2 24 42 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/11ea1869008f3d5bdbe74b6eca98ccb6.pdf 39b52b83ffbbfe3c6e9ac2cdbdccd697 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Miss Doris Robinson Interviewed on November 5, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape # 50 (1:03:49) Biographical Information Doris H. Robinson was born 2 January 1893 in Grand Rapids. She was the daughter of Albert Robinson and Jennie M. Baker. Doris lived in Grand Rapids her entire life. Albert Robinson was born in Salem, Massachusetts 12 March 1848, the son of Jeremiah A. Robinson and Harriet A. Brown. Jennie M. Baker was born about July 1858 in Wilbraham, Hampden County, Massachusetts. Albert and Jennie were married 24 December 1876 in Paw Paw, Michigan. Albert was a dentist and he died in Grand Rapids on 14 May 1898 when Doris was five years old. Jeremiah Robinson was also a dentist and he died in Grand Rapids two years earlier on 3 March 1896. __________ Interviewer: This interview with Doris Robinson was conducted November five, nineteen seventy-one. O.K. Fine. Miss Robinson: Alright, we‟ll begin with Sheldon Avenue where I lived for sixty years. I came there when I was about a year old, and that was almost seventy nine years ago almost, yes, seventy nine years next January, My father had built us a house in the second block down from Monroe, from Fulton Street. Kitty-corner from where the YWCA is now, was next to the corner. He had decided that it would be, he would leave his dental office down on Monroe Avenue and have a dental office in a house in which, which he would build. And, the house was completed in eighteen ninety-four and it was there until nineteen fifty-three when I moved, oh it was there until nineteen fifty-four when it was taken down by Mr. Ellis for a parking lot and a quick wash. Sheldon Avenue was very different in those days from what it is now. It wasn‟t a very busy street and it was quite an aristocratic street and it was a street on which people enjoyed living because they get down, they could get downtown, quickly and yet it was a very beautiful street. People today would never realize that it was as beautiful street as it is, as it was then. It was a street lined with maples and elm and the beautiful homes all along the sides, on both sides. The street was a dirt street lined with cobblestones and there were many hitching posts and horse blocks in front of each of the houses where cement parking walks went down from the sidewalk to the parking lots and that‟s the block. The horse blocks were made so that you could get out of your carriage easily; there were no automobiles in those days. People would be horrified to see �2 these hundreds of automobiles parked along the sides of the street and down the middle of the street. There were beautiful carriages going down the streets drawn by horses. I can‟t, we had a surrey, fringe topped surrey, with a horse and a carriage and a sleigh in the winter, the surreys were more family carriages and not, not so elegant. But down the street came many an elegant carriage with a coachman at the back, driving it or at the top, with the lady down below. In those days ladies wore long train dresses. And my, I can remember my mother‟s dress that she had when I was born, I‟m not, I couldn‟t remember it at that time but she, we kept it for a dressup dress. It had, it wasn‟t, it‟s, with, struts the ground. It was, and it had a bustle at the back. And there were large sleeves and then, there were trimming around it. It was made by a very elegant dressmaker; you didn‟t buy your dresses in those days in stores. They were, they, sometimes the dressmaker came to your house and stayed for two or three days or even a week and had her dinner there, her yes, a dinner at noon with you, and you paid her so much by the hour. But there were some very elegant dressmakers too in the house and my mother wasn‟t particularly fond of clothes but my father wanted her to have very lovely dress, so he, I can‟t, I don‟t remember the woman‟s name, of course, I wouldn‟t remember at that time. But my mother told me about the dress, who made it and I think she married a Winegar [Frank B. Winegar married Aurilla Pearl in 1893; lived at 203 Sheldon] who was quite a prominent man woman here, family here. He owned Winegar‟s store on South Division, right opposite, at the end of Cherry Street. It was a furniture store. And the Winegars lived on Sheldon. She had a carriage, I think after that with a coachman. But this dress that I enjoyed so much through my years - I was born in the year after she, she had it made - and she had to have it made to hide her condition. It was that she had extra piece of cloth, it was made of red, moiré, I think. It‟s in the museum today and it came, the piece of cloth from the shoulder down to the waist went over her. Now she was a very small woman and it came to here, the waist came to a point and was buttoned all the way up to the top. And that was all hidden, and so then she could let it out with strings. Well, when I used to wear it, I was so much larger and grew so much fatter than my mother ever was, that was it was very fashionable to have a small waist and by the time I was a young woman that wasn‟t, of course I wasn‟t so large as I am now but, I never was as small as my mother. So I had to wear it when I was dressed up with the, the piece of material that hid the front of the dress and I‟d let all the strings. I gave that dress to a museum and a lady is wearing it, a figure, in one of the shops in the Gaslight Station. I got quite a kick out of this. Well. Anyway, I think maybe you‟d like to know about different people that lived in the first block. On the corner of Fulton and Sheldon was the Watson home, Major [Amasa B.] Watson, I think he might have been major in the, I don‟t know. Interviewer: I think it was the Civil War. Miss Robinson: Was it the Civil War? Mrs. Watson was quite old then. It was a beautiful home and it looked like a castle with its turrets, sort of, a number of turrets, it faced Fulton Street and could look across at Fulton Street Park. The side, on the side was a porch and when I would go by the house, I would often see Mrs. Watson and her nephew Billy Mead, sitting on the porch, looking down Monroe Avenue because there was a beautiful view looking down the street. And people liked living downtown. They, they enjoyed that. On the front, between the house and where the Metz building is, was a large fence, a wrought iron, black wrought iron, and behind �3 that you could look through and see Mrs. Watson in her garden. There was a beautiful pond on which she raised lilies, beautiful lilies. It was a lovely, garden and she lived there I think even up to the time of the Metz building. When I was a little girl, every year at Decoration Day, the National Guard sent up, or the Watson Post, sent up a military group of people, I don‟t know, it wouldn‟t be a regiment, with a band and the parade it, this, they would play patriotic music before the parade began. And often the parade started on Sheldon. Sometimes up around on Jefferson. And I could, I‟d run down the street and see all the parades, as a matter of fact. Most of them started up there. Later on the Christmas Parade started up there on Sheldon and would go down. But that was after Sheldon was getting to be more of a business street. Mrs. Watson could look out on Fulton Street Park and she could look across the road at the old Godfrey, May Godfrey home, which was on the corner of Park and Fulton; a lovely old-fashioned home which should never have been destroyed. That‟s where, they have parking lot now. It… Interviewer: What was Park Street? Which street is that? Miss Robinson: Park Street is the street that goes… well there were two Park Streets, Park Street going down, past Park Congregational Church. Interviewer: Oh. Miss Robinson: And, next to the Congregational church was a second Godfrey home. I think it was Mrs. Godfrey, Miss May Godfrey‟s brother that had that. And there was a Georgia Godfrey and I don‟t know whether that, she was quite a lot older than I and whether there were some other Godfreys or not. They moved to California. They were quite wealthy people. May Godfrey was a very wealthy woman. And so was the Godfrey family. And there was another Godfrey family that lived up on Fountain Street, right southwest of Lafayette, about two, two or three houses down. I think it was the house that the Booth people later on, Esther Booth lived in later on. Yes I‟m quite sure that was the Godfrey built by the Godfrey family, related to these Godfreys. They owned, I think a block down on Monroe Avenue. Interviewer: Well the Booth family house was come to be known as, the Booth house was built by the Shelbys. Miss Robinson: Oh, it was? Interviewer: Yes. Miss Robinson: Well, then it was the house next to it because I remember definitely there was a Godfrey house. But could it, it had been later, before that? I use to go to Fountain Street School. I went up the hill every day past all those houses. Interviewer: It was, it could have been perhaps the house…. Miss Robinson: I think it was the Booth house back then but it had gone long perhaps quite a time before that. And the Shelbys lived on at, the Shelbys that in my day lived on the other side of Agnes Caulfield or Mrs. McKnight‟s home. �4 Interviewer: Yes. Miss Robinson: They lived in a brick house on? Interviewer: They built this? Miss Robinson: On Lafayette. Interviewer: Yes, they built the three homes, they built two facing Lafayette Miss Robinson: They did? Oh. Interviewer: And they built the Booth house. Those three are all Shelby houses. Miss Robinson: Oh, I see, Yes. Well, Mrs, another little interesting thing about Mrs. Watson was that she, after her husband died, she went into deep mourning. And that was quite customary of widows in those days. And she wore a veil, a black veil, over her face for quite a while. This custom was, well, then she was, well, she stayed in mourning for a long time and they, she had a cemetery up here, Oak Hill Cemetery; a beautiful mausoleum where her husband was buried. And she would go up there occasionally and have, and look at, he‟s, she‟d have the drawer where he was placed, opened, and she could look in at him. And that, my father thought was very, what was the word? Interviewer: Morbid? Miss Robinson: Morbid. My father felt that mourning was terrible but they, you would see widows going down the street in their lovely carriages drawn by horses with docked tails and mourning ribbons tied on their ears or around their necks. They stayed in Side one second section: Miss Robinson: …. mourning for a year. My mother, my father begged my mother never to do so, so she didn‟t. He would, he wouldn‟t even drive through a cemetery. Well, Mrs. Watson was the aunt of the mother of well, she was the aunt of Mrs. Tom Carroll [Julia Agnes Mead]. I don‟t know whether Mr. Tom Carroll was an adopted, she was a Mead. And Katherine Carroll inherited the Watson home. And that was called the Wa, when they built, a building, they built the building on there which was called the Watson building. And there were offices in it and little stores along the side later on. And now it‟s, of course, Jacobson‟s. Then, next door there were just two houses in that block. Next door to Mrs. Watson, on the other side of the alley that ran from Sheldon to LaGrave was Mrs. Putnam‟s [Caroline nee Williams; Mrs. Lemuel D. Putnam] home, that was built up quite high, it was a hill, a slight hill there and it had beautiful lawn all the way around it. Mrs. Watson is, when I was a little, young girl, was very old, at least she seemed so to me, and she was very wealthy. And, I don‟t know what her husband did. She had once been the president of the Ladies Literary Club and at one time I think she was a teacher at a time when St. Mark‟s had a school for young women. One of… �5 Interviewer: Was this Mrs. Watson or Mrs. Putnam? Miss Robinson: Mrs. Putnam, excuse me. Interviewer: OK. Miss Robinson: Mrs. Putnam. She was once the president of the Ladies Literary and had been a teacher in the early days. I think in the Saint Mark‟s School for Young Ladies. One of the first schools here in Grand Rapids. And, so she was quite old, she had a daughter called Carolyn and then she, no maybe her name was Carolyn, her daughter was Isabelle [Isabel W. Putnam died 14 July 1901], because the Isabelle home was given in her, the member memory of her daughter. And, it was a home for old ladies. At first, in the first place it was out on, well, they called it Central Avenue, and they later changed it to, calling it Sheldon. But when, Sheldon ended at First Avenue, First Avenue, is it Buckley now? Interviewer: I‟m, I don‟t know. Miss Robinson: I think it is, they‟ve changed all those avenues from First, Second, Third and Fourth and Fifth. Interviewer: OK. Miss Robinson: And gave them the, because on the West side there are also First, First Streets and so forth and so they, it was often confusing. Well, Mrs.Ca, Mrs. Putnam, was known as the American Princess. Because she took, she went to Algiers every winter and that was quite a thing to do in that day. Not too many people went to Europe, as they do today. It was very wonderful to be able to have enough money to take a European trip. Well, she would take not only herself, but she took a nurse and a doctor, and a doctor and his wife and a companion sometimes and they were known as the American Princess, who took this great number of people. Well, I, then we come to my block, the block I live in. I don‟t remember this but my father bought, I think my father bought the lot, it was the second lot from Weston and in those days that was called Island Street, because that street went down to the Island, that had been in the, years ago destroyed but it went down near the jail. They, I, I guess the market place was on the, you know the market place. Interviewer: Yes. Miss Robinson: I think that was, where the island was. Of course that was filled up. Well that was called Island Street, and I think it should be Island today. It was named after somebody, I don‟t know who Mr. Weston was, but he sometime or other, the commissioners decided to change it from Island Street to Weston. Well, I think that‟s too bad because that‟s really a historical name. And, my father bought the second lot from the corner and on one of the leases it says it was from Mrs. Putnam, so she must have owned that land in there. They built in eighteen ninety-three and we moved in there in eighteen ninety-four. His first office had been on Monroe Avenue where the, above Herkner‟s. �6 Interviewer: Your, your, I don‟t think we‟ve established your father just for the sake of this tape. Your father was a dentist? Miss Robinson: Yes, well, yes, I was going to. He had, he came with my mother from, they were Massachusetts people originally. Their ancestors were all New England people. And they had come out to Paw Paw; my father went there to practice dentistry. My Grandfather Robinson, he wasn‟t, he came and died here in Grand Rapids at our home but I wasn‟t going to bring him in because he, his home was Jackson. His home was Ca, he was born in Concord and my father had been born in Salem and they‟d come out to, early days to Jackson. They went first to Ohio and then up to Jackson and he in those days, dentists did not go to college. There were no college, no dental college, that‟s what I was going to say. There were no dental colleges. The university, I don‟t know the year that university established a dental college, but my grandfather was one of the earliest dentists in the United States, but he began at a time when it was called a trade. And he was known; he was offered the deanship of the University of Michigan, the first deanship of the dental school at the University of Michigan. But he wasn‟t able to accept it because it didn‟t pay enough for him to support his family on. And so, Dean Taft became the first Dean. Well what it in was. The reason I brought this up was that dentists, dentists as lawyers, learned their trade in another dentist‟s office and that is how my father learned his trade. He learned it from, it became a profession, but he learned it from his father. And my, his father taught dentistry to many another dentists and our family was a dental family, because the uncles and my pr and cousins become dentists. And, my brother later became a dentist. But he, by the time that he was ready to become a dentist, the school had been established, of course Grandfather had, it was in his day that the school was established. And he went to the university and he came back. Well, then father built this for his office and it was a very nice home, fourteen room home. The Barth, I think there was a family by the name of Barth that lived next door on the north, on the corner. We were the second house. The house where the Imperial is today had been the Amberg home. And, they moved away about the time that we came in. You see, Sheldon apparently was changing somewhat in its nature. It was a degenerating, deteriorating somewhat. Not, not too much but a little bit because it was near downtown. And the Ambergs went out to Cherry Street to live. That was Julius Amberg‟s and Hazel Amberg‟s family. The Hazel A. is named after her, are on, the boat on the lake, and of course on one of the boats on the lake was named after Major Watson. The, that was a red brick house and surrounded with an iron wrought… Interviewer: Fence. Miss Robinson: …fence in front of it. Then the next home was, belonged to a man by the name of General [Byron] Pierce. They moved away when I was a small girl and I don‟t remember too much about them. And the next house belonged to Charlie Leonard. And I think this is a rather attractive story. They were there when we first moved there and mother said that Mrs. Charlie Leonard told her that she couldn‟t sleep nights because of [Mr. and Mrs. Clarence] Peck‟s baby, that‟s Clara, and Johnson‟s cow who lived on, kitty-corner. The Doctor Johnson lived kittycorner from the Leonards and they kept her awake, the cow kept her awake at night and the cow evidently was pastured between the Johnson home on Sheldon and Division Avenue, in a vacant lot. Now I talked with Agnes about that, and Agnes said she didn‟t remember anything about the Johnsons having a cow but I know my mother told me that. But Agnes remembered that, the �7 [George H.] Longs in the third block up, had a cow and that, just was disturbing some, disturbing sometimes and they brought it in on, into their yard and milked it at night. And, so you can see what Sheldon Avenue, how different it is today. The corner, where the Leonards lived, they didn‟t stay there too long. Across the road was the old All Souls Universalists Church, where I went to Sunday School. And there were a good many prominent people going to that church. My mother was an Episcopalian but my family, my father‟s family who had come from Concord and had, they had gone to the old meeting house, that first old meeting house during, which had been built there in Concord, the very first one and where the Concord, well Massachusetts had a provincial congress that met there at that meeting house and they voted to separate from England, in that old meeting house, and my grandfather had been born there, right next door to the meeting house. Well, let‟s see, what was I going to tell you? Oh, All Soul‟s Church had in it Judge [Willis] Perkins and his wife, the [Eilert] Clements family, Earle Clements and Roy Clements went there. The [Albert] Hicks [family], there was Russell Hicks and Kenneth Hicks going there. Mary Louise Powers and her mother the per, Powers. She‟s a teacher here. They went there. She had my, one of the Sunday School classes. The [William] Collins no, the [Ralph P.] Tietsort family. Yes and I guess Helen Collins. Helen Tietsort and Helen Collins went there to Sunday School, and the Hilton girls they were friends of my aunts went there and Judge Perkins was the head of the Sunday School and wait a moment, Marion Sprague, no what was her uncle‟s, her father‟s name? They lived up here on Madison. He was prominent, I think it was Sprague. Yes. It was Sprague and very prominent people living up here on Madison Avenue. They came down to the All Souls Church and one of the early ministers there was a Mr. [Charles] Fluhrer, and he was very prominent, and mother who was an Episcopalian would go with Father there and of course they sat, and Aunt Molly [Mary B. Robinson] lived with us. Grandpa and Aunt Molly came to live with us from Jackson, Michigan. Grandpa, Grandma had died when I was, the year I was born at eighty-five and Grandpa came to live when he was eighty-five, and Aunt Molly came and lived with me until I was thirty years old, and I was only a year old. Aunt Molly was a singer. Well, she went there, she, her name was Robinson, her name was Mary Robinson and she hadn‟t married. And then, let‟s see who else went there? Of course there was Mary Perkins and Margaret Perkins and June Perkins; they were all children of Judge [Willis B.] Perkins. They were down there, and Willis Perkins, they were all down there at that Sunday School. And it was a nice Sunday School and I remember the chicken-pie suppers we used to have there and on Christmas night every year Santy Clause always came and I was so excited because everybody, we all got a box of candy, Christmas candy in a box that looked like a chimney and a Santy Claus gave us all a gift. Then I‟d go home to my home and mother would tell me I could have some bread and milk and go to bed because Santy Claus had to come and to, bring down the chimney and then while I was eating the taking my bread and milk, my brother who was fifteen years older than I, would go around and knock on the window and I thought it was Santy Claus that was knocking on the window, and I would jump up, I‟d knock my milk over and I‟d go to bed. And then when we‟d come down in the morning the grate is the fire, that we had a fireplace. We had a quite modern house for those days because a lot of my friends tell me that they still had oil lamps. We had gas and electricity. Electricity was somewhat new and we had a furnace, a hot air, hot water furnace in the house. It was a fourteen room house and the pressure from the city was not too strong so it just brought the water into the city water into the house on the lower floor. And so we had a hydraulic pump in our kitchen. And we had a cistern and there were two faucets on the hydraulic, pump and one, pump would, one faucet would bring up, the water to a tank, we had a tank room on the second floor, and the water would be carried �8 up from that pump to that tank. And then we had our water in the bathroom you see. From the tank that was on the second floor, in the, just back of the bathroom. And we all, we drew up the city water, from other faucet. And later the, the cistern we just had to, it grew so commercial down there, so much smoke that we couldn‟t use the cisterns anymore and we had to disconnect that. Anyway we disconnected, then we had a new pipe brought in and we had water sent up from the city without the hydraulic pump. And at the, in that house, it was modern enough so that we had a switch on the first floor that we could light the electric light in the hall upstairs. And I think that was, for eighteen ninety-three was quite, quite modern. And we also had, we had hot water in the winter. We had, in our bathroom upstairs, and later we had, one of those old, instantaneous heaters over the bathtub to bring hot water. But of course the first years in the summer, we always had to heat our water in the tea-kettle. In the kitchen we had gas, we had a range, a wood or coal range, and on one end of it there was a boiler for hot water that we used for our dishes. We did, and we had to heat our water in the, later we put in a gas, a gas stove. I can remember having leg aches; they called it growing pains in those days. I don‟t know what, what it was, I out grew it anyway I used to go and sit with my leg on the edge of that, oven. Then, up the next block there were, there were the, beyond the church was the Doctor [F. Josephus] Groner home and then the Foster Stevens. Mr. Stevens, Mr. Sidney Stevens owned a very lovely home. And he was one of his, the owners of Foster and Stevens stores down on, down on Monroe. That was a very large and very lovely store. Hardware on the first floor and beautiful china on the second floor, and the Mr. Rood, I think was the buyer of that china, up there in that, Foster-Stevens Store. The next, his brother was Wilder, but he didn‟t live on Sheldon. Next to it was Agnes Caulfield‟s home, or Mr. Caulfield‟s home, Agnes was the youngest of the children. There was a Mr. Caulfield owned a grocery, wholesale grocery store, a whole, not store, a wholesale grocery company. And he must have made a lot of his money thru real estate, throughout the city. And their home was a lovely Victorian brick home, and the children were; George, Marie, maybe Marie was the oldest, Stella, Agnes and John. John married Clara Peck, later on. Interviewer: What, could we, I think this tape‟s about all over so I‟m going to turn it over O.K.? Miss Robinson: Yes, Alright. Interviewer: You were saying who married Clara Peck…? Miss Robinson: Well, John, the youngest of the Caulfield family married Clara Peck after her tragedy with Arthur Waite. She first married Arthur Waite and, you know that story. I don‟t, don‟t know whether I‟d better put it in or not. Interviewer: No, it‟s that‟s alright…. Miss Robinson: No, most everybody knows… Interviewer: If anybody wants to know they can certainly find out… �9 Miss Robinson: Yes, but after her tragedy, John Caulfield courted Clara, she had gone to California to live, and had a very lovely home in Pasadena. Both John Caulfield and Voigt, Ralph Voigt went out to spend the winter out there and I think they probably both were, maybe they were, I don‟t know of course their intentions, I don‟t know was, the, I don‟t know Mr. Voigt‟s intentions, but he was out there with, with John during that same winter and almost everybody thought that the two people were, courting Clara, but John was the one that married her. And they lived in California from then on. One of the most prominent members of the Caulfield family was Anna and she was among, I don‟t know, I think, I don‟t know where she‟s, whether she was the oldest or not. I, I don‟t know whether George or she. I didn‟t mention her before did I? Interviewer: No Miss Robinson: Or Marie, she was a very attractive woman and a very brilliant woman and she studied art. And became a very authority, connoisseur would you say of in art. She brought to Grand Rapids the Alliance Française, or she started one and she also started a dramatic club. And she was president of the Ladies Literary which was right across from where I lived. The Ladies Literary Club must have been founded in eighteen seventy for it had its hundredth birthday last year in nineteen seventy. Agnes, Anna was, wore beautiful clothes and she was a very, gracious president. I can remember the Ladies Literary Club from a very small child, it had a great many of the prominent women of Grand Rapids in it and who, numbers of whom were presidents. Mother was a member and I used to like to go over there when, when there was no club going, where there was nothing when I was a little girl. And I, if the janitor was there I‟d go in there, sometimes, I‟d, the club was a little different than it is today, It‟s been made over. It was, it had a flat floor, today it has a raised floor, for, had a flat floor and all the chairs were caned bottomed, they were oak cane bottomed. And the platform now you have to go enter the platform from the back of the stage. At that time it was not as high as it is and it, you could, you could go up by steps. There were three wide steps that go up. And it was very pretty, very attractive. It had two lovely tables, I remember and two lovely chairs up there. They didn‟t have as many dishes in those days. There were two rooms back there as it. It didn‟t it, they haven‟t changed the plan of it, the auditorium and the stage had been changed. Mrs. [Loraine] Immen was a very prominent woman there, she had Shakespeariana; she was the head of the Shakespeariana. My mother was a member of that. Some of the, she‟s given a window in the Ladies Literary, a beautiful window in the, in the front room. It was given in, I don‟t know, I think she gave it. Her class, she was a very brilliant woman and her classes were very brilliant. Then there was a Mrs. Fletcher. Now Mrs. Fletcher I‟m not sure just how she was related to Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Ward is related to the Corneliuses. But Mrs. Fletcher was the second wife and I think Mrs. Ward was the daughter of the first wife. I don‟t know, she was the mother of the Corneliuses, wasn‟t she? I, I may not… Interviewer: Yes? Miss Robinson: I‟m not very straight on this. They owned the Fletcher block that was on the corner of Division and Weston, not far from me. Mrs. Fletcher had a Shakespeare group in the club. I don‟t know whether Shakespeariana was outside the club in those days or not but it is today. Mother belonged to both of them and Mrs. Fletcher thought that she was her star pupil because Mother was a very beautiful reader. When I was coming, Mother had to retire from the �10 Shakespeare Group and Mrs. Fletcher was quite disappointed when she had one of her star pupils leaving. Well, that, I can remember going down to the Fletcher Block. That was the corner, was a saloon there later, but I think there were rooms up there that Mr. Fletcher owned. People lived above buildings in those days. I mean they were not just scum, but quite nice people. In fact, I think my mother and father on Monroe Avenue, till he got started in his business, had rooms right in, next to his office, above the Herkner building. Interviewer: Yes? Miss Robinson: And, other people lived all those rooms are all empty now you know, but they, and there was a restaurant, a quite a stylish restaurant down there under the Herkner. But I‟m wandering, the Fletchers, I lived there and I used to like to as a little girl, run up into the Fletchers. I‟d go up the back door, on Island Street and Mrs. Fletcher would give me maple sugar candies. That‟s how I remember Mrs. Fletcher. But she was a very bright woman and carried on the Shakespeare group in the Ladies Literary Club. They had, at one time; Mrs. Russell was the president, Mrs., what was his name? She was a Comstock. Interviewer: He was a Comstock, Mr…. Miss Robinson: No, a Mrs. Russell was a Comstock, Mr. Russell, and Mrs. Boltwood was her sister. They were Comstock sister, Comstock was named hot little town, he owned all that land, out there now…. Interviewer: I think that, I think that the way it was, was because I‟ve interviewed the Russells is that Mr. Russell was the Comstock and Mrs. Russell was a Hopson. Miss Robinson: No that‟s, you‟re talking about the son. I‟m about the, Mrs. The older people. Interviewer: Oh, OK, I see. Miss Robinson: Mr. Russell and Mrs. Boltwood. Mrs., that Mrs. Russell was the father of Francis Russell, and Francis Russell married Lucille Hopson and they went to school with me. Interviewer: I see. Miss Robinson: Francis Russell was in my class in high school. And Lucille Hopson was probably the next class down, a year or so later. And no they‟re my, but this is the older group. They lived up, they lived out at North Park, not North Park, near the Soldier‟s home and we, in Mrs. Russell‟s home they had a very beautiful, ballroom and gave many, a young parties out there for the young people of the town. There was Francis Russell and his older brother, Charles Russell, he, they still live out in that home out there. And then, Mrs. Boltwood lived on the, there was Wealthy-Taylor bus that went out, out there and went right between those two houses. The Boltwoods on, near the river. Now the Boltwoods and the Russells owned all that river land and they gave it to the city and it, it‟s a park land. It was given on condition that they would redeem it from the swamps; it was in the swamp land. And maybe, at this time I‟m diverging from Sheldon Avenue but during the war, Lucius Boltwood was in the army. I suppose Francis was �11 too, I don‟t know, but I knew, I knew Lucius. And, Lucius was, tried to get in the army. He was turned down many times and then he was, he wanted to go into the Navy and he couldn‟t get in. This is the First World War. And then he went into, he finally got, he was finally drafted. He‟d been turned down time and again and during this time, he was engaged to a Marian Berkey, who married him and before, I think he went to war. Yes, I‟m sure because he died in the war. And she was, became Marian Boltwood. You see and then later, she‟s Mrs. Whinery now. She married Ingles Whinery, after a number of years after Lucius Boltwood‟s death. Well, I was telling, the reason I brought in the Boltwoods and the Russells on Sheldon Avenue was because they were, Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Boltwood were both presidents of the Ladies Literary Club at different times and as a little girl, the Ladies Literary Club, when it was first new, you know that was one of the first big clubs in the ladies clubs in the United States. It was known all over for its wonderful programs, they brought in such marvelous people and Anna McKnight, Anna Caulfield McKnight when she was president, brought a great many of the, she brought Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft and many prominent people before, while most of the ladies clubs of the country were just having well, programs among themselves. Interviewer: Yes. Miss Robinson: What do you call them, what‟s the word I want to use, homemade programs, current events and so forth. Well, mother would go over to the Ladies Literary. I can remember this first, they had a janitor just half a day in those early days and we were right across the road and very convenient, and they didn‟t have many dishes and they would be going to serve the tea so or they would be going to put, bring flowers down. And they would come down to our home and they couldn‟t get into the club because the Janitor wasn‟t there so they would say “can we leave our things in your vestibule?” And they‟d leave a lot of these different dishes and /or vases in the vestibule and I always thought of it as well I think we were kind of an annex to the Ladies Literary Club. And then after the membership after the club was over, a lot of mother‟s friends would come over and we almost had a reception there, following the Ladies Literary Club. Well, then when Mrs. Russell and some of these people that mother knew became president, then she, they weren‟t quite so strict about letting people in those days, she would think of me , I was thirteen or fourteen years old and she would think of me and think, oh I wish Doris could go over and hear that program. So she would go up to some one of the ladies and say, “Can I get a ticket, a guest ticket for my daughter?” And they‟d say “Just bring her over.” So I remember that when Mr. Roosevelt, that is what happened when Mr. Roosevelt came to town. Anna McKnight was then president. Anna Caulfield McKnight and she gave mama permission to bring me over, and I sat on my front porch at the time be, before mother came over, and up the street came Mr. Roosevelt in a very elegant carriage, with someone driving and some prominent man beside him. And he went in to the club house, and then I, Mama came and got me and I went over and I heard Mr. Teddy Roosevelt talk and he was very much impressed with Mrs. McKnight. She was a very gracious woman, very, very educated, very cultured and a connoisseur. I told you before in art. Later Mrs. Knight, Mrs. Cau, of course Anna, she was Anna Caulfield; she married Mr. [William F.] McKnight, a prominent lawyer here and they built up on the, or they bought up on the corner of Fountain and Lafayette, right next to the Shelby home. That is where Anna, is living to, that is �12 where Agnes is living today. A Mrs. McKnight went later to France and lived there quite a while and met very prominent people there and she had photographs of many prominent people there where she had her, photographs of many prominent men that she had met here in America when, Agnes has them there I think on their grand piano. They‟re very, it‟s quite, I would say a very valuable collection of pictures. Well, then across the road, let‟s see if I can think of anything else, George, oh well Marie, Marie was a very attractive, oh I know what I wanted to tell you about, I can remember Marie and Stella, she, Stella was one of the children. Stella and, she was a friend of my mother‟s though quite younger, they, they would pass our house and I was a little girl and I can just see those girls with their trains and their lovely, full skirts, ruffled skirts and lovely picture hats with lovely parasols. Every, these girls in those days carried parasols and they looked just beautiful, I can remember that so well. And of course, John was older than I, oh I would say he was quite a bit older than I but he was and he was younger than my brother. My brother was fifteen years older. My brother, I think, maybe I‟d tell a little bit about my father and my brother in my home, there before I go get through. My father had been a prominent dentist and when he came to Grand Rapids, there were just nine dentists in the town. And he was quite aggressive in a way, he was, I think he was a popular man, I think he was very much liked because he died when I was five and I can remember him but I had so many people, Mrs. Russell, Mrs. Boltwood use to come to me and say, your father was such a nice man. And he had quite a big (practice?) at the time on Sheldon he had built his practice up to quite a good practice of quite prominent people. There the Voigts that came to him and the Russells and the Boltwoods, but of course I was so young I can‟t remember all the rest, I just remember my mother telling me, and I can remember that he died of diphtheria. Interviewer: How did he catch diphtheria? Miss Robinson: Nobody in this city no, had it and we don‟t know but we think it might have been a carrier because he practiced, you see, he was practicing dentistry and he worked over their mouths and he might have had it and it was very, very, virulent black diphtheria in those days. An antitoxin was just new. And I was taken out, I had had the grippe, and I had a nurse, and that nurse went right over to my father who had colic, they called it colic but what I think it was appendicitis. I don‟t think they knew what an appendicitis was, and I think he had actually, every once in a while he would have an attack of colic, and I think it must have been his appendix that were not right. And then so this, he had colic and then he went down to Dr. Randall, no Rankin. Dr. Rankin was a prominent throat man and a doctor, no he didn‟t go... Yes, Dr. Rankin operated on his throat. And I think, that was the worst thing in the world that may, he may he had throat trouble, and he didn‟t go for his colic but he went down there evidently for this throat that would, left a raw place and he had, he had, black diphtheria starts in the nose and they didn‟t recognized it and he was very, very ill when they recognized it. Well, they took me out and they took me to the Bradley, to the Bradford home, and it was a farm out on West Leonard that was all farmland there, no none of these houses. And the [Charles] Bradfords were very good friends of my mother‟s and father‟s and one of the Bradfords married an Afkin and the other Bradford, Leona, of course she was a child older than I at that time but, she married Mr. [Arthur M.] Godwin of the bank. What‟s his first name? Interviewer: I don‟t �13 Miss Robinson: Mrs. Godwin, Mrs. Per, Mrs. Godwin was here, Lillian, Lily Godwin, she was a Perkins, she married a Perkins and Mable Perkins is her sister-in-law. Well, Mr. Godwin‟s first wife, he was vice president of the Grand Rapids Savings Bank and his first wife was Leona Bradford. And that‟s where I was, out there on that Bradford farm at the time of my father‟s death. But I was five years old and, in those days it was, of course, that was quarantined. They had two nurses then and so Dr. [D. Emmett] Welch became his doctor and Dr. Welch was one of the prominent doctors in the throat, ear, nose and throat. He married Fanny McCrath, a very prominent family here who lived on Cherry Street near Jefferson. And right up on in the cemetery where my father is buried in Oak Hill, my family plot, is in McGraths, a large tombstone for the McCraths. Dr. Welch is buried there and Mrs. Fanny McCrath Welch is buried right next to where all my and then the Davises are, that live on Fountain are right next to us, and the Waters mausoleum is right there. I grew up there, I don‟t go very often, my father didn‟t like it, didn‟t want anybody to go. We go once a year. Well, now what else oh, I‟m up on the corner of the Caulfield house, I diverged there and told them a little bit about my family. Anything I want to tell anymore about that, I guess not. Across the road from the Caulfields was Johnny Burns home, now that, remember that‟s an older family. That isn‟t the John Burns that died later, that, the mother of Mrs. Alexi Burns, that‟s her grandfather. Well, they were a prominent family and they had a daughter, a son John Burns and a daughter who was Mrs. Hollow and they had s son, he, the grandson lived there. Well, he was quite a gay young fellow. They had a lot of money, they were very wealthy people you know the Burns. You know Mrs. Burns, don‟t you? She just died. Don‟t you know who Alexi Burns is? Interviewer: No. Miss Robinson: Oh, they were prominent people here and they were very prominent and very wealthy. An Irish family and there are I „m thinking why I‟m smiling a little bit, he was quite a friend of the McGurrin boys who lived up in the block on another side of the road. There was Mickey McGurrin and I can‟t think of the names. Tom sometimes I used to know him by, but that isn‟t the name I know. The Woodcocks lived on the corner and the Woodcock boys were Harold Woodcock and Robert Woodcock, they never married. But that was a big brick house, very in that this is the block that‟s just this side, that‟s I‟m talking about that‟s just this side of the Catholic Church. And this block had a number of Catholic families in it; quite wealthy Catholic families. Interviewer: Now that is which street? Miss Robinson: What? Interviewer: Which street is that? Miss Robinson: It‟s Sheldon. Interviewer: Sheldon. �14 Miss Robinson: It‟s on Sheldon, the corner of Sheldon and Cherry. The Woodcocks, and they were a wealthy family, they were across Cherry Street from the Caulfields. Johnny Burns was across the road from, on Sheldon Street. He was on the corner of Cherry on the west, the northwest corner of Cherry, and then the Turners who was the, who started, who owned the Eagle newspaper. Lived on the, I think his name was Aaron Turner, and who lived on the north, we, the southwest corner. Burns‟ lived on the northwest corner and Turner lived on the southwest corner and the Woodcocks and with their sons Harold and Bob, who many people will know here in this town, the one just died recently, lived on that other corner. The second house next to the Woodcocks was the, was the McGurrin House and there was Mickey McGurrin and we‟ll call him Gerald McGurrin. Gerald McGurrin. I think he‟s known by Tom too. Mickey McGurrin was quite a friend of Bern Halls. Burn Hall was the grandson of John, the Burns. They were, he was about my age, a little older, these and they had a gang. And up here on Cherry, on a Fulton Street lived Brandt Walker and Brandt Walker told me they had a gang. Brandt is dead now, he lived between Lafayette and Prospect and they had a gang. But they were not quite; they were a little milder than the McGurrin gang. And they were scared to death for fear the McGurrin gang would come up and attack them. And they had their barns filled with stones they‟d collected stones and they were ready for an attack. And sometimes they did, the two gangs got together, I guess and had good little fights. Well, Irene McGurrin became a music teacher in the schools and Mr. McGurrin was General McGurrin, a general in the Army during the War of 1812. Oh, the war, Spanish-American War. The Spanish-American War. And later he was made head of the Soldier‟s Home, out on the North end where the Veterans are now. It was the Soldiers‟ Home and he was demoted, well he was Colonel because that was the actual title that went with that home, that office. They were quite a colorful family, I think, and I can see him riding horses during the parades that came up Monroe Avenue on Decoration Day, he always led a company. There‟d be the coming those parades would have soldiers of the, GOP is it? Interviewer: G.A.R. Miss Robinson: G.A.R. Interviewer: Grand Army Republicans Miss Robinson: Grand, yes Grand G.O.P. is Republicans. Interviewer: Republicans. Miss Robinson: Grand Party of the Republican and then, they kept getting older and older each year and then they finally couldn‟t march anymore and they‟d come in carriages and then finally there were none at all. And then, there would be the second, army thing would come up would be a regiment of the Americans, Spanish-American War, and I can remember when that war ended, and all the Dewey‟s pictures that would be in all the windows and I can remember when Mr. McKinley died. They had his picture in the window draped in black. He was, of course killed by an anarchist at Buffalo. I can remember I was seven years old I think and I ran out and told the people next door that Mr. McKinley was gone. �15 Interviewer: How did you get the news? Miss Robinson: My mother. Newspapers, extras would come out, all the different newspapers; we had two, three papers in town. There was the Herald which had been the Eagle. Mr. Turner so got old, made his money I guess, he was the head of the Grand Rapids Eagle and he sold it or it became the Herald, I think he lost his money and he had something to do with and William Alden Smith was a Newsboy I think on that paper and they knew him quite well through that and he I think Mr. Turner lost his money and Mr. Smith recommended somebody to buy it and he sold his paper to him and he never got his money out of it. Interviewer: Yes? Miss Robinson: It was beautiful where he lived in that beautiful white house on the southwest corner. I don‟t know, I can remember one or two incidents that Mrs. Moser, she was the daughter of Mr. Turner and lived in that house. Interviewer: Now that house on the southwest corner of…. Miss Robinson: Yes, Cherry and Sheldon. Interviewer: OK. Miss Robinson: Across from Johnny Burns on one corner and Mrs. Woodcock on the other, and Gerald McGurrin, they were good Catholics and Gerald was full. Harry as I told you was the head of a gang and he went up in, he used to go up in that church and he‟d, the Catholic Church and he‟d get into pull the belfry bell and the priest would go after him and he‟d run and one day he ran down Sheldon Street and he got into the Turner home and he ran right through the front door an out the back door and down to Division and after, the priest, Mrs. Moser told me. She said we never gave Gerald away to the priest but he was the one that pulled the rope. Then there was another family on that side, another two families. There were the [George H] Longs right next door to the [Aaron B.] Turners. . Mr. Long was a lumberman and he made a great deal of money thru lumber. It was a beautiful red brick house trimmed in white and there were a number of daughters. He was quite, I don‟t know what to say here in public about him. Because he had a daughter, maybe you better put that out but he had a very lovely wife and very lovely daughters. There was Emma and she became Mrs. [John P.] Homiller. There was Helen, I can‟t remember what her name was but her daughter is Mrs. Kendall, out here. And then there was Anna and she married Alex McPherson and their daughter is Anna, Margret McPherson the music teacher here. And the youngest was Louise. I can remember Louise better than the others. Though I did meet Mrs., they were grown up you see when I was still little. But I can see Louise passing our house and she was educated in France, I think. And he was very strict with his daughters but, in some ways they were afraid of him, I think. They were a colorful family. Now I can‟t go into the all the details I‟ve just heard it repeated you know. Interviewer: OK. �16 Miss Robinson: Doctor Sinclair a homeopathic doctor was our doctor and he lived next door to the McGurrins, the third house down. It was the Woodcocks, the McGurrins and the Sinclairs. He was a doctor M.C. He had a brother in town here by the name of Dan. D. S. I guess Doctor D. S. and M. C., Sinclair and he was, I just loved Dr. Sinclair, he was, they don‟t have homeopathic doctors anymore. He was didn‟t believe, they didn‟t believe in the other, other doctors were allopaths and their idea, oh I think it was to give medicine that was of the same type. I‟m not sure, I might get it mixed up, but I know their medicines tasted good. There never was anything bad in that you tasted, they tasted of sugar and they even when they were water, put it into a glass of water they never tasted bad. He was a lovely man. And Jean his daughter married Mr. Curtis who was president of the Old Kent Bank at one time. And they lived up on Fulton Street here and Douglas Sinclair was the son. Interviewer: I think that‟s about it Miss Robinson: Alright. Interviewer: I think that was a very good interview though Miss Robinson: Was it? Interviewer: Yes. INDEX A F Alliance Française Club · 10 Amberg Family · 7 Fletcher, Mrs. · 10, 11 B G Godfrey Family · 3, 4 Boltwood Family · 11, 12, 13 Booth Family · 3, 4 Burns Family · 14, 15, 16 C Carroll, Mr. and Mrs. · 5 Caulfield Family · 4, 9, 12, 13, 14 Clements Family · 7 Collins Family · 7 D Davis Family · 14 H Hicks Family · 7 I Immen, Loraine · 10 L Ladies Literary Club · 5, 10, 11, 12 Leonard Family · 7, 14 �17 M Russell, Mr. and Mrs. · 7, 11, 12, 13 McKnight, Anna · 4, 12, 13 S P Shelby Family · 3, 4 Perkins Family · 8 Perkins, Judge · 7, 14 Putnam, Mrs. · 5, 6 U R Robinson, Albert (Father) · 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14 Robinson, Jennie M. Baker (Mother) · 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16 Robinson, Mary P. (Aunt Molly) · 8 Roosevelt, President Theodore · 12, 13 University of Michigan · 6 W Ward, Mrs. · 10 Watson, Major Amasa B. · 2, 4, 5, 7 Winegar Family · 2 Woodcock Family · 15, 17 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2b7f136dcd276cee4d38435a209846b9.mp3 309fb3e1b9ad60260bb1524891f55f12 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_34Robinson Title A name given to the resource Robinson, Doris Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robinson, Doris Description An account of the resource Doris Robinson was born in 1893 in Grand Rapids, where she lived her whole life. Her father was a dentist. She once saw Theodore Roosevelt at the Ladies' Literary Club when she was fourteen years old. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e1953836938e284f806a35fcf641cb9e.pdf 7cf8c917b431f943bb72bc6210be4472 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Miss Evangeline Maurits Interviewed on October 5, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #33 (59:59) Biographical Information Marguerite Evangeline Maurits was born 30 July 1900 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was the daughter of Dr. Reuben and Angeline (De Bey) Maurits. Miss Maurits died 26 March 1986 in Grand Rapids at the age of 85. Reuben Maurits was born at Vriesland, Ottawa County, Michigan on 29 October 1870, the son of William J. and Grietje (Rychel) Maurits from Nijmegen, Netherlands. Reuben died 11 November 1947 in Grand Rapids. Angeline De Bey was the daughter of William and Eva (Takken) De Bey. Angeline was born in Illinois about March 1873 and died in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 3 February 1954. Angeline and Reuben were married in Chicago, Illinois on 25 November 1897. ___________ Interviewer: This interview with Miss Evangeline Maurits was recorded October 5, 1971. Miss Maurits, you mentioned where your father was born? Miss Maurits: He was born in Vriesland, Michigan, on a farm. And he was the only one of ten children that had a college education. And, he went to Ann Arbor in medical, graduated from medical school there, and he became a specialist in anesthesia. Interviewer: And where was this practice located in Grand Rapids? Miss Maurits: In Grand Rapids. He was on a board at Blodgett hospital mostly. But he gave anesthesia to all the rocky cases and all the doctors here in town, Richard Smith and all of them would ask for father if they had rocky case. Interviewer: What’s a rocky case? Miss Maurits: Well, if, has a, probably has a heart problem. Interviewer: Ok. Miss Maurits: Heart complication and he gave the first continuous spinal operation in Grand Rapids. Interviewer: Your father did? Miss Maurits: Yes, and he always was the first one to give any new anesthesia that ever came to town or ever came in use. �2 Interviewer: You mentioned in your home as well? Miss Maurits: In our home we, the first home they built, and I was born in that house on the corner of Lake Drive and Eastern,, and it was an old four story building and it was just made into apartments and my father had his office in the basement and it had a separate entrance. And he had his laboratory down there and two rooms. And he conducted his office there for a good many years. I don’t know just how long, till the Metz Building was built, I imagine then he went in the Metz. Building. Interviewer: How, you mentioned that he extracted teeth as well as tonsils? Miss Maurits: Well, of course at that time they didn’t have, they never went to hospitals, they, and they wouldn’t stay overnight for a tonsillectomy, they just took them out in the offices. And father pulled teeth and took tonsils out there for until they became, went to the hospitals for those things. And of course, father never did take out tonsils unless it was only when he was in this general practice, when there weren’t specialists in that sort of thing. Interviewer: It was quite a general practice wasn’t it? Miss Maurits: Oh, Yes. Interviewer: …teeth to tonsils? Miss Maurits: Everything. Interviewer: Someone told me that your family somewhere in your background, there was some… are you Dutch? Miss Maurits: Yes, on both sides. Interviewer: That your family came from the Netherlands. Miss Maurits: Both my grandparents came from the Netherlands. My grandmother’s parents came from Utrecht and my father’s parents came from Nijmegen right in Holland. But my parents were both born in this, this country. Interviewer: Were, were your grandparents, were they important people in Holland? Miss Maurits: Yes, they were, my grandfather, my great-grandfather on my mother’s side was, they were in Chicago when they came over and he was the large, Dutch Dominai as they called him, the ministers at that time were all called Dominais and he was the very famous Dominai of Chicago. And the name was deBey, small “de” capital “ B”, that’s French Huguenot. And my father is related somehow, I don’t know exactly how, to Prince Maurits in The Hague. And they, the Mauritshuis are in the Hague right now, and Prince Maurits picture is in the museum. Interviewer: Why did your grandparents leave Holland? �3 Miss Maurits: I really haven’t any idea. I imagine the same thing everybody did, for religious freedom. I don’t know. Interviewer: Did your, did you grow, spend all your growing years up in the house on Lake Drive…? Miss Maurits: On Lake Drive until I was, we sold it I think I was around twenty. Interviewer: What was that neighborhood like when you were growing up? Miss Maurits: Well, that was the edge of town at that time. We couldn’t get a maid because it was too far out, and it was just, well it was empty lots all around us. Across the street it was all empty lots and my father kept his car. He had one of the first cars in Grand Rapids, he kept his car across the street there because we didn’t have a garage at that time and since then we built a garage and I used to think that was an enormous yard but you look at it today and it’s just about ten feet wide. Interviewer: Was it wider then? Miss Maurits: No, it wasn’t it just seemed so big. Interviewer: Because of all the open space around it. Miss Maurits: Yes, it was more, wider than ten feet of course. Interviewer: When did your father get his first car? Miss Maurits: I think I was about three years old. We had a horse and buggy. Maybe I was younger. I don’t remember, but I know he had one of these cars with the rod that every time it turned around it hit you, you know just, not a steering wheel, just a rod, and a do-si-do seat. Interviewer: What’s a do-si-do seat? Miss Maurits: Back to back. Interviewer: Well, when did buildings start, when did other houses start to be built around you. Miss Maurits: Well, I imagine, probably in nineteen ten or-twelve, somewhere in there. Interviewer: Was your family very involved in the Dutch community here? Mrs. Maurits: Not too much so. We didn’t go to the Dutch church or anything like that, we went to the Bethany Church but it was the English speaking church, and my mother and father were quite advanced in their thinking and they joined Fountain Street Church long before, when I was just, well when Mr. Fuller was there. And, I don’t even remember him, but he was one of the first ministers there. Well, my family were a little more liberal than the Dutch at that time, they �4 were interested in advancing their thoughts on the liberal side of life so that’s why they joined Fountain Street ... Interviewer: That was quite a break… Miss Maurits: Yes, it was a great break, but they enjoyed Fountain Street Church and they enjoyed Dr. Wishart so very, very much and of course when, since Duncan Littlefair has been there (that was), my father and mother were very satisfied and very happy to be there. Interviewer: What were the, were there certain churches at that time that were “the churches to go to”? Were there certain churches that were more important in the activities of the city than others? Miss Maurits: Well, I think that the Fountain Street was the most liberal. It always had the most liberal, ministers and thoughts and every, in every way and there was, of course, the Park Congregational Church. And that has since split. Half of it is there and half of it is the Mayflower Church; and of course, the Episcopal Churches. But Fountain Street had all so very many lecture courses and everything that was interesting in the world today was discussed there, at the Fountain Street for years. Interviewer: Yes. I was going to ask a question, oh, your schooling here in town, where did you go to school? Miss Maurits: Well, I went to Congress Street School first. Then I went to Mrs. Eastman’s private school and then Fountain Street for a year or two and then I went to Ferry Hall in Illinois. Interviewer: Where was Mrs. Simpson’s school? Miss Maurits: Mrs. Eastman’s school. Interviewer: Mrs. Eastman’s school. Miss Maurits: She was on Barclay. A lot of the people here from Grand Rapids as children went there to school. Interviewer: Can you tell me a little about the school, was it in her house? Miss Maurits: In her house, yes, it was in her house. And she was a very lovely person and they were small classes, maybe two or three in a class. And she had all grades and very fine teachers. Interviewer: Did your course of study, pretty much parallel the same course of study in the public school? Miss Maurits: As far as I know, it did. Interviewer: Why did your parents choose to send you to Mrs. Eastman’s (school). �5 Miss Maurits: Well I was an only child and they just thought it was better to be in smaller classes. Interviewer: You, you mentioned, that you spent a good deal of time, studying music, voice. Miss Maurits: Yes, well you see my mother was, sang from the time as far as I, long as I can remember. She was a soloist in all the churches here in town and she started with Mrs. Loomis, who was a very famous musician here in town and she was an organist and they had a quartet at Westminster [Presbyterian] Church and she was there for a good many years. Then she was also the soloist later at Park Congregational Church. And then when Emery Gallup came to Grand Rapids, he was the organist at Fountain Street Church, I think it was even before that, that Mother was soloist there and she and I both sang in all the oratorios as soloists at Fountain Street. And I remained there a soloist for a good many years after Mother. Interviewer: Did, was she active in the Saint Cecilia? Miss Maurits: Yes, she was very active in the Saint Cecilia. She used to sing there on the programs and also at Mrs. Tom Irwin, who was a very good friend of hers. They used to sing duets. And Mrs. Nye who has since died, they both died; and then there used to be plays here with Miss Calla Travis and my mother took the part of the Queen Esther at one time. And we all as children took part in these dancing plays. We all went to Miss Calla’s dancing class. Calla Travis. And at Fountain Street we gave, all the oratorios, Christmas oratorio, all the Bach oratorios. And the Creation and all the oratorios there. And either mother or myself sang the solos. I sang the solos in the Creation, in the Christmas oratorio and in the Saint Matthew Passion. And I think Mother did some of those too. So we’ve been in that all our lives. Interviewer: What, can you tell me a little about Saint Cecilia, the importance it had in the town and… Miss Maurits: Well, the important thing was that these women were bound they were going to have a building of their own, that they had built and paid for; and there was a big article in the paper, last Sunday I think, did you see it? Which told how they took over the paper and they made, this was in the eighteen eigthies and they made money and it wasn’t, I think in the early nineteen hundreds when they finally paid off their mortgage and it’s about one of the only buildings in the United States that was put on by women and paid for by women. So that was quite a feat for them to do. And the building now of course is in pretty bad condition but it’s still there and still running. And they’re still having their concerts every Friday afternoon or morning. And they’ve kept that just by their own dues and so forth what they’ve made out of the Saint Cecilia. Interviewer: Are you a member of St. Cecilia now? �6 Miss Maurits: I’m not right at the moment because I have been working before and I haven’t had time, but I expect to again. Interviewer: How many, did most of the women in the society participate in that? Miss Maurits: They were, there were active members and inactive members. The active members had to take an examination to be an active member and that meant that they were a performer. And then they would appear on programs. They had members programs and then they also have always had artist’s programs so that, I think they have six or seven artist programs during the year. Interviewer: Yes. Do you think that the Saint Cecilia was more important to the city then, than it is now? Miss Maurits: No, I think it’s still important to the city. I think it’s very important to the young artists that are coming up and growing up, that they have a place to perform before an audience. Interviewer: Maybe, I mis-stated that question, what, what I was getting at was the opinion, the feeling of the people in the city for the Saint Cecilia. Do you think that the interest and excitement about Saint Cecilia was apparently very great at one time? Is it just as great today or…? Miss Maurits: Well, I think so, it, it’s a matter of comparison. You see the city was so much smaller at that time and that group of musicians were a greater number than they are today because there’s so many, there’s such a big city now. But there’s still a nucleus of musicians here that is very important to the city. Interviewer: Yes. Have you taught music in Grand Rapids? Miss Maurits: Yes, I’ve taught voice here for four or five years. But, I’ve taught out of town more. Interviewer: Do you think that, in your opinion, is music, voice as important to families? Is there as much participation by family members in voice and music today as there was when you were growing up as a child? Miss Maurits: Well, that’s hard to say. I would think so. If there’s talent in the family and they find it early I’m sure they would want to, go on with it, and encourage a child that has it. I don’t know because I have no children, I don’t know but I would think it would be the same. Interviewer: Did you have family recitals when you were a child? Miss Maurits: Oh, yes. My, my father played the violin and my mother sang. So we were a musical family. Hardly a day went by that we didn’t have some music. And the of course, we had records and they came out and, we were very much interested in music. And we had a great �7 many gatherings of people that were musicians. Some friends of mine (were) from Detroit that gave recitals here and we’d have musical gatherings for them. Interviewer: At your home? Miss Maurits: Yes, at my home. And many I’ve had, and many people here in Grand Rapids did the same thing. If they had artists that were friends of theirs they would have a group in and have a little supper and have more music. Interviewer: Did they have special rooms in their homes for this music? Miss Maurits: No, just their living rooms. Interviewer: Was that a fairly common? Miss Maurits: Yes. Yes, it was. There was almost always a party. We don’t have that as much as we had it years ago. There was almost always a party after a Saint Cecilia program or after a symphony program, at someone’s home. Interviewer: And there would be more music at these parties? Miss Maurits: Yes. Interviewer: How, can you describe what a typical Saint Cecilia evening program would be like, how the people got to the auditorium and how they were dressed and what they, in other words, was it exciting? Miss Maurits: Well, years ago, when we had an evening, of course most of the Saint Cecilia programs were in the afternoons, but once in a while, we’d have an evening program and that was always very dressy. But also some of the symphony programs were quite dressy. I mean, people wore evening clothes which we don’t do today. But at the Saint Cecilia they would always have a reception afterward, if it were in the evening and of course at time everyone wore evening clothes. It was quite festive and they had, at the Saint Cecilia, they have a third floor over the auditorium which was a dance floor. That’s where we had our dance lessons with Calla Travis. And if it were a big affair and a big reception, they would serve upstairs. But usually they had a coffee or tea downstairs in the halls. Interviewer: Well, then Saint Cecilia really was, if most of the programs were afternoon programs, it was really developed by women, mainly for women. Miss Maurits: Oh yes, oh yes. There were a few men, of course here, that the organist and some of the men teachers that belonged. But as a whole, it was women. It was an opportunity for women who were musicians and had no place to perform. And it gave them an incentive to work and to practice and to keep up with their musical world. And that is what the Saint Cecilia was founded for and that is what its function was. And it certainly filled that function. �8 Interviewer: Is that still the function? Miss Maurits: Oh, yes, very much so. Interviewer: start? You mentioned the symphony, when, when did the Grand Rapids Symphony Miss Maurits: Oh dear, I really don’t know the year. I don’t know. Interviewer: But it was, was it in existence when you were a child? Miss Maurits: Well, not as a child. But I can remember going to it, I think, when I was in high school. But I really don’t remember. Interviewer: Ok. Was that as important as the Saint Cecilia? Miss Maurits: Yes, in its own way it was. That also was by men, there were, there were men who lived in Grand Rapids who were musicians and started this orchestra. And, it has developed now they have a few outside concert maestros that are probably from other cities. Maybe Kalamazoo and Detroit, but as a whole, they are Grand Rapids people who play in the symphony. And it has grown and advanced greatly in the last years. We’re very, very proud of our symphony now. Interviewer: Well I think ………. INDEX B L Blodgett Hospital · 1 Loomis, Mrs. · 5 C M Congress Street School · 4 F Fountain Street Church · 4, 5 G Gallup, Emery · 5 Maurits, Angeline de Bey (Mother) · 2, 4, 5, 7 Maurits, Dr. Reuben (Father) · 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 Mrs. Eastman’s School · 4, 5 S Saint Cecilia Music Society · 5, 6, 7, 8 T Travis, Calla · 5, 8 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0696844b82ecef5ea8b050ba57358d9b.mp3 65dd9a7693f8ca8ae0580776faec84a4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_33Maurits Title A name given to the resource Maurits, Evangeline Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Maurits, Evangeline Description An account of the resource Evangeline Maurits was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eb774fc5e5fe62a601ad44d374c46edd.pdf 6bddf84ae4c70d07960293d7837cb77b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Dexter, Emma Foote (Mrs. Clarence) Interviewed on October 5, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape # 32 Biographical Information Emma Howe Foote was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 3 February 1885, the daughter of Elijah Hedding Foote and Frances Amelia Howe. She died 5 January 1983 in Grand Rapids and was interred at Graceland Mausoleum. Emma was married to Clarence S. Dexter in Grand Rapids on 16 January 1908. Clarence was born 4 June 1882 in Chicago, the son of George W. Dexter and Laura A. Sawyer. He died 4 April 1947 in Grand Rapids. Clarence and Emma had two daughters, Frances J. and Dorothy M. Dexter. Emma’s father, Elijah H. Foote was born in Olcott, Niagara County, New York on 24 March 1845, the son of Elijah Foote and Olivia Luce. He died in Lamont, Michigan on 9 September 1920 and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Grand Rapids. Emma’s mother, Frances Amelia Howe was born 16 Apr 1843 in Ravenna, Ohio and was the daughter of Elisha Bigelow Howe and Celestia Russell. Frances died 23 March 1920 in Grand Rapids and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. ________ Interviewer: This interview with Mrs. Clarence Dexter was recorded October fifth, nineteen seventy-one. Ok, that’s going now. You, you were just saying your family has been here for approximately five generations. What was your, what was your family’s name? Mrs. Dexter: Well, my father’s name was Foote. My and my mother’s name was Howe. My father was born in Olcott, New York and drove out here and I don’t know when my mother came. She was born in Ohio and came from there to Grand Rapids. And I can’t go back too far but at the time of the Civil War, my Grandfather, and Grandmother Howe lived where the Peninsular Club is today and when my father came home from the Civil War, that’s where they were married and up on Lyon Street, Lyon and College and Fountain Street was the old Civil War campground. My father went from there to the Civil War. There’s a marker, it’s in the Central High School property now because they couldn’t put it in the middle of College Avenue where the old well was during the Civil War. And, it was guarded all the time by the Union Soldiers. Interviewer: The well was? Mrs. Dexter: Yes, and when Father came back from the war, he bought property in that district and built the first house that was built on the old campground and that was on the corner of Lyon �and College Avenue, the northeast corner there is another house, the old house still stands there, there’s another small house on each side of it now and all around the property at that time was larger, a good deal. Interviewer: Which, what’s the address of that house, do you know? Mrs. Dexter: When I, I think it’s five fifteen [505 Lyon is the Foote residence. 