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Archive for the ‘Leeuwenhoek’ Category

Aunt Jen and Uncle Lou’s Son-in-Law, Clarence Moerdyk

Posted in Family History, Genealogy, Jennie DeKorn Culver, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Kalamazoo mid 20th century, Leeuwenhoek, Netherlands history, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2016| 16 Comments »

Aunt Jen and Uncle Lou’s (Jennie DeKorn Leeuwenhoek and Lambertus Leeuwenhoek) only child, Alice, married Clarence Moerdyk (Dutch spelling Moerdijk).

 

Clarence Dewey Moerdyk

1898–1985

BIRTH 24 MAY 1898 • Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo Co., MI

DEATH 18 DEC 1985 • Winter Park, FL

Clarence’s parents were Peter (Pieter) and Cora. His father immigrated from Biervliet, Zeeland, the Netherlands, when he was 2 years old, in 1867.

I once posted a photo of Clarence as a kid, but at the time I wasn’t sure who he was. Blog readers helped me discover that this is Clarence who lived at 120 W. Ransom in Kalamazoo. That address is directly north of Arcadia Creek, five blocks north of East Michigan Avenue. Would you say he is in his mid-teens?

Alice and Clarence were married in Kalamazoo on 12 September 1923 by The Reverend Benjamin Laman of Bethany Reformed Church.

Here is information about the church at that time from their website:

 

On June 5, 1905, in a tiny chapel near Burdick and Maple, the mission Sunday School that was to become Bethany held its first service. . . .

Growth under the leadership of these men was so great that less than two years later it was apparent that a larger building was needed. In 1907, a new church was built on the site of the original chapel. At this time the church had grown to include fifty-two families and seventy-seven communicant members. By the time that Reverend Kooiker left the church in 1910, Bethany had grown to sixty-nine families and one hundred eighteen communicant members.

Here is Clarence as I knew him in the early 60s:

 

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An Obituary Gives the Details: Uncle Lou’s Passing

Posted in DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Jennie DeKorn Culver, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo mid 20th century, Leeuwenhoek, Netherlands history, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 29, 2016| 23 Comments »

I’ve heard that Uncle Lou (Lambertus Leeuwenhoek) loved to play games–and was very good at them. Where and when he passed away is fitting, in that context.

 

Uncle Lou “died at 3:15 Wednesday afternoon at the YMCA immediately after suffering a heart attack. He had just finished a game of checkers.” I bet he won the game.

I need to research where the Y was located.

He died on Wednesday, April 20, 1949. Coincidentally, my father-in-law passed away in 1984 on April 20. Notice that Uncle Lou and Aunt Jen were married on May 20. My birthday is July 20. My cousin was born January 20. I always notice the number 20.

Here is the funeral announcement in the newspaper:

And here is a beautiful memorial book from Uncle Lou’s funeral. I wish I knew how to create a slideshow that allows a reader to enlarge each photo, but I don’t know if there is a way on WordPress.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

What I find particularly useful from a genealogy standpoint are the names of the visitors on the last two pages. They are as interesting as the names in the obituary, if not more so.

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More About Uncle Lou: Lambertus Leeuwenhoek

Posted in Adriaan Zuijdweg/Adrian Zuidweg Sr., DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Jennie DeKorn Culver, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Leeuwenhoek, Michigan history, Netherlands history, Paak, Photography early 20th century, Photography late 19th century, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 21, 2016| 13 Comments »

I’ve written about the Leeuwenhoeks, and in particular, my great grandmother’s brother-in-law, Lambertus Leeuwenhoek. He was called Uncle Lou by my grandfather, so he’s still called Uncle Lou by me today, although I never met him. I did know his wife, Aunt Jen, who survived him by decades.

