The Family Kalamazoo

Posts Tagged ‘Michigan history’

Online Generosity and Family History

Posted in DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Mulder, Noffke, Paak, Peek, Waldeck, Zuidweg, tagged Brook Lodge, DeKorn, DeKorn family, DeKorn genealogy, Dutch Genealogy, family history, genealogy, history of Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo history, Michigan history, Paak genealogy, Pake family, Peek family, Ramona Park, Richard DeKorn, Waldeck, Zuidweg surname on June 10, 2014| 23 Comments »

I started this blog in September 2012 with three private posts and then didn’t write again until November. The idea was that I would start to put the photos and stories I had accumulated “out there” for family members to access. Although the details aren’t that memorable to me, it seems that I switched to public but didn’t tag the posts at first, hoping that the posts wouldn’t get picked up by Google. That way, relatives could easily find the blog, but I was in hopes that nobody else would find it.

It didn’t take too long to see that some family members (Hi, Mom and Dad haha) and a few friends liked the blog and I thought it might be better just to tag the posts and connect with other WordPress bloggers. What I had seen of the bloggers working on family histories interested me a lot, so I wanted to feel more involved.

I had no idea what would happen. No, I don’t have an amazing number of blog followers, but those that do follow tend to be loyal and friendly. They are also kind and generous and have helped with looking at the details in photographs and giving me clues about where to search–as well as giving me some behind the scenes help.  You know who you are and you are fabulous.

Another aspect of blogging that I could not have predicted is how many wonderful non-bloggers have found the blog through internet searches and have shared information with me. I hesitate to name people because I don’t want to leave anybody out, so I will list just a few of the insights I’ve gained from these generous souls.

• One of the biggest mysteries was the Paak family fire and that branch of the family–now I have info and photos to sort through and a new “cousin”
• Information and photographs about my great-great grandfather Richard DeKorn’s second wife and her daughters.
• Dates and names beyond count from a very kind and hardworking soul in the Netherlands
• Through the previous individual, I found a first cousin once removed (I think that’s right) with a big heart–and photos and info–from my dad’s family
• Photos and information of my ancestors in the Netherlands
• Found the Noffke line
• Found out more about the Jenny DeKorn Culver family–and received the gorgeous album of photographs and postcards
• Information and photographs relating to Ramona Park, Long Lake, and the Waruf family
• Learned more about the Bosman family
• Learned more about the VanLiere family and corresponded with that branch and, yes, photos
• Traced a branch from the Netherlands to the Holland area of Michigan
• Identification of various photographs

I could continue as there are more goodies that have come my way since starting this blog. I am so grateful for the generosity of everyone involved. If I had kept this blog just to “us,” I wouldn’t have known how large my family truly is and how kind strangers can be.

That’s all I wanted to talk about today: how grateful I am and how thrilling it is to look back at all the information that has been shared here from such generous souls.

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Bronson Park Redux

Posted in Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, tagged Bronson Park, family history, genealogy, history of Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo Art Fairs, Kalamazoo Michigan, Michigan history on May 30, 2014| 9 Comments »

I shared a couple of photographs of my artist mother-in-law the other day. They were from the 60s and early 70s and had turned yellow. I was very frustrated with the damage to the photos.

 

Paula Taylor saved the day by converting them to black and white photos. Here you can see the changes:

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And here:

 

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I’m really happy with them. Thanks, Paula!

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Down Near the Train Station

Posted in Chicago history, DeKorn, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, Photography early 20th century, Remine, tagged DeKorn family, DeKorn genealogy, downtown Kalamazoo, Dutch Genealogy, family history, Frank Tazelaar, genealogy, Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo history, Michigan history, Train station on May 20, 2014| 21 Comments »

Although I’m in such a busy period that I can’t work on genealogy, I do have my daughter’s help right now to scan some old photos, so I will post some of them while I am too busy for research.

On the back of this photo it says Frank Tazelaar (near Whistle Stop).

Frank Tazelaar
near Whistle Stop
Kalamazoo

So I looked up Frank Tazelaar on my family tree. Sure enough, he’s on there. He was born January 17, 1876 in the Netherlands, to Pieter Tazelaar and Adriana Bek. The family immigrated to the United States when he was 12, in 1888. On July 9, 1906, he married Genevieve Remine in Chicago. Genevieve was my first cousin 3x removed. Frank died in 1950.

So what is “Whistle Stop”? It’s the train station. But when I tried to figure out if it was the same Whistle Stop where my friends and I used to go to eat and drink (and a building that my father owned) or if it was the other train depot (where we owned a concession stand with my father), I discovered that there were actually seven train stations in Kalamazoo. Here is a fascinating article that says that Kalamazoo may have had more train depots than any other city. I am going to tentatively assume that this photo was taken near what I knew as the Whistle Stop.

Here is a painting my mother-in-law did of the Whistle Stop. I apologize for the flaws in my copies on the computer for the next two photos.