515 Lyon was the Dexter residence] Lyon. It’s a big grey house, next to the corner. And they lived there all their lives, and their four children were born there. I was the youngest one. Interviewer: Born in the house? Mrs. Dexter: In the house. Interviewer: Was that a, was the custom of the day for children to be born at home? Rather than… Mrs. Dexter: Oh, yes, yes. Interviewer: Did, was, was there a midwife in attendance or was it a doctor and a… Mrs. Dexter: Doctors. I don’t know, I never remember hearing anyone mention a midwife, I don’t know. Interviewer: When you say your father drove here, how did he, how? Mrs. Dexter: His family drove out from Olcott, New York, Interviewer: What did they drive, a horse and buggy? Mrs. Dexter: Yes, don’t think it was a covered wagon but they drove out in stages from there. Interviewer: Well then, you grew up on Lyon Street. Mrs. Dexter: Yes. When I was young the old UB hospital [United Benevolent Association] Hospital, which is now Blodgett Hospital, that was on the southwest corner of Lyon and College where the little Fountain Street School house is now until they built the new one over in East Grand Rapids. And, many of those old houses were built, the nearest house to that hospital property was Judge [Edwin A.] Burlingame., He lived on the corner of, well it was Lyon Place for awhile, now I believe it’s Goldberg[Goldsboro?] and Lyon Street. He’s quite a prominent judge here. And, Father, at that time was with Nelson & Matter Furniture Company that was down on the Canal and Monroe Street, it was called Canal Street then. And, then he was the, he left there and went to Grand Rapids Chair Company which was owned by the C.C. Comstock family and afterwards my father bought it from the Comstock estate. Interviewer: And maintained the name Grand Rapids Chair Company? �Mrs. Dexter: Yes, it’s still called the Grand Rapids Chair Company. After, let me see, my husband became the manager when my father retired in about nineteen seventeen. And he managed it until his death, no, he’d retired, he’d sold it to Mr. Charles Sligh then after that it was sold, to the Baker Furniture Company and now is in, is owned by a chain company that has a good many furniture factories. I don’t know the name of that, that chain. And then Father built the, when my oldest brother Stuart Foote came home from college he was with Father in the Grand Rapids Chair Company for a while and then they built the, Imperial Furniture Company and then my brother-in law Seal Reynolds, we bought, the family bought the old Kindel Factory and they had the Rey, the Foote-Reynolds Company. They made nothing but beds. Then afterwards, after our brother-in-law’s death it was sold back to the Kindel people. Interviewer: Why did, why did Kindels sell that company? Mrs. Dexter I don’t know. Interviewer: Was that, seems to me I remember hearing some, point that he, you know was very successful and then he decided that he was going to retire at a very early age and sold everything. Mrs. Dexter: Yes. Interviewer: And then after… Mrs. Dexter: That is so. Interviewer: …After a few years of retirement he couldn’t stand it so he bought it, bought it… Mrs. Dexter: Yes. Interviewer: ….Bought the company back. Mrs. Dexter: Yes. That’s true. Then another old building that I remember so well was the Methodist Church. That was at the corner, the where the Keeler building is today, the southeast corner of Division and Fountain Street. That was there for many years. Interviewer: What kind of church was it? Mrs. Dexter: Methodist Interviewer: What was the construction of it? Mrs. Dexter: Big red brick building, big red brick building. And then my sister, Ida Foote and Seal Reynolds were married there in nineteen hundred and four, I guess it was. It was so amusing it took so long to empty the church that the city fathers and fire department made ‘em put in two new exits to the church. Interviewer: What was it like growing up on Lyon Street? What was the neighborhood like? �Mrs. Dexter: Wonderful, everybody owned their own houses and we always, oh we had so many friends around it was, and we had big playgrounds and as we went to the, the old school that we went to as a grade school was on Fountain Street where Central High is today and then we went to High School down at Junior college (doorbell in background) so that we’ve seen the changes a great deal. And one thing maybe somebody might have told you, when we were youngsters and growing up here, mail boxes were on the all the street cars. Interviewer: I have heard about that. Mrs. Dexter: On the front and back. And you could stop a street car anywhere and mail your letters. They always said that it was a great advantage because they never could have a street car strike. Interviewer: (doorbell in background) Is that your front door? Mrs. Dexter: Can I shut that off, can you shut that off? [pause] Interviewer: Sure, yes. Do you think, what, what do you think of the Heritage Hill Association, and the work they are doing? Mrs. Dexter: Well, I think that it’s, it’s wonderful to have people interested and I think the different form of, architecture, architecture should be preserved because I think, I think anything in the early history of this city is important to the children growing up here. I think their background should mean something to them. But I think it’s maybe they, that’s their idea that they are just saving different styles of architecture. But there’s certainly a number of these homes are not the early homes in Grand Rapids. And I think it’s unfortunate, of course it’s late, there’re some of the homes that have gone that should have been preserved if they were going to do this kind of thing. And, that it is unfortunate, but, I don’t know how they can avoid it. If they want to collect samples of architecture, but I started to say it was unfortunate that people that own the property aren’t being allowed to remodel it if necessary because I think that’s going to be a hardship for some people. [Recording spotty at 10:32 through the end.] Interviewer: Yes, well they allow to remodel…. Mrs. Dexter: Do they? Interviewer: Yes, but what they’ve, what they’re, the reason why they put that rule into effect was that they, it’s not that they can’t remodel their homes but that when they remodel, if they remodel the exterior, they want them to, to maintain the, the style of the home instead of like a lot of these homes, they put up false facades on ‘em and one thing or another and you know they change the architecture on them. �Mrs. Dexter: Oh. Interviewer: So that the value of the home is destroyed, and they don’t want that done. Mrs. Dexter: Well that’s true. Interviewer: So, that’s why they put that rule into effect. I think that’s the reason why. But we were talking about your neighborhood and the number of children and that were, were the families very close? Mrs. Dexter: Well, just as it is today, there’s always some in the neighborhood that become good friends and some that are not. I think they weren’t anywhere near the number of (?) that there are now. People lived for long periods of time in the same neighborhood. Everyone owned their own homes and they were cared for in those days we had no slum districts. No inner-city problems. But that is bound to come with growth of a city. The changes that take place, people, large numbers coming in from different locations. Interviewer: How big was the city when you were a child? Do you know? Mrs. Dexter: I know we came out, out to the lake from, from Eastern Avenue on a little dummy line. Interviewer: Was that about where the country began? Mrs. Dexter: Yes, it was, it was, there was not much beyond that Interviewer: What was the country like out, out in East Grand Rapids at that time? Somebody was telling me that there was that it was kind of swampy or something around Wealthy and Lake Drive area, remember that? Mrs. Dexter: No, I don’t remember, it was all country because and of course we used to, what, later when the automobile came and we took long drives in the afternoon, why there was still beautiful country to drive in. But of course when I was very young, we didn’t do anything on Sunday. We didn’t even ride our bicycles on Sunday. It was a family day and the, we always went to church and had the afternoon at home. But as I say we all had large playgrounds and many of our friends some of my best friends, they are those that I went to school with from Kindergarten on. And that was the kind of city Grand Rapids was. And now there was, there was never rivalry you might call it, between the different manufacturers. The head of the, the heads of the factories were all intimate friends and remained always. We had I think it was at one time, fifty four large furniture factories here and, they, oh they always had beautiful flower gardens around them and there was always a prize given every year for the loveliest gardens. And there was a personal touch to the life of the city that you don’t have now. Which can’t be helped as a city grows. That’s bound to come. �Interviewer: Could you expand a little on that, on that, what the personal touch, what, can you give me some examples of that, how the city, why or I mean how the feeling of that was. Mrs. Dexter: Which was just a natural outgrowth. You see they were now they, for instance the two Mr. David Browns, they were no relation, but they were the owners and, of the Century Furniture Company and they, there was the finest furniture manufactures at the Century Company than any factories in the United States have ever been. But they had no sons and that proved true in many cases. There no sons to carry on the businesses. Now while my father, his, son was with him for a long time but then as I say built the Imperial, well he had no sons that were interested in carrying that on. So we sold it. And that was the case in many of the factories that after the original leaders died, the furniture, the factories were liquidated and sold to outside corporations. Now Mr. Robert Irwin of the Irwin Furniture Company had no sons to carry on, it was very pathetic because if they had had sons that were more were interested and could, capable of carrying on the business, I think the industry would have stayed intact longer. Interviewer: You think that it still would be in existence? Mrs. Dexter: Well it still is in existence with factories that we have, but not in the proportion that it was. We had, the, of course they had their big showrooms and their big sales in January and July. And several, well fifteen hundred to two thousand men came every season to buy furniture. They came from all over the United States and from even abroad. Then for years we also had a semi-showing in the spring and fall. Well, that finally was given up but those big showings were, oh, it was a friendly spirit always. Now the Grand Rapids Chair Company was the first ones that started serving dinners at their factory during the furniture season. The Chair Company was out so far from downtown that, if the men went out on the street car or had a hack to drive out, they would get nicely started and the noon-hour would come and so many times they’d go back down to the Pantlind Hotel and wouldn’t come back in the afternoon and my father said they’d have to meet that situation. So they started in serving sandwiches and coffee and bought some pies. Well eventually it developed into a much larger thing. They had a cook and screened off part of the showroom to make the luncheons, well one day the cook failed to appear and my father telephoned for me to come immediately and serve the luncheon. So I did. I went out and he gave me a boy from the factory to tend to my errands and run across to the grocery store across the street and it then developed more and more into a meal, finally my father built a great big dining room and kitchen on to the factory for me and I managed that, caterers and waitress as long as we owned the factory and that started the custom of the various factories serving meals, luncheons at noon. And I guess some of ‘em still do. But they knew it had been the custom that was started by Mr. Foote at the Chair Company. And he always had a great big New Year’s Dinner. That opened the furniture season and so out of consideration for him and their affection for him, they, none of the other factories ever served New Year’s dinner. They all went to the Chair Company. And it was quite an event. And, but then… recalls many memories. �Interviewer: What were some of the other memories about the furniture business and the furniture factory and so on? Mrs. Dexter: Well, there was always this feeling of cordiality, the manufacturers never hesitated to invite, the, their shows were always open to each other. They always went. There never was any question of hesitancy that they might copy their designs. There never was that feeling. It was always so friendly. And now that doesn’t exist. It’s almost impossible I believe, to go get into a factory to see a furniture design, a showing. Interviewer: Yes, was that a pretty exciting time, when the buyers would come to town for the shows? Mrs. Dexter: It was just thrilling. It was just as exciting as it could be. They had, the Furniture Manufacturers Association had beautiful rooms, dining rooms and lounges and things in the Pantlind Hotel. They used to have beautiful dinners there. They always held their meetings there. But they used to have beautiful dinners there for the outside, the visiting buyers. And they, they did a great deal to entertain the buyers when they came. Interviewer: How would the, what, how would entertaining go, how would they entertain ‘em? Mrs. Dexter: Well. Many of them became personal friends. And then if they were, if these buyers were friends of yours, why, you entertained them in your homes. As well as the dinners that they gave down at the manufacturers’ club dinner, so that, I don’t know… Interviewer: What form would the entertaining at home take in those days? Mrs. Dexter: Just a personal dinner party. Interviewer: Did it differ at all from today, the way people entertain today? Mrs. Dexter: Well, it wasn’t the same thing at all. Interviewer: How was it different? Mrs. Dexter: Well, you had a beautiful dinner party in your own home but you don’t have the help to do it now days. Now unfortunately most of us have to do our entertaining at the club, ‘because you just can’t get help. And it isn’t half as nice. Interviewer: Where, where did the help come from that was in the homes? Mrs. Dexter: Well, it, of course in those days we all had help that lived in. Or you there were a great many cateresses that would go, come to your home to get the dinners. Bring, have cateresses and waitresses that we had for years and years and years. Now at the Chair Company I always, for many years would have the same cook and the same waitresses. One of ‘em is, couple of ‘em in fact are still alive that used to serve. �Interviewer: What, what were their names? Mrs. Dexter: I don’t know. Interviewer: Ok. There’s something I wanted to ask you about those dinner parties. Mrs. Dexter: Well, it a, most everyone could entertain at. Twelve at their table and sometimes if they were having more they would have, they’d have sit down tables, in those days we didn’t have buffet meals. But you would have smaller tables. But the majority of them were a dinner of twelve. And they were lovely. Interviewer: Who was the most spectacular entertainer in town? Mrs. Dexter: Oh, I wouldn’t know. Interviewer: What was the most spectacular dinner party that you ever went to? Mrs. Dexter: Oh, I don’t remember that. There was so many that were really charming that it’s hard to say. Mr. Joe Griswold, who was the head of the Griswold Furniture Company, his son Joseph Griswold is still in the furniture business here. Their factory was sold so Mr. Joe Griswold travels for other factories. But, Mr. and Mrs. [Joseph G.] Griswold lived on Fountain across from Central High School and they did a great deal of beautiful entertaining and Mr. Robert Irwin did too. He had a big home on, on Fulton Street and there were a good many. Interviewer: Did the, was the society the people that had the most association with each other, was it, set up, like the furniture people, did the furniture people hang with each other mostly? Mrs. Dexter: Well, they were quite a large group of the furniture manufacturers that were very good friends but I, I would think you would say there were two or three groups, with the large number of manufacturer that we had here in Grand Rapids. Interviewer: OK, Mrs. Dexter: And then of course there were other very delightful social groups. Interviewer: Like, like what? Mrs. Dexter: Oh, well. Mr. and Mrs. M.R. Bissell in those days had a beautiful home life with their family and their friends and then there was the [S. L.] Withey family and the [Charles H.] Bender family, and so many of them. Interviewer: How does, how does living today, what, what’s the biggest difference, in living today compared to living then? �Mrs. Dexter: The speed that one, everyone, travels at now days seems to me. We lived a slower life in those days, you could get your friends together more quickly and saw more of them I think; there was more leisure. Interviewer: Yes, that’s interesting. They talk about the amount of leisure time that people have today. That it’s always increasing and so on. Mrs. Dexter: I think they, I think they have more leisure hours if they want to plan them leisurely, but now where they have time from their business they’re always rushing to go fishing and always rushing to play golf or something of that sort so that when you come right down to it, you don’t have the peaceful hours that you used to have. And then another thing, people travel a great deal more now than they used to. Everyone’s just departing for long trip of just getting home from one and in those they didn’t travel nearly so much. There weren’t the facilities, we didn’t have the airplanes. So we stayed home and enjoyed your friends, had more time to be with them. One interesting thing I remember about furniture business, it was so long ago but, it was after we started to have airplanes, why my husband was the first one that shipped furniture by airplane from Grand Rapids, I had the picture somewhere out the old airport out there loading furniture, crated furniture on to the plane to ship…by airplane. Interviewer: When was, when did that, occur? Mrs. Dexter: (I’m) trying to think, I don’t know. Forty years ago. Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Dexter: Must have been. Interviewer: Well, that’s the kind of thing that could be looked up. Mrs. Dexter: Yes. Interviewer: Pretty easily. Mrs. Dexter: Yes, ‘because there were pictures, they had ‘em in the papers, that, so there may be records of them. But Fulton Street was a beautiful street in those days. There were so many trees of course, and the houses all the way up the hill were lovely homes. They’re gone, so many of them now. And Mr. [Robert] Irwin lived there then across from them was, they, Mr. [Morris] Cassard’s house and, all the way down. The house that’s now the Women’s City Club and the old Pike home which was the Art Gallery and I was president of the Art Gallery when we converted that building and built on the additions…. Interviewer: When was that? Mrs. Dexter: Oh, the before we built that building, we opened it our art gallery, had rooms on the upper, where Dean Witter used to be at two Monroe, right across from the park were, our rooms �were upstairs there. And then the, Mrs. M. J. Clark bought the old Pike home and we raised similar amount of money to convert it and built the Art Gallery and it’s been there of course ever since. Interviewer: I’m going to turn this tape over; I think it’s almost out. Mrs. Dexter: I think you’ve got enough. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/49bd2f13efa8484894c145e65c59c413.mp3 5ee57cfc98a9f10ca93bce6af80bc88e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_32Dexter Title A name given to the resource Dexter, Emma Foote Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dexter, Emma Foote Description An account of the resource Emma Howe Foote was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on February 3, 1885, the daughter of Elijah Hedding Foote and Frances Amelia Howe. She lived at the corner of Lyon and College, and attended Junior College. Emma was married to Clarence S. Dexter, prominent Grand Rapids furniture manufacturer and financier in Grand Rapids on January 16, 1908. She was the president of Art Gallery on Fulton (Old Pike's home) and a regent of the Michigan Daughters of the American Revolution. She died January 5, 1983 in Grand Rapids and was interred at Graceland Mausoleum. 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.) Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/429a098549d9ceb5af40d5923b0c1973.pdf f9a1060d2a0ed993b73c9f216483164f PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Mr. and Mrs. Francis T. Russell Interviewed on October 4, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape # 30, 31 (1:21:28) Biographical Information Francis Thayer Russell was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 21 June 1892, the son of Huntley Russell and Clara E. Comstock. Huntley Russell was born on 1 September 1858 at New Britain, Connecticut and died in Grand Rapids on 9 December 1928. Huntley was buried in Fulton Street Cemetery. Clara Eglatine Comstock was born in Grand Rapids in April 1866, the daughter of Charles C. Comstock and Cornelia Guild. She died on 18 June 1935 and was buried in Fulton Street Cemetery. Huntley and Clara were married in Grand Rapids on the 1st of September, 1884. Mrs. Russell was born Lucille I. Hopson on 25 May 1894 in Grand Rapids, the daughter of William C. Hopson and Frankie M. Hydorn. Lucille died on 19 October 1973 and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Grand Rapids. Her parents were married in Grand Rapids on 19 September 1889. William died in Grand Rapids on 9 March 1948 at the age of 91 and Frankie passed away in Grand Rapids on 18 November 1958 at the age of 96. ___________ Interviewer: This interview with Mr. and Mrs. Francis T. Russell was recorded October fourth, nineteen seventy-one. Ok. Go ahead; what were you going to say? Mr. Russell: I was going to start to remember, to begin with, give my location at birth at recorded in North Park Avenue and Terrace Walk, which, of course now Terrace Walk is eliminated but North Park Avenue is still up there. The house which I was born in was torn down and, turned into stores. But this is a rather unique location in that it was just across the street from the Amusement Pavilion that my grandfather had built in the eighties sometime, along the river bank for the amusement of people that might drive out from downtown, from the heart of Grand Rapids or else come out on the, this dummy line that in the early days or the streetcar later on. But the Pavilion was provided with quite a fleet of row-boats that could be rented and rowed up and down the river and in the early days he had this side wheeler steamer that took a group up to as far as the Plainfield Farm which was Grand Island. At present Grand Island’s about in front of the Blythefield Club and this Farm was up in that general locality of the Blythefield Club. But the, this Pavilion was a fairly good size and had a very large dance hall, had three storied, for one of the attractions, there was a switch-back that ran from the Pavilion itself to another building �2 perhaps oh, 150 yards away. And you’d get in this car and ride along as you would in a figure eight or a jack rabbit or something like that over to this building and then you switched back and then come back to the Pavilion again. Which was supposed to be quite thrilling at that time, I think it was because it had some pretty good dips in it, although they weren’t loop-the-loops or anything like that, but just a thrilling affair for grown-ups and youngsters at that time. But later on, after this switch-back was given up, several years later the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club was established in the building just south of the Pavilion; which used to house the sidewheeler, the steamer that ran up and down the river. And the steamer went over great, so the Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club was formed and was very active in canoeing and shell racing and used to take some their best crew members out to Peoria and one place or another where they’d have some racing contests in the shells. Afterwards, the Boat and Canoe Club built north of this location. North of the bridge and where the present, let’s see, I think the American Legion is in there now, isn’t it. They used to be the last…… Interviewer: Who was? Who was your grandfather? Mr. Russell: C.C. Comstock and he came in eighteen fifty-three, moving out from New Hampshire. His father had been a farmer and sort of a half hearted carpenter, but he was never a very productive along the farming lines and as I gathered, the soil was not too productive, in that locality in which helped to encourage my grandfather at an early age to strike out west, which he did and looked this territory over, some almost the age of between eighteen and twenty and eventually moved out here and established himself in the lumbering business. At that time there was very little rail communication here. He originally arrived by a steamer through Chicago, then through Grand Haven and up the river. And then in his memoirs was one of the events coming up the river he tells about on the boat, when it blew up, the boiler blew up at Grandville and he was blown into the water. The helmsman was killed, but the other passengers seemed to survive alright and get ashore and he walked from there up to just south of the Soldier’s Home where he lived at that time. He had built out in the country there at rather an early age, or not an early age, early in his lifetime and his home was on Boltwood Drive, which was built in eighteen ninety, at that time. But this isn’t that I referred to when he was blown off the steamer he was residing on Ottawa Street. That was so it wasn’t quite the walk as it might have been if he’d been in the later house. He was interested in lumbering and later on building factory for the manufacture of pails and tubs on the corner of Newberry, now Sixth Street and Monroe; used to be Canal Street at that time. And that building is still standing on the northeast corner and his old office building right across the street on the northwest corner is still standing at this time. He was at one time, Comstock, Nelson and Matter in the manufacture of furniture and there was a great deal of difficulty in transporting at that time and getting the finished product out into the territories to be saleable. And it was eventually developed that he built some of his own railcars, his own freight cars, to transport the furniture out of town. That was later on of course when the GR & I, and some other roads developed into Grand Rapids. �3 Interviewer: He built his own freight cars, for what reason weren’t the railroads? Mr. Russell: Well, the railroads weren’t equipped to apparently meet the requirements that he thought should be necessary to take care of the product. And I don’t think that developed very widely but I can gather in his memoirs that there probably weren’t more than three or four cars that were built for that purpose. But his first interest in transportation apparently on his own hook was building a dummy line from Sweet Street up to North Park, where he had the entertainment enterprise. And this dummy ran fairly regular intervals between North Park and Sweet Street, which was the limit of the streetcar line at that time- went as far as Sweet and then back downtown. Then at that point they’d transfer to the dummy further north. And the later on as time developed, the dummy line was absorbed by the streetcar, Grand Rapids Street Railway, and electric cars were run on out there. But … Interviewer: How, how was his street car run? Did he run on electricity, too? Mr. Russell: Oh no, no this was before that, this was a steam dummy. It would carry a little tender behind it and a passenger car and in the summer, the open passenger car, in the winter it was closed. I think they had about, five cars was total equipment. But it afforded transportation for a number of years and by getting the people out to his amusement resort and bathing beach, which was also established out there on the west side of the river and they’d row across from the Pavilion, go over there and go in swimming where there was a sand bar and a sand beach and eventually that wore itself out. The swimming feature was given up and then it turned into just farmland over there…. Interviewer: The river was pretty clean then in those days for swimmers? Mr. Russell: Well yes, it was. I was always taught at that time that the river purified itself every ten miles. That, whatever happened to it, after flowing over the gravel and sand beds that it would be purified after ten miles of operation., We never thought of pollution at that time, nothing of that sort. You couldn’t say it was as clear as Lake Michigan, but it was a much clearer than we’ve been used to seeing it lately. I remember that the, the row boats, in front of the Pavilion were attached to a series of booms that were floating in the river and these booms could of course could, rise and fall with the variation of the river. And there was a tendency I recall a moss gathering on the booms so it showed some pollution at that time. But, you’d get out of those booms and then of course you couldn’t get too many of them [people] or they’d sink. You’d have to go down, just a few at a time to get in the rowboats and then, then row wherever you wanted to. Interviewer: Did you ever go out to the amusement park, when you were a child Mrs. Russell? Mr. Russell: North Park Pavilion? �4 Mrs. Russell: I think I was out there to Sunday School Picnics. I think we used to have Sunday School Picnics…I don’t remember quite so much. Well I remember all about its being there but I’m afraid I didn’t play around there as much as you did. Interviewer: Where did you grow up? Mrs. Russell: Well, I was born on North College Avenue about halfway between Leonard and what’s now Michigan Street, was then called Bridge. And it was a plat that my father had bought up there, a large piece of land; and our house was the only house on it. He built this house, establishing the plat. And we used to walk a good distance of a half mile up Bridge Street to school and think nothing of it. In those days, whether it (would) be summer or winter we’d go home for lunch and go back again. But of course that’s unheard of now. And it occurs to me that we used to go bobsledding right down those College Avenue hills. Either way, because we lived right just halfway between. Then a little later on ‘course there were lots of houses built, largely due to my father’s development. That whole section filled in, so we had neighbors, at that time. I lived there until I was probably twelve or thirteen years old and then we moved down on Lyon Street in one of these houses that are now being shown on the Heritage Hill tour, which intrigued me. I went in to see it Saturday. I hadn’t seen it since about the year, what did I figure that out? I think it was probably about nineteen eighteen. And I’ve never been in the house since we left it. It was very interesting to see five apartments in it. I couldn’t quite picture that because they hadn’t had that many people living there. Interviewer: Whereabouts on Lyon is that house? Mr. Russell: Four-forty. Mrs. Russell: Near College Avenue. It’s a block between College and Prospect. It’s directly back of Central High School. We, we owned the property, straight through from Lyon Street to the Central High School line. We had a big tennis court back of the house that about half the town used to make use of because there weren’t too many tennis courts then; and they’d all come and warm up for the city tournaments, the city tennis tournaments. And so we, we got a lot of circulation of people there while we lived there. And then at that time I attended the Central Grammar School, which was down, at the corner of Barclay and Lyon Street. And of course that’s since been torn down. It was a great big square building and very high on quite a hill that’s since been leveled down, considerably. Then of course the next step was to go to the old high school next door and then I eventually graduated my last year nine twelve I graduated from Central High School. And then from that residence, my father built down on Madison Avenue. I spent the rest of my life with them, I spent down there. I’ve always been around the parts here. Interviewer: Where, whereabouts on Madison was that? �5 Mrs. Russell: At the corner of Logan and it isn’t exactly the corner though, one house south of the corner of Logan on the east side of the street. Right next to, well it used to be Henry Heald’s house, a very old, old house, which was taken down, wasn’t it or is it still there? Mr. Russell: Yes, it‘s turned in to a school. Mrs. Russell: School now. Yes, it, it had quite a historical old house next to it. But, again my father bought a piece of land out there and then sold off the lots to the various people that built between our home and Logan and Morris Avenue and Madison. So we had a neighborhood that developed all at one time practically and ….. Interviewer: What was your father’s name? Mrs. Russell: William C. Hopson. People called it Hopkins or Hobson, it isn’t, it’s none of those, it’s H-O-P-S-O-N. I hate to have it called otherwise. He came here, when did I tell you he came here? Eighteen, hold that down here, I ought to, I hate to be inaccurate. (He) came to Grand Rapids in the spring of 1870. Now that’s right, that’s when he came, he came here from Ypsilanti; but he was born in Toledo, Ohio. And he came here with a widowed mother and he was of tender age of about twelve years old when he came here and had a very heavy degree of dependency on her part. So that, he used to go to night school and tried to pick up his education and I think he went to high school until he was seventeen and I doubt he ever graduated. I don’t think so. But he went heavily to night school. And then at that time he joined a metalworking firm called Shriver-Weatherly. And in the course and learned the trade... he learned the metal trade and worked hard at it I’m sure, because he was pretty vigorous at applying himself. Then his spare time on holidays and nights he used to run a popcorn stand down on the corner of Monroe and Lyon right beside of the Mays, where Mays is now. And he really could tell some tall tales about how much money he’d make on July Fourth, and how far he could make the lemonade go. Interviewer: Was that a pretty big day in Grand Rapids, July Fourth? Mrs. Russell: Evidently it was because apparently they had a parade. I think they always had a parade that got everybody downtown. Then if he could get them downtown then he could catch them for a popcorn ball or a glass of lemonade. I’m sure he said that he didn’t make lemonade out of a single lemon. I think he bought something called citric acid and turned it out of that, and consequently it was profitable. But he had kind of a struggle getting along. And he was sort of proud of some of his success. He helped put the roof on, I think the post office, ahead of the old post office. I don’t think this one was the one that was. Mr. Russell: Oh, no it was…. �6 Mrs. Russell: …the one that preceded this one. But he used to like to talk about having helped put the roof on the one, not the one, two ahead of our modern one; the one that preceded the court building now at the corner of Lyon and Ottawa. Is that? Yes, Ionia and Lyon. And it was the building ahead of that one I’m sure that he put the roof on. And or helped and he had some rugged occupations all right. Of course he went in business after he worked for ShriverWeatherly; he went in business for himself. And he got a man to back him with money, some money, and then after a period he was able to buy the man out and go out on his own. And he continued until it became W.C. Hopson and Company which is still operating under the name Hopson-Bennett now. And…. Mr. Russell: On Grandville Avenue, the building was built in nineteen-ten, that’s it was… Mrs. Russell: Nineteen-ten. He built the building and …. Mrs. Russell: He was a lover of automobiles and, I think the first time he ever saw an automobile for sale was out at the, what do you call that? Mr. Russell: West Michigan Fair… Mrs. Russell: West Michigan Park, West Michigan Fair. Is that what they called it? West Michigan, wasn’t there a park in there? Mr. Russell: No. it was at Comstock Park. Mrs. Russell: Out at Comstock Park. And they had a demonstrator of Oldsmobile, with a little, I think a single lunger. I’m sure it was because it went by jerks and, it had a removable rear. When we rode in it on Sunday why it had two seats, but all during the week when he was going back and forth to work in it he had just a platform and slide the second seat off and put this platform on. And the car wasn’t very dependable because they were the early days and the chain kept breaking, no matter what they did to it; nobody really knew how to repair it. And this chain would keep breaking so whenever we went for a ride on Sunday, the man who was the teamster down at the factory and lived fairly near us, took the horses, they had a team of horses there, had to stay home so he could be sure to come out and tow us in. So we spent, this poor man never got a Sunday out when we were out riding. My father finally said well I’m going to drive that car to Lansing because I’m going to take it right back to the factory. Everything in the world’s happened to it, and Adams and Hart was the automobile agency here. They worked over it and they hadn’t done very well by it so he got this teamster to say he’d go along with him and it took him four days to make Lansing, partly due to the fact that the roads were so muddy. There weren’t any paved roads at all. It was just all dirt roads. And they’d get stuck and then something would break and they’d get that put together and fixed up and then they’d go a little further. But they made Lansing. I don’t know whether he ever brought it back or not but he got to Lansing. I always thought it was so amusing to be towed in, and I was so embarrassing to have had horses �7 be pulling you when you had this good-looking car; and not very many cars in Grand Rapids. There were very few. Then later on he got a fancy, for just a notional fancy, he thought the Franklin car was the car. It couldn’t freeze and it was, oh it was just the car to have. So he stuck to that pretty consistently. Then he got a notion that my mother might drive an electric car. She wasn’t very brave about getting behind a wheel and so he got a Detroit Electric and, he jokingly said to my mother, “Now Mr. Steinman is our city assessor and he lives just a block from us here. Don’t drive around that way or he’ll raise our, what do you call it? Mr. Russell: Personal property assessment. Mrs. Russell: Yes, personal property tax. And so my mother went out with the man demonstrating it, who was trying to teach her to drive it and she tried to turn the corner from Fountain to College and she ran right up on Mr. Steinman’s lawn and, and the car stopped right in his yard, which we always thought was very humorous. Mr. Russell: It was a good start? Mrs. Russell: You know, at that time I lived there on Lyon Street, Blodgett Hospital was on the corner of College and Lyon. Only of course it was UBA Hospital before they changed the name. But that presented quite a different picture with that hospital on the corner. Less than a block away from us, it was. And of course that is right where Fountain Street School is now. That’s the location where UBA was. Mr. Russell: Fountain Street School? Mrs. Russell: Yes. Mr. Russell: UBA was United Benevolent Association. Did you ever hear of that? Interviewer: No. Mr. Russell: That was the hospital organization. Mrs. Russell: It preceded; it’s the same hospital except that the Blodgetts put a put a great deal of money into this hospital and in recognition they changed the name of it. I think they still, their annual meetings refer to it as United Benevolent Association. I think the name has... Mr. Russell: Oh, is that? Mrs. Russell: ….been fluctuated a little. I’m not sure of that, but I think so. Interviewer: What was the United Benevolent Association? Mr. Russell: I don’t know what denomination it was, do you? �8 Interviewer: Perhaps it had some religious affiliation then? Mr. Russell: Yes, it Mrs. Russell: I don’t think so. I don’t think it is. No, I think it was more like, something instead of the [Community] Chest; a group of private, contributors who united to build the hospital. I don’t recall there was ever any religious….. Mr. Russell: Well, now wasn’t Butterworth in operation at that time, too? Mrs. Russell: No. Mr. Russell: That was later on? Mrs. Russell: I don’t think so. I think, I think UBA was the first one. I think. I hope they don’t rely on my accuracy ‘cause I could be wrong and I could be corrected. I just remember what it looks like. I’m sure it was there, when I was there. Interviewer: Did your mother ever, did your father ever buy that electric car? Did you…..? Mrs. Russell: Yes, we had about three of them. We had one right after the other. They were very intriguing to operate because, in fact they created an awful problem for me to learn to drive a gas car when I got married. I had to drive a gar car. His idea was it would keep me out of the gas car, which he had, and the electric would be so much safer. And so I didn’t bother to learn to drive his car at all. So when I got married all Fran had was a gas car. It presented a great problem because an electric, all you did when you got in a tight place was pull everything off. Well, that doesn’t work very well with a gas car. So that every time I’d get any place that was difficult, I’d stall. The system was very interesting. It has two levers and that’s the two levers and the brakes is all there is to the whole car really. You had five speeds and of course they weren’t exactly racing speeds but you could, you’d operate with your right hand you did the steering (changing side of reel) that’s just what it was like. Mr. Russell: there was…. Mrs. Russell: And very clean cars. That was the nice part about it, there was no grease or oil or anything like that about it. The car always, then of course you had to have it charged. We had a charging arrangement in our garage and it would only go about, oh I think they said it would go eighty miles on a charge. It never would. Fifty miles was about all they’d go on a good full charge. So usually when you brought the car in, you put it right on the charge. And tried to keep it pepped up so that you could use it for where you wanted to go. Fortunately the first one we had, we lived on Lyon Street and we didn’t have a charger in the garage then. The garage being a barn, we didn’t have a garage at all; it was an old barn out in back of the house. And our source of electricity was down on Bond Avenue, that isn’t even there anymore, is it? �9 Mr. Russell: No. Mrs. Russell: Bond isn’t even….. Mr. Russell: It was the first block east of Monroe but it isn’t… Mrs. Russell: No, it’d be right in between the gas company and the Old Kent Bank, wouldn’t it? Mr. Russell: Yes Mrs. Russell: Isn’t that about where it… Mr. Russell: It was the first block east… Mrs. Russell: There was a very good garage there. The best garage in the town and they were rather, well they were kind of half ahead of their time, don’t you think they were? Mr. Russell: Well, C.J. Bronson’s Mrs. Russell: Bronson’s garage, yes, so that when we’d get out of juice, we could start at the top of Lyon Street hill and make the garage on Bond Avenue very nicely. Just slide into it. Deader than a doornail, because when an electric car is dead it’s awful dead. It doesn’t do a thing. Interviewer: Why did he think that electric cars were safer than gasoline cars? Mrs. Russell: They didn’t go so fast. They were slow, they were slow cars. Mr. Russell: The highest speed would be thirty, perhaps thirty five, it wasn’t…. Mrs. Russell: Well, then I think they thought they were safer because they had fewer adjustments; you didn’t have a clutch, you didn’t have to do anything about a clutch, you know. It didn’t have to mesh or anything of that kind. You could be awful dumb and drive an electric, and I don’t know, my father thought it was perfectly alright for me to drive that but he wouldn’t listen to me driving a gas car. I don’t know quite what all that reasoning was, do you? Mr. Russell: Well, when you’re limited to fifty mile radius you know, you can’t get very far away from home, because you’d have to be sure to get back. Mrs. Russell: I wasn’t that far away. I wasn’t trying to make distance. Mr. Russell: They, they never got up any speed unless you were on the right side of a hill, then you could do it, so like coming down Lyon Street or Bridge Street. But, then they’re very stable, they’d climb a hill in great shape…. Mrs. Russell: They’d go through anything. �10 Mr. Russell: If they were properly charged up. Mrs. Russell: They’d just, the application, electricity was almost more powerful then gas, the gas might jump you or something, but electric power just really, in fact I backed right straight through this garage door once without raising it, so I know what it can do. Interviewer: Do you remember the first gas station in Grand Rapids? Mr. Russell: Oh, no. Mrs. Russell: Let me see if I can think of an early one. Mr. Russell: I think that would be…. Mrs. Russell: Where’d you get gas? Mr. Russell: Bronson’s garage was where we….. Mrs. Russell: Bronson’s the first, there on Bond Avenue. I’ll bet that was as early, did we go way there for gas? Did you get gas from there? Mr. Russell: Well at our house, we had a fifty gallon tank and the tank, the gasoline tank wagon would drive up there and fill it up, periodically and then we’d have to pump out of that ourselves and fill our tank through a chamois strainer to be sure that no dirt or water or anything else got into the tank. It was very important to be sure that the gas was pure getting in there. It didn’t get through any filter, pump or anything of that sort as it does now. It came right off the tank wagon right into our tank and then we had to transport it in five gallon lots into our automobile tank. And of course in those days the tank didn’t hold more than about ten gallons anyways so. Our experience was the first Model-T Ford, ours was number seven ninety-nine of the Model-T. And, we had that, let’s see, we bought that in nineteen eleven and in about three months, it was so redesigned that we had to run ours back to the factory and have it rebuilt. They changed the details of it from a bent bearing to roller bearing from a pump driven circulation for cooling the motor to a thermo siphon and several refinements so that we sort of felt as if we’d helped them develop the Ford in an experimental way in having such an early number. And that car basically was quite reasonable at as I recall about six hundred dollars, but then you had to have the windshield added and the speedometer and the gas headlights and the gas tank as the acetylene tank, this was before electric headlights. And we had all these details added up you’re well over a thousand dollars. Interviewer: Oh, really? �11 Mr. Russell: …to get the thing operating. But they’d sell the thing with kerosene lamps if you wanted but that didn’t shine very far up the road. You really had to have acetylene gas headlights to give you the real light. Mrs. Russell: Didn’t you have acetylene gas in your house? We did. Mr. Russell: Yes, before electricity was…. Mrs. Russell: Before they had electric…. Mr. Russell: Yes, we had…. Mrs. Russell: ….make it out of carbide, didn’t they? Put in big tanks. Mr. Russell: Yes. Mrs. Russell: It had something, looked like a furnace, did it? Mr. Russell: Sort of, Yes and then, there were two systems…. Mrs. Russell: I can remember carrying buckets of carbide. Mr. Russell: The calcium carbide would be, in one system would be dropped into the water and then it forms acetylene gas and the tank would fill up. Then the other system was dropping water on a sort of container of calcium carbide and you’d raised acetylene gas by that method. The one method was you drop the carbide into the water and the other method was to drop water on the carbide. Mrs. Russell: What’s preferable? Why, why the difference? Mr. Russell: Well, just two different processes. I don’t know, we thought that the best one was the Davis process that we used at our house. Although at your house you had the Owens. Mrs. Russell: I think we did. Mr. Russell: Which was the, it is a…. Mrs. Russell: Do I remember seeing a tank, when it was full rise? Mr. Russell: Yes, in either case, when the water came in contact with the carbide, it would form acetylene gas and then the tank would rise and fill up and shut off the operation, so it wouldn’t go too far. Then as you used the gas, the tank would recede and so the mechanism would start the process again, dropping more carbide into the tank; or dropping more water on the carbide. Interviewer: Where, where was the tank located? �12 Mr. Russell: In the basement. Mrs. Russell: In the basement, yes. Interviewer: Was it in a…..? Mrs. Russell: Looked a little like a furnace in that it was a galvanized iron cylinder sort of, wasn’t it? Mr. Russell: That’s right. Interviewer: I see, it had a support…around it… Mrs. Russell: And it had a cylinder within a cylinder sort of, isn’t that right? Mr. Russell: That’s right. Mrs. Russell: And this one that would rise was the inner cylinder, you see, they’d seed this stuff into the bottom, didn’t they? Mr. Russell: Yes. Mrs. Russell: And then as it formed the gas it would shove this inner cylinder up and I suppose create the pressure that’d carry light around your house and was good light. Don’t you think it was? Mr. Russell: Oh yes, it was very, very nice… Mrs. Russell: Very steady, it was a very steady light. Mr. Russell: Bright light, this was in case you weren’t anywheres near the natural gas main, oh I mean the city gas company. Where we were out there, we’re a long ways away from service. Mrs. Russell: Now we weren’t very far. Why would we have had a ….. Mr. Russell: Well up on the hill, you’d be quite a ways from the central supply which was down on Market and Wealthy, you know. Mrs. Russell: They used to make that out of coal, didn’t they? Mr. Russell: Yes Mrs. Russell: Before the natural gas that they had. Mr. Russell: Yes �13 Interviewer: Do you, do you remember where the first parking lot was in Grand Rapids? Do you remember a parking lot opening? Mr. Russell: No, no I can’t, I can’t recall that ….. Mrs. Russell: You don’t mean a public one, just any one open to the public but not a city run? Interviewer: Correct. Mrs. Russell: Livingston Hotel…? Mr. Russell: Parking lot? Mrs. Russell: I thought that, when after that fire, wasn’t there one in which you drove in on the tile floor. Do you suppose, I’m not real sure that’s right, but you know they had, what kind of a room would you call it? Mr. Russell: Foyer for a wagon. Mrs. Russell: No, down under their basement room was a cocktail lounge we’d call it now but it wasn’t back then. No. It was, but it was that type of place. They had entertainment there, evening gatherings. Mr. Russell: The saloon you mean? Mrs. Russell: …then after the fire. I thought I remember driving in there on tile floor. They just left the floor, the floor didn’t burn. Do you remember that or… Mr. Russell: No, I don’t recall that. END of Side I – cassette CD is at Track 2 24:16 Mrs. Russell: I had a funny notion that was about as… I can’t re, I don’t think I remember parking lots though very much. Interviewer: Where was the Livingston Hotel located? Mrs. Russell: The corner of Fulton and Division, the…. Mr. Russell: Southeast corner. Mrs. Russell: Southeast corner. Interviewer: Where Davenport business building? Mrs. Russell: Yes…it, where they used to be, that corner. �14 Mr. Russell: Yes, then after the Press building went in there and then Herald and …. Mrs. Russell: Well, they didn’t go in after the Livingston. They were there at the time the Livingston Hotel was there. Mr. Russell: Oh, the Livingston didn’t extend up as far as Sheldon then? Mrs. Russell: Oh, no. The Livingston’s about, a little bit bigger than the Davenport building, and I think maybe the Herald took part of it and got a little bigger and maybe build... Mr. Russell: Yes, I guess that’s right. It was ….. Mrs. Russell: But, that, I’m sure that the Press and the Herald were there be, right along with the Livingston. Interviewer: Where did you, where did you first live when you were married? Mr. Russell: On Oakwood Avenue, just north of Coit. And that was, right after we’d platted the farm out there. You see, we had the Comstock Dairy Farm; it was a hundred and sixty acres, which is Riverside Gardens now and we had joined with Charles Sligh and Jay Post who had frontage up on Plainfield and we were able to make our street extensions continuous from Plainfield down to Monroe, in accordance with the drainage areas, like Comstock Boulevard, now is the drainage area and Sligh Boulevard. And in that manner you didn’t run into these deadend streets and things of that kind when you were able to plat this in conjunction with the adjoining owners, Mr. Charles R. Sligh and Jay Post. And this was the first street that we’d extended from the city up North to the 3 Mile Road, which was the city limits at that time. And our house was one of the first, three or four that were built on that street to open the plat. And then subsequent to that, different sections in Riverside Gardens were put on as they could be absorbed in the market. Mrs. Russell: Oh, that was your business when I married you wasn’t it for a good many years. In fact you still have a few lots haven’t you? Very few. Mr. Russell: Oh, we’re down to about our last half dozen now but it’s pretty well developed up there now But when we were married there was all open fields and we had one of the first houses to be built on the plat; although preceding that, my grandfather had built a very substantial residence on Boltwood Drive and my father and mother Huntley Russell and Clara Russell built the large pillared house that’s still standing out there now, just off from Boltwood Drive. But at that time these two houses were separated by the streetcar line that came by the Wealthy-Taylor car line that ran through there to Comstock Park. �15 Interviewer: Well now, as I am not familiar with that area of town in terms of the names of the streets. As you drive on Monroe Avenue towards well out to the Riverside Park area, where the park is, there’s ….. Mrs. Russell: They gave Riverside Park to the city, they, his family did. Interviewer: Really? Mr. Russell: Yes, that was known in our family as the flats and, we used to have to, in order to raise any crops there at all which was mostly corn, we had to establish dikes, at the river bank to keep the flood water out of that area. And we had pumps operating there pumping it out if it broke at all. After, as time went on, we gave up that section for any residential purpose at all and turned into, dedicated it to the city as a park. And Riverside, Comstock-Riverside Park developed after that. Mrs. Russell: Your plat would be directly east of Riverside Park. Isn’t that right? Mr. Russell: Yes. Mrs. Russell: The one that Riverside Gardens, that he’s talking about, where