Uncle Lou and Aunt Jen owned a general store. They had a store in Kalamazoo for a time and one in Vicksburg for a time, as well. In the 1910 and 1920 censuses, he and Aunt Jen are living at 110 Balch Street in Kalamazoo. His Kalamazoo store sold Gold Medal flour.

may-19-1910-leeuwenhoek-ad

 

In the 1930 census, they live at 111 East Prairie Street in Vicksburg. In the 1940 census I find them with Lou’s first name mangled into Laonbatius. They are living with their daughter Alice and her husband, Clarence Moerdyk, at 1014 Gerdan Street in Kalamazoo. Could that be GARDEN Street? Because that would be a real house in Kalamazoo. One still existing, most likely.

I looked for city directory entries, and I found these–all date jumbled:

Leeuwenhock Lambertus (Jennie) household 110 Balch, 1926 City Directory: See Page
Leeuwenhoek Alice M, dressrnkr, boards 110 Balch, Kalamazoo City 1915: See Page
Leeuwenhoek Lambertus (Jennie) resides at 1014 Garden, City Directory 1935: See Page
Leeuwenhoek Lambertus (Jennie), grocer 110 Balch, residence same, Kalamazoo City 1915: See Page
Leeuwenhoek Lambertus (Jennie), grocer 110 Balch, residence same, Kalamazoo City, 1905: See Page
Leeuwenhoek Lambertus, compositor, 306 Wall., Kalamazoo City 1895: See Page

Compositor means that Lou was working on the Dutch newspaper. See here. But he had a grocery store in his house?

And if he lived in Vicksburg in 1930, but lived in Kalamazoo in 1926 and 1935, he couldn’t have lived in and owned a store in Vicksburg for very long. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a source for Vicksburg advertising yet.

I found this photo of Uncle Lou standing out in the front of the store, but I’m not sure which city this is:

Any ideas on the years, judging by the cars? Any idea if that looks like Kalamazoo or Vicksburg in the distance?

Likewise, I’m not sure which city Uncle Lou is in as he walks down the sidewalk? Does that window say “Russell” on it? In the city directories, there are many Russells, including ones owning businesses. There is one on Burdick Street, for instance, in my family’s neck o’ the woods, that is a variety store.

Here he is on a bench:

I wouldn’t be surprised to find this bench outside Richard DeKorn’s (his father-in-law) house on the corner of Burdick and Balch, judging by the design of the light colored stripe through the brick.

Here the photo is again–yes, it’s the same house. It’s hard to see Lou’s face up close. Below he is with his father-in-law, Richard DeKorn.

Uncle Lou with Aunt Jen and their only child, Alice:

Here is a closeup of young Uncle Lou.

And now this is a curiosity. This photo is labelled Lou Leeuwenhoek by the same person who knew that the man walking down the street was Lou, that that was Lou standing out in front of his store, etc. But IS it Lou?

This is not his brother, for sure. While it’s not the same hairstyle as the photos above, the features seem to be the same–except for the eyes which, in the other photos, seem to be deep-set. Is the difference aging (the style of tie is the same) or lighting?  Or is the photo mislabeled?

***

You can check out the Bibles Uncle Lou brought with him from the Netherlands here.

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What Can the Photographer Tell Me (When He’s No Longer Here)?

Posted in Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Leeuwenhoek, Paak, Peek, Photography early 20th century, Photography late 19th century, Remine, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 1, 2016| 12 Comments »

My last post Is it Live or is it Memento Mori? relied on information about the dates of the photographer of the photograph in question (whether the lady is dead or alive in the photo).  I used information from a listing of late 19th and early 20th century Kalamazoo photographers on Bushwacking Genealogy.

I started wondering if I approached my photos from this perspective if I could add information to my identification of photos and dates.

For example, this photograph of Carrie Paak Waruf was taken by Evans. Evans is not on Bushwacking’s list, but notice how the photo says “Successor to Packard 120 E. Main St.” So I looked when Packard seems to have stopped being a photographer at that address: 1887. But wait. Mary H. Packard seems to have been in business at that address in 1899. (The lesson here is to pay attention to the photographer’s address if it’s on the photo–they moved around quite a bit and it can help identify a year). Her husband committed suicide in 1898. So who was Evans? And what year was this photo of Carrie taken?

