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hsmichigan.org $6.95 November/December 2019

FRED & Lena Leaving the World a Little Better Fred & Lena Meijer Leaving the World a Little Better By Hank Meijer

The chain Meijer has nearly 250 stores operating in and the Midwest. While the business’s success is notable, also significant are second-generation owners, Fred and Lena Meijer. The ripples of their philanthropic pursuits can be felt across the state today.

Fred Meijer at the future site of the Fred Meijer Heartland Trail, which runs from Greenville to Alma, Michigan. (All photos courtesy of the Meijer Archives, unless otherwise noted.)

18 Michigan History • Nov/Dec 2019 rederik “Fred” Meijer, who died in 2011, civic life of their community. For instance, Hendrik began would have been 100 years old this year. serving on the board of Greenville’s Memorial Hospital Lena Rader Meijer, a farm girl who served as and, in the 1940s, helped raise money to build a new a cashier in the original Meijer supermarket, facility. Family lore tells that Hendrik’s involvement was celebrated her one-hundredth birthday in the prompted by a dream he had in which the town’s old Fspring of 2019. She is the lone survivor of the generation wooden hospital had burned down with Fred inside it. active in the early years of an enterprise that has grown Half a century later, Fred would serve on the board to become a Michigan and Midwestern staple. of the Butterworth hospital system in Grand Rapids, Lena’s centennial year is a suitable occasion for which is now Spectrum Health. Encouraged by his reflection on the philanthropic influence she and Fred friend, Rich DeVos, he made a financial commitment for had—and continue to have—on the people of Michigan what became the Fred and Lena Meijer Heart Center in and the landscape of the state. downtown Grand Rapids. Fred and Lena Meijer’s personal philanthropy was Beyond Business Owners centered on education, starting with the Aberdeen Lena’s father-in-law, Dutch immigrant Hendrik Meijer, School PTA. On the northeast side of Grand Rapids, opened a out of desperation in 1934, during which the couple called home, Fred—along with his the depths of the Great Depression. He was just trying friend and longtime head of the Grand Rapids Urban to pay the mortgage on a vacant storefront next to his League, Paul Phillips—helped bring integrated housing barbershop in the town of Greenville. to the neighborhood. Business was touch-and-go, as it would be more than The became involved with environmental once in future years, when tough competition or risky issues more than 50 years ago, while their children were expansion added to the anxiety inherent in the low- still in school. Fred played a role in the original Earth Day margin world of food retailing. activities held in Grand Rapids in the 1970s, motivated by It was not until after World War II that Hendrik and the same impulse that led him to pick up litter in Meijer his son, Fred, began to play more prominent roles in the parking lots or as he walked through his neighborhood.

Lena Rader (left foreground), who would become Fred Meijer’s wife, works at the cash register at Meijer’s Super Market in Greenville, Michigan. Hendrik and Fred Meijer stand behind her.

Historical Society of Michigan 19 The Meijers’ Reach Lakeview—Lena Rader Meijer’s birthplace—has summer Since the Meijer name is already on more than a few concerts in Rader Park. buildings, the family has sometimes resisted the naming Supporting local institutions and events was always part of the Meijer family’s and company’s culture, starting with opportunities that would come with substantial gifts or bidding on 4-H livestock at the Montcalm County Fair. used such occasions to honor others. Still, the name has Today, that tradition continues as the company sponsors a way of popping up. For example, Fred and Lena were scoreboards, festivals, and community organizations regular theatergoers at the Grand Rapids Civic Theatre. throughout the six states in which its stores are located. It worried Fred that the old Majestic movie house had With a heritage in food, Fred and Lena’s company trouble accommodating patrons who needed a more makes its biggest commitment to the fight against hunger barrier-free environment. Renovating the theater became in the communities it serves. “Simply Give” is not only the a pet project, and in 2006, the newly refurbished space name of the Meijer program that emphasizes reducing was christened the “Meijer Majestic Theatre.” hunger but also an expression of the Meijer family’s Evidence of Fred and Lena Meijer’s influence can be philosophy. Furthermore, Fred enthusiastically supported found throughout Western Michigan. At Grand Valley a free antibiotics program through Meijer that filled its State University in Allendale, the Honors fifty millionth prescription this year. College encourages undergraduate achievement, as does the campus’s Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan What the Eye Needs Authors. Other components of regional culture bear the The Meijers have been involved in countless Meijer footprint too—from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential undertakings in education, social services, and the arts. Library and Museum to Millennium Park to the Fred But any accounting for the couple’s charitable efforts Meijer-Saul Lake Bog Nature Preserve to the whale would be remiss not to focus on a project on the east side skeleton on display at the Grand Rapids Public Museum. of Grand Rapids that grew from the hopes of the local While Grand Rapids in particular has benefited from horticultural society to create a botanical garden. the Meijer family’s enterprise, which moved there Lena loved flowers—she was reluctant to move into in 1951, other communities across the state have felt a senior citizen apartment because it meant giving up its influence as well. Muskegon Community College her rose garden. Fred’s guiding philosophy was rooted has the Hendrik Meijer Library, and the little town of in an expression of his mother’s. Gezina Meijer was a

Fred Meijer (second from left) and head of meat operations, Roland Van Valkenberg (far left) stand with 4-H participants and their steers in 1949.

20 Michigan History • Nov/Dec 2019 Fred and Lena in the parade of the Greenville Danish Festival in 1984.

place for sculptures were it in a more convenient and inviting location. Betsy Borre of the horticultural society had a suggestion and, ultimately, a solution. Meijer owned property on East Beltline Avenue and intended to build a new store there, but he had been unsuccessful in obtaining commercial zoning. Borre wondered if Meijer would donate the property. plainspoken and progressive Dutch immigrant with At first, Meijer was hesitant at the idea of giving up an exceedingly thrifty lifestyle. But she and Hendrik more than 100 valuable acres in a prime Grand Rapids both came from the Netherlands, a place where art location. But he quickly recognized the potential of such mattered, even if one was not financially well-off. a large parcel so convenient to the city—plus, now he Fred would always remember Gezina saying, “The eye had a place to install his collection of sculptures. Money needs something too.” was raised for a cultural destination that few of its early The “something” the eye required was often part of supporters could readily envision. In 1995, the Frederik the natural world—on the bike trails Fred campaigned Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park opened its doors. for and funded across the state or in the forests and parklands that he helped preserve. When the horticultural society of Kent County approached him for Leonardo’s Horse Fred now had a home for his sculptures, and Lena help with its campaign to create a garden, Fred Meijer had a garden that far exceeded anything she might have knew that such an undertaking could be an important dreamed of for her own backyard. As the unique blend source of delight for Lena and countless others. The couple’s newfound goal of establishing a botanical garden converged with another of their interests. Every summer, Fred and Lena attended the annual Danish Festival in Greenville. There, they met Marshall Fredericks, the Danish consul for Michigan Right: The American Horse by Nina and notable Cranbrook sculptor. As Fred and Marshall Akamu. (Photo became good friends, the former quietly began acquiring courtesy of Kevin works by the artist. Beswick, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Fred Meijer had no intention of amassing for personal Park.) Below: Flowers use what would become the largest collection of at the entrance of Fredericks’ bronze sculptures. The Grand Rapids house the Meijer Gardens. (Photo courtesy of Peter where Fred and Lena raised their sons and lived for McDaniel, Frederik nearly half a century did not have a yard that lent itself Meijer Gardens & to a collection of huge sculptures. Sculpture Park.) Instead, the pieces began to accumulate in a storage garage near Meijer’s corporate offices in Walker, Michigan, while Fred searched for a setting that would do them justice. Kent County was willing to give the horticultural society some parkland north of Grand Rapids. On that land was ample space for a greenhouse and gardens, though the acreage was relatively remote from the city. While continuing his support for the establishment of the botanical garden, Fred—almost in passing—remarked that such a space might be a good

Historical Society of Michigan 21 In subsequent years, Fred trusted a volunteer sculpture committee at the Meijer Gardens to begin building one of the world’s great collections of contemporary sculpture. As the institution grew into the state’s second-most- visited tourist destination, Lena’s fondness for Japanese gardens found expression in the DeVos Japanese Garden, which was completed after Fred’s death. Expansion at the gardens continues even today, in a way that would have gratified its founder’s vision for what had once been derided as “Freddy’s Farm.”

A History of Giving Fred and Lena Meijer’s community initiatives traditionally have had a way of spreading. Thirty From left to right, Senator Carl Levin, Governor John years ago, Fred was approached by civic leaders in Engler, President Gerald Ford, First Lady Betty Ford, Lena Meijer, and Fred Meijer at the ribbon cutting of Montcalm County to help turn a few miles of abandoned the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. railroad right-of-way into bicycles trails. Some farmers along the route were wary of having public access to of art and nature came to life, Meijer found that having lands bordering their fields. Meijer testified on behalf plenty of room for sculptures only whetted his appetite to of the project and helped sell the idea to skeptical acquire more. He was in a frame of mind to grow beyond neighbors, explaining that the benefits of biking trails the work of Marshall Fredericks and a handful of other outweighed their concerns. pieces he had collected when, in the summer of 1996, a One trail led to another, and soon, the Fred Meijer curious story appeared in The New York Times. White Pine Trail ran north out of Grand Rapids. Fred Meijer apparently was not the only amateur Today, those original Montcalm County trails have dabbling in the world of sculpture. In a barn in been augmented by approximately 300 miles of biking Pennsylvania, Charles Dent, a retired airline pilot, hoped paths that have made Michigan a national leader in the to realize a grandiose dream: to create and donate to rails-to-trails movement. the city of Milan a tribute to the Renaissance in Italy. It Early on, Fred had been an advocate for the urban would be the world’s largest equestrian sculpture and the renewal movement that reshaped downtown Grand realization of a monumental unfinished work by one of Rapids, though in hindsight he came to wonder about the greatest Renaissance artists, Leonardo da Vinci. the removal of some of the city’s prime examples of Dent died, and his collaborators arrived at an art Victorian architecture. But he also had a passion for foundry in New York with an enormous but sadly misshapen model for the equestrian sculpture. They Fred and Lena Meijer at the opening reception hired Nina Akamu, a classically trained sculptor, to for the first gallery exhibition at Frederik Meijer rescue the project. Akamu recognized that she would Gardens & Sculpture Park in January 2001. have to start over, but the Dent group had run out of funds. That was when Meijer, a lifelong horse enthusiast, caught wind of the dilemma and wondered if the Pennsylvanians would consider creating a second bronze casting for the new Grand Rapids botanical garden. The Dent collaborators were skeptical; they had envisioned a horse for the people of Italy that would be situated in the Sforza Castle, where Leonardo’s original model had been destroyed by French archers. They wanted a piece that was one-of-a-kind. A compromise was negotiated to take the horse destined for the Frederik Meijer Gardens off its pedestal. That made the one bound for Milan taller—but visitors could interact with, and even touch, the horse at the Meijer Gardens.

22 Michigan History • Nov/Dec 2019 Fred and Lena admire Arnaldo Ponodoro’s Sfera con perforazione. history and was eager to preserve or help restore iconic buildings, including the Grand Rapids Public Library. That passion for preservation took some unexpected forms, such as archiving the papers of the late Michigan poet and novelist, Jim Harrison, at Grand Valley State University or supporting the preservation work of the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan. The Fighting Falcon Military Museum in Greenville was also a beneficiary of the Meijers’ interest in history—as was , with its Frederik Meijer Chair in Visible around the Meijer enterprise is a quote Fred Dutch language and culture, and Aquinas College, with its often used: “I want to leave the world in a little better Lena Meijer Endowed Chair in art history. shape than when I entered it.” Whether in education It is not easy to compile a list of the ways in which the or health care, at the art museum or the symphony, the couple’s charitable interests have touched the lives of spirit that animated him was the one he inherited from many Michiganders—even this account is incomplete. his mother—that “the eye needs something too.” A Depression-Era childhoods marked by lifelong thriftiness certainly colored Fred and Lena’s world views. What they Hank Meijer has written biographies about his did not spend on themselves enabled them to commit grandfather, Hendrik Meijer, as well as Michigan Senator more of their resources to their community. Fred had a Arthur Vandenberg. He worked as a reporter and editor for puritanical streak, a belief in plain living, but a passion -area newspapers before returning to his family’s also for never doing something halfway. business, where he currently serves as executive chairman.

The Meijer Heritage Center

The Meijer Heritage Center (MHC) opened in September 2016 with the goal of informing and inspiring employees and visitors with the Meijer legacy. The 5,000-square-foot museum is housed in the Frederik Meijer Building on the Meijer Corporate Campus. Permanent and changing exhibits explore the company’s rich history and heritage, drawing on an extensive collection of documents, photographs, and artifacts from the Meijer Archives.

The MHC—located at 2929 Walker Avenue NW, Grand Rapids, Michigan—is available for guided tours for school and public groups by appointment. For tour information, general questions, or inquiries about donating historic materials, please contact MHC staff at [email protected]. (Photos courtesy of the Meijer Heritage Center.)

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