The Whistle Stop
Kalamazoo

And here is one she painted of the other train depot:

Train depot
Kalamazoo

OK, dad correct me if I made any mistakes!

What does the date on the photo of Frank Tazelaar say? Is it 1904 or 1914?

Be sure to note the type of rig he was driving, the dog, and his clothing compared with the men up on the roof. What is that pole thing coming down from up there? What do you think Gaslight means? The mark (pencil or crayon?) going through the photo wasn’t noticeable until my daughter scanned it. And thanks to Amberly at The Genealogy Girl she is scanning into .tif files.

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Bronson Park, Kalamazoo: 1960s and 70s

Posted in Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, tagged Bronson Park, family history, genealogy, history of Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo Art Fairs, Kalamazoo Michigan, Michigan history on May 16, 2014| 18 Comments »

In the past few months I’ve been so busy with work that I haven’t had time to work at genealogy the way I wish. I have a lot of wonderful material on the Paak family, which has been given to me by Professor Edgar Lawrence. I also have some interesting material to share from Elmhurst research about the Klein and Van Gessel families.

But am I sharing any of it in this post? No. I want to do a good job of pulling it together, and I can’t do that now, as overworked busy as I am. Instead, I thought I would share a photo from the Kalamazoo of my youth.  On the right side, you can see my mother-in-law, the artist Diana Dale Castle. I wrote about her in my post The Todd House.

She’s at Bronson Park, which is the town square of Kalamazoo. When I was growing up, the park was surrounded by the “First Churches” of Kalamazoo (First United Methodist, etc.) and City Hall. Its enormous oak trees had sheltered Abraham Lincoln when he gave a speech in Kalamazoo.  The park had the best Christmas decorations every year, and everything from political rallies to art fairs were held there.

My mother-in-law used to show her art at the art fairs.

Here is my MIL painting in her New York City apartment in the 1950s. Look at how horribly yellow the photograph has turned! Do you know if this can be fixed–and how to fix it?

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Wordless Wednesday: Grandpa with His Mother, circa 1910

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo history, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, Paak, Peek, Photography early 20th century, Zuidweg, tagged Adrian Zuidweg, antique photograph, DeKorn family, early 1900s, family history, genealogy, history of Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo, Michigan history, Zuidweg on May 14, 2014| 5 Comments »

Cora Wilhelmina DeKorn Zuidweg and her son Adrian Zuidweg
Kalamazoo, Michigan
circa 1910

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Saved from the Fire

Posted in DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Paak, Peek, tagged Eastlake furniture, family history, genealogy, George Joseph Pake, George Pake, history of Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo history, Michigan history, Paak genealogy, Paake family, Pake family, Peek family, Sr. on April 22, 2014| 10 Comments »

Here is another follow-up to my post about the newspaper clipping I found tucked in with the family photos. If you missed it, you can find it in A Series of Disasters or read the clipping below. Since then I have learned a lot about the George Paake (born Joost Peek and also known as George Pake) family of widowed father and five children.

In addition to learning about the children, which I will explore more in future posts, I was told that a piece of furniture that was rescued from the fire is still in the hands of the family. Since I thought you might like to see a sample of what was in that house in 1902, I asked for a photograph of the dresser.

 

I am not an antiques expert by any means, but it struck me as different from most of the pieces I’ve seen from that period. Since the fire was in 1902, the dresser was most likely from the late 1800s.

Teunis Peek and his wife Jacoba Bassa had six children while living in Lexmond, the Netherlands. In 1865, Jacoba passed away at the age of 41. A few years later (1868 or 1869), Teunis brought the children to the United States, where he settled in Michigan.

Therefore, when the fire occurred at the home of Teunis’ son George,  the family had been living in Michigan for over 30 years. Because of the style of the dresser and the length of time in this country, I would assume that the dresser was purchased in the United States.

From a little Google research, I am guessing that this dresser is of the “Eastlake” style. The straight lines were meant to vary from the norm of Victorian curlicues, and the ridges on the corner columns and the stylized branch with leaves carving are typical of that style of furniture.

Do you agree or disagree about the style and age of this piece? and why?

 

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Related articles

• Paak-a-boo
• A Series of Disasters
• The Children After the Fire, 1902

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Treasures from My Grandmother

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, Caledonia Michigan history, Family History, Genealogy, Lucille Edna Mulder Zuidweg, Michigan history, Mulder, Photography early 20th century, tagged Caledonia, Caledonia High School, early 1900s, family history, genealogy, Michigan history, Mulder, Waldeck on April 17, 2014| 23 Comments »

My grandmother, Lucille Edna Mulder (Zuidweg), was born April 17, 1912. If she hadn’t passed away in 2000, she would be 102 today. I miss her every day.

Grandma holding me 1955

Last year I posted about Grandma’s high school graduation scrapbook. Here is the link. There are a lot of photos in that book; in most of them Grandma is hanging out with her friends and classmates.