Carrie was born 8 May 1862 in Lexmond, Netherlands. She was my great-great-grandmother’s sister. That means that if Mary Packard was out of business by 1900, Carrie would have been 38 years old. And even older if it was sometime after that point.

That is not possible. This photograph is of a young woman. This is confusing. I might have learned something, but now I have still more questions (is this The Family Kalamazoo refrain or what? more questions, more questions)

Here is another one:

This woman is Jennie Remine Meyer (Meijer, married to Klaas Meijer who became Carlos Meyer).  She’s my first cousin, 4x removed. How old do you think she looks in this photo?

She was born 12 April 1860 in Kalamazoo. Just for the record, she passed away in Kalamazoo on 20 September 1940.

This photographer also bills him or herself as a successor to C. C. Packard, the photographer who died in 1898.  You are correct if you are guessing that Kidney is also not on Bushwacking’s list of photographers.

This is where I wish I had a Kalamazoo city directory for every year right at my fingertips.

If this photo was taken in 1900 or after she would have to be 40 or older.  I think she looks pretty good for 40. No botox, no makeup, no hair dye. But she could be 40, whereas I don’t see how Carrie could be 38 or older.

Then there are the clothes to consider. My instincts tell me Jennie’s clothing and hair is from an older period than Carrie’s, but that would be impossible because she is older than Carrie in the photos, but these two women are only two years apart in age.

There is much work to be done on solving the mystery of these two “successors” to photographer Packard.

Let’s just spot check a couple and see if the information on Bushwacking seems to correspond with the information I have about my photos.

This is Gertrude, Richard, and Adrian DeSmit, the children of John DeSmit and Mary DeKorn DeSmit. Gertrude was born in 1889, Richard 1887, and Adrian in 1891. If we assume that the children are about 6, 8, and 4 in this photo, the year it was taken would be 1895. The photographer Wood was Thomas E. Wood (also went by T.E. Wood) who was in business at least from 1887 to 1895, according to Bushwacking. She says he was not in the city directory in 1899. From 1887-88 he was at 316 E. Main St. From 1889-1895, he was at 134 S. Burdick St. The address on this photo is 134 S. Burdick St. (way up the street from the neighborhood where my relatives lived).

 

OH WAIT, what does that say in the middle of the bottom of the photo? 1895!!!!!!!! So my calculations about their ages was correct, plus it means that my grandfather was correct when he identified exactly which DeSmit children are pictured (there were many, but these were the youngest).  This verifies my info about the photo, as well as the info provided by Bushwacking.

Here is one more. Gerrit Leeuwenhoek:

Photographer Philley is not a common one in my albums, but he is on Bushwacking’s list. Silas Philley, Jr. In 1895, he was in business at 303 E. Main, and in 1899 at 305 E. Main. This photo says 303 East Main Street.

Gerrit died in the service of our military 23 July 1898. If you want to break your heart, read this: he only immigrated to the United States on in April 1897.  I’ve written about him previously in several posts–his death, his life in an orphanage, and the court case he brought against a teacher. You can search his name in my blog’s search bar.

But look at these dates. Since this photograph had to be taken in 1897 or 1898, it means that Philley was still operating out of 303 E. Main Street through that period. This helps narrow down the Bushwacking information a bit more.

I wonder why this photograph was taken and who paid for it. Since Gerrit was a young immigrant, I wonder if his older brother Lou paid for the photo. And I also wonder if it was taken because he was leaving for Cuba for the Spanish-American War. Would the government have taken photographs of new enlistees? If this were true, there might be more photos of young soon-to-be soldiers taken by Philley at this time period.

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Library Research on That Little House in the Woods

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Jennie DeKorn Culver, Joseph Peter DeKorn, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Leeuwenhoek, Michigan history, Photography early 20th century, Richard DeKorn, Zuidweg, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 2, 2016| 20 Comments »

Actually the house was right in the middle of the city, not in the woods, but that sounds nice–very Ingalls-Wilder-ish.