we lived. We lived on one of those lots east of Monroe. Mr. Russell: So Riverside Park is the property west of Monroe and Riverside Gardens is the property east of Monroe, which is… Interviewer: I see. Mrs. Russell: (?) …and Mrs. Boltwood gave it to the city, isn’t that right? Mr. Russell: Yes, Mrs. Boltwood did. Mrs. Russell: Mrs. Boltwood; they were sisters - Mrs. Lucius Boltwood and Mrs. Huntley Russell. They did, they did quite a lot. Well, this platting was done with both of them together, wasn’t it? Mr. Russell: Yes. Mrs. Russell: It was in their names, of course. Interviewer: When out in there off of Monroe, there’s a large old home that is totally unlike any of the houses that are built in that area around it. It’s a huge home… Mr. Russell: With columns? Mrs. Russell: The columns? �16 Interviewer: Did the columns face to the south? Mr. Russell: No, they faced west. Mrs. Russell: Yes, west. Let’s see. Interviewer: Well maybe, maybe they do face west, and I just never…. Mrs. Russell: White is it, a white house, sort of? Mr. Russell: Green roof? Interviewer: Yes, right, right. Mrs. Russell: There’s a drive going in around it. Interviewer: I’ve never driven over to look at the house up close; I see it from the road Mrs. Russell: I think that’s his home. That was… Mr. Russell: Well, the house really faces west, but you approach it off from Boltwood Drive on the south. Mrs. Russell: Boltwood Drive. The south would be the entry you, you’d come in off, from the south. So you probably thought that was the entrance you see. It is the biggest house out there and it’s startling and it’s a very fine old home. It’s very beautifully built and is yet a beautiful house. His brother lives there yet. Interviewer: Oh, your brother still lives there? Mr. Russell: Charles Russell, yes. And this was originally built on a five acre plot and the old Comstock home was built on a five acre plot just to the west. And then would be platting and of course this acreage was absorbed in lots and the lots on which these houses stood were materially reduced in size. And it looks entirely different there now than it did when they were originally put in in eighteen ninety and nineteen ten. It was just the days of those two original houses. And, the farm buildings were at the juncture of Coit and Guild The dairy barn there had over two hundred head of cattle and they had ran a milk route out of there to supply milk to certain sections of the city. Mrs. Russell: Isn’t that the... .wasn’t that right on the edge of the property that is now Riverside School out there? Mr. Russell: Oh, where the dairy barn was? Mrs. Russell: The dairy barn? �17 Mr. Russell: No the Riverside School is east of there; up on the rise, up on the hill. Mrs. Russell: But I thought it went down to Coit. Doesn’t it, go way down to Coit? Mr. Russell: No. Mrs. Russell: Oh, I thought it did. Mr. Russell: When you look back and think of that as a farm and supplying milk to the city, it’s awfully hard to visualize now with all the houses and development that has taken place. But it was , it was a very good, dairy farm and the property that adjoined it to the north and east, the Nason farm, was subsequently purchased by the Charles Sligh; not Charlie Sligh, but his father, with whom we collaborated on platting the property back in the, we were working on this in the twenties, nineteen twenty. Mrs. Russell: You haven’t said anything about the waterworks. Mr. Russell: Well that was a double enterprise that my grandfather Comstock established to take care of the water necessities of the pavilion and the dummy, which required a large amount of water. Of course, that’s that was the motor powered thing they had to have plenty of water to create the steam to keep the dummy going. And in order to keep the dairy farm up; [to] keep plenty of water flowing to the cattle all the time, he established the water wheel in Lamberton Creek where it crosses Coit, and pumped out of springs in the immediate locality of where the stream comes down through there. And pumped up to a ten thousand gallon tank that stood just south of Northwood, it’s known as Northwood now, and east of Coit. And from there, this water was distributed to the dairy farm and to the North Park Pavilion. Then as the community grew up, more people, more houses built and so forth, they attached on to this water supply and [it was] known as the North Park Water Company. And it gradually grew and grew until at the time, the city came out there and took it over we had about a hundred and fifty customers that [we] were supplying out through North Park. And then when the city grew, the city limits was extended out there, then this company had to be taken over by the city and of course the mains reinforced and distribution enlarged and so forth. Interviewer: Gee, your Grandfather Comstock was into everything, wasn’t he? Mr. Russell: I guess he was. For one time he had a…. Mrs. Russell: You haven’t told… Mr. Russell: ….five farms around town... Mrs. Russell: Fran, I always thought that was interesting that during the Depression, what was that in ninety-three? �18 Mr. Russell: Oh, yes in ninety-three... Mrs. Russell: He issued his own script. He had the Grand Rapids Chair Company, which he’d built; the buildings still there on Monroe. And… Mrs. Russell: Baker Furniture now, isn’t it? Mr. Russell: Yes. Mrs. Russell: Or else taken over by the…. Mr. Russell: I think…. Mrs. Russell: …subsequent merger, I don’t know. Mr. Russell: But he originally built those buildings and, it was called Grand Rapids Chair Company for years. Then across the street, across Monroe, he had a store, a general store, at which his employees traded and they ran into this, financial difficulty in ninety-three, the panic, they were shy of cash, as everybody was, but my grandfather established script known as Comstock script, that he would pay his employees in the factory. And then they’d go across the street and redeem it for groceries in the grocery store. And in this manner he weathered the storm there for several months, I really don’t know the exact period. But it was an interim affair that helped him keep going. He could still manufacture, he could still pay his employees. Mrs. Russell: And they could still eat. Mr. Russell: And still eat. It was a sort of self-contained unit there that made it possible for him to operate during that period. I don’t believe it lasted so very long; but I don’t think it was an extensive as our nineteen-thirty depression; but I really don’t know because I wasn’t around at that time. But it was an interesting operation to be able to work this out with himself instead of just laying these fellows off… Mrs. Russell: I was resourceful. Mr. Russell: …paid ‘em in the script so they could still maintain their domestic operation of families and didn’t starve at all. But he was the mayor at one time, of the city. And he was also a Congressman in Washington, for one term, on the Whig ticket; and in his memoirs he was quite put out with the time that was wasted down there. So much time was killed in talk and not accomplishing things. Mrs. Russell: You must be talking about now (?) Mr. Russell: And this, well that book right in back of you that was a written, his memoirs and we typed them, had them typed and it’s quite, interesting, his…. �19 Mrs. Russell: They’re very historical accounts… Interviewer: I bet it is. Mrs. Russell: He was quite outspoken. He had definite ideas. Mr. Russell: But he… Mrs. Russell: I think there’s one of those in the library isn’t there? Interviewer: Think so? Mrs. Russell: They asked you for one. Didn’t I remember your giving them one? I think there is. Mr. Russell: Z.Z. Lydens said that he had some good leads out of that in writing this last history of Grand Rapids. Interviewer: Oh, yeah? Mr. Russell: He said he got some good information out of that. But, he wrote that at the time he was in Congress because he had so much time on his hands down there. I guess he was not much of a speaker and of course he didn’t have any priority, just being a freshman. And with so much time on his hands he started writing this and followed through and in good shape so it’s made a very interesting history for the family to refer to. Interviewer: That’s it’s a nice… Mr. Russell: But I think there’s a copy of that in the (library). End of Reel I (#31) Mr. Russell: ….That stuff was all by the boards Interviewer: Where did they bring these logs down from? Mr. Russell: Well, this is when they were still cutting within an eight or ten mile area say of North Park, up around Rockford and Belding, Belmont and those places. And they’d, well, they’re a good size log you know and they’d just pile ‘em on these, actually just runners there’s a front runner and a rear runner, and get a pole connecting them - then these logs would really form the body of the vehicle. And they’d be stacked up there in great shape and it would take a good sturdy team of horses, only during the winter of course when they had a good snow on the ground. And then they’d take a load down there and our bobsled would hook a ride on this team behind, go down the road perhaps a half mile or so and then catch another team coming back. �20 Interviewer: Were those logs white pine? Mr. Russell: Oh, I really don’t know the composition; it might have been. Might have been oak or elm or whatever was hanging around p there. You know these good sized trees we have out here… Mrs. Russell: Did they ever float them down the river? Mr. Russell: Oh, yes. Mrs. Russell: Do you know anything about that? Mr. Russell: Yes, they floated them down the river and held them with certain booms down at where the dam is now at, there’s one log jam I remember seeing just a little log[jam] at Leonard Street when they got jammed up there one season. And there was in the spring when the floods would come along, that was the time to dump ‘em in there and bring ‘em down to the saw-mill which was down where the, about where the Grand Trunk Freight House is. And then my grandfather ran this, saw-mill there and a lumber yard. Interviewer: That was another enterprise, huh? Mr. Russell: Well that was in connection with his furniture and so forth. Had to have lumber for furniture to make pails and tubs; you had to have the lumber for. Interviewer: Would you tell me that, we were talking before about the fact that the streetcars had mailboxes on them and people could mail letters on the streetcar. Would you tell me again why they had the mail boxes on the street cars? Mr. Russell: Well, because they were afraid of strikes at that time on the railroads, on the street railways. Mrs. Russell: Street Railway. Mr. Russell: And this, I can’t remember who was superintendent at that time, but he got the bright idea that if we just turned this into a federal operation that would circumvent the strike. And I think that was basically why it was done. Not necessarily for the convenience of the populace so much as it was because it’d keep the railroad going. But it was a very handy thing, particularly to us out there. That was quite… ours was the longest line in town. The WealthyTaylor line came out to Ramona and ended at North Park. That’s quite a distance, going down through town, way out there and back again. And, it was… Mrs. Russell: How far…? Mr. Russell: I think eight miles from end to end. �21 Mrs. Russell: How far out do you think it was developed out this way really, along the railway line? Mr. Russell: Well now you see I didn’t know so much about out here because I was always in the North End. I was always a North Ender, Mrs. Russell: Well I can, it seems to me that about at Plymouth the car would just tear through the greater part of swampland and they’d always pick up speed and go, I thought…. Mr. Russell: Well, that was because there was, there was a slight decline there and … Mrs. Russell: Then, then kept going. Mr. Russell: Let’s see take from the intersection of Wealthy and Lake Drive. There’s a slight decline which was, more accentuated at that time because it’s been filled quite a good deal there to bring the street up. Mrs. Russell I don’t think there were very many houses at all…. Mr. Russell: Oh, there weren’t, no… Mrs. Russell: It was barren land that I remember. Mr. Russell: It was swampy really. Mrs. Russell: Between that and Ramona but Ramona was there a long time ahead of any houses, wasn’t it? Mr. Russell: Oh, yes. Ramona was an amusement park for the benefit of the railroad to bring passengers out there, you see. Mrs. Russell: And what was that beer garden that was there, it was a very famous one that was there just about at the beginning of Ramona, too. What did they call it? A German name, a real German name. Mr. Russell: Oh, yes, that was, that was a good attraction there. Mrs. Russell: Hubers. Mr. Russell: Hubers Beer Garden. Mrs. Russell: Hubers Beer Garden and there was a big one. It was a great big, well it was under cover, it was a building and very popular. That was quite a place of entertainment… Mr. Russell: Basically beer that. �22 Mrs. Russell: ...too you know they’d not hard liquor but basically a beer garden that sort… that’s what it was, all it was, wasn’t it? Mr. Russell: And I don’t think… Mrs. Russell: I don’t think they had food, I think it was just a beer garden. But I remember it always there on the grounds, and it was right close to Ramona. Mr. Russell: And then after that there was the Phoenix Beer Garden which stands where the, which stood where the Yacht Club is now, that on that side of Lake Drive, or Lakeside Drive and between Lakeside Drive and the lake. That was very popular beer garden too for some time. Mrs. Russell: I don’t know that one. Mr. Russell: But you see when they had vaudeville out there, they got a lot of patronage out of Grand Rapids on the streetcars, those would be filled right up with, right up to the roof. Mrs. Russell: Do you remember the… Interviewer: In other words the streetcar owners in that, in those days, were they would devise ways of getting the people to ride that train as much as possible? Mr. Russell: Yes. Interviewer: That’s why he built up Ramona, just to get people taking that long trip back and forth, huh? Mrs. Russell: It was done by the railway company, wasn’t it? Mr. Russell: Yes, they owned the operation out there and …. Mrs. Russell: Do you remember the Honolulu Car that Mr. Hanchett had? Mr. Russell: Yes, he…. Mrs. Russell: …had all the wicker chairs in it. Mr. Russell: Private car, called the Honolulu. Mrs. Russell: He’d take his best friends out for a ride on the street cart and maybe take ‘em to Ramona (and), but it was quite a car. It was shorter and smaller than most of the cars and very nicely decorated. Of course it’d probably look funny now, but it was all wicker furniture and they called it the Honolulu car. That was known all over town. Mr. Russell: That was a result of his having taken a trip over to the Hawaiian Islands…. �23 Mrs. Russell: Oh, I didn’t know that. Mr. Russell: And he brought back a couple of Filipino servants with him, you know. Mrs. Russell: Well, well they were serving on it probably. Mr. Russell: Yes. Mrs. Russell: But I’ll bet that furniture all came from over there too cause it (?) Mr. Russell: But you see that, it was Ramona at one end of the line and then the best days with the West Michigan State Fair, or Comstock Park at the other end, gee that… Mrs. Russell: That was a flourishing line. Mr. Russell: This was a line…. Mrs. Russell; And skating in the winter, there was lots of skating on Reed’s Lake. And that a street railway… Mr. Russell: Streetcars were very… Mrs. Russell: Streetcar was very busy, it really was. Mr. Russell: Well just imagine having one go by every ten minutes, as we used to have. Gosh. Better than any bus or anything else you see [now]. But you had to walk from here to the line to get it, wherever you were. But when you look back on that, and think of how important streetcars were gee that old stuff just phased right out. Interviewer: Looking back and remembering the days when you were growing up and so on, compared to today which age seems to be more pleasant? A better age to live in? Mr. Russell: What do you mean is to whether you’d… Mrs. Russell: Prefer… Mr. Russell: ...Prefer this age or that age… Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Russell: Oh, what age, what age would? Mrs. Russell: I look back about high school and college as, I don’t know, we had such a lot of this kind of slow fun. It was slower paced. The whole thing had to be slower paced. You couldn’t go tearing around at ten things instead of one; you did one thing and made a lot of it. But when I think of your cottage down there at Ottawa Beach and the house parties that you had there and �24 the fun we had going down and fooling around on the beach, now that wouldn’t be any fun, I wouldn’t want to do it you know. Well, because the crowds, the cars and everything else, but then there wouldn’t be anybody around then. Mr. Russell: Well, let’s see… Mrs. Russell: What do you think? Mr. Russell: I think between fifteen and thirty about, those fifteen years that are between fifteen and thirty…. Mrs. Russell: Well I think I’ve ….much older than too. I think I’d pick that out too. Mr. Russell: Liquor wasn’t so important to you. You didn’t… Mrs. Russell: You didn’t have it. Mrs. Russell: It wasn’t a bit important. Mr. Russell: You didn’t have any drugs certainly. And … Mrs. Russell: No, we lacked that. Mr. Russell: We had bicycles and roller skates, ice skates and then just boating. Mrs. Russell: I think we always had boating, lots of sail boating, I, we had lots of fun sailing, of course. Mr. Russell: And the river was made much more use of then, with canoes and row-boats and shells. You know what a shell is, don’t you? Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Russell: Single or double and four and so forth. And we had, well the boat club, they had a two or three eights there, as well as singles and doubles and fours. Interviewer: Did they have the, what are those, waterfalls, in the river then? Down, down… Mr. Russell: Rapids? Interviewer: Well, they were the, where now they’ve got little, I don’t know what you call ’em, they’re not a dam, they don’t hold the water back but they…. Mr. Russell: Obstructions. Well they, they’ve been there only, I don’t think they’re more than twenty five years old, I think they’re fairly recent. Because, I can remember a period when during the summer the riverbeds looked pretty punk there, so many rocks and everything �25 showing it, dried out rocks and moss and so forth and there was a period when they built five obstructions you can’t call them dams you see just an obstruction, way across the river to hold the water back in pools. And I think that’s what we’ve got there now, haven’t we? I don’t think they’ve, I don’t think they’ve all been carried out. Of course, the big dam up above, (has) always been something there. Mrs. Russell: Well now, where it’s at. Where’s the big dam? Mr. Russell: Well the big dam is at Allen Calculator and right across a … Mrs. Russell: I can’t place there, I don’t know if… Mr. Russell: Well, you know where Sixth Street is? Sixth Street Bridge. Mrs. Russell: Oh. Mr. Russell: Newberry Street? Mrs. Russell: Yes Mr. Russell: Just south of there; halfway between there and Bridge Street. Mrs. Russell: Bridge Street? Mr. Russell. Now that dam has always been there; and you know there were canals of either side of the river, from that dam leading down parallel to Monroe. I can remember when it was open there; an open canal, flowing under Bridge Street and then over into Bissell’s. It supplied them with motor power and also to, that was a little bit before my time, Butterworth and Lowe Machine Shop, south of Bissell Plant. Then on the other side it went down to the mills, to the milling companies. Oh yeah, then also there was a mill on this side of the river too; the Valley City Milling the rolling milling company, just north, well right where the post office is. Then on the other side it was the Voigt Milling that’s just been closed but they were both operated by what was known as runnel(?) stone; the water coming down this canal and they’d then take so much of that water off of there and I don’t know how, what the runnel stone is but I just heard so much about it. Mrs. Russell: What is runnel stone? Mr. Russell: Well. Runnel stone is a measure of water power. Mrs. Russell: Oh. Mr. Russell: Carried thru the turbines, don’t you see, to in place of steam power. �26 Interviewer: Did either one of you go off to college, after high school or did you stay in Grand Rapids? Mrs. Russell: No, we both did. I went to Vassar, Vassar College out in Poughkeepsie, New York. And I graduated from there; I was there four years. And you went to the University of Michigan, didn’t you. Mr. Russell: Yes, but I couldn’t get my grandson in the…. Interviewer: Who, Bill? Mr. Russell: Bill, yes. Interviewer: Where did he go to school? Mr. Russell: He’s down to State now. Interviewer: He didn’t want to go to the University of Michigan? Mr. Russell: He wanted to, they wouldn’t take him in. Mrs. Russell: They delayed so long in deciding to take him in, I think he heard about May or something like that, April or May and by that time he couldn’t wait that long so in the meantime, he got set up here. We were very annoyed about it. Terribly annoyed. We’re heavy livers here in Michigan, heavy taxpayers, and it doesn’t make me feel generous toward ‘em at all. Because he was a good student, he wasn’t …. Mr. Russell: Well, they took him in down there at State, he’s nicely located there, and he’s only been there two weeks or so. INDEX A C Adams and Hart Agency · 7 B Baker Furniture · 18 Blodgett Hospital · 7 Blodgetts · 8 Blythefield Club · 2 Boltwood, Mrs. Lucius · 16 Bronson, C.J. · 10 Bronson’s Garage · 10, 11 Butterworth Hospital · 8 Central Grammar School · 5 Central High School · 4, 5 Comstock Dairy Farm · 15 Comstock, Charles.C. · 1, 2 Comstock, Clara E. · 1 Comstock, Nelson and Matter · 3 F Fountain Street School · 8 �27 G P Grand Island · 2 Grand Rapids Boat and Canoe Club · 2 Grand Rapids Chair Company · 18, 19 Grand Rapids Street Railway · 3, 21 Guild, Cornelia · 1 Phoenix Beer Garden · 23 Post, Jay · 15 H Hanchett, Mr. · 23 Heald, Henry · 5 Heritage Hill · 4 Hopson, Lucille I. · 1 Hopson, William C. · 1, 5 Hopson-Bennett Company · 6 Hubers Beer Garden · 22 Hydorn, Frankie M. · 1 L R Ramona Park · 21, 22, 23, 24 Reed’s Lake · 24 Riverside Gardens · 15, 16 Riverside Park · 15, 16 Riverside School · 17 Russell, Charles · 17 Russell, Francis · 1 Russell, Huntley · 1, 15 Russell, Mrs. Huntley · 16 S Lamberton Creek · 18 Livingston Hotel · 13, 14 Shriver-Weatherly · 5 Sligh, Charles · 18 Sligh, Mr. Charles R. · 15 Steinman, Mr. · 7 M U Mays (store) · 5 Michigan Soldier’s Home · 2 UBA Hospital · 7, 8 United Benevolent Association · 8 University of Michigan · 27 N North Park Pavilion · 1, 2, 3, 4, 18 North Park Water Company · 18 O Old Kent Bank · 9 V Valley City Milling · 26 Vassar College · 27 Voigt Milling · 26 W W.C. Hopson and Company · 6 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/915db2a09cc37da9ce3a63df7a64951d.mp3 f59ba150004fa7ac70e04596cc1fca86 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_30-31Russell Title A name given to the resource Russell, Francis and Lucille Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Russell, Francis Russell, Lucille Description An account of the resource Lucille Hopson was born May 25, 1894 in Grand Rapids. She was a graduate of Vassar College. Mrs. Russell died on October 20, 1973. Francis Russell was born June 21, 1892. Mr. Russell's grandfather was C.C. Comstock, founder of Grand Rapids in 1853. C.C. Comstock was associated with the Grand Rapids Chair Company. The Russell's owned the Comstock Dairy Farm, which supplied milk to 150 customers until the city took it over. The family gave Riverside Park to Grand Rapids. He died on August 1, 1984. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4739087d25646afe11f960274d98adae.pdf e0c2f966821d4dc5f073ab25b4029a09 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Mrs. John Hodgen Interviewed on October 4, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #29 (26:43) Biographical Information Ruth A. Grinnell was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 26 September 1890. She was married to Dr. John T. Hodgen in Grand Rapids on 28 January 1921. Her husband, John was the son of Harry A. Hodgen and Agnes H. Hart and he was born in 1884 at Rye Beach, Rockingham County, New Hampshire. Ruth was Secretary-Treasurer of Grinnell-Row Company for 62 years. Her death occurred 2 March 1978. Her husband preceded her in death in 1954. Ruth Grinnell’s father was Charles L. Grinnell born in August 1857 in Grand Rapids. His death occurred in July 1925. Her mother was Meena Baker, born in Canada about October 1860. Her death occurred in September 1931. Ruth’s brother, Henry L. Grinnell died in Reed City in October 1932. The mother of Charles Grinnell was Henrietta Squier. He was grandson of John Wickliff Squier who built the Squires Opera House that operated in Grand Rapids from 1859 until it burned in 1872. ___________ Interviewer: This interview with Mrs. John Hodgen was recorded on October fourth, nineteen seventy-one….. (put this on the floor.) You were saying you were born in Grand Rapids. Mrs. Hodgen: Yes, I was born in Grand Rapids and my father was born in Grand Rapids, Charles Lawrence Grinnell. And my brother was born in Grand Rapids, Henry Lawrence Grinnell, Olive Grinnell Merrell. And then my Grandfather [John W.] Squier built the first opera house in Grand Rapids which was Squire’s Opera House down on Monroe and it turned into the Grand Opera House finally. And that, I remember that, don’t you? Do you remember it? Interviewer: No. Mrs. Hodgen: Anyway, it was still in existence some years ago and then my Grandfather Grinnell built the Grinnell Block and it was one of the first sprinklered buildings in Grand Rapids, at the corner of Monroe and Crescent. Interviewer: It was a sprinkler building? �2 Mrs. Hodgen: Yes. It was sprinklered afterwards and it was one of the first sprinklered buildings downtown, so they told me anyway. Interviewer: What does that mean, sprinklered? Mrs. Hodgen: Well, it was the sprinkler system all through the building and if it caught fire the sprinklers worked. It was one of the first buildings in Grand Rapids and it was occupied by Wurzburg’s store for a great many years. And then when Wurzburg’s moved on into the Fuller Building which was built before they moved up on Monroe Street, let’s see here…Say Eloise, do you remember who were the people that were in the Grinnell Block Building, a men’s, men’s and boy’s store? Eloise: I know who you mean but I can’t think of the name. Wasn’t it George Booth…wasn’t in there was him on Monroe Street afterwards? Not the MBM? Afraid I couldn’t help you. Mrs. Hodgen: Well, then that’s terrible, because they bought the building…. And they owned it when it was torn down for the complex in there. Interviewer: Was that on the east side of the street? Mrs. Hodgen: It was on the corner of Monroe and Crescent, on the east side of the Monroe and Crescent. Interviewer: I don’t remember who that was either. But that’s, that’s not important exactly who was there. Mrs. Hodgen: Isn’t it? Interviewer: No, that’s alright. Mrs. Hodgen: Then the house on College Avenue was built, about eighty-two or three years ago. And is still is in very good condition. But that’s apartments, two or three apartments in it, I think now. Interviewer: Whereabouts is that house? Mrs. Hodgen: Forty-five North College, it’s in that Hill District there, between Fountain and Fulton. That was the loveliest part of Grand Rapids that many years ago. Interviewer: You grew up there as a child? Mrs. Hodgen: Yes. Interviewer: What was it, what was it like, growing up in that neighborhood? �3 Mrs. Hodgen: Well, it was just perfect, I mean everybody knew everybody else and it was beautiful houses all lovely houses in there and everybody went to Fountain Street School in those days. All the people belonged to the Gamma Delta Tau Sorority in the high schools would walk every Saturday night to Gamma Delta Tau Town meeting if you could believe it now. All the girls walked alone to that meeting. And everybody was interested in what everybody else was doing and it was perfectly delightful neighborhood to belong to. In fact, you knew everybody in the block and the next block and the next block. Interviewer: Was that a paved street then... College Avenue? Mrs. Hodgen: It was paved ever since I can remember it. But I remember after school we all used to, all used to catch bob-sleds first to home and take off our good clothes and put on old clothes and catch and catch bob-sleds. Interviewer: What were the bobs used? Mrs. Hodgen: Well, they were delivery wagons on, on a delivery wagons that had runners, I mean on bobs. We used to that was one of the things, and then I remember going out to the Wilcox’s, the Wilcox’s lived across the street and all that property there which was their farm. And… Interviewer: The one on Lake Drive? Mrs. Hodgen: Yes, on Lake Drive, that was their farm and then we used to go over to the end of the street car line then walk out to their farm for Saturdays. It was a farm. Interviewer: How far did their land, extend out there? How big of a farm was it? Mrs. Hodgen: Oh, I don’t know. It was all the property that they have now out there. All, Mrs. Wilcox gave the children their five houses out there now. And some of the Wilcox family, one of the Wilcox family I think, there’s one of them still lives there on the property. Interviewer: Who, which Wilcox is that, do you know off hand? Mrs. Hodgen: Well her, name isn’t Wilcox, she’s Mrs. Perkins, Mrs. Voigt Perkins was a Wilcox. Interviewer: OK. Mrs. Hodgen: She’s the only one that lives out there. Interviewer: I think she’s, they use that old house, the little old cottage. Mrs. Hodgen: Yes, she does. Interviewer: When you’d go out to that farm on Saturdays what …? �4 Mrs. Hodgen: Well, we used to ride the donkey and play on the way kids do on a farm. Interviewer: Was Lake Drive there at that time? Was that a street? Mrs. Hodgen: Well it was a street but we went, we went to the end of the car line and out there then walked the rest of the way. Interviewer: Where did that carline run? Did that, did that run along Wealthy Street? Mrs. Hodgen: Well, I would say it ran along, yes, I think it ran up Wealthy. It went Cherry to Wealthy. Interviewer: Then you’d walk up….? Mrs.Hodgen: Walk out from the end of the car-line. It went by, by the car barns there by that time, the car barns is on Wealthy now, isn’t it? Interviewer: Was, when you get off at Wealthy was, was that, did you get off where the Old Kent Country Club was? Mrs. Hodgen: No, that’s on Plymouth in and, that’s on Plymouth and Wealthy, isn’t it? No, to tell you the truth I don’t know where, I don’t remember where we got off. You see I have a very, I’m not. I can’t remember anyone’s name. That, and annoys me so not to think of that store that everybody knows in town, if fact I’m not sure that’s still in business. Interviewer: They are still in business somewhere else? Mrs. Hodgen: Well they’re up on Monroe, up, Upper Monroe, for a long time. I don’t know. Of course just as soon as you go, I’ll probably remember it. Interviewer: Did you go to college? Mrs. Hodgen: Yes, I went to, I graduated from high school and I went to Wellesley College. And then I came back here and was treasurer and president of our organizations and I went back and took a post-graduate course at Simmons and came to the office and I’ve been in the office fifty seven years. Here at Grinnell….Company. Interviewer: Who started the business, did you…? Mrs. Hodgen: My grandfather. Henry Grinnell and my father was in it, Charles Grinnell and then I came into it and then my brother had, Henry Grinnell came into it and he was killed in an automobile accident when he was only 38 years old. I’ve been here every since. In fact we have our hundredth anniversary in, in seventy-five. Interviewer: It’s always been selling insurance? �5 Mrs. Hodgen: Yes. It was Henry Grinnell and Son. It’ll be a hundred years old in seventy-five it’s over ninety years old now. Interviewer: Was your brother Henry older or younger than you? Mrs. Hodgen: He was younger. Interviewer: How long ago was that automobile accident that he was in? Mrs. Hodgen: I can’t tell you… a great many years ago. The family are all, all married and that, I don’t know whether you know [Henry’s daughter] Sally (Verney?) Do you know Sally (Virney?) Priscilla Miller was his wife. (?) is now Priscilla Miller. Interviewer: No, I don’t know them. Mrs. Hodgen: And [Henry’s daughter] Mary Swain, do you know the Swain’s? Interviewer: No. Mrs. Hodgen: Well, Sally’s married now to Herb Boschoven who’s one of the vice-presidents of the bank here. And Mary’s married to Bob Swain. Interviewer: I know… Mrs. Hodgen: Do you? Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Hodgen: My niece Sally Grinnell just married Herb Boschoven, a couple of weeks ago. Interviewer: I think I saw something in the paper about that. Mrs. Hodgen: Yes, they both were…. Interviewer: His daughter is Nancy? Mrs. Hodgen: Nancy’s the one she, she is with the State Department over in Thailand now, I think. Interviewer: We went to the same high school together. Mrs. Hodgen: Yes. Interviewer: What was, what was insurance like when they first started the business? Did it operate on the same principles that it operates today? Or was it….? �6 Mrs. Hodgen: Everything, everything was done by hand, then there weren’t any machinery and everybody I remember my father used to go down and deliver every policy. And it was just the way change, everything has changed from a family affair to machines. Interviewer: Who were some of the people that lived on your block? Mrs. Hodgen: Well, the Steketee’s, we were surrounded by Steketee’s . The old original Steketee there is Paul Steketee lived on the corner, around the corner, and Dan Steketee ,one of the sons lived on the corner of College and Fountain and John Steketee lived two houses from that and Paul Frederick lived next to us and Paul Steketee, senior lived on the other side of us around the corner on the corner of, the house is still there, Fulton and Prospect, Peter Steketee lived. In the next block the Putnam’s, Putnam house was a Lew[is] Withey house and the Waters, all the Waters’ property was the next lot down. And the Cole house which Howard Sherman, Howard Sherman still lives at the corner of Fulton and College is still, they still live there. The Waters’ house is torn down, the Putnam house is, and the Wilcox house, which is now the YWCA building. In fact I, remember somebody coming and telling me that if you ever wanted to be in Grand Rapids that you had to live in the property bounded by Union, Cherry, Lafayette and (Union) Fountain. They were all in that little district. Everybody that you knew lived in there. Interviewer: What was, what was that group considered? Were they considered the society of the town? Mrs. Hodgen: I would say so, they knew us…Yes. Interviewer: Is there a society today, right now? Mrs. Hogden: No. Interviewer: Why do you think that is? Mrs. Hodgen: Everything has changed, I mean all you have to do is to, of course in those days when the, all you have to do is go out to clubs like the Kent Country Club and that you. In the years when the country club was started Mr. J.C. Holt, Mr. J.C. Holt was probably a very prominent person … he was considered very high brow at the time and they started, and my father and other people to the country club. And you knew everybody out there. Now you go out there and don’t know anybody. I mean it’s just different people have taken over the different things, that’s all. There is no society like there was. The old timers, we often laugh about it, reading the Sunday society news and don’t know a soul in it. Well, it’s just changed that’s all. Everywhere. Interviewer: What were, what, what were the characteristics of society in those days that might not be characteristic of society today? Mrs. Hodgen: Elegance. �7 Interviewer: Can you tell me about that? Mrs. Hodgen: No, I can’t tell you about it. I mean everybody, everybody had a party in their own house you had everybody, everybody had loads of help and it was very dignified, very lovely and all the young people if you weren’t there at seven o’clock, they sat down without you and you, they used to the country club, if anybody, if anybody drank at the country club they wouldn’t be invited again. Interviewer: So there was very little liquor ever served at parties and stuff? Mrs. Hodgen: Very, just none. I don’t ever remember any when I was young. Interviewer: What was the most elegant party you ever went to? Mrs. Hodgen: Well, everybody used to have at Christmas time when they came home for vacation, everybody had a party. The Bissell’s always had a terribly beautiful party. And Mrs. Lowe always had a beautiful party. Those were the two I remember. Perfectly beautiful ones in Mrs. Lowe’s house which is now Aquinas College. That was their house and they lived there. Interviewer: Can you describe the parties to me, can you describe how they were, how they went. Mrs. Hodgen: I don’t remember one thing now, I haven’t any idea. Interviewer: What did people wear? What kind of outfits? Mrs. Hodgen: Very beautiful and very beautifully made. Everybody had a home dressmaker or a dressmaker. And they were very, very elegant, beautiful material and elegant. Interviewer: What about the men? What did they wear? Mrs. Hodgen: Tuxedos, I think they wore tuxedos. But I suppose different than they are now I don’t know, I don’t see them anymore. Interviewer: Were these, were these parties dinner parties or were they dances? Mrs. Hodgen: Dinner parties. Dinner and dance, yes. Interviewer: How many people would attend a dinner like that? Mrs. Hodgen: fifty or a hundred I don’t know one-hundred in the house, fifty at least. I mean all the young people, I mean there were younger, there were Bissell’s children and another thing that they did now is call. You properly, you weren’t invited again if you didn’t make a party call on anybody. You went around and had calling cards and made a party call on everybody or you weren’t invited to the next party. Interviewer: What’s a party call? �8 Mrs. Hodgen: Just going and thanking them for the party and making, make a calling on people. I mean they called them party calls then. Interviewer: If you were going to a party out at the Lowe’s, which was, I imagine out in the country then wasn’t it? Mrs. Hodgen: That’s where Aquinas College is, that was their house. The main part of the college that they used for the main building was the whole house. All that property the Aquinas owns now was the Lowe, was the Lowe property. Beautiful gardens and very elegant I mean. There was a great deal of help. Everybody had a great deal of help. There wasn’t anybody without help. You entertained in your house. Everybody entertained at home. In the, I guess the Saint Cecilia was in existence then, that was a very prominent place. And there was a German Club, which my mother was the president of all its existence which was a very, very interesting organization; and there was a French Club; the Ladies Literary Club; Women’s University Club which was started under Mrs. Clay Hollister’s who was one of the very prominent people in town. Somebody who can remember much about her, she was a great friend of Mrs. [Charles] Bender’s mother. The [Willard F.] Keeney’s were very prominent people. All the pop, all the people that were prominent then were, there were very few of them in existence even now. There aren’t any of the Lowe family here. John J. Blodgett is the only one of the Blodgett family here. There aren’t any of the Lew Withey family, well, one , maybe the younger Withey I don’t know where he comes in somewhere. Very few of the old families are left. Interviewer: What happens to families….? Mrs. Hodgen: What happens to what? Interviewer: What happens to families like that that are very prominent and have a lot of money and then suddenly they disappear? Mrs. Hodgen: Well, I think most of the Withey’s have died off. Most of the Waters family, I mean Tom Waters just died, the Waters family, they were, they were very well known in town, and had their estate there, used to be called an estate there on the corner of College and Fulton. Oakhurst, they call it, and the Barnhart family. There are few, there’s Helen Barnhart ,…. Only few of those left. Oh, I don’t, I don’t know if there are very many of them left. That’s all. Interviewer: Who was Edmond Lowe? Mrs. Hodgen: Who was what? Interviewer: Who was Edmond Lowe Mrs. Hodgen: Edward Lowe? Interviewer: Edward Lowe? �9 Mrs. Hodgen : Edward Lowe was the one that was, who was, he gave Butterworth Hospital or Butterworth or Edward and Susan Blodgett Lowe I mean. Edward Lowe, I think, I don’t know what, I don’t know what business he was in but he was married to Sue, Mrs. Blodgett, Susan Blodgett was the listed as the foundation of Butterworth Hospital, Edward and Susan Lowe Foundation or foundations for at Butterworth Hospital. And I don’t know anything about the Butterworth’s, but the Butterworth’s were very prominent people a long time ago. One of them gave Butterworth Hospital. Of course, the Blodgett family were a very, very prominent family that gave Blodgett Hospital. Interviewer: They, they actually just gave the hospital, and they built it themselves. Mrs. Hodgen: To start with, yes. Blodgett Hospital was given, or Butterworth was given by the Butterworth family to start with and Blodgett Hospital was given by the Blodgett family to start with, that’s, the reason they’re named after them. Of course, a great many people have contributed a great deal since. What they gave then would be just be a minor amount of what it takes to run a hospital now but they were the ones who started the hospitals. Oh, I don’t know, I’m not fair, there’s so many more, there were so many prominent people, well, well known people in town. But, like all older people, you forget everything. Interviewer: Why, why did you day that J.C. Holt was the high brow? Mrs. Hodgen: ‘Cause he was. Everybody knows…. Interviewer: What, what does that mean exactly? Mrs. Hodgen: Very exclusive. They lived on Lafayette Street and, and anybody he didn’t want in the Kent County Country Club, he would keep out. He wouldn’t let belong to the Kent Country. Interviewer: How could he do that? Mrs. Hodgen: Because he was boss, that’s why. I don’t know how he did it but he did. That was the reputation everybody had from him. You ask any of the old people, older people who, knew the Holt family and all and they know that’s the reputation he had all over town. Interviewer: Are they still here? Mrs. Hodgen: No, there isn’t a single one of the family left. Tom Holt, John Holt, .Bill Holt, Kate Holt and Harry Holt, all those families have all, they all, none of them in Grand Rapids anymore. The [W. O.] Hughart family was another prominent family, they don’t live in, there’s none of the Hughart’s live in town anymore. They owned the house at the corner of Fulton and Lafayette there where the insurance building is now. Mr. [John S.] Lawrence lived across the street from there. He was a very well known person in town. He used to have Sunday afternoon readings, use to read to people on every Sunday afternoon. Interviewer: Used to what? �10 Mrs. Hodgen: Used to have a read, read good books to people Sunday afternoons. Sunday Afternoon Reading Club, I guess you’d call it. Sunday afternoons. And then the Howard O’Brien’s lived across the street, I mean out there on Lafayette Street. And he was the Ambassador to Japan. Not the Howard O’Briens, what was his name? His [Thomas J. O’Brien’s] son was Howard O’Brien. Then the [Charles S.] Hazeltine’s and, some of that that family are still here. Karl Montgelas? The Hazeltine’s were very prominent people. They live on, big house on John Street. Hazeltine and Perkins Drug Company. I can tell you families that were prominent in those days but I can’t tell you much about them. Fanny Hazeltine was the one who married Count [Adolph] von Montgelas when she was visiting Mr. O’Brien who was the ambassador to Japan, to Japan. Interviewer: Count Montgelas? He was a count? Mrs. Hodgen: He was. Do you know who Karl Montgelas is in town? Karl Montgelas is their son. Interviewer: Who? Mrs. Hodgen: Karl Montgelas. Interviewer: Is whose son? Mrs. Hodgen: Mrs. Fanny Hazeltine and Count Montgelas. more than I did, she’s younger than I am. Jo? [Josephine Bender] remembers Interviewer: Well, everybody has like different reminisces and remembers different kinds of things and a lot of things that she remembered are different things than you might remember. Mrs. Hodgen: Oh really? Interviewer: Yes. Mrs.Hodgen: Well she was younger, she was a bit younger than I am. I think she was nearer my, my brothers age. She was between us, I guess, my brother was four years younger than I. She was just between us. She went to Vassar and I went to Wellesley. We were the same vintage; we’d all go to the same parties and everything together. Interviewer: Why did most of the girls here go up to Eastern schools that went to college? Mrs. Hodgen: That was the thing to do. Nobody went to Michigan. Michigan was looked down on in my day and age; I didn’t know anybody who went to the University of Michigan. That was, Vassar was very prominent, I was there only, Miss Mary Hefferan of the [Thomas W.] Hefferan family here were very prominent people in town. Mr. Hefferan was the president of the bank. Both Hefferan’s were presidents of the bank. And Miss Mary Herfferan was the first person from �11 Grand Rapids who ever went to Wellesley. I think and I was about the second person. Nobody went to Wellesley in those days it was considered high, too high brow. Everybody went to Vassar, in fact Grand Rapids is a great, great Vassar community. Interviewer: Why was it considered high brow? Mrs. Hodgen: Oh, it was considered too hard. I mean it was considered too difficult, I mean it was, well they used the word greasy-grind. I think that everybody that went to Wellesley was greasy, a greasy-grind. Interviewer: Well. Mrs. Hodgen: Well, that’s all I know. I don’t know what good that does you. INDEX Aquinas College · 7, 8 Hefferan Family · 11 Hollister, Mrs. Clay · 8 Holt, J.C. · 7, 10 Hughart Family · 10 B K Barnhart Family · 9 Bender, Josephine · 8, 11 Bissell Family · 7, 8 Blodgett Family · 8, 9 Blodgett, John J. · 9 Boschoven, Herb and Sally · 5 Kent Country Club · 4, 6 A L Ladies Literary Club · 8 Lowe, Edmond · 9 Lowe, Mrs. · 7, 8 F Fountain Street School · 3 Frederick, Paul · 6 M Montgelas Family · 10, 11 G Gamma Delta Tau Sorority · 3 German Club · 8 Grinnell, Charles Lawrence (Father) · 1, 4, 6, 7 Grinnell, Henry (Grandfather) · 4, 5 Grinnell, Henry Lawrence (Brother) · 1, 4, 5, 11 H Hazeltine Family · 10, 11 P Perkins, Mrs. Voigt · 3, 10 S Saint Cecilia Music Society · 8 Sherman, Howard · 6 Squier, John W. (Grandfather) · 1 Squier’s Opera House · 1 �12 Steketee Family · 6 W U Waters Family · 6, 9 Wellesley College · 4, 11, 12 Wilcox Family · 3, 6 Withey Family · 6, 8, 9 University of Michigan · 11 V Vassar College · 11 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/67aad407a29d5f56b4ec2b803dc8a4ec.mp3 3936df59b82bb3c11f12c7c92bcd4059 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_29Hodgen Title A name given to the resource Hodgen, Ruth Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hodgen, Ruth Description An account of the resource Ruth Grinnell was born in Grand Rapids in 1890. She graduated from Vassar College. In 1921, she married Dr. John Hodgen. She was the Secretary-Treasurer of Grinnell-Row Company for 62 years. She was involved with St. Cecilia's, the Ladies Literary Club, and the Woman's University Club. She died on March 2, 1978. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0d66a0a1eda90e49fd1f201283228171.pdf 7b93058f6b8cd3500d962902a9b038ca PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Mrs. Noyes [Eileen] Avery Interviewed on October 4, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #28 (2:00:00) Biographical Information Mrs. Avery, born Evelyn Leonard on 28 February 1883 in Grand Rapids was the daughter of Frank E. Leonard and Sarah E. “Sadie” Pierce. Evelyn “Eileen” was married on 5 June 1907 in Grand Rapids to Noyes L. Avery. Mrs. Avery died on 4 August 1972 in her home on Plymouth Road in East Grand Rapids. Mr. Avery had preceded her in death on 4 July 1947. They were both interred at Fulton Street Cemetery in Grand Rapids. Eileen‟s father, Frank E. Leonard was born on 8 April 1855 in Grand Rapids. He died on 25 April 1925 and was buried in Fulton Street Cemetery. He married Sarah E. “Sadie” Pierce on 12 October 1881 in Grand Rapids. Sarah was born in July 1859 and died at her home in East Grand Rapids on 7 December 1950. Noyes L. Avery was born in Grand Rapids on 18 October 1881 and was the son of Noyes Frederick Avery and Anna Haley Barstow. Noyes F. Avery was born on 15 January 1855 in Grand Rapids. He died on 19 November 1925. Anna (Barstow) Avery was born on 11 September 1858 in Paris Township (now Kentwood). She died on 1 September 1921 in Grand Rapids. The Averys are buried in Fulton Street Cemetery. ___________ Interviewer: This interview with Mrs. Noyes Avery was conducted October 4, 1971. OK, we can start. Mrs. Avery: I‟m, I‟m a Leonard, and I‟m also an Avery, I‟m probably the only one, that‟s a good Avery. The Averys came here in I would say eighteen forty. And you see Grand Rapids was not started until, I mean Louis Campau didn‟t come until eighteen twenty-six. And no that was only fourteen years when the Averys, and the Barstow family came and that‟s Mrs. Avery‟s, my mother-in-law‟s name. And her name was Anna Barstow. I don‟t know what to say anything here until I know what I‟m going to say…. (Voice in background: “you go on”) And, they came also at that time. Interviewer: Where did, where did the Averys come from? Mrs. Avery: The Averys came from Salem, Massachusetts. Interviewer: Do you know the reason they moved from there to Grand Rapids? �2 Mrs. Avery: I should but, people came here at that time, came to Michigan at that time and I suppose that‟s why the Leonard family came at that time, too. (It was) about eighteen forty, somewhere in there. Well, the Averys and Barstows were very important people here and they were friends of the Lowes, the Blodgetts. (Voice in background: “Let me think of something”) Interviewer: Well, you don‟t remember any particular reason why the, Averys and the Leonards came to Grand Rapids? Were they, what kind of business were they in when they first came? Mrs. Avery: I think Mr. Avery may have been in the real-estate business. Interviewer: I interviewed a fellow the other day, John Cary, and he told me that when his, I believe it was his father or grandfather, first came to Grand Rapids he bought five acres of land down approximately in the area of the old Union Depot was. Mrs. Avery: Yes. Interviewer: And he bought that from the Averys, bought five acres of land from them. Mrs. Avery: Well, now that probably was why Grandfather Avery came here. I never looked that up. This is interesting. And father Avery was born in eighteen fifty-five. And, my father who was Frank Leonard, Frank E. Leonard, was born in eighteen fifty-five. But Heman Leonard, that was his father, came also in about eighteen forty. So that seemed to be the time that they were settling Michigan. Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Avery: Then there was a time, you know, when they were settling Ohio. And then, there was a time when they were settling other states. But this is Michigan. Interviewer: Yes. Where did your family live when you were a child? Mrs. .Avery: They lived on Prospect Street. Oh, in those days, you didn‟t have a house when you were married. You boarded with someone. And, Mr. and Mrs. Avery boarded with someone on Bostwick Street. There was a rooming house up there. They boarded there. My father and mother when they were married, boarded with the Charles Leonards on the corner of Oakes and Sheldon, in a house, I think in that, where Ferguson [Hospital] is now. And they lived there quite a long time. That‟s Mrs. Judd‟s grandfather too, that Leonard. She and I are Leonards. Interviewer: What relation, how, how are you and Mrs. Judd related, exactly? Mrs. Avery: Charles Leonard had a son, Harry Leonard, and Harry is the father of Mrs. Judd. My father was younger and he was Frank, Frank E. and I‟m his daughter. Interviewer: So then you‟re …. Mrs. Avery: She and I are cousins. �3 Interviewer: Well, when your parents moved out of the boardinghouse and bought a home of their own, where, where did they live? Mrs. Avery: They lived on Prospect. It‟s the third house from Wealthy, south on Prospect. It‟s still there. There‟s still a vacant lot by it and the house is still there. And, my mother sold it in nineteen twenty-six, that‟s quite a long time ago, too. Well…. Interviewer: What was it like growing up in the neighborhood? Mrs. Avery: Oh, you knew everybody. And everybody would stop for you in the morning to go to school. School was just one block west. It‟s the Lafayette Street School now. It used to be Wealthy Street School. And, they‟d all stop. The thing I remember most about all this is our wonderful games we used to have after dinner. We played hide-n-seek, over the whole block. All the neighbors, there were forty children in our block. That is four sides of the block. That‟s a lot. Interviewer: Yes, it sure is. Mrs. Avery: The Penneys lived there. They were a well known family. The Halls lived there. They were a well known family. Then on our street, the Stevens‟ lived there. They were a well known family, across the street from us. Well, we all went to school together. We didn‟t have any problems at all. Just came home from school and played. Interviewer: When you got to be a little older was there a lot of entertaining? Mrs. Avery: Oh sure, you mean when I was in high school? Oh yes, we used to have parties. Of course they were just kid parties. We‟d go at eight o‟clock; we didn‟t have dinner or anything. We‟d go at eight o‟clock and come home at ten, and our fathers would come after us. Heavens, we never went anywhere with a boy, whoever heard of such a thing. Interviewer: Going out alone with a boy? Mrs. Avery: Yes, there wasn‟t any reason for it except you just didn‟t do it. Your father went after you. Interviewer: Was that before the automobile? Mrs. Avery: That was before the automobile. When the automobile came in, Mr. Avery, my father-in-law had a car. I can‟t remember, I could tell you look it up probably and find out, because I used to be taken out for rides by Noyes Avery. And then he got a White Steamer, later. And we went way down to Gun Lake and we started at six in the morning, and of course that was the steam engine and every time we came to a farm he‟d get out with his rubber pail and fill …. What‟s that you fill? Interviewer: I am not sure, I‟m…. �4 Mrs. Avery: With steam. Interviewer: The boiler? Mrs. Avery: The boiler. And so we didn‟t run out of steam. And then you would run, when you saw a hill coming you‟d go awfully fast down that hill. Heaven knows how fast, maybe twenty miles an hour. And then you got enough steam to go up a hill. And then we came home and I remember my mother-in-law. She said she put a five dollar bill on my picture in Noyes room so he‟d have enough money for the day. That‟s my mother-in-law. Interviewer: Well, was your husband, did he live in the same neighborhood as you did? Mrs. Avery: No, they lived out you know, where the Fanatorium is? Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Avery: They have a beautiful house down there. Just a beautiful house, wasn‟t a mansion, it was just a home. And it had been built by somebody Taylor. And the Grandfather Avery had bought it and they lived there. And it had a barn for the horses they would have had at that time, but not in my time. They had this lovely automobile, about this long. Can you think of something else? Interviewer: How did you meet your husband? Mrs. Avery: I just saw him on the street one day walking a girl home, in high school. I can remember very well, I thought how handsome he was. He was. And that‟s all. Then you just met him at dancing school probably, Saint Cecilia Dancing School. We all went to dancing school Saturday afternoons. When we were young, we went to the two o‟clock class, Calla Travis. And when we got way up to seventeen or so, then we went to the four o‟clock class. We didn‟t have to get home until after six. Interviewer: What kind of dancing was taught at that school? Mrs. Avery: Oh, it was the two-step, the waltz, the square dances. Interviewer: When did, when would you have use for a square dance? Mrs. Avery: I don‟t know. I don‟t remember any, doing it outside dancing school. But we knew how to do it. And, we‟d go to dancing school out of town someplace and we‟d dance. [In] town when there‟s no way of getting out except by train. Everything is in town. We had a big crowd of young people. Interviewer: When you got older and you got married, when did you get married? Mrs. Avery: Nineteen oh seven �5 Interviewer: Nineteen oh seven? Mrs. Avery: Yes. Interviewer: Well, after you were married in the entertaining among married people? What kind, how was the entertaining done? Mrs. Avery: Well, when we got married we‟d have seven o‟clock dinner, if it was a dress-up one. Otherwise, I think it would be about six thirty and you‟d have four courses, had to have four courses. You see I lived on Barclay Street, near John Street, you know where that is? Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Avery: And there was a house down there, it‟s now a parking lot. That‟s where my husband and his two brothers were born. Because Father and Mother Avery evidently bought that house after they got through their boarding house, and lived there. That was forty-seven Barclay. And then you know all about the Hazeltine family? Interviewer: No. Mrs. Avery: No? I think you ought to find out something about these, these, great families. The O‟Briens? Interviewer: That‟s why, that‟s why we interview, we‟re doing these interviews, to find out about them because they‟re people today that are my age for example, you know you hear those names mentioned occasionally. Mrs. Avery: Yes Interviewer: But you don‟t know what they‟re referring to or who they‟re referring to. What those people are like, what they did in the town and so on. That‟s why, doing these interviews to find out about that and make a record of it. Mrs. Avery: Mr. O‟Brien. I‟m talking about John Street. The Hazeltines lived in the middle of John Street. The house is still there, on the north side of the street. And up on Lafayette, about a half block away, Mr. and Mrs. O‟Brien lived. And when the Hazeltine girl, who was a great friend of mine, Fanny Hazeltine, and I graduated from Vassar College, Mr. O‟Brien, was made the ambassador, appointed to Japan. And they took Fanny along. They were neighbors, within half a block of each other. And they went and she went with them and stayed a year, in diplomatic, and that was pretty great in those days, my goodness. So the O‟Brien family you should know about. The Hazeltine family you should know about. Interviewer: Who was Mr. Holt? �6 Mrs. Avery: Well, he lived right up there on the hill, too. Up, up on Lafayette, too. He had daughters. Well he was of the same generation that Mr. and Mrs. O‟Brien, Mr. and Mrs. Hazeltine. Mr. Holt and their girls were younger than I, but in the same crowd. We were all in one big crowd. When we‟d have a party at Saint Cecelia, it would be a big party because we knew everybody; we all knew everybody. Interviewer: I understand that Mr. Holt was, the… Mrs. Avery: Founder of the Kent County Country Club? Interviewer: I also understand that he was somewhat of a social arbitrator in the city. That he was the one who decided, who was in and was out. Is this right? Mrs. Avery: Well, I wouldn‟t know because I was too young to make any difference. I was in as far as that went. Not because of my family though. Just because of me I guess. Interviewer: OK. Mrs. .Avery: I mean my family was just a good family, the Leonards. And of course my father, now we‟re back to Leonard, my grandfather, his father, Heman Leonard came and I think it was about the same time, eighteen forty. You see, nothing happened here until eighteen twenty-six when Louis Campau came and everything grew from there. He started a grocery store; you know where Houseman‟s is? Interviewer: OK. Mrs. Avery: Well in that corner, and he was connected like almost all grocers were with the A&P coffee, tea and then if you bought that you got a saucer; you know they still do that, or a plate. And he was so successful with his china that he went into the china business. And my father had, when he, when he got to the, when his father died, china store Dick Zeyert and Sons. And that was the important store. You got your silver and glass there on the first floor, china on the second floor, hardware on the third floor, and toys on the fourth floor. Everybody went there for all those things. I mean it was generally, I can remember my, one time, my father saying that he always, when he sent a set of china which was a barrel of china, out I mean you had twelve of everything, that, if they didn‟t keep it, it might be a dozen plates, if they didn‟t keep it they brought it back, it was always, they always smelled of it, because if it has soap-suds on it, you knew that they borrowed it from the store long enough to have a party. Well, that‟s an amusing little bit isn‟t it? Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Avery: But they had beautiful china, the kind that Rood has now only even better. My father went to Europe to buy it. He was connected with a great big firm in New York and he went down there and bought. He spent three or four weeks every spring there, buying toys, china, �7 glass, silver. So you can see it was a very important store and the toy department they always had Santa Claus. He was in the window. And then I got old enough finally, to be a cash girl in the toy department and I‟d run back and forth to the office with money and things and that would be done up. Goodness that was important, Christmas time, the few days before Christmas. And then I got so old that I could be clerk. Boy, was that exciting? That is what you want to know. Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Avery: Folklore. Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Avery: Then of course, everybody came down there and you know everybody who came in almost. You knew people. You weren‟t intimate friends with them but you knew people. What‟s wrong with them in every way. There wasn‟t just parties; it wasn‟t just social, because we couldn‟t have parties all the time. We had a lot of parties. But you don‟t remember the parties; you remember the fun you had. You hide and seek after dinner, and then my mother calling “Eileeeeeen” till I got home. Eight o‟clock. Well, that‟s when you went to bed. And there wasn‟t any of this restlessness. Goodness we had everything we needed and we had fun and friends. It was a great life. It really was. Interviewer: What, what was society based on in those days do you think? If you were, assume that I‟m asking you to define how the society was set up, how did one become a member of society? Mrs. Avery: I don‟t know. You just got to know somebody and were asked in, it‟s asked that‟s all. There wasn‟t any caste about it. Interviewer: It wasn‟t based on money then? Mrs. Avery: No. Not at all, not at all. It was on friendship. Interviewer: Did people that lived in the Hill area, did they have, well when they had parties, for example did they invite people over that lived on the west side of town? Mrs. Avery: No, because they weren‟t their friends. They weren‟t their friends. Interviewer: In other words there… Mrs. Avery: There wasn‟t a caste about it but it was just that your friends over here in the neighborhood, and you had to walk for goodness sakes; you had no way of transportation. No busing. Streetcars, yes. You went everywhere on the streetcar. Oh, we went to the lake at Ramona, we only called it the Lake. We went to the shows every week; our beaus would take us to the shows. Beaus were just boyfriends. There was a very little romance about our high school days. I can remember. I mean it was all friendship and fun. Sound great? �8 Interviewer: Well, it‟s kind of hard for me to imagine I mean, high school today so much different than, just mere friendship. Was at adult parties, was liquor…? Mrs. Avery: No liquor, absolutely not. Interviewer: Why was that? Mrs. Avery: Well, it just wasn‟t done. Interviewer: When did it, when did liquor be, start becoming part of parties? Mrs. Avery: Oh, oh I don‟t know. Not while we lived over there. We moved from that house we built to the corner. And, we came out here in nineteen fifteen. Nobody served liquor at all. Interviewer: You said we came out here, where‟s here? Mrs. Avery: I say we built that house. Interviewer: The one that‟s on Lake Drive? Mrs. Avery: Yes. That big white house and we moved in nineteen fifteen. No, we never thought of it. It just wasn‟t done. We didn‟t even have wine. It just wasn‟t thought of. It just wasn‟t done. Well, it probably was in some circles but not in ours. I mean we went with everybody else but there may have been some people who like Lowes and Blodgetts who may have served wine. I wouldn‟t know. But we never did in our household. And mother and father never did. It‟s just one of those things that wasn‟t done. Interviewer: OK. Mrs. Avery: It‟s like kissing a girl before you‟re engaged. It just wasn‟t done. Or hand-holding, it just wasn‟t done. Nobody held your hand. You wouldn‟t think of walking down the street with somebody holding your hand. Goodness. Interviewer: Times have changed. Mrs. Avery: I, we used to have lovely hayrides. We‟d go way out to Cascade and have supper and come back. On the hayride, a boy put his arm around me and I didn‟t speak to him for a year. A whole year. I wasn‟t any different from rest of the girls. It just wasn‟t done. There‟re certain things that your generation doesn‟t do. I don‟t know whether there is or not. Interviewer: I can‟t think of anything. I‟m going to turn the tape over; it‟s almost done here… Yes, when did the talk about prohibition first start? When, can you first remember hearing talk about prohibition? Mrs. Avery: Oh, I don‟t because there wasn‟t any point in it. There was never any reason for it, for us. We‟d never had anything to drink. �9 Interviewer: How old were you when you took your first drink? Mrs. Avery: Oh, long time ago, I guess. But we didn‟t have it in our house over there. My husband died in forty-seven. Oh, I suppose that, I don‟t know „cause we certainly weren‟t having any whiskey at that time. I mean not how, you know, cocktails, the way we have it now. Interviewer: OK. Do you drink cocktails now? Mrs. Avery: Oh sure, just like everybody else. Interviewer: Well what about the, was this just, you said that you and your husband never had it in the house for example but what, was there somewhat of a double standard? I mean, was it just the women that didn‟t drink or was it also the men? I mean for example, were there saloons downtown where the men could go for lunch and so on? Mrs. Avery: Yes. Interviewer: And they‟d drink at lunch? Mrs. Avery: I don‟t know. Interviewer: Never asked? Mrs. Avery: Not my husband. Interviewer: Ok. Mrs. Avery: It was one of those things that wasn‟t done. When I say that I mean it, just that way. Interviewer: When you built that house across the street were there any of these other houses here? Mrs. Avery: One. One down the street on this side and one being built on the other side. Otherwise it was all woods like this over here. Interviewer: Ok. Now in nineteen fifteen you got back and forth to downtown in an automobile didn‟t you? Mrs. Avery: Yes, by then, we had an automobile. We had an old Tin Lizzy and of course no starter on it. So we left it up on John Street which is a steep hill. Parked it John Street and we‟d walk over and get it and let it run down the hill to start. When I came out here every day to watch them building the house, the men would always start it up for me. I never tried to, it was too hard. Interviewer: Why did, for example, why did you and your husband move away from downtown out to here? �10 Mrs. Avery: Oh, we thought it would be nice to be out here. I lived on Prospect and I used to walk out by myself often. And I liked that corner. Well, we decided that, that downtown was no place to bring up children. Interviewer: Who was Edmond Lowe, or Edward Lowe? Who was he, where did he come from? Mrs. Avery: Well he came from the east I think, I never knew where he came from, I never was curious I suppose, and he was a very important person. A very nice gentleman. And Mr. Blodgett we knew very well. He was, and they built that house out here on Robinson Road, that‟s now Aquinas College—beautiful house. Now if we were asked there for dinner, which we might have been, I don‟t remember, they wouldn‟t serve any liquor. You were invited for seven o‟clock. Got there and you sat down at the table at seven o‟clock. That was what parties were like then. Then they‟d go home at ten or eleven o‟clock. They didn‟t play cards in the evening. Now I‟m speaking of the people that I knew. I‟m not speaking of everybody, I don‟t if everybody… But we didn‟t play cards. My husband never played cards. Interviewer: What would you do after, after you finished eating? Mrs. Avery: Oh, you‟d sit around and visit. First of all the men would sit at the table, or maybe that‟s when they had some wine, I don‟t know. But they‟d sit at the table and then they‟d come out with the ladies. Interviewer: What, the ladies would retire to another room? Mrs. Avery: Yes. Interviewer: When did that, thinking back, when do you think that that kind of living, that kind of society began to change? Mrs. Avery: Well, I don‟t, I was trying to place it over there in that house. Cause we never had cocktail parties over there. And that was in nineteen fifty when I left there. I mean, when my husband was living. My daughter had a beau, who stayed with us, he lived in Cleveland. She married him. And he was an older person. He was twenty-five years older than… And, he had some whisky and in the bathroom, so he may have had some. But we didn‟t serve it. They were married in thirty-five, so it must have been since then. And I don‟t think they ever had any cocktail parties like, like we have now. I‟m sure they didn‟t. Interviewer: Was there any kind of event, anything what, when did society begin to change, when did that style of living and the closeness of the neighborhood that you experienced? Mrs. Avery: Oh. As you got away from it, you didn‟t have neighbors. You see down, down where I lived and where Averys lived they knew all the people around. Mrs. Warner we‟ve just been talking to, lived across from the Avery‟s house, exactly across and she married and we �11 never seemed to know her. We were too far to walk. Nobody had two cars in a family at that time. Interviewer: So what, what started bringing that style of living, living to an end was the dispersal of people? Mrs. Avery: That‟s right. Because, now in the Hill District, they all knew each other and on Lafayette and down John Street where the Hazeltines lived. They all knew each other. The Holts are down there, Campau lived there. Interviewer: This morning talking to a…….Pardon? Mrs. Avery: No. Huguenots, that‟s not their name, oh you know who I mean [Hugharts]. Lived on the corner across from the City Club in that corner brick house. Right across, up Fulton Street. The people knew each other on Fulton Street. The Gays lived up there and he started Berkey and Gay. I should think that would be a good place for you to start, too. Berkey and Gay and I suppose Mrs. Judd told you about the refrigerator company... Interviewer: Ok. Mrs. Avery: …Uncle Charlie Leonard started? He, Uncle Charlie Leonard ran the refrigerator factory and my father ran the store. Do you get a picture of I‟ve, I have given you a picture at all? Interviewer: Yes, fine we‟ll finish there then. INDEX A Aquinas College · 10 Avery Family · 1, 2, 5, 11 Avery, Grandfather · 2, 4 Avery, Mr. · 4 Avery, Noyes · 1, 4 B Barstow , Anna · 1 Barstow Family · 2 Berkey and Gay · 12 Blodgett Family · 2, 9 Blodgett, Mr. · 10 C Campau, Louis · 1, 7 Cary, John · 2 F Fanatorium · 4 G Gun Lake · 4 �12 H O’Brien, Mrs. · 6 Hall Family · 3 Hazeltine Family · 5, 6, 11 Hazeltine, Fanny · 6 Hazeltine, Mr. and Mrs. · 6 Holt, Mr. · 6 Hughart Family · 11 P J Ramona Park · 8 Rood · 7 Penney Family · 3 R Judd, Mrs. · 3, 12 S K Kent County Country Club · 6 Saint Cecelia · 6 Saint Cecilia Dancing School · 4 Salem, Massachusetts · 2 Stevens Family · 3 L Lafayette Street School · 3 Leonard Family · 2, 3, 6 Leonard, Charles · 3 Leonard, Charlie · 12 Leonard, Frank · 2 Leonard, Frank E. · 1, 2, 3 Leonard, Harry · 3 Leonard, Heman · 2, 6 Lowe Family · 2, 9 Lowe, Edward · 10 O O’Brien Family · 5 O’Brien, Mr. · 6 T Travis, Calla · 5 U Union Depot · 2 W Warner, Mrs. · 11 Wealthy Street School · 3 White Steamer · 4 Women's City Club · 11 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e3ef78f9df73fc48c40600c03abe2041.mp3 12eda69efa08d5d26b2080217c1ab727 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_28Avery Title A name given to the resource Avery, Evelyn Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Avery, Evelyn Description An account of the resource Evelyn Leonard was born in Grand Rapids in 1883 and grew up on Prospect Street. Evelyn (Eileen) was the daughter of the inventor of the refrigerator, Frank E. Leonard. Leonard was a Vassar graduate and married Noyes L. Avery in 1907. She was president of both the Women's City Club and Women's University Club in Grand Rapids. Mrs. Avery died on August 4, 1972. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9a750f938b8a45242b67abc0c1a7b33f.pdf 1b09bd3d64ad5a79e37c264bb1964c8d PDF Text Text 1 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 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_27Blodgett Title A name given to the resource Blodgett, John W. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Blodgett, John W. Description An account of the resource 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. 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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1b61b1fc1cfe84acbb5dffe036fa2b85.pdf 6665751455d5ab2218b2c41a21e32c45 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Robert Davis Interviewed on October 1, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape # 25, 26 Biographical Information Robert Leland Davis was born 4 May 1894 in Grand Rapids, the son of George Albert Davis and Alice Barnard. Robert died 21 December 1979 in Grand Rapids. Coming to Grand Rapids in the 1880‟s from New England, George A. Davis was a founder of the Stowe & Davis Furniture Company. He later was president of the Grand Rapids School board for many years. George was born on 3 January 1853 in Windsor County, Vermont. He passed away on 27 March 1935 at the family home on Fountain Street. George was married to Alice Barnard in Springfield, Vermont in September 1882. Alice was born on 3 October 1853 in Springfield and died at the age of 85 in Grand Rapids on 30 March 1939. ___________ Interviewer: O.K. Yeah, you were saying about Fountain Street? Mr. Davis: Well I‟m one of the few people in the city living in the same house I was born in. There at five thirty-five Fountain Street. My father was, I can talk about it now, came west and bought the place about eighteen oh, eighty-five or there abouts. Oh, the next, the nearest neighbor was on the south side, a Mr. Charles W. Pike who has passed and his family has moved out. On the east side was a vacant block and, I‟ve forgotten, I think it was a family by the name Lamoreaux [William T.] that bought the place on the east. The neighbors around there, across the street were the Bundys and other, which were related to the Hollisters and Hollister was, well the mainstay of the Old National Bank, it was called the Old National in those days. The Old Kent is the name they‟ve taken on when they combined the Old National and the, oh I guess it was called the Kent County Savings Bank. And they were then in the corner of, now I wonder if they moved out of the Pantlind Hotel, that place now called the… Interviewer: Known as the Bank? Mr. Davis: Yeah, of course that‟s all new there, I mean when they built the Pantlind Hotel they, they had a corner built on there, just like the oh, Kent County Savings Bank or the Kent had the north, no the southwest corner of Lyon and Monroe. That‟s where WZZM or something like that, are in there now. But that was a, originally a bank. That was the one Old Kent formed they went in with them at that [ ? ] I mean it was the south of the other place now called the Bank, which [drinking started] and see the Pantlind Hotel, as I recall was built, the present Pantlind was about nineteen between twelve or �2 eleven or maybe fourteen or somewhere along in there. And that was quite a place built in those days. It‟s still quite a place, but on the other hand it isn‟t as new as it was, when I remember it then. And, now as I say, my father bought the place on Fountain Street and now I have lived there all the time since. I say that with reservations. I was an engineer in Westinghouse, living in Pittsburg for a number of years, I lived in Massachusetts for a number of years, but I always kept my legal residence in Grand Rapids. I might have lived in an apartment and had all the outward appearances of being a citizen of Pittsburg but when I wanted to vote, I voted here. Ganson Taggart our attorney, family attorney, was city attorney and he said well if you‟re interested you better keep it here and I said what do I have to do and he says just vote every time and I had this absent voters laws so I could vote by remote control you might say, here in Grand Rapids. Of course I was interested in the Grand Rapids activities because my father was on the Board of Education. And also in, had connections with other things around here such as StoweDavis Furniture Company and things like that. Interviewer: Did your father, was he one of the founders of Stowe-Davis? Mr. Davis: I wouldn‟t say he was a founder but he came here and bought into it, bought, when he moved into town in eighteen eighty-five. It was then a concern called Stowe and Height [Haight], I think. H-e-i-g-h-t or something like that and a, Height [Thomas D. Haight], my father bought him out and then a number of years later, I think L. C. Stowe was, see there‟s several Stowes around town here so, sold out but then he had the major stockholding in the company. Then of course when he retired, why that‟s now gone over to well the Hunting family I judge. That is the Steelcase and that crowd. Hunting in those days was one of my father‟s, associates. Interviewer: Which Hunting was that, David or the old man? Mr. Davis: Well, I don‟t know who you call the old man. The old man that I knew, I meant the, I think it was Edgar Hunting. He was well quite a bit older than I was, naturally and David Hunting I think the one you referred to, I‟m not too sure of him. I think a, he was a little bit older than I am. He graduated in the high school a year or two before me. But he was, and then of course was a series of other Huntings coming along… Interviewer: Well, your father served on the board of education. Was he connected at all with Davis Tech? Mr. Davis: Well, you can call it that. A, he was very much interested in promoting, a well [whether] you call it, technical high school. But you see he had an awful time with me. I cordially disliked school and one of the things he seemed to realize was that there wasn‟t enough technical stuff to keep me interested. And this Latin and all that line of stuff, well my mother who was very much, what do you call them, classical person, she made me hang on to that and he saw to it I kept on going to school. But he realized, I guess that it‟d be better to have a sort of technical school. I don‟t know if you call it really technical, not in my line of thought I wouldn‟t call it that but anyway it was �3 something. And I know he stated one time, it should be a type of school so if anybody quits for any one week, he could feel that the week before he had learned something of practical value. In other words if he had to quit at any time and go and get a job, why he‟d picked up something in the previous weeks which would do him some good. Rather than waiting for the Latin and the Greek and the corruption of that kind, that‟s what I called it, to do some good. Oh I can remember back in those days. You took a lot of English, Ancient English, what good did Chaucer do me? What good did all that kind of stuff do me? See, I‟m an engineer. I happen to be one of the few professional, and I don‟t say few but one of the professional, registered engineers in the city. I‟ve been a college prof[essor] and taught engineering and I‟ve got degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Tech and University of Michigan and I‟m an engineer inherently. All the rest of my family are lawyers. I‟m the only black sheep in the family. I‟ve no objection to lawyers but after all, they‟re the kind that stick to the commas and semi-colons. They don‟t concern themselves with, well, should I say the facts of life. They‟re going go with the law. The law. Well, I probably shouldn‟t be quoted on this but, in my mind I think the lawyers need to have a going over somewhere. Here‟s a thing somebody said as a joke but I can well believe it about true. It was said that one of the later states that is new, Arizona, New Mexico came in, or applied to come in or applied to come in and they set up their, oh what do you call it, laws and regulations and things like that. They had in there, whatever it was, a rule that the circumference of a circle should be three times the diameter in that area because that was convenient. Now, anybody who would do that is just so darn dumb and I don‟t know whether they‟re going or coming because there‟s nothing more fundamental in the universe, than that constant of pi. Just as a thing that is rather interesting, it is said that somewhere over in Europe, some monk or somebody like that who was secluded, he worked on a series to work out the value of pi and he carried it on out to seven hundred decimal places. It never comes to an end and never repeats, so trying to say it‟s going to be three times and that‟s all, why you might just as well said the length of the year is going to be something else. You can‟t change it. And pi is more fundamental even than the length of the year. A few million years, the length of the year is going to change. Nothing‟s ever going to change pi. Interviewer: Yeah… Mr. Davis: Now of course, somebody said that that‟s a joke to show that the lawyers stay with the as a, that‟s the law, well that‟s what it‟s going to be. They‟re going to decide cases on that. It couldn‟t be any cases are decided on that, well what are you going to do? It‟s not right but they have it set up that way. Just like they could go and call red green and green, red. That‟s the law. You see, I got my background of, oh I wouldn‟t say antagonistic to lawyers but, it amuses me how they operate. For instance, I had a cousin who was quite a high powered lawyer, he in his days in college, he was a great football player. And he liked to cite how he played and he won this game and won that game and he did this and he did that. Then he got through the law, high school or college and so on and took the law, then he liked to cite how he got to be a prosecuting attorney. And he likes to say how he won this case and he won that case, and he did this and he did that. Well, I said maybe you shouldn‟t have. Oh, but he says, that‟s what I got to do. Now, what do you do? That shows my attitude towards lawyers. They‟re more �4 concerned with the commas and the semi-colons than they are with the spirit of things. Gee, whiz look, you‟re recording all this stuff. Look what you‟re going to do to me, I‟ll be in jail… Interviewer: …Well you were, you were just talking about change and, you know, talking about change, how has the city changed since you know when you were [alive] growing up? Mr. Davis: Well, of course in those days we had practically no well-paved streets, I mean it was, well I might call „em macadam. But they weren‟t like they are now. So after a rain, why the streets had irregularities and a lot of puddles around. And of course we had streetcars then. And, oh I would say they were more convenient than they are now with the present buses. Fact is the streetcars used to run on a schedule in the middle of the day at every six minutes. You‟d go out and stand on the corner and just like that a car would be along for you. Of course, as an engineer I‟m very much interested in the streetcars.. The Lyon Street Hill Line had a special breaking system because it was steep and, oh there was a lot of things that I got interested along that line. And I think it‟s very unfortunate that, well, what should I say, situation is not suitable for fixed transportation like streetcars. That is you can‟t expect people to go out and stand in the street with the auto traffic these days. On the other hand it had been much better if we had equivalent of the street cars, well you might even say trolley-buses. They, they had those in Detroit for a while. They‟ve had „em in a lot of cities but, oh I don‟t know the economics and things don‟t seem to be too good. They can draw up at the curb, but of course they have the same trouble as the streetcars, they had fixed routes and well if something happens, well you‟re stuck on your fixed route, you can‟t go on around the block like on a regular bus can. And, well things like that I think it‟s very unfortunate we don‟t have more viewpoint of that type of transportation. Poor old city of Grand Rapids, well here again, of course it‟s my native town, I feel like I can take it apart if I want to. I think it‟s about the poorest operated engineering town of any place I know of. An illustration of that, as I mentioned this before, I looked up the number of engineers, registered engineers, professionals, in the city and there‟s fewer engineers per unit of population here in Grand Rapids than any other city in the state. In other words we‟re, we‟re just, well, I‟ll almost say a kind of an enlarged Rockford or something like that. We‟re just a bigger town. The companies that really do business here do most of their engineering outside. Bell Telephone Company, the other companies, they‟re all engineers from either Detroit or some other place. Grand Rapids is just a place to live or exist or something like that. And that‟s too bad, too much of a common attitude. We ought to have more people on the city commission say, that have an engineering background. They don‟t. Look we‟re full of insurance guys and oh, people [of] that kind, I was going to say, undertakers and whatnot, the undertaker‟s gone, but that‟s about what it is. What do they know about anything? They don‟t know anything. Interviewer: Was it different when you were growing up, the city commission, the composition of the city commission? �5 Mr. Davis: Well of course in those days we had the city, that‟s the thing I would like to, gee whiz you‟re getting me into awful mess. I would like to feel that we‟re going to have a return to what we used to have, namely aldermen and a mayor. My youngest days, up to the time I was about a senior in high school, I graduated in twelve[1912], we had the aldermen, 12 wards, two aldermen from each ward. Well, you know how things go in cycles. All of a sudden they got excited and they said we‟ve got to have a commission form of government. Some of it good. But look what happened, look what we got. As long as it went along on a good form of commission form of government with proper people in there, I think it wasn‟t too bad. They got a lot of us young fellows in high school to go out and stand on corners and hand out stuff and promote the city commission. Well it apparently got in. Now I‟d work just as hard to put it back out again, because we need more representation of the people. In those days, you had aldermen around, two aldermen for your ward. Of course he had a smaller group to look after, you might call it that. If you wanted something, I mean felt something ought to be changed, you could go down and talk with him and he was, why I don‟t mean to say he could do an awful lot, I mean he might not upset anything, he would at least be more, well I won‟t say more polite, but I mean more cognizant of what you were, willing to be cognizant of what you were doing. Now you go down and talk with the city commissioner, well, that‟s in the hands of the city manager. Now I‟d have thrown that city manager out there so far he‟d never come to surface. They have no business having a manager like that, who‟s little king god in the glass case down there, and he runs the town. I don‟t know which side of the fence you‟re on, I can see you‟re laughing, he acts as if he ran the town. He, the city commission rubber stamps what he wants. Now I got no use for that. I‟d say that maybe we need a city manager, a fellow who would be kind of a high grade book-keeper and well not exactly a lawyer but look at the things with the city man, the city commission tells him what to do, want the city commission to be enough of „em so that if they‟re going to look after you in your ward when you‟re, represent something, or want something, they‟ll say yes, we‟ll think about it, we‟ll do what we can. We‟ll give it consideration. Now they say that‟s in the hands of the city manager. Interviewer: Well who ran the town? If the city manager is running the town today, who ran the town a…? Mr. Davis: Well, it [goes] to the city a, the alder-man and the mayor. Now of course there used to be squabbles, and they said that the aldermen got crooked. Hell, my attitude is, if they got crooked, that‟s just up [to] the citizens to throw „em out. You used to hear about some petty graft of one kind or another, anything from garbage collection to what not, which they‟re squabbling over now. They, who got it, well they‟d be saying so and so‟s working and he was well associated with such and such and I don‟t know what [I‟m talking] you know. Well, I‟d rather have it in the shape of somebody who‟s gonna be interested in what you want, rather than what we got now. Now, being of course an engineer I‟ m all strong for having better engineering. And poor old Grand Rapids don‟t seem to have enough sense to know what to do. Let‟s cite a couple of things. I‟ve been a member of the Engineers‟ Club for a number of years. Oh I don‟t know, about in the late thirties when I came back here, that was because my father was in his last days and he, �6 they said you got to come back, to look after some of the family affairs. So I came back to Grand Rapids, and doing what I could of course, then I, I got mixed up in the Engineers‟ Club and they were then getting ready for the pipe line, they were fussing about it. And, well we said that they ought to have some engineers studying the thing and then, the mayor then went and appealed the Engineers‟ Club and anyway he got a committee started. I happened to be on that committee. And we recommended then to put in at least a sixty-inch pipeline and perhaps bigger. Look what they did they put in a forty-six. We knew it was gonna, was going wrong, but that‟s what you got. Well, I mean the type of, remember that‟s the city commission and, and aldermen. That‟s what they said you got to do. Another illustration of how they, they sort of needled us over it, obviously when they lay out a pipeline you try to lay it out according to engineering principles and grades and things like that. They said to me later on, are you working for Frank McKay? And I said no, what makes you think so? Well you got that running across some of his land. Well I tell „em I can‟t help the geography of the place. If the pipeline ought to go along that place because of the grades, well that‟s where it ought to go. Well that‟s part of Frank McKay‟s land you‟re recommend that he get some sold or you know. They made me so peeved one time that I went and told this bird, I said look if you, I‟ll quit the city entirely and I don‟t care whether it burns down or not. But if you‟re gonna look at things that way. Interviewer: Well, before they had the pipeline, where‟d they get their water? Mr. Davis: Oh, out of the river. And it was a pretty dirty mess. Why perhaps I shouldn‟t say that. Back in about nineteen eleven or twelve, I can remember as a youngster, they built the filtration plant that‟s down there where it is now. And they took water out of the river. Prior to that they‟d taken it right out of the river with no filtration. And I can remember in my youngest days, which is about nineteen hundred when I began to remember things, they used to have to boil all the water. It was all the health authorities recommended, any water used for drinking, you boil. Well, I don‟t know. I guess most of us did, at least that was up to my mother to run the kitchen department. I don‟t know what she did but anyway that was one of the things. Interviewer: Was there any sickness or anything that… Mr. Davis: Oh yeah, typhoid fever was much more prevalent than it is now. I guess we‟re fairly healthy now. But even at that, it‟s not too good a water supply because on the basis of what we figured it, you needed a bigger pipeline. There‟s not enough water in the city despite that, in the summer, despite that report that came in that we could get along for a while because during the summer months, they take water out of the river, to augment what they get over the pipeline. And of course they, they treat it some, but it still, is much harder than Lake Michigan water would be on a normal basis if we had straight Lake Michigan water. Well anyway it just shows that poor old Grand Rapids has got no engineering background. Another thing that griped me [to] no end, as an engineer, I‟m [an] electrical engineer, I believe in running everything electrical that you can. But there‟re some things that you got to be very fundamental about. Water is one of ‟em. You need water whether the juice fails or not. You can‟t run a hundred percent safe on �7 electrical pumps. Pipeline can be, I mean the transmission lines can get knocked down, or they can have sub-stations get knocked out, things like that. When the water works ran by steam, and there‟s a lot of good size cities that still do that and it‟s fundamental, you‟re independent. Maybe you can‟t furnish all the water they want but at least you‟ve got enough so that the power company can‟t close up for half a day while the Russians knock „em out or something like that. And you‟re dependent on the water. Of course they say, well we got storage. Yes, but that storage wouldn‟t last ya very long if we‟re totally dependent on outside power. A corollary end to that is that not too many years ago all the hospitals around here, the bigger ones used to have their own power plant, I can remember Butterworth out here, had its own power plant. Well, that‟s an ideal thing, make juice and then you have light and they run the elevators and it gives all the service you need and then you have heat from the exhaust when you need it and it‟s a very nice thing. Well, that costs a little more, the cost of labor‟s getting so high to hire engineers, I mean operating engineers to run the place is getting to be expensive. So the power company and I guess the board of directors of the hospitals says, well alright we‟ll buy power. And they went over and the power company went on a basis we‟ll furnish you two circuits, if both of „em won‟t get knocked out. Sounds good, but it wasn‟t too long before the power company and the people got together and they says look, we‟ve got to be sure about this. The telephone company, they want to be fundamentally supplied. They got a diesel engine down there to be used for auxiliary. Well, they recommend that the hospital put in a diesel and I think Butterworth has one. It won‟t furnish everything but it won‟t put „em black. Things like that, you got to think about. You might say, well it costs more. Well gee, insurance costs you more, why have insurance? Just get along and say I don‟t need insurance. But you buy insurance because you never know, you might want it. And to pay a little extra for auxiliary power, that‟s like the insurance. I‟m afraid I‟m getting off the track. I‟m just… Interviewer: Well, talking about electrical, what kind of electrical system did they have when you were a kid? Mr. Davis: Around here? Interviewer: Yeah. Mr. Davis: Well a, the water works had an auxiliary, I don‟t mean auxiliary generator, but a little generator and it made power for some of the, for the street light, on a, first place it had quite a plant for making street lights. They were the old arc-light type. The plant, when I first remember it, was down on the river way over on the east bank of the river between Fulton and Wealthy. Down where the market is and about in there. And it furnished juice to run all the arc-lights around. And, well at one interesting corollary on that, somebody had the idea that you ought to light from overhead and so they had some of these high towers. I don‟t know if you ever heard of them, towers about a hundred feet high and they had four arc-lights up on the top of those. And they would, supposed to cover the neighborhood. Well it didn‟t, „cause the trees covered up [?] fundamentally it was probably a good idea. But after a while the towers got kind of questionable and they took „em down and then they distributed the lights around the neighborhood but they still �8 were lacking plenty of light. We‟re gradually improving it, but I can‟t kick too much on that. Poor old Grand Rapids can‟t scrape up enough money to light the place the way it ought to be but I do hate to see „em get totally, and I‟ve no objection to the power company, I‟ve got a lot of good friends down there, I don‟t like to see a thing like a city get totally in the clutches of a company and say look, at such and such a time we‟re gonna raise the rates, well and , go on that kind of a basis. If they had their own power plant down there, even though it‟s standing still, could say alright, we‟ll take over whatever load we need and make it ourselves. Now on that basis, that‟s another thing that gripes me to no end. They went and tore down the smokestack on the waterworks. You probably remember when that stood up there, a big tall smokestack. They tore that down, oh I don‟t know, somewhere in the last two-three years. It was a good smokestack. Probably hadn‟t used it for several years because it had gone over to electric power. But on the other hand it needed some proper touching up. That is you know, pointing, as they call brick work. They should have been pointing up. So somebody says oh well it‟s getting to be a hazard now. It isn‟t safe. It wasn‟t so old, there‟s lots of older smokestacks than that around town. But they didn‟t pay any attention to it. They didn‟t do anything. Interviewer: What did , where did the homes get their electricity? Mr. Davis: Oh, we bought that from the power company. That was quite common in those days. I mean that‟s about all you could get. You didn‟t want to make a power plant in your own home. Although I had that kind of a rig. I lived out on Silver Lake, out here in the summer time and of course then, I‟d gotten away from town, and with Westinghouse, and I had a chance to buy equipment. So I went and bought what they called farm light equipment. Remember those things they used to call farm lights? Farmers used to have those because they wanted light and power, small amounts. So I went and bought farm light equipment, or had it shipped up here, put it in the cottage, and for a number of years out here we lit the cottage on our own power plant. I like that kind of stuff. I got the generator for the place down I my cellar right now. And the engine is still out in the summer, the cottage. I don‟t know what to do with it, I‟ve been thinking I might give it to the library, I mean the museum, a place of that kind. Interviewer: Did you, did your family home have electricity from the time you can remember? Mr. Davis: Oh, no no. Interviewer: What, what did they have? Mr. Davis: Well, they had gas. Gas. And still, I go on the basis if I want fundamental things in there, so the gas piping is still in the house. I think possibly I should cut it off but I, I don‟t want to do that. I like to have it there. Now, of course we use gas for water heating. No question about it, gas is cheaper, for just pure heat. It, you can make, I mean BTUs per dollar are cheaper with gas than with electricity. No question about it. �9 Interviewer: How did those gas lights in the home work? Mr. Davis: Well, you see „em around the streets now. They, they‟re putting „em out here, they‟re mantel lamps. Once of course they had the old fishtail lamps at one time. You go down to this gas light village down here and you can see a lot of „em. Fish tail lights were just jet on the end of a fixture you might say, a fixture arranged to be artistic and things of that kind, glass globes and all kinds of thing on „em. But the gas lights made a mild amount of [?]. They were better than kerosene lamps, let‟s put it that way. We had some kerosene lamps in our house; I can remember early days the kitchen had a kerosene lamp out there. Why, I don‟t know but it had, they never put the gas out there. They had a gas stove for cooking and it also had a, well I guess you‟d call it, coal range. You could cook on that and heat the oven and do that sort of stuff with a coal range in the winter. Interviewer: They burn coal? Mr. Davis: Burn Coal, small [?] of coal. Interviewer: I was talking to a fellow this morning who was involved in the fuel business in Grand Rapids and he was saying that most of the homes at that time were, in fact all the homes heated with coal. What was the air like in the city then? Mr. Davis: The air? Oh you would never know it. It‟s just as good as it is now. Probably better. We, this furor over pollution, I‟m all in favor of reducing pollution but let‟s go at it on the basis of knowing what we‟re talking about. There‟s a lot more smoke and stuff coming out of big places, which they don‟t fuss about, than there was probably was in all the the coal smoking days, I mean coal burning days of the city. Now it‟s not as bad here because they usually burn hard coal. That‟s more or less smokeless. If you lived in Pittsburg a while, you‟d know what it is to burn soft coal domestically. It‟s rather amusing down there, at least when I was first there. The coal is so plentiful it‟s practically in every farmer‟s backyard. And I boarded, that was before I was married, I boarded in a place in the, heard the man of the house say one time, along about this time of the year. Well, we‟d better call up the farmer and have him bring in some coal. Well I thought that was kind of funny and I asked him about it and he said oh yes he had a side hill out here and he brings in coal. I don‟t, it wasn‟t very good coal, I know that and they, you bring it in and dump it [in on] the sidewalk or I mean in the curb and then he‟d hire somebody to shovel it up and put it in the cellar for him. Interviewer: [When] hmm Mr. Davis: And, but it was, oh I mean they got along, but it was rather interesting though. I used to travel quite a bit between Pittsburg and New York City and they‟d come in from New York City on this train at night, I mean the sleeper car and get there in the morning, and as you‟d come into the city from the east, as you came into the town there‟d be a kind of a haze over the whole city; because practically every house was, letting out a little cloud of smoke. Not, I wouldn‟t call it smoke, but a kind of a haze. �10 And you could definitely notice it. Very definitely as you came into town, clear outside in the country, and as you came into the city, an awful smoke. Of course Pittsburg has a horrible problem, or did in those days. They‟ve cleaned up a lot now. The mills made a lot of smoke. Coal mills, I mean a, steel mills, all those things. They used to make an awful mess around there. You got so you, well you‟re just accustomed to it. Well when I got married and went down there and lived there awhile with my wife, well you couldn‟t [just] go out in the evening. You‟d put on a fresh shirt, because the one you‟d been wearing during the day time was sooty. [went up] ? ? ? wife says oh you have to clean tonight. And things like that. I mean it showed up. Interviewer: But Grand Rapids never had that…? Mr. Davis: Never, never that bad, no. It wasn‟t, oh I don‟t know, the biggest problem I had from it, of course that was after I got back here, the Central High School, was really quite a boiler plant down there, used to burn coal. And they were very careless about it and they used to make a lot of smoke. I worked with Boelens who was then smoke inspector, and took pictures of the place and I don‟t know as that had any results, well anyway, not too many years ago they changed over to gas. That‟s good, as far as the neighborhood was concerned because they‟re not so dirty. Used to be that, under the eaves of a house, where the rain didn‟t come down and wash it off, why it‟d always be dark there, I mean dirty. Because the smoke had drifted in and deposited the soot and that was that. Now they don‟t have to paint quite so often, as we used to. On the other hand though, the gas is a big problem. Most people don‟t realize that, on the, for instance we live in a very old house as you can appreciate, not very old, about a hundred years old but anyway it was built before the time of chimney specifications which required a ceramic liner. Now then, if you burn coal, the coal gas was dry. Now you burn gas and the gas comes out with a lot of water vapor if you know how the exhaust of a car is in the winter, a plume of steam. Well, that‟s just the nature of the stuff. If you put that gas, I mean a burner big enough to heat your house, into an old house, with an unlined chimney like I have you can‟t get away with it because it‟ll, the moisture in the course of two or three years will go through the [?] Interviewer: Ok. Mr. Davis: And the, well I can‟t do it in my house because the chimney runs right up through the living room. We got bookcases around it and all that sort of stuff. It‟d take the plaster off the walls and I couldn‟t tolerate it so I‟m still burning coal but I got it all automatic, it‟s got a stoker, as you call it, though it may be a little smudge out of it once in a while, you can oh, at intervals between stoker firings you might call it that, why there‟d be a little haze come out of the stack but there‟s not dirty around there like it used to, I mean it would be if you‟re burning coal raw or with the high school burning coal, I‟d get over to gas if I could and I have a lot of good friends down in the gas company I‟d tell „em, will you fix me up [an] arrangement so I can burn gas without [ruining] my house. And they say, oh no, we can‟t guarantee that. I say you‟ll have to put up a bond if you want to do that. And oh no we wouldn‟t do that. So here I am running along with coal for the fire and I might say it‟s something of a chore because I‟ve gotten to the point �11 where the doctors now tell me I shouldn‟t shovel coal to any great extent, and I have to hire a fellow in the winter to put the coal in the hopper. Well that takes effort. It‟s not the best thing [?] I‟d switch over to gas anytime. It‟d probably cost a little more but then I wouldn‟t have to pay a guy a, oh eight - ten dollars a week to come in and keep the coal hopper full. Particularly when we go out of town, why it‟s something that has to be taken care of, you can‟t just go along and forget it. But even at that I wouldn‟t recommend any-body with a gas heating plant to go along and I hear a, people going oh I just went south and I left it running. As an engineer I wouldn‟t let that thing run without attention at least once or twice a day on any account. Something could fail. Then what would happen? I wouldn‟t take long for in zero weather for the house to freeze. Then it‟d be several hundred dollars of plumbing repair. Interviewer: Um hm. Mr. Davis: For example in my house, too. When we go out of town, even though we have a fellow looking after it I have a light in the window, under the control of an auxiliary thermostat which is set at about fifty degrees. If the temperature ever got down to fifty degrees, that light would light, then the neighbors are supposed to gallop in and find out what‟s wrong. Well, why not? Interviewer: That‟s a good idea. Well, they say most of the air pollution today is caused by the automobile. Do you remember the first car that you ever saw? Mr. Davis: Oh yes. Interviewer: What kind of car was it and who had it? What was the effect on the city when the cars started coming in? Mr. Davis: [?] it was always a novelty to see this damn thing chugging down the street. There was a one cylinder Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles one cylinder running along underneath. You cranked it on the side by putting the crank on auxiliary. You had a chain drive running from the engine shaft to the rear axel, and you‟d get in there and you‟d steer it with a tiller. They used to have the cold, curved dash, Oldsmobile had a curve on the bottom of it, sleigh you might say. Oh they‟d run around. Sure they had, interesting, they gradually got more and more and they got the cars so you didn‟t have to…, there used to be the joke, every now and then they get stuck and somebody‟d go by and yell at „em, “Hire a horse.” Oh but that lasted, the first cars I remember were oh probably nineteen two and three and four, somewhere along in there. Some of „em were steam cars. I had a great respect for steam cars. The old White Steamer, was a steam car. It had a boiler under the seat. The engine in the first ones was right alongside the boiler, it drove with a chain drive. Then the better White Steamers, I mean newer ones came out with the engine under the hood, the boiler was still under the seat. But they were quite a car. They would outrun most anything that you could imagine these days. I know I had a test ride in one one time. A fellow came in the factory, a neighbor of ours had one and went out and drove down the Cascade road. That was about the only passable road out of here. And they used to have a lot of pumps along the dash, if you‟d pump awhile and do �12 different things with „em and the fellow was in there and he was steering with one and he was looking at the road and pumping these things and she was running sixty and he says, “She ain‟t steamin‟ quite like she ought to.” Well, I thought it was just as well she isn‟t steaming [?]the thought of goin‟ much faster over that rough road and him steering one hand and twiddling his pumps and looking at his gage and just sprinting down the highway. Interviewer: What year was that? Mr. Davis: Oh, that was probably in nineteen hundred and three or four. Interviewer: That was a pretty fast car, wasn‟t it? Mr. Davis: Yeah, the White Steamer was a very good steamer. They could run anywhere. Interviewer: Did you ever have any accidents with the boiler blowing up? Mr. Davis: Oh no. I don‟t think so, I never heard of any. The worst thing about the steamers, and is still the reason that prevents them from being common these days is thefact that it takes a few minutes to get on steam. If you leave it sitting in your garage and you want to start the next morning, you‟ve got to allow, oh I don‟t know what it might be, ten, fifteen minutes to raise enough steam to run out of the barn. Interviewer: Um hm. What kind of an effect on the city did those early cars have? Mr. Davis: Oh, there were, there was just a joke, annoyance for the most part. The steam cars, they weren‟t bad, some of „em did exhaust direct into the air but that was steam that came out then. And, oh they‟d go along down the street leaving a fizzling kind of a steam out behind, was kind of a joke. I know one time, even quite more recent than that we drove east down to Massachusetts, the family places. And we used, I think it was an Oakland then, it was a good gas car. Then it had a maximum speed of about 40 miles an hour, and we drove down and came back, and on those good roads in Massachusetts, I came up behind a steamer, a Stanley Steamer, that was different type, but it was a good car, very good. But they couldn‟t maintain their speed; the boiler wasn‟t quite big enough to keep „em running as fast as they‟d like to run. I mean they might try to run. And I‟d come up behind „em then he‟d really open up and run away from me leaving this big cloud of steam out behind. And then he‟d re-use up about all his steam and perhaps my speed a run thirty-five forty miles and hour and oh, two [or] three miles, I‟d catch up with him again. Then he‟d do the same thing again. Just run away from me like nothing. That steam engine, well that boiler with that steam bottled up in there could run way from practically anything that was going on in those days. Some of the world‟s records for steam were made by the Stanley Steamer; I think a hundred and twenty some miles an hour down on the, well the Florida beaches. Interviewer: Daytona? �13 Mr. Davis: Down there somewhere. Well there, they did the high speed work. It‟s too bad the Stanley went out of business. There‟s quite a story on that. If you go to the library you‟d probably get a book down there called the Story of the Stanley Steamer. I think you‟d enjoy reading it. It‟s really worth while. And well I used to enjoy the Stanley Steamer; I‟d like to see that again. I hear oh that Bill Lear is planning one. I hope he gets it going. I‟m kind of afraid he may not because, well for what I know of Bill Lear, he‟s a kind of, oh a, visionist guy. He can imagine doing this, and he can imagine doing that and that was about it. I knew him, I mean I knew of him because that when I was at Westinghouse, he was in competition with us trying to furnish government equipment. And he didn‟t have enough background and enough sense or enough anything so when it come to making competitive bids, he couldn‟t make „em equal to what we did. But on the other hand he would under bid us „cause he‟d just say we‟ll make it for so much. I don‟t know what he did. I don‟t think he ever made anything, get very many contracts. Sometimes I know we would lose a contract but of course when you bid on government stuff you got to turn in all your specifications. Then of course, they‟re common property. He probably then could pick up these specifications I mean the things we had and build around our specs and do it for a lower price, and we did, but you notice he‟s not in business doing too much of that. I mean he didn‟t stay in it. Then he came here to Grand Rapids and, oh then I think he got other people in conjunction with him who kind of gave some ballast to hold him in control although he used his good ideas and they worked that way. I don‟t know. It used to amuse me and when I was here first there were a number of people I knew moved down there at Lear‟s and, yet every practically every year they‟d change. They couldn‟t stand it apparently, to stay with him. I know one time was a joke told about he had a conference in his organization somewhere, at least this was the story I heard, that he said, that we ought to do something this way; it was rather fantastic and the engineers didn‟t think about much of it. And a couple of days later, he went out into a development lab and he asked one of the fellows, “How‟d you come along with what I was outlining the other day” And the fellow apparently wasn‟t too diplomatic, he says, “You didn‟t expect I was gonna do that fool thing, did you?” He got fired right away. But Bill Lear was accust…, might do things which would be fantastic, which an engineer wouldn‟t do, but he ought to be diplomatic enough to say, “Well look, we‟re thinking about it still.” Or stuff like that He wouldn‟t go and tell the boss, look I wouldn‟t try that fool thing. Interviewer: Yeah, what was your family a prominent family in this city? Mr. Davis: Oh, I don‟t know, you might call „em that. That is Stowe-Davis, and my father being on the Board of Education for some thirty-five years. He went on the board when, oh I was about the fourth grade in school, or fifth grade, somewhere along in there. And I couldn‟t do a thing out of line which any youngster would do. He had a pipeline virtually from the teachers right into him. And he knew about it when I got home that night. He knew about it and I was in for trouble then. So it was a heck of a job, about bad as being a minister‟s son, living with a situation like that. „Course he was on there until, oh, well he died in thirty-five and I think technically he was still on the board when he died. He didn‟t do much the last six months. But anyway he was on the board and all �14 that time, when I graduated from High School And then I went on to College and stuff like that, and of course he didn‟t have to do about the college end of things but in the high school he, well, still had his say. The only time he ever did anything for me, you might call it, was, I was no good in languages. It was, my mother said I had to take some German. We had a German down here who really was German, at least she acted so much like it. And when we‟re taking the courses in German she insisted to learn the rules for German grammar in German. Well just imagine that. I didn‟t know anything about German, how was I going to learn the rules? Well I, I got, passed it off as next to nothing then I got flunked in the course. Well apparently that stirred up my mother enough, so she talked to my father and said look, you better do something about this. Well, the next thing I knew, he had it arranged that I would not continue with German course in high school here. But I would get a tutor. A tutor was, well a professional tutor who‟d had, was recognized, they had some around town, for various subjects, by the public schools and I finished the course by tutoring with her. I got my credit for that year of German, unofficially, but it counted. So when I went to the university I got by with it Interviewer: You mentioned the Bundy family lived in your neighborhood. Mr. Davis: Yeah, the Bundys lived right across the street. Bundy was, I can‟t say positively, but Mrs. Bundy was a son of, well Hollister, I‟ve forgotten his first name. He had a son, Clay Hollister, you may hear about. And then of course he had several sons younger than that. I‟m not so sure but one of „em is you about him there is a Bundy down there in Washington doing something. That might be some of the family, I don‟t know, „cause they‟ve all pulled out of here. But I can‟t quite imagine that crowd going over to the Democratic [?] Interviewer: What, what kind of business was Bundy involved in here in Grand Rapids, do you remember? Mr. Davis: I think he was an attorney. Interviewer: Well, the thing I was going to ask you about your family, if they were prominent, did they a, socialize with those families that lived in the Hill District there? Mr. Davis: Oh, I don‟t know, I didn‟t pay much attention to what they was going on. I don‟t think they had too much contact with „em. I know they used to talk about the Hollisters and the Bundys. My mother used to know Mrs. Hollister, and she used to talk about Clay Hollister And he was known, see he went to the bank with his father, was quite an official in the Old Kent Bank, not the Old Kent but the Old National. And well they were well, they know their way around [?] My mother was quite, well both my father and mother were active in Park Church. My father was a deacon down there for a number of years, which added troubles to me, and my mother was very active among the ladies societies. Oh boy you want to live in those days. You went to church on Sunday morning and before you knew it you had to go to church in the Sunday evening. Want it? No. I didn‟t want it. You went to church. �15 Interviewer: What kind of organizations was your mother involved in? Mr. Davis: Well, a lot of missionary work, she also worked with the LLC, that‟s the Ladies Literary Club down there on what is it, Sheldon or something like that? Interviewer: LaGrave I think. Mr. Davis: Yeah, it‟s down there still. And my aunt was also, lived with us part of the time. She was active in the, I wouldn‟t say active, but I mean took part in the thing. And oh things of, they were doing their share in a mild way, around town. I don‟t mean to say they were very prominent, like being wives of senators or something like that, but they did their stuff around town. They were known. Interviewer: What was living up at, what was living in that neighborhood like as a kid? Mr. Davis: It wasn‟t so crowded as it is now, and you could do lots of things. Of course our big lot, that‟s the thing that amuses me, now you can‟t get youngsters to mow grass. My father says look, you mow that grass, and you mowed that grass. You raked it and did all this kind of stuff. There‟s a lot of things that youngsters don‟t do these days. My very youngest days, the family had a horse. They had, before I was born, had a horse that they kept in what we call a barn now. But then they decided it was too much of a job to keep the horse up there and so they kept the horse at a Livery stable downtown. And when you wanted the horse, you‟d phone down - the phones had been established by then - oh, you‟d call up whose livery stable it was, they had changed around at different times. The one fact [?] place called Albee‟s, Albee‟s Livery Stable, and we used to keep the horse down there and they would bring the horse up and a fellow bringing the horse up would hitch his bike on the back of the buggy and would ride the bike back downtown and after I got to be a little older, perhaps, a middle high school age when we got through with the horse that afternoon or evening you‟d drive, I‟d drive the horse downtown. Then it was up to me to my own shift to get back up the hill. Albee‟s Livery Stable was on Crescent, oh I should say it was about where the Regent Theatre used to be. Do you remember the Regent Theatre? Interviewer: Um hum. Mr. Davis: That was in, about in there. Typical horse barn and stable. They had probably thirty [or] forty horses in there. Well taken care of. Interviewer: Did you spend much time downtown when you were a, young? Mr. Davis: Gee whiz. I was busy doing things around the house and oh playing with other kids around there, and things of that kind. Interviewer: Did you do a lot of tinkering when you were a kid? �16 Mr. Davis: Oh yes, I always tried to do that. See, that‟s one thing that gave me a good start on most youngsters that didn‟t have the advantage. My father was Stowe-Davis Furniture Company, of course that was when plants ran on the steam engine, Every Saturday afternoon, cause they ran Saturdays, except right straight through to five o‟clock Saturdays, not only five days a week, I‟d go down to the engine room, hang around the engine room down there and just hanging around with the engineer, I‟d get accustomed to doing things. Starting at first, well probably just sweeping up a little bit, then doing more things. I know one of the first things that amused me was at night, when they‟d quit, you‟d blow the whistle. And I wasn‟t big enough then to reach up by the whistle cord so I‟d take the stool over and stand that on that by the wall when the whistle cords came down and he‟d signal to me and I‟d pull the cord and blow the whistle. You don‟t hear whistles these days. I don‟t know as there‟s hardly one in town. But it used to be quite a thing, At five o‟clock or six o‟clock, the whistles would blow here in Grand Rapids from various power plants. Now they got practically no plants that got a whistle. That was quite an interesting thing and then New Year‟s Eve or New Year‟s Night you might call it, there‟d be quite a, I wouldn‟t say a ceremony, but nearly every plant that had a whistle would blow it at midnight. No, I enjoyed my work at the factory. I don‟t call it work; I just hung around over there. Oh but I did have to do work one time. He got, I don‟t know if you‟ve ever been in a furniture factory much, you know they have planers, with plane oh surface boards, like this, big wide ones long, tops of tables and oh things like that and oh, I probably was fourteen maybe. He says, “You‟d better go to work” and so he says. One of the jobs in the factory that I got was tending the planer. That is the fellow runs the planer, he puts the boards in the front there and runs through the planer then they come out the back side and you had to pick these things up. I mean they, they just come through, they don‟t let „em fall on the floor, that‟s part of the job. And put „em on a hand truck where they can be carried away and do something else with them. And a, so he says, “You‟re gonna work over there this summer.” And the superintendent put me to tend the planer. The amusing part about it was, I mean that showing how things have changed, they had a regular kid who did it. I don‟t know what they did with him when I was, when they gave me a job of doing it, during the summer, but anyway, he was around there. Once or twice they had him, when they had some very heavy tops in there, they had him help me pile these big heavy tops on a truck to get them away. Now when I say truck, I mean one of these trucks, you know, industrial, not a power driven truck. But the thing I think is humorous about it was that he says, “Well we‟ll pay you eight cents an hour.” He says, “I can‟t pay you as much as the regular guy. That wouldn‟t be right for the boss‟s son to have a salary equal to a regular guy. He was getting I think twelve cents an hour. But we‟ll give you eight cents an hour.” So I worked all that summer for eight cents an hour. Interviewer: Was that, was eight, what, the guy that was working for twelve cents an hour, he was working at what, a ten hour day? Mr. Davis: I suppose so. Interviewer: Was that, I mean could you live fairly well on that? �17 Mr. Davis: Well he was just a kid in high school, just I mean in school, like I was He wasn‟t living, I mean his family probably took care of him. I mean wasn‟t, oh the regular rates weren‟t very high, no I should say not. Well, I can remember my father used to talk about some of the higher paid men over there make sixty cents an hour. That was good pay for those days. Sixty cents an hour. We used to say a penny a minute. The kids, the rest of „em got, oh probably after they got along, thirty-five, forty cents an hour. It wasn‟t very much, but they used to live, and be quite happy I would say. Well I got eight cents an hour. Interviewer: Where did the furniture factories get their workers? Mr. Davis: Oh just all around town. Interviewer: Was, as I understand a lot of Dutch … Mr. Davis: Yeah, that‟s right. Oh yeah, most of the factory men were Dutch. Interviewer: Do you know the reason why so many Dutch people migrated to Grand Rapids? Mr. Davis: No, I don‟t know Interviewer: Why they chose this town? Mr. Davis: I often wondered. They just came in here. Well why‟d the Poles come in here? They, came in here too. I don‟t know. They just migrated West and some of „em stopped here. Interviewer: Where did your family come from, Massachusetts, did you say? Mr. Davis: No, Vermont. But even a generation or two before them they came out of Massachusetts and so on. Interviewer: Why did your father come to Grand Rapids? Mr. Davis: Well, I don‟t know exactly. One story I heard was that my mother didn‟t like living in Massachusetts. It was, they were then living down near Boston, it‟s kind of a sea-coast atmosphere. And she said the, at least the story I heard was that she told me the general sea coast attitude and moisture and all that kind of stuff was tough on her throat. She didn‟t like it. And so next, what she told me was she says they decided they‟d go West and, oh one story I heard was that they thought of once about Omaha. But she did have a brother who‟d already got into business in Detroit. There was no automobile business then. That was just business. And he I think encouraged them to come to Grand Ra.., come to Michigan and, oh Michigan was only probably, I mean Grand Rapids was only about seventy thousand or something like that. And they took over, I mean they bought in then. They boarded downtown here, I used to joke about, it was quite a fancy �18 boarding house you might call it that. It‟s where the police station used to be. Do you remember where the police station used to be on the, Ottawa Street down here on the corner of Ottawa and Crescent? Alright, about a house or two up from there, of course the police station wasn‟t there then, was where this boarding was. And they lived there a year or so while he was looking around the town and getting started at Stowe-Davis and stuff of that kind. I used to tell her, yeah, they kept you right close to the police station, didn‟t they? And well she used to get kind of aggravated about that but anyway, it was downtown then, is still, I think it was quite a place. Well, you can see kind of a remnants of it, you know what is it Bostwick Street, the one that goes up from oh, past the front of the Butterworth hospital? You know on Bostwick Street between Crescent and Lyon, there‟re a couple of old brick buildings in there. They used to be more of those downtown. They were boarding houses, I mean you could live in that. Well it was quite a thing. People in Boston lived in, I wouldn‟t say boarding houses, I mean they lived in, houses which were built right along in rows. Not from what you call those row houses these days, but I mean, there‟d be individual units in a series of perhaps four or five houses, usually built of brick, anyway pretty well put together. And you could live in there and you didn‟t have the responsibility of a lot of stuff. It was good living I guess, for those days. I don‟t think I‟d like it now but I mean that‟s what people did. Interviewer: Was there very much crime in the city, when you were growing up? Mr. Davis: Oh, I don‟t know about that. I never had any experience with it. I guess about the way crimes were was on Halloween night us young fellows used to go out and do out stuff of dumping garbage cans over and a few things of that kind but I don‟t suppose you‟d call that crime. No, Grand Rapids I was satisfied? was a model city, if you might call it that. But I suppose there must have been the usual stuff going on. But then it was I would say a safe city. Nowadays you won‟t dare go out on certain streets after dark. Then you could walk or drive anywhere. I wouldn‟t trust… I mean the city isn‟t nearly as good as it used to be in those days. I don‟t know what they‟re gonna do with the city now. It isn‟t safe. Well… INDEX A C Albee’s Livery Stable · 16 Central High School · 10 B D Barnard, Alice · 1 Bell Telephone Company · 5 Boelens, Inspector · 10 Bundy family · 1, 15 Butterworth hospital · 7, 19 Davis Technical (school) · 3 Davis, George A. · 1 E Engineers’ Club · 6 �19 H P Hollister family · 1, 15 Hollister, Clay · 15 Hunting family · 2 Hunting, David · 2 Hunting, Edgar · 2 Pantlind Hotel · 1, 2 Park Congregational Church · 15 Pike, Charles W. · 1 R K Regent Theatre · 16 Kent County Savings Bank · 1 S L Ladies Literary Club · 15 Lake Michigan water · 7 Lamoreaux family · 1 Lear, Bill · 13, 14 Lyon Street Hill Line (streetcar) · 4 Stanley Steamer · 13 Steelcase Company · 2 Stowe family · 2 Stowe, L. C. · 2 Stowe-Davis Furniture Company · 2, 14, 16, 19 T M Taggart, Ganson · 2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology · 3 McKay, Frank · 6 U O Old Kent Bank · 1, 2, 15 Old National Bank · 1, 15 University of Michigan · 3 W White Steamer · 12 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/132e520c7707c8a5c9a353930e1007cb.mp3 b53a818c8a514af2a475310f9e427223 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_25-26Davis Title A name given to the resource Davis, Robert Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, Robert Description An account of the resource Robert Davis worked as an engineer for Westinghouse and was a professor of engineering. Mr. Davis had degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Michigan. He was active in the public schools and was a local historian. He died December 21, 1979. 