Below, Grandma is in all but the lower right photo. One of the girls is her best friend, Blanche Stauffer. Grandma and Blanche are in the upper right photo together–that’s Grandma in front. Blanche has the straight dark bangs. In the lower left Grandma is with another friend.

 

The scrapbook has an autograph page, and the words from Blanche are front and center:

Grandma and I have a lot in common. One thing is that a best friend was very important to us growing up. I looked up Blanche on Ancestry, and I was amazed to learn that she, like my grandmother, was the second child in the family. Blanche’s older sister was one year older. That was the same with Grandma: her older sister Dorothy was one year older.

Blanche was class valedictorian, Dorothy was salutatorian, and Grandma–with the 3rd highest GPA–was class historian. I read a list of Grandma’s classmates, and Blanche’s older sister was not in their class. At least Blanche didn’t have the sisterly competition that Grandma had to put up with ;).

Writing is another commonality between Grandma and me. When she was elderly and had just gotten sprung from a very negative experience with a rehabilitation nursing center, she made me promise I would never give up writing. I promised her, and I have kept my word. I remember Grandma submitting funny stories and occasionally getting them published when I was very young.

Recently, my mother told me an anecdote that made me realize that Grandma and I share another interest. When I was little and my mother worked full-time, Grandma babysat me. We sang Ethel Merman songs like “Anything You Can Do.”  I could always manage to sing louder and higher than Grandma.

Any note you can reach
I can go higher.
I can sing anything
Higher than you.
No, you can’t. (High)
Yes, I can. (Higher) No, you can’t. (Higher)
Yes, I CAN! (Highest)

What I didn’t realize is that when my mother and her siblings were little, my grandmother (who was always with my grandfather, to my memory) went to New York City with her sister Dorothy. They saw Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun.  She actually saw this song performed live by Merman. My mother says it was one of the highlights of her life, and I believe it because I remember this music around Grandma often when it was “just us.”  I still love musicals and so does my daughter, who performs in professional productions.

Grandma and I shared other songs, too. She used to hold me on her lap while we sang “She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain” and “This Old Man (Knick Knack Paddy Whack).” My memories of my grandmother are treasured heirlooms.

Happy birthday, Grandma.

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The Children After the Fire, 1902

Posted in Alice Paak DeKorn, DeKorn, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Paak, Peek, Richard DeKorn, tagged DeKorn family, family history, genealogy, George Joseph Pake, history of Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo history, Michigan history, Paak genealogy, Pake family, Peek family, Sr. on April 15, 2014| 24 Comments »

Just over a year ago, in A Series of Disasters, I posted a newspaper clipping that I found tucked in with the family photos. This is the copy of the article:

The residence of George Paake at 1016 Trimble Avenue was burned this morning about 10:30 o’clock and a worthy family which has had a series of disasters, left without a home.  The house which Mr. Paake was paying for in the Building and Loan Association was entirely ruined although most of the contents of the home were saved. Mr. Paake receives no insurance whatever and the little which had been accumulated by the family was lost.

The fire is only an incident in the history of the family. Mrs. Paake died a short time ago leaving five children, the oldest being fourteen years old. Since the mother’s death the little girl has had entire charge of the house and the four little children and has had all the responsibility of the family except the support which Mr. Paake gave as a laborer.  Recently he has been unable to work and was ill this morning when the fire occurred.

The neighbors have taken in the little ones and are doing all that is possible to alleviate the sufferings of the family. Mrs. Carrier has been responsible for raising a sum of money to which the neighbors have liberally contributed.

At the end of this post I will re-post the newspaper clipping for documentation. I want to apologize for spelling the surname every which way, but at every turn the name is spelled differently. Family members changed the spelling, and different documents recorded it differently. Paak-Peek-Paake-Pake: they are all the same.

Eventually, I discovered that this man was George Joseph Paak, Sr.,  the brother of my great-great-grandmother Alice Paak DeKorn and that the fire occurred on Wednesday, September 3, 1902.

George’s wife Lucy Kliphouse passed away in 1900, leaving 5 young children in their father’s care.  George (born Joost) was 50 at the time he was left a widower. At some point he had changed the surname to Pake.

The five children were Cora, the eldest mentioned in the article, Jennie, Theresa (also called Tracy), Fanny (also called Frances), and George Jr. Cora was born in 1888; Jennie (who later changed her name to Jane) in 1890; Theresa in 1893; Fannie in 1896, and George in 1898.  George was only four when the fire occurred. Imagine Cora, at 14, taking care of the others–ages 12, 9, 6, and 4. What a burden on such a young girl. And when her mother died, she was only twelve and young George was two!

Since the time of that post, George’s grandson, Professor Edgar Lawrence, discovered this blog. He’s been able to fill in many of the missing pieces about this branch of my family. His mother was Theresa, the middle child.  Here is a photo, taken at least a decade after the fire, showing all five Pake children.

Front row: Theresa and Cora
Back row: Frances, George Jr., Jennie (Jane)

 

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