A while back I posted a photo of a house with Alice Leeuwenhoek standing in front of it on Thanksgiving 1907. The address on the back was 126 Balch Street, which didn’t seem to conform to current addresses. I asked a lot of questions about it. Uncle Don explained that were some buildings behind the houses on the street.

 

126 Balch Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Then I heard from Jill-O, a librarian in Kalamazoo. (P.S. You will love her blog so go check it out!)

Here are the results of her research in a 1908 insurance street map of Kalamazoo:

Jill-O says:

It looks like the numbers are in the same location as today. There are a couple of outbuildings behind 126, so either the house was torn down and rebuilt, or the one of the outbuildings was used.

Here is the house that  is on the street, numbered 126, today.

Let’s look at the pic and think back to 1907. In the photo you can see an outbuilding behind the house, so it’s unlikely that it’s off the street, behind another building. But if it was 126, wouldn’t the outbuilding be poking out on the other side? And wouldn’t the house be larger? As to the second question, maybe not. The house shows one room and behind it another room, so maybe from the photo we can’t see the depth of the house. As to the first question, what if the photo is reversed? I don’t know too much about the process of taking photos or developing them in those days, and maybe the photo is reversed.

OR. What if this is an outbuilding and that building off to the left is a house on the street from another angle?

The more answers I find, the more questions I have. I think my husband is right: I ask way too many questions.

This map is invaluable to me because so many of my relatives lived in this neighborhood. I am going to use it to plug in the addresses on the census reports–yippee!!!

Thank you, Jill-O!

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Did the Leeuwenhoeks Live Here?

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Jennie DeKorn Culver, Joseph Peter DeKorn, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Leeuwenhoek, Michigan history, Photography early 20th century, Richard DeKorn, Zuidweg, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 3, 2016| 23 Comments »

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.

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Alice’s Postcard Collection

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Jennie DeKorn Culver, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Leeuwenhoek, Photography early 20th century, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 8, 2015| 25 Comments »

I lost my oldest cat, Mac. He passed away a week ago last Sunday. His actual name was Macavity, and he was named after T.S. Eliot’s “Mystery Cat” (in the poem and the Broadway musical). I’m a dedicated animal lover, so I always like to see evidence of animals in the lives of my ancestors. I wrote a post called Dogs in the Family that showcases some photos of pets from 100 years ago, as well as my own four cats.

I found a postcard from 105 years ago that features a type of tabby cat. My cat Mac was an orange and white tabby, so this caught my attention. It’s part of a collection of cards received by Alice Leeuwenhoek.

This card was mailed from Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1910. Alice was my grandfather’s first cousin–their mothers were sisters–and she was born in Kalamazoo in 1897.

I wish I knew what the inside joke about eating well means! Alice was a very slender woman.

Notice that the postcard isn’t signed. So frustrating! Does it sound like a good friend or a relative?  Does the handwriting give a clue? Alice was 13 years old when she received this card.

Here she is seven years later (age 20)–dressing fashionably, posing, and with a young man!

Alice wouldn’t marry until 1923, at age 26, and it wasn’t to the man in this photo.

If you go to Dogs in the Family, you will see a photo of Alice as a child with her aunt, my great-grandmother Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, and my grandfather, Adrian Zuidweg–with the family dogs.

I’ll leave you with photo of Alice and moi when I was 3 years old. Alice was 61. I knew Alice quite well when I was a child. She passed away when I was 8 years old, in 1963.

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A Postcard Brings Me Information and Even More Questions

Posted in Adriaan Zuijdweg/Adrian Zuidweg Sr., Adrian Zuidweg, DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Jennie DeKorn Culver, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Leeuwenhoek, Michigan history, Peek, Photography early 20th century, Richard DeKorn, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 5, 2014| 26 Comments »

I’ve traveled to California, Sedona, and Michigan in the past few weeks.  Needless to say, I am behind in my work even more than usual. I want to continue Theresa Pake’s story and to explore the Jennie DeKorn Culver photos more, but these projects take a good deal of time.

