When I was growing up, my grandmother’s sister Vena and brother Chuck lived in Kalamazoo. I knew the family grew up in Caledonia, which is in Kent County, not Kalamazoo, so it was more surprising that three of the siblings ended up in Kalamazoo than that Peter and Dorothy lived out of town in more rural areas. Here are the five siblings: Chuck, Vena, Edna (Grandma), Dorothy, and Pete.
Peter Godfrey Mulder was the fourth child and older son of Charles and Clara (Waldeck) Mulder. Godfrey was the Americanized version of Gottfried, the name of his Prussian maternal grandfather. Peter (Pieter) was his Dutch paternal grandfather’s name. He was born on 2 November 1915, most likely in Caledonia. He’s the baby in this photo
As he grew older, Pete became an all-star athlete at Caledonia High School. He was very popular with the girls. Pete wanted to go to engineering school after high school, but that dream was cut short because he suffered a ruptured appendix. He was not able to serve in the military.
When Pete recovered from the medical emergency, he lived in Kalamazoo and worked in a factory; he lived with his brother Chuck and cousin, Herb Waldeck.
Pete met Ruby Elizabeth Ayers, a cheerleader from Martin High School, at the Dixie Pavilion, a popular dance club overlooking Doan’s Lake, south of Wayland. Duke Ellington and his orchestra played there. Both Pete and Ruby loved to dance.
Pete and Ruby (born 6 February, 1920) were married on 10 August 1940, when Pete was 24 and Ruby was 20. Here is their marriage record. They were married, as were Vena and Al, by Pete’s cousin, Ed Waldeck.
At that time, Ruby had been living in Martin and already working as a teacher. She attended “County Normal,” where one could teach school in a rural setting with little formal education. Ruby taught at Jones School in Dorr in a one-room school house.
Later, Ruby took correspondence classes to finish her teaching degree. Her daughter, Shirley, remembers taking classes with her mother when she was a teenager. Ruby later taught in an elementary school for Wayland Union schools, which she loved.
Pete and Ruby lived with his parents on the farm in Caledonia for a few months before buying an 80-acre farm in Martin, which is in Allegan County, NW of Kalamazoo. All three of the children, Larry, Shirley, and Sharon, were born in Allegan County. At the back of the property was a lake, called Lake 16. Ruby liked to swim and made sure all the children took swimming lessons and craft classes in the summer through the school district.
Pete became a dairy farmer, milking all of his cows by hand. The whole family drank their milk from these cows and it made wonderful whipped cream as well. Later, Pete gave up being a dairy farmer and raised beef cattle (angus). The whole family would put buckets on the maple trees in the spring of the year to collect sap so Pete could boil it down to make maple syrup. Then Ruby would can the syrup and other fruits and vegetable to hold them over for winter. The children were always present in activities around the farm. Pete continued to work in the shop in Kalamazoo as a Tool and Die Maker in the winters for additional income. Pete and Ruby
loved to live life to its fullest. They were active in their community. They were always entertaining relatives or visiting relatives on a weekly basis. They participated in a square dancing group.
Here is Uncle Pete and Aunt Ruby’s whole family at their farmhouse on Thanksgiving, November 1952. All Grandma’s siblings and their families attended, as well as her parents. This was the last holiday season her mother was still alive. The next year they would hold Thanksgiving at Dot and Con’s house. Photos here.
And here is Ruby from the same day:
Here is a photo at Pete and Ruby’s on the same day with all of Grandma’s parents’ grandchildren.
It was fun to visit their farm in Martin because Shirley (who was on the Queen’s Court, Allegan County Fair (one of the largest fairs in Michigan), and won the Cherry Pie contest, and Sharon were teenagers when I was a little girl, and they were very sweet to me. Aunt Ruby herself was a very sweet woman. She reminded me of country and gospel music, so I must have heard it at their house. Uncle Pete loved to sing country music. The stereo was right where you walked into the living room. Uncle Pete used to sit with the other men on lawn chairs outside under the big tree. Pete loved to play horseshoes in the summer and bowl during the winter time. When the children were teenagers, he bought a speed boat and took the children waterskiing on the lakes in the area.
When the couple neared retirement age, they built a mobile home park on their farm along the lake. They also sold mobile homes as a side business. They traveled to Hawaii and made several trips to Las Vegas.
Pete and Ruby’s daughter Sharon experienced a great deal of loss and succumbed to cancer at the age of 67. She was a teacher of K-2 and also Headstart. As a teen, like her big sister Shirley, she was a drum majorette and later on Sharon took over her sister’s baton twirling business. Their brother Larry, who was a draftsman and engineer for a Volkswagen subcontractor, died at age 59 of brain cancer.
Pete died in 1986 at the age of 70 of cancer.
You can see from Pete’s obituary that he developed and was the owner operator of the mobile home park, but there is no mention of his earlier life as a farmer.
Ruby was living in a mobile home park in Wayland when, on 6 February 2007, her mobile home caught fire and Ruby was not able to get out of her home. Tragically, she died on her 87th birthday.
I put in a request at Findagrave for a good photo of Pete and Ruby’s headstone. A kind volunteer obliged me by taking these.
Here are closeups with the locket closed and open.
The headstone mentions Psalms 23, so I thought I would share a version here.
Psalms 23
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,3 he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley,I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
The Family Kalamazoo 
What awful tragedies befell this family. Poor Ruby—she endured so much loss and then died in such a horrible way.
The old photographs are so precious.
Thank you, Amy. What a horrible way to die. She must have been so scared. I am so grateful to my mom for taking and preserving and labeling all these photos of the early 50s!!!!
Nicely illustrated valuable history
Thank you, Derrick! I was just saying to Amy that I am so grateful to my mom for the photos of the early 50s. She labelled them all in her album :).
And not many people had photographs then
My family took to the camera right away, especially the males, but my mom loved to make scrapbooks so the photos were a perfect thing to scrapbook.
Great photos! Especially the one with Peter as a baby and the one with Sharon facing the wall. I love that Michigan has such good records and that they are pretty accessible on Ancestry. I have way more info about my Michigan ancestors than I do about the others from Minnesota, partly for this reason.
Thank you! I agree that those are really special. I loved seeing the kids all together because it made more sense to me the age spread of all the cousins. So interesting about finding Michigan easier. I have found Michigan to be a little difficult. Not a lot, but a little, and now I know I should be grateful for what luck I have had!!! So thank you for letting me know.
☺️It seems like Ancestry has a wider range of access to things like death and marriage certificates. For a 1913 death certificate from South Dakota, I had to write and ask for a copy because nothing would come up online like it does for Michigan. Although I have a couple of people who seem to have dropped off the face of the earth in Ludington…🤔
Maybe it’s where in Michigan you area searching. For Kalamazoo, I often have to write and order something OR ask a local genealogy volunteer who is SO kind for help.
Oh that could be. 🤔
South Dakota does not provide online access to records. It is a very difficult state to research as I know from experience.
That’s a bummer.
Even in person, they make it difficult to look at courthouse records. You’re only allowed to transcribe – no copies or photos. I don’t think they get the concept of public records.
I wonder if there is a list available somewhere of exactly what state records are released where and the method for obtaining them. I bet they would be at the bottom of the list! But who knows. Maybe other states are like that, too.
The Family Search Wiki does have a lot of information like that.
Gosh, Luanne, this was really an intriguing post. I thought there must be some connection to so many of them having cancer, and the feed for the dairy cattle makes a lot of sense. Plus who knows what we all drank when we drank well water. Fascinating.
My dad, his brother and two of his uncles died from colon cancer. I often wondered if they were exposed to chemicals during WWII – and of course no one would report.
Thanks so much. Very good post. Pictures are always wonderful!
I can imagine they easily could have been exposed during the war. And anybody growing up on a farm in those days, who knows. Well water almost anywhere. It probably was full of DDT, for one thing! Thanks, Sheila. The earlier generations inspire!
I love the photo of the “13” Gang. They certainly looked a motley crew. Alice looked like she was barefoot.
What a tragic way for Ruby’s life to end in a fire.
Lol they were definitely a fun bunch of cousins. The barefoot one is Maryann. It’s hard to tell because you can barely see my mom, Janet. She’s the hidden one and also the oldest.
I just took another look. I see your mom’s little face not, behind the girl in the rolled-up dungarees.
That’s right. That’s my mom who must have been turning 18 soon after. Pat is the girl in front of her.
Forgot to reply about Ruby’s passing. Sooo tragic, just horrible.
Yes, it must have been.
Interesting to learn of the cancer-causing chemicals. Even today, I think there are lots of them used in agriculture. A shame.
That’s awful to think about. Aren’t there laws for that now?! Ugh, I’m sure you’re right.
Round Up and other herbicides and pesticides are terribly toxic. Yet very widespread.
Oh horrible!
I gasped reading at the end about Ruby ~ so sad 😦 I am wondering Luanne , is the mobile park still there? That’s so interesting that he did that, even with the tragic outcome. What a great photo of Peter and his family. The little girls look so cute in their matching dresses and I love the pigtails!!!! Those were some some great Thanksgiving photo’s too ~ I’d have loved to be sitting at that dinner table 🙂
Sharon, I don’t know if the mobile home park is still there. I would have loved to see it when he built it because of it being new and on the lake and all. It was a pretty smart thing to do. I love that family picture, too, especially when you consider how old that photo is–well over 100 years! I bet that food was really good :).
Thank you for sharing. It was very interesting to read.
http://www.rsrue.blogspot.com
I love the story of your Uncle Pete and Aunt Ruby – no wonder you loved it, too!
I find the move from dairy to angus cattle very similar to stories from families in Texas. I used to be fascinated by the black angus ranches on the flat lands of southeast Texas.
Thanks for the post!
Thank you, Sheila! Do you know why they switched to angus cattle in Texas? I wonder if it was a financial incentive or if there were other reasons.
I think it might have had something to do with the care of the dairy cattle v the angus. I have no proof of that other than milking the cows must have been a huge task even after “automation” of the process. We raised Herefords when I was growing up. Feeding hay during winter and fresh water in tanks from rain. That was it.
On second reading I find the education background fascinating
Thank you, Derrick!
Wonderful story and great that you have such pictures to go with. My dad, born 1913 also had a ruptured appendix. Hard to survive in those days, and with life long consequence due to internal scarring. Lived a great life, though.
Oh wow! I did not know that about a ruptured appendix causing internal scarring! I knew it was a very dangerous emergency when it happens. I’m glad it didn’t prevent your father from having a great life!!!!! XO
BTW, I have etched in my mind a Donna Parker book I read when I was a kid where the boy she was starting to date showed up and acted weird and was kind of pale. Turned out to be his appendix. The stuff we remember from books!
It would have been emergency surgery and they lived out in the woods of BC. Odd thing is, his uncle – at 13 – had emergency appendectomy on his aunts table in WI – but did not survive it. Too funny, Donna Parker. Poor kid. The boy. Glad we live with sterile and antibiotics and fast ambulances. Etc. Yikes.
I enjoyed reading your memories of your Uncle Pete and Aunt Ruby. It’s so important for future generations to have more to their family history than just a list of begats.
That is for sure true. My eyes glaze over from the begat lists!!!! Thanks for reading, Liz!
You’re welcome, Luanne! (According to my dad, from a Biblical scholarship perspective it’s okay to skip over the begats.)
This was an awesome post Luanne. Enjoyed all the details and always, love the wonderful pictures!
Thank you so much, Sharon! Shirley really added a lot of details to the information I had been able to find. I agree about the photos!!!
What awful tragedies befell this family. Poor Ruby—she endured so much loss and then died in such a horrible way.
The old photographs are so precious.
Ruby really did go through a lot. I’m glad she was able to have a lot of fun in life, too!!! LOVE the photos!!! Thank you, Amy!