so there was
no toll. I paid no toll. When I was a young boy, I had some fellows I knew and I would take
them out in the carriage out to the farm. I'd say: 'Now we're going past the toll gate, now get
down there and we'll run it; and they would. I'd whip the horse up a bit and get across fast and
run through the toll gate. As long as we could make it, it was all right. There [was] [apparently
referring to a map] the hospital property, this property and [?] across the street on both sides.
Originally, they cut down this bank over here for Wealthy and they run [sic] it right into the
lake. Of course we couldn't have the streetcars go through the lake so they had to curve around
right up here [pointing on a map?]. Ben Hanchett was really behind getting that curve in there,
because he was running the street railway.
Interviewer: When Mr. Hanchett moved out of this house, did he move off of College Avenue?
Bissell: He didn't live down there then. He didn't live here until long after that.
Interviewer: Long after he'd....[?]
Bissell: He didn't live on College Avenue for a long, long time. That was a few years. He had
his horses here, and there was a barn there. He had two or three horses and used to ride
downtown, and that was the only way to get downtown, at that time, was to ride down in a
carriage. When the streetcar was put in, like that, why lots of people would go down on the
streetcar.
�7
Interviewer: When you were growing up on College Avenue, what did the young people do for
entertainment?
Bissell: Oh, I don't know, they used to have shows of different kinds. They put on shows down
at the opera house.
Interviewer: Were there many dances and things like that?
Bissell: Oh yes, we had dances and especially at Christmas time when the schools were all out
and we were all home. My mother used to have dances for me and my friends and some of the
other people did too. We generally had them in the St. Cecilia or the old Armory which is
across from the depot.
Interviewer: The old railroad station?
Bissell: The old railroad station; the depot there.
Interviewer: Where did you go away to school?
Bissell: I went to the Gunnery first, and that was in Washington, Connecticut. I was there two
or three years, and then after that I went to a small school in (Suffern, New York for a few
years. And then, later on, I went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. I didn't
graduate from there.
Interviewer: You didn't graduate from there?
Bissell: No, I just quit; I was there two years.
Interviewer: And then you came back to Grand Rapids?
Bissell: That's in Grand Rapids.
Interviewer: Oh! What was the name of the school?
Bissell: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Interviewer: What kind of a school was it?
Bissell: That was in Troy, New York. It was a technical school and engineering school. They
taught engineering and, believe me, you had to have some mathematics to stay in that place. I
never had so much mathematics till I got into that.
Interviewer: Are you a member of any clubs here in town?
�8
Bissell: Oh, several clubs. The Kent Country Club, of course, was started long before I was a
member of it, but my mother was a member of it and I had the privilege of using it in her name
until I got out of college, and then I became a member of the country club.
Interviewer: When did the University Club come into being?
Bissell: Oh, quite a long time ago, but not very long ago as far as years are concerned.
Interviewer: What about the Peninsular Club?
Bissell: The Peninsular Club was going when I got out of high school and that had been going
for a long time. I'm number one man down at the Peninsular Club.
Interviewer: Now?
Bissell: Now. That means that I have lived a great many years, longest of anybody in the club
and that I got a membership. I became a member in, I think, about ought-six[1906]. I've
continued that membership the longest of anybody in it, so I'm number one man; and my
brother was number two man. He died and then Heber Curtis, I think, came in there number
three. I don't know what the numbers are now. It makes no difference as far as [?] are
concerned, it's just an interesting thing being number one man at the country club or any club.
Interviewer: I heard a story about your mother - when she died - her last words. What were her
last words?
Bissell: I don't know.
Interviewer: Someone told me her last words were, “I am glad.” Someone said those were her
last words.
Bissell: No, I don't know. Now that might have been so, I don't know.
Interviewer: When you were running the factory, were the furniture companies going full steam
then?
Bissell: They were going full steam then. They have let down since then; and there are some
manufacturing companies that used to be here. There used to be a lot of them. Huge and small
ones, but . ? . Royal and. Berkey and Gay, a . . and, oh, dozens of them. They've all gone.
Interviewer: Did many of those men who ran those big manufacturing plants live around you in
your neighborhood?
Bissell: Oh, they lived all over town. See, then, by that time we had streetcars all over town and
they'd go back and forth to the business on the streetcar.
Interviewer: Before the streetcars what did they have?
�9
Bissell: Oh, they had carriages; and some men, I know one man, he was a lawyer in town, he
liked horses and he used to ride horseback down from his house. Of course, then you had horses
right in your barn, you see, and he used to ride downtown horseback and then put his horse in
the stable down there and then ride back again.
Interviewer: Was that a very common practice for men?
Bissell: No, no. But he did that for years because he liked horses and he wanted to ride so he
did it that way.
Interviewer: What was downtown like in those days?
Bissell: It was like all the other small towns around here. Monroe Street was the big shopping
street and all the stores were down there and the grocery stores and meat markets and a few
shops and all the things were down there. A little later on, at the corner down here why they got
a few stores in there.
Interviewer: Down on Wealthy and Lake Drive?
Bissell: Down Wealthy, yeah, and a few on Reed’s Lake. When I was a boy, the city ended at
Eastern Avenue. That was the end of the city. It was just country after that and then they kept
gradually going out further and further and further and so they got out to Wealthy and whatever
that street is down there.
Interviewer: Where did you spend your summers?
Bissell: I spent my summers right here; and I'd go down to Ottawa Beach for awhile and I used
to know pretty near everybody there. I was next door to Charlie Judd's, who was a man with the
company. He lived there and had a cottage there; and he had a boat - that was a launch - on
Black Lake there. We used to go down there. It was great coming in there in a launch, 'course it
was old-fashioned . . . (?)launch which was different from any other different kinds. They
weren't very fast but they were quite powerful. We used to ride all over Black Lake there with
it.
Interviewer: Were steamers coming in there from Chicago?
Bissell: Yes, particularly they came in there every Friday night and go back Sunday night.
People would come over on that from Chicago and stay here over the weekend and go back
Sunday night. Yes, there was a line of steamers going then. Some of them would stop at some
of these other places on the way down and pick up a load of fruit or something like that, and
carry it over to Chicago. But there was one landing in there pretty near every night.
Interviewer: Were there always dams in the Grand River? Can you remember the Grand River
ever being without dams?
�10
Bissell: No, I think there were quite a number of them. They did a lot of work on it and they
tried to running their steamboats up and down carrying freight and all that, and passengers, but
they didn't. There wasn't enough to. They were always running ashore, and it wasn't very deep
and it wasn't very good.
Interviewer: What was the most memorable experience from the time you were growing up?
What's the thing you remember most?
Bissell: Oh I don't know. I lived here all my life, I was born here and I lived here until I was
grown up - in the town. I went to school in the East, and I came back to Grand Rapids and took
a job in the company. Besides that I went out in the plant and learned how to make carpet
sweepers and do those things and learned all about it and I worked up from the bottom until I
finally became president.
Interviewer: Do you think there are any differences between the way men conducted their
business in those days compared to the way they conduct their businesses today?
Bissell: Oh yes, there's a lot of difference. Everything is a lot more technical now. Of course the
telephone and telegraph came in, we had them when I was a boy but not as strong as they are
now, they weren't as big. They didn't use it as much then. Some men do a big business on the
telephone now, on the cable - Western Union. Things are entirely different, everything's more
technical.
Interviewer: What do you think was the more preferable age to live in, the age when you were a
young man or the age today?
Bissell: Well, it depends on what you want. Now it's probably very mild compared to what it
was then because everything then... [?] For instance, Mr. Hanchett lived out in this house here,
ran the street railway and we had the streetcars to go on. I lived on College Avenue before I was
married, why I used to walk down Monroe Street, the whole length. I walked down from my
house on Washington Street, down to Monroe Street and back - sometimes twice a day, in the
morning and the afternoon. Of course they had Power's Theatre and they had shows down
there; and companies came in and stayed here and put on a different show every week. There
was Reed's Lake with all the amusements in it and it was, well you could hardly get on a
streetcar. They would have two or three cars would wait up there, about time the theatre was
getting out in the evening, and take the people into town. That was the only way they had
getting out there. Of course when the automobile came in, why they could go by a car.
Interviewer: Was that when the streetcar started to dissolve, when the automobile came in?
Bissell: Well, it didn't progress like it had before, because people had cars. It made a big
difference then because if they wanted to go to the lake, why they would go out in their car, and
a lot of them did. There weren't as many cars, of course, and the streetcars were crowded
coming in at night after the show. People wanted to get home. It'd probably take four or five car
loads to take them and get them out of there. It would be jammed full. It was pretty bad
sometimes when it rained and then at that time, why there was open cars. They took the closed
�11
cars off in the summertime and put on open cars. Those were run across like that [gesture?] and
there was a row of people here and have a row in here and another row in here. It was one of
our amusements in those days to take a streetcar ride in the evening, in a hot evening, to cool
off. We'd go out to North Park and then perhaps stay a little while there, and get a soda water or
something like that and get on and come into Grand Rapids again.
Interviewer: Was the Grand River used at all in those days for entertainment or for boating
events?
Bissell: Not very much, not very much. The Grand River wasn't very deep, you know. They had
some little boats and there were a few quicker, motor boats. Motors weren't very plentiful in
those days. They were noisy and dirty.
Interviewer: I think that is good enough, don't you?
Bissell: That's about all I can tell you.
Interviewer: Okay.
INDEX
A
H
Avery, Mrs. · 5, 6
Hanchett, Mr. · 5, 6, 10
B
J
Bissell, Anna Sutherland (Mother) · 2, 4, 7, 8
Bissell, Melville R. Sr. (Father) · 1, 2, 6
Black Lake · 9
Blodgett, Mr. · 4
Judd, Charlie · 3, 9
C
Curtis, Heber · 8
F
Fisk Lake · 5
Foster and Stevens Company · 3
G
Grand River · 10, 11
K
Kent Country Club · 4, 5, 8
O
Ottawa Beach · 6, 9
P
Pantlind, Fred · 4
Peninsular Club · 8
�12
R
V
Reed's Lake · 5, 9, 10
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute · 7
Voigt, Ralph · 4
S
W
Woman's City Club · 1
St. Mark's Church · 2
U
University Club · 8
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/aa3ac7df7c42608ff7abc5a2f88a111a.mp3
b09e66ac6d8b7a88b524e0593d1cce00
Dublin Core
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Title
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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.
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Various
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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eng
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RHC-23
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1971 - 1977
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RHC-23_9-10Bissell
Title
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Bissell, M.R.
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Bissell, M.R.
Description
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M.R. Bissell was born on April 7, 1882 in Grand Rapids. His father (M.R. Sr.) invented the Bissell Carpet Sweeper. The Bissell Carpet Sweeper Company was established in 1883. When Mr. Bissell's father died prematurely, his mother took his place running the business. M. R. Bissell, Jr. attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York for two years but did not graduate. He returned to Grand Rapids to run the business, and became a member of the Kent Country Club, the Peninsular Club, and the University Club. He died December 20, 1972.
Publisher
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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
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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audio/mp3
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Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)
Date
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1971
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b448313da33b45dd941ed2266b9fea46.pdf
a12ed8039e824e6c18b9a0cd660746f4
PDF Text
Text
1
Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23
Miss Dorothy Blake
Interviewed on September 20, 1971
Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com
Tape #14 and 15 (47:17)
Biographical Information
Dorothy Stuart Blake, the daughter of William Frederick Blake and Adeline Louise “Alde” Tuck
was born 23 July 1889 in Grand Rapids. She passed away at the age of 88 on 4 September 1977
in Grand Rapids.
William F. Blake, the son of Increase Blake and Sarah Farnsworth was born 3 May 1851 in
Farmington Falls, Franklin County, Maine. He died at his home at 320 S. College Avenue, Grand
Rapids on Christmas Eve 1915 and is buried in the Blake Cemetery in Farmington, Franklin
County, Maine. William was in the wholesale grocery business and came to Grand Rapids in
1887.
Mr. Blake was married 15 March 1881 in Farmington, Maine to Adeline Louise “Alde” Tuck.
Alde was the daughter of Dr. Cyrus Dean Tuck and Adeline Lucy Colby. She was born 8 June
1857 in Falmouth, Cumberland County, Maine and moved with her parents to Farmington,
Franklin County before 1870. Her death occurred on 29 April 1925 in Grand Rapids and she is
also buried in the Blake Cemetery.
___________
Blake: You probably want a limit on time too, don‟t you for each question, or don‟t you?
Interviewer: No just, you just talk as long as you want. Miss Blake, it looks as though you‟re in
the process of moving, you are in the process of moving from this house. We‟re at three-twenty
College South East. How long have you lived in this house?
Blake: I have lived here since eighteen ninety-three.
Interviewer: Did your family move here?
Blake: My family moved up here from the old Warwick Hotel, which later became the Cody,
which was later turned into a parking ramp.
Interviewer: Was your family living in the hotel at the time?
Blake: Yes, and we moved up here I remember there were only two houses on the whole west
side of the street, between College, between Cherry and Wealthy. And one house is what I think
was called the, the Waddell house, and later was called the Hudson house, which is still standing,
�2
and the other house was a dark red brick with a forbidding looking door that looked like a prison
door, and Mr. and Mrs. Shaw lived there. They were old people then, and I don‟t remember of
course who built the house, or if it was the Shaws or not, but they were living there, at that time.
And all the rest of the block was on the east side was a vacant lot, and a cow pasture and an
apple orchard, through which I had to walk to go to school, the old Wealthy Avenue School.
Interviewer: Where was the Wealthy Avenue School located?
Blake: It was, where it is now, only an older building and the entrance was on Wealthy Street,
and now it‟s called the Vandenberg School of course, the Wealthy entrance is on Lafayette.
Interviewer: Well, were you a child then, when you moved up, how old?
Blake: Oh yeah, I was four years old when we moved up here, so…
Interviewer: Did your family build this house?
Blake: No, it was about, I think this house had been lived in two and a half years. There was only
one family that occupied this house before we moved up, and that was the Brouwer family I
think. There were three Brouwer boys I believe, Evert O. Brouwer, and Jack Brouwer, and Otto
Brouwer was born in this house. Well, they were renting it from father.
Interviewer: Well then, then your father did build the house, but he was rented it from
somebody?
Blake: He bought it.
Interviewer: Oh.
Blake: And rented it for a couple of years before we moved up.
Interviewer: I see, what kind of business was your father in?
Blake: He was in the wholesale grocery business, with teas and coffees, as his specialty, which
ultimately turned out to be the manager of the tea department for Judson Grocery Company.
Interviewer: Had he been born in Grand Rapids?
Blake: He was born in Maine, Farmington Falls, Maine. My mother was born in Farmington,
Maine.
Interviewer: Did they meet each other in Maine?
Blake: They met each other when Mother went to Farmington Falls to teach school, they had
never met before, they grew up seven miles apart—just a horse and buggy road between.
�3
Interviewer: What a, what was the reason they finally moved to Grand Rapids, your father and
mother moved here?
Blake: He started West, to be the, now you‟ve got me, on going back that far. This is just what,
what I heard from them, of course, that he started West, he was a lawyer, at that time, and he
started west to be the corporation lawyer for a mining company in Utah. And when he got to
Chicago, he was met by a telegram saying that the mine was flooded, and they have to postpone
the working of it for a while. Well, it was postponed forever apparently, so father was stuck in
Chicago, and that‟s when he, got a wholesale grocery and teas and coffees to work with a cousin
of his, who started him out in Chicago. Then later they moved to Grand Rapids. And he stayed in
that business instead of in the law.
Interviewer: That‟s interesting. Where was this store located in Grand Rapids?
Blake: Oh the Judson Grocery Company, gracious, oh, it was downtown. But on what street I‟ve
forgotten.
Interviewer: Do you remember going to the grocery store as a child?
Blake: Yes, and before that to the Worden Grocery Company, was the first one, and father was
one of the organizers of that, and then later he joined the Judson grocery.
Interviewer: What was downtown like in those days?
Blake: Well, I really don‟t know what you mean by that question.
Interviewer: How did if differ from today, for example? Or did it differ at all?
Blake: Well, we had streetcars, now we have buses. The streetcars were, ran on an overhead
trolley. And some of our, well, I don‟t know about downtown, it had its big department stores,
Spring Dry Goods Store was one of the best. It had Herpolsheimer‟s, it had Wurzburg‟s. They
were early settlers in this neighborhood, too.
Interviewer: What was it like growing up in this neighborhood?
Blake: Oh, it was very, it was a very happy life, most of it centered around home, of course, and,
well most, most of our fun was right here. We played croquet on the back lawn, we packed up
picnics and got on the Cherry-Shawmut Streetcar line and went to John Ball Park for a day‟s
outing, that was, that was fun. There were some animals there, but, the zoo was not as large as
we have now. But there was, that was one of our joys. And another was, on a hot day, get on the
Wealthy-Taylor streetcar, for five cents, and ride from one end of the city to the other, on the car
to get cool. And one end was at North Park, and the other end of the line was Reed‟s Lake we
called it. And Reed‟s Lake was one of the places where we had lots of good times. There were
rides on a steamer for ten cents, rides as long as you chose, stay on all day if you wanted to, and
we‟d take picnic lunches with us. And there was a, an excellent vaudeville, high class vaudeville,
�4
outdoors in the pavilion there, which was one of the things to do if you wanted recreation.
Another thing was to hire a team, there used to be a livery stable down on the corner of LaGrave
and Wealthy, and father [would] hire a rig and a couple of horses and we‟d pack up a picnic
lunch and we‟d drive to Cascade and Ada, where he had some trade in the general stores there so
he‟d combine a little business with a picnic spree for us.
Interviewer: What kind of a road went from the city here to Cascade and Ada?
Blake: I think, now I‟m not sure, I think it was a gravel road. It might have been just plain dirt
road, but I can remember as the gravel road, especially the gravel road to Ada.
Interviewer: Well, outside of these little excursions around the city, most of your life did center
around the home then.
Blake: Oh yes.
Interviewer: Can you describe to me what your home life, somewhat, what a…?
Blake: Well, when we were very small, mother had help that lived in the house, and, one maid
would do the washing, the ironing, the cooking, the cleaning, for her board and room, and a, very
small amount per week. And then later, when we grew up and had our own tasks assigned to us
for housekeeping, mother hired help by the day, a dollar a day was, was for the price for years.
And then outside help would do the washing, the wash bench and two tubs and a wringer, out on
a big back porch. And she‟d hang it out and she‟d iron it, and then she‟d come another day to do
the cleaning. Well, that isn‟t so very different from what we have now except the washers are all
automatic.
Interviewer: Were there, did your family have many activities with other families in the
neighborhood?
Blake: Oh yes, there was a wonderful neighborhood. The houses on the east side where I‟m
living were all single family houses, except one, there was one, it was a what did you call it, a
double house, upstairs and downstairs there were two families. All the rest were single families.
We knew every family on the block. And the whole block, especially the older people, the
fathers and mothers would get together and have their parties. And sometimes the children would
get together and put on a theatrical performance of their own making, and the parents would turn
out and pay a penny a piece or so many pins a piece for the privilege of watching our activities.
That was fun, homemade fun. The families they were families that stayed put, at least two
generations of the same family would be living in the same houses in here.
Interviewer: Why do you think that was? Why did the families, for example, would two
generations of a family be the same neighborhood? Why was there that, for what reason was
there that stability?
�5
Blake: I don‟t know. I suppose because they had lovely houses, good homes, they didn‟t care
about going away for very long.
Interviewer: What do you think changed all of that?
Blake: The automobile, and then later the airplane. The automobile did a lot of changing, for
better and for worse, too.
Interviewer: Was there a, how would you classify in terms of economic position, the people that
lived here on south College compared with for example, the people that lived on Jefferson or up
on the Hill. Was there a difference?
Blake: I don‟t know that there was any particular difference. Jefferson was an avenue of homes
too; some very beautiful homes there. Even Sheldon had some beautiful homes. Some of the
political parades used to go down Sheldon. People would sit out on their front porches and
watch.
Interviewer: You were involved in some women‟s suffrage activities. What exactly was your
involvement? When did you first become interested in it?
Blake: Oh, I suppose when I was a small child, I was indoctrinated with the idea of women‟s
rights, after all, I had three sisters, and we were a woman family. And well as a little girl, I did
things like selling suffrage newspapers downtown, either inside or outside the store; it was
perfectly safe to be on the streets. And soon as I got out of college, I helped with the nineteen
twelve campaign, which was a very lively one; Dr. Wishart was the manager of that. And we had
an office downtown, and I had an old typewriter that I took down there and did office work for
them. And my younger sisters rode in parades, dressed up in the suffrage colors, and with
banners and, and pamphlets decorating the floats. Oh, we did so many things I, I think one of my
fondest memories was, the one that will always stay with me, was meeting Susan B. Anthony.
She was seventy-nine years old when she came to Grand Rapids. We had the national convention
here in Grand Rapids in eighteen ninety-nine, and she came, and Howard Shaw came, a brilliant
list of people who were present at that, that convention, that lasted for several days. And mother
took me to meet Miss Anthony one afternoon. She was a guest at Mrs. John Blodgett‟s house,
which had been torn down now, where the Stuyvesant is now. I can remember my impression of
her, it as very sweet, gentle, little, old lady who was courteous and treated me just as if I were
important. She was, and she signed my birthday book for me, and put the date in it. That‟s one of
my fond memories. The next year she was unable to travel, I believe, and it wasn‟t too long after
that than she passed away.
Interviewer: Why, why did they hold the national convention in Grand Rapids, was a, how did
Grand Rapids happen to be chosen?
�6
Blake: Grand Rapids just simply went after it and insisted that they come here, and they said they
always met in Washington, D.C. and they fought coming here, but finally, the men were on the
job too, there was a very strong men‟s suffrage at work with Dr. Wishart on the job too.
Interviewer: Who was Dr. Wishart?
Blake: Oh, he was the minister at Fountain Street Baptist church, very prominent man, nationally
prominent. And then all of the, the Chamber of Commerce I think they called it then, the Men‟s
Chamber of Commerce went after it tooth and nail, they just worked for it, offered lots of things,
lots of inducements to the women if they would hold their national convention in Grand Rapids.
And they finally won out, they did all sorts of things for them, the St. Cecilia was the auditorium
where they held their meetings. The Warwick Hotel was their headquarters, and some of the
delegates of course were entertained in private homes. But that was a great feather in the suffrage
cap of the nation, because always they had before and after, at least, held their meetings in
Washington.
Interviewer: Were many women in this neighborhood, in the Hill District, the Hill area, involved
with women‟s suffrage at that time?
Blake: All of them that I knew were. But I don‟t know that I can name them, but it was a very
homogenous neighborhood.
Interviewer: Was there any reaction by the men against the, the women‟s demand for rights,
equal rights?
Blake: Very little, in fact the men did as much for us as we, at that particular convention, as we
could. We, both men and women, went all out for that, to bring that convention here to Grand
Rapids.
Interviewer: Would women in the Hill District that were associated with, what was the name of
your group? Did you have a name for your organization or…
Blake: Well, there was the National Women‟s Suffrage organization, and then there was the
State Women‟s Suffrage organization, and I suppose there was the Grand Rapids Equal Suffrage
Club.
Interviewer: Would there be meetings held at different women‟s home and one thing or another,
did you have regular meetings?
Blake: Oh, well, those would just be committee meetings, the, the big meetings were held in
halls like St. Cecilia‟s. That was one of the favorite places, the size and the, of course the
building itself has wonderful acoustics. Ladies Literary Club was another place where important
meetings were held. At that convention, as well as others, the Ladies Literary Club was open too.
Interviewer: Did the Ladies Literary Club have a regular clubhouse?
�7
Blake: Oh, yes, they, they had their own clubhouse, owned it, one of the first in the country to
build and own their own clubhouse. The St. Cecilia was another, it was the first musical
organization to build their own clubhouse, and own it. Both those buildings were very much used
in that era. Well, they still are.
Interviewer: Were they important social organizations?
Blake: Yes, they were both leaders in their own field. St. Cecilia in the field of music and the
Ladies Literary Club in the well, the field of general culture and literary work particularly. I
remember meeting Woodrow Wilson at the Ladies Literary Club. President Taft was there at one
time, I think he was the only president who was, [who] came to the Ladies Literary Club, during
his presidency.
Interviewer: Came here to Grand Rapids?
Blake: Yeah. To speak a the Ladies Literary Club, I think that while he was president, I think
he‟s the only president who ever did and it was Mrs. McKnight who got him to come.
Interviewer: How did she induce him to come?
Blake: She could, she could, I don‟t know how to put it, she could induce almost anybody to, to
come to Grand Rapids, if she thought it important,
Interviewer: Who was Mrs. McKnight?
Blake: Oh, well she was President of the Ladies Literary Club, she was one of the organizers and
Presidents of the “Alliance Française”, the French Club in Grand Rapids, she was a great
authority on are, she was a great traveler, European traveler, visited all the important places in
Paris, and came home and gave talks on it. She was one of the, one of the, shall I say social;
another adjective would be better, leaders in Grand Rapids, social, educational, and cultural
leaders in Grand Rapids. Mrs. William F. McKnight.