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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c3a049d0e33c849ec1c1a34e316ea311.pdf 83c691670db4a70b95058e576585d971 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 C. Bennett Ainsworth S. P. Bennett Fuel and Ice Company Interviewed on October 1, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #24 (31:59) Biographical Information Calvin Bennett Ainsworth was born 3 December 1890 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Calvin Bennett Ainsworth married Agnes M. Warnick on 20 March 1922. He was married to Emily L. Hine about 1926. He died 6 October 1974 leaving a widow, Florence J. He is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Grand Rapids. C. Bennett was the son of Arthur Sardius Ainsworth and Ella Elizabeth Innes who were married 18 August 1887 in Grand Rapids. Arthur was born about July 1862 in Rome, Henry County, Iowa the son of Calvin and Harriet (Fairchild) Ainsworth. He died in Grand Rapids in January 1950. The mother, Ella Innes was born 18 March 1861 in Pueblo, Colorado, the daughter of William and Elizabeth (Brennan) Innes. Ella died in Grand Rapids 11 April 1916. As his second wife, Arthur married Amye Firth on 5 October 1918. Amye died in Grand Rapids in 1940. Interments in Oak Hill Cemetery in Grand Rapids. ___________ Interviewer: Were you born in Grand Rapids? Mr. Ainsworth: Yes, yes I was. I was born in Grand Rapids. I don‟t remember the house because I was too young, moved away from there as a small boy or as an infant probably. It was on Washington and we moved away from there to James Street, two fifty-four James. And that is where I grew up-my early, early days of my life. In fact I… after I left college, my family moved to five forty-nine South College, and we lived there and sold that house to the Park Congregational Church. It‟s kind of unusual because I had another house on Madison. I sold that to the church-the colored church and Mayor Parks lives there now. He‟s a minister of this church and also the mayor of the city-a very nice house. Well, then I moved out here three years ago and been living here ever since. I can remember many of the old things about the city. I can remember Cherry Street, which I was kind of close to on James, being paved with blocks-not blocks- they‟re some circle pieces of wood made from a tree. They‟re about six inches deep and maybe a foot in diameter or so, depending on the tree that was cut. This was packed in with gravel, as I remember, and then… and then covered with tar. And that was a street. And Lower Monroe was a… had the same sort of a pavement and, I don‟t know, maybe other streets were paved that way but I can remember those. And when it… when they wanted to do away with the street and put asphalt or cement in, they tore it up and anybody who �2 wanted any of these blocks of wood would get them free and they made good firewood because they were certainly well-seasoned and they had some kind of oil or tar in them. Interviewer: When was, when was that street torn up? Mr. Ainsworth: Well, I don‟t know but I would guess, let‟s see I can only guess from my age, probably I was twelve or thirteen and that would make it nineteen hundred and two or three-around in there. Interviewer: What kind of a street did they put down after that? Mr. Ainsworth: Well, I‟m not sure. I think it was probably brick or tar some kind of… it was an improvement on the wood street. Although a street made of wood like that was awfully nice for the horses, and they had a lot of horses in those days. Milk trucks and people were going around in, in vehicles hauled by horses and it‟s a lot better for them than the paved street. Interviewer: Why, why is that? Mr. Ainsworth: Well, on account of their hoofs. I was always taught that you shouldn‟t run a horse on a hard paved street if you could avoid it. It‟s hard on the shoes and on their legs. It‟s so hard whereas the wooden pavement would take up some of the shock and it‟d be a lot better. I also remember about the lighting system in Grand Rapids in … I think that would be about the same period. We had steel towers and there were quite… oh, I would say they were t- at the base anyway, they were probably twelve, fifteen feet in diameter and they rose to maybe, oh I‟m just guessing but I would say, four to five hundred feet. And they had several lights up there that were made with carbon- carbon sticks they looked like. And they‟d have to replace these every once in a while and they would throw them down to the ground below and we boys would pick them up and use them in place of crayons-except they made a black mark instead of a white mark. But they tore that… I don‟t know when they tore those down and replaced them but, at that time, it was a good lighting system although I don‟t think it ever was quite as good as they claimed it would be. You would be able to read a newspaper anywhere in the citythe city then being probably one-fifth the size it is now. I remember at one time there was a flock of geese that came either going north or south I don‟t know which, but there was a fog and they flew into this…one of these towers and I think it was on the corner of Paris and Logan. I‟m not sure of that, but anyway, the… it killed several of the geese and they were dead at the bottom of the tower and they were there for the grabs-anybody that wanted them could have them. I don‟t know, maybe, that‟s about all I can think of. Interviewer: These towers… were the towers kind of ringing the city or… Mr. Ainsworth: Well, they were spaced in logical places so that they would distribute the light throughout pretty well. But I don‟t think it was nearly as good a system as it is now and they claimed a lot more than they claim now. But we had a lot of trees and these lights were way up and the trees would shadow them and make dark places so I‟m sure �3 they would have left them up until now if they were practical. But they‟re gone and, of course, they have a different system of… we don‟t have any carbon lights, maybe you can remember those. They kind of fizz once in a while. They‟d make quite a loud singing sound. There was a spark going between the carbons is what it was-that made that noise. Interviewer: Well, when you were growing up on James Street, was that on the outskirts of the city? Mr. Ainsworth: No, but Eastern Avenue was pretty well on the outskirts. I suppose it was named Eastern because it was the east, more or less, the eastern limits of the city. And I remember just beyond there on Wealthy, they used to have a big open space there. That would be from Eastern east of there and well east there-pretty close to Diamond. Where Diamond is now was all open and they use to have the circus that came to town would put up tents there. There was plenty of room for them. It was… it was all open territory. Interviewer: Would the shows be there? Mr. Ainsworth: Yeah, the shows-they put the big tent there and the show would be there. Interviewer: How would, how would people get out to the circus if it was on the outskirts of town? Mr. Ainsworth: Well, they had streetcars, I suppose. I know… I know they did because they had streetcars running out to Reeds Lake. As a boy, I use to go out to Reeds Lake in the summer and my mother would put up a sandwich or two and some milk and then we‟d go out to Rose‟s swimming beach and take our lunch and we‟d stay in the water all day long-swim all morning and afternoon. The water was clean and clear. And then in the winter, we use to do the same thing only we‟d take our skates out and they cleared a space out there and we were in…I can‟t tell you the name of it, but it was a big open saloon, that‟s what it was and a couple of stoves in there, these pot-bellied stoves and we‟d get cold and come in there and we‟d…I think we had our lunch in there. They let us have our lunch there. I can‟t remember much about it being a bar but I‟m pretty sure that was what it was. And we‟d put up our… put our feet up against this iron stove with our skates on, you know, and it would thaw them out and get warm then go back out and skate. It was quite a trek out there for us, either bicycle or streetcar. So you wouldn‟t go out there for just a little while, you go out there for the whole day-the entire day. I remember shooting squirrels right down by Fisk Lake and around in there. It was beginning to be a little inhabited there and this-right here where I am used to be a track here. Mr. Bonnell, as I recall, had some horses, and he had a track which he would run „em around here. Jefferson Avenue was-in the winter- was a place I think they blocked it off and some of the rich people with horses and sleighs would have races down there. They raced down Jefferson Avenue. Interviewer: Did you ever go down to see them? �4 Mr. Ainsworth: I don‟t think I did. I remember hearing about it, but I wasn‟t particularly interested. But on Washington Street they used to block that off for us kids and we‟d start at Madison with bobsleds and slide down there and then walk back up. We use to do that a lot. I can‟t remember those horse races at all, seeing one. I can remember hearin‟ „em, talking about them though. I‟m sure they had them. Interviewer: Did you go to school in Grand Rapids? Mr. Ainsworth: Yes, I graduated from Central High School in nineteen-ten. That was the last year of the old high school. Then there was the new one which I guess is the one standing now-was built in, I think the class of eleven [1911] got into that school. I was the last one there and… I graduated in nineteen-ten and remember hearing I was the last class in the school. Interviewer: Did everybody in those days graduate from Central? Mr. Ainsworth: I think they did. I don‟t think we had another high school. Interviewer: Another four year school? Mr. Ainsworth: No, I don‟t believe we did. Of course, you got how many now-three, four…? Interviewer: Well, there‟s Creston, Union, Central, Ottawa Hills-I guess they‟ve got four, plus the Catholic High School. Mr. Ainsworth: Well, I guess there weren‟t a lot of kids never went to high school, you know, in those days. I don‟t suppose over half of them went. And so, of course, the city was so much smaller so that you didn‟t need as many. Interviewer: Who were the kids that went onto high school and who were the ones that didn‟t? Mr. Ainsworth: Well, some of them had to go to work and they didn‟t. Some of „em just weren‟t interested. There wasn‟t the importance put on an education in those days as it is today. So… and the world wasn‟t as sophisticated. I mean you… you have to have an education to run these machines now and the computers and everything. Most every kind of work there is takes a good deal of education. In those days, we didn‟t have those and the work that was open for you didn‟t require it so you just didn‟t spend the time and money on it. I went over to the University of Michigan and it seemed to me there were nine thousand there then and they thought that was a big, big school. My granddaughter is going over here to Central Michigan at Mt. Pleasant, yeah, Mt. Pleasant. And I think she said there were something like twelve, fourteen thousand, and they, they consider that a small school now. I never, I really never heard if it until she went there. And yet that‟s �5 much bigger than the University of Michigan was in those days. And the University of Michigan was-and is today-well recognized as a big and good college. Interviewer: What… what kind of business were you in in Grand Rapids? Mr. Ainsworth: Well, I was in the coal business-the Bennett Fuel Company. My father worked there first and got to own the company, and then I took it over when I came back from college and I ran it until sixteen years ago when I retired. It‟s about that time gas kept came in and there‟s very little coal sold in the city now, very little. Even the industries are not buying it because of the smoke that they‟re creating. So, it‟s been hit very hard but my son is running the company as best he can and he‟s gone into oil… selling oil along with coal for heating and other purposes. So he‟s struggling along with it still in the city. It‟s over-it‟s about ninety-eight years old now. It‟s almost a hundred years old-the company is. And we had an interesting thing about that. We were on the corner of Fulton and Ottawa. I think we were there for eighty-eight years and the property was owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad. We rented it from them and we rented it for eighty-eight years and all we had was month-to-month lease. The railroads are a little different than other people. If you ship over their lines, they won‟t sell to you and they give you cheap rent. They won‟t sell to you because they want to hold you on their… they want to have something over your head. It‟s to make you stay there and ship over their road. And on the other hand, they give you very, very reasonable rent. In fact, they‟d give it to you for nothing if they could but the Interstate Commerce Commission won‟t let them do that. They have to charge at least, as I understand it, six percent the valuation, assessed valuation of the property. But that‟s all they charged. Well, I think that‟s all they charged us. Now, now that the railroads are having a hard time, maybe, they‟re… they‟ll get into the more equitable rent. Interviewer: Well, if people were burning… would that be the predominant fuel in homes-coal? Mr. Ainsworth: Yes, it was up to about nineteen forty, I‟d say. nineteen forty then gas started coming in, oil, there was, some oil in… there was some gas but not anything like what it is now. Though I would say an eighty percent or eighty-five percent of the heat was generated from coal at that time. And there were over a hundred coal dealers in this city at one time-at least a hundred licenses taken out. Now there is just our own, that‟s the only one left. And we‟re… we just can‟t, I don‟t know how he can live off what he gets there. There‟s just nobody‟s burning coal. I don‟t burn it myself …and fewer every year. But he‟s got little other outlets that, like oil, trying to go into the fertilizing business, too. Doing a little of that he can, that goes a very little investment necessary if you have oil trucks, you can just clean „m out, put the water and the chemical in there and then you got your own pump, your spray and the whole thing so all throughout the country quite a few coal yards have gone into fertilizing by liquid spraying. Interviewer: Well, if most of the homes were burning coal, was there… was there much smog or smoke in the city? �6 Mr. Ainsworth: Yes, there was, there was no complaint about it but there was at times. I know that in the winter you get a nice clean fall of snow and all, everything would be just as white and pure and clean as it could be in the morning maybe, and then by the next morning you‟d see these globs of soot around. And the snow would get real dirty mostly from… of course, it gets dirty now but it‟s largely from coal. It seems to me as though the air should be much cleaner now than it used to be due to the fact that there‟s no coal used but, of course, there weren‟t very many automobiles in those days and they say they‟re responsible for 60% of the pollution-air pollution. So maybe we got a worse victim in the car than it was in coal. I don‟t think coal will ever come back as a home heating. Interviewer: Well what, what, how would these homes that were heated on coal, what was the operation involved in keeping your house warm. Mr. Ainsworth: Well, at first it was really just hand fired. You just didn‟t… you never had a fire furnace with coal? You didn‟t? Interviewer: Well, I did at my parents‟ cottage at one time. But… Mr. Ainsworth: Well, it‟s merely shovel in the coal usually in the morning and set your drafts and you‟d get over-runs and under-runs and, it was good, good and cold you couldn‟t keep the house at an even temperature-or it was very difficult to. Then they had the… they would get an automatic thermostat for the furnace and it was much better than without one. It would open and close the draft itself. When the temperature went over a certain degree, it would drop the draft so that the fire would die down and when it got cold it would be the reverse. And then… then they introduced the stoker and the stoker is much cleaner burning. It burns fuel much cleaner than the hand fired by means of a screw it pushes the coal in so that the fire is fed from below and as that fresh coal comes in from below, it gets hot and it begins to release its volatile matter as smoke. The smoke has to go through the bed of flames and it gets burned off. So it burned the coal more efficiently and cleanly-but it isn‟t. I hate to say it as a coal man, but it isn‟t as clean as the gas or oil. But, of course, you‟re just practically unconscious of the furnace and then I… just, your house is held at seventy-two degrees with either coal or oil. So you‟re unconscious of it. Interviewer: Well in other words, before they developed the thermostat, it was pretty difficult keeping your house at an even temperature. Mr. Ainsworth: Yeah. You had a little dial up here that you could operate around and it had a chain on it and the chain would close or open the drafts down below. So if it gets cold, well, you walk over to this operator and just turn it one way or the other and it would adjust the drafts instead of having to go down below to do anything. You boys missed a lot of hard work. Interviewer: Well were there, when people were burning coal in their houses, were there any coal strikes? �7 Mr. Ainsworth: Yes, I can remember one but they- the contracts were all written so they expired, I think, on April first. And we did have coal strikes but the season was pretty well along for one thing and we could load up on another thing and I remember one year they had a strike and they had this coal… they loaded cars. Of course, the miner was anxious to get all the money he could so he was trying to put in all the time he could and some-so most of „em were on a tonnage basis so the more tons you got out the more you got paid. And he was trying to build up a nest egg to protect him against the strike. So they were trying to get a lot of coal out in shipping and we‟d load up and they‟d have sometimes… there‟s every miner had maybe a hundred cars loaded with coal and they would… all during April they would ship that to you. And I can‟t remember any time when, oh yes, I did too, was that a strike? There was one time here we were in real bad shape one winter. We…we had the supply turned over to the city. I think that was… that must have been a strike. I remember George Welsh was mayor, I believe, at that time or city commissioner and the city confiscated all the coal there was in the city. I mean they came to your yards and now, “You cannot deliver any coal except on an order from the city.” And then the people had to go to the city hall and declare their need of coal and they‟d get a certificate and they… we‟d come down and deliver them a ton. We did have quite a serious shortage one year, I can remember. Interviewer: Do you remember what year that was? Mr. Ainsworth: No, I can‟t. No, I can‟t. I just have to guess it was the late thirties or in the forties. We did have quite a serious shortage at that time, but I don‟t think anybody froze. I remember greenhouses got preference, hospitals got preference and some institutions that were vital were… got the first chance. There were… there always… when they have a strike, there‟s always a few miners at work-they‟re not unionized so there‟s a trickling of coal that comes out always, even in spite of a strike. There‟s a strike on right now, isn‟t there? I know that their contract expired last night at midnight. Interviewer: Oh, I don‟t know about this. Mr. Ainsworth: I, I didn‟t turn it on there… the television this morning… and so I don‟t know what happened. Interviewer: Was the Grand River used for anything when you were a kid? Mr. Ainsworth: I can‟t remember any of those boats going up and down. I… I can remember seeing pictures of the boats and I think there were some boats there and they docked right down there by Fulton Street, but I can‟t remember very much about them but I‟ve seen pictures. I think maybe most of my memory of that is from pictures rather than from the actual boats although I can remember a very bad flood we had one year. I was only a kid. Gosh, I don‟t know. It was probably nineteen-I‟m guessing again but probably in nineteen-let‟s see, probably nineteen hundred and five or six… around in there. I remember the… in the Pantlind Hotel in the barber shop-in the basement-they, they had water right up to… almost to the ceiling. And they used to have a mark there �8 and then years afterwards they‟d come in and say, well, right up there is where the water was on such and such a date. And the west side was quite badly flooded. There was some water over there. Interviewer: What did… what did happen? Why were there such serious floods then and not now? Mr. Ainsworth: Well, if you don‟t, there was no wall there at that time and it was the year in which we had a lot of snow and it melted all fast. Maybe even today it comes up pretty high. We have walls of protection but if you get a lot of snow and then you get a warm rain with this two or three feet of snow on the ground, it‟s just running off everywhere, just in rivers. All over the country, every tributary is feeding into Grand River and it goes way up and it depends on the condition at the time and at that year. We were not protected as well as we are now and we had a big run-off of snow and water. Interviewer: You said you mentioned that your family had a home down on South College, five forty-nine South College? Mr. Ainsworth: Yes. Interviewer: Did you grow up or did you spend any time… Mr. Ainsworth: Well, I spent a few years there, yes. Most of my time was spent on James Street. Then they moved out to eighteen thirty-nine Lake Drive, but then I was married and I didn‟t live at eighteen thirty-nine Lake Drive. They kept going east as most of us do-east or out in the outskirts. Interviewer: What kind of a neighborhood was James Street, what kind of people lived there? Mr. Ainsworth: Well, there were colored people on the south side of Wealthy and they used to have what we called the Wealthies and the Cherries. I belonged to Cherry Street and most of the Wealthies were the people on the Wealthy side. South of Wealthy were colored… were half, about half-colored and half white at that time. And we used to have snowball fights and so forth. At that time was more or less a pleasant relationship. There was rivalry and then sometimes it resulted in bloody noses and so forth but that was the extent of it. But we… we were… we were divided even then in those days between… and Wealthy Avenue divided us off. And we got our names from the…from the two streets, Wealthy and Cherry. Interviewer: Did they go to the same school? Mr. Ainsworth: Yeah, we went to the same school. It‟s there now, Henry Street School. It runs from Henry over through to James and just a little bit south of Wealthy. It seems to me… I know it‟s there yet, isn‟t it? �9 Interviewer: Henry School? I think so, yeah. Yeah, I‟m sure it‟s there. Did, well… did the… the Negroes and the whites get along alright together? Mr. Ainsworth: In school we did. I can‟t remember anything… any difference or having problems or even giving it a moment‟s thought. We had no serious trouble, we accepted each other as we were and we didn‟t have a football team or baseball team I don‟t think…at least I know I didn‟t-wasn‟t in it. But I had some friends. I can remember two or three of „em down there and later they got to be waiters at the Pantlind Hotel and I used to get pretty good service over at the Pantlind Hotel. The boys would… quite a few of them became waiters in various places. Do you have this thing going? Is anybody going to listen to all this? Interviewer: Oh, yeah. Mr. Ainsworth: Are they? Interviewer: Yeah, I think so. INDEX A I Ainsworth, Arthur Sardius (Father) · 5 Interstate Commerce Commission · 5 B M Bennett Fuel Company · 5 Bonnell, Mr. · 3 Mayor Parks · 1 C P Pantlind Hotel · 8, 9 Central High School · 4 Central Michigan · 4 R F Reeds Lake · 3 Fisk Lake · 3 U G University of Michigan · 4 Grand River · 7, 8 W H Henry Street School · 9 Welsh, George · 7 �10 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8c09728a2dc129661aa8a36f3e572527.mp3 a44bf0baae9471a406f703cd9bd0f7eb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_24Ainsworth Title A name given to the resource Ainsworth, C. Bennett Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ainsworth, C. Bennett Description An account of the resource C. Bennett Ainsworth was born in Grand Rapids on December 3, 1890. He graduated from Central High School in 1910, and attended the University of Michigan. He was the owner of Bennett Fuel Co. He died October 7, 1974. 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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/15abbd4d3fefea41971b4319f9405269.pdf 36aba87e85f174a2ac3a6a8dbe98bbf9 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Mrs. David Warner Interviewed on September 30, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tapes #22, 23 (56:32) Biographical Information Mary Jeanette Shelly, the daughter of James R. Shelly and Mary Isabel Hayes was born in Grand Rapids in March 1888. Jeanette died in Grand Rapids on 7 December 1974. She married David A. Warner on 26 November 1908 in Marine City, St. Clair County, Michigan. David A. Warner was born 7 October 1883 in New York, the son of David S. Warner and Louisa Jumph. David died in Grand Rapids on 24 September 1966. _____________ Interviewer: Were you born in Grand Rapids, Mrs. Warner? Mrs. Warner: yes. Interviewer: What was your family‟s name? Mrs. Warner: Shelly, S-H-E-L-L-Y. That‟s an English name or an Irish name, of course, and my father was in the furniture business. That was Berkey and Gay and the Luce Furniture Company. And my mother-neither one of my parents were born here. My father was born in Rochester, New York, and my mother was born in Detroit. And they both moved through the years as younger people to Grand Rapids and then we lived here always. Interviewer: Where did you live? Mrs. Warner: Well, we lived on Paris Avenue which was a residential street then, if you know where it is. Between Logan and Wealthy was a residential area. That‟s where I grew up as a child. But my father died when he was quite a young man, forty-two I remember, of pneumonia. It was one of those things that happened to people. And my mother carried on. I had a brother who died. Jim died I guess about five or ten years, eight or nine years ago and I have a sister living in New York… a much younger sister and that‟s the only family I have. Interviewer: What was the… go ahead. Mrs. Warner: I was married very young. Mr. Warner was at the University of Michigan and he came to Grand Rapids. He had a connection, you see-like the young lawyers dowith one of the lawyers in Grand Rapids who‟s long since dead, and that‟s the way he established in Grand Rapids. �2 Interviewer: Was he from Grand Rapids? Mrs. Warner: No, he was born in Rochester, New York. Interviewer: Oh, your husband was? Mrs. Warner: Yes, they were both…it was funny that they, not that they know each other but they were both came from Rochester. Interviewer: What was the… what was it like on Paris Avenue when you were growing up as a child? Mrs. Warner: Well, it was a very nice, happy neighborhood with children- families with children-and one thing that I think of funny things in connection with it. It was one of the first streets to be paved with a hard surface. And on a summer evening -it was when bicycles became so popular- and that block, two or three blocks from Wealthy down to Logan with people would come with their bicycles, men and women, not children, and some of them tandems on bicycles and ride up and down and up and down on that because it was a hard surface. And my ambition, I remember, as a child was to have a bicycle, and at last I achieved the age, reached the age when my father thought I should have a bicycle. We had, I think sometimes that children…we had simpler lives and I think it was, in a way, happier. I was reading this afternoon about a book about Fourth of July-the celebration of Fourth of July. Why, that was a great thing. You probably don‟t remember when you celebrated the Fourth of July. Oh, you planned, had for weeks and collected what you could in the way of funds to buy the firecrackers and things and then someone in the neighborhood on the block or so, some father would do an evening display of fireworks. But (we) used to get up at three or four o‟clock in the morning and go and rouse each other and get out there and shoot firecrackers. Now that was considered very gay. We loved it. Things like that that were so simple. Interviewer: Were there city-wide celebrations too, were there big things where…? Mrs. Warner: Oh, there was always a…usually a speaker or someone gave an oration in the park and a parade sometimes. I don‟t remember much about… I don‟t think I was ever taken to a Fourth of July Parade or anything of that kind. We were quite far, in a way, quite far out from downtown. We were… the streetcars ran on Wealthy, ran from Wealthy Street-line ran from out here which was Ramona, an amusement park was located on this land that‟s here on the lake. And the street railway company owned the amusement park. And the Wealthy street cars ran from here out to North Park. Do you know where North Park is? Interviewer: Yeah. Mrs. Warner: Yes. Well, that was one line that ran. That was called the Wealthy-Taylor Line. �3 Interviewer: It would go from out here at Ramona downtown and then go north? Mrs. Warner Yes, then go out…what we called lower Monroe was called Canal Street at that time. Interviewer: Why was it called Canal Street? Mrs. Warner: Well, because of the canal along there. Then there was a canal adjacent to the river. And it ran along there then it turned and went up. I can‟t remember where it turned and went up and then it went out what was Taylor Avenue out to North Park and turned around out there. And we used to go streetcar riding. That was a great thing for an evening, a summer evening. You always got in the front seat, if you could, and you went the whole trip. Came round trip, it cost five cents. Life was really quite simple and pleasant. Interviewer: Were the families pretty close in the neighborhood? Mrs. Warner: Oh yes, they were, oh, a good neighborly feeling more, some more than others, some were closer than others. A doctor lived across the street from us and I was friendly with, quite friendly with their children his children and with the family. And there was a Colonel [Loomis K.] Bishop lived on the corner [now 457 Paris] and he was a Civil War veteran and he‟d been made the postman officer, post master here in Grand Rapids as an award for you know-there was-the political assignments of that kind often were given to military men. And Colonel and Annie Bishop, they were very nice to children. Interviewer: Did they have any children of their own? Mrs. Warner: No, they were older; they were quite a little older. They were awfully nice about cookies and things like that. Interviewer: Did you go to school in Grand Rapids then? Mrs. Warner: Yes, at that time my family, well, they were all Catholic. We were Catholics and, as a matter of fact, we were the only Catholics on that… in that immediate neighborhood. Not that it made any difference except for the fact that I went to Saint Andrew‟s School, Catholic School, which was way down on Sheldon Avenue where the Cathedral is if you know where the Saint Andrew‟s Cathedral is. And I went there and the other children went to what was called Lafayette School, which was there, well it‟s Vandenberg now I think, and we went down together. We walked together but I had to continue on much further. And do you know that we went, we walked and we came home to lunch and we went back and walked again and we never thought anything about it in winter, any kind of weather. Interviewer: It‟s a little different than today, huh? �4 Mrs. Warner: Every child has to be taken in a car or else on a bus. That‟s a controversy that‟s going on. Interviewer: What, were there, you say you were the only Catholic family on Paris Avenue? Mrs. Warner: Yes. Interviewer: Were there portions of the city where Catholics seemed to congregate or…? Mrs. Warner: No. No. Interviewer: Dispersed all over then, huh? Mrs. Warner: Yeah, um hum. This was never much of a Catholic city; really…I mean population wise. Quite a few Catholics-those that went to Saint Andrew‟s-went to school and who were acquaintances of ours…they were never close friends because they didn‟t live in the same neighborhood. A good many of them were…there were quite a few families down along Sheldon, oh around in that neighborhood where the cathedral was. But as far as we were concerned it was no particular point made of it one way or the other. Others went to different churches. Interviewer: There are quite a few Negroes living down in that area now. Were there very many Negroes in Grand Rapids at that time? Mrs. Warner: No, very few…very few. Interviewer: Do you remember any particularly? Mrs. Warner: No, none other than those that we knew as waiters. If you went to the hotel or went to a club or places of that kind, usually the help was colored. And you knew them and knew them by name and were friendly with them, but there was no large concentration of colored that I remember. Interviewer: What clubs, did your family belong to any clubs? Mrs. Warner: No, there were not very many clubs. There was the one club that was here on the lake called the O-Wash-Ta-Nong Club which was very nice…oh, it was just a social club where there were dinners and often times parties, dancing parties and all, and it went out over the water. It was a lovely place. It burned eventually. But the only clubs that the Kent Country Club started, oh, I don‟t know how many years ago-how old the Kent Country Club is but at the time that it was first organized by a group of men who became interested in golf, it was in what is now… do you know where the Bissell House is? �5 Interviewer: um hum. Mrs. Warner: …on the corner of Plymouth and Wealthy? That was the club house-Kent Country Club House. And where the hospital is, all that rolling land over there was the golf course. Interviewer: When was that moved, do you know? Mrs. Warner: About fifty years ago. I think it‟s all of that, maybe more. It went out to where it‟s located now. Interviewer: Did you go to high school in town? Mrs. Warner: Yes, by that time I went to the regular high school-not a denominational. The high school that‟s… there was just one high school. It was the one that‟s on Fountain Street now. Interviewer: Was there much interaction between… let‟s say children in your neighborhood where you lived and children that lived up on-oh…Mr. Judd referred to it as a Quality Hill, that „s what West-Siders used to refer to. Mrs. Warner: Yes, no I didn‟t know those young people. Interviewer: Did you go to college? Mrs. Warner: No, I went, I went to art school in Washington, the Corcoran Art School at one point, and then I met Mr. Warner when he came to Grand Rapids and we were married quite… I was quite young when I was married. You‟d think-we‟d think it‟s young now, I didn‟t think it was young then. I thought, well, I sometimes realize now… if I know now as much as I thought I knew then-I‟d really be awfully well informed. I had all the answers. Interviewer: How old were you? Mrs. Warner: Nineteen. I, a good deal like the young people have now… and I was the person for causes. Violent enthusiasms about causes of various kinds…movements of one sort or another. Interviewer: What kind did you get involved in? Mrs. Warner: Well, I got involved in club life and then I became involved in the suffrage movement. And that was a very active movement at the time. You see, it had been for many years back to Susan An…. Susan B. Anthony was an agitator for votes for womenequal suffrage-but it had never been too actively promoted at least to my knowledge. And all of a sudden during the First World War, women took very…a much more active part in a thing, affairs out of their home. For instance the Red Cross, you see, which was �6 very active. You wouldn‟t have any idea of the difference when one has seen the wars like the First World War and the Second World War and the feeling there was about it, and then to see this disaffection that there is about the Vietnam War. It‟s amazing. We were really patriotic… patriots in those times and, as I say, women worked hard and were given responsibility during the war and then that stirred up this idea that if they could do that, then they should vote. And the movement became very active, very much of an issue. And we kept… we organized here in Grand Rapids. There was a group of us who were so involved in it that we organized very thoroughly for a real city-wide campaign on the way that the war effort had been done by block chairmen and you‟d have a… you‟d locate a woman in a certain area, small area who believed in it and you‟d engage her in activities with her neighbors and her friends and her people that she met with petitions, signing petitions. And we also opened an office downtown and in… we were given some space in a store along Division Avenue and we worked every day at it. And we organized the whole thing in a very business-like way. The result being that we collected… of course, there were those that were just as violently against it, and used to engage in real heated arguments over it. And the result was that we collected on these petitions hundreds of names. And, at that time, there were two newspapers in Grand Rapids, there was the morning Grand Rapids Herald. And the editor of the Herald was sympathetic to us and he gave us in one issue a full page space … a spread in the middle of two full pages to print those names that we had in little fine print all those were as a piece of publicity that we organized. Interviewer: What was the… what was the ultimate objective, to get the vote? Mrs. Warner: To get the vote. You see, the amendment had passed the Congress and it was a matter, as it always is, of the majority of the states ratifying to make it a law-the law of the land. And we were agitating to have the Michigan Legislature ratify it. We besieged our representatives. We didn‟t know enough, we never… I thought about it since I spoke with you. I thought something about it and I got to thinking about it anyway with this matter of the vote for eighteen year olds. It had kind of brought the old effort back to my mind. It never occurred to us to march on Lansing like they do now. We never…we never organized any marches that I … Interviewer: Were they mostly just door to door … Mrs. Warner: Yes. Interviewer: …canvassing and talking and… Mrs. Warner: Yes, that sort of person to person. We had a funny thing happen to me in connection with it that might be amusing to you. We always took the… the county fair was much more of an affair than it is now. People, large crowds went to it and it was always in the fall quite an event out at the… what the fairgrounds out at North Park and we always took a booth to put up our, you know, our display of literature and hand out our literature and all. And we manned that booth with-women went down and took their turns being in the booth for… of the day. Any my turn came up to go out early in the �7 morning and be there most of the day, I can remember. And the night before, I fell against the door of our automobile and cut my eye-quite a little cut right in here, close to my eye. It had to have several stitches. Well, it gave me a perfectly beautiful black eye if you‟ve ever seen one. But nothing daunted, I went out to man the booth… was that… did that attract attention. The rebel remarks, the jokes that it called for. I think it probably brought more people, more people stopped at our booth than would have otherwise. To see the suffragette with a black eye-that was something. Interviewer: Were men sympathetic to a … Mrs. Warner: Oh yes, many men were. Interviewer: Was there opposition to the women‟s vote, also? Mrs. Warner: Oh, was there opposition? It was fierce opposition. The people were just as violently against as they were for. Oh, it was, it was quite a hot issue. But the result was of, I suppose, our effort not only in Grand Rapids but all over the state. Detroit was a very active group and other places all over the state and the result was that our legislature was the first one to ratify months before the ratification was finished by the legislatures. Interviewer: Michigan was the first state to ratify the amendment, huh? Mrs. Warner: That was in nineteen twenty. Interviewer: Where, where did the opposition to the women‟s vote… did it seem to come from any…? Mrs. Warner: Oh, it was just prejudice-women belonged in the home. Women should stay where they belonged, they didn‟t… Interviewer: How did the majority of the women feel? Mrs. Warner: Oh, many very intelligent women were against it. They didn‟t feel that they, it was…it was, it was the whole thing-for and against-was a prejudice type of thing… emotional kind of prejudice, nothing much… very… at least the arguments against it were thoroughly emotional because there was really no valid reason why women shouldn‟t vote as well as men. But there was very strong feeling. Interviewer: Well, there still seems to be a lot of strong feeling against women being treated as equals isn‟t there? Mrs. Warner: Well, this lib business… movement that I think… I don‟t know, it seems to me that some of their objectives are rather extreme. But as far as equal pay for equal work, I think that is only fair and I think it ought to be promoted and agitated until it comes about. Now of course, when you know they go, for instance, all this matter about �8 putting a woman on the Supreme Bench… well, I don‟t doubt at all that there are plenty of women who have been… had legal experience and been on Federal Benches and know the law and the Constitution quite as well as some of these candidates that have been put up in the past to my knowledge. Pretty weak, and it‟ll be very interesting, very interesting to see what the President‟s appointments are and how it‟s received in the Congress. And I doubt very much that he‟ll put up the name of a woman. Interviewer: You don‟t think he will? Mrs. Warner: I really don‟t think so, no. Interviewer: Mrs. Nixon is supposedly agitating in the backrooms of the White House for it. That‟s what the report says. Mrs. Warner: Well, I‟ve heard that, too, but I don‟t know. And what do you think the Congress would do with it? Interviewer: Oh, I think if the woman was qualified that the Congress would approve her unless they could dig up some scandals like they did with a…. Mrs Warner: Caswell. Interviewer: [G. Harrold] Carswell, yeah. Mrs. Warner: Well, they were not competent men to be on the Supreme Bench. I have very strong feelings about those things, I guess, because of my husband‟s legal opinions. I think it should be the very cream of the brains, legal brains of the country in that position and I think that there‟s been a lot of really bad publicity about the Supreme Bench in the past few years. Everything, as a matter fact, is picked to pieces and taken apart these days. Nothing is very sacred, is it? Interviewer: No, it doesn‟t seem to be. Was it different when you were growing up? Were there things that were held sacred? Mrs. Warner: It seems to me there were, yes. Interviewer: What are some of the things that … Mrs. Warner: Of course, out of getting the franchise grew the… right away the League of Women Voters Organization which has become a real political factor. Interviewer: Were you active in the development of that there in town? Mrs. Warner: Yes, um hum, I was one of the first presidents of the local chapter. Also the organizing of the Women‟s City Club. Women got active at that time and took a hand with things coming out of the effort-war effort. They liked it. They liked working, �9 strangely enough, and according…against all reports, women liked to work together. They worked together well. I‟ve never had any quarrels with anyone I worked with in any of the organizations and I‟ve been in many of them-many organizations, clubs and groups. There‟s always some that are not as pleasant as others but I don‟t think there‟s any more quarrels among women than there is among men. Men don‟t always get along too well that I„ve noticed. They‟re not always peace-keeping people. Don‟t you think we‟ve talked long enough on this now? Interviewer: Yeah, there are a couple of other questions I want to ask you but I‟m going to turn this tape over. It‟s about run out. Interviewer: You were just saying, you were just talking to me about the Grand Rapids Foundation and the fact that you‟ve been involved in that. Mrs. Warner: Yes, yes. Interviewer: Can you tell me a little about how it was started and, well, what it‟s…what the purpose of it was in the beginning and so on. Mrs. Warner: Yes, the Metz Estate was left to be used to found a foundation with the… income from which was to be spent in the community for charitable purposes. (Oh dear, there‟s the telephone.) And Mr. Hutchins knew a man in Cincinnati, I think it was, who had instigated a similar… started a similar foundation and he became interested in it and organized. The foundation was based on this one, the Quest and it had its directors appointed by the two federal judges, by the clearing house, by the Old Kent, and the National- the Grand Rapids National Bank, and by the Association of Commerce and one other. There were eight directors and it was all voluntary, I mean you were appointed. You were asked to serve…and served as long as you wanted to or as long as, well… there were such people as well names that you wouldn‟t even know now. Julius Amberg, who was David Amberg‟s father, a very prominent lawyer here and several furniture men-men that were connected with the business world and the appointments had to be accepted and gradually we got a little more money and it took hold and people became…got to know a little bit about it and we were left-the foundation was left- more and more money until our income could be spent more diversified. And we were always looking for a pioneering of projects. Not any continuous support except through the federated agencies, those that were in that. And then a certain portion of it was always devoted to scholarships. So that‟s the way the money was spent. Well, we were suddenly left the Wylie Estate which was about six million dollars. Interviewer: Now who was…who was the Wylie? Mrs. Warner: That was Curt, Curtis Wylie. The Wylie family was a very prominent family in Grand Rapids and Curtis was the son. I think Mr. Wylie‟s money came from lumber. As so much of the money… early days in Grand Rapids, the Blodgetts-and those, that money-that type of money-came from lumbering. And Mr. Wylie left a large estate. Well, Curtis Wylie was very well named. He was a very "wily" investor. He �10 was… he had a portfolio that was simply amazing. And he left it all to the Grand Rapids Foundation. Interviewer: Didn‟t he have any family? Mrs. Warner: No, he was never married. He had a sister and she is still living. And, I believe she plans to leave her portion-her estate-to the foundation and then other… we had many smaller bequeaths until we had quite a list of …they were always, they could be designated if you wanted the income spent. There was much, many were desig… number of designations for instance, at that time for crippled children because there was no state program for crippled children at that time. Since then it‟s… that is one difficulty about designating because the need becomes obsolete and then the money spent is tied up and we had quite a lot of money like that. And at last we went to…they went to court and got an order releasing quite a little of the income of those designated estates that had… where the need was gone. So the result is that the income that the bank handles, the trust company handles the estate the… principal and we, the foundation, simply spends the income and it‟s now two or three hundred thousand dollars a year, you know, that are spent in the community. Interviewer: Who was the Metz family that left the original request to establish the foundation? Mrs. Warner: I don‟t know much about the Metz family. The Metz Building, do you know that there‟s a Metz Building? Interviewer: It‟s being torn down now. Mrs. Warner: Yes. Well, they were… I don‟t… I can‟t tell you very much about them. I don‟t really know. Interviewer: Were there … now this Wylie, this Curtis Wylie left his fortune to the Grand Rapids Foundation. Has that been somewhat of a rare phenomenon in this town (for) people of great wealth leaving their substantial sums to the community for community betterment? Mrs. Warner: Yes, it‟s not… It‟s rather rare. Interviewer: Why is that, do you think? Mrs. Warner: I don‟t know. Now, for instance, I‟m surprised that there are a number of people of wealth interested in the art museum and yet I‟ve yet to know of a person who‟s left any substantial amount of money to it. They‟ll leave small sums or they will buy pictures or something of that kind, make gifts of that sort but they don‟t…I think it‟s strange I don‟t know why that is. I‟ve no idea. And, as a matter of fact, I don‟t know any longer where the money is. It‟s not people that I know and probably not people that you know that have… businessmen and people, names that wouldn‟t mean anything to me. �11 I‟m always interested in the organization of the Community Fund because at one time, as a matter of fact, I was the chairman of it once. Interviewer: of the… Mrs. Warner: believe it or not. Interviewer: Were you the first woman ever appointed to that? Mrs. Warner: Yes, and the only woman I guess that‟s ever been. And the people that worked for it, the captains and the whole line up of the people that worked for it aren‟t names that mean one thing to me anymore. Grand Rapids is quite a diversified city. Interviewer: Was it always that way? Mrs. Warner: No, it was furniture, furniture, furniture was where the money was; where the… that was the big industry and for years it was. Of course there‟s a group of people in Grand Rapids-the Dutch, the Hollanders-that‟s quite a large proportion of this community, as you probably know. [Of] Holland extraction-and the churches of-are many, many Lutheran and Christian Reformed and those churches and those people are all very thrifty and many of them are rich people. And many of them are public spirited, for instance, the Hekmans are and I could name others that are very public spirited and take their part-do their part. But, I really don‟t know why that is. Interviewer: You mentioned now before a little earlier about the wars. What kind of an effect did the First World War have on Grand Rapids? Mrs. Warner: Well, what do you… what do you mean effect? Interviewer: Well, was the city any different after the war than it was before or was it pretty much the same. Mrs Warner: No, it was pretty much the same. I don‟t think the First World War made as much change probably as the Second did. But the First World War, there was great feeling about it. There was terrible feeling against Germans. It was really very, very bad. Anything German, any name German… people they named-they changed names and they didn‟t play music-German music. And they were awfully prejudiced about the Germans and then, of course, when it came to the Second World War they were even more so. Because of the cruelty of… we‟ve never had in Grand Rapids a very large Jewish population but those who then… there were some quite prominent Jews in Grand Rapids at one time... [END OF SIDE 1] Mrs. Warner: …businessmen, business people, and the feeling was very strong, of course among them. And, there was always all the drives, all the bond sales and all that �12 sort of thing, always went over very well. People, people, were really quite… the old fashioned patriotism which seems to have, well, we haven‟t anything… had anything to be patriotic about as far as I‟m concerned. Interviewer: You mentioned that you were one of the organizers of the Women‟s City Club. Mrs. Warner: Yes. Interviewer: When was that club formed and why was it formed? Mrs. Warner: Well, it was formed by the Altrusa [Institute] group. That‟s a professional women‟s sort of a fraternity. And they thought that we ought to have a cultural and social club in Grand Rapids where women could get together and have programsworthwhile programs and all. And so a group of us took on the idea and organized… went and asked people if they thought they‟d like to belong to such an organization and we got quite an enthusiastic response. And at that time what is now the building on the corner of Monroe and Ionia that is the Morton Hotel and the branch of the Kent Bank was built-a new building. There were some old buildings there and that was torn down and this present building and the Morton House was very thriving… the hotels in Grand Rapids were always thriving because the furniture business brought so many buyers here and the exhibit that took place twice a year, July and January exhibit of furniture always brought lots of people. So hotel business was good and the Morton House was quite a busy place and in this new building-very splendid it was, we thought- they gave us, this group of women that were forming this social club… they gave us the use of the mezzanine for our club room in order to bring women into the hotel and they had a special lunch that was called the Women‟s City Club Lunch, special priced lunch and all. And we used that mezzanine to organize and then people joined just for the initiation fee and dues. The initiation fee was fifteen dollars and the dues were ten dollars a year. That‟s what we started on and we accumulated a goodly membership. Then we moved to a house that was next to the Park Congregational Church, the old Godfrey House which is now… there‟s a parking lot there. And we took that house and we opened… had a dining room where we had lunch and ran a regular social club with current events classes and that sort of thing. And that became too small for us so then two women who-Mrs. Dudley Waters, the first Mrs. Dudley Waters-who was a magnificent woman and a great worker and organizer and Mrs. Noyes Avery and a group of us began searching for a home, a permanent home. And we put out a sixty thousand dollar bond issue. And the Old Kent Bank took the bonds, they paid six percent and the bonds went very well. It was sold in no time. And with that capital we bought the present property that the City Club owns now, if you know where it is on Lafayette and Fulton. We bought that house and remodeled it into a club house. Interviewer: Isn‟t that rather unusual for a women‟s organization to float a bond issue? Mrs. Warner: Yes, quite unusual. Never heard of anything like that. �13 Mrs. Warner: Never heard of anything like that? Interviewer: No. Mrs. Warner: Well, the bonds were sold very promptly. And I remember very well, I was president of the Women‟s City Club. I was there, unfortunately, during the time during the depression. And we scraped bottom to get our bond issue. Some of our bonds came due and it never occurred to us that we didn‟t have to take them out. And we went down, our treasurer went down to the bank with the funds to take out the bonds and they looked at her, and they said: “Why you‟re the first person that‟s come in here with any such idea as that in a long time.” Well, we said that we had to do it, that was what we contracted for and the people that had the bonds, didn‟t want to give them up at all because six percent was pretty good. But we retired all our bonds as they came due, burned the mortgage. Interviewer: When was the club founded, when was it organized? Mrs. Warner: The club is now forty-five years old, you can figure that. Interviewer: Nineteen twenty-six, then? Mrs. Warner: Yeah. Interviewer: Well, was Ladies Literary Club a…? Mrs. Warner: Oh, that was an organization that had been going for a long time. That and the Saint Cecelia Musical Club were the two clubs that club women belonged to. That was before the war. That had been, I don‟t know how old the Ladies Literary Club is. And I don‟t know when that building was, when they built that building either. I belonged to it at one time but I was never very active in it because I was much more active in the Women‟s City Club. Interviewer: How were the two organizations different? Mrs. Warner: Well, we had, we maintained a dining room. The Literary Club is just an organization that meets once a week and listens to a speaker. Interviewer: Oh, I see. Mrs. Warner: But we have many activities in the Women‟s City Club. We have many classes of various activities. And always on Thursday a speaker, and then there‟s the Book Club and there‟s the French group and there‟s the Economic, people that are women that are interested in that, there‟s a leader for that, and the Bridge Club, bridge lessons. We‟ve always, we have quite a… and then there‟s the dining room with lunch every day and dinner. And dinner on Thursday night and special occasions and we‟ve always been in the black. In fact we have to…we‟re a tax-free organization because of �14 our cultural and educational activities, and we‟re not profit making. Our dining room-we always budget the dining room which is our one paying activity. We always budgeted a deficit for that, deliberately, in making up the year‟s budget. And every…. every committee has its allotted amount to spend and they spend it and they stay in it. And then every once in a while, we accumulate. Seidman & Seidman tells us that we‟ve accumulated too much backlog to stay… if we don‟t look out we‟ll have the tax collectors after us. So then we do some big project, some big expensive thing. Two years, two years ago, we bought parking. It is always a problem as it is for anything of that sort and our parking was entirely inadequate and people complained bitterly about it and we bought over adjacent to us, across the street from us on Lafayette, we bought two old houses and took them down and laid out a big parking lot there that we have a gate to it. You have to have a slug to go in-I mean a slug to come out. You can go in but you can‟t get out without a slug. And that was an expenditure of some... oh that cost well over a hundred thousand dollars, that project. But we had… we had to backlog for it. Another time, we did a complete new kitchen on our house. It was… we‟ve always been very thrifty. Interviewer: Well, I think we‟ve covered about everything. Mrs. Warner: Well, I think we‟ve covered a good many different angles of various things. I don‟t know that it was interesting at all to anyone but… Interviewer: Oh, I‟ve always wondered about the Ladies… the Women‟s City Club you know. Never, never, never been in the place. Mrs. Warner: No… Interviewer: Because I‟m a man I, it‟s always kind of a mysterious place. Mrs. Warner: Oh well, men are always welcome there. There we have lots of men there on…for Thursday night dinner and we often have what we…travelogues on Thursday nights. Members who have been on nice trips, give their, you know, show their slides and talk. Interviewer: Oh yeah. �15 INDEX A L Amberg, David · 9 Amberg, Julius · 9 Anthony, Susan B. · 5 Avery, Mrs. Noyes · 12 Ladies Literary Club · 13 Lafayette School · 3 Luce Furniture Company · 1 B M Berkey and Gay · 1 Bishop, Annie · 3 Bishop, Colonel Loomis K. Bishop · 3 Metz Building · 10 Metz Estate · 9 Morton Hotel · 12 Morton House · 12 C N Carswell, [G. Harrold] · 8 Corcoran Art School · 5 Nixon, Mrs. [Richard] · 8 F O First World War · 11 Old Kent Bank · 12 O-Wash-Ta-Nong Club · 4 G P Godfrey House · 12 Grand Rapids Foundation · 9, 10 Grand Rapids National Bank · 9 Park Congregational Church · 12 S H Hekman · 11 Saint Andrew’s Cathedral · 3 Saint Andrew’s School · 3 Saint Cecelia Musical Club · 13 K W Kent Country Club · 4 Waters, Mrs. Dudley · 12 Women’s City Club · 8, 12, 13, 14 Women's City Club · 12 Wylie Estate · 9 Wylie, Curtis · 9, 10 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e97c38db0fee360342746d6f149dff0a.mp3 cada579bd3688b014cb89f4293077fb6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_22-23Warner Title A name given to the resource Warner, Mary Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Warner, Mary Description An account of the resource Mary Shelly was born in Grand Rapids in 1888. She married David Warner in 1908. She became involved in the women's suffrage movement, was a leader in the Woman's City Club and a member of the Washtenaw Club and the Kent Country Club. She was also involved with various Grand Rapids foundations. She died on December 7, 1974. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/627d47331523b089fb1eaaf03a9eea86.pdf 879897e64026b6864a68dd24586739b8 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Siegel Judd Interviewed on September 28, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape # 20 & 21 (47:25) Biographical Information Siegel Judd was born Siegel Wright on 19 June 1895 in Leoti, Wichita County, Kansas, the son of Addison J. Wright. His parents died and he was adopted as an infant by his father’s sister and her husband, Lillian V. Wright and Edward C. Judd. Siegel died in Grand Rapids on 2 September 1982. Siegel was married to Dorothy S. Leonard 29 June 1922 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dorothy was born 14 September 1898 in Grand Rapids, the daughter of Harry Carr Leonard and Willie Thomas Stansbury. Dorothy died 14 February 1989 at Porter Hills Presbyterian Village. ___________ Interviewer: This interview with Siegel Judd was conducted September 28, 1971. Interviewer: Let’s start with…about your family and so on. Were you…were you born in Grand Rapids? Mr. Judd: No, I was born out there in Leoti, Kansas about fifteen miles from the Colorado line… Western Colorado, Colorado line. And, you mean you want me to go on and tell what I just told you? Interviewer: Sure, that’s a good story. Mr. Judd: Well, my family, my ancestors came from western New York and came out when the Erie Canal was opened in eighteen thirty and came to Michigan in eighteen thirty-five, it was. And my ancestor at that time was a Continental Soldier and he’d been granted some land in Michigan that… what’s now in Alpine Township and so he came out here to farm it and he brought his seven sons and came down the Grand River on a raft. That’s the way others were coming in here at that time. You see, that wasn’t such a long time after this town was founded by Campau. I think it was in eighteen twenty-one or twenty-five, along in there. But there were many people coming from New York State. My family came out there and their names were Wright. You want me to tell that part of the story? Interviewer: If you want to. Mr. Judd: Well I don’t know as it makes a lot of difference… Interviewer: Okay. �2 Mr. Judd: That’s incidental really. But my father, who was a generation or two after the ancestor who came out here, wasn’t caring much for the farming life in Alpine Township so he and his two cousins-other Wrights-decided to go out to Kansas, [to] see what they could do out there in the way of taking up some land. And my father was in a little town-all three boys were-a little town called Leoti and my father married the school marm in the town, a very small village. And he… what should I say he was short lived out there because there was no doctor in the town and he’d taken sick and the town druggist, by mistake, gave him a dose of lignum which killed him and I was born about three months after he died and my mother died about three months after I was born and her sister was… she was the school teacher in this village and so my aunt here, a Mrs. Judd-my father’s sister, went out to Kansas and brought me back to Grand Rapids where I’ve lived all my life. And they formally adopted me and that’s why I have the name Judd instead of Wright. That’s … Interviewer: Where did you go to high school in Grand Rapids? Mr. Judd: Well, I went… we lived on the west side on Scribner Street and Tenth and I went to Turner Street School, which is still there, and Union School. At that time, Union School High School went to the tenth grade so when, when I got through the tenth grade I came over here to Central High School and then my family moved over here on the east side and I graduated from Central High School in ninteen fourteen. Then, I went with a couple of boys from… graduated at that time, we went out to Kansas to work in the wheat fields. Interviewer: Oh really? Mr. Judd: I can see where my father might not have liked that, too. But we worked all one summer and wound up in Saskatchewan, Canada, following the harvest up…know that’s a detail… but after that I went to Dartmouth to college. I was there three years when the First World War broke out and in May of nineteen seventeen everybody went to war. I mean everybody went down and enlisted. And I went to the Naval Training Station at Newport, Rhode Island and was in the Navy two, two and a half years. That was the first of the year and I don’t know if you want this detail, do you? Interviewer: That’s alright, you got out of the Navy and you went to… Mr. Judd: I got out of the Navy and I went to law school down in Ann Arbor. Then I came here and I practiced here ever since. I started in twenty-one and now it’s seventy-one – so that’s fifty years. Interviewer: You’ve specialized in corporate law. Mr. Judd: Almost entirely. Interviewer: Can you tell me about some of the early businesses in Grand Rapids-the lumber business for example and what happened to it? �3 Mr. Judd: Well, when I started practicing law in twenty-one, there were many lumber companies in Western Michigan and all north of here. And that was because there was a lot of virgin timber and they were all cutting it and, of course, selling this. And the way they marketed it they cut the timber and in the north got the…floated the logs down the Muskegon River and the Pere Marquette and the Grand River and that was the easiest way of transporting them. There wasn’t any railroads at that time. And then at the mouth of the rivers, sawmills sprung up and they’d saw the logs up into lumber and then, with the Great Lakes here, they could ship at very low cost this lumber all, like Chicago, Detroit, all around at much less cost than the railroads that were then coming in. And here in Grand Rapids, there were some sawmills but there were bigger ones at Spring Lake and also what is now Port Sheldon, there was a big, big mill there and a hotel. You wouldn’t think so now down there but there was and, as a matter of fact, after the town died because they ran out of raw materials to cut with and those towns just died out. But the pillars that you have on the Art Museum here were on one of the hotels at Port Sheldon. Interviewer: Is that right? Mr. Judd: That was supposed to be classical Greek hotel and architecture those were saved and brought up here. If you’re interested in that kind of detail it’s… Interviewer: How did these guys like Blodgett and some of the other families that made tremendous fortunes out of the lumber industry-how did they get the concessions to the land? Mr. Judd: They got ‘em from the government. It was easy to get them because the government wanted to develop the country and Grand Rapids-well the Blodgetts, for example, started way back in the seventies. Delos [Abiel] Blodgett came out here from Massachusetts, I think. And it’s been three generations of ‘em. Of course, now they haven’t any timber in Michigan to cut and, of course, the White-Friant Company was the big company. There were a lot of ‘em. Interviewer: Was that a local company? Mr. Judd: Yes, as a matter Friant’s house is that stone house up on the Northeast corner of Union and Cherry and one of our boys in here bought it-John Logie. Interviewer: Oh yes.. Mr. Judd: Of course, the Whites built that beautiful home up next to-well it’s part of Davenport School now-on the northeast corner of Prospect and Fulton. Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Judd: First, as the new office building was built in there and the next building east is the old White home. And, oh, there were a lot of lesser fortunes but those-the Whites were the big ones and, of course, the Blodgetts particularly. And the Blodgetts stayed in the timber business after it all cut off here and went out to California and now disposed of all their timber business. When they, just ‘til a few years ago, they had large holdings out in California, Northern California. �4 Interviewer: Well, are there any Whites and Friants still left in Grand Rapids? Mr. Judd: There’s only one White and there are no Friants that I know of but White, the founder of the business-the father-he had five sons and one of them is still here. And that’s Norton Rugee White who lives, I think, on Plymouth. He’s about the only one. Their mother was the cook in the lumber camp and she was a very energetic woman and when they made money, she moved the family to Grand Rapids and saw to it…are you interested in these details? Interviewer: Yes Mr. Judd: Mrs. White saw to it that her five sons were well educated. And the oldest one [Stewart Edward White] turned out to be a writer of quite some standing. He wrote novels, a lot of ‘em about the timber game-you can credit a lot of the history about the timber business…the lumber business from some of his books. He was a very popular writer. He had his stories in the Saturday Evening Post at the time when that was flourishing very much. He wrote a book called The Riverman. That was a pretty good book. I don’t know these details you care about but when you add that up you can cut these things out. But the second one was [Thomas Gilbert White]…she took him… he went to Paris and studied there at one of the art schools and he turned out to be quite a famous painter and was a great racketeer. And then she had a third son who she wanted to be a musician and she took him to Saint Petersburg, Russia, and he studied with Leopold Auer who was the great teacher of the violin at that time. He didn’t make the success, though, that the other two did. And then there were two more boys and Rugee is one of them. And then the other one, Vici, who was somewhat of a writer, too. But that was quite a family here at that time. None live here except Rugee. In fact, I think they’re all dead. Interviewer: Where did the Friant family go? Mr. Judd: I don’t know about the Friants too much. But they were partners in the White-Friant Lumber Company. Many of these lumbermen who lived here in Grand Rapids used to go out to California in the winter time. They had homes out there, Santa Barbara particularly. The Whites had it; I think the Friants did. Interviewer: Why did they choose California rather than Florida? Mr. Judd: Well, Florida wasn’t developed at that time. Florida really didn’t get started in any big way until the twenties. I went down there in nineteen twenty-three with…I don’t know whether you knew Harold Fletcher, the real estate man here or not… wanted to buy some land. And Harry Goodspeed who owned the real estate around-you’d be surprised how undeveloped that was at that time. The shore-beautiful shore-and quite a lot of cottages like there’d be along Lake Michigan. None of this large stuff but the jungle was right behind it. So that was late, but they went out to California because of the climate and it was a very fashionable thing to do. Interviewer: Well, when did the lumbering business here die? The lumbering business, did that had an effect on the development on the furniture industry here? �5 Mr. Judd: Oh sure. It furnished the raw material for the furniture factory and that’s why they started here. And I mentioned this water power being one natural resource-the lumber was another. Those two combined were the reason they had furniture companies start up here. Interviewer: Water power… could you review that a little bit? Mr. Judd: Well, the Grand River-called the Grand Rapids-meant there was a fall in the stream. There were rapids and those were up north of here. They manufactured, built power damsyou’ve seen how they work. There was a channel on each side of the river and the dams would shunt the water into those channels. The channels would go through wheels, you see, that would turn around and turn the machinery. And they also had on both sides of the rivers… they just recently wound up the last one and that’s with the Voigt Milling Company-they had a milling flour mill over on what was then Bridge Street but now is Michigan over on the west side and another one down here at Pearl Street. The mills have been taken down now but…so you see the water power was good to grind the wheat into flour, too. And so we had up here the Lilly White Flour Mill. I don’t know whether you ever heard of that and then there was the Voigt Milling Company, and Blue Ribbon or something of that sort. But that was the power, too, and now when the power was giving out, I mean when there was less water in the Grand River, there was less water because they cut away the trees. When they cut away the trees, you let the water all run off in the spring when the snow melts and it goes off in a hurry and then the rest of the time you haven’t got this full head of water like you do when the woods are there and it melts and gradually runs off. So that’s how it gradually gave out and so the furniture companies that had been built along there got into steam plants and burned coal and generated power by that method. Water power passed practically out of existence. And where the Rowe Hotel is down there was the end of the-no it wasn’t either-it was down on Pearl Street. I was going to say the canal but these furniture factories were built right over the canals. They’d have these wheels that the waters passed by would turn. Interviewer: Well, in other words… Mr. Judd: Just the regular fashion that they did in old days. Everywhere, you got water. Interviewer: In other words, all along the canal where the canal began to where it ended… Mr. Judd: That’s right. Interviewer: …there were furniture businesses built along the river? Mr. Judd: That’s right-and these flour mills too. Interviewer:: Yes. Were they… ? Mr. Judd: …but mainly for furniture. Interviewer: Were those on both the east and the west side of the river? �6 Mr. Judd: Well, the flour mills-yes-the Lilly White was right where the post office is now and the Voigt Mill had two. They had one up across the bridge and in those days it was a covered wooden bridge with a covered roof, you know, like you used to see in New Hampshire and up there. Interviewer: When did those furniture factories come down-the ones that were right along the river here? Mr. Judd: When did they start? Interviewer: No, when were they torn down? Mr. Judd: Well, they kind of died off during the depression in the thirties. The factors that caused it was the loss of water power and it was more expensive then to generate power by steam and the natural resources cut off. I mean most of it had been harvested up north. And then, thirdly, is the invasion, you might say, of the automobile business where they would pay higher wages than was paid in the furniture business. And the furniture business up until just fairly recently has been a lower wage paying business. And so the boys in the next generation-their fathers went into the automobile game or businesses that made parts for automobiles-and that still goes. Lot of… Interviewer: Lot of automotive-related industry in Grand Rapids? Mr. Judd: Oh yes, oh yes, sure-and there’s any number of parts people around. Even the Keeler Brass Company, a very successful brass company, they make metal parts for automobiles-do a lot of business with Ford-not just…they started up to make brass fittings to go on the furniturelike drawer pulls… Interviewer: Oh yes. Mr. Judd: …that sort of thing. And they did a fine job of this. In fact, they went and manufactured for other furniture centers, too. There, you see, were not any furniture factories in the south that amounted to anything and this was the town that made the quality furniture the furniture business-and still is but there’s very little of it left. Interviewer: Now, why did the furniture companies move south-a lot of these companies? Mr. Judd: Well, they got lower labor rates, you see. Interviewer: Oh. Mr. Judd: In North Carolina, they were near a source of supply. There is lumber down there but not many of the hard woods we had up here and they didn’t have the competition for labor that the automobile industry gave to the furniture industry. And that’s about it Interviewer: Yes. �7 Mr. Judd: Also, the furniture industry was hard hit by the depression of the thirties and a lot of my law business at that time was helping furniture people to get cash to get money to keep going. And, you see, their sales dropped off in the depression. People didn’t have the money to buy furniture and then when they thought…saw a chance to start up…why, they needed money and I don’t know about telling you about myself but we did the log business, too, so I got learned about the RFC which is a Reconstruction Finance Corporation in Washington that Hoover started before Roosevelt was elected, for the purpose of making loans to industry and commercial companies. See, everybody needed money in the depression. And so I went down to Washington and got a charter to form one for Michigan. And this was a corporation down there that made these loans, like the government loans people today, but the method then was through corporations that they could control. So I got a charter and got a couple of bankers here who were unemployed because of the bank holiday to look after it and we made loans to any number of companies that suffered during the thirties or when the banks closed. Not just around Grand Rapids but all around here. Greenville, over there the Gibson Furniture Company, furniture companies down in Holland and many of the furniture companies here-the Luce Furniture Company, you remember that one? It was a large one down on Godfrey Avenue. And Berkey and Gay but they never…-we got all our money back for the government by about the time the war started but they were all financially weak and we got money for them with this company and of course it made law business, too. Had to run down to Washington with all these loans and get ‘em approved down there. There was a lot tighter control in those days when the government was helping out than it seems to me that there are today when the government is making these loans. But there… that was a new thing for the government to step in and help private industry. Today, it’s expected but then it was surprising. Interviewer: Um hum. Mr. Judd: So we were…that way we got quite a few clients ‘cause they stayed with us after we kept ‘em alive. That may be beside the point but… Interviewer: It’s a… Mr. Judd: But gradually, you see, some local manufacturers went down to North Carolina because of the labor rate advantage and they got competition from people who were already down there and these people-because of the low rate or wage paying industry, why, they didn’t get people that cared to go into it. They wanted to go into higher [paying] work for General Motors or work for Chrysler or somebody with…or some companies that are furnishing products to them. Interviewer: What were-besides the furniture industry-what were some of the other businesses here that were thriving, perhaps, around the turn of the century up until… Mr. Judd: Well, there was… there were a number of wholesale houses we called ‘em. That is they’d be like, well, there’s not really any left today but there were companies that would buy quantities of household things and household products and also products needed in business in connection with the lumbering up north and so forth. Grand Rapids in that period was quite a �8 distributing point of merchandise of that kind. And these companies, well, there was the Worden Grocery Company. They would buy large quantities of groceries and sell ‘em to the little grocers on the street corners and they would step in between the manufacturers of the food products and the small grocers. There were no chain stores then, you see. There was no Kroger or people like that around. There’s just these little grocery stores in the neighborhoods. Do you remember that or don’t you go back that far? Interviewer: No, I don’t go back that far. Mr. Judd: Oh, sure. Your mother would tell you here’s a dimem go down to the grocery store on the corner and get two loaves of bread or something like that. We were always running to stores like that and that was small business. But these wholesale houses would buy large quantities and they would ship farther north. We worked sort of the beginning of the north and of course there was a demand for food and household products ‘cause the people were building houses north and these lumber camps were big buyers, you see, or customers. Dorothy’s father or grandfather, Mr. Leonard, he used to travel up to the… he told me he’d travel up to the lumber camps north of here and sell ‘em lamp chimneys and oil lamps and all sorts of things like that, kitchenware… Interviewer: How many men would be in a camp like that up north? Mr. Judd: I don’t know, but they were pretty large and they were a pretty rough and tough customers, too. They’d be up there in the woods, get down here Saturday night and it used to be a big night in Grand Rapids and they used to see some pretty rough times in those days. Interviewer: Do you remember any of that? Mr. Judd: Yes, some, when I lived on the west side. Of course we had a lot of saloons. There wasn’t much. Well, there was whiskey drunk, too, but there were a lot of saloons. Down here on this corner of Michigan and Monroe there were a saloons on each corner except this near corner and that was a drug store. But that was the same thing as a saloon really in those days, too. And it was, well …the hotels did a big bar business. Everybody…Morton and Sweets Hotel which is what later became Pantlind Hotel… When the boys came in from the north, stay a week or so. Why, there was a lot going on. Man: What, when you were…you grew up on the west side predominantly…? Mr. Judd: Yes. Man: When you came over to the east side to… Mr. Judd: Central… Interviewer: Central High School, that was in the tenth grade? Mr. Judd: Yes, I went in the eleventh and twelfth grades �9 Interviewer: Was the east side considered like that-where Central School is up on the hill and the homes in the Hill District was. Was that considered very fashionable? Mr. Judd: Oh yes. Interviewer: Was there… Mr. Judd: Yes, they used to call it-some used to call it-Quality Hill... that was, some of the residents. I remember Mr. Booth, Ted Booth’s father, who lives on Fountain Street there and his pictures of his house was in the paper the other day. Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Judd: …beautiful house. I think Mr. Shelby built it. Remember Mr. Booth used to always refer to it as Quality Hill. And his son, Ted, was in high school when I was and that’s how I happened to hear his father say that because we got around his house once in a while. He was a very fine man but that was the attitude and it was entirely justified. That whole area out there was beautiful. Now that Stickley House-I haven’t heard that mentioned much but that’s the house on Prospect between Fountain and Fulton. It’s one of the high…of these large white pillars and yellow brick. Now, Stickley was a furniture manufacturer, too, and he had a big business and he built that beautiful home but his business didn’t survive the depression of the thirties. It wasn’t one of the companies that we found a loan for but he had a hard time and just went out of business. And it was by that time, see, the late thirties,. they were beginning to feel the competition of North Carolina so they and those boys weren’t as young as they had been and their sons didn’t care about the business but there wasn’t the incentive either to keep it going. Interviewer: Did that happen very often where businesses were started by… Mr. Judd: Oh yes, they were family institutions. Families from generation to generation handed ‘em down but they say in the thirties a furniture business wasn’t attractive to the young men with ambition. I don’t know as I ought to say that, what else, there were other things that offered more reward, I think. And they felt that way now you see. Or the families sort of died out or the Widdicombes, their younger generation, went East to school. One of them went to London and they got away from here. And there was the Gunn Furniture Company-they made showcases and library cases. Still, you can see that up near the so-called junction on Ann Street. That was a flourishing business until the First World War and Mr. Gunn, the owner, who was the son of the founder, went to England to live and lived in London for quite a while and his right-hand man, Mr. Homiller, who’s a very capable manufacturer, ran the show and Mr. Gunn didn’t come back ‘til the First World War got going, came over here. He’s abroad…lived there. He’s very well. So… and his son didn’t have any interest in it and so that was sold and then there’s this Kent Furniture, Imperial Furniture Company up near Ann Street-the red brick one. The Foote family built that and they did a big business. But, it’s the Depression-hurt all those and they really never got going again for one reason or another… �10 Interviewer: Well, was there any … one thing I don’t want to forget is you said before that your mother would give you a dime and tell you to run down to the corner grocery store and there weren’t any chain stores at the time. Mr. Judd: Oh no, there weren’t. Interviewer: At that time were there more a neighborhood shopping areas than there are today? Mr. Judd: Oh yes, well, you see, yes in every… well I’ll take where I lived. There was a drug store-or not a drug store-well, on Sixth Street was quite a little center-commercial center-with a drug store on Sixth Street and Broadway. And there was a meat market and a grocery store on Sixth Street and Scribner and up at Eighth Street which was... . I think it was another grocery store and Leonard Street was quite a busy street on the West Side up there. There was, oh, meat markets and grocery stores and some little dry good places and cobblers who… that sort of thing. Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Judd: And then Bridge Street, of course, here was… that’s Michigan…that was a busy street on the west side. That was commercial all the way out, but, yes, it…over where I lived at Eleventh Street, which is one block up Broadway, there was a grocery store-a lot of little stores like that. But they… the twenties and the, well, really the thirties-places kind of went out of business because they couldn’t compete with these larger concerns. Interviewer: Were there well-to-do families living on the west side? Mr. Judd: Oh yes. There were these German families that I mentioned… all did well. And they had nice homes. And, let’s see, Scribner Street was quite a street but as far as fine homes are concerned, near us there was a very fine home just south of Tenth Street on Scribner. We lived on the corner of Tenth and Scribner. Built by a man named Chick and he was representative of a man in Boston, an investor who had sent Chick out here to look after his interest in the plaster mines, you know. That was developing… going pretty well. It still is going. It belongs to U.S. Gypsum but [James W.] Converse spent…invested quite a lot of money out in Michigan and that man, Chick, had a beautiful home and saddle horses and all that. That was on Scribner Street. Doesn’t look like much now. Then right behind it on Turner Street, I keep thinking that a family was Alt but it wasn’t, but they had a beautiful home and, at that day, an oval glass plate. Oval front door was the thing and a large oval glass there and, of course, curtains behind it-but they were nice homes. Not like on the hill here but, as a matter of fact, originally Front Street over here started to be a good residential street in the early day of Grand Rapids-up at First Street and Second Street and along in there. They used to be, when I was a kid, some lovely homes there-and there were post Civil War homes. And some of them were a lot of sandstone homes that were very attractive homes. But when industry got going strong, why, they moved out. Interviewer: Was that the reason why the west side… Mr. Judd: Kind of lost out as far as keeping with…wasn’t a quality hill but it was quality people though. Some, lot of them at that time, lived over there but moved over… �11 Interviewer: Why did, why did these German families that were doing well in the machinery work, for example, why did they continue to live on the west side? Mr. Judd: Well, they did. Although later they moved over here but they…it was near their factories and those days you didn’t have an automobile, you know. You walked to work and… Interviewer: Well, when you came to school on the east side, was there any kind of social discrimination against… Mr. Judd: No, it was alright. There wasn’t anything of the sort. In fact, all the kids from Union came over here to finish up their last two years. And it wasn’t long that way but when they got that in then they built a larger school and… or built for more kids anyway. And then, also, they increased Union’s so you could stay there and graduate from Union. The building you see there now was being built when I moved over on the east side. I mean, the large red brick building, of course, now today it’s way out on the hill I guess, isn’t it? Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Judd: …on the west side. Interviewer: When you moved to the east side, was that after you were married? Mr. Judd: Oh no, it was when I was just came to the tenth, eleventh grade over here… my family moved over at the same time and we lived down on Waverly Place. The house is gone now but the Waverly Place is a little street one block up from Jefferson Avenue off State Street. It just runs one block. It’s an awful dump down in there now. But at that time, the White family-you know how Washington Street comes down to Jefferson and State comes in and makes a point there-at that time, the White Family had a very beautiful home of their own in that triangle. They hadn’t moved up on Quality Hill yet but they were very wealthy people. Interviewer: Why… Mr. Judd: That’s why I knew some of the boys because we were living on Waverly and the White family were all brought up on that triangle down there not up on top of the hill where I told you that house is now. That’s kind of an English-type house. Interviewer: Well, I guess Jefferson Avenue at one time was a very fashionable… Mr. Judd: Well, it had beautiful trees and, oh yes, it was very fashionable and also Sheldon Street was, too. I’m talking about… (I’ve got a husky voice here, sorry)… up to nineteen ten, that Fulton Street across from the park was very nice before they built the Metz Building and the…what’s the name of the building, the Lorraine Building on the corner of LaGrave. Where Jacobson’s is now, was a beautiful stone house with brass railings and polished up and the man that lived there was a lawyer and looked like Charles Evans Hughes and his-what was his name … can’t think of it but, anyway, he-man of great dignity and he represented one of the railroads �12 that were in here then. Then he represented a trolley line, too. I foreclosed the trolley line. We wound it up when, about nineteen thirty-three or four…when they went off the streets. The trolley business was a fine business for a long time. Also in Grand Rapids makes me think this… the utility business started to develop about the turn of the century… I mean, the gas light and electric business and so forth. We had quite a number of entrepreneurs in Grand Rapids who started utility companies and did very well internationally and the Hodenpyl-Hardy people were in the Michigan Trust as officers under Mr. Withey. And power companies started here and there were three groups that did very well. There was this… these two boys from the Michigan Trustthe names were Hodenpyland Hardy-and they started and collected or started little gas companies around the small towns and they got it growing into Consumers Power and then they built the trolley lines ‘cause they generating power they could power dams. At that time, we had a lot of water and the streams, you see, and the rivers- it’s all they had. They were generating electric power again with these canals. And so they had more power than they could sell so they started these inter-urbans, too, electric inter-urbans. I don’t know whether you remember those but that was the inter-urban line from Grand Rapids to Muskegon, Grand Haven, and an electric train and they ran to Kalamazoo and all around. They started in the early nineteen hundreds and they were financed with twenty year bonds and I was not practicing law when those bonds were gotten out but had something to do with foreclosures, though, when the bonds came due. Why they… the automobiles had licked the inter-urban so that they went out business. And the bonds had… we had to foreclose them and, in other words, that industry or the inter-urbans between cities and electric cars that ran just about lasted as long as the twenty year bonds and that was all. And then when they went out of business. The Holland inter-urban, I foreclosed on that, sold all the assets, sold the rails to Broady. I don’t know whether you ever heard of Broady but he was a junk dealer, a very wealthy junk…his son and all of ‘em lived over on the east, moved over on the east side when they got some money. And… but these, these men that built up Consumers Power and they went down to New York and lived there. They’re not living now but they went down there because that was a source of the money to finance and build these things. Consumers Power was one, then there was a fellow here named…a Hollander here named [John A.] Hulswit who did the same thing. He had a traction lines and electric light companies in…out in Iowa and around in Ohio and built up a big picture and, of course, he moved to New York to finance it, too. But many of them started here and then, of course, Joe Brewer-I don’t know whether you’ve heard of him but he’s more recent. He built up a picture and companies he started with a little one, the Holland Gas Company, down here and collected, well, his best one was the Indianapolis Light and Power which is one of the fine utilities today and then he sold it all to Insull in the twenties when Samuel Insull was mopping up the universe buying all the utility companies and blew up higher than a kite in twenty-nine. But, I just saying about the history of Grand Rapids, we had people who got into new industries, developed here and elsewhere. That’s… it’s kind of unusual that a town this size would have people who built up such large companies from practically nothing in a new industry, you see. Interviewer: Do you feel that… that time has been and still is somewhat of a characteristic of Grand Rapids? Mr. Judd: There isn’t today anybody that seceded it to those people. No, because there those pictures were big enough so that their main offices were not in Grand Rapids any longer. They moved away, they moved Consumers Power down to Jackson because it was more central. It �13 was on the… then as important as the railroad line too, see we were kind of a branch off from Jackson, so there, that’s their headquarters but we’ve had people that have really built up businesses and constructive people, I think. This has been a very good town. Probably taking a hell of a lot of your time but I … Interviewer: No, that’s alright. Mr. Judd: I could dig up a lot of stuff if you wanted to. Interviewer: Oh. I have one last question for you. What do you think that…what, when you were growing up in Grand Rapids-the way the pace of life and style of life was then compared to today- what was it that changed everything? What was it that ended that era, so to speak, and brought on the era that we’re into today? Mr. Judd: Oh, well, you mean talking about the economics? Man: Yes Mr. Judd: Or the social… Interviewer: Well, the economics certainly have a lot to do with the social, I think. Mr. Judd: Of course, what’s been a great contributor, I think, is the automobile. Because when I was in high school, I’ll say, Henry Ford starting out with a low priced car. You could buy a car for around five hundred dollars. His first cars and, of course, he got this idea of having one model and nothing else in a straight line production and interchangeable parts and that sort of thing. And the early cars were custom made really...the Pierce Arrows and the great big ones around and he made it-made cars that were within the reach of really poor people .And then they got on the road and that, of course, the demand for roads and the automobile industry is, I think, practically runs the country today. It even cuts up your cities like we’re getting Plymouth Road cut up pretty soon, I’m afraid. It’s change, it’s changed the life. Of course, it’s changed the pace because people, you see, when I was a boy had horses and carriages to get around. Everybody didn’t have those but that was what they had on Quality Hill up and around and …the grocery men had it and your father had ‘em. Was he your grandfather? Interviewer: My grandfather? Mr. Judd: Grandfather, yes. I remember he was chief competition, I think, over there with a German named [Jacob] Rauschenberger. Did you ever hear of him? On Turner Street, but the pace was slow and you didn’t have the sense of urgency you’ve got today. And it was very nice and … but on the other hand, there’s a lot of good things brought with what we’ve got now, too. Sorry I have this cold, I… Interviewer: That’s alright, I think we can end right there anyway. �14 L B Blodgett Family · 3 Booth, Mr. · 9 Leonard, Mr. (Grandfather-in-law) · 8 R C Reconstruction Finance Corporation · 7 Consumers Power · 12, 13 S F Shelby, Mr. · 9 Friant Family · 4 V G Voigt Milling Company · 5 Gunn Furniture Company · 9 W K White Family · 3, 4 Widdicombe Family · 9 Withey, Mr. · 12 Worden Grocery Company · 8 Wright, Addison J. (Father) · 1, 2, 4, 9 Keeler Brass Company · 6 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/23a8cf6901908a91eae8bfc4fad527ff.mp3 ef6fcb382a950649cd37ddcd660c0910 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_20-21Judd Title A name given to the resource Judd, Siegel Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Judd, Siegel Description An account of the resource Siegel Judd was born Siegel Wright; after his parents died, his father's sister and her husband adopted him. Mr. Judd attended Dartmouth College and served in the navy during WWI. He married Dorothy Leonard in 1898. He went to law school, specializing in corporate law, and was involved in the lumber business. He died in 1982. 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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 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 A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_18-19Cary Title A name given to the resource Cary, John Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cary, John Description An account of the resource John Cary was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on October 2, 1897. 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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0c52d4f130b5b34a4e4082826f43b8c2.pdf 9d77bd60d280dde810e9189a8ae1e0c3 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Mr. Chester Idema Interviewed on September 24, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #16, 17 (52:28) Biographical Information Chester Frederick Idema was born 18 August 1886 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He died 20 March 1978 at his home at 29 Gay Avenue, Grand Rapids. He was the son of Henry and Johanna Wilhelmina (Doornink) Idema. Henry was born in Grand Rapids in 1856 and died 8 Jaunuary 1951. He married Johanna W. Doornink on 3 February 1880 in Grand Rapids. Johanna died in 25 December 1953. Chester’s brothers, Walter D. Idema and Edward H. Idema were also born in Grand Rapids – 16 December and 1888 and 23 November 1890, respectively. Chester F. Idema was married on 4 October 1913 to Marion Mead in Grand Rapids. Marion was the daughter of James Andrew Mead and Alice Nash and born 4 August 1891 in Grand Rapids. She died 22 December 1957 in Grand Rapids. Many members of the Idema family are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Grand Rapids. ___________ Interviewer: There, now we’re starting. I’m going to start right out with that, that question I asked you before, whether you have, whether you think there is any value to this project at all. And if you don’t think so, why not? Mr. Idema: I am unable to see the ultimate good in a sufficiently to warrant the time, effort, and cost, getting the material. I am unable to see that your objective is important. I’m probably wrong. Interviewer: You can be right, you know… Mr. Idema: Hmm? Interviewer: You could be right. Mr. Idema: Well, time will tell that... Interviewer: Well, were you born in Grand Rapids? Mr. Idema: I was born on Lyon Street. Interviewer: Whereabouts on Lyon? Mr. Idema: Between Prospect and Lafayette on the south side. �2 Interviewer: Yes? Was …? Mr. Idema: The house still stands, in spite of the fact I left it. Interviewer: What was it like growing up there in that neighborhood? Mr. Idema: What was it like? Interviewer: Yes Mr. Idema: I don’t know just what you mean. There were an awful lot of kids, my age, a little younger, a little under. We had our fights and our armies and our games and our plays. We all went to Fountain Street School, then later to the Grand Rapids High School, which was then at, on the Lyon Street hill, the big red school, that was high school. Interviewer: Is that at Lyon and Barclay? Mr. Idema: Barclay, yes, or Ransom, yes, I guess Barclay. No, Barclay would be, no, the big school was on Ransom Street, the big red school, Ransom and Lyon. Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Idema: Then I went, I graduate…, I didn’t graduated, I went to preparatory school in Pennsylvania and I went to the University of Michigan graduated there in nineteen nine. Interviewer: What did you do after you graduated? Mr. Idema: Went to the Elliot Machine Company. Interviewer: Can you tell me the story about the Elliot Machine Company again? Mr. Idema: Well, the Elliot Machine Company was a mana… was a company engaged solely in the manufacture of button-fastener machines which would wire fasten buttons on button shoes. The machines were leased, for a certain sum a year, and the wire, they, unless he agreed to use, wire made by the Elliot Machine Company and no other, and that profit, and the very large profit, was in that. And they had machines in every part in every city in the U.S., every shoe store had to have one because a person would buy a pair of button shoes and they wouldn’t fit and they’d have to have the buttons set over. So they clip off the old buttoner, unfasten it, set it over where it belongs, and put it on with this machine. Every click was some value to the Elliot Machine Company. Well, that, during the war, the government, I’ve forgotten what division that would be, put the ban on the manufacture of button shoes, in order to conserve leather. As a result of which, as button shoes disappeared, and couldn’t be repurchased, there was no use for a machine to put buttons on them. And the Company folded up, there was no value except junk value to those thousands machines, which were in every part of the United State, but not worth the freight to bring them back. �3 Interviewer: Well, I, how would, what would it conserve leather by doing away with the button shoes? Weren’t there other shoes made out of leather? Mr. Idema: Yes, but it made two styles. Two different types of shoes, you, you and your wife would either buy lace shoe or button shoe or for some occasion or both. But anyway, they, what it accomplished I don’t know, but that was their reason. Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Idema: Conservation of leather. Interviewer: That was a pretty profitable company, the Elliot? Mr. Idema: While it was growing, it was very profitable. But it ended just as quick. And all the investment in machinery and tools and everything was practically nil. And these machines that were in existence all over the country under lease, and they say they’re not worth shipping back. Interviewer: You mentioned that Elliot paid for half of the Masonic Temple here in town. Mr. Idema: I think its contribution was either about, even figure of about one hundred fifty thousand dollars, or something like that, about half of it, I’ve forgot. But a large sum, which he made in this business. Now that was during nineteen thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-sixteen, just before the war, when it was in its height. Previous to that, lace shoes had been the style. Gradually it turns over and button shoes came back in. Women used to wear button, button shoes almost to the knee, there’d be sixteen buttons on shoe; that’s thirty-two buttons on a pair. Well, that was worth probably twenty-five or-thirty cents to the Elliot Machine Company to put those on. See, when, when shoes were sent to the retailer they’re sewed on, they’re never clipped on with wire, because they have to be changed to conform to the customer and their needs. So, it’s very easy to snip the threads, then put ‘em on with wire. So that very, very few of ‘em except for heavy men’s shoes, were put on at the factory. They were sent and just tied on really. But you go in, you’d lose a button as it happens you’d do this and a button would come off, you’d stop at the first little shoe store, it’s on the way down, go in and take off your shoe and he’d put it on there and like that there’d be a new, be clamped on. Automatically crimper would do that and slap the button on. And using Elliot wire, which, in which he had a whale of a product. Interviewer: Then, you went off to war? Mr. Idema: Then I, I enlisted in nineteen seventeen, yes. Interviewer: Did you go overseas? Mr. Idema: No, I didn’t get overseas: I came back in nineteen nineteen and went into the, well, it was soon after that, there was a little interim which there’s no need to go into.., I went with the Welch-Wilmarth Company which later became a part of the Grand Rapids Store Equipment Corporation. They had a factory down on Madison Avenue and a great big factory on outer �4 Monroe Avenue. And, I left that to go in the Old Kent Bank in nineteen …, I can’t tell you, about nineteen thirty-three or four. And I’ve been with the Elliot, I’ve been with the Old Kent nineteen years, at the Old National office, you know where that is, where it was? You know where the Bank is? Interviewer: The Old Kent Bank? Mr. Idema: No, the Bank, it’s a restaurant in the Pantlind. Interviewer: Oh yes, the bar, yes. Mr. Idema: That’s where the Old National office of the Old Kent Bank, that’s where I was, that was my desk. And I was there until the new building was built and then they put all our stuff over there, the National office, I mean. And the main office was in the Morton House, at that time. It’s still a bank, but it’s not the main office; the main office, of course is in a new building. Interviewer: Yes, was that known as Old Kent Bank when you joined it? Mr. Idema: Yes. (It) was the Old National office of the Old Kent Bank, just like the other would be the Morton Hotel office, or Cherry-Diamond office, or Plainfield branch, or whatever. I was. at the time I retired, which they made me do it, I was a little over 65, according to the retirement rules; I was in charge of the Old National office of the Old Kent Bank, Vice President in charge of the Old National. And I haven’t worked since. Interviewer: Did, were your brothers instrumental in forming Steelcase? Mr. Idema: One brother. Interviewer: Which brother was that? Mr. Idema: Walter, he started with the Metal Office Furniture (Company), which was then, with Mr. Peter Wege, who came here from Ohio, from General Fire Proofing Company, Youngstown, Ohio. They formed and organized the Metal Office Furniture Company which is now Steelcase. Interviewer: Was that a relatively new thing at that time? Mr. Idema: What? Interviewer: Was that a relatively new concept, metal office furniture when they went into business? Mr. Idema: No, no. General Fireproofing had been making it for years, and they were at that time the largest in the world. Mr. Wege came here and got people interested; put in money, got a factory down in the south end, started making metal furniture;. started in a very modest way, making wastebaskets and little tables and filing cases and so forth. Now God knows, they make everything, and they are the largest in the world, by far. General Fireproofing is not done so well �5 since…I, I that shouldn’t be recorded, I mean comments like that, I don’t need to make them because I have no business making them. I can tell you about the Metal Office or the Steelcase, but I don’t know anything about General Fireproofing except they’ve lost some standing in the business. Interviewer: Yes, you go down to lunch nearly every day at the University Club, don’t you? Mr. Idema: Just about every day. Interviewer: Can you tell me a little bit about the University Club? Mr. Idema: Well, as I say, I think it was first meeting was in the house right down there on the corner which was then occupied by Mr. Wanty... Tom Wanty graduated [from] the University of Michigan, and I went to Michigan, my brother went to Princeton, and they got somebody else from Harvard, somebody from Yale, and so forth and formed a nucleus of the University Club. I can’t give you the date, I wouldn’t even guess. But we have been in various places. We’ve been in the Pantlind; we’ve been, well, for a long time on the top floor of the Michigan Trust Company, until we moved into the new, five years ago, where we are now. But, what do you want to know about it? Interviewer: Is that, well, is that why they call it the University Club, because they took men from certain universities? Mr. Idema: You have to have attended a university to belong. Interviewer: I didn’t know that. Mr. Idema: Yes, well, that’s true in every city where there is a University Club, that’s why the name. Don’t have to be a graduate, but you have to attend, been a pupil at a university, recognized university. I don’t know how many members they got now, but I they got an awful lot of them. Interviewer: Was, what kind of, was there any kind of competition between the University Club and the Peninsular Club? Mr. Idema: No competition. The University, the Peninsular Club is more of the business club. Older, older men and younger men if, you want to take a business, somebody there talk business, take ‘em to the Pen Club. They don’t, the University Club doesn’t, doesn’t cater to that kind of trade. Interviewer: What, what does the University…? Mr. Idema: It’s a social club, I mean you meet there to meet friends and. But the Peninsular Club is a businessman’s club. A great many people belong to the Peninsular Club who don’t belong to the other, or vice versa. Now, when I was in the bank, I belonged to the Peninsular �6 Club, because it’d be some banker from Chicago over here, and I’d would want to take his, and I would take him to the Peninsular Club which had more the atmosphere of a business club. And they don’t cater to that kind of business at the University Club. It’s a social club, it has long tables; everyone sits, long and then they have small tables around. Have you ever been there? Interviewer: At the University Club? Mr. Idema: You know what it looks like. Interviewer: Yes, it is pretty nice. Their, their new club is particularly nice. I remember I went to a dance at the old, you know, the University Club that was on top of the Michigan Trust Building. Mr. Idema: Oh, this is much larger. Interviewer: Yes, oh yes. Mr. Idema: And we never, the old club, the old club in the Trust Building, we didn’t have regular evening dinners, which they do here I think every night but three nights, four nights a week, I guess. All you have to do is to go down there and be served. Interviewer: When you were growing up on Lyon Street there, was there very much closeness among the families that lived along Lyon Street? Mr. Idema: Oh, very much so, sure. Everybody knew everybody. Judge Dennison lived right across the road, next to him was Mr. Barlow, next to him was Mr. Stone, next to him was Dr. Schaefer, across the street was Mr. Treadway, in the railroad business, on the corner was somebody connected with the Grand Rapids Brewery. I can go right around the block. Those names I can remember, but you ask me who sat across from me this noon at lunch, I don’t know… Interviewer: What, what did, there, there were closeness in the neighborhood, was there very much socializing among the families? Mr. Idema: Not a great deal, no. Oh, there’d be some…this way, but not this way. This man here, this family here, might be very close and friendly with the one across the street, because their children was (were) the same age. Maybe the house next door they had no children and they didn’t contact at all. Children made a great deal of difference; they, they kind of mixed the families up, and in our particular house had the top floor which was the neighborhood, especially on a rainy day, for all the kids in the neighborhood. There would be only one place that was that big, and that was a very large house, and the whole top floor was a playroom. So we had all the kids. In those days we didn’t play football, we played some baseball. And then, we had a big dog, we used, we used to play some game Prisoners, some prisoner game, chase them with the �7 dog. But all the people are gone, I haven’t got a single acquaintance that lived up where I lived when I was little, a young man. Well, my brother. Interviewer: You don’t know even whether they’re still living in Grand Rapids? Mr. Idema: Oh, I know they’re dead; I know what’s become of them not eventually, but, I know they died. Interviewer: Was that street paved, Lyon Street? Mr. Idema: Used to have cable cars. Ever see or hear of a cable car? Interviewer: I’ve seen them in San Francisco… Mr. Idema: Well, that’s the same thing. The cables were continuous cables that ran through a slot. They dropped this grip down and take hold of it, the cable, and take the car up the hill. Interviewer: From downtown on Lyon Street? How far out Lyon does that cable car go? Mr. Idema: I think to what is now Grand Avenue… but I may be wrong on that. Perhaps only to Union. Interviewer: Beyond those streets was where the country was? Mr. Idema: Yeah, more or less. I don’t think it was built up to much. But I don’t know, I didn’t know much about what went on then, east of where I lived. West was downtown. Interviewer: Did you spend a lot of time downtown? Mr. Idema: Well, when? What do you mean? Interviewer: If you didn’t spend much time east of the house, you must have spent your time west of the home. Mr. Idema: Well, what age are you talking about? Interviewer: Oh, I don’t know…. Mr. Idema: We used to go downtown every day or two, for sure. Slide down a hill in winter and walk down in the summer. Washington Street used to be a wonderful street for sliding. They had the police roped it off. You start at College Avenue, ran down and turn on Jefferson. And I don’t think they ever allowed it on Lyon, it was too steep. But Fountain Street allowed it and roped it off. And then they had the horses; some of them would have horses, pull ‘em up. Interviewer: When the kids came downhill, somebody had a horse to pull the kids up? �8 Mr. Idema: They had a horse; it take ‘em down the hill, around by Fulton Street, then have them pull it up to Fountain. But mostly we hauled our own. They had bobs that would hold twelve, fourteen kids, and they’d go, I don’t know how fast they’re going at the bottom but we were moving. Interviewer: Was downtown much different then, than it is now? Mr. Idema: Well, it’s beginning to change now, it’s high time. Interviewer: What do you mean? Mr. Idema: Well lower Monroe Avenue and Monroe to Campau Square of course entirely different than it was fifty years ago. But it wasn’t very long ago that it looked a great deal the same. They’re just waking up downtown now. That, maybe thing, maybe they can hold it, maybe they can’t, I don’t know. Business is moving out, so is residential property. Interviewer: Was that lower Monroe section, taken out by urban renewal, was that, were there quite a few businesses in there? Mr. Idema: Oh, retail businesses, firms, sure. Spring Dry Goods Company, a very large concern that was right down at the bottom of the hill, just where you made the turn, the bottom of Monroe. And, Herpolsheimer’s used to be Voigt-Herpolsheimer’s, but that’s moved up the street from where it was, I think Wurzburg’s is where Herpolsheimer’s used to be, as I recall it. But of course none of them are sitting home now. Steketee's. Interviewer: Yes, Steketee’s is still sitting on a bench[?]