Not that there was much to the place.  When the first Dutch settlers decided to call it home in the mid 1800’s, they must have been recalling their wet homeland, which had been stolen from the sea.  It was a wet mosquito infested place between the 42nd and 43rd parallel North, and within the moderating influence of the great Lake Michigan to the west.  A wetland forest as it is referred to now in the textbooks.

 The hearty bunch who settled here were determined to make a living on this land, but didn’t realize that in many cases they were walking over beach sand from the lake which had gained only a little fertility because of the leaves and pine needles which had fallen over the years.  Two raw materials the place had in abundance, trees and water, so the houses they built were mostly wooden houses, and they built very large barns supported by huge beams hewn from the many large trees available.

Life was tough, but by 1940 when I arrived on the scene, housing in many cases was comfortable to the extent that the main floor of our two story house was warmed by a coal burning furnace in the basement, but there was no heat on the second floor, where the kids slept.  The first house I remember had four rooms on the first floor, a kitchen, dining room, living room, and one bedroom.  The restroom was about twenty-five paces west from the back door, a two holer, partially hidden by a trellis covered with trumpet vines in the summer, and with a bed of cinders behind where the males could relieve themselves.  Beyond that, to the west, was pasture, and then woods.

A rare convenience we had was running water!  Gradus Geurink, our neighbor immediately to the south, had a well and a pump.  The water was piped to us, and later to Gerald Haveman when he and Sadie built a house next to us on the north.   About in 1945-46,  we had the further enhancement of an electric water heater installed in the basement!  Our Saturday night bath was still in a galvanized wash tub in the kitchen, but no longer did we have to heat water on the stove!

Across the street from our house was the Borculo Feed Mill, and behind that was a pond from which I understand at one time ice was cut and stored for summer, but I don't actually remember seeing that happen.  In January, 2002, I talked to Henry Blauwkamp at Haven Park Rest Home, and he told me the ice was cut in blocks with an old Model T Ford which had a saw blade mounted where one of the rear wheels would normally be.  The ice blocks were then packed in an ice house and covered with sawdust for insulation.  My first memories of the pond were that it was lined with some trash, and that in the Northwest corner there was a raft with which one could navigate the pond.  That, however, was not something I was allowed to do.  Henry Weaver was the owner of the feed mill, and lived in the first house south with his wife Henrietta, sons Herschel and Austin, and daughters Delores and Carol.  Delores was about my age, and we were good friends.  Another friend, also about my age, living in the first house south of ours, was Lucille Geurink.  It was great to have these playmates so close. 

What must have been the first movies I saw were projected from Henry Weaver's house onto the white bricks of the Feed Mill.  We would watch Abbot and Costello in their antics that way.  Amazing!  I was probably 7 or 8 (1947-48) at the time.

One our my favorite games was a game we called Wolf as I recall.  It was a lot like hide-and-seek, but we played it at night in the dark.  One night as we played Delores ran into a large nail my brother and I had nailed into a tree to help us climb the tree.  That was traumatic, because she lost a tooth.

Water is always a big attraction for kids, and the mill pond was not the only water to which we had access.  There was a  drainage ditch along 96th Ave. about 3/4 mile north, Pigeon Creek about 5 miles north, and a large hole from which the county had taken sand for building roads which was 1/2 mile west of 96th on Blair St.  That became the township dump, but for a long time it provided entertainment for us.  The most frightening memory of that pond was when at about age 8 I fell through the ice and walked the 3/4 miles home dripping wet in below freezing temperature.  Until farmers began to dig irrigation ponds, that was about all the water we had in which to play, but in many places one could dig a hole an arm's length and water would start seeping into the hole.  That was an astounding revelation to the Sixth Grade students I had at Rehoboth, NM in 1999, who live in the high desert!