Interviewer: Was there, what was it what happened when Taft came? Did the city celebrate or
put on any big festivities?
Blake: There must have been but I don‟t remember. I probably was in school. No, I wouldn‟t
have been at school because he came on a Saturday, I remember that much. There probably was
a parade, I don‟t remember, that fact I cut out, but I can remember seeing him.
Interviewer: What did you do after you got out of college? Did you spend most of your time in
suffrage work?
Blake: I stayed home that one year, and worked through the campaign of nineteen twelve, but
that was the Michigan Campaign, and then after that I taught school.
�8
Interviewer: Where did you teach?
Blake: I taught in Hesperia for two years; I taught in Lowell for three years; I taught in Union
High School, Grand Rapids, for thirty-four years. That was an ideal school to teach in, perfectly
delightful.
Interviewer: Union, Grand Rapids Union High School?
Blake: Yeah.
Interviewer: What was considered the, the best high school in the city?
Blake: That was.
Interviewer: Grand Rapids Union?
Blake: And it wasn‟t because I taught there either. It a, we got that said, of course we, we
teachers, we had a good, a very good staff there at Union, and we all enjoyed our work and we
had good material. Our material was a melting pot; all sorts of nationalities were represented in,
in the student body. And the various teachers who did supply work, in all the high schools, there
were five high schools before I finished teaching, there was just one when I went to Central High
School, but when I, when there were five high schools and supply teachers had experience in
each one of those high schools, they said without question that Union High school was the best,
or that they enjoyed it the most, put it either way.
Interviewer: Central High School was the high school for the Hill District, wasn‟t it?
Blake: Yes, and that was the first full high school. That is twelve, had all four high school
grades, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades.
Interviewer: Didn‟t Union?
Blake: Union at different times had a different setup, as to grades. Now at one time, while I was
teaching, they had everything under one roof at Union, from the kindergarten up through the
twelfth grade, and an automobile repair shop, all in the same building. And I think the later years
that I was there, they began with the seventh grade, and that‟s what they call junior high, and
senior high, seventh, eighth and ninth were junior high: tenth, eleventh, and twelfth were senior
high. And of course now they use different names, middle school and so on. But ours were junior
and senior high. That was after Union had such a large enrollment that they couldn‟t have the
kindergarten grades in there anymore, so they went over to Harrison Park.
Interviewer: Did Union at one time serve as I understand it, they had three grades in the High
School, and then for the senior year students would transfer to Central.
�9
Blake: At one time. That was back before… that lasted up until nineteen six, I believe, when
there was just one graduating class in the whole city. And that was from Central. In Nineteen six,
I can remember that the tenth graders, the twelfth graders, had to come over from Union and take
their work in Central. And after that, they added the twelfth grade to Union.
Interviewer: Were you very active in the Ladies Literary Club?
Blake: No, in fact I was not a member…
Interviewer: Oh,
Blake: My mother was very active and she often took me as a guest when she could to the…
Interviewer: Is she one of the ones that help found the club?
Blake: I don‟t know, I don‟t think so but it must have been pretty nearly as early as that because
it wasn‟t a very old club at the time.
Interviewer: Why did the, were, well, did women, did a lot of women belong to the Ladies
Literary Club?
Blake: Oh yes, very, very active club.
Interviewer: Why…?
Blake: I think it still is.
Interviewer: What, for what reason would women become active in that club?
Blake: It was the only club of its kind in the city except for the West Side Ladies Literary Club,
or the West Side Literary Club, I think that was. And I don‟t know whether the west side club
antedates, I don‟t think it antedates the Ladies Literary Club, it may have been a branch, I don‟t
know. It may have been a branch of it, but that‟s a very old club too, the West Side Literary
Club. But I think the Ladies Literary Club was the first to organize, I think it was unique in the
country.
Interviewer: What kind of activities would they have at the club?
Blake: Well, mostly literary, of course, usually some music on their programs, speakers, the most
important speakers from the country that they could get and it depended very largely on the
Presidents who was the best getter of speakers from other places. And political interest came in,
of course non-partisan, but they were inte…, they were very alive club.
Interviewer: Would you say it was the center of cultural activity for women at that time?
�10
Blake: I divide honors between that and the St. Cecilia. Of course the St. Cecilia was primarily
music, but the two combined made the, quite a strong influence for culture in Grand Rapids. Of
course, a great many of the women were members of both, the St. Cecilia and the Ladies Literary
Club.
Interviewer: I‟m going to turn this tape over, it‟s almost out, and I have just a couple more
questions I won‟t be able to get them…
[End of side one]
Blake: Don‟t know whether he was born in Grand Rapids, but he was a Grand Rapids boy, and
we were, we were just devoted to the Library, why we spent a great deal of time there, went to
all the library lectures, ever since, in the room the other day with Mr. Collins, I had come in for
some other, no I had come in to see him and give him some papers I had, and I looked around
and I said, “well, this used to be the lecture room, didn‟t it?” Of course it‟s something else now,
but it was the old lecture room; when we went to every lecture there was, I believe, in it. And
they had a very lively program, in it, the library. It‟s always been in good hands, the library I
could remember that part. Then I, I put down women‟s suffrage because you mentioned that.
And then I scribbled down here, I guess how people lived, maybe suggestion. Now, what did we
used to like to do when we could do whatever we pleased? And then I thought of the streetcars
we had no horse of our own, and of course there weren‟t any automobiles then anyways as far as
I know, but we used to like to ride, to ride the streetcars. Cool off on a hot day, you‟d get on an
open streetcar. You‟ve seen pictures at least of open streetcars?
Interviewer: I‟m not sure.
Blake: Well, where the seats go right straight across. You get on from the side, you step on and
slide into your seat. They‟re all open, and of course when the cars are going we have a delightful
breeze. Made, made to order. You could ride from one end of the city to the other, you see,
which meant back from Reed‟s Lake to North Park or the Soldiers Home or a little beyond it, or
the pavilion out there at North Park where there is usually music or something going on. But
we‟d usually stay on the car, and it would turn around and then come back. We might have had
to pay another five cents to get back, but… But anyway, you could ride from one end of the city
to the other for five cents. So, I jotted down there, Wealthy- Scribner. And the names amused me
too, they did even then, we used to laugh over the names of our streetcars. Wealthy-Scribner,
Wealthy-Taylor, Cherry-Shawmut, aren‟t those silly names? But the Wealthy was because it
went down the length of Wealthy, Wealthy Avenue, they called it. Now it‟s called Wealthy
Street, but it was Wealthy Avenue that, that‟s where the line began. And Scribner was way over
on the west side. Well, Scribner Street‟s still there, and Wealthy Street‟s still there, but that was
the Wealthy-Scribner line. Well then the Wealthy-Taylor line was the longer still, because that
went way out Taylor Street, now that‟s on the west side too, way out to North Park. So no wait,
is Taylor on the west side?
�11
Interviewer: I don‟t even know where Taylor is…
Blake: There is, the river turns there some, Division, no, we didn‟t cross the river. No Taylor
isn‟t on the west side, I, I was wrong there, because we didn‟t cross the river when we went out
to North Park. So Taylor must be in that direction. But we went past what we call the Soldiers
Home, it‟s now called the Veteran‟s facility, and out to a pavilion that, that was there near the
bridge that did cross over to the west side. Now that, that bridge was way out at Comstock Park.
So Taylor must be out there, in that direction. I ought to know, but I don‟t; mixed up on that, but
the names Wealthy-Scribner, Wealthy-Taylor, people from other cities used to say, “You have
the queerest names for your streets” Now the Shawmut, what a name, and Cherry, and Cherry,
Cherry Street, why Cherry Street? Well, maybe they had cherry trees once, I don‟t remember,
but Wealthy-Scribner, Wealthy-Taylor, Reed‟s Lake, Cherry-Shawmut, John Ball Park, and they
thought John Ball Park must be a place where they have ball games; of course… there isn‟t any
out there. We had to explain that John Ball was one of the pioneers in Grand Rapids, that that
park was named after him. I hope you dump out a lot of this, you take them will you.
Interviewer: Do you think that, well you were a school teacher for a long time, how has the
society changed or has it changed from the days when you were growing up? And what do you
attribute that change to?
Blake: Well, of course the recent change I‟d say has taken place within the last four years. I think
its chaos now. Standards are, standards are broken down; many people have no standards, they
just think they can do what they please. Which I call communistic, they might as well be shipped
off to Russia the way they act. And the way they simply think they can help themselves to
anything. Gangs come around, throwing stones and, and…
Interviewer: Do you have that problem down here on College?
Blake: Right here, they haven‟t hit the house yet; they don‟t quite dare. And they can‟t quite
reach the house for they, it‟s, it‟s a gang that is sort of between little colored people and grown,
and they‟re, they‟re all, the gang is all colored. That isn‟t one that, that comes around here
occasionally, and they seem to recruit from somewhere over on Paris Avenue, which is almost
solid black. You know that, that block there, there are three white families that I know are still
living there, up near Cherry. But I think most of those in through here don‟t know how live. And
that has been, that neighborhood has run down, don‟t quote me on these things please, but that
neighborhood has run down for many years, because a real estate man who was buying up all the
properties just let it go to, well, go to pieces. And let the houses run down, didn‟t care who
rented them, but one of the former renters there told me that, that she was charged an enormous
rent for a horrible room in one of the houses back here, and well the backyards are, well they are
cleaned up a little bit, but they‟re not too good there. There are cars parked all over in the
backyards, and sometimes people climbing all over the tops of them. That one time there were
six, for heaven‟s sakes, don‟t quote me, I‟m, I‟m getting some of the dope on this area. But
�12
we‟ve had, and, and why, I don‟t know why, we‟ve suddenly changed. The lack of standards, the
lack of any idea of what‟s right nor wrong or is what, what‟s it seems to me that some of them
think well, whatever they want to do is right. Well they have a right to which isn‟t right at all.
They have no standards, but the gang here, made up of both little and big, are the one I dealt with
happened to be all colored. And they throw stones, and pieces of cement and bricks, I don‟t
know where they get the bricks, from the fence line, my back fence line there, and the garage
back there; I have a drive, short driveway on this side whenever I. They in order to make a lot of
no[ise], they could, they couldn‟t throw far enough to hit the house, there‟s a big back lawn
there, they really were a bunch of cowards and they didn‟t quite dare, but really what‟s fortunate
they didn‟t dare come over the fence. A, so they put a dishpan out so it would make a lot of noise
from where, they threw from the fence and threw towards the dishpan so it would make a
resounding noise, their bricks and their stones and oh boy… Well they did that one day when I
was here. I spend a part of everyday down here, trying to clear up this house, clear out a little
each day, but one morning when I came down from Oakwood Manor, I looked out the back
window and the lawn was scattered with bricks and stones they‟d been throwing „em, either the
night before or early morning, and I really should have had the police come up and look at it. But
it was the day that, that the trucks come along and clean up everything or they did for a while. So
I thought well, I better get this, this stuff out in front for the trucks to pick up so I did. But I
should have called the police out first, to take a look at it. I told them about it afterwards, but,
they said, “Did they do any damage to the house?” I said, well I can‟t prove it, but there is
broken glass around, but they, they were at a distance when they threw those things, and they
didn‟t hit the house. Damage was merely to my nerves…and house to clean up, but anyway, that
sort of thing seems to spring up all of a sudden. And, sometimes they swarm around the car out
there, there parked in the driveway and one day they came around, they must have had either a
stone or a brick in their hands, I don‟t know, and whanged against the house you know and one
these, oh, forget what, anyway, to make all the noise they could, trying to terrorize the, whoever
was inside the house. They didn‟t break a single glass, but I was afraid they would so I called the
police. And if the police had come at once they would have seen the whole gang of them. By the
time a policeman got up here, I had called a second time, I said I need the police, and I need
them now, well, I said, the gang‟s right here, and take a picture of them. And said well he‟s on
the way, well, the nice policeman was on the way, but when he came here…
Interviewer: They were gone:
Blake: They vanished into thin air, where they went and how, I don‟t know. It was just like that
and they were gone. And he asked me their names… Why, I said, “I don‟t know their names.”
“Well, what‟d they look like?” I said, “To me those colored people all look alike.” And, “What
did they wear?” Well, I said, “I can remember one wore a striped red and white sweater…” “Are
they good looking?” Well I said, “I don‟t know, their names, and I don‟t know who their parents
are, they‟re a gang that, that, gather themselves together, you know, and go in and out behind…
well, there‟s a big barn over there, that‟s a good place to hide, behind a red barn, and then there‟s
�13
a garage right next to me, back of this house if you ask them and they recruit, and then they come
around.” Well, now that‟s what we‟re up against, that lawlessness, all the … broken out and they
think they seem to have the right to be any where they want to, whether they want to play in the
back yard or where…
Interviewer: It wasn‟t like that when you were…
Blake: Well, no. this was private property, and if, in fact we almost always had the fence around
and mother had a fence with a gate that locked and she let in people she wanted her children to
play with, and kept out those she didn‟t. But that was way back, of course when your home was
your private property, your own affair, and now people think they have a right in anything. Well,
that‟s Communism, why not pack them off to Russia and leave them there, it that‟s… but that
seems to be a general feeling. And where it comes from…
Interviewer: Could you a…
Blake: But, it‟s to me a total reversal of what‟s right and what‟s wrong and what‟s decent and
what isn‟t. But you see I‟m very old fashioned. It‟s, it‟s awfully hard to take different reasons for
things.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Blake: What‟s back of it I don‟t know. Of course, the automobile began changing ways of life
for instance an all-day picnic at, at Ada or Cascade with a horse and buggy, now it‟s about,
doesn‟t take more than 30 minutes to drive, to drive an auto there, another 30 back. I think life
began changing then, but it was still a delightful living in the early days of the automobile. But
something has hit- is it war? Do you think war is back of what‟s the matter with us? We‟re
always fighting somewhere. If it isn‟t Vietnam it‟s somewhere else. I don‟t know what‟s, what‟s
the, but to me it, it‟s a, it‟s tragic. People, now this of course still part of the Heritage Hill district
and the people here are just hoping that they can stay here; they‟re watching and just hoping that
they can stay here. There are some lovely people across the street in one of the houses that was
there when, when we, we moved up here, one of the two houses that was on the other side of the
street, still there, sort of ice cream colored, the Magmoses[?] live there now. And they‟re hoping
they can stay there, that the, that the gangs that come around won‟t, won‟t get over on their side.
They don‟t know when it‟s going to run across the street… They say things aren‟t, you can‟t plan
ahead or be confident that you can do things that you used to do now, don‟t know, what you‟re
going to run up against. I don‟t know what‟s, I don‟t think anybody knows the answer. But it
seems to me sort of a communistic movement … that‟s been very gradually and subtly pushed
nearer and nearer to where we‟re living. Came from Detroit, here, and from where to Detroit I
goodness knows. Detroit‟s had an awful time, hasn‟t it? Just fright[ful]…
�14
INDEX
A
M
Alliance Française Club · 8
Anthony, Susan B. · 5, 6
McKnight, Mrs. · 7, 8
B
N
Blake, Adeline Louise "Alde" Tuck (Mother) · 2, 3, 4, 6, 9,
13
Blake, William Frederick (Father) · 2, 3, 4
Blodgett, Mrs. John · 6
Brouwer Family · 2
National Women’s Suffrage organization · 7
R
Reed’s Lake · 4, 11
C
Central High School · 8, 9
Cody Hotel · 1
G
Grand Rapids Equal Suffrage Club · 7
H
Herpolsheimer’s · 3
S
Shaw Family · 2
Shaw, Howard · 5
St. Cecilia's Music Society · 6, 7, 10
State Women’s Suffrage organization · 7
T
Taft, President · 7, 8
U
J
Union High School · 8, 9
John Ball Park · 3, 11
Judson Grocery Company · 2, 3
W
L
Ladies Literary Club · 7, 8, 9, 10
Wealthy Avenue School · 2
Wishart, Dr. · 5, 6
Women's Suffrage · 5, 6, 8, 11
Worden Grocery Company · 3
Wurzburg’s · 3
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0ce366b50d4e3f9d5f743cb39c461566.mp3
abb684495a57d7b68391809aff37d961
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
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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
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Various
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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application/pdf; audio/mp3
Language
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eng
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Text; Sound
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RHC-23
Coverage
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1971 - 1977
Sound
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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/.
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RHC-23_14-15Blake
Title
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Blake, Dorothy
Creator
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Blake, Dorothy
Description
An account of the resource
Miss Blake was a Radcliffe graduate and taught school at Union High School for 34 years. Miss Blake met both Woodrow Wilson and Howard Taft at the Lady's Literary Club. She also worked in the 1912 National campaign for women's suffrage movement.
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
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eng
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Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)
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1971
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9a750f938b8a45242b67abc0c1a7b33f.pdf
1b09bd3d64ad5a79e37c264bb1964c8d
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Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23
Blodgett, John
Interviewed on October 2, 1971
Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com
Tape #27 (1:00:16)
Biographical Information
Mr. John Wood Blodgett, Jr. was born on 24 May 1901 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of
John Wood Blodgett and Minnie A. Cumnock. John died October, 1987 at the age of 86 years.
John Wood Blodgett, Sr. was born 26 July 1860 in Hersey, Osceola County, Michigan, the son
of Delos Abiel and Jane S. “Jennie” (Wood) Blodgett. John W. Blodgett, Sr. died on 21
November 1951. He was married to Minnie A. Cumnock on 16 January 1895 in Lowell,
Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Alexander G. and Frances F. (Ross) Cumnock, born
July 1862 in Massachusetts. Minnie died in 1931.
___________
Mr. Blodgett: Yes, Well, I was born on May twenty-fourth, nineteen one although now, that I
have reached my, past my seventieth birthday. I don‟t recall that I ever knew whether I was born
in the house on Cherry Street or whether I was born in the old UBA Hospital. But anyway my
earliest recollections, of course deal with the house at what originally was known as three
hundred and sixty-five Cherry Street. And then some time later, I don‟t recall the exact year that
number was changed to four-0-one Cherry. I‟m in the same house you understand. That house is
situated where the Stuyvesant Apartments is now at the corner of Madison Avenue and Cherry
where State and Cherry run together. And the entrance apparently was always referred to as
Cherry Street because the numbers were always Cherry and not State. Let‟s see well, most of
my friends in those early days, lived on that block bounded by Cherry Street, Washington Street,
Madison Avenue and College; and a great many of them have gone to their reward since then.
One of my closest friends was Bill Rogers. I think his official name was Winfield and he was the
son of Dr. John R. Rogers who at that time lived on Madison Avenue in the same house that Mrs.
Dutcher the podiatrist has her shop now. And another of my closest friends and Bill died quite a
number of years ago, I believe, of cancer. Another of my very closest friends was Stanley
Barnhart who lived up the street on Cherry Street there and Stan passed away in nineteen
hundred and nineteen. I think about late August or early September of nineteen nineteen, but
anyway that‟s where my closest friends were. Also in that block was Theron Goodspeed and he‟s
dead. Then across on the other side of Madison Avenue, about opposite the Roger‟s house was a
fellow named Ed Moore, now I‟m not sure if at this juncture was name was spelled More or
Moore. I just have forgotten. But he was never as close as I was to Bill Rogers and Stanley
Barnhart. Dudley Cassard, who I believe is still alive last I heard which was a number of years
�2
ago, he was living somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area. He was also quite a close friend
but I‟d say Bill Rogers and Stan Barnhart were my closest friends; we did a lot of things
together. A bunch of kids, I remember, we had a rabbit out in back of the Barnharts house and I
guess it must have been a female rabbit, because, I remember she had a litter, if that‟s the correct
term for a bunch of young rabbits, and then because she wasn‟t given enough water why she ate
all her offspring or rather killed all her offspring and drank their blood and so forth.
Interviewer: Oh.
Mr. Blodgett: And then I remember along with Jerome Draper who lived on Washington Street, I
don‟t know the address but I could, show you the house while we‟re down Washington Street.
Why we all owned a hen and our dividends consisted of an egg every now and then. And about
the only friend of those days were who was still living is Huston McBain, the retired chairman
of the board of Marshall Field and Company, who used to live in those days at the Stratford
Arms.
Interviewer: Where‟s the Stratford Arms?
Mr. Blodgett: The Stratford Arms is on the corner of Morris and Cherry and is still standing and
is still called the Stratford Arms. And he lived there incidentally, he is probably the most
illustrious of all the group I grew up with because I say he went right through the ranks of
Marshall Field and Company and at some incredibly early age why he became chairman of the
board and then retired as chairman of the board after serving, I don‟t know how many years. And
since then he‟s, because very interested in Scotch things and he is now, written up in Scotch
circles because although he is an American citizen, of course, he is the McBain of McBain. And
anybody who knows Scotch history knows that that‟s the name of the leader of the clan.
Interviewer: Oh.
Mr. Blodgett: And so forth and so it‟s quite unusual for an American citizen to be a McBain of
McBain.
Interviewer: Did he, did he get his start in a department store work in Grand Rapids or did he go
to…?
Mr. Blodgett: No, he went, I believe to the University of Michigan and possibly some people
who were in the University of Michigan, I suspect his class must have been about nineteen
twenty-three in Michigan, but I‟m not sure of that. I‟m not sure whether he ever did any work
here in Grand Rapids before moving to Chicago or not. I don‟t really know but I don‟t think so.
But, Huston McBain can be, as I say is still alive or was last I knew, which was about a couple of
months ago and lives over in Illinois. I mean in the greater Chicago area. I have his address
downtown, I‟m not sure I have it with me. But anyway he is easily locatable. And…
Interviewer: Did you all go to public school?
�3
Mr. Blodgett: No, we had a teacher from New England, and later she became an old maid. She
wasn‟t an old maid when she came with us. Her name was Lina Morton and up in the third floor
of the house on Cherry Street, why we had a small school and I don‟t remember just how many
people were in that school and, I think Elizabeth Rogers, Bill‟s sister was there, but Bill himself
went to public school. And so I was taught by Miss Morton until I went away to Saint Mark‟s
school at South Massachusetts in the fall of nineteen twenty-four. I‟m told that my family, for a
couple of summers or maybe, two or three I‟m not sure, went up to Mackinac Island in the
summertime but my earliest summer recollection s were down at York Harbor, Maine. And we
stayed there until nineteen hundred and, summer of nineteen ten then we all went abroad, that is
all. My father, mother, sister and myself to England, we sailed on a White-Star Liner called “the
Adriatic”. Whether we came back on the Adriatic or not I don‟t recall. But I do remember we
went over on her. And then, in the summer of nineteen eleven, nineteen twelve and nineteen
thirteen we were down at Prides Crossing, Mississippi and then in the summer of nineteen
fourteen, we all went abroad and of course as everyone knows that‟s the time when World War
Onebroke out and at the exact day when mobilization occurred why I was staying with this Swiss
maid of mother‟s who sort of looked after us. Her name was Rose Loamer, she was a protestant
Swiss from a town of Neuchâtel and at least so I was told, and anyway I‟ve had some stomach
trouble probably something I ate unquestionably, and so Rose Loamer and I were staying at this
hotel at Avion, which is across in France. Well, Father, Mother and Sister had gone off in the
Packard. We‟d taken a Packard touring car to Europe that summer. And anyway they‟d all gone
off and so the morning of the mobilization occur why, Rose Loamer and I had a great deal of
difficulty in getting anything to eat because not only was, were all the French waiters gone and
so forth but of course Switzerland was right across the Lake Geneva and all the Swiss were there
so about the only people that were left as hotel staff were Argentineans and other South
Americans because everybody else naturally all of Europe was mobilized. And of course
everybody knows Switzerland wasn‟t in the war but they don‟t think they weren‟t mobilized too.
And so anyway Rose Loamer and I took the boat across to Lozan and then took the train to
Lucerne and at Lucerne my Grandfather, Father and Grandmother Cumnock were there. That‟s
my mother‟s family. And I believe an aunt of mine, we stayed there as I recall for several weeks.
Of course Father, Mother and Sister joined us there a couple of days later and then at Lucerne
and then later we all went down to Genoa and took a ship from Genoa to the United States. A
ship called Principessa Mafalda. And that‟s a rather long and interesting story because my father
had to charter this ship It normally, it was a ship, it was rather small by Atlantic ship standards
even in those days because my recollection is it was only a ten thousand ton ship but it normally
ran to South America but for some reason or other it was available in, in Genoa there. And so my
father chartered it and we filled it up with lots of refugees who had congregated at Genoa, who
had poured in from Switzerland, southern France, Austria and Italy and so forth. So anyway she
had a pretty full load and she landed in New York.
Interviewer: Were they American refugees or?
�4
Mr. Blodgett: Oh yes, they were all Americans, but there were an awful lot of Americans
stranded in Europe as I say at the outbreak of that war, just the way I suppose there were loads
and loads of American stranded in Europe as when the Second World War broke out.
Interviewer: Was traveling in Europe, did many people in Grand Rapids that were members of
that were more well-to-do travel to Europe in those days?
