While I am making connections and doing more behind the scenes (haha, sounds important) work on the genealogy, I thought I’d share an uncleaned-up photo from the Joseph DeKorn collection. The spots are just a little extra treat. I’d love to hear ideas about the best way to get rid of them!
126 Balch Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan
The little girl behind the bench is Alice Leeuwenhoek, and the date is Thanksgiving 1907. I trust that this is Alice because Grandpa told me in the late 70s, and he knew Alice. Old writing on the back indicates the date. But is the address correct?
In the 1910 census Lambertus, Jennie, and Alice all lived at 110 Balch Street. The houses are numbered 110, 112, 120, 130, 210, 216. No number 126.
Is this the Leeuwenhoek house or not? I’m going to hazard a guess. The address written on the back of this photo is in my handwriting, which means that Grandpa gave me the address. I already suspect that the numbering was changed at some point on Burdick and Balch because the older numbers do not match to the current addresses. Maybe Grandpa gave me the address that was correct in the late 1970s, but not the address as it was in 1907.
Because of the way Alice is standing behind the bench, near the house, and alone, I think this is her own house.
The placement of this house would have been very near Richard DeKorn’s brick house at the corner of Burdick and Balch. I wrote about it in this post The Richard DeKorn House. Alice was Richard’s granddaughter as her mother Jennie was Richard’s daughter and my grandfather’s aunt. Grandpa and Alice were first cousins.
I looked on Google Maps to see what the area looks like today. 126 Balch is about the 4th house down from the DeKorn house on the corner. So, is it possible that in 1907 they lived in 126 and in 1910 they lived in 110? It’s possible because maybe Richard owned several houses on Balch Street. That would not be inconceivable. Or that he had owned the land and gave or sold parcels to family members.
Maybe all the families living on Balch street are not on the census with the Leeuwenhoeks because they weren’t home when the census taker came. That would further complicate things. All this makes me wish I had some time in Kalamazoo to get my hands on some of the property ownership records!
Still, I do feel confident that this is Alice standing in front of her house on Balch Street in 1907, and that she lived quite near her grandparents. Her grandmother, Alice Paak DeKorn, would die the following year–and Grandpa would be born.
The Family Kalamazoo 
This looks like a house in back of Balch street houses which was used temporarily and Torn down. Richard DeKorn at one time owned several houses in the block. The 110 in back of red brick at burdick and Balch was where aunt Jen lived until Alice and Clarence Brought their own home on Garden Lane about late 1920’s-1930’s and Aunt Jen moved in with them. After that time it was rented out with my Dad doing all the work and when Richard died it was split between uncle joe, aunt Jen, and my Dad. Dad never liked renting Out property after that experience. Don
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Oh, that is great information. You know a lot!!! Thanks for sharing the info. So this house maybe didn’t have access to the street?
You can fix the image with photoshop or similar software, by replacing the discoloured areas with the adjoining colours, but it is a lot of messing about and it would probably look like it had been messed with, so I would leave it as it is.
I was afraid of ruining it! I wish I could get those worse spots off, but I can’t imagine ruining the photo . . .
Hi, George (my husband, who knows about these things) says don’t touch the original photo yourself, any work needs a professional photo conservator. The digital image can be adjusted as suggested above.
That’s a good idea that I can try working with the digital image–a jpg maybe instead of the tif–and save the original.
Great photo. How big was the house?
It looks like a little bungalow.
Yes, very quaint!
Could you have transposed the numbers, and 126 is actually 216?
Probably not. It would be close to the corner. Plus I don’t make mistakes like that hahaha.
Hehe. I do! Transposing numbers is a huge problem for me. I have to check and double check everything.
That is such a pain!
I’m sure you are right about this house — and yet it look like a cottage in the woods!
It does. It’s so hard to believe that some of these photos are that area of town. It’s so “city” today, but the photos look almost rural. This one in particular.
You have so many treasures!!!!
Aw, thank you. It’s true, I have a lot of photos!
Just love the photo of this little cottage, so gorgeous….Vicki from Australia
Vicki, thank you so much. It is pretty adorable!!
I also think that the way she is standing behind the bench suggests that it is her own house. It seems like she is at a unexpected spot in the photo, and that it is more about the house than her–though maybe the photographer just wasn’t very skilled.
I feel as if it’s about the house, too. Maybe my uncle (see Don’s comment) is right that this was a “temporary” house erected on my great-great-grandfather’s property. Thanks for your thoughts, Sheryl! If you see me on Pinterest, follow something of mine and that way I can find you!
I think the library has some really old plat books of the city. Maybe I’ll take a look at them for you next week and see how Balch Street was laid out.
[…] have been Grandpa’s Aunt Jen and Uncle Lou and their daughter Alice. You can find it here: Did the Leeuwenhoeks Live Here? After getting information from a reader, I posted Library Research on That Little House in the […]