Instead, I decided to take a look at an old postcard postmarked 1911. The postcard is to Alice Leewenhoek, Richard DeKorn’s granddaughter through his daughter Jennie. Alice was an only child who lived with her mother Jennie and her father who Grandpa always called “Uncle Lou”–Lambertus Leewenhoek.

In the photo below, Alice is sitting with a friend, neighbor, or relative against the exterior wall of Richard DeKorn’s house. She holds a doll in her lap and is petting Tom or Carlo (if I had to guess, I would say it’s Tom).

 

Alice Leeuwenhoek with doll

On this postcard, Nellie Bradt is thanking Alice for her “postal.” Nellie’s address is marked as 1130 S. Burdick Street.  The photograph is Bronson Park, which is the beautiful “town square” of Kalamazoo.

Bronson park front postcard

 

After seeing that the mailing address is listed as Balch St. and doesn’t include Alice’s street number (not uncommon for that time period in Kalamazoo), I went to my family tree on Ancestry and discovered that I had never found the Leewenhoek family on the 1910 census.  So I tried something different and looked for the 1910 census on Family Search. Bingo.  Instead of Lambertus Leewenhoek, I found Lamburtos Leenwenhock, at 110 Balch Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Uncle Lou was living with his wife Jennie and his daughter Alice who was 13 years old in that year–and therefore around 14 at the time of the postcard in 1911. New info: According to Uncle Don, they lived in the wooden house just behind the Richard DeKorn brick house.

Can you read anything more on the postmark besides the city, state, and year?  Is it December 9? Or does it say something else?

Bronson park back postcard

 

Grandpa and Alice were first cousins, their mothers were sisters.

I haven’t been able to find Nellie Bradt in the 1910 census, but I did find her in an 1899 city directory. I then found her parents in a 1905 directory. I think I can find them more years, too. But I don’t understand how to read these entries. The 1899 entries are entirely different from the 1905, but neither one really gives me the address.

Here is the 1899 that lists Nellie with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. George A. Bradt. I understand they lived in the City of Kalamazoo. And I know “a” means acreage, but not how to interpret what any of this means or how it connects with an address.

Nellie Bradt 1899 city directory

 

Here is the 1905 directory entry. Nellie isn’t mentioned, but her parents are. What in the world does it mean?

Nellie Bradt's parents 1905 city directory

Is there a way to search for Nellie in the 1910 census using the 1130 S. Burdick Street address she gives? Can I search the census by address?

Note that many of my relatives lived in this Burdick/Balch neighborhood. When I look at the census records from late 19th and early 20th century, I see that almost everyone, if not everyone, who lived there was Dutch.

My grandfather’s gas station was at the corner of Burdick and Balch, across the street from the Richard DeKorn house. Grandpa lived in that house for part of his childhood, with his parents and grandfather, Richard. When he built his house down the block on Burdick, he was staying in the same general area his family had lived in for decades. He continued to work at his station and live in his house until he retired and moved to Portage.

I remember as a child meeting Mrs. Bradt Braat who lived next door to the gas station. The name is pronounced, by the way, like the sausages that go with beer. I wonder if she was related to the Nellie Bradt who wrote this postcard. Mom? Uncle Don? New info: no, she must not be as they were a Belgian family (see comments below).

Alice Leewenhoek was my grandfather’s cousin. Note that the postcard is stamped with the name and address of Grandpa’s father, A. Zuidweg. I wonder why?

One postcard. So many questions!

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How Did They Know Each Other?

Posted in DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Jennie DeKorn Culver, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Leeuwenhoek, Michigan history, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2014| 12 Comments »

I posted a copy of a graduation announcement last week. I didn’t know who it belonged to, but it turns out it belonged to Uncle Joe DeKorn. A reader posted a link to the answer. It turns out that Uncle Joe graduated from Kalamazoo High School in a class of 26. One of his classmates was an Upjohn son, William Harold Upjohn, and one was a Todd daughter, Ethel May Todd.

When Uncle Lou (Lambertus) Leeuwenhoek passed away on April 20, 1949, another Todd–Mary Todd–sent flowers and a sympathy notecard. You can read about Uncle Lou and his wife, my Aunt Jen, if you click on the following links: a post about Uncle Lou’s hero brother who died at war, a post about Uncle Lou’s Bible collection, and one which focuses on my Aunt Jen, Uncle Lou’s wife. When I was growing up, she was the oldest person I knew. A post I still need to write is about the store Uncle Lou and Aunt Jen owned.

I don’t know how Aunt Jen knew Mary Todd, but maybe it was at church or maybe it was through the store.

Sent with a vase of mixed flowers

Sent with a vase of mixed flowers

Mary Todd was Ethel’s sister-in-law, the wife of Albert John Todd, the President of the A.M. Todd Company. Mary’s husband was a son of the company founder. In 1950, Albert and Mary lived at 2344 Midvale Terrace in Kalamazoo. The house was in the middle of a section known as Westnedge Hill, where the houses are all large and custom and the lots large for city lots.

The 1920 census indicates that Albert and Mary lived with their four children and two servants, an “Englishman” and a local girl. According to the 1930 census, they had one servant, a different girl from ten years earlier. It’s hard to tell about the 1940 census because Albert and Mary are at the bottom of the page, and I am not sure how to find the next page. Any ideas?

When people think of the A.M. Todd Company, they think of mint. According to the company website, the history is summed up this way:

Quality. Purity. Integrity. An unwavering belief in these principles inspired Albert May Todd, then a teenager, to found A. M. Todd Company in 1869. It was an era when mint essential oil from Michigan had a poor reputation thanks to widespread adulteration by unscrupulous vendors. Albert May’s initiatives brought credibility to Michigan essential oils and early success to the A. M. Todd Company, now the world’s oldest and largest supplier of American peppermint and spearmint oil.

Maybe Uncle Lou and Aunt Jen were customers, through their store, of the A.M. Todd Company.  This company was sold a little over two years ago. You can find an article here which describes the company, the sale, and the influence of the company on the Kalamazoo area.

This is a passage from a book entitled Vanilla: Travels in Search of the Ice Cream Orchid by Tim Ecott:

Notice that the notecard also has the name Frances Haskell. Maybe that indicates that the flowers were, in fact, from women who knew Aunt Jen through a women’s group? Frances Haskell seems to be a middle-aged single daughter of Gertrude Haskell. The Haskells lived in the beautiful area near Kalamazoo College and the Henderson Castle.

Once again, this item and the information I’ve found leads to more questions than I had originally!

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Hobnobbing

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Leeuwenhoek, Photography early 20th century, Remine, Zuidweg, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 28, 2014| 12 Comments »

I started to prepare a post about the Bosman branch of the Remine (Remijnse) family, but then one character in the drama led to another, and I realized I need to do more work on it before I can post.

So instead I offer you a photo from a collection I have not yet shared. It’s from a photo album owned by Alice Leeuwenhoek Moerdyk. She has a lot of photos of the good time the family used to have at Brook Lodge, outside of Kalamazoo.

In this photo, taken at Brook Lodge, the boy is most likely my grandfather. The date is 1915, and my grandfather was born in 1908. This photo was taken in the summer, and Grandpa’s birthday was October 31. The boy looks to be about six, and the facial resemblance is there.

Brook Lodge, Michigan 1915

Brook Lodge, Michigan
1915

Brook Lodge  was a 40 acre farm that was purchased in 1895 by Dr. W.E. Upjohn, founder of the Upjohn Company. He converted the old creamery to a summer cottage for his family. Grandpa told me that the family was invited often to relax at Brook Lodge. This photo was taken two years after Dr. Upjohn married the widow of James F. Gilmore, a founder of the Gilmore Brothers Department Store. People from the area will recognize both the names Upjohn and Gilmore.

Update: My uncle believes that the woman in the photo is Alice who would have been about 18 at the time of this photo.

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