Mr. Blodgett: I would think so, but I naturally don‟t know exactly, but there must have been
because… Well, I really don‟t know the answer to that question as to how many but of course as
far as travel to Europe is concerned, why there were loads and loads of boats because I remember
it wasn‟t till oh I guess just before World War Two that Cunard Line and White Star merged.
The British government merged them and until then they were two separate lines. Of course,
there weren‟t very many Italian ships going to New York at all I guess „til, I don‟t know, the
thirties or something like that.
Interviewer: I just wanted to correct something that you said; I just wondered about the date, you
said you went off to Saint Mark‟s prep school in nineteen twenty-four.
Mr. Blodgett: No, did I say nineteen twenty-four? No, no, nineteen fourteen.
Interviewer: OK.
Mr. Blodgett: Because after we got landed in New York why then I went up to stay with my
grandparents in Lowell [Mass.] because there was, there were a couple of weeks so to kill before
I went to Saint Mark‟s. And, incidentally it‟s rather interesting to note that one of my friends in
Lowell there in those two weeks was White Vandenberg who later became I think a lieutenant
general, maybe a full general in the Air Force and I believe Vandenberg Air Force base on the
coast of California, north of Santa Barbara is named after him. But I‟m pretty sure he was either
a lieutenant general or a full general before he died.
Interviewer: OK.
Mr. Blodgett: And incidentally he was related to Arthur Vandenberg here so although White
Vandenberg, I think I‟m right in this but as a matter, I suppose of historical record that but I‟m
pretty sure that I remember that being told much later that White Vandenberg, although he was a
Lowell resident, he got his appointment to West Point from a Senator Arthur, the late Senator
Arthur Vandenberg who I believe was his uncle.
Interviewer: This school that was in the, on the third floor of your house, what kind of studies
did you concentrate on?
Mr. Blodgett: Everything but that you know from beginning to read and write, right up to
getting ready for St. Mark‟s. Except that Miss Morton didn‟t, of course, teach me any French.
And that I learned from Mrs. Charlotte Hughes who used to live on Fulton Street, part of the
�5
property where the Reformed Church is now. A great many people probably still alive who
vaguely remember Miss Charlotte Hughes because I think, she only died a comparatively few
years ago.
Interviewer: Why did your parents hire a private teacher for the house rather than send you to
the public schools?
Mr. Blodgett: That I don‟t know, that I don‟t know. I haven‟t any idea.
Interviewer: Yes.
Mr. Blodgett: Probably, Mother thought that a private teacher could do it better. That‟s my
guess though I‟m not sure. And, yes, of course before going to St. Mark‟s I had to have some
Latin and that was taught to me by the late Miss Jeanette Perry who lived on Fulton Street there.
And I believe her father at one time was a mayor of Grand Rapids. But she was well known,
Miss Perry was later on, in Vassar circles; but she taught me my Latin.
Interviewer: How did your family happen to get started in Michigan? Where were they originally
located?
Mr. Blodgett: Well, that‟s all in those books that I pointed out there along with where my
grandfather Delos Blodgett was born in New York State and where he migrated and when he
went to Michigan and so forth and so that‟s in all those books. And about the only thing that I
can add to those books is that my father always told me that to the best of his knowledge and
belief he was the first white child born in Osceola County In other words, Michigan was pretty
wild when, he was born in eighteen sixty way up that far north.
Interviewer: Well, then lumber is probably is what lured them away from New York State, the
lumber business.
Mr. Blodgett: No, no it‟s all written up in my grandfather‟s thing there and I‟d much prefer to
have you quote that than rather quote me on that subject.
Interviewer: OK.
Mr. Blodgett: On that, it‟s a matter of historical record because I studied it in college that the
stock of which my grandfather was a member is known in American history as the New York,
New England stock. I think it‟s called New York, New England rather than the other way
around. But anyway, all the people of New, or not all the people naturally, but a great stream of
migrants went west from the New England states and poured into the west and a great many of
them poured through upper New York state. As a matter of fact, probably one of the most
illustrious of that group was Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism and I believe Brigham Young
was also of that same western moving stock. And it was quite a well known historical movement.
Interviewer: How did an early lumberman in Michigan get concessions to cut timber?
�6
Mr. Blodgett: That I don‟t know. That I don‟t know.
Interviewer: Ok.
Mr. Blodgett: You see, by the time I came along and got actively interested in the business and
well, in nineteen twenty-four after I got out of Harvard why, I wasn‟t really quite active in the
business because I was very busy learning to keep books and so forth. I went to DavenportMcLachlan Institute as I think it was then called down on that now vacant lot there that is on
Pearl Street about opposite, the Midtown Theatre which used to in my days be called the Powers
Theatre. And so learning bookkeeping you might say I really didn‟t get too involved in lumber
business until about a year later, because I was just having to learn how to keep books and so
forth. I learned to set up my own set of books; of course it was simple in those days and
everything like that.
Interviewer: When they used to timber here in Michigan and bring the logs down the river was
there much theft?
Mr. Blodgett: I wouldn‟t know. I wouldn‟t know. I started to explain that by the time I came
along of course the family hadn‟t had any timber interests in Michigan for I don‟t know how
many years, maybe it was twenty, maybe it was thirty and so forth I mean that‟s a matter of back
family history which I don‟t really know about. I mean in other words if somebody asked me if
or if you asked me when the last stick of timber cut in Michigan when the Blodgett family were
interested in I wouldn‟t be able to answer that at all. My guess is it was somewhere between
about eighteen ninety-five and nineteen hundred and five but that‟s just a guess, I wouldn‟t
know.
Interviewer: Where did, where did your family expand their operations to after they went to
Michigan.
Mr. Blodgett: They expanded them in two directions down south and then on the Pacific Coast.
Interviewer: Are you still involved in the lumber business?
Mr. Blodgett: I call myself retired or semi-retired, because thank God I don‟t have to run any
lumber companies these days, but I‟m still interested in financially in two companies. One is the
Michigan California Lumber Company in El Dorado County, California. That‟s a pine company
primarily although there‟s so much white fir up in that country that I think usually the largest
single species cut is white fir. And the other is the predecessor. well the other let‟s say is the
Arcata Redwood Company which is now the lumbering branch of Arcata National Company
which is listed on the big board. And the lumber interests of that company go way back to a tract
of timber which was owned I believe somewhere back in the nineteen hundred and five to
nineteen hundred and ten era. Again, of course I was a small boy and knew nothing about this.
But it was called Hill Davis Company Limited. And the books in the early days were kept in
�7
Saginaw, Michigan. The Limited, by the way that‟s used by a great many companies, is that
Michigan in those days and until I was thirty five or forty had a law that I‟m told that was quite
unique in that you could form things that were called Limited Partnership Associations I think
that‟s the correct term. And you‟ll have to consult a lawyer as to what those could do they as I
understand it enjoyed most of the advantages of a corporation and most of the advantages of a
partnership but without the disadvantages of either and so that‟s why a number of these concerns
that we were with were called, had the Limited after it, in other words a great many people
looked at, look, used to look at the Limited after these concerns and they‟d say, well this must be
a Canadian concern because of course they used that Limited up in, a great deal there. But no,
there was the Arcata National that grew out of a tract of timber which was I say formed a long
time ago presumably somewhere in around nineteen and five to nineteen ten, called Hill Davis
Company Limited and their books were kept as I recall it from the story in Saginaw and then
they were, the books were later brought over here and kept in our office. And let‟s see, well I
vaguely remember when my father had his office in the Michigan Trust building but, he moved
into the present building in which I believe was built and occupied by nineteen sixteen. Of
course, that present building as you know on Monroe Avenue there has had three different
names. Let‟s see I think it was originally the Grand Rapids Saving Bank Building, then the
Grand Rapids Savings Bank, I believe, folded up in the bank holiday and bank depression in
thirty-two or thirty-three, and then it became the People‟s National Bank and so then the building
became the People‟s National Bank Building. And then when the People‟s National Bank was
merged into the Old Kent. Why, since there wasn‟t any more People‟s National Bank, why they
just called it the People‟s Building. I had to narrate this story to quite a few people because every
now and then in the last few years when I‟ve started new charge accounts, somebody somewhere
why people says, “People‟s Building, how did it get that name?” So I‟d have to explain the story
to them. It‟s rather amusing. Well, let‟s cut this off a minute, let me have a pipe.
Interviewer: Ok, I‟m about ready to exchange tapes, anyway.
Mr. Blodgett: Yes
Interviewer: You were mentioning that when you were young you were quite interested in fire
engines. Could you tell me a little about what the fire engines were like?
Mr. Blodgett: Well, the fire engines when I first knew them, of course, were all horse drawn, I
don‟t know when the, don‟t remember when the first motorized one came along. But the point is
that the Number One Fire House, which of course is where the present Number One is, down
there on LaGrave. When they used to come going up Cherry Street why, because they were
horse drawn and because the fire engines naturally all didn‟t proceed with the same speed. Why,
we small boys would follow them up Cherry Street and if the fire was very near why we‟d stand
around and watch it. But, as I remember it, the little chemical wagon, as they used to call it in
those days, just had a small tank of chemicals. That was the lightest and so that would usually be
first and then would probably come a hose cart with lots of hoses. Then would come the hook
�8
and ladder and then the steamer which I remembered was only drawn by three horses. It was
considerably slower so if you started up Cherry Street and let‟s say the fire was two or three
blocks up Cherry Street or something, why by the time the steamer came along you‟d usually
you‟ve been able to run at least a couple of blocks and maybe three up Cherry Street. Follow the
fire and so forth. No, as I say I don‟t remember exactly when they changed over from horse
drawn to engines. But yes, that was a usual sport in those days.
Interviewer: I was just noticing as, we‟re sitting here in this den that this beautiful woodwork.
When, when was this home built?
Mr. Blodgett: Well, this home was completed and we moved in very early January of nineteen
twenty-eight. And I should explain that, after the fall of nineteen twelve, no about August of
nineteen thirteen why the house on Cherry Street burned out. I think it‟s more correct to say out
than burned down because there were several rooms in it, after the fire, that were perfectly
livable in as far as if you didn‟t mind the smoky smell. I mean they weren‟t damaged that much.
But anyway, the house was burned out pretty well and so Father and Mother decided not to
rebuild and so, we were at Pride‟s Crossing [Massachusetts] at the time the fire occurred and
Miss Morton, the teacher and a couple of maids, I believe were in the house. They had no trouble
getting out, of course. And then we moved temporarily to the Philo Fuller house on Lafayette
Street for a little while. And then we were able to move into my grandfather‟s old place, on the
corner of Prospect and Fulton Street. The old D.A. Blodgett house, as I always knew it. And then
we lived there until this house here on Plymouth Road was completed and we moved in and, as I
say in very early January of nineteen twenty-eight.
Interviewer: Who did the woodwork?
Mr. Blodgett: This room? Gosh, I can‟t remember, we‟ve got a book in the other room
somewhere, all about, quite a number of features of this house. But twenty five years ago, I could
have told you a lot more about the house and all that than I can now because frankly I‟ve
forgotten a lot of it. The house was designed by Stewart Walker. I think his name was spelled
S-T-E-W-A-R-T. Stewart Walker of Walker & Gillette in New York. And this house I believe is
one of the better examples of what you might call Modern Georgian architecture in America.
Stewart Walker was a great perfectionist and so was my mother and so that‟s the reason for this
kind of house.
Interviewer: If you don‟t mind me asking, how much would a house like this have cost in
nineteen twenty-eight to build?
Mr. Blodgett: I haven‟t any idea. I was not a small boy in those days, as a matter of fact I was a
budding young businessman, but I never inquired and so I don‟t know to this day, how much this
house cost. [I] haven‟t any idea.
Interviewer: It‟s really a beautiful place.
�9
Mr. Blodgett: Yes.
Interviewer: Why in our conversation here this morning you mentioned that summers you spent
mostly in the east, was that because you had family out there?
Mr. Blodgett: Yes, I suppose that was it and although as I remember, we didn‟t see too much of
my grandparents in Lowell, Massachusetts. They usually stayed in Lowell all the year around.
Although some summers they would rent a house for a short time but for some reason or another,
my mother wanted to go east and so that‟s at least I guess that‟s the reason why we went first to
York Harbor and we went to after that to Pride‟s Crossing.
Interviewer: Now, with a business such as yours did from what I gather, is somewhat widely
dispersed, why have you kept your base of operations here in Grand Rapids?
Mr. Blodgett: Well, that‟s just because Grand Rapids has always been home and so forth. But,
over the course of the years, between say nineteen thirty-five and nineteen sixty-three or so why
I did spend a great deal of time out on the Pacific Coast. I‟ve just recently had to try to find out
when my father established his office in Portland, Oregon, and so I‟m not sure of that exact date,
I think it was around nineteen hundred and five or nineteen hundred and seven. And the office
just consisted of one man was named Peter Brumby, a Canadian and Pete shared this, there was
not very much there to do, you might say in one sense of the word. And so Pete Brumby didn‟t
even have an office by himself as I remembered in the early days, he shared it with some other
fellow.
Interviewer: When did your grandfather die?
Mr. Blodgett: Well, that again the exact date I think is in the book. I think that was nineteen
hundred and seven. But again, that‟s in one of these volumes there.
Interviewer: Yes, that‟s when you and your friends had your little mock funeral.
Mr. Blodgett: Yes, that I can remember, that‟s one of my earliest recollections that we went to
the funeral service at my grandfather‟s house on Fulton Street there and I remember that when I
was told I could have my last look at my grandfather Blodgett, why there was a footing for the
thing that hold the casket. Of course, I, would being, a very clumsy boy, stumble over that and
so forth, much to everybody‟s consternation. But, I didn‟t go out to the cemetery. Father didn‟t
think that was advisable and so I remember that somehow or other, Bill Rogers and Stan
Barnhart and somebody other, else or maybe a couple of others conceived the idea we ought to
have our own funeral and so we went in to the Goodspeeds, I guess, no, you‟d hardly I guess
still you‟d call it in those days, carriage house attic and we get a couple of boards, a couple long
boards and we nailed an ordinary bushel basket, of which there used to be a great many in those
days, ‟cause, that‟s what you put leaves in the Autumn and so we nailed that in there and the
rest of us carried Theron Goodspeed around the block and some enterprising mother saw us and
�10
knowing that my grandfather‟s funeral had taken place just a little while earlier that afternoon,
suspected what was up so they promptly whoever it was promptly called a few other parents
and our mock funeral came to an early termination. I don‟t remember that I was punished
particularly for that thing probably because we were so darn young.
Interviewer: What, how old were you when you went away to school to St. Mark‟s?
Mr. Blodgett: Well, let‟s see I was born in May of nineteen hundred and one and I entered in
the fall of nineteen fourteen; let‟s see I‟d been thirteen.
Interviewer: From that time until you came back to Grand Rapids, after you‟d completed your
studies at Harvard did you spend very much time here?
Mr. Blodgett: No, very, very little, very little.
Interviewer: Did you come back in the summer?
Mr. Blodgett: No, we were elsewhere in the summer so I spent very little time in Grand Rapids
between nineteen fourteen and fall of nineteen hundred and twenty-four.
Interviewer: Did you ever, when you did come home, did you ever attend any parties here?
Mr. Blodgett: Yes, yes but I can‟t remember who gave „em or where they were or anything like
that much. I remember we were almost always in New York for what you might call Christmas
vacation because my mother rented a house in New York and lived there while my sister went
to Miss Spencer‟s school in New York. And then my sister came out in New York and so forth
and then after that while I was in college we always spent all our Christmases in New York
City because so many relatives were either there or in the vicinity
Interviewer: I see.
Mr. Blodgett: And my sister, after she and Morris Hadley were married, why they lived in
Boston or in Cambridge. I should say for a couple of years, because Morris still had two more
years to go in Harvard Law School. The war interrupted his education as it did a great many
other people. And then, she, my brother-in-law and sister moved to New York because
immediately after graduation from Harvard Law School, he went into a firm in New York so he
was there. And my Aunt Mary and Uncle Arthur Cumnock always lived in New York and then
by that time my mother‟s sister, my Aunt Grace was married and she was living in, she and her
husband were living in New York. So actually we had more relatives in New York City then we
had in any other place so I think that‟s one reason why we were always there. So I spent many,
many, well I suppose that‟s a get out and visit, you can‟t call it a Christmas vacation by,
certainly during, while I was in boarding school and while I was in boarding school and while I
was in college and that and so forth. Christmas vacations were always spent there and then after
I got into business, why since the family were there, and so forth, they wanted me to naturally
�11
be there rather than sit here in Grand Rapids by myself and work. I was usually, well I can‟t
remember just what year was the last year that I spent a Christmas in New York. I‟d say it must
have been as late as nineteen thirty-four probably.
Interviewer: That‟s why it intrigues me, why you still maintain your home in Grand Rapids,
after having spent so much of your life elsewhere.
Mr. Blodgett: Well, I never went down South but twice to the Mobile office. And
unfortunately I can‟t give you the exact years I would say this is just a guess though. I first went
down in about nineteen twenty-six or twenty-seven and then again about nineteen thirty, I
would say. Both times I spent about two or three weeks down there. Incidentally, it is an
interesting thing to record for posterity that Blodgett, Mississippi was named after, I suppose,
my father rather than my grandfather. I can‟t remember which railroad that‟s on now and I
don‟t think it‟s on any Mississippi maps anymore. There was a saw mill there and they were
cutting Blodgett timber. But Blodgett, Oregon is not named after any member of my family,
contrary to what a great many people think.
Interviewer: Was your family, always, members of Fountain Street Church?
Mr. Blodgett: No, no we were Park Church people, although my father was not a very devout
churchgoer. As a matter of fact, he usually went horse-back riding on Sunday mornings.
Interviewer: Do you, do you remember Doctor Wishart?
Mr. Blodgett: Oh, very well, very well indeed. Yes.
Interviewer: What kind of man was he?
Mr. Blodgett: Oh, he was a great man, great man and a wonderful preacher. If you want me to
go into that for the benefit if posterity I‟d be delighted to but because I think it‟s rather
interesting. Now the year of course would be the year when Doctor Wishart came here first.
And that‟s a matter of historical record, down at the Fountain Street Church. I don‟t remember,
now just what year it was, but anyway the former pastor of the Fountain Street Church had
either retired or died, again that‟s a matter of historical record and so the church had to look for
a new pastor. And according to the story I‟ve been told, and which I believe to be quite reliable,
they scouted around at the east and they reported that there were two very promising young
men. And so promising they didn‟t think the church would make any mistake hiring either one
of them. But of course the church naturally could only have one pastor in those days because it
wasn‟t until many years after that we even had an assistant pastor. And so the church finally
chose Alfred Wesley Wishart. And a matter of historical record I think down at the church
where he was preaching before he went to Fountain Street. But, the other man, the man that
they thought was very, very good, but they didn‟t quite like him as well as Wishart, was Harry
Emerson Fosdick.
�12
Interviewer: That‟s interesting.
Mr. Blodgett: Now, as I say I‟ve been told that by several people and who were in a position to
know and I‟m pretty sure that the old records will bear that out. It seems to me now, let‟s see
one of the, one woman who was a great deal older that I was still alive oh way, way until my
forties, and I was trying to remember whether that was a Miss Ball or not. I don‟t think that was
the name though. But, she was one of the ones that told me this story about picking Doctor
Wishart.
Interviewer: Are there any Blodgett sons? Do you have any sons coming along that…?
Mr. Blodgett: No, I have no sons. I have three daughters by my second marriage.
Interviewer: So then they…?
Mr. Blodgett: But they are all living in the east, if you can call New Orleans east. My youngest
daughter and her husband, he was studying foe a PhD at Harvard in medieval history and they
lived at Chatham, Mass. But anyway, he decided to pursue his graduate studies at Tulane and
they‟re just this past August why they moved from Chatham down to New Orleans. But until
then I had two daughters both married in Massachusetts and one daughter married and living in
Washington, D.C.
Interviewer: Is the city how, how is Grand Rapids changed? What‟s the most dramatic change
in Grand Rapids that you can think of from the time when you were a boy to the…?
Mr. Blodgett: Well, I suppose the most dramatic thing is the automobile. I can still remember
as a small boy, going down, we had some sort of carriage that had three seats on it you know, I
mean three parallel seats. Of course, the coachman a man named Gilbert was in the front one
and then I don‟t know where the rest… But anyway we used to load that up every Memorial
Day and we would, well the they didn‟t use the term park in those days, cause that‟s an
automobile term, but anyway would stop somewhere right around Veterans Park there and we
would watch the Veterans march past and of course in the very early days of my recollection
why a few of the Civil War Veterans still walked, although most of them rode. But of course
the Spanish War Veterans were probably still in their late twenties or early thirties and so they
always marched, of course. And so, I‟d say that the greatest single change that I can think of in
Grand Rapids although of course it came gradually, was the advent of the automobile.
Interviewer: What about servants, people that help out in houses; how has that changed?
Mr. Blodgett: Oh that, that‟s changed a very great deal and since the early days.
Interviewer: Did you have, did your mother and father have help in the house?
Mr. Blodgett: Oh yes, oh yes. Usually a cook and a couple of maids and so forth. And then of
course we had the coachman and a man named Gilbert, I‟ve forgotten what his first name was.
�13
Gilbert was the last name, I‟m pretty sure. And the later on of course we had a chauffeur. My
mother never did learn to drive a car, which was the case with a great many women in those
days.
Interviewer: Did, did that help live in the house or did they live outside the house?
Mr. Blodgett: No, they lived in the house.
Interviewer: How, how is the, how it has changed, in terms of the help from then until now?
Mr. Blodgett: Well, they, the great change of course has been, it‟s very much more difficult to
get anyone.
Interviewer: Why is that, do you think?
Mr. Blodgett: Oh, gosh I don‟t know. I think maybe my wife would be able to better answer
that question. I think it‟s just that people don‟t like what‟s called domestic service anymore and
it‟s very hard to get them. That is rather amazing when you consider the unemployment rolls
because the wages of course are very good naturally. The wages have gone up a great deal. But
of course, speaking of that and changing the subject rather abruptly, I remember when my
father paid Miss Welch the secretary there who was with us so many years. I remember when
he raised her to two hundred dollars a month. When that was almost an unheard of salary and I
don‟t know how much you‟d have to get some economist to do a study the figures to tell you
what the buying power of two hundred dollars a month was. I don‟t remember what year it was
that father raised Miss Welch to two hundred dollars a month but as I say, the buying power of
course in those days, I don‟t know whether it‟d be equivalent to seven hundred dollars a month
or eight hundred dollars a month. But that was incredible. Well as a matter of fact, this is a
rather interesting point. In the summer of nineteen.., let‟s see, wait a minute, my sister married
in the summer of nineteen and nineteen, nineteen twenty we were abroad or I mean we were out
west , the whole family. The summer of nineteen twenty when I worked, started my lumbering
career really by working in the survey party of the Michigan-California Lumber Company. And
a common laborer was paid forty cents an hour and my salary was thirty cents or compensation,
wasn‟t a salary was thirty seven and a half cents an hour. That was an eight hour day of course.
And, on the other hand, we had to pay I think thirty five cents a meal. Of course we worked six
days a week and if you‟ll do a little sharp pencil work I think you‟ll discover that naturally I
had you pay for your meals at the thirty five cents a meal, a rate which was, I believe that‟s a
dollar and five cents a day. You had to pay for Sunday too. But, anyway, thirty seven and a half
cents an hour, I managed to save quite lot of money. Because there wasn‟t very much, that you
could spend it on. Of course you had to buy your own overalls and your own shoes those two
things that wore out faster than anything. And then, I‟ve always had a sweet tooth and since I
was expending a great deal of energy in those days why, I used to eat quite a lot of Ghirardelli
Eagle Brand Chocolate made in San Francisco in one pound bars and so forth. The reason for
expending energy was that you worked an eight hour day but you walked to and from work and
�14
depending on where the job was out in the woods. That was either, I‟d say the nearest we ever
worked to the sawmill where I lived was about two and a half miles and usually it was more
than that and I recall it was not for more than four miles away. So you can see you‟d have to
walk eight miles a day or call it an average of six miles a day to and from work. And then you‟d
put in eight hour day on your feet. Of course which it‟s all footwork in the survey party.
Footwork and handwork and so forth, I mean you don‟t sit down so you would use up a quite
bit of energy.
Interviewer: Well, I think we‟ve covered about everything.
Mr. Blodgett: OK, fine.