. Mr. Idema: About the only one. Interviewer: Voigt-Herpolsheimer, that’s the same family as the flour mills? Mr. Idema: C. G. A. Voigt was the father of the Voigt brothers, and he and Mr. Herpolsheimer owned the business, but he wasn’t active. He was always in the flour business. But my grandfather, on my mother’s side and Mr. Paul J. Steketee, were partners, and the name of the store was Steketee-Doornink and they were partners right where Steketee’s is now, ‘til they agreed to disagree and my grandfather sold out to Mr. Steketee, and it became Steketee and Sons, Paul Steketee and Sons. But he was in the dry goods business with Mr. Steketee, for quite awhile. Interviewer: What did he do after he sold his a….. Mr. Idema: Oh, he retired: he, I don’t think he did anything. I never knew him, I was pretty young then. Well, I knew him, but can’t, I have no memory of him. Interviewer: Who was the first member of your family to come to Grand Rapids? �9 Mr. Idema: Well, what do you mean by family? Interviewer: Well, let’s say both on your mother’s and father’s side. Mr. Idema: They were both born in Grand Rapids, my father and mother. Interviewer: Did their parents come to Grand Rapids? Mr. Idema: Their parents came from Holland; the old Holland called the Netherlands. Idema is a Dutch name and a Dutch family. Interviewer: What… Do you know what brought them from the Netherlands to Grand Rapids? Mr. Idema: Ships. Interviewer: I mean, what would have prompted them to leave the Netherlands for….. Mr. Idema: Same thing that prompted everybody to leave the Netherlands, religious persecution and they settled here, and they settled around Holland, Michigan. A great many of them settled in Iowa, that’s a great Dutch settlement. And quite a few of them in Pennsylvania, although the Pennsylvania Dutch, I mean the Dutch as we know them here, they’re not very much the same class of people. I don’t know but I know they talked kind of disparagingly of Pennsylvania Dutch. But all your VanRaaltes founded the Church down in Holland, the Dutch Reformed Church. That was one of the most prominent Dutch families to come from Holland. But here the Steketees and the Doorninks, and the, oh, I don’t know. There used to be more Steketees in the telephone book than there were Smiths, not now, of course, but they died out. Interviewer: Why did the Dutch come to this part of the United States? Mr. Idema: I can’t tell you, I don’t know. I know when my grandmother, they moved, they lived first in Buffalo, then they came from Buffalo to Grand Rapids, that’s my grandmother on my mother’s side. And what brought ‘em to Grand Rapids, I don’t know. I don’t know why they chose Grand Rapids, of course, a little bit of a village then – a town. Interviewer: Well, would the Dutch people that came here, were they a very close knit ethnic group? Mr. Idema: Pretty much, and very religious. Interviewer: Was your family a part of that group? Mr. Idema: I would say so, my grandmother on my mother’s side, more than on my father’s. I my father’s background is a little hazy to me; I don’t - I can’t tell you much about it. Interviewer: Where did the Dutch locate mostly, in Grand Rapids, did they kind of hang together in the same neighborhood? �10 Mr. Idema: No, I can’t recall that they did. We were about the only one on that neighborhood on Lyon Street. But the Dutch Church was on Bostwick Street, just off Lyon, called the Second Reformed Church, and the services were in Dutch language. My grandmother who lived with us, on my mother’s side spoke very little English. As a result of which I acquired a pretty good smattering of Dutch. Interviewer: Can you still speak it? Mr. Idema: Oh, yes. I can understand it better, (at least when I knew) I had no need of the vocabulary. I used to be pretty good in French when I went to college and took it four years. But I don’t use it, so I forget it. But I can understand Dutch; we have a cleaning woman who comes here every week and she speaks no English, why she and I get along fine. And it was a big help to my father when he went in the banking business, and, the Kent County Savings Bank, where he started, was called spaarbank. … Interviewer: What does that mean? Mr. Idema: Savings Bank Interviewer: Is that Dutch? Mr. Idema: Sure, it’s Dutch. It was on the corner of Lyon and it’s opposite where the Old National was, the other end of the Pantlind, which was then Sweet’s Hotel, before the Pantlind. Then the Kent County Savings Bank combined with the State Bank of Michigan, formed the Kent State Bank, which later combined with the Old National Bank and made the Old Kent Bank. They also took in the Fourth National Bank and People’s; that left only the Old Kent Michigan National. And the well, really, before the days of the Union Bank, there were only two banks. Mr. John E. Frey formed the Union Bank, Jack Frey, Ed Frey’s father. Dates I can’t give you – I don’t know. Interviewer: Who, who was kind of instrumental in tying together all these various banks to form the Old Kent? Mr. Idema: My father. Interviewer: Your father? Mr. Idema: Absolutely, he made it, he did it. Interviewer: What was his name? Mr. Idema: Henry. Interviewer: Henry Idema? �11 Mr. Idema: He lived to be ninety-five. He was active up to the time he was ninety. In those days they didn’t kick them out at sixty-five like they do all over now. They, they took, they has a little stuff left in ‘em. And he was very active in the bank in his eighties. Now when you’re sixtyfive, away you go. Everywhere. Interviewer: Yes, in some places I think it’s even lower than that. Mr. Idema: Yes, some of them have sixty two, and almost all of them have an option, if you want sixty five or sixty two you can, but you lose some benefits. My other brother, the third brother, Edward Idema, when he retired was the owner and operator of the Manufacturer’s Supply Company, which is now being run by his son named Henry Idema the second. So that was, what became of the three brothers. Interviewer: Did you associate, like, the kids that lived along Lyon Street, did they associate with the kids living over on, let’s say, Lafayette, Prospect…? Mr. Idema: Oh, to some extent, because if we went to the same school. But we were, we had enough of us in the area to take care of our needs for a little baseball or hockey or something like that. Oh, there were, I had friends on Crescent Avenue, and over on Prospect Street, sure… Interviewer: Where did you play ball in those days? Mr. Idema: Usually in our backyard. We had the biggest back yard, that’s where they played. Interviewer: What’s the address of that home up on Lyon Street? Mr. Idema: I don’t know. It was two eighty-four when I lived there, but I know it’s changed. It was bought by a Mr. Wagemaker, who bought it from my father and Isaac Wagemaker, and there he had a son named Ray, who owned and operated the Wagemaker Company making bolts, you know. He later bought this house directly across the street. And he died of a heart attack, about, I’d say five or six years ago. And I always called that the Wagemaker House, although he didn’t build it. But I never knew that, I never knew their family, except as I knew that they lived in the old house. Interviewer: Do you think that living is very much different today than when you were growing up? Mr. Idema: Sure is. Interviewer: How is it, what was the biggest difference? Mr. Idema: Well, your needs are so much, your economics are so different, your economy is different. Five cent sodas are thirty five cents and all that stuff, and I mean, money wasn’t so important. If a kid got fifty cents a week allowance he’d be pretty affluent. Now you get that much for nothing. The economy is tiring, change, right straight across the whole strata. Not just, �12 youth, it’s everybody. And I’m talking about previous to World War Two and way back in then, I was born in the eighteen eighties. We didn’t know, we had the Spanish American War, but that was no, that didn’t amount to anything. And of course, I was, after the Civil War, I hope. But we never, we didn’t have the war problem, we didn’t have the economy problem, we didn’t have the liquor problem. I don’t know, life was a lot easier, I’ll tell you that. [End of side one] Mr. Idema: Well, did you, were you in school with John? Interviewer: Yes, he was a year behind me. And Steve was in my grade. Mr. Idema: Yes, John just moved here within the last six months. He was in the army until last, well, I guess he got discharged about March, February, March. He’s out at Amway Corporation. Interviewer: Oh, is he? Mr. Idema: And Steve is head of the local Legal Aid and their oldest brother. Phil, is a partner with Crook, Fryhoffer and somebody, he’s been with them quite awhile. So they all live here, all have children, no, Steve doesn’t have any. Steve just came here from Denver. He was the head of the Legal Aid in Denver, or in the Legal Aid work. Previous to that he was with, oh, I’ve forgotten the name of that, the government deal, similar kind of work but he was down in the Caribbean. What was the name of that, VISTA, you know, VISTA, Volunteers In Service To America .Well, that brought him to Denver and he worked with the poor around Denver, and that kind of work, and then he was offered this job here and he came here oh, a couple of months ago. Interviewer: Let’s see, I was going to ask you about your wife, and you know, if she was a Grand Rapids girl and what her background was. Would [you] tell me a little about that? Mr. Idema: Not very much. She was born in Grand Rapids, and went to Grand Rapids’ schools, Smith College, graduated in nineteen thirteen; we were, in nineteen twelve we were married in nineteen thirteen. Interviewer: Did you build this house after, just after you were married? Mr. Idema: No, I didn’t build it ‘til nineteen seventeen. I moved in the day war was declared. And that was in April, nineteen seventeen. I enlisted and left here in February of nineteen eighteen, and I was gone until nineteen twenty or twenty-one. But I didn’t go overseas. I was in Camp Hancock, Georgia most the time. And she lived here; we had one child at that time. She lived in the house. Interviewer: Who built these homes, the other homes along Gay Street? Mr. Idema: I can’t tell you. I’m the newest house so I don’t know. �13 Interviewer: That one across the street, the Wagemaker house, you said that a… Mr. Idema: I don’t know, well, I know who owned it, Mr. John Duffy, had it built, that what you mean? Interviewer: Yes Mr. Idema: I don’t know the name of any builders… Interviewer: Yes? No, the people who… Mr. Idema: John Duffy bought it, built it, and paid for it. He was the head of the Grand Rapids Hardware Company. And as I told you, Wagemaker bought it out of the Duffy estate, after John Duffy died, and Mrs. Duffy. The house down here belonged to; I don’t think it was built by him, but belonged to Joseph Brewer. Interviewer: Whose house is that, the one that the Lockwoods live in? Mr. Idema: No, the next house. Interviewer: Oh, yes. Mr. Idema: That’s an apartment house, and that is in their garage, and so… the Lockwood house, I can’t tell you who built it, but I think it was a man named Childs. And his probably the oldest house on the street, except the one on the corner, but that faces Washington. And the Gay property, the Gay house faces Fulton, and the one up on the corner, which belonged to Mr. Mormon, he built that, that faces Fulton. Interviewer: That’s the green house there on the corner? Mr. Idema: Well, they’re all apartment houses except Mrs. Lockwood’s and this one. And not only there, but all the way around this block every single one of ‘em are apartment houses. There isn’t a single apa… a single house, in the block which I’m sitting. That’s the way the change is, all single houses when I built. There was no East Grand Rapids as we know it today. We used to go out there by the streetcar and go up to the show at Ramona. That was East Grand Rapids. But, if I knew then what I know now, I’d never built here. Interviewer: Why is that? Mr. Idema: Why is that? Interviewer: Yes? If you knew what… Mr. Idema: If I knew, what I know now? Interviewer: Yes? What do you know now that you didn’t know then? �14 Mr. Idema: Well, I know that we’re in right on the edge of a slum. I mean, the character of the people, the houses, everything, we’re in a, they had a, well, tonight, right down here night before last. Interviewer: Where’s that, on Washington? Mr. Idema: Yes, just off Washington. They snatch purses around here. I wouldn’t, well, I finally persuaded the city to put up this light, I got a big light out here that lights itself, but… we’re only two blocks away from Wealthy and that’s all colored, and that’s where the trouble is. Don’t I I (didn’t) want that on. Interviewer: No, that won’t be on, won’t reprint that. Mr. Idema: I’d I mean I don’t, you don’t talk that way. Interviewer: No. Why do you think that the, what, what caused these homes to go from single family residences to apartment houses? Mr. Idema: Because nobody kept up, and built decent houses, they all went out to East Grand Rapids. That’s where all the money is in the houses. Interviewer: In other words, the economics that maintained a home like this aren’t very much different for maintaining a sizable home in East Grand Rapids… Mr. Idema: What do you mean, cost? Interviewer: Yes, Mr. Idema: Oh, that isn’t a matter of cost. They just don’t want to be in this neighborhood anymore, and I wouldn’t either. Interviewer: Why did they all move out in the first place? Mr. Idema: Well, why does anything like that occur or any movement, migration? I can’t tell you. Interviewer: Well, the reason why I asked is that I was talking to, I was interviewing someone last week I think it was either Mrs. Whinery or Mrs. Lockwood, and they said that the Ledyard property up there on the corner of Cherry and College that six generations of family lived. Mr. Idema: That’s the Oakwood Manor. Interviewer: Yes, where they opened the Hillmount, that six generations of the family lived there, on that same plot of ground. Mr. Idema: Yes, that’s right, and they die out. �15 Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Idema: Nobody comes along. Interviewer: Yes, that’s another, other people we’ve interviewed talk about how their family, well, I’ve talked to George Shelby and he said that the family built the, the house that’s commonly known as the Booth house, his family built that, and they built another one on the corner, and they built another one next to that. Mr. Idema: I don’t know. Shelby ought to. Those are beautiful houses, on Lafayette Street, that was, well, and this was top grade. Interviewer: Well, this is still a beautiful house. Mr. Idema: Of course it is, but isn’t a beautiful neighborhood. It’s a lousy neighborhood. Interviewer: Well, I think there’s kind of a move among young people at least. I noticed up on, I haven’t seen a house for sale on Gay Street in a long time, but, up on the hill there, the houses come up for sale, and they’re sold pretty quickly. Now, I don’t whether it’s a… Mr. Idema: Because they’re cheap… Interviewer: I don’t know – I never looked at prices. Mr. Idema: Well, East Grand Rapids prices are way up, compared to ours, for a similar thing. My kids and grandchildren bought out there, one of them built, gee, what they have to pay for a house would make you sick. But, they all want to be out in East Grand Rapids. Interviewer: What, if you want to answer this one, but, just out of curiosity, just what, what did a house like this cost you to build when you built it? Mr. Idema: Forty-two thousand dollars. Interviewer: That was pretty expensive house at that time too. Mr. Idema: Oh, you couldn’t do it today for a hundred. Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Idema: That’s with everything. And I know that because I just discussed selling it. People want to know exactly what it cost, and they have a right to. But that was in nineteen seventeen, that’s fifty-five years ago, fifty-four, sixty-four, so you can’t compare it because anymore than you can compare furniture that was made then, or any automobile. When I moved in here I bought a Cadillac, nineteen forty-one, at one time, while I was living; what do you suppose the price was? �16 Interviewer: For a forty-one Cadillac? Mr. Idema: I have no idea. Interviewer: Four door, everything on it, was sixteen hundred and twenty-five dollars. That car today is sixty, [er] six thousand dollars. And that’s the way with everything. If I were to build, I wouldn’t build this house today, I wouldn’t build this type of house, I’d have a more modern house. This isn’t modern. It’s old, but isn’t an old fashioned house, but, there are a lot of things about it, I’d put in air conditioning if I was building. There are a lot of things that I would do. But that time’s past. One day, this will be another apartment house, I presume. It has six bedrooms and four baths, and the entire first floor, this room and that room and the hall, is one great big recreation room. Interviewer: What, down below us? Mr. Idema: I’ve had fifty people here to a dance, orchestra and the whole business down there. Interviewer: It’s a beautiful place. Mr. Idema: Well, it was then, it was, been a happy home for many years, kids grew up in it, and but, it’s in the wrong location. Interviewer: You didn’t really answer that, of course, maybe you don’t really know the reasons but the question I had is - why did people move out of this area? I mean, why did they start moving to East Grand Rapids, or Cascade, or wherever they moved? Mr. Idema: Oh, they were attracted by the terrain, and the very strong work done by certain realtors, one of which was Mr. Bonnell. [Do] you know where Bonnell Drive is? Well, Mr. Bonnell bought all that property in there, and had it landscaped, and new streets put through and they sold lots. Mr. Gilbert, Will Gilbert, bought where I used to play golf out there where East Grand Rapids is now, part of that. And, that’s all East Grand Rapids now, the water’s there, the lake, everything that attracted. There’s nothing attractive about this part of town, not now. When I built it there wasn’t any East Grand Rapids. As I told you, Ramona, but not, there were no homes like there are now. The Edward Lowe home, which is now Aquinas College, was built approximately nineteen hundred and one or two. You know where that is? That’s now, well that is on the South side of Robinson Road, at the end of Plymouth and that was the Edward Lowe house. He lived, when he built that house out there, he lived over here on the corner of College and Washington, which is the Insurance Company office, directly across from WOOD [TV]) Interviewer: Oh, yes. Mr. Idema: That was, that’s where I lived, that’s my father bought it of Mr. Lowe, sold the house up on Lyon, to Wagemaker. Interviewer: And bought which house…? �17 Mr. Idema: The one up on College Avenue on the corner Interviewer: Is that house still standing? Mr. Idema: Oh, I’ll say it is, sure. Interviewer: Is that the Castle? Mr. Idema: No, no, no, this end, Washington Street. The Castle’s on Cherry Street. Interviewer: Oh, Washington and College. Mr. Idema: Washington and College, south west corner. Interviewer: Oh, yes, I see, yes. Mr. Idema: It’s an insurance company. I sold it after my father died and my mother, to this insurance company. That was before WOOD [TV] was put up, which is an abortion. That was a beautiful block of homes, from Cherry to Fulton, on College. You can see that, well, you know the Waters’ house still stands. And then the Bissell house was there, that was where WOOD is. And down on the corner the Aldrich house, the Pantlind house, on this side the Castle, and the Byrnes, John Byrne’s house, and the Voigt house, and then that house my father owned, beautiful block, every house in there was a beautiful, big house. Look at them now. Awful. One’s an insurance company, another’s torn down, and the Waters’ house is the Waters’ house. And it’s an apartment house. Interviewer: Yes, and they’ve got all those others, those multiple living, high rises. Mr. Idema: Oh, as a residential section, this Grand Rapids is sunk. If you got any money, I mean, if people have got to buy fifteen thousand dollar houses, you can’t go to East Grand Rapids. You’ve got to buy where they can afford to, which is Grand Rapids, per se. But it’s, that doesn’t make it any more attractive. Interviewer: You think the automobile had much of an effect on the dispersal of the society? Mr. Idema: On what? Interviewer: On the dispersal of people, in other words, everyone lived in this area all of a sudden are living… Mr. Idema: Oh, I don’t know. Everybody had cars. Interviewer: Everybody had cars before East Grand Rapids started developing? Mr. Idema: I can’t tell you that, I don’t know. I think the first car in our family was nineteen four, when we lived on Lyon Street, and that was a Winton. But cars weren’t cars then, I mean, �18 they didn’t depend on them. Trip from here to Detroit took all day. There wasn’t the fluid moment movement that there is now, and that, automobiles have come as you know, in the last fifteen-twenty years was a tremendous rush. I won’t say they didn’t have something to do with it, because without the automobile, East Grand Rapids would be left high and dry. You can’t walk out there, but to say that that‘s the reason, I don’t know. But this so-called Heritage District that you mentioned is, you’ve taken in an awful lot of territory, you’ve taken in some, I think very run down places. You’ve got some good ones. Interviewer: Well, I think that’s what the Heritage Hill people are concerned with, is not necessarily you know, the junk that’s in there, but the good houses that are still standing that can be preserved. Mr. Idema: What they gonna do with ‘em? Interviewer: From what I’ve seen, some of these homes, they are trying to persuade the people that own them to, you know fix ‘em up, maintain them, keep ’em in good shape instead of letting them decline and… Mr. Idema: With what incentive? Interviewer: Well, the incentive to maintain an area that they think is beautiful. Mr. Idema: Why? Interviewer: Because it’s like this street here, you can’t go out to East Grand Rapids and find a street like this, maybe Bonnell Avenue, but that’s it. Mr. Idema: Oh, yes, you can, these houses are old-fashioned…. Interviewer: That’s right that’s, but out there, like you say, if you were building today, you’d build a modern house. Mr. Idema: Why, sure. Interviewer: But you don’t find homes like the homes in this area, built out there. A lot of people find these homes, homes along Gay Street and …. Mr. Idema: Oh, I think that house across the street, the Duffy house, I would say architecturally, it was a great deal like the Fitzgerald house. Interviewer: Yes. Mr. Idema: And that’s in East Grand Rapids, and this was here. I don‘t think that’s, that’s follows at all. I might put this same house if I could find a spot on Reed’s Lake, and it would be in keeping, I mean, it’s not old-fashioned, in spite of the fact it’s that old, it’s architecturally, it’s �19 still good. And outside, you can say, look at that old house. But this house could have built last year. Interviewer: Well, I guess we’ve got enough. Think so? Mr. Idema: You’ve milked me. INDEX B K Bonnell, Mr. · 16 Kent County Savings Bank · 10 D Dennison, Judge · 6 Duffy, John · 13, 18 E L Lockwood Family · 13, 14 Lowe, Edward · 16 O Elliot Machine Company · 2, 3 Old Kent Bank · 4, 10 F P Fountain Street School · 2 Frey, John E. · 10 Peninsular Club · 5 G S Gilbert, Will · 16 Grand Rapids Store Equipment Corporation · 3 Shelby, George · 15 Smith College · 12 Steelcase · 4, 5 Steketee's · 8 H Herpolsheimer’s · 8 U I University Club · 5, 6 University of Michigan · 2, 5 Idema, Edward · 11 Idema, Henry (Father) · 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17 Idema, Johanna Wilhelmina Doornink (Mother) · 8, 9, 10, 17 W Wagemaker, Isaac · 11, 13, 16 Wanty, Tom · 5 Wege, Peter · 4 �20 Whinery, Mrs. · 14 Wurzburg’s · 8 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/117ab6d09f5daa4acebb2faf48e2759d.mp3 917681dc9d2837b6e5939fdaf03577f1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_16-17Idema Title A name given to the resource Idema, Chester Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Idema, Chester Description An account of the resource Chester Idema was born on August 18, 1886 in Grand Rapids. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1909. He worked at the Elliot Machine Co. in Pennsylvania. In 1913, he married Marion Mead. During WWI, Mr. Idema enlisted in the military. Afterward, he worked at Old Kent Bank for 19 years and became a vice president. Mr. Idema belonged to the University Club and the Peninsular Club. 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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 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 A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_14-15Blake Title A name given to the resource Blake, Dorothy Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource 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. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8f0646e755247820180ac04841e324ac.pdf 60e3a5bb08e6b86ec548b2eea3dfe69d PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Mrs. Siegel Judd (Dorothy Leonard) Interviewed on September 17, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #13 (1:05:11) Biographical Information Dorothy S. Leonard was born 14 September 1898 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the daughter of Harry Carr Leonard and Willie Thomas Stansbury. She died 14 February 1989 at Porter Hills Presbyterian Village in Grand Rapids. Dorothy married Siegel Judd 29 June 1922 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Siegel was born Siegel Wright on 19 June 1895 in Kent County. He was the son of Addison Wright, the brother of Mrs. Lillian (Edward C.) Judd, who adopted and raised Siegel. Siegel died 4 September 1982. Mrs. Judd’s father was Harry Carr Leonard, born 25 December 1874 in Grand Rapids, the son of Charles H. and Emma (Carr) Leonard. Harry died 14 February 1956 at the age of 81. The mother of Mrs. Judd was Willie Thomas Stansbury, born in Delaware, Ohio, 18 August 1875 and she died in Grand Rapids on 21 March 1938. Their marriage took place in Lafayette, Indiana on 23 June 1897. ____________ Interview conducted with Mrs. Siegel W. Judd on September 17, 1971. Mrs. Judd: You asked me about the flavor of life in Grand Rapids when I was young, I think one of the predominant characteristics was the closeness of family life. My family really was not patriarchy, but a grand patriarchy, you might say, with my grandfather Leonard heading it up; and so, I’m going to want to tell you something about my grandfather so you’ll understand that family life. In the first place, he was always looking to the future. I never remember him talking about the past except when sometimes I asked him questions about it. He was always envisioning the needs of the community and the needs of business and industry, the new technologies, we’d call it today. I think they didn’t use that work; management systems, we’d call it today. But he was into these things and I think he’d be quite surprised to know that you young people wanted to know about the past. For example, really he was called in the refrigerator business the ―Granddaddy of the Refrigerator Business,‖ because he really was the inventor of the refrigerator, if you can say that anything as complicated was a single invention. But prior to that time, and this was along in the eighteen eighties there was no such thing as refrigeration. People had boxes, and they put ice in them; but, they didn’t have drainage, they weren’t cleanable, and only the people in the north who could get ice had refrigeration. In the south they couldn’t get ice, so they had to have other methods. I can remember my grandfather trying to sell the people in the south, on the idea of an icebox, as we called it in those days; and later on trying to sell the idea in South America and Europe. So it was pretty much in the northern part of the states that the idea of refrigeration got �2 going. I have his patents, oh, on hinges and locks and linings and drain pipes, and trays and all the things that go into a refrigerator. It was a seasonal business, too, because people only felt they needed it in the summertime. They always manufactured in the winter and piled them up in warehouses, ready to sell in the summertime. And of course, here in Grand Rapids the ice pretty much came from Reed’s Lake. I never think of Reed’s Lake as freezing so deep today, but where the East Grand Rapids Junior High School is, there was a great big wooden warehouse, storage house. The big drays, with great big horses, would go out on the ice and cut the ice, and put it in this storage house, and cover it with sawdust. That’s where our ice came for the iceboxes, in those early days. But, my grandfather wasn’t satisfied with an icebox. We have a scrapbook of his clippings that he cut out in the eighteen nineties with ideas about how to have what he called an ―iceless refrigerator,‖ and when I was a little girl, we were always experimenting on how to have a cold refrigerator without ice. I can remember one icebox where my father cut a big hole in the side of it down at the bottom and set an electric fan, with a wet flannel over it, in that hole to see if that wouldn’t be one way to get refrigeration. Another thing, one of his early interests, was the need for what he called pure water in Grand Rapids. Our water was so bad that people didn’t drink it; and if they did, they often died of typhoid fever. There was a big death rate from typhoid fever in Grand Rapids. Of course, the water we had was river water. My grandfather’s scrapbook has pictures in it of a barrel, I can remember, with sand in the bottom and gravel on the top experimenting filtering water through it to see if it wouldn’t purify the water. That’s back in the eighteen nineties. In nineteen four there was a World’s fair in St. Louis, and my grandfather went down there because St. Louis had a filtration plant. When he came back, he built an eight-foot model of it and persuaded the city government to set it up in the city hall so people could see what filtration could mean to Grand Rapids. Then, in nineteen seven, there was a campaign. I’ve forgotten whether it was to decide to build a plant or, I think it must have included the bond issue. I can show you, in a few minutes, my grandfather’s accounts of money he raised for that campaign for pure water. It was defeated: and I think it was defeated again around nineteen eleven. If you want to know more about pure water, John Martin also worked on this; and Mrs. Richard Meade can tell a lot about it. And of course, it wasn’t until nineteen seventeen that they finally built the plant and we began to have pure water. That seems very recent to me, maybe it doesn’t to you! But this made a tremendous reduction in the death rate of typhoid fever the very next year. That was another one of his forward-looking interests. Another example: That was my grandfather’s father who came to Grand Rapids originally, and I’d like to go back to that later, but I’d like to go on with some of these forward looking things of my grandfather’s. He was born on Monroe Street in a little frame house bordering now on what’s the McKay Tower, where the Houseman Clothing Store is now. It was a general store his father had on the first floor, and they lived on the second floor. After my grandfather grew up and began to be active in the business, they decided they should have a new building there. So, I don’t know the exact date, but sometime in the eighties I think it was, he built the brick building that stands there now, that. Houseman Clothing Store is in. Well, to do that, he had to rent a store across the street for his business. He was never a man to spend any more dollars than he had to, so he was in a great hurry to get the building done. At that time, the Edison Incandescent Lamp came out. He was the first one to use this in Grand Rapids. So, they went on with their construction at night, with the new Edison light. �3 Another new thing that he did, he was great on construction. He never had a college education; he wasn’t an engineer, but he was a great inventor. So, when in nineteen seven, they built the big plant on Clyde Park, which became the Kelvinator Plant after we sold it to Kelvinator. He built it of hollow cement blocks. Nobody had ever heard of building with hollow cement blocks. He mixed the cement mixture himself. And everybody said: ―Oh, Leonard’s building’s going to fall down for sure!‖ It was a great big building and they called it ―Leonard’s Elephant.‖ But, it’s still there and it’s been greatly enlarged by future owners of the plant. Then he had a great interest in educating youngsters and especially in developing skills. Now here today we’ve got these new skill centers about to open and we’re very excited about them; but along in nineteen four or five, my grandfather introduced manual training into the public schools; woodworking for boys, and sewing and cooking for girls. This was what you might call the beginning of occupational training for children. I have a clipping of a letter he wrote to the ―Public Pulse,‖ oh, maybe it was back in the teens, I’ve forgotten just when, recommending oneway streets. We had no one-way streets. In fact when I was on the city planning commission in the forties, we were beginning to recommend one-way streets, and it just raised Cain in the town. People would not have one-way streets! But, my grandfather said that this had to come, and he suggested it for what was then Commerce Street, which at that time went clear through to Monroe and created a lot of traffic problems with Commerce and Division so close coming into Monroe Street. He had the second automobile in Grand Rapids; it was a Knox, and it had three wheels. This is when they lived on Fulton Street in the John Ball House, which had great big stables down behind the house, where they had a beautiful carriage and a pair of white horses. Of course, they didn’t dare put the automobile there because they figured the automobile and the horses wouldn’t get along together very well. The house went downhill at the rear so that you could get into the basement from the ground, so the Knox was put in the basement. I can remember grandpa used to have an awful time getting up Fulton Street hill with the car. All the boys would line up and shout: ―Get a horse, mister‖. Then, of course, in the refrigerator business along came electrical refrigeration finally. It really developed during the war, the first war. And so we started selling the boxes to Frigidaire that made the motors. These were the first electric refrigerators. But my grandfather felt that the future of his business depended on his developing an electrical motor, and building the whole business. So, he bought land south of the Clyde Park plant to build a new plant to build motors. This was in nineteen twenty-four, about, and he was eighty years old. He was ready to build a new plant and experiment with a new product at that age. And of course, the poor old fellow; all his family said no. Nobody else in the family could do this, and grandpa was too old and really it just broke his heart. He just went downhill after that. Interviewer: Who said no? Mrs. Judd: The family, the rest of the family. Of course you must understand that industries in those days were family industries, they were not publicly owned. The whole family, including my father and my two sister’s families were all dependent on the refrigerator, and they all worked there and my cousins worked there, and my uncles, and my mother’s father. It was really a family affair. So, if it had gone into bankruptcy over this effort to build a new plant without the leadership of my grandfather, the whole family would have gone down the drain. So they had to say they couldn’t do it. This was the reason that they finally sold the plant to the Kelvinator �4 people, who were making electric refrigerator motors at that time, and who wanted to own a box factory. Frigidaire was part of General Motors and they built their own box factory. I would suggest you tape a conversation with my husband on this. The new Grand Rapids history is very inadequate and somewhat inaccurate on this thing of the refrigerator business here. My husband was the attorney in the sale, and he knows all about it. He was also attorney for many of the big furniture plants here, and he’d be a good one to talk to on the relationship of the whole furniture industry to life in Grand Rapids. It was very vital, the part that it had in family life and general living. Now let’s see. Shall we go back and talk about where the family came from? You’ve suggested this. My grandfather’s name was Charles H. Leonard and his father’s name was Heman. Heman came, his family originally - from New England and had lived a few years in Monroe County, New York state, near Rochester. Then old - oh dear! I forget Heman’s father’s name – anyway he had several sons and he said to them all, you must go west young man. And he offered each of them two hundred acres of land in Michigan if they would go and settle in Michigan. Some of them stopped around Detroit; and around Saginaw you’ll find Leonard families today. I don’t know them but I know that they’re there. Heman did what many people did who were moving west, when they came along the Erie Canal and Lake Erie and got to Detroit. Then they took, I suppose what was called, the old Territorial Road, which was practically I-ninety-four now, across southern part of the state, so that Jackson, Battle Creek, and Kalamazoo are all older communities than Grand Rapids: and then many of them came from the southern part of the state and moved up to Grand Rapids. And that was true of Heman Leonard. He lived a few years in Three Rivers and then came up here. The third wife he married, her family, her name was Mariah Winslow and her father was a doctor, and they lived near Kalamazoo. They came up here in eighteen thirty-five orseven. He was the first doctor, incidentally to perform any kind of service in the Grand Rapids area, and he came up on horseback from Kalamazoo to do it. Interviewer: And that was who? Winslow? Mrs. Judd: Dr. Winslow. The Baxter history tells about this. Evidently he liked Grand Rapids, so two years later he and his daughter Mariah came up here. You know, a lot of these hard working pioneers wore out several wives. Mariah was not the mother of my grandfather, but she was the stepmother who really brought up the two Leonard boys; Frank and Charles and Fred the three of them. So, she was a great influence in the family. She’s buried out in the Fulton Cemetery along with all the rest of the Leonards. In eighteen forty-two, she was the only woman on a committee of seven men who founded the First Baptist Church. It was really her influence that kept the Leonard family in what is now the Fountain Street Church all down through the years. I wish I knew more about her, she sounds like a wonderful person. Interviewer: Why did Heman Leonard remove from his farm to Grand Rapids? Mrs. Judd: Siegel and I were talking about that this morning. Why did people come to Grand Rapids, because it was offbeat from the normal transportation routes even in the pioneer days, just as it was in the development of railroads? It had railroads much later than Kalamazoo did. And still today in the airlines, we’re really offbeat. We don’t have the service that the lines from Detroit to Chicago get. But, I think Siegel would really be able to give you a better picture of this economically. The kind of people who came here from New England were not the fly-by-nights �5 that were just all the time going west to find something new. They were quite substantial businessmen in New England, and in New York state, and they became so when they came here. They came here with the idea of settling down, stabilizing; this had made this a stable community. And it was a center of trade for the lumber camps, and even for the copper country. It was the farthest north, settled community, and a lot of those really settled in Grand Rapids. Of course my grandfather’s (Oh, I’m skipping around now) as I told you, his father started a general store on Monroe Street, so he went on with this, my grandfather did when he grew up, and started in the wholesale business. There is a lot of wholesale business here, supplying stores all the way up and down Western Michigan. Grandpa told me that his first wholesale business was: he went down to Ohio, and he got a freight car full of kerosene lamps, and those clay pickle jars and… Interviewer: Crocks? Mrs. Judd: …took them up to the---crocks-, yes—and took them up to the lumber camps and that was the beginning of H. Leonard and Sons. Have you ever heard of that store? That store didn’t go out of business till in the nineteen fifties. It was one hundred eight years old when they finally---the family--- sold it to the men who so long had been running the store. Interviewer: What’s the name of the store now? Mrs. Judd: Well, it doesn’t exist anymore. The building is there, it’s on the corner of Fulton and Commerce, and Dykstra, [is] there a warehouse, I think. Interviewer: Oh yes, it’s a furniture… (Mrs. J. – I don’t know what ….) Mrs. Judd:. I don’t know what their business is or what’s in it, but on the front door you’ll still see the bronze plaque that says H. Leonard and Sons. H. Leonard was my great-grandfather, and his sons, my grandfather Charles and his brother Frank. Frank Leonard was the father of Mrs. Noyes Avery, Senior. Mrs. Judd: Let’s see, well just a word about the family-nature of the industry. As I said, all of us were in it, and were proud of it, used to take all our guests over to see it. It was very interesting because in those days a factory made every part of what they needed for a product. So that there was not only the woodworking in the days when there were wood refrigerators, but there was metal working. When they began to make porcelain linings they had the big furnaces that baked the porcelain. When they made trays that---you know, wire trays—that were tin covered, they did that process. They had a brass foundry that made hinges and the locks. So it was a very interesting place to go and to see. Also, there was a very close contact between my grandfather and all of the people who worked in the plant. He was always concerned when there was illness or trouble or the children needed some education. He’d go and call on them all and he knew them all. Then there was always the picnic, the annual picnic usually up at Bostwick Lake, and with all the workers and their families. There was a full day’s program of baseball and games. I remember watching my grandfather in the cigar smoking contest. He always could smoke that down to the pin faster than anybody else could. I told you that he was interested in what, today, we’d call management systems. He was the first person, I think, in the city to try to adopt some of the new ideas of efficiency in managing the plant. There was a Frenchman who was famous �6 for this; he was called an ―Efficiency Engineer,‖ named Charles Bedeaux. Have you ever come across that? Interviewer: No…… Mrs. Judd: It’s B E D E A U X, and he came and lived here all one winter and installed this efficiency system. He later married a Grand Rapids girl—this is just gossip on the side, I don’t know whether you want it or not--Interviewer: Who did he marry? Mrs. Judd: He married Fern Lombard, which was also an old family here, from Maine. They went back to France, and they became very wealthy, and they bought a beautiful big chateau, and when the Prince of Wales couldn’t find a place where he could marry—what’s the girl he married? Interviewer: The present Duchess…? Mrs. Judd: The American divorcee… Interviewer: Simpson, Mrs. Simpson. Mrs. Judd: Yes, Mrs. Simpson. They invited them to be married in their chateau. This is a story from the Lombards of Grand Rapids. Interviewer: Were they married there? Mrs. Judd: Yes. Bedeaux later became a Nazi in France and he was tried and, I think executed. I’m not sure about that; don’t put that down for a fact. About this time I came out of Vassar College, where I had majored in Economics and Political Science. I had taken some courses in labor management, so I came home to tell my grandfather how to run his labor problems. And you know he didn’t laugh at me, he took me seriously: and he took me out to the factory and he got out these great big charts of the organization of the factory, and talked to me just as though he were going to get ready to hire me for his personnel manager! I respected him very much for that, but this was the beginning of my interest in personnel work, which, of course, has pursued me clear down to the end of the state Civil Service Commission job a couple of years ago. In our family life, I think probably, like many families, my grandfather wanted to keep everybody close to him, and every Sunday we all went to their house for dinner. I can remember in the John Ball House there was a big dining room and a great big round table, and there were my father and each of his sisters and their families. In the end there were twelve grandchildren, but I don’t think we all sat around one table by that time. But it was just routine for everybody to go there for Sunday dinner. After a while my grandfather thought that—my grandmother, I should say--thought that that house was too big. There was too much work to be done in it, and I guess she, just to get away from Sunday dinners, anyways they sold the house without telling anybody. Oh my goodness, I can’t tell you how disappointed the family was because they loved that place. I can remember playing in the backyard. There was a big field back there then, between Gay Street and College. There was a cow in the field, and young Jo Brewer and I used to play house back �7 there; we’d cook and---. One of the games we played, all of us then, was an exchange of cigar bands. Did you ever hear of that; did you ever know that cigars had cigar bands? Interviewer: Oh, yes, I remember the cigar bands. Mrs. Judd: Oh, they were beautiful. You could get all kinds of great big gold seals on them, and everybody exchanged them. It was a great trading operation, and then you’d paste them on the bottom of a glass bowl. This was very decorative in the house. Well, anyway so they rented—no they bought a little house on Paris Avenue, about half way between Cherry and Wealthy. We were just squeezed in there; there just wasn’t room for anybody, and I guess it was worse for grandmother than having us all in the big house. So that’s when they built the house on Morris. You know that house on the corner of Morris and Logan? I guess, it’s one of the houses to be preserved in the Heritage Hill business, with the two story living room and the organ in it and the balcony over it. Here we had numerous weddings of the various cousins, and we had my grandmother’s funeral there. Grandpa used to bring professional organists who would come and stay for, say, a couple of weeks and have a series of organ concerts. This is where they had their golden wedding anniversary. Now, that was different from most golden wedding anniversary celebrations today. This was nineteen twenty-three. I think they were married in seventy-three. It was open house. They put it in the newspaper and everybody would be welcome. Of course, they had a host of friends and family, and then all the employees. They came with their families: it was really a wonderful affair. I can show you a few things I’ve put out there, one of which is a parchment that the employees gave to Grandma and Grandpa, at the time of their golden anniversary. They continued after they moved on Morris to develop houses for the family, all around them. At that time, straight through practically, on what’s now Prospect, used to be called Terrace Avenue, is where Frank Leonard lived, Grandpa’s brother, and their daughter [Evelyn Leonard] who became Mrs. Avery, and their son, Franklin. Across the street from them was one of Grandpa’s daughters [Jessie E. Leonard married Walter H. Whittier], the Whittier family. The Harvey family [Jennie M. Leonard married Frank A. Harvey] built a house I guess you designated for preservation on College Avenue between Wealthy and Logan. It’s a Spanish architecture. He had six daughters and they lived there. Then, as each of us grandchildren married, Grandpa gave us a house for a wedding present. Only three houses got built before Grandpa died, but one was on Morris. Oh, I forgot to mention that my father, my family, built kitty-cornered across from grandfather’s Morris Avenue house, on the south-east corner of Morris and Logan. That’s where I lived from the time I was fourteen. There was one of the grandchildren’s houses on Morris; one on College south of Logan; and then ours on Morris, right across the street between Logan and Wealthy. All these houses were together and the family Christmas dinners continued: and the family Thanksgiving dinners continued. There were always thirty-five or so of us for these dinners. Interviewer: Sounds like the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port. Mrs. Judd: We weren’t the same political party, though. But, there was also a compound down at Highland Park. This isn’t Grand Rapids, but would you be interested in adding a bit about our life there? My grandparents bought a little cottage there in nineteen two. They’d been on Black Lake, but their cottage there burned down, so they bought this little cottage. Next to them was another cottage already built, so that was for the Whitter family; and then they built two more cottages on either side, for the Harvey family and for our family. The one they built for the �8 Harveys is still there, but there was a big fire in thirty-four that burned all the rest of these houses down. Next north of us was the McKee family who were also relatives. So there were five houses full of us. How the parents ever survived it, I’ll never know! But, you know, in those days you went down by interurban, which was an electric car. You went all the day down – you know that Highland Park was part of Grand Haven really, but we were just outside the city limits – and that went down the beach. There was a streetcar track, and the interurban came down to within about three hundred feet of our cottage, where there was what we called the loop. Every morning my father would get up at five o’clock, and they would catch this six o’clock ―Limited‖ they called it, that would take all the businessmen to Grand Rapids, - a two-hour trip. Every night he’d come back and we’d go down to the loop to meet our parents at seven o’clock. He did this every day because he said that the air down at Lake Michigan was something he just couldn’t miss for a single night. But when we’d go, we’d go for the season; we never dreamed of going back and forth. (End of side one) The trunks came down on the interurban and were loaded on great big trucks with big dray horses and were pulled down the beach. The men carried those trunks up maybe hundred steps and on up into our attic. The trunks didn’t come down again until the first day of school. By that time we were all packed up, and we’d put the blinds on the windows: and we moved to Grand Rapids and we never went back until the following July first. June was considered too cold a month to go down. You know? There were no roads, of course, behind those hills except farmers’ roads. The farmers would come with their vegetables and we youngsters used to go off with the farmer and see his farm. About everything had to be delivered down the beach. Even the ice for the refrigerators came down the beach. Can you imagine finding anybody today that would lug ice up those hundred steps on his back in the hot summer? The groceries came down [the beach too]. I remember one day, it was a very rough day, the boy delivering the groceries and his horse got thirsty. So he (the horse) just went out into the lake and the baskets all floated away. Another thing about our life there was the Fourth of July Celebration. My grandfather would bring down a whole trunk full of fireworks and it would be on the porch of his cottage. We could all go and help ourselves to firecrackers and…. Interviewer: Roman candles? Mrs. Judd: No, no that was at night, the adults ran those. But during the day there were all sorts of things, and once in a while a thumb nail would be blown off and somebody would have to be taken care of. Then at night the adults put on the show with the big fireworks down on the beach. That was a great family affair. Then, of course, my dad had to go to Chicago on business quite often, you know, in those days the customers of the refrigerator factory and the furniture factories, too, were the big department stores all over the country. So, we often had business in Chicago. The Goodrich boat line was running boats between Muskegon and Grand Haven and Milwaukee and Chicago. When dad would go, he’d go on the night boat and we’d all go up to Grand Haven to see him off. Then we’d come down to where the State Park is now. There was a little cement-block building that was the wireless station, which communicated with the boats without any wires. Then we’d go in and we’d send dad a message on the wireless. I suppose this was what preceded the radio. I don’t know how it really worked. �9 Now, let me see, I think I should tell you a little bit about the Carrs, because they’re not too far off from your Heritage Hill business. My grandfather married Emma Carr. They came from New Hampshire. He was a colonel in the Civil War. I had his sword, with Gettysburg and all the battles engraved on it. He went into the lumber business here, in about – well, they came West first in the fifties and grandmother was born in Illinois, and then the war came they went back to New Hampshire, because he was in the New Hampshire militia. I had his book on the practice rules for the New Hampshire militia; I sent it back to the New Hampshire museum. He built a house on the corner of Lyon and Bostwick, where it’s just been torn down for that new Junior College building that’s now about finished, I guess. It was a little New England farm house type of house; you know, in New England, often the oldest son, when he was married, or the oldest daughter would live in the same house with their parents, which was built as a sort of a double house, except for the kitchen. The kitchen would go clear across the back; it would be a common kitchen for both families. Well that’s what that house was like. I can remember, as a child, the family had long left it, but I can remember it as being really a colonial type of house. After that its architecture was ruined by being covered with shingles, with - - what is that stuff they use, it looks like shingles. Interviewer: I know what you mean, I call it funny brick. Mrs. Judd: Yes, and a little store was added to it, Perry’s Interviewer: Yes, or something. Mrs. Judd: Still, it was no longer an attractive house, but this was the house where my grandfather and Emma Carr were married and where my own father was born. My father was Harry Carr Leonard. You know, they first named him Noel Winslow Leonard, Winslow after Mariah, the stepmother and Noel, because he was born on Christmas. For the first two years, they called the little baby Winnie, and finally Mariah said, ―Emma, you cannot bring up a boy called Winnie, you have to change his name.‖ So, they changed it to Harry Carr Leonard. When he went to get a passport, he wasn’t registered anywhere in the state at all. Let me see, my father went to Purdue University because Grandma and Grandpa thought the University of Michigan was too tough a place to send their sixteen year old boy. Interviewer: He was sixteen when he went to college? Mrs. Judd: He was sixteen because, apparently, it wasn’t necessary to go four years to high school; he could get into the university with three years. But, my grandmother was very worried about her little boy, so she took him down to Lafayette, Indiana, and took him to the Baptist minister’s family and asked them to take care of him. The daughter of the family was my mother, and she went to Purdue University. She was one of fifty coeds in a school of about a thousand boys. Needless to say, she had a wonderful time. But when they were married, of course, they came back to Grand Rapids, because my father went into the refrigerator factory. I want to say a word about my mother, if I may; because she was I suppose one of the most loved women in all of Grand Rapids. She was very active in community affairs. She was a charter member of the Women’s University Club, which later became a branch of the American Association of University Women. She was always busy with the Visiting Nurses, which became Community Nursing. I think it’s called now. She was one of three that helped organize the first union of all �10 the social agencies for a single budget job, what we now call the United Fund, and used to be called Community… Interviewer: Community Chest? Mrs. Judd: Community Chest. But, when they started, it Ben Merrick was one of the three and I’ve forgotten the third. This was during the World War when it was so necessary to be more efficient about raising money for these needs. Ben Merrick and Mother called it the Welfare Union at that time. That was a very difficult job. I can remember Mother oh, being so depressed over the controversies and conflicts and jealousies among all the different agencies; each leader wanted their own, you know. Interviewer: I don’t think it’s much different today really. Mrs. Judd: No, well, it was quite an achievement and then, of course, she was very active in Fountain Street church, as all of the family were. I think it’s the sixth or seventh generation now in the Fountain Street Church. The Leonards were always extremely active in it. My Uncle Frank Leonard, Mrs. [Noyes] Avery’s father, was chairman of the Board of Trustees for, oh I don’t know about twenty years or more. When he died my grandfather succeeded him. So, there was a period of forty or fifty years when these men took the leadership in the church; and of course mother was a great supporter of Dad when he was doing that. I can remember in the old church, you know, that burned down in nineteen sixteen or seventeen, the same corner where the church is now – every Thanksgiving, the night before Thanksgiving, we had a big church dinner. I don’t know how the women ever got through. They did all the cooking, the members of the church; we didn’t have any professional cooks in those days. They cooked that great big dinner on Wednesday and had their own family dinners on Thursday. My father always carved all the turkeys for the gang, and his way of carving turkey was neat, and he became quite famous for this. Dad ran down after the furniture factory was sold and went into the public life and became a member of the city commission, you know, he was on it for eight years, and there was a lot of controversy. Let me see, I should tell you something about me? I was born on John Street; that was in a house that my grandfather bought for my father and his wife when they were married. That’s where I was born. Of course, nobody was born in a hospital in those days; they were always born at home. That house has just been torn down in the past year or two. There were twin houses, and there was just a driveway between us and the one to the east of us bordered on the Immen House, which has recently been bought by those architects, up there on the corner: that big white house on the corner of Lafayette and John. The house to the south of us, when I was young, was occupied part of the time by the Charles Garfield family; you know the man who gave his farm for the Garfield park. He was one of Grand Rapids finest man. I don’t know of any leader in the history of Grand Rapids that I can think of who was a finer man than that. His wife was the maid of honor in Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding. John Street was a great place for coasting. You could go up to the top of the hill and, of course, there was very little traffic and you could coast down the hill and cross Barclay Street, down thru an alley next to the St. Cecilia until you got to, what is that street called? Interviewer: Ransom? �11 Mrs. Judd: Let me see. Yes, Ransom. Near the park. Interviewer: That’s quite a ride. Mrs. Judd: That’s quite a ride, yes. One of the stories my mother used to tell was how on my way up to Fountain Street School, I would draw my little sister up on a sled up to the top of the hill and then just give her a shove, and I’d go on to school. She was really rather small to make that trip all by herself. Then, of course, the groceries were delivered in the wintertime in sleighs, because there was always snow on the streets. So, one of our fun things to do was to stand on the sleds of the grocery sleigh, and go all over town with the grocery boy. If you can imagine letting a youngster of that age do it now! I was sent down to the grocery store often by myself when I was four and five years old. It was located where Rood’s China Store is now. I had to cross Fulton street and Jefferson. There were no lights; there were no automobiles; it was a very safe thing to do. We had a big garden back of us and we had three great big apple trees. We always picked the apples and spread them out on the floor in the attic, put newspapers over them, and then we had apples all winter long. We had, in the basement, big potato bins; we’d buy our potatoes in season and use them all winter there. Then we had tremendous big closets in the basement for canned goods and, of course, there was a big job in the fall doing all the canning. The furnace was a coal burning furnace, and I can remember my father getting up in his white night shirt at five o’clock on an icy morning, going downstairs and starting the fire to keep the rest of us warm. We had gas lights, and the mantles. You know what a mantle is? A gas mantle? They were always burning out or breaking – making trouble. I went to the Fountain Street School. This was the building that my father had gone to school in. I can remember once a boy threw a snowball at the wall and you could see the crack from the inside. It was getting that old. That was where the Central High School is now. We had a great big playground – they owned as much land as they do now for Central – and it was all in tall grass and big trees. We played games around the stumps. At the back of the lot there was an old rickety barn, where there were horses, and we’d feed the horses, for fun, during our recess. Then, finally, the Board of Education decided to build a high school there. I was in the fifth grade then. The first thing they did was to build a gymnasium. That was the end of our playground. Then they put the elementary school into the gymnasium and built the classrooms there. So, I had my sixth grade in the gym. For the seventh and eighth grade we went to Central Grammar, which was the old high school, older than the one they’re about to tear down now, which I guess you mostly remember as Strong Junior High. Interviewer: Which building would that be, the one on Barclay? Between Barclay and Ransom? Mrs. Judd: It was on, well this is Central Grammar I’m talking about was on the corner of Barclay and Lyon. It’s vacant land now. Interviewer: Oh, just adjacent to what is the East Building of J.C. Mrs. Judd: That’s right, there was no East building then. It was the old High School. Preliminary to that building was the Stone Building, that’s where my grandmother and grandfather went to high school back in the eighties. This Central Grammar was also a very old building. The principal was Mrs. Goss. I guess I should mention the fact that when school started, or when school was out, the pupils all lined up from their room to march downstairs and out; and in the �12 morning nobody could come into the building until they all lined up and marched into the building. Mrs. Goss would not let us march in rhythm because she said if we got too much rhythm going the building would fall down. I was in the first class to enter the new Central High School as a freshman in nineteen twelve. My grandfather Leonard was a member of the Board of Education; you’ll find his name up there on the plaque, when the building was built. That was a wonderful experience, that high school experience. We had marvelous teachers in those days. They went on, most of them, to become teachers in the Junior College. We had a lunchroom, and we had all our parties in the lunchroom. Of course, the floor was very rough. When a club had a party there, they’d go up Saturday morning and put cornmeal all over the floor and slide all morning long to get the floor so it was good enough to dance on. By this time I was living down on Logan and Morris. There were the most whole lot of wonderful young people who lived up and down Madison. We called it the Madison Avenue crowd. The first one lived near Franklin Street, and then we always walked to school; of course nobody ever dreamed of having to be driven to school. We’d gradually pick up one person after another all the way up Madison until we got to about Washington. And that was the Madison Avenue crowd. Our parties were always in people’s homes. We didn’t have clubs to go to, we did, but it wasn’t the place for young people. Many of the homes had ballrooms, and player pianos for our music, and we had a wonderful time. At Christmas time there were engraved invitations for every single night of the Christmas vacation; come to somebody’s house for a dance. Let’s see. There was a house I wanted to mention next to Central High School. I think of all the houses you people are preserving, this one would have been the most wonderful one to have had. It belonged to the Baars. It was set back in a great big yard with lots of trees. It was a little frame Gothic house with all the lace and pointed roofs. It was really darling place. It’s too bad that it disappeared. Interviewer: I wonder if I could ask you a question right now. You mentioned that your husband lived on the West side of Grand Rapids, and you lived on the East side of Grand Rapids, and your family, obviously, a very substantial family. How did you and your husband meet? Mrs. Judd: Union High school was only three year high school and all of their students had to come to Central for their senior year. Now you must know that some of Grand Rapids most prominent families lived on the West side in those days, the Tuttles, and the Baldwins. Oh, Siegel can tell you a large number of them. When he was a senior his family moved over here to be closer to the school, and that’s where I met him – was in high school. He went to Dartmouth and I went to Vassar; and then he went on to the First World War. He was in Dartmouth in the war, and he enlisted in the Navy and went on to Annapolis and got his commission in the regular Navy from Annapolis training, then came back here and went to law school. In those days, nobody married until they were able to support a wife, and so I had to wait about two years for him to finish law school and get a job before he would marry. This was pretty tough. I finally got a job myself. I taught at Central High. Oh, I wanted to mention this thing about Central High School, too. I taught there for four years, from nineteen twenty-one to twenty-five. During that time, of course, when I was in high school they played football out here at Ramona. But during that time that I taught, the board bought Houseman Field. It was very wet, and there was no money to drain it, so the students decided to do it. The boys were organized, of course they had the engineering guidance, but they were organized to dig the trenches back and forth across the field and lay the tile, and fill it in. this was all done in one Saturday. The girls organized to get the lunch and bring it and serve it. I organized the girls for this so every time I drive by Houseman Field, I have a sense of pride about Houseman Field. There was something else about �13 high school. Ramona meant a great deal to us. It’s not in your Heritage Hill district, but it was a great amusement park. The route out there was through the woods. You see, it was way out of town. It belonged to the streetcar company; of course, we helped them make that business. They had summer cars that didn’t have any walls on the sides and the seats went clear across and the conductor collected the fares (of course they had both the motor man and the conductor) by walking along that step along the edge it. On a hot summer day, before we had the cottage, mother would take us and we’d get on that streetcar, and we’d ride out to Ramona. Then we’d stay on it and it would go back downtown and ride out to North Park. We would get some ice cream there and then come home; that was our summer outing. The outdoor theatre at Ramona had the best Keith Vaudeville that there was in the country. It was just a dandy place to go for the summer evenings. Then there was the O-Wash-Ta-Nong Club. Did you ever hear of that? Oh, that was a beautiful clubhouse, built right over the edge of the water. It was a three-storied building with a beautiful ballroom that looked out over the water, and a balcony, and underneath it were the canoes. You could go there and have a canoe ride or you could have a beautiful dance. During the war I can remember many dances out there for the boys in uniform. It was a lovely place, it burned down. Mr. Hanchett – did you ever hear of the Philipine band? Mr. Hanchett was the head of the streetcar company. His house is one of your houses for preservation, on College, the red stone house just north of Cherry Street. Interviewer: Right next to the Voigt house, isn’t it? Mrs. Judd: Yes, just to the south of the Voigt house. He brought a Filipino band to Grand Rapids and it stayed about a year, I think. He would put them on his streetcar that would go out to Ramona. They would be playing out there, you see. This attracted a great deal of business to Ramona. Then later the Hanchetts moved and bought the house where the Bissells live now, across from the hospital on the corner of Wealthy and Plymouth. They built a big ballroom on the back of it, and there were many dances there with the Filipino Band. We had a very happy life as young people. We used to have to have chaperones in the automobiles that drove us to the party, but I don’t think that really hampered us very much. Interviewer: I’d like to ask you a question right now; it’s a question I asked everybody that grew up during that period of time. What do you think Mrs. Judd, thinking back, what was it that ended that era? Mrs. Judd: Oh, I think the automobile more than anything else. In the first place, it ruined the streetcar business, and the interurban business. My father was on the city commission and the one who insisted that the streetcar tracks be removed from Monroe Street and the street be repaved clear across so it would be good pavement. Many cities simply paved on either side and left the streetcar tracks. Now, that was nineteen thirty -(?) it was during the depression, I guess it was one way of giving more employment-thirty-four or thirty-five along on there. Interviewer: You’d say it was the automobile more than anything. Mrs. Judd: Oh, I think so. It made life go faster, it made people get off their feet and sit on their fannies, [and] this I think, prevented lot of camaraderie that we used to have as a group when we went back and forth to school, to say nothing of what it did to our physiques. Well, I suppose the movies really destroyed the amusement park, although it wore out. The roller coaster was going �14 to kill somebody if they didn’t take it down. Maybe people just got too sophisticated for that kind of amusement. It did kill the vaudeville circuit. The first movie I ever went to was on Monroe Street, just about where Goebel and Brown’s store is now. It was called the Monroe Vaudette. It was five cents and there was an organ; and that’s where I saw Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, but never with my mother’s permission. Oh, she didn’t believe in it; I had to sneak in and not tell her. But Grand Rapids was a city that had the best Broadway theatre in those days. I saw all the leading Shakespearean actors. All the operettas came. You talk to Siegel about operetta; he was crazy about operetta and music, of course. He used to go to all of them and sit in the top gallery, which they called then something I won’t mention. Maude Adams, Billie Burke, all the people right off the Broadway companies stopped here. Now, the reason, I think, was the furniture industry and the markets. I’m going to leave that for Siegel to tell you because he can make a very interesting story about it. Interviewer: Well, I think we’ve covered everything that I wanted to cover, and you certainly were well prepared. Mrs. Judd: Well, I tell you, I’ve been in the process of trying to write a story about my grandfather, for the family. There’s a lot of research necessary, the kind of research I wish you people had done on the Heritage House houses. I know where the buildings were that my grandfather built, so to find out when they were built and what became of them afterwards, I started out in the city hall in the Assessor’s office, where you have to look up things by address. I got the history of assessment of that particular property; you can sometimes tell by the, say, quick jump in the assessment that’s there’s been a new building or something put there. Then, to find out who the owners were, you take the numbers off the assessment that each property has and then you go over to Michigan Trust Building, where the abstract company is. With that number they will give you the abstract from the beginning. The first properties that my grandfather built on were in the village of Grand Rapids – or village of Kent, I’ve forgotten, I mean it dates back that far – and then you can pursue the ownership of that piece of property that way. I don’t know whether you know I was on that little committee that went over all the history of the houses to determine which ones were historically worth preserving. I noticed that one was listed as the Wagemaker house on Lyon Street. Now, that really is the Idema house. If you want the history of that house, you could go to Chester Idema or Walter Idema. Interviewer: He’s one of the fellows that I’m going to be interviewing next week. Mrs. Judd: Is he? Well, you get him. I asked him about it quite recently because I was perturbed that the name of it was Wagemaker, when really the Idemas, you know were the heads of the bank and one of the biggest families. Their house on the corner of College and Washington, north of the Voigts, was the later house. But that’s something that really ought to go in your Heritage Hill area. Interviewer: OK. �15 INDEX A Avery, Mrs. Noyes · 6, 8, 11 B Baldwin Family · 13 Bedeaux, Charles · 6, 7 Bedeaux, Fern Lombard · 6 C Central Grammar School · 12, 13 Central High School · 12, 13, 14 Community Chest · 11 D Dartmouth · 13 F Fountain Street Church · 5, 11 Frigidaire · 3, 4 G Goss, Mrs. · 13 H H. Leonard and Sons · 5, 6 Hanchett, Mr. · 14 Harvey Family · 8 Leonard, Emma Carr (Grandmother) · 7, 8, 9, 10, 13 Leonard, Harry Carr (Father) · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15 Leonard, Heman (Great-Grandfather) · 4, 5 Leonard, Mariah Winslow · 4 Leonard, Willie Thomas Stansbury (Mother) · 1, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 M Martin, John · 2 McKee Family · 8 Meade, Richard Mrs. · 2 O O-Wash-Ta-Nong Club · 14 P Purdue University · 10 R Ramona Park · 14 Reed’s Lake · 2 S Simpson, Mrs. · 7 T Tuttle Family · 13 U I University of Michigan · 10 Idema Family · 16 V J Judd, Siegel (Husband) · 1, 5, 13, 15 Vassar College · 7 Visiting Nurses · 10 K W Kelvinator · 3, 4 L Leonard, Charles H. (Grandfather) · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15 Wagemaker Family · 15, 16 Whittier Family · 8 Women’s University Club · 10 �16 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/44402fc843dc870171fd2f87949c3eee.mp3 6a77bde69b7f8311662638b93752a15a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_13Judd Title A name given to the resource Judd, Dorothy Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Judd, Dorothy Description An account of the resource Dorothy Leonard was born in 1898 in Grand Rapids. She studied economics and political science at Vassar College and had an interest in city government. Her grandfather, Charles H. Leonard, was the inventor of the refrigerator. Mrs. Judd was the keeper of her grandfather's patents. She married Siegel Judd in 1922. She died in 1989. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/678291c7b699fc81fda5a8b114937cc1.pdf 65e851c87d0ed04cafcd008eb32a0de6 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collection Kent County Oral History Project RHC-23 Mrs. George Whinery (Katherine M. Pantlind) Interviewed on September 16, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape 12 (23:50) Biographical Information: Mrs. Whinery was Katherine M. Pantlind, born 28 January 1910 in Kent County, daughter of Frederick Z. Pantlind and Hilda W. Hummer. Katherine was married in 1931 to George A. Whinery, Sr. She died 29 December 1998 and is buried in the Pantlind family plot at Oak Hill Cemetery. George A. Whinery was born 11 January 1902 in Grand Rapids, the son of Joseph B. and Fannie Whinery. He died 9 July 1992 in Grand Rapids at the age of 90. Katherine‟s father, Frederick Zachary Pantlind was born 26 July 1886 in Grand Rapids, the son of J. Boyd and Jessie L. (Aldrich) Pantlind. He married Hilda W. Hummer in 1906. Frederick died 15 November 1929 in Grand Rapids. Hilda, born 22 January 1886 in Holland, Michigan, the daughter of George P. and Margaret (Plugger) Hummer. After Frederick‟s death, Hilda married as her second husband, Mr. A. Chester Benson about 1932 and she died 31 July 1964. ___________ Interviewer: Mrs. Whinery, you‟re involved in the Shakespeariana Club and as I understand it, that club has had a long history in Grand Rapids. Could you tell me something about the history of the club, the background? Mrs. Whinery: Well, it was founded way back in April twenty third, eighteen eighty-seven, by a group of ladies interested in the study of Shakespeare, and it was founded by Loraine Pratt Immen and it has been meeting ever since eighteen eighty-seven, yes. Two, twice a month, the second and fourth Wednesdays, and we‟d study two books a year, a history in the fall, and a comedy in the spring. For quite a few years, a group of us have gone up to the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario every summer to see the Shakespeare plays, which is most enjoyable. Turn it off Bob; I‟m nervous as a wet hen. Interviewer: Ok, perhaps…. Mrs. Whinery: A paper is written at each meeting by our members and at the Grand Rapids Public Library on the second floor, outside of the Michigan Room, there is a very handsome carved Shakespearean chest which was given in memory of one of our members. In that the papers are put, the good papers, the well-written papers; and that is our Shakespeare corner. There is a carved wooden hanging, piece above it where Shakespeariana momentums, have been put and that is the Shakespeare corner at the library. �2 Interviewer: The club‟s been in existence since eighteen eighty-seven. Why was the club formed, do you think? Mrs. Whinery: Well, because women are interested in Shakespeare. He‟s been with us for over four hundred years and he grows. Interviewer: Are clubs like this being formed today though? Mrs. Whinery: Well, there is a Shakespeare group connected with the Ladies Literary Club, that is think is still in existence, it isn‟t as old as Shakespeariana, but they have the same purpose, I‟m sure. Interviewer: Well, the thing I‟m getting at is that I saw, this kind of society bluebook that was put out for Grand Rapids. I don‟t know if you‟ve ever seen one, but it was put out around the turn of the century sometime, or maybe even in the eighteen nineties. It listed in there, clubs and organizations and I think, Miss [Josephine] Bender told me there were like seven or eight still in existence, that there was a list of about twenty; and it seems during that period of time, in the history of Grand Rapids, up to some unknown date, people organized clubs, they got involved in clubs. And it was a real tool of keeping people together, interacting. Mrs. Whinery: Well, this is the day of wheels and I think everyone‟s busy going places, instead of staying home and studying and reading and learning, I really do, I think everyone‟s on the go. Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Whinery: And we used to do so much more in our homes, we had, these are after we read and study and have our papers we have tea; that makes for a very nice social hour. But I just don‟t think, I think people play bridge today and as I say, go Interviewer: Has, in this club in particular, has the membership been increasing or decreasing? Mrs. Whinery: It stays the just about the same, you have to be invited to be a member, you have to be interested in Shakespeare and willing to write a paper every other year, we have about forty members and we keep it that size if it got any larger we couldn„t meet in the homes. Interviewer: Yes. Where did you grow up as a child? Mrs. Whinery: Oh, in Grand Rapids Interviewer: Where abouts in Grand Rapids? Mrs. Whinery: Well, down on Lafayette as a child; I lived on the corner of Lafayette and Wealthy and then I lived on Washington Street for a good many years, and then I lived with my grandmother on College. Interviewer: Yes, what was the, what was it like living down there? �3 Mrs. Whinery: Oh, it was great, that Washington Avenue gang, there were, by actual count, fifty some within that block and we had such good times. A lot of them are still my dearest friends, the ones I grew up with. That‟s what‟s nice about living in a city the size of Grand Rapids, because you keep your old friends; they‟re your best friends. Interviewer: Yes, was there a good deal of interaction not only among the children but among the adults, the parents? Mrs. Whinery: Oh, yes, they all were friends and went together, and had their dinner parties. Everyone had their swings and their playgrounds in the backyard, they didn‟t have the school playgrounds that we have today and we had, I know Mary Lockwood had a great big playhouse that her father, who‟s in the lumber business had built for her in the backyard and we just had the best times together. Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Whinery: Sliding down Mrs. Waters‟ hill and sliding down Washington Street and we had a pony and a pony cart, and the Peck girls had a pony and a pony cart and we all lived on Washington Street. Interviewer: Where did everybody keep their ponies, their animals? Mrs. Whinery: Well, Grandpa had a farm, a gentleman farm, there were Dudley Waters and Ben Hanchett and John Martin and my grandfather, J. Boyd Pantlind all had gentlemen farms; show farms. Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Whinery: And, we used to have a great time out there. Interviewer: Where was your grandfather‟s farm? Mrs. Whinery: It‟s now, grandmother, after grandfather died, grandmother sold it to the city and its now Woodlawn Cemetery on Kalamazoo. He had three or four hundred acres on both sides of Kalamazoo Avenue and the Catholic cemetery is on one side and the Protestant cemetery is on the other. Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Whinery: They just tore the little white house where the caretaker, the manager of the farm lived, and for a long time that was the cemetery office, but they tore it down a few years ago and built a modern brick building on the east side of Kalamazoo now for the offices. Interviewer: Your grandfather, did he run the Morton House or the Pantlind Hotel? �4 Mrs. Whinery: Both, he had the Morton first and then he bought the old Sweets Hotel, which he renamed the Pantlind Hotel and then that was torn down and he built the Pantlind Hotel. Interviewer: Yes. When was that? When was the Pantlind built? Mrs. Whinery: About nineteen seventeen, I would say, but I couldn‟t be too sure. Interviewer: Yes, I heard that your grandfather, what kind of guy was he? Mrs. Whinery: Oh, he was jolliest, kindest, most fun person in the world; he was not very tall, kind of round, immaculate dresser, and he was Scotch and he had a marvelous sense of humor. He could tell a story in every dialect and he just was naturally funny. And everybody loved him, he was known throughout the country. Interviewer: I heard that when the Powers‟ Theatre was going, and they used to bring a lot of the shows to Grand Rapids and so on that your grandfather was one of the ones chiefly responsible for it, only because the actors loved to come and stay at the Pantlind . Mrs. Whinery: I think they probably did. Grandmother had the greatest collection of signed autographed pictures of all the old actors and actresses, musicians and famous people that came and stayed with grandfather at the hotel and she gave that collection to the Civic Theatre, but it has long since disappeared. Interviewer: It has disappeared? Mrs. Whinery: …..any idea of where it is. Interviewer: No? Mrs. Whinery: Today, the Civic Theatre has made so many moves. Interviewer: Where was the Civic Theatre originally? How long has the Civic Theatre been in existence? Mrs. Whinery: Well, I can remember it when it was in an old building over on, over on of course, it‟s back on the West side now, but this was near the river, it had an old pot bellied stove. You should ask Josephine Bender about this because she‟s the authority on the Civic Theatre. I‟m hoping that before too long it will have a fitting permanent home. Interviewer: Is that the one they‟re talking about on the river? Mrs. Whinery: Yes, I hope so. Interviewer: Yes. �5 Mrs. Whinery: Going to take lots of money that‟s always the difficulty, but, I hope it will come, it should come. Interviewer: Was your family members of Kent Country Club? Mrs. Whinery: Yes and that‟s one of the stories that Katherine Lockwood wanted to tell you because she was a little girl on her white pony Rose when she and Grandfather Pantlind and, I‟ve forgotten what, it was Mr. Lowe or Mr. Blodgett and two or three other men were looking for a new location for Kent Country Club; and they all rode all out in the north end where country, where Kent is now located, looking at that area for a country club. And that‟s one of the stories she wanted to tell you. Interviewer: I never knew that Kent originally was located right down on the corner… Mrs. Whinery: Right here, my house is sitting on the one of the, oh what… Interviewer: Greens? Mrs. Whinery: Greens, yes a creek ran right through here and this was.... Interviewer: Yes Mrs. Whinery: But Grandfather was one of the founders of Kent at least where it is now, I don‟t know how far back that goes either. Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Whinery: But a long, long time… Interviewer: Are you a member of the Ladies Literary Club? Mrs. Whinery: No, Bob, I‟ve never been. Interviewer: How about the Women‟s City Club? Mrs. Whinery: Yes, I‟m a member of the Women‟s City Club. Interviewer: How long has that been around? Mrs. Whinery: Been on the board, well. (Turn it off!) Interviewer: Ok. Could you tell me the story you were just telling me where your family‟s homestead was? Mrs. Whinery: Well, my great, great grandfather William B. Ledyard lived in a charming white house that was torn down, on the corner of Cherry and Union. In fact, his property ran from College to Union along Cherry, and half a block back. That house was torn down to build the �6 Oakwood Manor Apartments. Their daughter Euphrasia Ledyard married Moses. B. Aldrich, an early mayor in Grand Rapids. They gave them their side yard, which was on the corner of Cherry and College to build a home; they built a large brick residence with a large brick barn. People thought they were crazy to build a townhouse in the country, as they said at that time, and from the cupola on the top you could see Grand River and all of the valley. Their daughter, Jessie Aldrich married James Boyd Pantlind. They were my grandparents and they were given the side yard to build their home on. I lived with my Grandmother for a good many years, and maintained the home after her death. My children were the sixth generation to live on that one piece of property, which belonged to my great, great grandfather William B. Ledyard. Interviewer: Where, now you have a piece of property, and the family begins there and as the children grow and marry, they build houses on the property until finally you have six generations of family living on the same plot of ground. Why do you think, I mean, what has happened? In some of the interviews that I‟ve had people talk about family and how closely knit their families were. Now why isn‟t that, why isn‟t it that way today? Do you think? What‟s changed? What happened? Mrs. Whinery: Well, I lay it all to wheels again, I think everybody is on the go; they don‟t want to stay home. Every kid wants to get their hands on the wheel of a car and take off; and I don‟t know, I loved my grandmother and had had great respect and admiration for her. I was close to my father and my mother and I just don‟t know why it is, although my children are satisfactory. They, I hope love and respect me. Interviewer: Yes. Mrs. Whinery: I‟ve never had any trouble with my children; they‟ve given me nothing but joy and happiness. We haven‟t had that problem, Bob. Interviewer: You‟re very lucky that… Mrs. Whinery: I know I‟m lucky. Interviewer: That‟s, that‟s I know I‟ve asked this question of everybody, what it was that they think changed, ended that era? Mrs. Whinery: Well, I think it‟s too much permissiveness, I‟ve, I‟ve, my mother was strict with us…. I think you get out of your children just what you expect from them, and what you put into them. Interviewer: Yes, was the, do you think that when you were a child growing up, do you think there was a society, a definite society in Grand Rapids? Mrs. Whinery: Oh yes, there was, certainly there was a society. Interviewer: What was it based on, do you think? Entrance into that society? �7 Mrs. Whinery: Well….. Interviewer: And is it different from than the day? Mrs. Whinery: Oh, there isn‟t any society today. Interviewer: Why not? Mrs. Whinery: Well, it‟s just wanting to bring everybody down to the same level, I suppose. Don‟t get me started on this subject because I feel very strongly about it. I don‟t think things are improving at all. When I was a little girl we were satisfied with so little, we played with our animals and our pets, and I used to catch pollywogs, and frogs and snakes and I‟ve, I just, we didn‟t have to be entertained every single minute. Seems to me my grandchildren are glued before the boob tube all the time, or they want to be taken to the pool to swim or they want to go to see a movie, or they want this, or they want that; I don‟t remember that we required entertaining every single minute. I used to read all the time. I don‟t think children read the way we used to. I gave my Little Colonel storybooks, which I loved as a child to my granddaughter the other day and I don‟t think she‟s looked at them. Interviewer: Yes. What was society based on in those days, entrance into society? Was it just money? Mrs. Whinery: No. I think it was the same interests, the same educational background, your neighborhood you lived in; I wasn‟t conscious of one person having more money than the other. They used to do a lot of calling on one another and people had ballrooms on their third floor. Grandmother had a ballroom and they used to have their parties up there and it, I just think everyone had more fun and in a more wholesome way then they have today. They didn‟t feel they had to have their cocktail parties and… Interviewer: Was there liquor served at their parties? Mrs. Whinery: Well, of course I grew up in the prohibition era, and we didn‟t serve liquor at our house; and I know the Whinerys didn‟t. Interviewer: Yes. If you had to set a date or a particular event as perhaps being a thing that began the demise of that era, and that style of living, what would it be? Mrs. Whinery: Well, I think it‟s been since the Depression. Interviewer: Did the Depression affect your family? Mrs. Whinery: Well, I can remember doing with very little when George and I were first married. We were married in nineteen thirty-one and I had a very small budget to get along on. We had one car and we kept it a good long time. I can remember going along and looking down and being able to see right through the floorboard at the road underneath. And you know, I think �8 maybe it was all for the best. I think young people today, things are too easy, it never occurred to George and me with four children that we could get a divorce and that he could afford to get married again and keep another family. We were married, we had responsibilities and we had to get along. And now it‟s just so easy…if you don‟t feel like getting along, go ahead, get a divorce. Interviewer: There wasn‟t very much divorce? Mrs. Whinery: No. And now when my children, my son Fredrick, of course he‟s an M.D. and those are people that he associates and knows, he looked me right in the face last spring and said “Mom, I don‟t know any happy marriages” and I looked right back at him and I was horrified and I said “Fred, that makes me so damn mad. Your dad and I have been so happy and you go.” He said “I don‟t mean you, Mom” and he said “I was talking about my friends” And when Marney [MacAdam] says to me "Mother, I don‟t know any happy marriages, all my friends are having affairs or are unhappy”. I can‟t understand it. I don‟t like this age. Interviewer: Well, I think that‟s good, it‟s a good place to stop. INDEX Ledyard, William B. (Great-Great-Grandfather) · 6 B Bender, Josephine · 2, 4 P Civic Theatre · 4 Pantlind Hotel · 4 Pantlind, Hilda W. Hummer (Mother) · 6, 7 Pantlind, James Boyd (Grandfather) · 3, 4 Pantlind, Jessie Louise Aldrich (Grandmother) · 2, 3, 6 I S Immen, Loraine Pratt · 1 Shakespeariana Club · 1 K T Kent Country Club · 5 The Depression · 8 L W Ladies Literary Club · 2, 5 Women‟s City Club · 5 C � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ce3e950f14725ee3425b2ed741f92f43.mp3 f543ad30e141383bfd31b91478350d11 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_12Whinery Title A name given to the resource Whinery, Katherine Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Whinery, Katherine Description An account of the resource Katherine Pantlind was the granddaughter of J. Boyd Pantlind, founder of the Pantlind Hotel. She married George Whinery in 1931. She is a prominent member of the Kent County G.O.P. Mrs. Whinery died December 29, 1998. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 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 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_1-2Bender Title A name given to the resource Bender, Josephine Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bender, Josephine Description An account of the resource 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. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/18c365546a932e069d6a5ab3e13666b3.pdf d7b3db4290006fea9fb15690ae91823a PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Miss Mabel Perkins Interviewed on September 16, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape #11 (45:50) Biographical Information Mabel Helen Perkins was born 26 July 1880, daughter of Cyrus Edwin and Della A. (Foote) Perkins. Mabel died November 1974. Cyrus E. Perkins was born 9 October 1847 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of Cyrus E. and Lydia M. (Birney) Perkins. He died 23 May 1918 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. Della Antoinette Foote was born 24 Aug 1848 in Olcott, Niagara County, New York to Elijah and Olivia (Luce) Foote. Della died in Grand Rapids in 1936. She and Cyrus had been married 20 September 1876 in Kent County, Michigan. ___________ Interviewer: Miss Perkins, you’ve lived here all your life, and it’s more than ninety years now, what did your father do, where did your father come from? Miss. Perkins: Oh, my father came from the east, Massachusetts, directly from Boston, but he was only nine years old when he came here with his family. They came over, on the train as far as Jackson and then over corduroy road into Grand Rapids. Interviewer: A corduroy road? Miss Perkins: Yes. Interviewer: What is a corduroy road? Miss Perkins: A corduroy road is, is logged, they’re logs laid side by side, dirt put over the top. Interviewer: Why did your father’s family come to Grand Rapids, what brought them here? Miss Perkins: Oh, because they were having a hard time making a living off their stony farms in Maine and Connecticut and they came out here to get their farming land. My grandfather however wasn’t a farmer, he never farmed, he worked in the city. I don’t know what he did. Interviewer: What did your father do… what kind of business? Miss Perkins: My father, well, he studied law here with one of the lawyers in Grand Rapids, Judge Harlan, I remember, and then he was a lawyer, and for his first, he became judge of probate when he was just a young man, before he was married. And he was judge of probate for many years here. �2 Interviewer: Where did you grow up as a child? Miss Perkins: Here in Grand Rapids, oh, in Boston up to nine. He was nine years old when he left. Interviewer: Oh, I see. Where did you grow up as a child? Miss Perkins: I? Interviewer: Yes, what part of the city? Miss Perkins: I? Interviewer: Yes. Miss Perkins: You were talking about me? Interviewer: Yes. Miss Perkins: Why, I grew up right on Washington Street, that’s where I was born in the house on [327] Washington Street. Interviewer: I used to live next door to you, I don’t know if you remember that, I used to have a red sports car, and I’d be out polishing my car, I remember you used to come outside, and just look at the car, and it always seemed to me there was a gleam in your eye when you looked at that red sports car. Miss Perkins: I don’t remember, no. I don’t hear awfully well, you better talk a little louder. Interviewer: Alright, what was it like living on Washington Street, what was it like living there as a child? Miss Perkins: Very pleasant, it was a very quiet, charming street then, beautifully shaded in trees, just convenient to Downing[?] Street, you see, wonderful neighborhood and everything was very pleasant. School, Fountain Street School. I always walked to school. Wasn’t so dangerous crossing Fulton in those days. We used to slide down Fulton, as a matter of fact. Interviewer: During the wintertime? Miss Perkins: Yes, during the winter. It was just, we generally started it then, Prospect Street, went down to Jefferson Avenue. It’s good, steep hill. Interviewer: Yes. Miss Perkins: But the favorite hill of the town was Washington Street. They use to come from all over the city, big boys with great big bobs, and slide down Washington Street hill, because �3 there wasn’t so much traffic crossing it, you see, and this, had the, it sanded just before it got to Jefferson Avenue. Interviewer: Oh, I see. Miss Perkins: Jefferson Avenue was a big street in those days. We used to have horse races every Sunday, did I tell you that when you were here before? Interviewer: No. Miss Perkins: Every Sunday they had horse races during the winter on Jefferson Ave. Cutting, the horses drawing their cutters, you know. My father used to take me down and we’d stand, on the sidelines and the watch men go by. Oh, it was such fun. Just one horse and a cutter, you know. And they always had foxtails on their ropes, and the foxtails all floated out behind. I thought it was wonderful. Quite a sight. Interviewer: Did your father ever race any horses himself? Miss Perkins: Oh no, no, father didn’t but he was very much interested. My father lived on Jefferson Avenue as a boy, before he was married. Interviewer: Where abouts on Jefferson? Miss Perkins: Oh, the house has been gone for a long, long time. It was a red brick house that sat way back from the street, I remember. And it had chickens, everybody had chickens or cows or things around town then. I’d wake up in the morning and hear the cows mooing, and I just loved it. Interviewer: Was Jefferson Avenue quite a residential area at one time? Miss Perkins: Oh, yes, that was one of the main residential areas; the rich, richest people in town lived on it. Jefferson Avenue. Interviewer: That would be on Jefferson, approximately where those stores all are now, yes? Miss Perkins: It would be beginning for about Island Street, I remember, the big house. There were two big houses on each corner. They don’t call it Island Street now, Weston. Interviewer: Yes. Miss Perkins: Is it Weston? Interviewer: Yes. Miss Perkins: Two big houses on either side and then the big houses stretched on down towards Wealthy. �4 Interviewer: Well, that was, when you were growing up that was the days before the automobile? Miss Perkins: Oh, heavens, hadn’t even dreamed of an automobile. It was the days before bicycles, the bicycles came in. And the, Washington Street was one of the first streets paved in the city. They paved State Street, they put up cedar blocks on State Street, that was the first pavement, they tried out the cedar blocks. And on Washington Street they tried out asphalt. And so asphalt, it was the first pavement in front of our house. And oh, how we used to love to ride our bicycles on that. We had bicycles by the time that was down. The whole, everybody and anywhere in the neighborhood, oh anywhere in that quarter of the city, came to ride their bicycles on that pavement. Interviewer: Must have been pretty crowded at times. Miss Perkins: Oh, we had a lot of fun. Interviewer: Did people used to go up and down your street in horse and carriages and things like that? Miss Perkins: Oh, surely, surely. There was a young girl living across the street from me that knew all about horses. I didn’t, I was afraid of horses, but we’d sit on the porch, on the stoop, as we used to call it, and she would blindfold her eyes and then she would tell what horse was coming up the street, and who the coachman was. And who was driving, and all about, “Here comes Mr. Fuller” she’d say, with his foot hanging out the side, as usual and old Molly on ahead. Molly was… she knew the names of the horses. Interviewer: How did she tell who the horses were, and so on? Miss Perkins: Oh, she knew it, she could tell by the fall of the, that ole horse had a particular gait, you know. She knew that old klop, klop klop….. and, she would, she would on, she knew Mr., Knot.(?), lived on the top of the street, you know, and he’d be coming along with his blacks, he had a wonderful pair of black horses, always with coachman driving, she knew that, and Mr. [Samuel] Jenks, who lived on the corner, he had, he had bays, she knew them. She could tell by the gait of the horse. Interviewer: Who are some of your neighbors in those days? Miss Perkins: Who were some of the neighbors? Interviewer: Yes. Who lived along Washington Street and up on College and so on? Miss Perkins: Well, it was Judge [Loyal E] Knappen. That lived right across the street, and then later it was Mr. Wylie, the bank president, and Mr. [Edward] Fitzgerald lived across the street on the corner. He was also a banker, and went to California later, the whole family went to California, after his death, so we don’t recognize that name in Grand Rapids anymore, but it was a very prominent family. Mr. [Edmund D.] Barry had a house next door, that house is still there, �5 well, both those houses are. And, he was a son-in-law of the banker. And then the Knappen’s. I don’t remember who lived right across from me, when I was a little girl it was a man named Donnelly, but he was the only Democrat on the street. And when Cleveland was elected and the Republicans were just defeated from one end to the other, there wasn’t a Republican elected, oh, Mr. Donnelly was right in his…element. I remember him calling upon by father, you see, who was running for Judge of Probate, and that was the only time that he was defeated. Interviewer: I wonder why, why was that, why did the Democrats sweep everything that year? Miss Perkins: I’ve forgotten, of course I was just a little girl, I’ve forgotten the ins and outs, but there was an absolute clean sweep. Not a Republican was elected. And, of course, this was a Republican state. But, there was a man, there was a well, I won’t say anything about it, because they have relatives in Grand Rapids, but this man was also a neighbor, lived around on Lafayette Street was elected, and then, the end of the first year he skipped with a lady and all the money that was in the office. So then they had a Democratic governor, but everybody in Grand Rapids got up an enormous petition, every, everybody, Republicans, Democrats, everybody signed and sent it down to the Democratic governor to have father reappointed Judge of Probate, and the Democratic governor appointed him Judge of Probate. So he got his old office back, and that was his only defeat. Interviewer: Was the Waters’ estate built then? Miss Perkins: Oh, yes, oh, the Waters’ estate I don’t know when that was built, but that was built long before I was born. Interviewer: What was it like up there? Did you ever go up there and play as a child? Miss Perkins: Oh yes, did I tell you about the time I ran away with the little boy across the street? Interviewer: No. Miss Perkins: We dragged our sleds up there, it was in the middle of summer, but we wanted to go sliding on those hills, so we dragged our sleds up there, and we were so surprised, oh, it was a perfectly charming place then. It was a little rustic bridge that crossed a little ravine and, you went over the little rustic bridge and, there was a perfectly charming little summerhouse, with lattice windows all around it and it had iron French furniture on the porch. Thought it was wonderful, just simply wonderful. And , but finally we had to go home, and when we were going home the cook in the big Waters house saw us going by and knew that we were little runaways and she called to us and said, “Children, would you like a little bit of ice cream?” Well, you can imagine…And so we went up there and she took a trap door up from the back porch and way down in the coolness of the underneath the porch in the, in the, well there was a sort of a well �6 there, she pulled out this ice cream and gave it to us, each a dish. It was wonderful. But my mother didn’t like it at all, and I got a severe scolding when I got home. Interviewer: For running away or eating ice cream? Miss Perkins: For running away… Interviewer: Oh. Miss Perkins: For running away… Should never have done it. She looked for me and she didn’t know where to find me, and it frightened her, of course. Interviewer: Was there, were there houses, was Gay Street built at that time? Did Gay Street run between Washington and Fulton? Miss Perkins: No, no, that was an apple orchard. You see, that property on Fulton Street was the Campau property, and Mr. Campau had intended, in fact he did build a big house there, but before he finished that house his bank failed, the River, Grand River Bank, it failed. And he felt so terribly about it, that he stopped all the building of the house, he never moved in and he lived in his little house where he was living at that time and gradually paid off everybody that had invested in his bank. Interviewer: Is that right? Miss Perkins: Yes. Interviewer: He must have been quite a man. Miss Perkins: He was, but we used to love to go in the, this was, it was all empty, great big staircase running up, and on the top was a cupola, you know, one of those lookout places and we used to go up there, we loved to go up there, it was so romantic, and the whole, the whole cupola was painted with the Grand River Valley Bank Notes. Never been used, you know, they weren’t even cut up. They were all together in a block, and he painted the cupola with those old worthless bank notes. Interviewer: When did that Campau house come down? The house that’s built on the property? Miss Perkins: Well, I don’t know, that’s very recently. Interviewer: Is it? Miss Perkins: Yes. Interviewer: What a… Miss Perkins: Very recently, I suppose, must have been twenty [or] thirty years ago. �7 Interviewer: The Gay, people, furniture company, built that big green house? Miss Perkins: Yes. Interviewer: That stands on their property now? Miss Perkins: They did, and that, I was going to say about the orchard, the orchards sloped down from this Campau house, that was Campau property. That whole section is the Campau addition, that’s the way it’s, it’s on the city books. And my brother and Arthur Vandenberg used to play in that orchard a great deal. It was wonderful to have that for a playground for boys, and they built cabins there and had caves, they had a wonderful time. They had a cave, that was their first project, they made a cave and my mother was worried about that she had my father go up and look at it to see if it was safe for the boys. My father said no, they couldn’t play there. So they must build a cabin on top of the ground. So they did. Interviewer: In your neighborhood when you were growing up, did people have a lot of activities together? Miss Perkins: No, as a neighborhood, no, not especially, no they didn’t. Interviewer: Did people spend much time on, their porches? Miss Perkins: Oh, yes, everybody sat on their front porch and did embroidery. Interviewer: Did embroidery? Miss Perkins: It was embroidery rather than knitting, everybody was doing embroidery in my childhood days. Interviewer: Was that a peaceful time, was that a peaceful day? Miss Perkins: I didn’t hear you. Interviewer: That period of time, was it, was it more peaceful than it is today, do you think? Miss Perkins: No, I don’t think there were more people. Interviewer: No, peaceful, peaceful? Miss Perkins: Peaceful? Interviewer: Yes. Miss Perkins: I get you. You were always extremely peaceful, you couldn’t have asked for anything more peaceful. It was just quiet as could be and every morning the, the man came around with his wagon all full of vegetables you know, and you went out and bought your vegetables, your fresh vegetables. Milkman came around first thing in the morning. Oh, it was �8 peace itself… Cocks were crowing. You could hear crows cawing in the winter. It was much, much more like a village and less like a big city. However, it was always, always a considerable size, but I mean people did have room to have their own cows. Now, for instance, where I am, where we are now there was always a cow there behind the Ledyard property, we’re on the Ledyard property now. And, Mr. and, well it was Katherine Lockwood’s grandfather that lived next door, can’t think of his name now. Interviewer: Not Pantlind? The one before Pantlind? Miss Perkins: No, Pantlind was her…. Her name. her father’s name was Pantlind and I don’t connect him with Grand Rapids. He came here as a hotel man, you know. Interviewer: Let’s see, Aldrich, was it Aldrich? Miss Perkins: Aldrich, that’s what I mean, the Aldrich family was next door. It was Mrs. Aldrich, Mrs. Aldrich’s daughter, that gave that fountain out there on the corner that’s been stolen. Interviewer: They recently moved that, they removed that statue over to John Ball Park. Miss Perkins: Oh, did they? Interviewer: Yes, they put it over there now. Miss Perkins: Well, I thought they were going to take it over there, but somebody told me it had been stolen again. Interviewer: Yes. Miss Perkins: It was lost for a long time, you know, they found it, in Fisk Lake, I guess Interviewer: Oh, where did the country begin? What was out in the country in those days? Miss Perkins: Beyond the east, Eastern, we took, you got a streetcar as far as Eastern, and then you got off of the streetcar and on a little dummy line, that went out to the lake, and the country really began about there. Interviewer: Were there farms out in that area, were there mostly farms? Miss Perkins: Well, I don’t remember farms exactly, I don’t really truly remember much about what was in that part of the country. But it was all open land, it must have been farms. Interviewer: When you, you went to the public schools in Grand Rapids? Miss Perkins: Fountain. Interviewer: Yes, where did you go to college? �9 Miss Perkins: Vassar. Interviewer: Did many, many girls, the daughters of the people living in this area, go off to eastern schools? Miss Perkins: Well, the first went, the first young woman that went to an eastern school went to Vassar. I think she was Eleanor Withey, Mr. Lew Withey’s sister, who was a very up and coming girl and she, nobody had been there, if they’d been away to school at all it would have been to a finishing school. But she wanted to go to college and she found out about Vassar, and she went to Vassar. And she was so enthusiastic about Vassar, she, she loved every brick in its buildings, and she induced a lot of Grand Rapids people. At first, anybody going away to college didn’t think of anything but Vassar. Then gradually Smith came in and later Wellesley. But the first girls that went from, that went east to college, went to Vassar. And Mrs. Willard is the one that induced me to go to Vassar. Interviewer: Who is Mrs. Willard? Miss Perkins: . Willard was the, she married Mr. Willard, she was Eleanor Withey…the only girl in the Withey family and quite important. She was very, very smart, and after she came back here, she wanted to study art and she went to, the Art Institute in Chicago. Don’t think she did much in the art line, but she was, she stayed on as a volunteer in the art gallery, and learned all about managing, how it was managed and so forth. So when we started our art gallery here, Mrs. Willard of course was one of the prime movers and she was the first director of the art gallery; and because she knew more about art than any other of the women that was instrumental in starting it, she organized the Grand Rapid’s Art Gallery on the line of the Art Institute in Chicago. Everything was just the same and it has been all these years, they have changed the directors and increased the work and it’s grown in importance in various and sundry ways. But fundamentally, it’s just , it’s worked out just as Mrs. Willard organized it. Interviewer: When, when was the art gallery founded? Miss Perkins: I ought to know, but I think it was, I think it was nineteen thirteen, or somewhere around in there. Interviewer: Were you active in the art gallery from the beginning? Miss Perkins: Oh, all my life, all my life, cause my mother was the one, one of the prime movers in starting it. She, she’d been put on some committee to start some sort of work for the city, that would be in the interest of the city, and after long deliberation they hit upon starting an art gallery for Grand Rapids. Wasn’t any great demand for an art gallery at the time, I thought, but my mother said there would be, and we ought to have an organization, we ought to have everything ready for the time it was coming, when they would want and would need an art gallery. So we began and believe me it was uphill work. �10 Interviewer: What, can you tell me about some of the problems that you had in starting the gallery? Miss Perkins: Well, there was always one problem, money, money, money, money. Everything came back to that. And unfortunately there, the women who started it, none of them had any amount of money to turn in, to give to the city, so we started out poor, and it’s been a very, very difficult job. Because as it grew stronger, as its influence grew wider, by that time men weren’t giving their money in that sort of way. There were all these foundations came into being, and that’s another matter. A man gives his wealth to a foundation instead of giving it to different organizations, you see. And that made a great difference. Interviewer: How did it make a difference exactly? Miss Perkins: Because there were also of men that would have given to the art, you know they didn’t know where to put their money. And they would say to the lawyer “Now, let me see. I ought to give away a certain amount” in making their wills, you know a lawyer would say “How about this and that organization, they need it.” I know the lawyers have told me that was the procedure many times. And, then, the donor would give a good sized gift to different organizations in this, in the city, different civic movements. But by then, but then this business of having a foundation came in, and you give to the foundation. The foundation is supposed to give to the different organizations, but you can see the difference, if a , if you had control of the money, you know how you could spend it as you wish, but if you’re going to get it from a foundation, and the foundations have been very generous to the art gallery, there’s no question about that, but you have to have your project lined out, you have to go and ask for the money, you see. You can’t, you don’t have the freedom that you’d have if you had control of the money. You can’t count on it. You always have to ask for it. Interviewer: Well, then in other words, when the art museum was in its founding days, the people with a great deal of money in town, the great amounts of money, weren’t particularly involved in it? Miss Perkins: No, they weren’t. Mr. [Blodgett?] tried to get them interested but they all had their own ideas. Blodgett’s for example, Mrs. Blodgett was on the first board, she was very much interested in founding the gallery, working it up. But they had their big Blodgett Hospital that they were putting up. Interviewer: Oh, they had their own little projects then. Miss Perkins: Yes. Interviewer: Were clubs and organizations important to people back then? Miss Perkins: Cultural? Well, you know the Ladies Literary Club was the first organization of that kind in the country. And it was a very, it was the first one to own its own building. It was �11 very important. That really was the big cultural movement for the women in the city, and it was good, it played a very important part in their lives. Interviewer: What what kind of a role did it play in their lives? Why was it important to them? Miss Perkins: Well, I’ve heard my mother always, she wasn’t able to go away to school, she said she didn’t know anything about these schools outside of Grand Rapids, you know, and she found it very, very educational. It gave her an outlet that, at the beginning the ladies all worked up their own papers, you know. They did a great deal of hard work, and my mother always thought it was a wonderful, educational opportunity. Interviewer: Is the Ladies Literary Club still thriving? Miss Perkins: I don’t, I, well the Ladies Literary Club it had so much competition in the Women’s City Club, for example, and there, there’s a great deal more in the cultural life now then there was then. Interviewer: I see. Miss Perkins: There are all kinds, well, look at all the colleges sprung up here, and there. Every college had some classes that are open to the public, they have different lectures, and well, it’s a different place entirely. I think it’s amazing how much cultural opportunities people have in Grand Rapids now, if they take, if they avail themselves of them. It didn’t used to be that way. Well, it started first with courses and lectures and courses in music, you know, the St. Cecilia Society came in there. Interviewer: Was that an important organization? Miss Perkins: That was very important when it was begun, and it was begun by some very important, society within Grand Rapids. It was very much a society thing to belong to the St. Cecilia. Interviewer: That’s not true anymore though… Miss Perkins: Not more than the, not more than the Literary Club. That was, that was the main movement here. Interviewer: Yes. Miss Perkins: Do you suppose that’s heard what I said? Interviewer: That’s an amazing thing isn’t it, that machine would hear this and pick it all up and put it down on tape. I hope so, want to see? Would you like to see if it’s picked it up? Miss Perkins: Yes. �12 Interviewer: Alright. [Track 2: transcribed directly from CD to Word] Interviewer: One impression that I have gotten from talking to the various people I have interviewed so far is that there was a way of life in the city that is no longer in existence, a style of living. A question that I have asked everybody is what, in their opinion, they think ended that style of living? Where the way that people lived before began evolving into the kind of living we have today, for example. Do you have any idea, what do you think it was? Miss Perkins: Well, I suppose it’s the wars, they changed everything. Interviewer: How did they change things? Miss Perkins: We were so very peaceful before, there was no trouble. Everything moved along slowly, smoothly, pleasantly. And I don’t remember any troubles at all. Then the wars came and the sadness and the disruption. I think that after the wars, life was changed. Interviewer: And the wars had quite a profound impact on at least Grand Rapids? Miss Perkins: East Grand Rapids? Interviewer: No, on the city of Grand Rapids. Miss Perkins: Oh. Well, I think it must. Interviewer: Yes. Miss Perkins: At least it was about that time, that life seemed to change. It was gradual, you know, it wasn’t all at once. Interviewer: Yes. Was your family, would you consider your family, the Perkins family as having been a member of the society? Miss Perkins: Well, there was no Perkins family, we were the only Perkins that were. Well there were other Perkins too, but they weren’t related to us. They weren’t our family. Interviewer: Ok. I was thinking of your mother and father, for example were they members of society? Miss Perkins: Yes, I suppose you might consider them such, especially my mother. My father was always a very quiet man, very dignified. Interviewer: Yes, what did? Pardon, excuse me. Go ahead. Miss Perkins: I suppose you would consider, they knew everybody and everybody knew them if that is what you consider society. I wouldn’t know what you really consider society. �13 Interviewer: Yes, I don’t know, I don’t know what society is either. There were a number of people that lived up on the hill, that were members of the diplomatic corp. weren’t there? Miss Perkins: Diplomatic? Oh, Mr. O’Brien was, but he was the only one. Mr. Gilbert wasn’t and he was a businessman but from the south and that seemed to make all kinds of difference. He was a southerner and married a Miss Gilbert and so came to live in Grand Rapids. They were definitely society people. Interviewer: Why do you say that? Miss Perkins: They sort of ruled things. There were some outstanding people. I remember when Mrs. Wonderly, she is Mrs. Pantlind’s aunt and she lived here on Cherry Street, Just about where we are sitting, no at little farther down. And she had a tea, a reception we called it in those days. She had a reception and she invited four hundred people. Those four hundred people were considered society. I happen to remember especially because there was one lady in Grand Rapids who was very ambitious and really did a great deal for herself and was very well known in many directions. Oh, she wasn’t invited and she wanted to be invited. I remember because I was just, you know a young girl in beginning high school and she came to my mother and wanted my mother to ask Mrs. Wonderly to invite her. Of course, mother wouldn’t, didn’t feel she had any business to do that. But that made an impression upon me. I was so young you know it made a deep impression to think this lady felt that it was so important to be invited to tea at Mrs. Wonderly’s. Interviewer: When you were growing up as a young lady, were there very many parties? Miss Perkins: Oh, all the while, all kinds of parties. Interviewer: What were the parties like? Miss Perkins: There were a great many women’s parties, just luncheons almost every, sometimes about every day in the week you would be going out to luncheon. And you always had your afternoon dresses and so forth and now no one knows what an afternoon dress is now. But we all had them in those days and we very much dressed up when we went out to luncheon. They were very elaborate luncheons with lots of different courses. Life is much simpler than it was in those days. Much simpler. Interviewer: Today life is much simpler? Miss Perkins: You see, it was service; there was always plenty of service in those days. Everybody had their own cook and maid, and entertaining was easy, simple. And people entertained a great deal. Interviewer: Were there very many dances? �14 Miss Perkins: Not so many dances; that was a little more labor. We used to go down to dances at the Pantlind. I was away a good deal of that time. I was abroad and traveling and in college, but when I came home I was so surprised to find these big dances down at the Pantlind. And then they used to have dances in the St. Cecilia Ballroom, when St. Cecilia was first built. It was quite a thing to go to a St. Cecilia dance. Interviewer: How? Miss Perkins: There were ballrooms in people’s houses on the third floor. Interviewer: Did you ever go to any dances that were on those third floor ballrooms? Miss Perkins: Well that, yes, but they were more crowded and they were smaller, you know. Interviewer: Yes, Miss Perkins: But they were fun. Interviewer: Were there any women in business, in those days, that had their own businesses? Miss Perkins: There weren’t many, there weren’t many. One of the first women that went into business was Grace Remington. Now Grace Remington, her father built the big red brick house on Washington Street the one with the pillars in front of it? That was the Remington house. It didn’t have pillars in those days. Mr. Remington was a lumberman and he made a fortune and he had a big house on Cherry Street. He lost that fortune, he made another fortune and built that house on Washington Street. But he lost that money and how I don’t know, but at any rate his daughters went into business for themselves. And Grace Remington formed the first ready to wear dress shop in Grand Rapids. Up until that time everybody employed a seamstress in their home. There dresses were homemade. Oh, there one or two women that’s right there were women that had dressmaker shops where they made dresses to fit you. But Miss Remington had the first shop where dresses were made outside at some factory or other and brought in. Interviewer: Where was her shop? Miss Perkins: It was down on the corner of LaGrave and Fulton Street in that little house. It is still there, I guess. It was a little brick house and it was owned by an old man named Mr. Blake and he had little gold earrings in his ears always and he kept a little candy shop, it was a candy shop there were windows, across the front with shelves with stick candies were in jars. I can remember my father taking me to that shop and said, “Now, Mabel I want you to remember what this little shop looks like, it is a little English shop. It is just like a little shop in an English village”. And he said “You will never see another in Grand Rapid like it.” My father was always doing that, taking, pointing out something that I should remember. And I never forgot that little shop. It was just as quaint as it could be. That was the shop where Grace Remington started her dressmaking store. She brought in ready to be made, the clothes already made from New York. �15 She was killed on that train wreck from New York to Grand Rapids. She and her principal workwoman, her buyer, they had been to New York and they had bought a new supply of clothes and they were coming home when that accident occurred [about January 12, 1919]. You know, Grand Rapids had the last sleeper on the train and it was always filled with Grand Rapids people. And there were a good many Grand Rapids people that were killed in that accident, because the other train plowed right thru that car. So Miss Remington and, I forget the name of that woman that was really her partner and worked with her. They were both killed. Frank Leonard was on that car, Harold Sears. I don’t know of anybody else. Interviewer: What was downtown like when you were growing up? Miss Perkins: It was like any little town, of course Monroe Street was a principal street, but there were all kind of shops, grocery shops now there was no grocery shops, it had bins out front, with things displayed on the street. There were all kinds of different shops. What I remember especially about early Grand Rapids downtown was the specialty shops. Mr. [John P.] Platte for example had an umbrella shop, didn’t sell anything but umbrellas. Beautiful umbrellas down to cheap umbrellas, you know. And then, there was one man that had nothing but beautiful material, Mr. Cole was his name, he had simply exquisite material because you made your own dresses. He had wonderful, wonderful silks and brocades and beautiful buttons and everything that went with them and he just loved his wares himself. He would hold it up, you know and enjoy looking at it just as much as you did. But the trouble was that he bought such expensive things and gradually people began buying their things readymade. And he failed and it was just tragic when he failed and all those beautiful, beautiful things had to go for next to nothing. Broke his heart. There were glove stores and there were all kinds of little shops that specialized in one thing. You could get very beautiful things. Interviewer: Yes, that’s interesting. What about entertainment, was there entertainment downtown? Miss Perkins: Of course, there was the theatre. Interviewer: Tell me about the theatres. Miss Perkins: I’m trying to think of the name of that theatre? Interviewer: Powers? Miss Perkins: Powers, yes, it is now a movie house, of course. Everybody went down there and you went in a hack, that was the way you, it was the most popular way of getting there. Of course if you lived near enough you walked. They brought some very good shows. The shows came from New York, the theatre. We had a lot of Shakespeare. We had excellent, excellent theatres. And then music was given in Hartman’s Hall as a rule. Interviewer: Where was Hartman’s Hall? �16 Miss Perkins: Well, it disappeared from the scene a long time ago. I’ve forgotten just where it was [west side of Lyon between Fouantain and Pearl streets]. I think it was, you know that garage, Shephard Garage I think it was in that neighborhood. Great big hall. Interviewer: What kind of effect do you think the automobile had had on the society? Miss Perkins: Oh it changed it completely. I think the big change in Grand Rapids came with automobile. It dispersed people. People began moving away from the center of the city. They began going away to live in country houses you know. It opened up the world but it also ruined the cities. Interviewer: If you could compare the ages of living which age of living would you say is preferable, the way we live today or the way you lived when you were growing up. Miss Perkins: Well, that is difficult to say, there is a great deal to be said for the world in which I grew up, a great deal is to be said for it. But also it is pretty wonderful now, I think. With all the opportunities that are open for everybody, you travel, everybody ought to be much broader minded then they were, and I think they are. But no better, worse, seems to me we didn’t have the wickedness or crime in my day. Interviewer: Grand Rapids was a safe city. Miss Perkins: Never even locked the front door when I lived on Washington Street, never thought of it. No, of the two ages I’m very glad that a large part of my life lay in the first stage. It was a lovely time, really. Interviewer: Good. Miss Perkins: But now it is more inspiring, it is more exciting, there are so many more opportunities; you can do anything you want really. And I suppose people, of course I was a child and too young to know, but I suppose people were very narrow-minded and thought along certain grooves and didn’t have as much opportunity to live a broader life. No excuse for people being narrow-minded now is there? Interviewer: Okay. INDEX A Aldrich Family · 8 Aldrich, Mrs. · 8 B Barry, Edmund D. · 5 Blake, Mr. · 15 Blodgett Family · 11 Blodgett Hospital · 11 �17 C O Campau, Mr. · 6, 7 Cole, Mr. · 16 O’Brien, Mr. · 13 D P F Pantlind Family · 8, 13, 14 Perkins, Cyrus Edwin (Father) · 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 13, 15 Perkins, Della Antoinette Foote (Mother) · 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14 Platte, John P. · 16 Fitzgerald, Edward · 5 Fountain Street School · 2 R Donnelly, Mr. · 5 G Gilbert, Mr. · 13 Grand River Bank · 6 H Harlan, Judge · 2 Hartman’s Hall · 16 J Remington, Grace · 15 S Sears, Harold · 15 St. Cecilia Society · 12, 14 V Vandenberg, Arthur · 7 Vassar College · 9 Jenks, Samuel · 4 W K Withey, Eleanor · 9 Women’s City Club · 11 Wonderly, Mrs. · 13, 14 Knappen, Judge Loyal E. · 5 L Ladies Literary Club · 11 Leonard, Frank · 15 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fb1c894f72540c2c9f1d11a1ca22dde1.mp3 845a43161b84e86e4cecc93d41e4717b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_11Perkins Title A name given to the resource Perkins, Mabel Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Perkins, Mabel Description An account of the resource Mabel Perkins was born on July 26, 1880. She received her B.A. degree from Vassar about 1900. Her mother is considered the founder of the Grand Rapids Art Museum. Miss Perkins was President of the Art Museum which remained her chief interest all her life. She was a noted collector of prints, and gave many of them during her lifetime to the Art Museum. As a girl she developed a strong interest in the works of Albrecht Durer. She died in 1974. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives