Interview with Raymond M. Swanson (80 years old) Born October, 1894 Taped 8/4/1975

K – Ron Kuiper; S – Raymond Swanson

K: You came to Grand Haven in 1922, you said?

S: Ya. Mm-hmm.

K: And you have spent a lot of time in the Cutler House. I was reading in here about the elevator.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: I had an interview with Mrs. DuBee shortly before she died.

S: Oh, you were fortunate then.

K: I know. She was past…her mind wasn’t so good anymore then but at least, we talked to her. She

remembered an elevator in there that was hand run with chains.

S: Well, they would pull it on that and that would start the engine up. That was the type that they’d pull

a cord that ran up and down to the elevator.

K: I see.

S: They had that type in Chicago. That was a control for the throttles.

K: Oh. Of course. I remember such an elevator control in the Heinz plant in Holland. You just gave the

chain, or rope, a jerk and that would activate the, in that case, I guess, an electric motor.

S: Mm-hmm.

K; But this was called the Crane Brothers Improved Passenger Elevator. And you said that was steam

operated?

S: Steam operated. I think it mentions in the Lillie book that it was steam operated.

K: Does it?

S: In my recollection, there’s a picture – I think it shows the First Reformed Church and fire engines

down there…fire engine near it. Now where that was, whether it was in the Historical Society…

K: I have those. But that was 1907.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: And I think that was later. The First Reformed Church burned down in 1889, too. I’m aware of that as

you are.

S: Ya. But I have not come across any photographs of the fire of 1889. The second floor is very much the

same, you think.

S: Ya. I read somewhere about the steam elevator.

K: Where was that elevator located, do you know?

S: You can’t tell from the present structure where it might have been. You see, there have been so

many changes made in that structure. The Masonic organization bought that three story building in

1916. They purchased it and they renovated the third floor and made other changes in there. There

were stairwells and that at that time. They put a _____ roof on there and they had a passage way so

they could get up to a tower on the roof for their instruments.

K: John Van Schelven worked for them, didn’t he?

S: Yes. And there was a number of various offices on that floor at one time. And then they purchased

that two-story building over where Jackie Juniors is now. The Masonic Order bought that. See, the

Pitcher Building is the one over his store. But that stairway going up there is on Masonic Temple

property. They have no stairwell into his building at all.

K: You mean the stairwell that goes up to the radio?

S: Yes. It’s in the Masonic building.

K: In the Masonic building.

S: You notice there’s a big fire door hanging in between there.

K: Yes.

S: That divides the two buildings.

K: Oh.

S: If you look at the roof, you can see a parapet on that roof running between the two buildings.

K: Would it be possible to get on top of the Cutler House and take pictures sometime?

S: I can get you on top of the three-story building. Ya.

K: I would like that. I’m sure you’ve seen that picture before. I copied that. I have equipment for copying

old pictures. But that is a nice…

S: We have a good, framed, big picture of that. One like that.

K: The same one?

S: Yes. In the office. That building extended down, I resume where Reichardt’s is now.

K: That far.

S: From as near as I can judge the measurements in the photographs.

K: I’m really interested in getting a photograph of that big fire of 1889. I’m aware of the pictures you

were talking about, because I’ve got…I’m not sure I have them here. But that was in 1907. Let’s see

once.

S: You’ve got some railroad pictures there, too.

K: Oh, I have railroad pictures. (Noise on Tape)

S: …about the interurban lines, and the Tribune printed it. The way it started, there was some article in

a editorial mentioning it run by third rail in the center of the track. So I called up Poel and I said, “You’re

all wet on that.” I said, “You’re thinking of the toy trains with a third rail in the center of the track.” It

had an outside third rail until it got into Spring Lake, then it was trolley from Spring Lake in. And the

same way in Muskegon. It was trolley where they dropped the third rail.

K: Ya. I…(Noise) He died about the time you got here. That’s his picture.

S: Mm-hmm. Steven Munroe. That is actually my own name. See, I was adopted and that’s where I

acquired the Swanson.

K: I see.

S: But…uh…

K: Are you related to the…

S: No connection that I have any…

K: That was spelled sometimes M O N. Usually M U N R O E. That’s interesting though.

S: (Noise on tape from pictures) …just glancing at that picture. It must be funny.

K: You remember the Grand Trunk ferries, I’m quite certain.

S: Very well. I wrote an article and gave a talk at the Historical Society about the Grand Trunk Railroad,

how it started as the Grand Trunk…or, Detroit and Pontiac Railroad, then they decided to build west and

they called the project that they were going to build the Oakland and Ottawa. They hadn’t decided

where they were going to hit along the shoreline, but it would be in Ottawa County. Then they built

through to Spring Lake, or Mill Point as it was then known, and on the north side of the river. And I gave

the history of the depot over there and how that was built, how luxurious it was, the wording they used

on the timbers and that.

K: Where did you get your information about the luxurious nature of that depot?

S: Uh…I forget where I picked a lot of it up.

K: I’d be interested in reading that article.

S: Well, I have a copy of it. I can get it out of my files.

K: Let’s do that before we leave. Let me sit down and talk to you for a little while first. I would be

interested in any of those things that you did because, you know, that’s fascinating.

S: When I first came to town in ’22, there was a lot of the old piling and that over there that you could

recognize.

K: Uh…while you are browsing through that…

S: It was called Bootlegger’s Road.

K: Friant Street was?

S: Ya. There was a woman out there, she ran a beer joint. Her name was Mary – I don’t know, I think her

name was Speelock. You’ve picked up some of these from…

K: Post cards.

S: …Post cards, mm-hmm.

K: Those are Van Schelven’s here.

S: The old Gildner House.

K: Or the Kirby. Or the Ferry.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: All three names it went by.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: Do you remember the Fanny M. Rose and the May Graham?

S: Uh…

K: I think that was slightly before you.

S: There was one steamer that was running up on Spring Lake when I first came…in ’22.

K: Was that the Fanny M. Rose?

S: I don’t recall which one it was.

K: The May Graham went up the Grand River, but the Fanny M. Rose…Let’s see once, what do we have

here?

S: Where Wessel’s…

K: Yes, you see, this is on Franklin here. And this would be Water, or Harbor. Now part of that building

was snipped off and part of this canopy, of course, is gone – or arcade.

S: Then there was a Chicken Shack in there later on.

K: Did you ever have a chicken dinner there?

S: You’re darn shootin’ I did. Many of them. It was run by colored folks.

K: The Carues.

S: Yes. And later they moved up on the Muskegon road.

K: Yes, and they didn’t do so well there, did they?

S: But down here they done a nice business.

K: I understand that that was really a good place to eat.

S: It was. I remember this place here well.

K: Yes. That’s really…this is…

S: From the top of…no, the elevators would have been on this side here. _____ from the top of the old

grain elevators. (There’s a great deal of noise from handling pictures which makes it impossible to hear

much of the conversation.) Down on the Grand Trunk bridge, the rails.

K: No, I don’t recall that.

S: A month ago…He called me up at the office one day and said, “By any chance, can you tell me the

date that that happened?” I said, “In the early 1950’s.” He said, “Could you possibly pin it down closer

than that?” I said, “Well, when I get home, I’ll look in my file.” So I looked in the file and, as luck would

have it, I had the complete Grand Haven Trib for that date with the clear 8x10 pictures.

K: Oh, man! (laughs) You might like to look at those. I don’t know, I…Was the Dornbos Fish House for

retail too?

S: Ya, they had a reatail store in there.

K: You went there and bought fish.

S: Yup. I see they got a post card of that one.

K: Do you remember their telephone number?

S: No, I don’t.

K: It was number one.

S: Number one. Robbins was number two. Pere Marquette station was number six and the Grand Trunk

was number 5. _____ was 150.

K: Yes. Well, the Dornboses are kind of proud that they had number one. They still are; the family is.

S: That’s the _____.

K: Yes, this is the new building, the interior.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: This is the weather thing you were talking about? The weather tower?

S: Mm-hmm.

K: John Van Schelven talks about climbing up there.

S: Yup.

K: Here were the porches and you can see in the brick work, the present building there, where those

porches were located.

K: It looks like bricked up windows?

S: No, where there’s an offset in the brick work.

K: Oh, I see.

If we go down there, I’ll show you.

K: Ya, I’d like to do that with you sometime. I really would like that. That’s Fruitport.

S: Yup.

K: That steamboat, the Fanny M. Rose used to go frequently to that park in Fruitport. Have you ever

been in the Highland Park Hotel?

S: Years ago, yes. We had a meeting there at one time of salesmen.

K: Did you eat there?

S: We had a luncheon there at that time.

K: Was it a good meal? A good lunch?

S: The lunch we had was good, yes. When we first came to Grand Haven, if we wanted to go swimming

on the North Shore, we’d hale one of the lifeboats, row over…they’d row a group of us over there for a

quarter…and we’d go swimming up there because there was no roads up in that area. There was only

one or two buildings up there. One of them, I think, is still up there on the beach. And it was just wild up

in there. We used to have picnics up there.

K: Who…who got the quarter? Whom did you pay?

S: We paid the fellow that rowed us across.

K: Was it a Coast Guard boat?

S: A Coast Guard boat.

K: So they made a little extra money.

S: Sure. Mm-hmm.

K: See, I think that right here, that may be the boat.

S: Ya, it was a small boat.

K: I…I’ve heard some stories about that. That’s kind of interesting.

S: Ya.

K: The cottage owners, too. The only way they could get there was by that boat.

S: Yes. Mm-hmm.

K: This, I think, was where those celery fields are on Fulton.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: That’s Five Mile Hill.

S: 1950.

K: 1950.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: _____ Do you know who those men are?

S: Uh…no, I don’t.

K: It’s sad that that Grand Trunk thing…that the ferries no longer dock in Grand Haven. That was so

exciting.

S: Have you seen any cards like that? That’s the Grand Trunk, the ferry slips down there before they

painted the boats black.

K: That’s a better one than any I have. I do…I do have a picture of the…of the ferry backed up into the

slip, but none like that. And that clear. That’s good. I would like sometime to copy that one, if I may. It

would only take me a minute.

S: Sure. Oh, here’s that article.

K: _____ the museum now?

S: No, the little brick _____that the Grand Trunk has down there, down about between Columbus and

Fulton.

K: Oh, I see.

S: They’re pulling up the tracks. _____ 22.

K: Oh. And where was that located?

S: Right where the present depot is. __________

K: By the present depot, you mean the one that’s still functioning as a depot?

S: This is the Pere Marquette.

K: Yes. Now was that the Walker Pavilon?

S: I don’t know what they called it.

K: Ya. I think sometime what you should to is come to my house and _____.

S: “_____ for the approaching completion. It is described as a magnificent building and the view it

presented…” There’s a misspelled word. “…to the pedestrian…”

K: You were with Keller Tool from ’22 to ’59?

S: ’59. I retired the end of ’59.

K: You retired in ’59. So actually, your time there pretty well spanned that of George Kehoe’s. He came

there in 1919 and he retired – I don’t know exactly when – but it wasn’t too different…too far away from

your retirement.

S: No, George and I used to go to the Masonic Lodge together. He lived out on Columbus. We walked

from this end of town downtown and back whenever there was a meeting at night. We didn’t have cars

in those days.

K: Mm-hmm.

S: That is, we didn’t have cars for use at that time.

K: Ya. He met his…he met his wife, Carrie Palmer, in the ice cream store which was located in what is

now Smitty’s Bar.

S: Down there at the corner of First and Washington.

K: Yes.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: Do you remember the name of that ice cream store?

S: Nope. I don’t think that it would show in the one directory that I got, City Directory. …Just off the

main line of the Pere Marquette. As you went over to Fruitport, see there was a little stub that came

down in Fruitport, and came down from Muskegon that way.

K: Kirk is about where Lappo Lumber was and there’s a branch running from the main Pere Marquette

line…

S: To a junction there. The stub came down to Fruitport.

K: I see.

S: It crossed one of the bayous there on a high-level trestle.

K: This double red line, what’s that?

S: Let’s see.

K: An interurban line? Or is that a proposed new railroad line?

S: I think that was a road.

K: A road? _____

S: Round-trip rate.

K: A round-trip rate from Grand Haven to Grand Rapids to Muskegon, then by boat?

S: No. To Fruitport, and then up and back.

K: Oh, you just went to Fruitport.

S: Uh-huh.

K: I think that J. Nyhof Poel said that they described that by…with the term loop the loop.

S: Ya.

K: They were going to loop the loop. Have you ever heard that term? That expression?

S: Wait a minute.

K: By that he meant the interurban to Muskegon and then the trip back.

S: Here’s the story.

K: The _____ plant.

S: Building a big channel on the island. _____in here.

K: No. What island?

S: Where the power plant is on now.

K: Yes. In between the South Channel and the main channel there?

S: Mm-hmm. They called that the Grand Haven Terminal _____.

K: LaFollet. Related to Senator Robert LaFollet?

S: _____ Lake Michigan must be an American _____. It was owned by the Canadian National, the Grand

Trunk. So when the Milwaukee went down, that’s when the statement _____ the Pennsylvania got tied

in, the Pennsylvania Railroad had a tie-in there. Here’s a collection of stuff I picked up from this Mr.

Shattalee (?) who was connected with the interurban lines here. Passes that he had for various

interurbans and railroads of different kinds.

K: Did you know Captain Robert McKay?

S: Uh…I knew of him, yes.

K: Did he have a reputation for being a captain who was willing to go out in water rougher than other

captains would be willing to go out in?

S: I would be of the opinion, yes.

K: There’s argumentation about that. I’ve read that in books.

S: The first mate that was his…his son lives out in Phoenix Arizona. Captain Vaxter. He was a captain, but

he worked on _____.

K: The son of Captain Vaxter lives in Phoenix, Arizona?

S: Mm-hmm. Yep. William Vaxter.

K: Did you talk to him ever?

S: Sure.

K: And he…

S: Here’s something. Maybe you’d like to have that. That’s a pass.

K: Certainly I would, provided you have a duplicate of it.

S: I happen to have a duplicate.

K: I’m delighted.

S: Grand Haven?

K: The Milwaukee.

S: Or the Milwaukee, rather.

K: Yes.

S: Mm-hmm. And the purser, Saydon…I rode across the lake with him one day. I was going to

Milwaukee. I got the boat out of here at 11 o’clock in the morning to go over and I went down in the

dining room and had my dinner, corned beef and cabbage. And he stood beside me because I think

there was only one or possibly two passengers aboard at that time. He said, “Eat it now while you can.”

He says, “You’re not going to hold her over to Milwaukee.” We ran into weather on the other side and

she was rough. Well, I did lose my cookies, but only for possibly a half hour. But I was up on deck when

she docked in Milwaukee.

K: So you did cross Lake Michigan on the Milwaukee.

S: A number of times.

K: A number of times.

S: But Saydon was the purser at that time and he was the man that put that note in the bottle.

K: That someone later on found. Ya. In one of the books that tells about those sea disasters, it refers to

Captain McKay as Heavy Weather McKay. Now Katharine Cavanaugh says that that’s all bunk, that he

had no such reputation at all. I’m curious. Have you ever heard the term Heavy Weather McKay other

than perhaps in the same book that I read?

S: No, but I heard that he would take it out in weather that some of the others wouldn’t go out in. And I

know one time – you’ve probably heard of the United States, that boat that had a green _____ at one

time – she sailed in and out of here.

K: I think I have a picture of it.

S: She went out one time – the carferries wouldn’t go out. She made the round trip to Milwaukee and

back and as they left Grand Haven, the crew was doing this to the crew on the carferries, but she made

it. And I forget who the skipper was on that one, but he was a daredevil. He was an ocean man.

K: What do you know about Captain Cavanaugh?

S: I don’t know anything about the man, just the name of Captain Cavanaugh.

K: Well, he had one of the Grand Trunk carferries, too. I don’t know which one.

S: There was Rollie Martin, too, another captain. His son later became superintendent of the carferries.

Rollie Martin lived here in town.

K: I see. How was the food on those carferries?

S: Excellent. Big portions. I came…I was working in Milwaukee for the Keller Company for 9 ½ years and

I commuted every week – either flew or the carferry. On one of those pictures I showed you of the

carferry where I said that hoist was sold…

K: Mm-hmm.

S: I came across. I got on there on a Friday afternoon to come back to Muskegon, come on the boat and

I got on there – no purser or anything in sight – so I saw an empty cabin and I threw my stuff in there. A

little while later, the woman opened the dining room and I went in there. I was the only passenger. I

went in there and I gave her my order. And the skipper and the chief engineer, man by the name of Ed

Smith, came in and the skipper said, “What the hell are you doing on here?” I said, “I just came to check

up to see whether you fellows could sail a ship or anything, how to navigate it.” They said, “Come on

over here.” And when she served me, of course, she served just a little cup of soup. And he said, “For

God’s sake, bring that guy something to eat.” He said, “He’s hungry.” Then there was a great big bowl

that those fellows had eat, and the food that went along with it. Well, then we got to chewing the rag

and they were saying about the problems that they were having of getting these oil drums from the car

deck down to the boiler room. I said, “I think I got your answer to that.” So down into the car deck we

went and here this companionway was in between the stanchions, between the two inner sets of tracks,

and they’d bring those in on a hand car and then they’d have to put a rope and tackle on them. They had

one man guiding them down and the other fella on the rope and tackle. I said, “I got a better one than

that, an air hoist.” “Well, how you gonna do it?” I had my data book of the company along with me and I

showed them the thing. I get back in Milwaukee the following Monday morning. About noon I got a

telephone call from McMillan who was the superintendent of the carferries at that time. He says,

“You’re Swanson?” He says, “You were on one of our carferries the other day?” I said, “Yup.” He says,

“What kind of a line were you giving our men about handling oil drums down there?” I said, “I just gave

them an idea.” So he says, “When can you come down and see me?” I said, “Well, I can come down. If

you’re free, I can come down this afternoon.” And so he said, “I’d like to see one of those things you’re

talking about.” So I had a demonstrator and I took it down. So we went over to the Maple Islands. He

says, “Now how you going to hang that?” I said, “You’re a hell of a sailor.” He says, “Why?” He says,

“That thing hanging clear up in those beams up there?” He says, “Down there with chain,” he says,

“they’d be switching all over and hitting the cars.” I said, “You’re still a hell of a sailor.” I said, “Did you

ever hear of a davit?” He looked at me and he says, “Yes, I have heard of a davit.” “Well,” I said, “why

don’t you mount that right in alongside of the stanchions right over this companionway and hang your

thing on that?” I says, “You can swivel that thing so you can pick it off the hand car in back.” He says,

“You know too damn much about boats.” And that’s what they did.

K: And that’s what they did?

S: Ya. So the result of it was I sold four hoists, one for each of the carferries. And they were only a little

bit of a thing – 35 pounds – but they had a thousand pound capacity. But it was just one of those chance

things you run into.

K: Ya. That’s a good story though.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: I am interested also in the job at Keller…Gardner-Denver.

S: I came up here to be their purchasing agent in ’22. I was with the Pullman Company prior to coming

up here from Chicago.

K: Oh, you were working with railroad cars then.

S: Oh, yes. In World War I, the latter part of World War I, I was sent down to Pennsylvania to handle

troops in hospital trains over the hump between Altoona and Pittsburgh.

K: Oh.

S: A little kid…as a little kid, the whistle of a train…

K: Was intriguing to you.

S: Very much so. I lived in Chicago on the south side, oh, possibly a mile west of the Illinois Central line.

In fact, I was born about four blocks from the Illinois Central in Chicago, out in Hyde Park. And, of

course, as a kid, I’d go down there on a Saturday at 43rd Street and there was a dummy line that ran

from 42nd, connected with the IC suburban system over west to the Stock Yards.

K: By that, you mean it was pulled by a steam engine?

S: Pulled by a steam engine. Before it was elevated in there. And when they elevated those lines in

there, there was a period that a lot of the railroads were elevated from the circuits…on the

embankments, you know, we’d clear the streets. I can remember all that being elevated. And the

Chicago junction, as they called it, was owned primarily by the New York Central Railroad. It connected

with the Illinois Central right down there at 43rd Street. There was quite a interlocking plant there. I used

to go down there and watch those trains go through, heading for the Central Station downtown, or a

tracer would head over to the Stock Yards. And the elevated lines decided to build a branch – they called

it the Kenwood Branch – from Indiana Avenue east to Oakenwald Avenue and south to 42nd Street. And

another kid and I were the first two people to run over those rails, and we pumped one of those old

hand cars from Indiana Station over there as soon as the rails were laid, because this kid’s dad was

_____ on the job and we had access to get up there. So we were actually the first ones to travel across

there on any vehicle. They had the tracks for the Chicago junction and they had tracks for the elevated

line.

K: Hmm. So you were working there and then in ’22 you came here and you became purchasing agent.

S: I was in the Purchasing Department of the Pullman Company originally, see. But, during the war days,

there was shifts around and I was pulled from there on a temporary assignment to go down to

Pennsylvania. And I returned after…in, oh, I think it was along December that I returned back to Chicago.

And I resumed my regular work there.

K: When were you born, Mr. Swanson?

S: 1894.

K: Now your mind is very, very clear. That’s, I guess, partly because you keep it going, but that’s awfully

nice.

S: I’ll be 81 this October.

K: So. How did you like your job as purchasing agent for Keller Tool?

S: I enjoyed the associations with Keller Tool over the years. I couldn’t ask for a better company to work

for, and that includes Gardner-Denver. In ’44, I left purchasing there and went over to Milwaukee and

opened a branch office for them over there to cover the state of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. As I

said before, I commuted every week, but I maintained my home here. And in ’53 I transferred back here.

I was around here for a little over a year and then I went down in ’55 and opened a new branch for them

in Pittsburgh. I went down there in the fall of ’54 or ’55. I had some trouble with my back that laid me up

so I couldn’t take anymore road work. I stayed here until retirement the first of November ’59.

K: There were several rather traumatic strikes at Gardner-Denver and Keller Tool…

S: In ’53 was their first strike.

K: ’53. Do you have any memories of that?

S: They had a plant over on Park Street. It was called Plant No. 2.

K: Isn’t that where the School Administration now is?

S: Yes.

K: Go ahead.

S: That, prior to that, was the Hatton Leather Company.

K: Yes.

S: I worked over in there…came from the office and worked over there. You might say, scabbing it with

a number of other young fellows. So we kept things in working order. The odd thing about that strike,

the boys never held it against us. There was a bunch of pickets outside one day and they were watching

the girls there on the football field practicing. And I went out of the plant and walked over to them and I

bawled them out for not doing their jobs as pickets. And that same Christmas, the strike was over. That

same bunch that had been picketing there in that plant gave me the most beautiful pair of fur-lined

leather gloves that you could ever want to see.

K: Yes, but you were not…you were part of Administration anyhow, weren’t you?

S: Yes. Yes.

K: And you were not regarded as a scab then. A scab is the guy on the floor who walked through the

picket line, at least, as I understand the terminology. George tells me too that…George has a few stories

about that, too. He said there was…there was some violence and some pretty nasty things done.

S: Ya, some of them. But as far as the fellows who were over there at that end that were on strike, I

never had any problems at all with them. I got along fine.

K: Do you remember the big strike at the tannery in ’36? That was the first major strike in Grand Haven.

S: Uh…ya, I knew of it. One fellow who had a grocery store, on account of that strike, he actually went

broke from it. He carried a lot of those fellows and he never got paid for it. He had a little grocery store

out on Washington Street where that Natural Foods place is.

K: Yes.

S: There was a little meat market in there and where there’s apartments there in that double frame

building, he had a grocery store. His name was Butcher.

K: He sympathized with the strikers and helped them out, but he…

S: And he didn’t have the capital to carry him and he went busted.

K: Yes. Mm-hmm.

K: That’s an interesting facet to that story. I have tried to…Grand Haven has labor-management

problems too. That’s part of the history. I talked to Swart…he was one of the guys who headed up that

thing. It’s hard for the union…it’s hard to find management people who will talk about it because most

of them are gone. The people involved in management at Eagle Ottawa in ’36 are mostly gone.

S: Well, you take the department heads. I mean, of the office end, the engineers…when I came up in

’22, I’m the only one left.

K: Mm-hmm.

S: There was a fella by the name of Schubert that was handling the accounting at that time. A fella by

the name of Walter Hall that was on Sales, he was assistant. There was a fella by the name of Fred Reus.

K: Reus?

S: Reus. Al Reus – you’ve heard of him down here on the Committee for Economic Development.

K: Yes.

S: Well, that was his dad. And there was a fella by the name of Osting on sales work there, and different

ones. Later, a man by the name of Dan Woodhead became the sales manager. He was in business in

Chicago. All the Board of Directors that I worked under there was Mr. Loutit, Mr. Sherwood, Nat

Robbins, Guy Warren and a fella by the name of Fenner from Chicago. Mr. Fenner was the one that

brought me up here from Chicago.

K: I see. When you came…you came here in the early 20’s. About that time the Ku Klux Klan was kind of

active in Grand Haven. Do you remember anything of that? Do you remember seeing…

S: Yes, they had a cross lighted on Dewey Hill. I had a cousin, a young kid from Chicago,

who…somewhere in my file I got a picture of him in his Ku Klux Klan outfit. He attended one of their

meetings here.

K: Oh, I’d love to see that picture.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: If you find that, would you let me borrow that?

S: Sure. Here’s a fella I’ve lost track of.

K: I’d like to get a photograph of a burning cross, too.

S: Well, I don’t have any of that, but there was one burnt on Dewey Hill.

K: Ya, more than one. And in Central Park, too. I wonder what the Klan…do you know what the Klan,

what its purpose was in Grand Haven?

S: Primarily, I believe, against the Catholic Church.

K: That’s what I’ve heard too, and the Klan generally was against either negroes or Jews or Catholics.

And in Grand Haven, it had to be Catholics because…

S: Ya, because there was only seven of Catholic, or Jewish…of colored families here.

K: Yes.

S: One fella worked down on the dock and then the…there was one that was a colored preacher, lived

over there just beyond the Pere Marquette depot. John Van Schelven can tell you about him. And then

another colored man, he was a blind man, that had a house just about where Pfaff’s Drug Store is now.

K: Ned Smith.

S: Ya. He used to go around with a phonograph. That fella had a wonderful memory. When I first came

to town – of course, I’d taken the Chicago Tribune since…I learned to read on that thing, I think. In fact, I

peddled it in Chicago and when I came here, I wanted to keep up on it. So Ned would deliver Tribunes. I

roomed at a house up on the corner of Albee and Washington and they told me about Ned. So I told him

that I wanted the Tribune. “Where do you live?” I told him. He was up there every day with the paper. A

few years later after he left here for Grand Rapids, I saw him sitting on a street corner with his

phonograph and I walked…I said, “How’s Ned?” And he said, “Hello, Grand Haven. How are you? Are you

still getting your Tribune?” A memory like that. It’s really surprising, some of those individuals.

K: Yes. What did that Klan have against Catholics? Do you have any idea?

S: I don’t know. I never delved into it or paid much attention to that.

K: I understand that they had meetings on the third floor of what’s now Steiner’s Drug Store when they

used to have two more stories.

S: Ya. The telephone company was on the second floor. That was a telephone office.

K: I see.

S: Mm-hmm. Until they built this building down here, the two-story building.

K: Because a few other people whom I’ve talked to were invited to those meetings. Most of them didn’t

join. It really wasn’t a big thing. It didn’t last very long.

S: No.

K: It only lasted a couple of years and I’m glad that’s all it lasted.

S: Mm-hmm.

K: But I really would be interested if you have a photograph of a Klansman, of somebody in a Klan thing.

I’d be interested in that.

S: No, it’s something I never paid any attention to and it just so happens that this fella was up here

visiting part of a Klan meeting and he had the outfit on and went to a meeting that night. He was just a

young fellow.

K: That was going on around ’22, ’23.

S: Somewhere about that time.

K: I read about it in the newspaper, and I’ve had people tell me about it. Uh…were you…you were here

also when automobiles just started, weren’t you?

S: Well…

K: I mean, there were automobiles, I recognize, prior to 1922, but there couldn’t have been too many of

them in Grand Haven.

S: No, there’s a lot of people…a lot of fellas rode to work on bicycles at that time. And what is part of

Gardner-Denver plant now, there was a Panhard Motor in there making automobile trucks. And in the

Historical Society they got a picture of a Grand Trunk locomotive hooked to one of these trucks and the

truck is pulling the locomotive. Have you seen that?

K: No, I haven’t.

S: Well, the Historical Society has a copy of that picture.

K: Automobile manufacturing never worked though in Grand Haven, did it? I think there were three

different companies that tried it.

S: Well, that was before the time I came up here.

K: Yes.

S: The only thing that actually was related to it was this Panhard truck.

K: Panhard – P A N H A R D?

S: Right. Mm-hmm. There was a fella here, his name was Ruffright. He had built a motor for automotive

work. Kellers had done some of the machine work on some of the castings in there and he was around

here. John Van Schelven can probably give you more information about Ruffright than I can. But I know

that some of his patterns laid up in our old pattern loft and were later destroyed.

K: Ya. I have a couple of tapes that I did with him. And I also have tapes of his radio programs. I get

them typed up and then…

S: John has got a wonderful memory.

K: Yes.

S: See, he’s 75 now.

K: Yes, he is.

S: John and I, we have a lot of fun chinning together on different things.

K: Do you remember the Orpheum Theater?

S: No.

K: That was before you.

S: Do you know Owen Davis that lives out on Pottawatomie?

K: No.

S: His father, Charlie Davis, ran…I think he ran the Orpheum, if I’m not mistaken. And his mother played

the piano there.

K: (Noise on tape)

S: A daughter and a son here in Grand Haven. And yesterday was our son’s 43rd birthday. The day before

was our oldest daughter’s 57th birthday.

K: Who was…who was the medical doctor that you went to in Grand Haven when you…?

S: Dr. Stuart De Witt.

K: Dr. Stuart De Witt. That is in the 20’s?

S: Ya. He was our doctor up to the time that he passed on. Then Dr. Beernink followed him.

K: The 1930’s, of course, were the Depression years. Did they affect you in any significant way? Your

job? Your lifestyle?

S: A reduction in pay – about a 45% reduction in pay. But I worked everyday.

K: And, of course, prices went down, too.

S: Prices went down. And just for one instance, they had an A&P store here in one of these buildings

that Cook’s have now…uh…the middle of the block here.

K: Mm-hmm.

S: They had an A&P store in there. I bought some of the nicest pork loins, the full loin, for 8 cents a

pound.

K: So actually, the Depression didn’t hurt you too much because you worked everyday. And even

though your salary was reduced 45%, prices were probably reduced by even more than that.

S: Oh, yes. Well, you figure pork at 8 cents a pound.

K: So you were, in a sense, better off in the Depression, weren’t you, simply because you managed to

hang onto a fulltime job?

S: We were renting this house at that time and the landlord cut the rent from $35 to $25 because he

was getting it every month.

K: Mm-hmm.

S: We were fortunate on that.

K: You moved into this house almost immediately when you moved to Grand Haven?

S: No. We moved in here the 21st of December, 1925. In December of this year, it will be 50 years we’ve

been in here.

K: I see.

S: At that time, Franklin Street was not open from Ferry to Eighth Street.

(End of Side One)

K: …Washington here. What was beyond here?

S: On the northeast corner there was a big frame house on that corner owned by a man by the name of

Lucas. And he was married to a daughter of one of our postmasters. I don’t recall the postmaster’s

name. We lived there for a period of time. That house was later moved to the corner of DeSpelder and

Columbus. It was a house that had a big front porch on it. And then we moved from there to Hopkins

and Pennoyer for a short period of time. When this was available…we took this in December of 1925.

K: Okay. Now what stores or businesses were in this little section here?

S: Cooks had a grocery store in the middle of the block.

K: The same family that runs…the present Cook…?

S: Yes. These are all his children. Jake Cook.

K: He had a grocery store there in the middle of the block.

S: And then there was a meat market built next to it by Salisbury. You’ve heard of Forrest Salisbury out

here. Well, his dad had a meat market there. It was later sold to Ruiter, to Tom Ruiter. And we have

dealt with that meat market ever since it was opened up until the Pantry closed a month ago.

K: Oh. That was the Pantry.

S: Yes. Then those buildings on the other side where Pfaff is now and the bakery and all that was

built…Carl Hetzel moved his drug store out into the building where Pfaff is. That was in the 20’s. And Ike

Dornbos built the buildings on this end of it. That was over the property where old Ned Smith had his

home. They moved that away from there.

K: Oh.

S: So that’s how this district built up. And further east, in the 1300 block, there was a grocery store

operated by a man by the name of Smith. And there was a meat market there run by Fred Strahsburg,

right adjacent to it. And this market was in that place where Nature’s Foods is now.

K: Oh.

S: So those were the stores in this area at that time when we moved here.

K: Then there was enough here so that you could do most of your shopping here, couldn’t you, right in

this neighborhood? You didn’t have to go downtown all the time.

S: No. Generally we would go downtown on a Saturday to do our shopping down there.

K: How did you get downtown?

S: Well, we’d take and put our two girls that were babies in a baby carriage and we’d walk down. There

was quite a lot of business down on Fulton Street at that time from Seventh Street. We’d generally stop

in the drug store where there’s a sport shop now. That was the Square Drug.

K: Owned by the Vos brothers?

S: Well, I forget who owned it now. We’d stop in there and get an ice cream soda. Then Sheffields had a

place down there on Fulton Street where Daugherty’s are storing furniture now in that frame building,

that they call the Tripp and Weavers Building. Sheffields had a place in there. Then we’d go on

downtown and shop what we had to do. Then we’d go back on Washington Street, wheel the kids over

the hill, and home. In the wintertime, I had a sled with a box arrangement on it so we could put the two

kids in there. Each one had a back rest with a hood over it.

K: Did you ever go bowling or play pool in Seifert’s Pool Hall or Bowling Alley?

S: I don’t recall ever playing pool, but I bowled out there.

K: And where was the bowling alley?

S: It was where Daughtry’s is now.

K: That was the old Seifert’s, wasn’t it?

S: Ya. Prior to that, George Vanden Berg ran that.

K: The bowling alley?

S: Ya.

K: That’s right. That’s right. The husband of…

S: Jennie Vanden Berg.

K: Yes.

S: In fact, it’s her 90th birthday tomorrow. We’re taking her out to lunch.

K: That’s nice.

S: She was one of the first families…she kind of adopted my wife as an older sister and that friendship

has existed since 1922 to the present day. _____ had a bottling works. Did you learn of that?

K: No, I didn’t.

S: That’s where the son got the name of Pops.

K: Oh.

S: That was young George – lives out here on the extension of Sheldon Road.

K: What…you’re saying he made the bottle? Or he put things in the bottle?

S: He made the pop, as they called it in those days.

K: Okay.

S: Bottling Works. It was later taken over by a fella by the name of Webster.

K: I see. He bottled soda pop.

S: George Vanden Berg also established the bus line that ran out here to the factory district and turned

on Griffin, I think it was, and came down Washington Street to downtown.

K: He had some imagination, didn’t he?

S: Yes.

K: He was enterprising. He got an idea and did something about it.

S: Yup. He had a bus line and then he ran a taxi service for awhile. And at the end of one snowy Sunday

afternoon when the son was driving one taxi cab and he in the other and they came together downtown

at one of the intersections down there and busted up both cars. And that finished the taxi service.

K: (laughing) The son in one and the father in the other and they collided?

S: They didn’t see each other, the storm was that bad.

K: That’s an interesting story. Ya.

S: When we lived in that house on the corner over here, our oldest daughter was a little tiny tot at that

time, Margaret Vanden Berg, one of the daughters, would come over and she’d take her and she’d dress

her up and get on the bus and ride back and forth with her dad. And when it was time to get off, then

they’d let them off there, then he’d ask my daughter for the fare. So she’d go up and kiss him; that was

the fare.

K: Was the Akeley Institute still going when you got here?

S: Yes, when we came here that still was in existence.

K: It didn’t last too long though, did it?

S: No. That sat on the top of the hill where the City Hall is.

K: Yes. The so-called Akeley Block.

S: Ya. Mm-hmm.

K: Ya. Well, I think I have taken enough of your time. And I really do appreciate it.

S: (Noise) The son lives out on Pottawatomie now.

(?) I can’t remember _____.

S: Well George Kehoe maybe remembers. _____ know George very well.

(?) (Unable to understand what this unknown person (a female) is saying.)

S: Well, it seems to me it begins with an S.

(?) I don’t know.

K: In…in the Highbanks area here, do you remember any picnics or anything going on in the Highbanks

of Mercury Drive?

S: No. No. Just the name…that the Highbanks area was out there. That was all. Oak _____ and that, and

one place we ran in where a steel framed window with a glass still in it had been built right in the brick

wall, bricked right up on both sides.

(?) Your girlfriend wants to talk to you. One of your girlfriends…

S: One of my girlfriends? (laughs) Which one?

K: Well, that speaks well of you, at your age. (Noise)

S: We was living up at the corner of Hopkins and Pennoyer at that time. She had to have an appendix

operation at the time.

K: Mm-hmm.

S: Dr. De Witt performed the surgery.

(?) Two years it is.

S: Yup. And we…I went down to the hospital in the morning. A fella by the name of Schubert that I

mentioned before was the accountant out there. He had a car and he’d drive downtown. Loutit would

ride down with him in the morning to the bank. His chauffeur would bring him out to the plant in the

morning and leave him there and then he’d go back with Schubert. Well, I rode down that morning and

Schubert dropped me at the hospital. Well, Loutit didn’t say anything at the time, or ask any questions

why I was going there. But after I had gotten off, he asked Schubert about it. Schubert told him that my

wife was in there having surgery. That man walked out from his home at Third and Washington to the

plant that afternoon and called me in the private office and he says, “Now I don’t know anything about

your financial condition whatever.” “But,” he says, “hospitals cost money and so does doctors.” He says,

“I’m not going to tell you I’m going to give you any money,” he says, “but I know that things are hard

and I’ll see that you get funds for it that you can repay later on.” And I never forgot that. Here I was a

comparatively new employee of the company, had only been there a couple of years.

K: Now which Loutit was that?

S: William H.

(?) The one that…

S: Ya, that was the second.

K: Oh. Now the first one was the one that had…was William R. and he was the one that had the lumber

schooners.

S: Ya. Ya.

K: Did you know him, too?

S: No, I didn’t. I think he died in ’21.

K: I see.

S: ______ a company down in Buffalo for a good many years.

K: Yes. And then he allied himself with another company that represented Gardner-Denver.

S: Yes. Uh-huh.

K: What’s the name of that now? It was a company that sold for many different companies.

S: Yes. A jobber.

K: Ya. I…I don’t know the name of it. But Harry…I live in Harry’s old house.

S: Ya. Ya, we knew Harry. Let’s see, who was the other one that…he had a brother, as I remember,

wasn’t there?

K: No. He had no brother. He had a sister, Doll, they called her. I don’t know her real name.

S: Ya. Ya, I knew Harry well.

K: He’s a nice guy.

S: _____ going up after storm sash, as I remember, and I went over with him. And in that barn they had

grain bins in there in which they had taken white pine timbers and laid them flat, just like bricks, you

know, interlaced them on the corners to hold the grain. And they were 1x10’s and 1x12’s. I’ll tell you in

the Masonic Building down there, the flooring…floor joists on that second floor are on 12” tethers and

the joists are fill 2x12’s.

K: Hmm.

S: In pairs, on 12” tethers. And believe me, there’s some pretty clear spots in that.

K: You were talking in the first instance about the Boyden house…the Boyden barn, weren’t you?

S: Yes.

K: That barn is no longer there, is it?

S: No, but there was some beautiful lumber in there.

K: Ya.

(End of Interview)