INDEX
Fuller, Philo · 9
A
Arcata National Company · 7
Arcata Redwood Company · 7
G
Goodspeed, Theron · 1, 10
Grand Rapids Saving Bank · 8
B
Barnhart, Stanley · 1, 2
Blodgett, Delos A. · 1, 5
Blodgett, John Wood · 1
Brumby, Peter · 10
C
Cassard, Dudley · 2
Cumnock family · 3
Cumnock, Alexander G. · 1
Cumnock, Arthur · 11
Cumnock, Minnie A. · 1
H
Hadley, Morris · 11
Hill Davis Company Limited · 7
Hughes, Mrs. Charlotte · 5
L
Loamer, Rose · 3
M
Davenport-McLachlan Institute · 6
Draper, Jerome · 2
Dutcher, Mrs. · 1
McBain, Huston · 2, 3
Michigan-California Lumber Company · 7, 14
Midtown Theatre · 6
Moore, Ed · 2
Morton, Lina · 3
Morton, Miss · 3, 9
F
P
Fosdick, Harry Emerson · 12
Fountain Street Church · 12
Park Congregational Church · 12
People‟s National Bank · 8
Perry, Miss Jeanette · 5
D
�15
Powers Theatre · 6
V
R
Vandenberg, Arthur · 5
Vandenberg, White · 4, 5
Rogers, Bill · 1, 2, 10
Rogers, Dr. John R. · 1
Rogers, Elizabeth · 3
Ross, Frances F. · 1
W
S
Smith, Joseph · 6
Walker & Gillette · 9
Walker, Stewart · 9
Welch, Miss · 14
White Vandenberg · 5
Wishart, Alfred Wesley · 12
Wishart, Dr. · 12, 13
Wood, Jane S. “Jennie” · 1
World War One · 3
World War Two · 4
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bfded6847212bd876fd276d7daef113f.mp3
cc5f0509e5ed12c10d1ca1453a5fc599
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Title
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Grand Rapids Oral Histories
Subject
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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.
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Various
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a>
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eng
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RHC-23
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1971 - 1977
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RHC-23_27Blodgett
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Blodgett, John W.
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Blodgett, John W.
Description
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John W. (Jack) Blodgett was born on May 24, 1901 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In addition to continuing the lumbering business of his father, he was a banker. John married Minnie Cumnock in 1895. Apart from the Blodgett Memorial Hospital in East Grand Rapids, they helped found the Clinic for Infant Feeding, the Association for the Blind, the Grand Rapids Child Guidance Clinic, and the D. A Blodgett Home for Children. Blodgett died on October 27, 1987.
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
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Michigan--History
Local histories
Memoirs
Oral histories (document genre)
Grand Rapids (Mich.)
Personal narratives
Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Grand Valley State University
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eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Text
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Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)
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1971
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fb56c5bd09a68e280bf460b0097f516b.pdf
1998319d88a3709b35213b5ed1dff526
PDF Text
Text
1
Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23
Mr. Lowell Blomstrom
Interviewed on 4 August 1977
Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010- bryant@wellswooster.com
Tape #56 (1:06:10)
Biographical Information
Mr. Lowell Blomstrom was born on 22 March 1893 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was the son
of Carl Herman Blomstrom and Anna A. Berglund. Mr. Blomstrom died on 4 July 1979 in East
Grand Rapids, Michigan. He married Signe M. (surname not found) about 1922. Mrs.
Blomstrom was born in 1890 in Michigan and died in Grand Rapids on 21 February 1959. Both
Lowell and Signe were buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Grand Rapids.
Carl H. Blomstrom was born in April 1867 in Lisbon, Ottawa County, Michigan. He was the son
of Carl G. Blomstrom and Elizabeth ―Elles‖ Carlson. Carl died in 1923. He married Anna A.
Berglund on 17 September 1890 in Muskegon, Michigan. Anna was born in December 1865 in
Sweden and died in 1923. Both Carl and Anna were buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Grand
Rapids.
___________
Interviewer: Lowell Blomstrom, 559 Lakeside Dr., S.E. Grand Rapids, Michigan; on the 4th day
of August, 1977.
Mr. Blomstrom and his father have been pioneers in the automobile industry for perhaps close to
seventy-five years. I‘ve asked Mr. Blomstrom to tell us a little bit about his background and why
don‘t you just start talking and tell me about your, where you were born and how long, you did
say you born in Grand Rapids? Is that correct?
Mr. Blomstrom: Oh yeah, yeah.
Interviewer: May I ask you what year?
Mr. Blomstrom: Ninety-three, eighteen ninety-three.
Interviewer: How long did you stay here?
Mr. Blomstrom: We moved to Marquette in eighteen ninety-seven, just about the time the
Spanish-American War started. And, oh did you have that on?
Interviewer: That‘s alright.
�2
Mr. Blomstrom: And father built his second automobile there. His first was built in Grand
Rapids. I have no record of that; I have pictures of course of the one in Marquette. That was
started in eighteen ninety-eight and finished in nineteen hundred. And then in nineteen one we
moved to Detroit where he started the Blomstrom Motor Company. To build the Queen car.
And...
Interviewer: May I, let me go back to Marquette for just a minute. What was the car called that
he built in Marquette?
Mr. Blomstrom: There was no name assigned to it.
Interviewer: No name assigned to it?
Mr. Blomstrom: No it was just the one car.
Interviewer: How many, how many were built?
Mr. Blomstrom: Just the one.
Interviewer: Just one
Mr. Blomstrom: Like that yeah.
Interviewer: And then you went to Detroit in nineteen one?
Mr. Blomstrom: Went to Detroit in nineteen one and he got backing from some millionaires in
Marquette. They financed it and, and they built about almost 2 thousand Queens one cylinder
first, just a few, a handful of them the first year. Then he went to a two cylinder post flat engine,
you know what we call a pancake engine. And then he made a four cylinder in nineteen six and
prices were of course quite high for those days, the four cylinder was twenty-two fifty ($2,250),
the car like the similar to the one in Grand Rapids Museum was twelve hundred dollars. And the
first original one like that one up there on that picture that was seven hundred and fifty dollars,
pardon me, seven hundred, fifty dollars. And he had trouble with his partners and he left in
nineteen six and started the Blomstrom Thirty, it was called. Thirty was horsepower based on the
formula they had at those days, the old SAE formula which we don‘t use today. England still
uses it. And they built the Blomstrom car; that was the runabout, they made a touring car. And
that was quite a car for its day. And I have one of those.
Interviewer: What year was that?
Mr. Blomstrom: That was nineteen two when the company was formed, but the first year they
made small boats, fifteen and a half foot long, selling for a hundred dollars. It was an inboard
three-quarter horse motor. And they sold thousands of those. Then he started the car in nineteen
three, one cylinder, in nineteen four he switched to two cylinders, course he made those right
through to six. The company continued on after he left but in two years it was gone.
�3
Interviewer: How many cylinders does the car have that we have in the public museum?
Mr. Blomstrom: Two cylinders,
Interviewer: That‘s two cylinders
Mr. Blomstrom: Two cylinders yeah.
Interviewer: And you say what was that built?
Mr. Blomstrom: nineteen four.
Interviewer: nineteen four.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yes and the car continued on until nineteen eight. He left in nineteen six and
then the Detroit Deluxe was put in there and backers from Marquette got the people that
designed the Willis Overland, Willis hadn‘t bought into it was Overland, in Grand Rapids or in
Toledo. And that was beautiful car and eight thousand dollar car then which was tremendous,
most beautiful car you ever saw. But they didn‘t last long. And company was sold and that‘s
where the Studebaker comes in to build a car, one of their earliest cars not the earliest but one of
the earliest.
Interviewer: I see.
Mr. Blomstrom: You know South Bend?
Interviewer: Yes.
Mr. Blomstrom: They‘re the wagon people.
Interviewer: But your father did continue in the motor car business?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well then he, he built a Rex, a small car, I don‘t see it here on these pictures; it
was a front drive car, small, they were called, what did they call them? They didn‘t call them
compact cars, that was something later that Romney, Mr. Mason, who was the head of, later on,
American Motors. Why, I don‘t recall just exactly what they called them, cycle cars, they called
them cycle, they were real small. Well that lasted a while. Then he went to Camden, New Jersey,
Grenloch just outside of Camden and built this Frontmobile. See that car here? That was a front
drive car. And in my opinion they‘re all going to go to it within the next ten years, every last car
will be a front drive, in my opinion. And then of course the war came on and they were rationed.
Everybody was rationed. General Motors, Ford and everybody. And of course you had to base on
the number of cars made in nineteen thirteen; see the war started in fourteen in Europe; it started
in sixteen for us. And the big company got zero material based there was no car built in thirteen
see, Frontmobile. And so he went to work and he made two-wheel or two front drive and four
wheel drive trucks for the government for the ordinance till their money ran out. They had a
�4
beautiful building on the Horseshoe Pike going from Philadelphia-Camden to Atlantic City. Still
there, the building and they, the money ran out so that faded out of the picture. Then he quit
making cars and he didn‘t live very long; he died quite young, fifty-six. And his name was Carl
Herman Blomstrom; in Swedish Carl of course is Charles in this country he was known as
Charlie or CHB, CH they called him in the...
Interviewer: When was he in Adrian? You mentioned before we began…
Mr. Blomstrom: Well Adrian the Lion Car was built from nineteen eight to nineteen eleven when
fire destroyed the building.
Interviewer: That was in Adrian?
Mr. Blomstrom: That was in Adrian.
Interviewer: The Lion car?
Mr. Blomstrom: yeah it was named after the Old Lion Fence Company. They were bought out
they moved to Philadelphia or where they were near the source of steel wire see. They were all
wire fences you know. And so the company that was [Fred] Postal and [Austin Elbert] Morey
who had a big cigar plant in Florida and they owned the Griswold Hotel in Detroit. Father knew
them real well. And they were directors and quite a few Adrian people were in on it, directors.
So they wanted him to design a car and come out there and build it. It was a beautiful car, there
is only one in existence in a museum out near Rushmore you know where the, in the mountain
out there in where is it the Dakotas? Somewhere? The only one in existence.
Interviewer: Yeah I know what you mean.
Mr. Blomstrom: Near Rushmore-Rapid City, South Dakota I believe it is.
Interviewer: South Dakota.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah I think so. I‘ve never been out there but I understand they have the only
one in existence. And I‘ve located 7 Queen cars of that 2 cylinder variety less similar to the one
in Grand Rapids museum and I‘ve got one of them of course. That‘s I found that down near
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in a farm yard. It‘d been out there for 50 years and the chickens were
roosting on it when I saw it at night, just at dusk you know. A fellow told me about it and I
inquired. I got it. It was fully restored; it was in the antique tours a couple years. My cousin, who
restored it, drove it in there.
Interviewer: I see. What, where do you keep it?
Mr. Blomstrom: Where did I keep it?
Interviewer: Where do you keep it?
�5
Mr. Blomstrom: Oh it‘s in the museum.
Interviewer: Oh that‘s the one in the museum?
Mr. Blomstrom: Yes, that‘s the red one in the museum. He restored it, did a beautiful job. He
won prizes at Ford, Dearborn, Milwaukee and Fremont had their centennial you know.
Interviewer: How many Queen cars were built?
Mr. Blomstrom: Close to two thousand, around two thousand. That‘s pretty good for those days.
Course Olds was the big producer you know. That was before Ford really got going, you know.
Olds was the big producer up until nineteen six, seven when Ford come out with the forerunner
of the Model-T.
Interviewer: Now the Queens were all built in Detroit, it that correct?
Mr. Blomstrom: Oh yes, yeah all from Detroit; yeah, on the west side. At the foot of Clark
Avenue right by the river. Because he leased the old Clark Dry Dock for his boats you know.
Right across the street; that there was the river.
Interviewer: What did he do after he went out of the car business?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well he and I designed a steering gear reversible, irreversible steering gear for
Ford Model-T‘s and we sold thousands of them. I had the patents and I signed to the company.
And I still have one in the basement in my store room down there. And you know the Ford was
throw it out of your hand, they‘d tip over on you the Model-T‘s. I‘ve seen them tip over. You
couldn‘t have no control, no resistance see? It was too direct. And we made, we sold thousands
of them; had a company make them for us. And we had a lock on it and it would tilt up you
know so it would get in and out easy. Then it had a Yale lock on it so you lock your steering you
couldn‘t steer, it someone broke in. Well they were all open cars in those days. Pretty near all
open cars, very few closed cars. Well I don‘t know what else
Interviewer: What did people do for protection, who rode around in those early cars didn‘t have
any tops?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well, we‘d stop of course, uh we have umbrellas still we got to a place where
we could under a tree or something which was a foolish thing to do probably in a thunderstorm.
But we had umbrellas with we had raincoats of course, dusters you know like Cravanet or what
do you call it, brown duster. Had gauntlet gloves you know went way up the elbows. But we‘d
stop at a farmhouse and go in. Usually our coil which was on the dash got wet so it had we‘d
take it in the stove and borrow their oven and light it up to dry it out cause it couldn‘t run without
the coil. So we‘d go in and we had a lot of punctures. We usually drove up to the Sparta where
my grandfather lived on the farm he was a blacksmith and it would take us two days, better part
of two days you know we only made six miles an hour. We‘d stop at Lansing or one of the
�6
Williamston out here overnight you know. Come in the next not the full day but. Take us pretty
near two days. They made father made it once one day. He left at four o‘clock in the morning
and got to Grand Rapids at three in the afternoon. The roads were, there were no roads you
know, no paved roads. The first pavement in Michigan as I recall, outside of cities, was the four
miles from Howell this way. It was a tavern there called the Four Mile House. That was the first
pavement between Detroit and Grand Rapids. That‘s Howell, Michigan coming this way four
miles; and all the rest were muddy when it rained of course they were all terrible. No they, we
had a lot of fun in those days, although we ran into a lot of troubles. Mostly tire troubles,
sometimes the tires would go twenty-five miles, sometimes three hundred, no more.
Interviewer: No more than that?
Mr. Blomstrom: No they‘d blow out. They were clincher tires you know, hooked in not straight
side like yours and mine today. They were, were clincher tires and they would get rim cuts you
know. And then they‘d get cut on the ruts on the road when they dry you know it‘s just like
emery rubbing on the tires. They‘d blow out most of the time. We had punctures of course. We
carried our own patching, rubber patching stuff; what we call cement patch, gasoline patch you
know. We cleaned them with gasoline; cut it off with the shears, a piece out of its sheet you
know rubber? Then paste it on.
Interviewer: By what year were highways as we know them today, becoming more a part of the
landscape?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well it‘s hard; I‘d have records of it of course. The first piece of pavement in
the world is claimed, was put in front of Heinz, he was a road commissioner in Wayne County,
near Detroit, which includes Detroit. He had a farm outside, near Dearborn there, and he put a
mile of concrete pavement in front of his house, the farm house, that was the first piece of
concrete road as I understand it in the United States and probably the world.
Interviewer: When was this?
Mr. Blomstrom: About nineteen…well I don‘t know exactly. That was in I would say about
nineteen ten around in there. Then the city of Detroit ordered two one mile between Six and
Seven Mile Road on Woodward Avenue. And that was ten feet wide. And they had tollgates then
you know; the farmers had to pay a toll. We had to pay a toll there was one at Six Mile, there
was one at Eight Mile, Nine Mile, one at Birmingham, what‘s Birmingham now; and then one
out by Pontiac and towards Orchard Lake. So that first mile road that was put between Six and
Seven Mile on Woodward, Palmer Park if you‘re familiar, starts at Six, and this went to Seven. It
was 10 feet wide, if you met a farmer with a load of hay coming in or something you had to get
off. Two couldn‘t pass on ten feet. So the next year they made it twelve, and the next year after
that fourteen, then you could just about pass. It was a progression of two feet per several years.
And that was the first mile pavement in the World as far as I know. And then of course it started
to come in, there wasn‘t any, I don‘t, I would say close to the first World War before there was
�7
any amount of mileage and paved roads. Course we had what I call macadam roads you know,
that‘s gravel you know. And it was all just like some of the country roads today you know,
they‘re dirt roads. There was no pavement to speak. Just that four mile from Howell this way
was the first pavement other that the cities. Leaving Detroit, when we first started coming up to
Sparta, was a plank road. And finally that got so bad that they tore it all up. That would be on
Grand River Avenue going out to Farmington. (Doorbell rings) Pardon me.
Interviewer: There now we can resume.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well I guess we completed the roads about, didn‘t we as far as you‘re
interested.
Interviewer: Yes. Let me ask you a question. When did you become associated with your father?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well I was never actually in any of the plants that he was interested in. I
associated with him in the helping designing.
Interviewer: I see.
Mr. Blomstrom: And even when I was quite young I got out some patents you know in that way
and I helped in his figuring. Cause he, he went to grade school up here by the Marmrelund
[Lutheran] Church you know where it is? [Kent City]
Interviewer: I know where it is, yes.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well, my grandparents were charter members there in eighteen sixty-five. They
met in homes you know, first. That was the first building that they had, the wooden one, it‘s a
brick building now, was built in seventy-two I believe.
Interviewer: Do you remember a family up there by the name of Bloomer?
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah I know where they were; the Bloomer Hill which was a real hill to climb.
We used to go up and father would drive and my brother and I would each have a stick of wood
and we‘d block the wheels. Could only go a little at a time.
Interviewer: That‘s my Mother‘s family.
Mr. Blomstrom: Is that right? You know the old Bloomer Hill? Course it‘s cut down now.
Interviewer: Yeah, I don‘t really know it.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well it was a steep hill, a terribly steep hill; they took off the top and filled in
the bottom down there where Kline, not Kline, what‘s his name? I know them, the family; I
know most of the family.
Interviewer: Klenk?
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Mr. Blomstrom: Klenk yeah. They‘re down in the hollow, by the Bloomer Hill.
Interviewer: I see. Well my grandfather and my grandfather‘s brother kept the farm until his
death in nineteen twenty-three. His name was Abel Bloomer.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well I don‘t know any of them. I just know the association with the Bloomer
Hill.
Interviewer: Do you remember the hamlet of Lisbon?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well my father was born there
Interviewer: He really was?
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah on the other side, he was born in Ottawa County you know that‘s the
dividing line. That‘s Ottawa Kent. And he was born there, they didn‘t have any records but he
was because my grandfather had a blacksmith‘s shop there. It was called the BlomstromGrumback. John Grumback who was the head of the printing company at one time, he was his
first cousin you know. His Grumback‘s father and my grandfather Blomstrom were partners
there. They made wagons and did steel work, forging you know.
Interviewer: How many people lived in Lisbon in those days?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well I have a book on it that published in 1879. It was the biggest town around
there except Grand Rapids, of course. It was bigger than Sparta, [which] was called Nashville
you know originally.
Interviewer: No I never knew that.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well the creek is the creek going through there over to the Rogue River you
know. And the Rogue of course runs into the Grand here near Belmont. And so this was called
Nashville. He [J. E. Nash] was the first settler there. I have pictures of his home.
Interviewer: Were you born in Grand Rapids?
Mr. Blomstrom: On the west side. Near that St. Adelbert Church, a block away, in that Polish
settlement. That‘s quite Polish. It was the old church. This is a new one. This was built in
nineteen eight. The other one faced south, this one faces west on Davis I think is the cross street.
Near McReynolds, I don‘t know. Yeah the house I was born in was the corner of Davis and
McReynolds and Third Street. You see the freeway goes through there now; it took all of the
south side of Third Street there. The house I was born in is still standing over there, on the
corner.
Interviewer: Oh really?
Mr. Blomstrom: And they moved it around the corner and built a bigger house on the corner.
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Interviewer: What‘s the address?
Mr. Blomstrom: I don‘t know.
Interviewer: You don‘t know.
Mr. Blomstrom: It‘s still there. I drove by there a couple of years ago and I saw the house
Interviewer: Did you get up into the northern part of the county quite a lot to see your
grandfather?
Mr. Blomstrom: Oh yeah we used to go up there every year from nineteen three on, every year
we‘d go up there. Father would leave a car for us, he‘d take a tester along so he‘d drive back see?
And he‘d leave a car for my brother and I, we drove it, it was the only car; people would come
from hundreds of miles to see the car you know. Up at grandfather‘s they had heard of the car
you know, it was quite a rarity. You didn‘t see cars; well there were only eighty-two cars in the
state of Michigan, when I started driving, in the whole state.
Interviewer: when was that?
Mr. Blomstrom: Nineteen three, yeah, there was only eighty-two...
Interviewer: You were about ten years old when you started to drive.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah , yeah I was ten. I‘ve been driving ever since, never been without a car.
Interviewer: What did you, what were your business associations later on?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well, of course I helped father but I didn‘t work for the companies. I got some
of the patents. He only had eighth grade, he took an ICS; you know International
Correspondence Schools? At Scranton, Pennsylvania? He took drafting, I have some of his
drawings; they‘re beautiful drawings. He took correspondence courses in engineering; he‘s got a
diploma, which I have, in mechanical engineering of the ICS schools. And he was a prolific
inventor you know what I mean? One of these fellows who comes to work every morning and
has a new idea; never stops to make a nickel you know. And, well Henry Ford is the same thing.
I don‘t give him credit for the Ford motor at all. I give it to Jim Couzens and he ran the office
you know, the money, the Senator you know later on.
Interviewer: What sort of schooling did you have?
Mr. Blomstrom: High school
Interviewer: Where was that?
Mr. Blomstrom: Western High in Detroit. There were only three high schools in Detroit. Eastern,
Western, and Central. Western burnt down there‘s over thirty now, I know a few years ago there
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was twenty-six, probably thirty now. There was only three, Eastern, Western, and Central. The
Western burnt down twenty some years ago; there‘s a big new building there, much bigger of
course. The building that I was in was built around nineteen hundred. I was there from nineteen
six to nineteen ten, when I graduated. And I was going to MIT in Boston. And the principal got
me free entrance without an examination because I was fairly good in mathematics- high school
mathematics and college algebra too. And that‘s really what‘s helped me in most of my jobs.
Interviewer: Did you go on to MIT?
Mr. Blomstrom: No I had what they called some kidney ailment and they said I wouldn‘t live.
One time the doctor said a week and here I am almost 85 years old, but all the doctors are gone.
And well they didn‘t know. I grew up like a weed you know. I was six foot five only weighed a
hundred and forty pounds. You know just a hardly a shadow. And I played tennis, of course
those days we were, everybody called us sissies you know playing ping-pong out on the grass
you know. And when the city wouldn‘t give us a, had any courts, public courts those days, they
gave us a space in Clark‘s park. We had a roll it and stripe it on a clay court. They gave us a
space for clay on the green court. And so it was, we were the forerunners. My partner and I who
later became treasurer of Detroit Edison Company, he died 3 years ago, we were partners. We
played doubles so much you know in those days. I played up by the net because I was tall and
could reach a lot of them, stop them from going back. I couldn‘t run, he could run, he was fast
like old Borg in Sweden now you know. And this other fellow what‘s his name? I don‘t know.
And I couldn‘t run. So we played doubles quite a lot. He had his house full of cups. He was
champion of the west side and also head of the Detroit Edison Tennis Club for years and years.
He was good. I wasn‘t. I was better at playing baseball. I used to play baseball. Not
professionally but, and I don‘t know how it was I was so thin but I had a swing, a long swing.
Boy that ball would go.
Interviewer: Were those grass courts in those days?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well we had one grass and one clay court. The city put down the clay. I guess
you‘d call it clay, it was white roll. But they put up the posts. We had to furnish the net and stripe
it. We used to have our own machine for striping. And we had to furnish the nets and keep it up.
They gave us a spot in the park. There‘s hundreds and thousands of them in Detroit now public
you know. The only ones that were public were a couple at Belle Isle and two at Waterworks
Park. We used to go there and play; I‘d drive a bunch of kids over there. But now there‘re
thousands of them. Well you‘re asking me a lot of questions about myself. I thought this was
about my father.
Interviewer: Well I‘m interested in both of you. I wanted to go on to you back to you for a
moment. You became associated with some businesses.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well the first thing I did was after I was six years after I left high school and
they said don‘t go to college, I was going to MIT as I said, principal got me in there. Ordinarily
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they, those days, you had to take an examination; he got me in, without an examination. And for
six years I did nothing. I‘d walk. I‘d walk downtown and back twice every day. That was ten
miles. Finally I got so I could walk ten to fifteen miles a days. I was thin but apparently I grew
too fast and I was six foot five and weighed a hundred and forty pounds. Occasionally when I‘d
take the car, I had a car father gave me. But I didn‘t do anything there for six years. Then I got a
job in a small company as a timekeeper. We had those calculagraph clocks you know you punch
a card in out on the job. And I got to running all the machines there when they were idle I‘d see
the machine idle I‘d go and run it. I had that privilege, I knew the owners, and because I‘d
learned how to run practically every machine that father had you know. He had quite a machine
shop there. And you can see some of the pictures here I think, I don‘t know there might be some
here.
Interviewer: Yes there are, I see some.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah there‘s lots. I have lots more besides what‘s on the wall here. In the den,
and I could run anything-gear cutter, building machine or lathe or any machine because after
school I‘d go down there and see an idle machine and I‘d go run it. And I got so I could run and I
could figure of course. The average workman, a toolmaker, or anybody working in the shop
didn‘t know mathematics. They got through grade school and had to go to work. It was a
necessity they had to. They didn‘t go to, very few people went to high school. They went up to
the eighth grade like my father did.
And of course he had the ICS course but he was an inventor. Prolific inventor I call him. Henry
Ford was the same thing. But I spent an hour with Henry Ford a year before he died. It was on
his problem of bearings out there. Of course I was with the Bearing Company then -FederalMogul. It was Federal Bearing and Bushing originally, they merged with Muzzy Lyon Company
to form Federal-Mogul, which is in existence today. It‘s a big company. A very big company.
Interviewer: How long were you with them?
Mr. Blomstrom: Thirty-seven years. I went in as Chief Tool Engineer, Tool Designer, whatever
you want to call it. And then I got to be Chief Engineer including the machinery, designing, tool
fixtures and jigs and everything like that. And also the product engineering I had both. Now it‘s
split up it‘s so big. And then I got to be Chief Engineer and then I, the last ten years, I was
consulting to the president on manufacturing and engineering. Consulting engineer.
Interviewer: Did you live in Detroit during all this period?
Mr. Blomstrom: I lived in Detroit forty years from nineteen one to nineteen forty-one. We put up
a plant in Greenville which is still there and that‘s where we put metals on the moving strip,
while it‘s moving. And those were my babies. I engineered those. It took a lot of aspirin but I got
them working. And there‘s nine of them now; five in Greenville and four in St. Johns. And
they‘re a hundred and eighty feet long. Couldn‘t powder or babbitt on moving steel, freeze the
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babbitt of course the copper lead it goes thru ovens. It‘s a hundred and eighty feet long from a
coil of steel to a fine metal ready for the press room, form it into bearings. It‘s a very fine
process. We make our own powder. That is we I said I‘m not with them now but I
mean…Federal-Mogul makes their own powder. And St. Johns and we atomized molten metal
you know, make it molten metal make powder out of it.
Interviewer: Did you retire after you worked for Federal-Mogul you said you were willing—
Mr. Blomstrom: Well, when I was sixty-five they don‘t want you anymore like General Motors,
they kick you out. That‘s the customary retirement; they‘re talking about changing it now to
sixty-eight or something else.
Interviewer: Did you come back to Grand Rapids at that time or?
Mr. Blomstrom: I came back here in fifty-five. I bought a house on Maryland. I sold that when
my wife passed away. She‘s been gone—we have no children—she‘s been gone nineteen years
now. And I leased this when it wasn‘t even half finished through this building. There were no
walls, just a framework. And they were working on the brickwork outside. I‘ve been here, one of
the first here, eight years now I‘ve been, eight or nine I guess. No, I had a house over on
Maryland near, between Michigan and Fulton.
Interviewer: Yes. Tell me more about your father, tell me more about his later years.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah, I was going to tell you, you asked me about what I was doing. Well then,
I worked for this little shop and got around to be the inspector there. They made tool work and
some production work. And then I went with Paige Motor Car Company it was called—it wasn‘t
called the Graham-Paige then, the Graham brothers hadn‘t bought it then—it was called PaigeDetroit [Motor Car Company]. It was near where we lived on the West Side. I went in there, and
I‘d never take a drawing lesson in my life, but I told them I was an expert gauge designer. They
wanted a gauge designer. So I got to be their chief gauge designer. I think I was about twenty-six
years old or something like that. And I got along fine. From there I went to—well I was still with
Paige when they built that big plant out on Warren near the Lincoln Motor Plant which is now
Detroit Edison shops you know, that big building on Livernois and Warren. And, Paige was a
mile further out. I don‘t know what it is now, probably Chrysler Plant or something. Well I got to
be assistant tool engineer there. We had thirty-eight in the department. I was first chief checker
then I got to be assistant to the Master Mechanic. He‘s the headman of tool engineering today,
Master Mechanic. I got to be assistant Master Mechanic.
Interviewer: Excuse me interrupting, about when was this?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well it was around the war, just after the war, the First World War
Interviewer: First World War
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Mr. Blomstrom: Well I‘m getting a little ahead of my story. In the First World War I went from
Paige to Lincoln Motor Car Company. They hadn‘t made a car yet, they were making their first
one. You know they made the Liberty engine, the airplane engine. They made the biggest
quantity around six thousand of ‗em. And Ford made some, Marmon made some, Cadillac made
some, Hinkley made some. But Lincoln Motor made the bulk, there were six thousand about.
Probably all the rest were about four thousand. Not a one got across to Europe you know, they
were all on the coast when the war ended.
Interviewer: I see
Mr. Blomstrom: And honest, you could buy up for a song you know. A twelve-cylinder. ----Six
separate cylinders, each one bolted. They were made of steel. And I was chief gauge inspector
there under the head of all inspection. I wasn‘t the chief in the department, I was chief gauge
inspector. So I got a lot of—And then from there I went to Paige. The war stopped you know in
November, eighteen wasn‘t it? I believe we were only in two years. The war had been on since
fourteen of course. And then I went with Paige. So it was after the war that I was there as an
assistant tool engineer for… during the Depression of twenty-one there were thirty-eight of us in
the department and during the Depression there was only three of us, the boss, myself, and the
clerk. It was a sharp drop-off just like a cliff you know. But it started coming back, in eighteen
months it was normal. But everybody was laid off except a few key people you know. But
Lincoln wanted to keep me. Mr. [ Henry M.] Leland whose, was, started as one of the founders
of the Cadillac Motor Car Company, he left to start the Lincoln. They were building the car in
the —secret room. He gave me permission to go in there. I had a key. They were building the
first car during the war there. I saw the first Lincoln. And while it was being built, as a matter-offact, I was one of the privileged to go in there. And when the war ended there you know there
was a false, on Thursday you know there was a false alarm, but we didn‘t know it was a false
alarm, that the war was ended. The following Monday it was the real thing! And Mr. Leland, I
said, I‘m leaving, I‘m leaving, there‘s nothing here to do. We just played checkers and chess you
know with thirty-six of us in that whole plant including the office. We‘d come in ten o‘clock and
go out to lunch and then we‘d come back, play some more checkers or chess and go home at
three o‘clock. We did that from November to March, so I got tired of playing checkers and chess.
So I told him. ―No‖ he says, ―we got a good job for you. We‘re going to build a car in August, by
August.‖ I said, ―Mr. Leland you can‘t tool up. It‘s going to take you a year and a half to two
years to tool up.‖ Machinery wasn‘t good for that you know, what they had for the airplane
engine. So, well I was right of course, he couldn‘t start in August, this was March see. So I left.
He begged me to come back. In the meantime you know, Ford took it over. He had a little
trouble with Wilfred Leland‘s son, Henry Leland‘s son. Leland was very nice to me; he begged
me to come back. I says no, I‘m not coming back. And then Ford got hold of me—records I
suppose there, and he kept pestering me for two or three years to .... He had me all signed up to
be at Highland Park then you know, in the head of their gauge department. In the meantime of
course, during the war there, the Bureau of Standards wanted me in Washington, which would
�14
have been good experience. But my mother was ill, my father had passed away you know. So I
didn‘t go. Well, they said, we‘ll send you to Franklin Arsenal in, near Philadelphia. I says no, I
can‘t leave Mother. Well he said, we‘ll get you closer, Rock Island Arsenal where you‘re in the
Mississippi. I said no. So they passed it up. But Ford kept writing me for years, I never went out
there.
Interviewer: What did you do after..?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well, then I went with the Bearing Company.
Interviewer: I see.
Mr. Blomstrom: I been there, I was there until I retired. That was Federal Bearing and Bushing.
They merged in, that was twenty-one. In twenty-four they merged with Muzzy-Lyons to form
Federal-Mogul. Federal was the trade name of the Federal Bronze and Mogul was the Babbitt of
Muzzy-Lyons. So they took their two trademarks and formed a corporation, Federal-Mogul.
Interviewer: In what year did your father die?
Mr. Blomstrom: Twenty-three. Mother died, he died in early spring and Mother died in the fall.
Interviewer: I see. Had he been active up to the end?
Mr. Blomstrom: Yes, yes, he was active. He was always figuring out something new you know.
Interviewer: Well, do you have some other memories about the cars that your father-there‘s one
picture there you said was shown in New York?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well that‘s these two here. That picture‘s taken at the show; that‘s the chassis
and the touring car. This is the runabout. I had one of these. Front drive car. Course they‘re quite
new. There‘ve been front cars made before; old [J. Walter] Christie made a front drive racer, the
fastest car in the world those days until Barney Oldfield came around with a Blitzen Benz.
Interviewer: What year were those cars made?
Mr. Blomstrom: Those cars?
Interviewer: Yes.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well I think that‘s in nineteen seventeen when it‘s in the show. We started
that—well I didn‘t go down there; I was home. I wasn‘t doing anything for six years. I would say
it was around sixteen or seventeen.
Interviewer: Was that show in New York in the armory?
Mr. Blomstrom: I think it was what they called a National Armory, isn‘t it, something like that?
�15
Interviewer: Well I‘ve heard they used to have shows there.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah, that‘s right, I think so. I‘m not that certain about it, but I would think so.
They had a couple places there they showed ‗em. I wasn‘t down there, Father of course was
there. He‘d show the Queen car he started in Chicago at the old auditorium. He‘d stay at the
Congress Hotel. The owner of the Congress Hotel and the auditorium there was this one
millionaire [in] Marquette that financed the Queen. Of course we‘d go over to Chicago we‘d
have free hotel rooms and dinners and everything was free.
Interviewer: What was his name?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well that was the Kaufman family. They were very wealthy.
Interviewer: Did they live in Marquette?
Mr. Blomstrom: Some of them did. Of course one of the family, the one that financed Father,
was the oldest one. They married wealthy. They were smart, they married wealthy people. Louie
Kaufman, one of the brothers, was in New York. He was head of the second largest bank in the
United States. What was the—what is the second largest bank? I don‘t know if it is today.
Interviewer: I can‘t answer your question.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well, City Bank is one of them now I guess. But he was head of, he was
interested in the General Motors too. He made a lot of money besides, Louie. I met him, I met
him years ago. There were several brothers, four that I knew. And they all ended up pretty
wealthy you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Mr. Blomstrom: They made a lot of money in copper you know. And married a lot of… Well, I
could write a book if I‘d been around to it years ago. The editor of the Detroit Free Press, he‘s
not living now, needless to say, Mr. Blomstrom, he says, you ought to write a book he says, you
know more about the automobile business that anybody I‘ve ever talked to. Well I grew up with
it and I have a good memory you know, and through Father‘s associations.
Interviewer: Clearly.
Mr. Blomstrom: And I met a lot of the people later on when I was with the Bearing Company.
Did I say I met Mr. Ford, spent an hour with him, I got along fine with him. But he gets along
fine with outsiders, but he‘s tough on the people who work for him. Very tough. He‘s a one man
show you know. Edsel of course was my age exactly. If he‘d been living he‘d be close to eightyfive now. He was very small; he‘d only come to my shoulder you know. Ford was quite tall; he
bent over in the last few years. But I got along fine with Henry Ford
Interviewer: Did you know Edsel Ford too?
�16
Mr. Blomstrom: No, I never met him personally. I saw him lots of times. And I‘ve seen the sons,
his three sons, of course, lots of times when they were kids with knee pants. They‘d walk down
Washington Boulevard and there‘d be a guard in front and back you know. When they went to
school they‘d have to have guards you know, their school Yale or wherever they went. There
was Henry the second, and Benson, and William…Clay, see. They were all their middle names.
Well Clay was. You see, Mrs. Edsel Ford was a niece of J.L. Hudson the store man you know
Interviewer: Yes.
Mr. Blomstrom: And she was a Clay, her name was Clay, so that‘s where they get the Clay.
William Clay, and of course the younger son married one of the Firestone. You know old Henry
is their grandfather. [Harvey] Firestone and [John] Burroughs you know, the botanist or
whatever he was, and [Warren G.] Harding and they went camping. I have a picture here
somewhere. That‘s the first station wagon I ever saw. Ford made one just for that trip you know.
They‘d go camping, six or seven of them you know. Ford would always pay the expense. And
Edson, Edison, Thomas Edison, was one of that group.
Interviewer: You said Burroughs, but don‘t you mean Burbank?
Mr. Blomstrom: No no, I mean Burroughs.
Interviewer: Oh Burroughs.
Mr. Blomstrom: Burbank was the—
Interviewer: You know what you‘re talking about.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah. He was an elderly man, quite short. I have his picture here with Ford.
And Harding was president, then they invited him. Thomas Edison. Ford would do that every
year. And he got very close to Firestone. I think that‘s the reason why Edsel‘s youngest boy
married a Firestone. He owns a football team don‘t he? The Lions?
Interviewer: Yes, I believe so.
Mr. Blomstrom: That‘s the youngest. Then there was girl in the family too, Josephine I think‘s
her name. I don‘t know exactly. I think so. She married a Ford so she didn‘t have to change her
name.
Interviewer: Another Ford family as I recall.
Mr. Blomstrom: It‘s the Ford-Alkali, Michigan Alkali, or Wyandotte Chemicals now. They were
very wealthy people. That‘s the Ford of Libbey-Owens-Ford family Toledo, the plate glass
people.
Interviewer: I see.
�17
Mr. Blomstrom: It‘s not the Ford automobile people. No connection. No connection. And that
Ford building in Detroit‘s the same way. That‘s not the Ford automobile man, that‘s the FordAlkali, I call ‗em Alkali because it was the Michigan Alkali in Wyandotte you know. Now it‘s
Wyandotte Chemicals. They make products for making glass, they supplied the elements.
There‘s a famous Ford family in Toledo, Pittsburgh plate glass and Libbey-Owens-Ford family.
That‘s a different family entirely. See Father made the cars before Ford. Well of course he made
that one. He made one here in Grand Rapids in ninety-two, but I‘ve never checked with the
newspapers if it‘s in there. He was working with the Perkins Machine shop on Front Street. They
just tore that building down, of course they‘ve been gone for years, when they made the freeway
through there. Front Street is jogged there somewheres. Then he went to Marquette in ninetyseven. Well he was quite a smart duck considering he didn‘t have any education. He had both
feet on the ground like Kettering, ―Boss‖ Kettering, Charles Kettering. He was a great fellow; I
used to go and visit him. He had both feet on the ground. They‘re so interested in developing
new things that they never stop to make any money. That is a beautiful drawing isn‘t it? I don‘t
know what I‘m going to do with that.
Interviewer: It says, The Lion Forty Power Plant.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well, that was the old SAE rating. England still uses that rating. What you do,
you square the bore, if it‘s a five inch cylinder you square it, that‘s five times five is twenty-five,
multiply by the number of cylinders four, that‘d be a hundred, divided by two and a half, that‘s
where you get forty see.
Interviewer: I see.
Mr. Blomstrom: Get it?
Interviewer: I get it.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well they still use that in England, we don‘t, we use the brake horsepower. Test
it on a brake dynamometer. Actual horsepower of course, they take off the water pump and the
generator. Actually, the horsepower‘s not what they say it is because they take off some things
that take horsepower, your water pump and your generator and that stuff. But it‘s brake
horsepower, actually torque. Testing torque. That‘s what brake horsepower is, testing torque.
Foot pounds. Well the horsepower is 33,000 foot pounds.
Interviewer: I keep thinking of things about that car in the museum. I went to see it; I think it was
yesterday afternoon, because it‘s locked up in a room there.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah, they had it on display two years in a glass – in the entrance to that
looking at the stars stuff. It was beautiful there. But they, they got this room, and it‘s all cluttered
up. It‘s typical of nineteen hundred. It‘s an old blacksmith shop or something.
Interviewer: How fast would that car go?
�18
Mr. Blomstrom: Thirty-five miles an hour.
Interviewer: Oh really?
Mr. Blomstrom: That‘s about all it would do.
Interviewer: Well that‘s pretty fast.
Mr. Blomstrom: We had motor, we had bicycle police, traffic cops in Detroit, on Belle Isle. They
couldn‘t catch me. They couldn‘t pedal. What they‘d do, they‘d cross the Island and catch me on
the other side. That‘s the way they‘d put their bicycles; they‘d get another cop, and they‘d put
their bicycles on the ground, and I‘d have to go out on the grass, which is not permitted. They‘d
take me over to the station, there‘s a station on Belle Isle. Been there ever since I can remember.
And get another policeman and they‘d cross the Island midway, and I‘d go way around the tip of
the island. And they‘d catch me on the other side of the island. They had their bicycles on the
road, the roads weren‘t very wide. And of course in order to go by them I‘d have to go out on the
grass, and of course they stood about each side there. So then they‘d take me over to the police
station on Belle Island, been one there ever since—still there as far as I know. Of course then I
would tell Dad. He says forget it, which I did. He knew all the judges I guess. They used to come
down and borrow the boats on Friday, go up to the flats. I knew every judge because they‘d
come down there on a Friday afternoon after court and get one of those boats and go up to the
flats. A whole bunch of judges.
Interviewer: Where were the flats located?
Mr. Blomstrom: That‘s the beginning of the St. Clair River. It‘s at the north end of Lake St.
Clair. You went through St. Clair River. The flats is the first part. It‘s swampy and islands, so
dozens of islands there. There‘s that big Indian island there, the Walpole. It‘s across from that
park where the boat used to go up to ___ park. That‘s below Algonac, see. Algonac is where Gar
[Garfield] Wood is. We built the propellers for Gar Wood‘s, all his speed boats. He had the
world‘s record until now; we‘ve gone way beyond it. This fellow out in Lake Washington in
Seattle has gone, what is it, over two hundred miles an hour I guess. Of course they‘re really not
boats anymore, they‘re practically out of the water, they‘re hydroplanes! They have steps in
them. But we built them for Gar Wood and well, he had the world‘s record, a hundred and
twenty-six miles. We built all the propellers and most of the --- tugboats we built the propellers.
We sold that to Michigan Wheel; I say we, it‘s Federal-Mogul. Michigan Wheel still makes a
Federal equipoise propeller, which we had a patent on. Most of the --- tugboats used to buy them
from us, I don‘t know if they‘re buying them from Michigan now. Michigan‘s right here in town.
Interviewer: Yes.
Mr. Blomstrom: Its part of a, I don‘t know if some corporation has bought them out.
Interviewer: Yeah. It used to be that Mr. Evenson was president of it. Charles.
�19
Mr. Blomstrom: I don‘t know. I met a lot of them when they were considering about, something
about a machine they were building for to machine the propellers, the production. Course they
use it for making patterns, I know. But they were going to make a machine to do the production,
which according to me is not according to ―Hoyle‖. It‘s not necessary. You know the pitch, the
pitch is the one turn is a pitch, like a thread. The ones we made for Gar Wood were only
seventeen inches in diameter but was twenty inch pitch. They had two of them, one going this
way and one going opposite so his boat wouldn‘t tip over, see. Like the English[man]… Kaye
Don tipped over. I watched him, I saw his boat tip right over. He got in the wave of a Gar Wood
boat that was leaving, and his propeller come out of the water, there was no resistance. And the
torque of that just took his boat, which was very light, and tipped it right over and he went in the
drink. I saw it. I was only five hundred feet away from it when it happened. Well Gar Wood was
smart, he put two propellers on, going in the opposite direction, so you didn‘t get that chance of
tipping over if the wheels went out of the water. He was smart, smart old duck. He died, didn‘t
he, a little while ago? I think so.
Interviewer: I don‘t know.
Mr. Blomstrom: He was very old. I knew him, met him. Course they had the Gar Wood... they
made that dump truck, hydraulic dump truck. We made a lot of parts for them. I knew all the
brothers. There was a bunch of brothers! There were about pretty near as many of them as the
Fisher brothers. They were seven I guess. I knew a couple of them, Ed the youngest.
Interviewer: I think you ought to write that book.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well, a lot of people have said that. I think Mr. Frankfurter said it too, and some
of the other people. I did write a book on bearings for the company. Millions of those were sent
out. It‘s a very small book. It‘s been in most of the libraries now around the country. Some
people wanted a thousand. The Ordinance Department, where is that, Fort Benning in Georgia
where they had the Ordinance? Well a major came up from there one day, I didn‘t know he was
coming, and the office wanted to see Mr. Blomstrom. The girl says, there‘s a major from Fort
Benning here. He wanted a thousand of those little books. They were just small, about Reader‘s
Digest, you could just stick it in your pocket. It was run serially in an automobile magazine for
eight months. So we give him a thousand, it didn‘t cost much. They‘re in most of the
universities, they wrote, they sent. Course now they put out a hardcover, but this was just soft
cover. But it was about probably the first small bearing book on servicing, you know taking care
of bearings, automobile engine bearings, not ball or roller bearings. So that‘s the only writing.
It‘s difficult for me to write, but I suppose I should. It‘s too late now, I guess.
Interviewer: You could always dictate it.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah, I bought a machine, I have a machine. I bought it for that purpose. I
haven‘t used it but once I guess, twice, but not for that purpose. I bought a machine, nothing as
�20
elaborate as your machine here. It‘s just a simple…has about the same kind of a microphone I
guess. Micro—what do you call it?
Interviewer: No, it‘s a microphone, yes.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yes, I have that. Some of them have it built right into the case. I see some of the
new ones advertised. Yeah, I have one.
Interviewer: How do you keep busy these days?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well I‘m rummaging see, getting stuff here. I‘m going to dispose of a lot of
books and things. I don‘t know what I‘m going to do with all these pictures; of course Mr.
Frankfurter would like them. I don‘t if he ever saw this; I don‘t think I had that at the museum.
These others I had at the museum for a couple years, until they moved the Queen car where it is
now.
Interviewer: I see. You said your cousin restored that car?
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah, I think a second or third cousin.
Interviewer: Who‘s he?
Mr. Blomstrom: His name is Bloomstrom, they put too many o‘s in it. He lives in Sparta,
Michigan. He works here in Grand Rapids. He works in the furniture business - woodwork. He‘s
a young fellow, compared to me of course, he‘s about half my age. But he‘s restored a lot of
cars, for himself and for others. He does a beautiful job.
Interviewer: But you were the one who actually found it?
Mr. Blomstrom: Oh yes. Well, one of our people at the—we have a, Federal-Mogul had a plant
at Lancaster, that‘s the Amish town you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
Mr. Blomstrom: He says there‘s a Queen car over here. And this fellow had an old car, one very
rare car. Everybody down there has an old car. Every town has people who recondition old cars...
a Lancaster and Valley Forge and around Pennsylvania. So he says there‘s a Queen car over
here. Well, I says, can you find out when it‘s convenient to see it? Yeah. I‘d been looking for
one; I‘d located seven you know, which is pretty good for being that old. They run from—there‘s
this nineteen six four cylinder in Detroit, he won‘t sell it to me. He has the largest collection of
old cars in the world. The magazines say he has six hundred, he told me he has a thousand. I
believe it because they‘re in sheds. If you put up in a straight line or in a U they‘d be eight
hundred feet long and he‘s got five deep standing on the ends. So he says bring down a suit, you
know get a suit, a coverall suit. So I stopped at Sears Roebuck in Highland Park there and bought
one. The only time I ever used it, I gave it to a customer. And he says I‘ve got one of your
�21
father‘s cars. I says what is it? He says it‘s a four cylinder nineteen six Queen. Looked like a
Packard you know. There‘s a four cylinder up there and to the left, at the top, see it looks like a
Packard. Now maybe, I don‘t know who swiped who, but, they were swiping designs those days
as they are today. And everybody you‘d show that car too would say that‘s a Packard, and it was
a Queen, four cylinder. Well anyway. I got off the track.
Interviewer: Well, you were going to go look at these cars.
Mr. Blomstrom: Yeah, well, I bought that and on the way over there, he says, Mr.—we call him
Barney Pullerd, P-U-L-L-E-R-D, I guess he‘s still living. He has the largest collection of old cars
in the world. The last time he called me up here, two years ago, about seven, eight years ago he
says when you gonna write that story about your father for me? Cause he wants it you know.
Well, I says, I haven‘t got around to it. He says, I‘m gonna put up a building now, he says, and
I‘m going to show all my cars in a museum and charge like all the others are doing, Florida and
out west. I don‘t know if he‘s done it, I haven‘t talked to him for seven, eight years. He has, the
oldest car is a German eighteen ninety-seven, and all his cars are real old, I mean none of this
new stuff, twenty, thirty years, they‘re all old. From eighteen ninety-seven, I would say, to
nineteen twenty probably. He has almost every car imaginable. He‘s still looking for a Lion car. I
haven‘t told him I located one in this museum out by Rushmore. He‘s probably found out. He‘s
advertised in every…he says, that was the finest car your father built, he says, that would outrun
any car even a Stutz in those days.
Interviewer: How many Lions were built?
Mr. Blomstrom: Well I don‘t know exactly. I would say it‘s between a thousand and fifteen
hundred.
Interviewer: I see.
Mr. Blomstrom: You see, the Queen cars there were only ten a week made. It was all hand work
practically. He bought the bodies and a lot of the other axels. The axels were made by WestonMott in Flint, you know that‘s Mott, you heard-Interviewer: Yes, sure.
Mr. Blomstrom: Mott. The General Motors had more stock than anybody else outside of the
Dupont family. I met him; I saved the life of his financial secretary twice by giving him blood
you know. I had a hemolytic strep and it took me three years to come back on that. I lost seventy
pounds, I was in Harper Hospital. I gave blood side-by-side in bed to this fellow twice and saved
him. They looked all the records of the hospitals over Michigan and I was the only one who
could save this boy‘s life. You got to give him blood serum within twelve months when you
fought it off. They found my name and they got me to give him some blood and in a week he
was on his way to Arizona, and riding horseback in two weeks. The next year he got pneumonia
�22
and I gave him some more blood cause the same thing happened. I met Charlie Mott there, he
was tall as I was, six foot five. I thought he‘d give me a million bucks, but he never did. Well,
the Queen car had Weston-Mott axels front and rear; they were made in Flint. They moved from
Elmira, New York, I believe it is, somewheres in New York State, to Flint. That‘s how he got
there. And of course, General Motors bought the plant and he got stock, and he never sold his
share, he kept it, so now it‘s being sold. Well he was getting there at one time an awful lot,
several million dollars in dividends every year when it used to be two dollars or something.
Yeah, he had more stock I think than any individual, but the Dupont family probably had more
as a family.
Interviewer: Did you like Mott personally?
Mr. Blomstrom: I only met him as his secretary, financial secretary. I seen him lots of times, but
I never met him. I used to go up to Chevrolet and Buick, of course we made bearings, some of
them, for them. Not so much Buick, but one time we made forty percent of the Chevrolet until
they make their own now I guess down in Dayton Ohio, Moraine Products. I knew two of the
Chevrolet brothers, you know there were three: Gaston, Arthur, and Louie. The last time I talked
to Louie, he was assembling front drives on those twelve cars that Edsel ordered for Harry Miller
for the Indianapolis track. He wanted me to design the bearings for him, I did, which I did, they
were special. See they go up to seventy-two hundred rpm, those four cylinder Millers. Harry
Miller came to my office and he had Preston Tucker with him. He introduced me to him. Of
course the big thing, they say he designed the Tucker car. He didn‘t design that any more than I
did. He was an expediter that‘s all he was, he was no engineer, Tucker. I knew him quite well.
And I got to meet Harry Miller. We made bearings…There was five cars that were got down to
the Indianapolis track, but they had other front end troubles, steering gear trouble, none of them
finished the Ford cars. The old man didn‘t know about it I guess. They assembled them in a
building down on, West Lafayette there, about a mile from town. I was down there quite often.
Preston Tucker was a handsome fellow. He died quite young, in the forties wasn‘t it? Low
forties?
Interviewer: I think so.
Mr. Blomstrom: I talked to him over there in Chicago. They showed the car there in that big
building that Dodge ran during the war making engines. He was quite a talker. They raised a lot
of money but a lot of people lost a lot of money too. They sold a lot of stock. Anybody who
wanted to handle the car, dealer had to put down four thousand dollars I believe, something like
that. Don‘t quote me too much on that. What are you going to do with this?
Interviewer: This will go to the, well I‘m sure the museum wants a copy of it, and a copy will go
to the Grand Valley State Colleges.
Mr. Blomstrom: Are they interested in this?
�23
Interviewer: They have an oral history department.
Mr. Blomstrom: I see.
Interviewer: So, you‘ll be talking for the next few hundred years.
Mr. Blomstrom: The Swedes in Detroit, what they call the Detroit Council, Swedish Council
Incorporated, I know fifty percent of them, of course I could have been a charter member if I‘d a
stayed in Detroit. They just wrote a book last year as a project for the centennial, or was it
bicentennial isn‘t it? I have a copy here. They have quite a write-up about my father in there, and
they mention me too, and my father-in-law, he‘s right on the first page. He was one of the
founders of the Mamrelund church up here.
Interviewer: What‘s the name of the book?
Mr. Blomstrom: They Made a Difference.
Interviewer: They Made a Difference. Who published it, do you know?
Mr. Blomstrom: Aaronson, but I buy it through the friend of mine who‘s the secretary of the
Detroit Swedish Council, Signe Carlstrom I know her.
Interviewer: I presume that the local library would have a copy.
Mr. Blomstrom: I don‘t know. I bought several of the books to give to my nephews and nieces.
Of course what I was going to tell you was that it was a special project because of the king‘s visit
here. He was here last summer.
Interviwer: Yeah.
Mr. Blomstrom: Karl Gustof. Every Swedish king has got Karl Gustof in their name. That was
my grandfather‘s name, Karl Gustof Blomstrom. So they gave him several books, so my name
and my father‘s name and a lot of my relatives are in that palace in Stockholm. Well, they just
happened to put my name in, they got my father‘s write-up. In fact, this fellow that retired just
last year, the vice-chairman of General Motors Oscar Lundeen wrote it with – Jones, who was
the head of the big advertising agency there in Bloomfield Village, Bloomfield Center. Jones. I
don‘t know him, of course I know Oscar Lundeen real well. I‘ve known him since he was that
high; I knew his parents. I knew the three boys. One of them designed that Union Trust Building
downtown, Earl Lundeen.
Interviewer: Which building is that?
Mr. Blomstrom: The Union Bank and Trust.
Interviewer: Union Bank. The new building?
�24
Mr. Blomstrom: Well yeah, it‘s quite new. I don‘t know about the little building alongside, that‘s
named after the chairman isn‘t it? Frye Building.
Interviewer: Yes.
Mr. Blomstrom: But that‘s designed by Earl Lundeen. He and another fellow have a corporation
in New York City. That‘s Oscar‘s brother. There was three boys; I knew them all. There was
Edward, the youngest, Earl, and Oscar.
Interviewer: They were all in Detroit I take it?
Mr. Blomstrom: Oh yeah. Their father was the superintendent of the Detroit Screw Works and
then he went later, when he retired he went into real estate. But the boys have all done good.
Three boys. Well Oscar of course is a millionaire. He wrote this, and they start off with my
father, see, way back when designing the Queen car and building it.
Interviewer: Well we‘ve talked for about an hour I think, and I think maybe it‘s about time for
me to go home.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well if you want some more, just feel free to call up and come out.
Interviewer: I‘ll tell you, I‘ll play it back and see if I can-Mr. Blomstrom: I think it‘s too much of myself and not my father.
Interviewer: Maybe I can find that book and then read about your father and then come back and
ask you some more questions.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well it‘s just a page or two in there about him. It‘s on the first page. Of course,
they asked me last year to write about my father, but I was very miserable, I‘d been in the
hospital and I didn‘t write. They don‘t need to write to me about it anyway, all they got to do is
go the library, which they must have done because they got stuff there that I sent to the library,
word for word!
Interviewer: Thank you very, very much. I appreciate this. It‘s been a very interesting hour.
Mr. Blomstrom: Well I bore people to death talking automobiles.
Interviewer: No, not at all.
Mr. Blomstrom: I wish I was a good writer, I could write a book. I knew most of the early
people. The only one I didn‘t know was R.E. Olds, Ransom E. Olds. I know the history of the
company and all that. You see, he made the first car in Michigan, R.E. Olds, Ransom E. Olds.
That‘s his initials, R.E. O. for the REO you know.
Interviewer: Yes.
�25
Mr. Blomstrom: He quit the business you know. He was going to have cattle up north here. He
bought a ranch up here, or it‘s called a ranch. But his cronies in Lansing got him back to start the
REO. Of course it sold out long ago; the family isn‘t in it anymore. General Motors, of course—
no it‘s not, it was White, they were independent weren‘t they? There‘s White Motors and then
Diamond T Motors, and then now I guess it‘s gone. It was a good car, a big heavy car like the
old Pierce Arrow and the Locomobile. They were built like a locomobile, locomotive, heavy you
know, big heavy cars.
Interviewer: Ok.
A
G
American Motors · 3
General Motors · 3, 12, 16, 22, 24, 26
Grumback, John · 8
B
Belle Isle · 11, 19
Blomstrom Motor Company · 2
Blomstrom Thirty · 2
Blomstrom, Carl G. (Grandfather) · 6, 8, 9, 24
Blomstrom, Carl Herman (Father) · 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11,
12, 14, 15, 22, 24, 25
Bloomer Hill · 7, 8
K
Kaufman Family · 16
Kettering, Charles · 18
L
Detroit Swedish Council · 24
Dupont Family · 22, 23
Leland, Henry M. · 14
Libbey-Owens-Ford Family · 17, 18
Lincoln Motor Car Company · 13, 14
Lion car · 4, 18, 22
Lundeen Family · 24, 25
E
M
Edison, Thomas · 10, 13, 17
Miller, Harry · 23
Mott, Charlie · 22, 23
D
F
Federal-Mogul Company · 12, 15, 19, 21
Ford Motor Company · 3, 5, 10, 13, 14, 17, 18, 23
Ford, Edsel · 16, 17, 23
Ford, Henry · 10, 11
Frontmobile · 3
O
Old Lion Fence Company · 4
P
Paige Motor Car Company · 13
Pullerd, Barney · 22
�26
Q
T
Queen car · 2, 4, 5, 15, 21, 22, 23, 25
Tucker, Preston · 23
R
W
Rex (car) · 3
Weston-Mott · 22, 23
Wood, Garfield · 19, 20
Wyandotte Chemicals · 17
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5974db0100116cc68e025d1077512441.mp3
c8bc4c4fcba754dc9dc84b7d455f4032
Dublin Core
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Title
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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
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Various
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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application/pdf; audio/mp3
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eng
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RHC-23
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1971 - 1977
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RHC-23_56Blomstrom
Title
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Blomstrom, Lowell
Creator
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Blomstrom, Lowell
Description
An account of the resource
Lowell Blomstrom was born on March 22, 1893 in Grand Rapids. His father was an inventor and pioneer in the automobile industry. In 1904 Carl Blomstrom introduced the Queen Automobile produced in Detroit by the Blomstrom Motor Company. Lowell Blomstrom also worked in the automobile industry. He died in 1979.
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
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Text
Sound
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application/pdf
audio/mp3
Source
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Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)
Date
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1977
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/aa3d4b9750ee64551215126b8fa131b7.pdf
39dab203a8b5fbaba993c1bbe32e0f43
PDF Text
Text
1
Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23
Cary, John
Interviewed on September 27, 1971
Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com
Tape #18 & 19 (1:08:16)
Biographical Information
John Cornelius Cary was the son of Cornelius “Neal” Cary and Julia A. Lynch. Neal Cary was
born in Vergennes Township, Kent County in January 1861, the son of Patrick Cary and
Catharine Boylen. Julia was born in October 1861 in Kent County, Michigan, the daughter of
Jeremiah Lynch and Julia Harrington. Neal married Julia Lynch in Grand Rapids on 27 October
1896.
John C. Cary was born 2 October 1897 in Grand Rapids. About 1926, he married Helen M.
Wren. Helen died 6 June 1972 and John passed away five years later on 1 June 1977. They are
buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Grand Rapids.
___________
Interviewer: Were you born in Grand Rapids, Mr. Cary?
Mr. Cary: Yes, I was, in October second, eighteen ninety-seven on, what was then, Central
Avenue, now Sheldon Street. And it was the fifth house north of Fifth Avenue, so called at that
time, now Franklin Street. It was on the east side of the street, and the house was torn down
some eight, ten years ago, the entire area from Franklin Street, north to Sycamore and Sheldon,
east of Jefferson, has been completely torn down, for a new project either a housing development
project or an extension of the Sheldon Complex. When I was five years old we moved from
there to a house on the west side of Cass Avenue between Hall and Delaware. Dr. Long, who
was quite a prominent physician in the South End as it was called in the south part of Grand
Rapids, it was, lived on the corner, the southwest….or the northwest corner of Cass Avenue and
Delaware. It was called Eighth Avenue then, under the old numbering system. And next to us
was a Mrs. was the VanderVelde family, and she was a half-sister of Adrian Otte, who, with his
brother John Otte, organized the American Laundry Company, which was existing then on
Division, at the corner of Haifley and Division. We lived there from the time I was five years
old until I graduated from the law school at the University of Michigan in nineteen twenty-two.
Interviewer: Were your parents born in Grand Rapids?
Mr. Cary: My mother, yes. My mother was born blessed Julia Lynch. She was a part of the Irish
laboring people who built what was called the South Railroad into Grand Rapids. I‟ve never
been able to determine what they meant by the South Railroad, but I think it was the Grand
Rapids and Indiana Railroad. Those Irish laborers who worked on the railroad, and I had an
uncle, Timothy Lynch, who was sort of a section boss of those people who laid the tracks and
ties and spiked „em and so on. A group of them settled in the southwest part of Grand Rapids.
My grandfather had an opportunity to buy some land around the swamp, which is, was located
about where the Union Depot was subsequently built which is no more because of the
expressway. But he wanted to be on the high ground so he bought five acres from Noyes Avery,
�2
I can‟t tell you the year but it was before my mother was born in eighteen fifty-nine and built a
house, which still exists on Jerome Street running north of Burton on the high hill east of the
railroad tracks as they cross there.
Interviewer: And the house still stands?
Mr. Cary: The house still stands. Not on the original site, subsequently my mother and father
platted that into the Lynch-Cary addition, and it was moved to the corner of Jerome Street, and it
was called Jerome Street because the city wouldn‟t allow my mother to name it Jeremiah, which
was my Grandfather‟s given name. And, so, mother was born there in eighteen fifty-nine, and
then my father was born in Sect.., on Section seven of Vergennes Township. My grandfather,
Patrick Cary, also by legend, was, did some work, or worked on the Erie Canal, came through
into Ohio and was, lived there for a short period and, in eighteen forty or eighteen forty-two
when he entered some sections in for Vergennes Township, Section seven, parts of section, I
should say he gave his residence as Marshall, Michigan. The only connection that I can get to
that is that he was a laborer on the, what is now, the Michigan Central, or Penn Central Railroad
running from Detroit thru Ann Arbor, Jackson, Battle Creek, Marshall, Kalamazoo into Niles
and into Chicago. Sometime after that he moved and settled on the land in Vergennes Township
and my father was born there in eighteen sixty-one and lived there until he became a young man,
came to Grand Rapids and went to work for the Judson Grocery Company and alternately as a
shipping clerk, ultimately he became what they called in those days, a broom peddler. He was a
traveling salesman for the Judson Grocery Company, and his territory was from White Cloud on
the Pere Marquette to Thompsonville north, and from Reed City on the GR & I to Cadillac and
west of Lake Michigan including Ludington, Baldwin, Wallahalla, Sherman, Scottville, Mesick
and many towns that were built because the lumbering industry which existed.
Interviewer: Was the Judson Grocery Store, was that the wholesale house?
Mr. Cary: Yes. It was located at right as I, my earliest recollection of it was at the corner of
Ottawa and Louis Street, more close to the corner. Subsequently, Mr. Judson built the building
[now the B.O.B.] on Market Street just off from the corner of Fulton and that building was
operated by the Judson Grocery Company until about nineteen twenty-seven or twenty-eight and
after Mr. Judson‟s death, who was a very staunch ardent Republican, it was sold to William
Cady and William Cady operated it there and subsequently on Jefferson Avenue in the old
Wilmarth, Welch-Wilmarth Showcase Factory, on Jefferson, east of Macey‟s and at the railroad,
Pere-Marquette railroad tracks. I think your grandfather and McInerney subsequently occupied
some part of that area for his client before he moved to Godfrey Avenue as a result of a fire.
Interviewer: Was there, you‟re an Irishman?
Mr. Cary: Yes
Interviewer: Did the Irish have a kind of particular area in the town that they lived in?
Mr. Cary: Yes. There were two predominately Irish settlements. The Irish immigration to
Grand Rapids was the first economic, ethnic migration. By that I mean that the German
migration to Grand Rapids was the first ethnic group, was a political migration; they didn‟t want
their sons to be a part of the imperial German Army that Bismarck had invented. The whole
[exolerance?] were planning for Germany and so the German migration was to Grand Rapids,
�3
was similar to the one to Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis and so on. So that, that is why the
two most prominent department stores in Grand Rapids carry German names, Herpolsheimer and
Wurzburg, and they were a part of that early migration and their migration was not because the
economic conditions. The Irish migration was and they were the common laborers of the United
States at that time. And the railroads were being built at that time and the Irish built the
railroads. And the two prominent places in Grand Rapids were the area around the D & M
Depot at Plainfield and the, what had got to the railroad got that far, the Irish who did, worked
for the railroad settled in the area around Leonard, Plainfield, Carrier and all of that territory
there. And I, it‟s an assumption on my part, that St. Alphonsus church, was erected in that area
because of the fact that the Irish-Catholic people who lived in that area. The other Irish
settlement was as a result of the railroads coming in from the south as I spoke of before and they
settled in what was the First Ward, which was around Ellsworth, Grandville around Number Six
Engine House, over there and up Grandville Avenue there. And also, along Clyde Park from
Grandville south and most of those people had large families and to supplement their economy
they had several of them had five acres running from Clyde Park through to Century and at that
time Century, when I went out to visit my grand uncles out on Clyde Park Avenue there was no
Century Avenue and subsequently after the Rathbone Mantle and Fireplace [Manufacturing] was
erected on Clyde Park Avenue which would now be a little south of where the Kelvinator plant is
and after the Leonards moved their ice-box manufacturing place to what is now the Kelvinator,
why the Irish plotted those areas, and that‟s why you have Holmes Street, Lynch Street and you
get streets that up there Shamrock and Emerald and McKendrick, various other real Irish names.
For many years Thirty-Sixth Street or Thirty or Forty-Fourth Street was called Daly and the
Dalys and the Lynches were intermarried and I can‟t tell you the relationship of the Dalys, but
they had a large farm and near where the Reynolds plant is now, which was the heart of the site
of the old gas[?] plant, which was a started building during the First World War, and never got
finished. [Louis Lynch in 1893 married Julia Daly in Grand Rapids.]
Interviewer: Well what was the downtown, what did you do as a child? You mentioned that you,
kind of hung around the streets, were kind of an urchin, what….
Mr. Cary: Well I, I didn‟t decay around the streets, my parents wouldn‟t let me, but as a kid and
I‟m sure, I was six years old, I went to St. Andrews school, which was then at the corner of
Maple and Sheldon, and from our house on Cass Avenue to there was a mile and a quarter and
we walked it four times a day, „walked‟ is used in bicycling because it was probably running not
to be late, and I don‟t think that there was a fence in any of that area that I or my companions
hadn‟t jumped, in one way or another by being chased out of the yard or because we were in a
hurry. And, but some of the other people that lived in that area were Bill Morrissey and his
brother Leo, who died while the boys were in school. Bill Morrissey became the owner of the
Fanitorium and he was a fight promoter and recreation and built up recreation facilities in Grand
Rapids as he came to manhood following the First World War. Another family who was from
that area and were closely associated with Morrissey was the Pipp family, who were very large,
had a very large family. The older boy, Ben, became a priest, I don‟t know whether he was a
secular priest or he belonged to an order, I‟ve forgotten that, but his brother, Wally, became a
member of the New York Yankees, played first base and was pushed out of his job by the
famous Hank Gehrig. And Wally was in, and I met him in, at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, when we were both in the Naval Flying Corp and there were several of the New
York Yankees in the ….well… We studied at M.I.T., but it would probably to designate it
�4
would, would say it was what was ground school now in the Naval period of the Second World
War and he was there and a fellow by the name of [Leslie] Nunamaker was there and on both the
False Armistice on the fourth of November in nineteen eighteen and then the real one on March
eleventh, nineteen eighteen in my particular squad, marching in the parade in Boston, at that
time, was a famous baseball player by the name of Tris Speaker. You want to shut that off a
minute?
Interviewer: Sure. Did you see the, what was the former Post Office, which is now the Federal
Building?
Mr. Cary: Yes.
Interviewer: Did you see that dedication? The dedication of that building?
Mr. Cary: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Can you tell me about that, why you were there and so on?
Mr. Cary: Well, I was there because it was, we were let out of school and we were let out of
school to go to that affair and it was a real civic celebration for Grand Rapids to have a building
as nice as that and so on. I, of course, had no conception that it was a nice building, at that time.
There were other kids there and people of prominence were there and we were probably making
nuisances of ourselves, crowding in and so on to watch of course. Teddy Roosevelt was, was a
national and international figure of those days and his experience and his fame as a Rough Rider
were carried by every youngster of that time. And to have his daughter in town for an affair of
that kind was a real event. There was also Vice-President Sherman, was here for that affair.
And it was Sunny Jim, so called, “Sunny Jim” Sherman, former senator from New York, and not
John Sherman, the brother of William Tecumseh Sherman, the general, who was in the Senate
and who was in the Congress of the United States, from the time in the Civil War until his death,
which I, it was after the turn of the century, but I don‟t remember just when.
Interviewer: Why, you mentioned to me before when we were talking that the sisters down at St.
Andrews had something against Alice Roosevelt. What, what was that?
Mr. Cary: Well, at that time, cigarette smoking by women was a real evil thing; many people
thought it was that. And Alice Roosevelt had a reputation at that time as being a cigarette
smoker, and she smoked in public. She was always one, and still is, too, she is quite famous for
her vitriolic remarks of one kind or another, about a Governor Dewey of New York and some of
the other national figures that she didn‟t completely care for, and she was not one to take a back
seat and if she wanted to smoke cigarettes, why she smoke cigarettes. And it made it was long
worth from Cincinnati, she had money enough to smoke cigarettes when she wanted to.
Interviewer: Was there a common, a common thing in those days, for like for example, the
dedication of a federal building, to have a city-wide celebration?
Mr. Cary: Yes and they….Grand Rapids was predominately a Republican community and
whether it was a result of the Civil War or not, I don‟t know, but it was predominately
Republican. And the Coliseum which was built by Heystek on Commerce Street between Oakes
and Cherry along about nineteen seven or eight and [Charles] Jandorf, who had a delicatessen
�5
store on Monroe Avenue would be just immediately west of Peck‟s Drug Store, which was at,
was at the corner of Division and Monroe at the northwest corner, was the caterer for most of
those affairs. And they would have the William Alden Smith, who was a senator after nineteen
seven, priding himself on bringing some of the most famous and popular Republicans to the
Lincoln-Day banquets of that time. And my father because of Mr. Gibson‟s prominence in the
Republican Party was probably given tickets to those banquets, usually held on Friday night,
when he would come in off his northern route with a [
?]. You know that my father
wasn‟t enough of a political person to have spent the, the money that was charged for those,
there were six of us children, and he just didn‟t have that kind of money to pay for affairs of that
kind.
Interviewer: The Coliseum, is that still standing?
Mr. Cary: Yes. It‟s, it‟s mentioned in the downtown Grand Rapids eighteen thirty – nineteen ten,
I think it was the Heystek building. It was, you guess, it was at, it was originally, its site was
there on Commerce. Sometime later they acquired some property on Division Street and an
annex was built out to Division, but for, from its inception for many years thereafter, it was on
Commerce Street. And as kids, on Saturday morning, and that‟s true of most of the kids that,
that went to Central, Division Avenue School, St. Andrews, Fountain Street School, in those
schools, who were all fifteen [to] sixteen years of age, would go to the Coliseum on Saturday
morning to roller skate. It was a real recreation spot, at that particular time.
Interviewer: Was there much difference between the downtown of those days and the downtown
of today?
Mr. Cary: Not much really. They, Grand Rapids was always a one-street town, Monroe Avenue.
And it used to, I would imagine that they used to drive carriages down Monroe Avenue to show
off. And I know when I was a young boy anybody that had an automobile drove it down Monroe
Avenue and when we got into high school and in early days of college, if you were out on the
prowl for picking up some girls, why if you had a car or could borrow or get someone else, ride
in someone else‟s why you went down there on Monroe Avenue to show off. And that was still
the situation until they put the mall in, and they fairly well eliminated that, for the time being.
Interviewer: What were the, was the, the commercial establishments, pretty much the same or
were there some differences there? For example, grocery companies; I don‟t believe there are
any groceries companies downtown now, are there?
Mr. Cary: Well are you speaking of retail or wholesale groceries?
Interviewer: Both.
Mr. Cary: Well, there were many wholesale groceries in those days. In addition to the Judson,
which my family was connected, a short distance away at the corner of Weston and Ottawa, why
the northwest corner was the Worden Grocery Company that, I don‟t know who Mr. Worden [A.
E. Worden] was or what the connection is, but Guy Rouse, the „Winchesters, were active in that
business at the time that I speak of, the Judson Grocery Company, which would be from oh,
nineteen seven to nineteen twenty-seven, a twenty year period. Another one that was, that I
remember of at that time which was on Ionia Street across from William Alden Smith building
between what is now Weston Street and Fulton, was the Musselman Grocery Company, and that
�6
was headed by Amos Musselman, who was a very prominent man at that time. At the corner of,
on the northwest corner of, Ionia and Weston, where Quimby-Kain is now, was the wholesale
grocery house of Lemon and Wheeler and that, that I don‟t know much about Mr. Wheeler, but
Sam Lemon was well known at that time and it was his early Greek revival house of red brick
and white pillars on Jefferson, on the east side of Jefferson that was, has been recently occupied
by the O‟Brien funeral home, was the home of Sam Lemon. A little further south, on Jefferson,
at that time, was another Greek revival house, which had been torn down, unfortunately, which
was the home of Jacob Kleinhans. He was a very prominent lawyer in the law firm of Kleinhans,
Knappen, Kleinhans, Knappen and Kleinhans. Knappen became the United States Court Judge of
appeals and Kleinhans was a very prominent lawyer around the early nineteen ten and earlier in
that time and Stuart Knappen, the son of the judge was a member of that firm, and that firm and
its successors exist today in Wheeler, Upham, Uhl, and Bryant. But to go back to the wholesale
grocery houses, at the, at the southeast corner of, of Ionia and Weston, what is now the Morse
[Dry Goods] building, formerly the Transportation Building. That was, I think, originally built
for wholesale grocery and wholesale hardware store. M.J. Clark, the donator of the Clark
Memorial home of the Methodist Preachers on Sherman Street was involved in two companies
there, Clark-Rutka-Weaver [actually hardware firm, not grocery] and Clark-Jewell-Wells. I
can‟t tell…
(break in the taping) …
[Recording skips to a later portion of transcript. See beginning of Side Two]
I was speaking of M.J. Clark and his company. I can‟t distinguish between which was the
wholesale hardware firm and which was the wholesale grocery firm. The Judson Grocery
Company bought out, I think it was Clark-Jewell-Wells. I think that was the grocery company
but I wouldn‟t be firm about that. And that became a part of the Judson Grocery Company
sometime during my boyhood days. Another company that was absorbed by Judson Grocery
Company and wholesale house, and this was before my…any knowledge of it. I used to see the
sign, an old sign that they had in the drive in of the Judson grocery company. The Ball Barnhart
Putnam Company; it was a wholesale grocery company. And Mr. O[rson]. A. Ball, who was a
son or a nephew of John Ball of John Ball Park, was one of the officers of the Judson Grocery
Company, subsequent to that buyout or merger of the Ball Barnhart Putnam Company. Mrs.
William Judson the First was a Barnhart and it may have been some family connection there that
caused the absorption, but that I have no knowledge of. But I think Worden absorbed various
wholesale grocery houses but you ask about places, food places, on the Monroe Avenue there
was one called Dutton Taylors, which was a very fine market, large grocery store and market and
it was in the block west of Peck‟s drugstore on the corner of, and I use that as a fixing point
because most everybody knows where Peck‟s drugstore was, on the corner, the northwest corner
the flat iron area of Division and Monroe that was oh half way in the middle of that block.
Across the street was the at the corner of Commerce which would‟ve been at the south west
corner of Commerce and Monroe because at that time Commerce came through from Fulton
Street into Monroe at an angle was the Morse Department [Dry Goods] Store, George Morse and
there was a food department connected with that in the back end of it ran through and came out
on Ionia Street between Louis and Monroe and there‟s a story I know about George Morse who
was inclined to be oh let‟s say a little (garbled word) maybe a little more. He was walking
through there, through the food department one day and it was a custom then to sell cheese in a
�7
large round bowl. Oh it probably was a foot or 18 inches across. They‟d cut the mold. Then to
entice you to buy they‟d sliver off a piece of the cheese and offer it to you on the knife and you
could taste the cheese and see whether or not it had the bouquet and the flavor and so forth and it
was what you wanted. So Mr. Morse was going through there and the clerk was doing that to
someone and he said out of the corner of his mouth, “Sell it to him, don‟t give it to him”
(Laughter). Sometime when I was in grade school there was a large fire in that department store
now whether it was during the Morse ownership or subsequently when it was known as Ira
Smith‟s Department Store, I can‟t recall, but I don‟t remember how the, a department store being
in that area or that building much after that fire. There was another large grocery store and
market called the Bertsch Market on lower Monroe and about where Crescent came into, ran into
Monroe; the west side of Monroe and that area from the Pantlind Hotel south to Bridge Street
and Michigan Avenue as you…
Interviewer: North
Mr. Cary: ….it was all Bridge Street for many, many years and then I think the time the
numbered system was changed the area from Monroe to the east was called Michigan and the
area west of Monroe was still called Bridge Street and the stores and the shops in that area were
as good as the shops up Monroe avenue. There was the Wurzburg‟s Department Store down
close to Crescent Street, there was the Benjamin Company, there was the [Levi‟s] Star Clothing
store in that area, the Petey[?] Apparel Company whose kids went to St. Andrews with me and
their father owned that store which was on the east side of Monroe in the area between Lyon and
Crescent. There was Katz Brothers which was at the corner of, the north east corner of Lyon and
Monroe, the Water Shoe Store[?] which was a large shoe store at that time was there in the sort
of onion shape projection there in the corner of the…well it‟s the first street runs dead end into
the Civic Auditorium.
Interviewer: Where the Inersin[?] Drugstore is now. The Inersin Craft, Art and Supply store is
there?
Mr. Cary: Well no, it‟s not Inersin that‟s over on Louis Street here. That‟s the….
Interviewer: Oh yeah not Inersin.
Mr. Cary: ….Dave Munner, Douma‟s?
Interviewer: Yeah.
Mr. Cary: Yeah, that‟s the street I‟m talking about there. And then of course Aman‟s Sons The
Giant [Giant Clothing Company] was at the south east corner of Lyon. Our earliest theatre,
movie theater, was in the area between Lyon and Monroe across from the Pantlind and Peck‟s
drugstore was in that area. That was a large progressive drugstore and the forerunner of being of
a drugstore being something else besides selling drugs. I can remember one time, it was after I
got out of college - I was practicing law, I was in the west drugstore in the evening around six
o‟clock it may been because I was going to the Armory which was on Michigan Avenue for a
concert. I saw the one, the in-inable[?] Shayapa come into Peck‟s drugstore from across the
street from the Pantlind one of the most striking people I ever saw on the streets of Grand
Rapids. He had one of those Asterican[?] fur hats cocked on the side of his head he was about,
six feet three, six feet four, weighing around two hundred pounds and he carried, carried himself
�8
to the full extent of his height just a magnificent looking male figure and he was giving a concert
at the Armory where concerts were held in those days. But the movies had been in Grand
Rapids was named Gaudet and for years the people in Grand Rapids didn‟t speak of going to the
movies they were going to the Gaudet and I know as green as I was when I went to Boston in
nineteen eighteen, why I would speak of the movies as going to the Gaudet the people down
there of course had no idea what I was talking about and the United Star Store had a place in the
corner of Pearl and Monroe and upstairs over that was one of the finest eating places both from
the standpoint of food and reputation. It was a Chinese restaurant [Hong Ying Lo] operated by
Charlie Young. Mr. Young was a educated Chinese. He was the only interpreter that I ever saw
in the federal court.
[END OF SIDE ONE]
[SIDE TWO] [RECORDING CONTINUES HERE]
…both the plaintiff and the respondent in the same proceedings and they had been because there
weren‟t any other educated Chinese who could act as interpreter but, Charlie Young had the
reputation of being a real, fine character, real fine honest man and it was because of that
reputation, I‟m sure that he was allowed to jump to both sides in the lawsuit. But that restaurant
was, had a reputation all over the west especially in western Michigan and if anyone came in and
were of the least bit boisterous in the place, Mr. Young in a very quiet, suave way went over and
either quieted them, or escorted them to the center stairway so that they could leave.
Interviewer: Was, did you ever go to Chinnick‟s?
Mr. Cary: Chinnick‟s was just east of the Young restaurant, Chinese restaurant and the United
Cigar Store there on the corner was the Arcade, which ran through and it still exists, that runs
through from Pearl to Lyon and the Power‟s Opera House fronted on to the east side of the
Arcade and that was the real, legitimate, the better, legitimate theatre of Grand Rapids of that
area. And just east of that was the, the Chinnick Saloon and upstairs over that there was one of
the first bowling alleys of Grand Rapids, and if not the first, one of the very earliest and about
the only one for many years. As kids growing up as high school boys, there were two saloons
there… the Chinnick and Hugh Cavanaughs or commonly called Colonel Cavanaugh and you
could prove that you looked to be twenty-one, if you could get by either Hugh Cavanaugh or Bill
Chinnick, who sat at the front of their saloon. If you could get by whether you were eighteen or
nineteen, into that, you looked twenty-one……They were a very high grade of operators of
liquor by the glass business and were real respected citizens.
So I, I spoke of Powers Opera House and when I got through college in nineteen twenty-two and
started practicing law in the law firm, of which I am the survivor, and which has existed in Grand
Rapids for one hundred years in nineteen seventy one.. I started at a salary of a hundred dollars a
month. In fact, I could make more money on Saturday afternoon, going out and officiating at ba
football game, than I could all week practicing law. So there was Harper Moore, was at
Knappen, Uhl & Bryants as it was called then, and I was at Norris, McPherson, Harrington and
Waers as it was called then, and Al Cook, my roommate and was at Corwin and Norcross,
Norcross being later a part of Warner, Norcross and Judd and Al Cook was George Norcross‟
brother in law and…. Oh, there were several others, there was Bill Biggerd[?], from Yale, who
was at the Travelers, which was then in the building and where our office was located, and a
�9
fellow by the name of John Randall, whose father was an Episcopal bishop somewhere in
Connecticut, and three or four of them were living at the YMCA, and we used to go there and
play bridge at night and other nights we would take in the theatres. In the early period, although
I don‟t remember very much of our going, that crowd, going to the Majestic, but at that time in
Grand Rapids, there were the, the name escapes me now, a group of players and of that group
was Selena Royal was the leading lady Spencer Tracy was the leading male, young man. Bill, his
name escapes me too; he later became the director of the degrees for the Masonic Order in Grand
Rapids and stayed that way for twenty or twenty-five years, directing the degree program of the
Masonic group. But then the Clark, I guess, Players although I wouldn‟t be sure of that name,
although the man who owned, owned the outfit and or at least operated it, directed it, came out in
sometime, during one of the acts and told what was coming on later on. They later moved to
Powers Theatre Building and operated out of there and so we were real patrons of the legitimate
theatre arts, as stock played by Selena Royal and Spencer Tracy. Selena Royal later went to New
York. She was a part of a theatre family and was in some very fine New York productions. I
can‟t tell you very much of it, about it anymore. I haven‟t followed through in that area
extensively and my memory fails me, in part….
Interviewer: What‟s the…You mentioned that in nineteen thirty-six you came into possession of
a social register of Senator Smiths?
Mr. Cary: Yes.
Interviewer: Did you have any connection with William Alden Smith?
Mr. Cary: Yes, he was, he was a close friend of William Judson and we…shut that off….when I
started practicing law with Norris McPherson, Harrington and Waer, our office was in the Grand
Rapids Savings Bank Building, now the Peoples Building. And the Senator William Alden
Smith was President of the Grand Rapids Savings Bank or was chairman of the board, and
Gilbert Daane was the President of… Mr. Harrington, Mr. Leon Harrington, of the firm was a
friend of Gil Daane‟s and did quite a bit of work for the Grand Rapids Saving Bank. And about
nineteen twenty Gil Daane and Senator Smith organized the Michigan Guarantee Corporation
which was a finance company which was quite prominent in that period following the First
World War. It was an outfit that made loans that the Grand Rapids Savings Bank couldn‟t make
under the regulations of the banking department. And with his prominence, Senator Smith sold
stock in the Michigan Guarantee Corporation, pretty well over the middle and the dock(?) district
of Michigan. And our office did quite a lot of work for the Grand Rapids Savings Bank and the
Michigan Guarantee Corporation. And Mr. Charles McPherson, who was a partner with Joseph
Brewer Senior in Kelsey-Brewer Company which was the partnership which owned the
controlling stock of the American Company Public Utilities Corporation was also a member of
the firm. And the Grand Rapids Trust Company which was subsequently headed by Mr. Brewer
after he got out of the public utility business in nineteen twenty-five, by a sale to Samuel Insel,
was the executor of the William Alden Smith estate. And because of his ownership of Grand
Rapids Savings stock and the double liability of stockholders in case of bank failures the Senator
Smith was estate was considerably diminished by virtue of having to pay on that liability of his
stock. And so the Senator died in nineteen thirty-three, thirty-two or thirty-three, and his wife,
Nanna Smith, survived until late in nineteen thirty-five or early in nineteen thirty-six. So at that
time, I was a young lawyer and a young book collector and I thought that probably Senator
Smith would have some government publications by Schoolcraft and others on the Indians and
�10
things, and I thought probably I could get some real finds. And so I asked Mr. McPherson if I
could go and look over the Senator‟s library and he made arrangements for me to do that, and so
on March the thirteenth, nineteen thirty-six, Irving Quimby, who was the owner of a bookstore
called Raymer‟s Bookstore, along with Mrs. McCarn and Mr. Hooper, who headed the trust
department of the Grand Rapids Trust Company, and one or two others went to the Smith
Library. And before I went, Mr. McPherson said to me, “John I think your just wasting your
time.” He says, “the Senator was a politician not a student.” Well I didn‟t find any real first
editions at the Senator‟s, in the Senator‟s library. I did get a book that the senator got free, which
was a book that was issued when the Clements Library of Ann Arbor was when the University of
Michigan was dedicated and I also got a copy of the History of the Supreme Court of the United
States, which was published in eighteen ninety and in it there were original etchings by two
brothers in Philadelphia, of all of the - Rosenthal were their names - of all of the justices of the
Supreme Court up to eighteen ninety. Those were the two books that I got from the Senator‟s
library and having finished the examination of the books, I was waiting for Irving Quimby to get
through and the others were looking around and there in the library between two Chinese dogs,
which were a real showpiece if you liked that sort of thing, was an old burner and it was filled
with waste of one kind of another, leather obituary mementos which were custom of people with
money in those days to have, were thrown in there and I rummaged through it and I saw a little
black Morocco book about eight by eight in there and I picked it out, rummaged through it, and
immediately recognized that it was a book of autographs. So I sat in the window seat there, and
ran through it, and recognized the names of local people and politicians and state politicians and
national politicians and figures and I was wearing a tweed Al McCain[?] sleeved coat, with great
big pockets and the thought went through my mind and which was well, “Should I say something
about this or should I stick it in my pocket?” And so finally, I thought I can‟t do anything with a
thing like that, after you get it surreptitiously, so I said to Jim Hoover, “Jim, are there any other
books like this around?‟ He said, “What is it?” Well, I says, “It looks like it‟s a book of
autographs.” “Well,” he says, “I don‟t know. But,” he says, “if it‟s here, it belongs to Mrs.
Jewell.” Well Frank Jewell who was had been a lumber man and who was married to Mrs.
Smith‟s sister was there. He had an office in the, on the 12th floor of the Grand Rapids Savings
Bank above my office and our firm offices, so I knew Mr. Jewell through his sons and from
seeing him at the building for a number of years. And so Mr. Jewell said, “Well, if it‟s here,
Mrs. Jewell doesn‟t want it.” That she‟s taken everything that she wants. So I thought, Well,
here is my entry. Here is where I go in. So in my very best dealing smile I handed it to Mr.
Jewell and I said, “Well if it‟s Mrs. Jewell‟s and she doesn‟t want it, it would be hers to give
away”. So I offered it to him and he took it and it flashed through my mind, “you should have
stuck that in your pocket”….He went up stairs with the book and in about 10 or 15 minutes later,
came back and he telephoned across the street to Mrs. Jewell and he walked across the room, the
library there, and handed the book to me and said “Mrs. Jewell wants you to have it. So make
your own moral and how about it? So following that I got squibs and other things from a various
people who were mentioned in the books was the lucky occasion was of a…..
[END OF TAPE ONE, SIDES ONE AND TWO]
[TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE]
Mr. Cary: Ask me what you want.
Interviewer: Well let‟s start out with that story concerning the diary, the one about the Indiana…
�11
Mr. Cary: Okay.
Interviewer: …Congressman.
Mr. Cary: Part of the interesting pages in the William Alden Smith guestbook is that one which
concerns the round robin, which Senator Smith, Senator Watson of Indiana and Senator Hyde,
Harding, of Ohio had on Washington on St. Patrick‟s Day. Our former fellow townsman, Fred
Wetmore, who nominated William Alden Smith, in nineteen thirteen the last nomination by the
Michigan Legislature of a United States Senator, told me this story and that he had it from the
Senator himself, and in the book, on March seventeen, nineteen-eighteen, the Smiths having a
party, the next President of the United States wrote “On the morn of songs and sausages.” And
his wife Florence Kling Harding signed her name and as an aside for many reasons, personal and
intimate writings of President and Mrs. Harding, are difficult to secure and especially together on
the same instrument. Indiana Senator Watson recorded ”On a day long to be remembered.”
Well, Senator Watson was an outspoken, testy curmudgeon and renown in Indiana for his
pointed use of the vernacular. There appears in one of Jonathan Daniels recent books a
statement by Senator Watson, which is more in character than the above statement about it being
a day long to be remembered. Wendell Willkie was from Indiana and in nineteen forty the
Republican candidate for President of the United States. And his supporters sought Senator
Watson‟s endorsement, and the Senator refused because he complained that candidate Willkie
was a Democrat and so he didn‟t want to endorse him and so finally Senator Watson was pushed
and asked if he didn‟t believe in conversion, and the all-irreconcilable graphically snorted, “If a
whore repented and wanted to join the church I‟d personally welcome her, and lead her up the
aisle to a pew. But by the Eternal, I‟d not asked her to lead the choir the first night.”
Interviewer: What was that other, there was another incident you related to me about some
fellow that was, who was in charge of some committee that would approve a project? It was a
pork-barrel project involving the Grand River.
Mr. Cary: Oh that was, was a party which the Smiths gave for Vice President Marshall, who this
Senator, Senator Smith was there during the Wilson administration, and of course Marshall was
Woodrow Wilson‟s Vice President. And so the guests were Vice President Marshall and Senator
and Mrs. Kellogg from Minnesota and Newton Baker, who was Secretary of War at the time,
and his wife and Mrs. T. DeWitt Talmage, who was the widow of a very prominent Presbyterian,
or at least Protestant minister of the Washington community and quite famous. And so one of
the stories about Vice-President Marshall, of course, is the famous one about what this country
needs is a good five-cent cigar. But in his recollections, subtitled “Hoosier Salad”, he related an
occasion when an appropriation to dredge the Grand River in Michigan was being debated. And
Senator William Alden Smith was for the appropriation and Senator Theodore Burton of Ohio,
opposed it. And the controversy, according to Vice President Marshall, was waxing, warm and
Burton was insisting that there never had been two and a half feet depth in that river, and there
never could be and Smith, Senator Smith said to him testily, “Well, you‟re the man to whom
when you were in the house of Representatives, we gave a dinner in Grand Rapids, and you
came back and introduced the first appropriation for this.” “Yes.” Burton replied, “I know that is
so. You gave me a dinner there, and after the dinner, was over, I saw water, where there was no
water”. “But I‟m sober now. I‟ve reformed and I‟m opposed to this appropriation.”
�12
Interviewer: How, how about that, the story about how Catholic Central finally got a football
team?
Mr. Cary: Why I don‟t, I don‟t know whether that story is, is how they got it, but the fact is that
in nineteen twelve, I was a sophomore in Catholic Central High School and in nineteen eleven,
the boys who were Juniors and Seniors in Catholic Central played football, but they were not
allowed to play under the name Catholic Central, because Bishop Richter, who was very
aesthetic, pious, studious man and a great administrator of the Dioceses, who a great number of
years figured that children should be educated and should not waste their time on athletics and
other things, and he wouldn‟t allow athletics in the high school, so the boys who would play and
in nineteen eleven the kids that went to Catholic Central played under the name Ernie Reed‟s.
Ernie Reed was a saloon keeper who had a saloon at the northwest corner of Cherry Street and
Division Avenue. Winegar‟s large furniture store was immediately south of Ernie Reeds, on the
same side of the street and some of the people, who played on the nineteen eleven Ernie Reed
team were Carroll Williams, who later went to the University of Michigan and became a rather
prominent engineer in Grand Rapids, a brother of Francis Williams, the lawyer who has two sons
who were both practicing law in Grand Rapids. One of the other members of the team was John
Hugh O‟Donnell, usually signed J. Hugh O‟Donnell, who went to University of Notre Dame, and
played center on one of the teams that Knute Rockne played on. That would be sometime in
nineteen twelve [or] thirteen and later after the First World War, Hugh O‟Donnell, who was a
very fine imposing, looking person, who had a tremendously sonorous voice, speaking voice,
joined the priesthood. I don‟t know whether he became a regular priest or whether he joined the
order, but he ultimately became a member of the Holy Cross Order and ultimately was elected as
President of Norte Dame, and served for one, six-year term and then was out the required period
and came back and was elected for another six-year term as President of Notre Dame. On that
was also Bob Murray, who‟s family had, made money in the lumbering industry, and the Murray
Building at the corner of Division and Library Street is, was built by Bob Murray‟s father, John
Murray. Oh, there was the Holland, Alphonse Holland and others that, oh an Italian boy who
was one of the stars of that Cole Manardo. In fact, the matter is there may have been two Cole
Manardos, on the, the team, Cole is an abbreviation of Cosamou Manardo and at that time I
knew four Cosie Manardos in various stages of the school at St. Andrews and the one who lived
on Jefferson Avenue, right near Sycamore, went to Detroit and is still a well-to-do, practicing
lawyer in Detroit. Where the others are, I don‟t know now.
Interviewer: Was there much of, when the Ernie Reed football team was playing, did they play
Central High School?
Mr. Cary: I, I was young enough so that I didn‟t know who they played or how they played.
Yeah, at that time, you know there was, there was only one high school that really had a full time
twelve grades and that was Central High School, Grand Rapids Central. At that time it was a
real all-state power, the big teams of the state was Detroit Central, Grand Rapids Central and
Muskegon High School. At a little earlier than that, Robert Zupke, who was later the great coach
at the University of Illinois, was the coach at Muskegon High School and he went from
Muskegon to Oak Park, Illinois, had very successful teams there and then about nineteen twelve
or thirteen, Zup, whom I later was acquainted with personally along with Benny Oosterbaan,
who was one of his boys, but who Zup didn‟t get to go to the University of Illinois, were friends
of mine. We used to play some golf at, in tournaments at Spring Lake and Muskegon and so on.
�13
And Zupke was a very vocal person, always, always telling stories and so in the twenties Zupke
was out scouting and looking for players for Illinois and Benny Oosterbaan was out looking for
players for the University of Michigan. And they traveled together. And I can remember a
couple of years, there was a hole over at Spring Lake Country Club, around the third where the
third, the fifteenth, and the seventh or sort of came together, and so when you‟d finish your
match, and were waiting for the next one, why you‟d congregate in that area. And I spent several
hours there listening to Zupke tell stories about his various teams. Benny Oosterbaan would be
laying on his back, with his hands under his head and his elbows akimbo to his head, and you‟d
think he was asleep, but whenever Zupke would run down Oosterbaan would kind of roll over
like that, open up one eye and say, “Hey Dutchman, did you ever tell them about so-and-so?”,
and Zupke would then be off again no, no sense story so that, when you got away from Grand
Rapids Central, but it was the only high school. It wasn‟t until nineteen eleven or twelve that
Union High School became a full twelve grade school and so I remember that Johnny Beck,
Alvin Louks and some of those boys of that time, some of the others, their names don‟t come to
me now, played on the first Union High School Football team. So get back a little to Catholic
Central, now I played on the first team, a friend of mine lived on the block south of us, was a boy
by the name of Paul Hines. His father was a railroad engineer and Paul was not very successful
in athletics and but he was very fond of them and so I remember in the late summer of nineteen
twelve, I was down at Paul‟s house, we always called him Pickle, Pickle Hines and he asked me
how old I was and how much I weighed. Well I didn‟t know and so we went over to Cody‟s
store, which was at the corner of Highland and Lafayette and I got weighed and I weighed a
hundred and forty-three pounds and I was somewhere around six feet and he says, “Yeah sure.
We‟re going to organize a second team at Catholic Central this year, and I want you to play for
my second team.” The second team had no relation whatever to the first team and we were
playing at the practice grounds at the corner of College and Logan and one night we were
scrimmaging and I was playing fullback for the second team and they finally talked Pickle into
letting our second team play the first team. And so I had a good night in that practice and so
some of the first team members wanted me to play guard on the first team. And Pickle wouldn‟t
let me, because that would spoil his second team, and so there was quite a controversy about it
and finally I was allowed to go to the first team. We played one game at Garfield Park. I
remember that our singing teacher at Catholic Central at that time was Mary Agnes Douglas, a
fine old lady, she probably is much younger at that time than I am now, but at least she was old
to me then. And in order to get some income from the game, we sold tags which you put in your
buttonholes, and I don‟t remember now how much they cost, but Miss Douglas, made a hit with
all of the boys in school because she bought quite a number of those tags for the football game
against Sparta at Garfield Park. Well the sad part of that game was that three or four of our
players got hurt and we couldn‟t continue the rest of the season, because we didn‟t have enough
able-bodied students after that to make-up a football team. Dan Mead, who was playing halfback, hurt his neck. Dan later went to M.A.C. Michigan State College and became an engineer
and one of the top officers in late years of Owen, Ames and Kimball builders. And another one
who got hurt was Bob Murray and I don‟t remember who the two others were. Lester Styles,
who at that time was, had won national honors at Philadelphia for the Grand Rapids‟ Boat and
Canoe Club, was playing tackle along side of me that game. But that was the last, first and last
game of the nineteen twelve Catholic Central High School Football Team. Later on, Bill
Murray, who, that‟s wrong, later on Bill Ducey, who was a, whose family, the son of Michael
Ducey who was a furniture manufacturer, with a factory on Godfrey Avenue, out around Hall
�14
Street, which later became the Johnson – Hanley – Johnson factory, was a student at the
seminary, St. Joseph‟s Seminary and at that time St. Joseph‟s Seminary was across Sheldon
Street from Catholic Central High School. And Bill was studying for the priesthood and he was
short but very quick and was a fine quarterback. He later played quarterback for the Catholic
Central teams of nineteen thirteen and fourteen and Bill played on the second team and the
second team after I went back to it, we went on and we played Union‟s second team at John Ball
Park and both Bill and I got an offer to, I can‟t remember now whether there was any money
connected with the offer or just what it was, but we were offered by Mr. Dillingham, who was
either the principle or the faculty manager of Union High School, some sort of scholarship or
something at Union if we would transfer from Catholic Central to Union. Well the Duceys had a
very large family and the Duceys were very devout as my parent were, and we had about as
much chance playing for anything except the Catholic School as a snowball would in certain
places that are fairly hot. At that time in nineteen thirteen, Elmer Mitchell was the coach at
Union High School. Phil Holloway was our coach at, at Catholic Central and we played Union
High School at Ramona Park on Saturday morning. And we had some pretty big boys on our
team, but it wasn‟t real cohesive as a unit and so we would play good games and bad games.
Well, the day we played Union, we played a good game and Union almost had the disaster of
losing to us. And so the next year when we tried to get Union to play us in nineteen fourteen
Elmer Mitchell said, “Why should I play you guys?” He says, “Your other games you play like a
lot of sand lotters and you play my team and,” he says, “you knock my players out and we have
injuries and so on and I‟m expected to beat you by a high score and if I don‟t, why I‟m in
disgrace. I don‟t want to play you.” And what he said was true. Union was about to, Central was
having an off year after it had a State Championship having beaten Muskegon a year or two
before when Central had a great team headed by our sheriff of later years, Hugh Blacklock who
became an all American, after having played four years at M.A.C, he went to Great Lakes and
played there, while playing at Great Lakes on the service team he became All-American, a
Walter Camp All-American. He later joined the Staleys, which was headed by George Halas and
ultimately became the Chicago Bears. Hugh Blacklock played for the Chicago Bears until about
nineteen twenty-six or twenty-seven, a matter of six or seven years. Hugh was a great player and
a great person and was a real credit to professional football and to college football in Grand
Rapids.
Interviewer: This is a little away from, away from football, but could you tell me about the
breweries in Grand Rapids and that story about how the breweries apparently had something to
do with preserving part of the population.
Mr. Cary: Why that matter about the health of Grand Rapids isn‟t anything that‟s original with
me. It is set forth in Baxter‟s History of Grand Rapids, which in my opinion is a real history of
Grand Rapids and is a wealth of information on Grand Rapids history. But John Pennell or
Pennell, P-E-double N-E-double L, was an Englishman who settled in Grand Rapids about
eighteen thirty-four, eighteen thirty-six and he because of the fact that at the foot of the hill on
Michigan Avenue, which was then called East Bridge Street, there were springs of very pure,
fine water and Mr. Pennell secured the rights to that land and that water and piped it across East
Bridge Street over to the corner of Ionia and Bridge and made English Beer. What the difference
is between it and the German Lager beer that I‟ll talk about, I don‟t know. And so the German
migration to Grand Rapids brought with it a great number of men and families who were brewers
in various provinces of Germany and one of the more prominent of these brewers was
�15
Christopher Kusterer and in, sometime in the eighteen forties, I think probably about eighteen
forty-nine, Christopher Kusterer bought out the stock in the business of John Pennell and
whether he removed it from across the street to the southwest corner of East Bridge and Ionia or
not isn‟t quite clear historically but that area was the area where the water was. And Kusterer
wanted that water. And he then started making lager beer. At that time the area which was the,
the part of Grand Rapids along Canal Street, along in that area was swampy and that condition
also existed down around the around the area where the, the Union Railroad Station was
ultimately built on Ionia at Logan or at Weston or Island as it was called previous to Weston and
Oakes and Cherry in that area, was low ground and swampy. And there was, it was sort of an
ague was contracted by a lot of people in the, in the Grand Rapids area. Whether it was malarial
or not I‟m not quite sure, but the out it, as a result of it they contracted a certain amount of chills
and shaking.
Interviewer: Let‟s, let‟s just stop there for a second so I can turn the tape over, okay?
[Audio recording ends at this point]
Mr. Cary: I was talking about the fact that many residents of Grand Rapids suffered these chills
and shaking ague that went along with it and that between the late eighteen forties and eighteen
fifty-five that would be about eight years following the, the sale and brewing of lager beer. That
condition was almost completely eliminated so far as Grand Rapids was concerned. Whether
that‟s sound medically or not I don‟t know but if that is true, it can be well said that the Grand
Rapids Brewing industry really played an important part in the public health of the city of Grand
Rapids. Christopher Kusterer was a real business man. He had a good sense of, of what was a
good product and the way to market it and get the people to buy it. And there were oh, I
wouldn‟t know how many German brewers there were who had brewers it, in this period of the
late forties and early fifties. Peter Weirich who was, an important German Businessman in that
period had what was called a Michigan brewery at West Bridge and Indiana. There was the
Eagle brewery which was established in eighteen seventy-six at fifty Stocking Street by Jacob
Veit and Paul Rathman. The Tusch brothers had a brewery on Grandville Avenue and I think
that was a little south of Wealthy Street. And then H. A. Britt had one on West Division Street
and West Division was a street on the west side and its name was changed when Grand Rapids
completely reversed the names of its streets and avenues and had all thoro, thoroughfares
running east and west as streets and all north and south as avenues. And it was at that time that
the city was geographically divided into four quadrants with Fulton Street dividing north and
south and Division Street dividing east and west. And John Gessler and company had a brewery
on Page Street up in the north end. Adolph Goetz, whose family was later a client of mine had a
brewery at Broadway and West Leonard. And the Union Brewery was located at eighty-seven
South Division Street and it was established in eighteen sixty-two by George Brandt. In eighteen
eighty-eight the proprietors were Elizabeth B. Brandt and I think she is the widow of the
organizer of George Brandt but I‟m not sure. And then there was George Jub, W. Brandt, he‟s
the son of the original George Brandt and Julius Petersen. The Petersens had a brewery which
was operating as late as nineteen twenty and their brewery was on Indiana Avenue, just south of
Bridge Street, the Union Brewery at eighty-seven South Division Street was located at the
southeast corner of Oakes and Division. And in the period of about nineteen oh-five to nineteen
ten those premises were operated by Theodore Clark. And the Neal Cary flam, family was a
customer of Theodore Clark in the summertime because when he came to deliver the beer at our
�16
house, I would quite often ride with Mr. [Louis P.] Maude the driver of the truck for the rest of
his finishing up the rest of his route. Later Mr. Maude was the bailiff for United States Circuit
Court of Appeals Judge, Arthur W. Dennison. And later on in our lifetimes we used to talk
about our deliveries many years before.
Interviewer: Then the breweries, the solo breweries consolidated.
Mr. Cary: Yes, Christopher Kusterer in eighteen eighty was a victim of the steamer Alpena
disaster which was the loss of the Alpena on a trip from either Holland or Muskegon to Chicago
or Milwaukee. And following that the, the any number of these breweries consolidated and
joined up and the Grand Rapids Brewing Company was the result of that amalgamation of these
various German family breweries. And prior to sometime between eighteen eighty and the
publication of the Baxter History of Grand Rapids in eighteen ninety, the large red building, the
home of the Grand Rapids Brewing Company was built and it was a landmark on Michigan Hill,
which was formerly East Street Bridge Street for many years and until nineteen sixty-four, five
or six whenever that was torn down as part of the Urban Renewal in the Grand Rapids
Downtown area.
Interviewer: The, the, I think you said that their beer was Silver Foam.
Mr. Cary: Yes.
Interviewer: And how, what, how did they market that beer around town? Then there was the
story about the Branch Bank in Michigan and how breweries affected branch banking.
Mr. Cary: Oh, well, it, it, it was the custom of breweries, it wasn‟t unique in Grand Rapids, but
the law books have cases in which Joseph Schlitz had certain corners in certain cities which he
would lease to a man who would be expected to only dispense Schlitz Beer. And there are
records of breeches of that agreement and law suits over it. And there also in the Michigan
records of suits by various breweries in Michigan who have the same situation and so the Grand
Rapids Brewing Company bought up some of the best retail corners throughout the city of Grand
Rapids. One of them was the southeast corner of Franklin and Division and off hand I, I don‟t
remember any others and I haven‟t done any research on it so I, I‟m not sure of that. I‟m sure of
that one but there were many more. And when prohibition came to Michigan in nineteen
eighteen, the time of the First World War and the Grand Rapids Brewing Company went out of
the brewing business, it went into the real estate business and sold these prominent corners in
Grand Rapids to George Ellis who had a private bank, to the Grand Rapids Saving Bank, to the
Kent State and they established branch banks on those corners throughout the, the, throughout
the city. And those corners were used by branch banks until very modern times when the plaza
and the outside area shopping districts were, came into being and so progress changes and
methods of branch banking change but the brewing business was forerunner of branch banks.
Interviewer: This is a,
Mr. Cary: After repeal of prohibition the National trend of consumers to prefer the highly
advertised national brands of beer sounded the death knell of the relatively small local breweries
throughout the United States and the attempt by the Fox people of Chicago to take over the old
red building of Grand Rapids Brewing Company on Michigan Avenue and Market Fox Deluxe
beer succeeded for several years. But then it just couldn‟t compete with the National Advertising
�17
that had to be done in order to sell beer. There are probably more money spent for television
time for beer than for any other product and if you haven‟t got money to do that advertising, you
lose out. As illustration, Harry Heilman who was one of the great broadcasters of radio and
television broadcasting the Detroit Tiger games for many years his product was Global Beer but
a…..
[SIDE TWO OF TAPE TWO]
….make it in the Grand Rapids Brewing Company later followed by Fox Deluxe part of the
Frank Fox family of Chicago. I was not able to make it either. And it…….not very many people
now remember what that big red building was, what caused it to be there and so on yet it
gracefully aged up there on the hill, but finally it was looked upon as an eye-sore and the cost of
trying to maintain it in condition so that it was not a hazard as a structure that it finally felt that
with the Urban Renewal it had to be torn down and when it was a historical era so far as Grand
Rapids is concerned, passed out of existence. It goes back to the very early beginnings of Grand
Rapids in the 1840s and its industrial life and it saddens people who have lived through a part of
that period when structures of that kind were a real life blood of the community. And some
place or other I think probably that the following quotation, I don‟t know whether where it‟s
from is a probably a good obituary for the old Grand Rapids Brewing company building, the
home of Silver Foam Beer and I quote: “Yet shall some Tribute of regret be paid when her long
life hath reached its final day. Men are we and must grieve when even the shade of that which
once, of that which once was great, passed away”.
INDEX
A
D
American Laundry Company · 1
B
Daane, Gil · 10
Daly Family · 3
Douglas, Mary Agnes · 15
Blacklock, Hugh · 16
Burton, Senator Theodore (Ohio) · 2, 13
E
Erie Canal · 2
C
Cady, William · 2
Cary, Cornelius "Neal" (Father) · 2, 5
Cary, Julia A. Lynch · 1, 2
Cary, Patrick (Grandfather) · 1, 2
Catholic Central High School · 13, 14, 15
Cavanaugh Family · 9
Chinnick Saloon · 9
Clark, M.J. · 6, 7, 10
Coliseum · 5
F
Fanitorium · 4
G
Gaudet (movei theatre) · 8
Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad · 1
�18
Grand Rapids Brewing Company · 17, 18
Grand Rapids Trust Company · 10
H
Hines, Paul · 14
Holland, Alphonse · 14
Holloway, Phil · 15
Hoover, Jim · 11
J
Jewell, Frank · 7, 11
Judson Grocery Company · 2, 6, 7
O
O‟Donnell, John Hugh · 13
Oosterbaan, Benny · 14
P
Peck‟s Drugstore · 5, 7, 8
Pennell, John · 16
Pipp Family · 4
Powers Opera House · 9
Q
Quimby, Irving · 6, 11
K
Kelvinator plant · 3
Kleinhans, Jacob · 6
Knappen, Stuart · 6
Kusterer, Christopher · 16, 17
R
Reed, Ernie · 2, 13, 14
Roosevelt, Alice · 5
Roosevelt, Theodore (President) · 4
Royal, Selena · 10
L
Leonard Family · 3
Lynch Family · 1, 2, 3
Lynch, Jeremiah (Grandfather) · 2, 3
Lynch, Timothy (Uncle) · 1
M
Manardo, Cole · 14
Marshall, Vice President · 2, 12, 13
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T) · 4
Maude, Louis P. · 17
Michigan Central Railroad · 2
Morrissey Family · 4
Morse, George · 6, 7
Murray Family · 13, 15
Musselman Grocery Company · 6
N
Nunamaker, Leslie · 4
S
Silver Foam beer · 18, 19
Smith, Senator · 7, 10, 11, 12, 13
Smith, William Alden · 5, 6, 10, 12, 13
St. Alphonsus Church · 3
St. Andrews School · 4, 5, 8, 14
T
Tracy, Spencer · 10
U
Union Brewery · 17
University of Michigan · 1, 11, 13, 14
W
Watson, Senator (Indiana) · 12
Williams, Carroll · 13
�19
Willkie, Wendell · 12
Worden Grocery Company · 6
Wurzburg‟s Department Store · 8
Y
Young, Charlie · 8, 9
Z
Zupke, Robert · 14
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b61d7840d1ac70b8eba674a8eaa0c739.mp3
ee8a99f2ad5c19b3ad26c124a1407cd8
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
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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
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Various
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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application/pdf; audio/mp3
Language
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eng
Type
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Text; Sound
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RHC-23
Coverage
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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
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RHC-23_18-19Cary
Title
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Cary, John
Creator
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Cary, John
Description
An account of the resource
John Cary was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on October 2, 1897.
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
Language
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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
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Text
Sound
Format
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application/pdf
audio/mp3
Source
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Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)
Date
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1971
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/653e8500444ac7a4b9cbf4701b21e2b3.pdf
5f9499f242e06f9ecf1ed9a7bcac8b28
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Young Lords
In Lincoln Park
Interviewee: Cathy Adorno-Centeno
Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez
Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Date: 8/24/2012
Biography and Description
Cathy Adorno-Centeno is the daughter of Angie Navedo-Rizzo, a Young Lord who also founded “Mothers
and Others,” a sub-group within the Young Lords that organized around women’s rights issues. Born in
Chicago, Ms. Adorno-Centeno describes growing up surrounded by Young Lords and in a home that was
a central gathering for pot luck family dinners for members of the organization and their supporters.
Following the brutal death of her Young Lord father Jose “Pancho” Lind, Ms. Adorno-Centeno and her
brothers and mother went underground; staying at a rented farm near Tomah, Wisconsin that would
become the Young Lords’ Training Camp. Her most vivid childhood memories are of the warmth and
support she enjoyed as a member of the Young Lords community. It included block parties, farmworker
pickets, demonstrations and social events held near or in the Young Lords headquarters on Wilton and
Grace streets. She also spent time at Rico’s Club (which her mother owned) and enjoyed company for
the Sunday pasta dinners in her home. Today, Ms. Adorno-Centeno still lives in Chicago, where she is a
leader within her community. Each year she organizes Angie’s Fighter’s, a cancer walk in her mother’s
memory. She works as a Human Resource Executive.
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e8af58196d7a09867520b27e6a6db423.mp4
cf711dd7ba96f07c1a3973e055d73b0b
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
Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Description
An account of the resource
Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives.
The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-25
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
video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
2012-2017
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Título
Spanish language Title entry
Cathy Adorno-Centeno vídeo entrevista y biografía
Sujetos
Spanish language Subject terms
Young Lords (Organización)
Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos
Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Narrativas personales
Justicia social
Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago
Source
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a>
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-65_Adorno-Centeno_Cathy
Title
A name given to the resource
Cathy Adorno-Centeno video interview and biography
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Adorno-Centeno, Cathy
Description
An account of the resource
Cathy Adorno-Centeno is the daughter of Angie Navedo-Rizzo, a Young Lord who also founded “Mothers and Others,” a sub-group within the Young Lords that organized around women’s rights issues. Born in Chicago, Ms. Adorno-Centeno describes growing up surrounded by Young Lords and in a home that was a central gathering for pot luck family dinners for members of the organization and their supporters. Following the brutal death of her Young Lord father Jose “Pancho” Lind, Ms. Adorno-Centeno and her brothers and mother went underground; staying at a rented farm near Tomah, Wisconsin that would become the Young Lords’ Training Camp. Her most vivid childhood memories are of the warmth and support she enjoyed as a member of the Young Lords community. It included block parties, farmworker pickets, demonstrations and social events held near or in the Young Lords headquarters on Wilton and Grace streets. She also spent time at Rico’s Club (which her mother owned) and enjoyed company for the Sunday pasta dinners in her home.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
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
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
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
Moving Image
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-08-04
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/de0ee63569742834fcae0228cabeddaf.pdf
21f35d9c3115089ae99f001b2a35fa3e
PDF Text
Text
Young Lords
In Lincoln Park
Interviewee: Celso_Rivera
Interviewers: Jose Jimenez
Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Date: 3/28/2011
Runtime: 01:16:45
Biography and Description
Celso F. Rivera was born November 11, 1949 in Coamo, Puerto Rico. It is a southeastern town of
the Island; agricultural with a history sugar cane production. He is one of five siblings. The
mother is Angelca and the father is Francisco Rivera. When he arrived in Chicago in 1954, the
family owned their first home at 1705 N. Fremont. He remembers how content they were living
amongst their own culture. The Grandfather put a barber shop in the basement. His older
brother built a makeshift roller coaster unto the back stairway. Kids paid a couple of pennies to
climb into a wooden crate and get pushed down into a ramp. It ended in the back yard. Next
door, inside another home was a Black church which filled up on Sundays and holidays.
He describes that the area was primarily a Puerto Rican enclave within Lincoln Park that
bordered Willow, North Ave., Halsted and Sheffield Streets. These enclaves later formed into a
much larger Puerto Rican barrio which went scores of blocks from North Ave. to Addison and
from Clark to Ashland.
Lincoln Park was a segregated area, he describes. There were Gypsy, Italians, Black, a few
Mexican families where he lived but primarily Puerto Ricans. The kids would play sports in
competition at the boys, but if they later crossed into another nationality’s territory; they
�would get beaten up. It was the same in Mulligan School, Newberry and at Waller High School
where the clubs turned into street gangs.
Celso was working as a Public Safety Officer at St. Elizabeth Hospital, which was changing over
from Polish patrons to more Puerto Rican, when he first translated for a woman that he
discovered was his sister from another mother. He and his older brother visited with her and
they talked as if they had known each other all their lives.
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/01bf2443095370292c5e3f297388e58b.mp4
3593f80027509a286144b26b590dd9cd
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
Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Description
An account of the resource
Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives.
The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-25
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
video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
2012-2017
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Título
Spanish language Title entry
Celso Rivera vídeo entrevista y biografía
Descripción
Spanish language Description entry
La historia oral de Celso Rivera, entrevistado por Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez el 03/28/2011 acerca de los Young Lords en Lincoln Park.
Sujetos
Spanish language Subject terms
Young Lords (Organización)
Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos
Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Narrativas personales
Justicia social
Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago
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-65_Rivera_Celso
Title
A name given to the resource
Celso Rivera video interview and biography
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rivera, Celso
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history of Celso Rivera, interviewed by Jose 'Cha-Cha' Jimenez, on 03/28/2011 about the Young Lords in Lincoln Park.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
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
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
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
Moving Image
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
application/pdf
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Young Lords collection (RHC-65)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-03-28
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a1cc75a212f15c4194ea920ff9b90199.pdf
4fbff5bf3cf847b3c1b952ca31c310b0
PDF Text
Text
Change Amidst a Pandemic
The date was March 11th, 2020. I remember it being a Wednesday evening; my roommate
and I were having dinner and watching the news when we first received word that our University
was closing it’s doors and switching to an online format. We had the next two days off while
teachers rapidly conformed their entire curriculum from in-class lectures to completely virtual.
An uneasy and anxious feeling warped through my body.
We had heard on the news of various Coronavirus cases around the world, but we were
yet to have any confirmed in Michigan… until today. This whole thing just got entirely more
real. My roommate immediately decided that she was going to head home; but I didn’t have that
option. Although the University chose to close, I still had a job that was planning to remain open.
I worked at a gym facility called MVP where I was apart of the daycare program. I went into
work that Friday, March 13th for an eight hour shift. On my drive in, I was unsure what to think.
I was worried about catching the virus, I didn’t know what to expect because Fridays are our
busiest day of the week, and I didn’t know if it’d be different because all schools in the state had
shutdown. All I knew is that one of two things were likely to happen; we’d either be slammed
and busy all day, or it’d be completely empty. A usual Friday consisted of a couple hundred kids
in and out throughout the day, but on this particularly day, we had a total of maybe fifteen. It was
a ghost-town.
After work, I called my mom on my way home just to update her on what’s going on. At
this point, all three of my roommates had left our apartment to go home. I knew I didn’t want to
have to stay there alone, but I still had to work. My mom encouraged me to stay the next few
days and just see how things would play out. So, as planned, I went to work on Saturday and
Sunday. It remained really slow, which again, was weird because weekends are normally busy. It
�wasn’t until the end of my shift on Sunday night, that I received an email notifying all of the
MVP staff that the gym was going to close for the next two weeks. A sense of relief filled my
body because I could finally go home. During this very strange time of uncertainty, all I wanted
was to be home and with my family.
The following morning, Monday, March 16th, I packed up my car with as much stuff that
could fit and drove home to Illinois. Most of my teachers were still trying to get everything
online so I didn’t have much to do that week. Just a few assignments here and there. It was only
a day or two after I got home, when I received an email stating that the University will be closed
for the remaining of the school-year. I could not believe this was happening, it honestly felt
surreal. I actually ended up driving back to school on Saturday, March 21st, with my mom so we
could move everything out of my apartment. I felt really sad leaving and knowing that I wouldn’t
be back until August. I did the math and from the time I got home, it would be 5.5 months until I
would be going back to school again. I honestly was very unsure how I felt about that.
Fast forward, it is now Thursday, April 23rd and I just completed my last final. I spent the
last month of my semester learning through an online format and I have mixed reviews about it.
Some of my teachers made the course easier by removing an assignment here and there or
allowing you to use your notes on an exam. I definitely appreciated these teachers because, as
they emphasized over and over, all they wanted was to create a relaxed environment during this
time of great stress and uncertainty. Other teachers kept their syllabus as is, which was fine
because it was all very manageable. I definitely think I would have learned and retained more
information if it had been through in-class lectures. Although, to say the least, I still completed
my courses, learned a lot, and maintained a 4.0 GPA.
�As far as quarantine has gone though, I only have one word: boring. I truly don’t know
what I am going to do now that school is over. I wouldn’t say I enjoy school, but it kept me on a
schedule and gave me something to do every day. A part from school, in order to stay busy, I try
to exercise every day. I normally go for a run every morning because it not only motivates me to
be productive throughout the rest of the day, but it also is a great stress-reliever for me.
Additionally, I try to do something creative once a day. Whether it be baking, coloring, or doing
a puzzle, I like to incorporate a little bit of fun into each day. This is honestly such a scary time
to be alive, I know it’s a year in my life that I will never forget. Although it’s a time of extreme
uncertainty because we have no idea when this will end, I am just living day by day, trying to
keep a positive outlook on the whole situation.
�
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
COVID-19 Journals
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Description
An account of the resource
This collection of journals and personal narratives was solicited from the GVSU community by archivists of the University Libraries during the events of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis the university closed suddenly, following federal and state guidelines of social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. The university closed its campuses on March 12, 2020, and quickly moved students out of campus housing. Faculty swiftly transitioned to fully-online teaching for the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester, and all campus events, including commencement, were cancelled.
The purpose of the COVID-19 Journaling Project was to document the individual and personal experiences of GVSU’s students, staff, faculty, and the wider community during this time of international crisis. Some project participants were university student employees who were compensated for their journaling. Other participants were granted stipends or extra credit for submitting entries to the archives. Still others participated without any compensation or credit. The University Archives remains grateful to all who submitted journals, for helping us to understand the impact of this crisis on our community.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Epidemics
Grand Valley State University
College students
Personal narratives
COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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
COVID-19_2020-04-23_ANON_009
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anonymous
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-04-23
Title
A name given to the resource
Change Amidst a Pandemic
Description
An account of the resource
Journal of an anonymous GVSU student's experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Subject
The topic of the resource
COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2020
Epidemics
Grand Valley State University
College students
Personal narratives
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
University Archives. COVID-19 Journaling Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng