1 DB14005 DPACASS028 July 2, 1989 R

DB14005 DPACASS028 July 2, 1989 R: Hi, Jennifer. How are you? I: Pretty good, how are you? R: I‟m Lois Nyland Schrier, and I‟m 62 years of age, and I‟ve lived in this area all my life. I was born in Grand Haven to A. J. Nyland and Grace Arkema. I: Did they live in this area? R: They were both born in Chicago, and no, my mother was born in Chicago and came with her parents at age 1 from Chicago. That was John and Sena Arkema, and then my Father‟s father was born in Chicago, and then my Father was born in Holland, Michigan, and then as an infant, he came to Grand Haven with him. [sneeze] God bless you! I: What did your Mother‟s parents do? R: My Grandpa Arkema was an electrician for the city of Grand Haven at one time, and his parents were like merchants. They used to go to Chicago frequently and buy things, and then he had brothers that one worked in the Post Office and one had a printing company like Franklin Press was his and Uncle Garrett worked at the Post Office. Then my Grandma was from the Hallman side, that was my mother‟s, and she had a couple bachelor brothers, and she also had a twin sister that was a Mrs. Neitring, and then she had another sister, she had quite a few, I don‟t know all of them, but I have a lot of cousins around here, and then, my Father‟s father came to Grand Haven from Holland, but he originally had come from the Netherlands, and he, my Grandfather and his brothers and his Father, established Eagle Ottawa Tannery. And he came here, my Grandpa met the owner of that tannery when he was serving jury duty, and then this man asked him if he wanted to buy that, and so, in Leo Lillie‟s history of Grand Haven, there‟s some reference to that. Then my Dad‟s Father had been a Mayor of Grand Haven. I don‟t know just when, but I don‟t think he lasted too long. I think he had kind of a temper. I think he fired the city manager, but my Dad was the oldest of eight children, and Grandpa Nyland left this area to work in Rockford, Illinois and St. Paul, Minnesota and managed Tanneries after he left Grand Haven. Then I have one Aunt living in St. Paul, Minnesota that‟s my Dad‟s youngest, and she must be about 83 now. I also have a cousin in Grand Haven. It‟s my second cousin, who is Esther Dean Nyland, and her Father and my Grandfather were brothers, so I don‟t know whether you know her or not, but she‟s a long term teacher and has done a lot with the Historical Society here. I: Can you tell me a little bit more about the tannery that your Grandfather established? Do you know was it difficult to get off the ground or…? R: Well, I often wondered. They had a capitalization of $100,000, and I wonder where 1 they got that at that age. I mean in that time, that must have been a lot of money then, but then my Father had worked there also, and then, when they left the area, they went to Rockford, Illinois and Buchanan, Michigan, and then they went to St. Paul, but my mother became very homesick, and she had never been away from her sisters, and she was the oldest of eight children, and so they moved back here from Minnesota, and then my Dad did other work. He ended up working at Bastain Blessing as a buffer and polisher. However, during World War II, there was a process called Slicker Buffing of a specific kind of leather, that the tannery came and borrowed him from Bastain Blessing to do this particular kind of work. As he got older, he still liked to take hides from cows, and squirrels, and when I was a little girl, he always showed us the process of how to tan these hides and how to work the neatsfoot oil in them, and we had cowskin rugs just for fun, but he was a very interesting person. He always liked to, very well read, my Father, one of the things that his niece said, “I never went to the library but Uncle Art wasn‟t there.” His Father‟s name was Aaron John, and my Dad‟s name was Aaron John Junior. However, they called him Art because they didn‟t want to call him Junior, but he was always in the library, even as an adult, and we all like to read, and I have a brother, and I have a sister. My sister is Mrs. Ray Fisher, I don‟t know whether you, and Ray, my brother-in-law, was with Muskegon Chronicle, and has retired from there. My sister was an organist at First Reformed Church as was my mother. My sister, also worked for an attorney, Louie Osterhouse, who, I was five years old when they had the bank robbery of the People‟s Bank. I: Are you serious? R: Yeah. Did you ever know there was a bank robbery? I: No, I didn‟t. R: Well, it was really funny because my sister was calling my mother up to tell her that the bank was robbed, in the process of being robbed, and so I was a very independent little kid, and I was so worried about my sister, I walked downtown, and came up to the bank building which was above the Old State Bank, and she‟s still on the phone talking to my mother, and she says, “What are doing you here?” and I said, “I came to see if you were okay.” In the meantime, she was telling about Leo Lillie running around with a sawed off shotgun, and everybody in town was real excited, and there were bullets fired and everything else. I: Really? R: Yeah. I: Where were the robbers? R: Well, they left the area, and then the attorney that she worked for defended this one man, and so it was kind of a continuing saga… 2 I: Ah. R: It was kind of interesting. I: Did the bank get the money back? R: I don‟t know. There is some history on that, I know that. I‟m trying to think what that guys name was. It escapes me right now, but… I: They probably have it on file… R: Oh, I‟m sure. But I remember that when I was five. It was funny. I also remember one time we made a movie in Grand Haven, and we all went down to the depot, and I think I was part of the crowd in that. That was John VanSchelven and a bunch of the people from the Chamber of Commerce that made this movie, and I think they still have that. I remember the pageant, too. We had a pageant at the Centennial Celebration, and… I: What kind of pageant? R: Oh, everybody in the community, you know, it was kind of depicting the establishment of Grand Haven, and the mailman, what was his name, LaPres, I can‟t think of what his name is, I remember who played the part, but that was a long time ago. It was fun. I was a crazy little kid because I knew, see my parents were older when I was born. My brother is nine years older than I am, and my sister‟s 15 years older than I am, and so by then my parents were tired out of kids so they didn‟t know where I was, and I was all over Grand Haven… I: Oh my gosh. R: And always knew enough to come home at noon and say, “Is there anything you need from the store?” I: You were living in Grand Haven? R: Mm eh. We lived down on the corner of Fifth and Jackson. We bought people by the name of Rhonda‟s house. Mr. Rhonda was deaf, and he lived there with his daughter, Rena, in the house that we bought later. I was born in the house at 509 Jackson Street, and I was telling my kids that, and they said, “Weren‟t you born in a hospital?” I said, “No, I was born right there in that house.” every time I go by that, see. [Inaudible question from Interviewer] Well the doctor came and delivered me, and then, you know, yeah, Dr. DeWitt came, and delivered you, and then my folks rented from Isaac Poel, and he also had a, he was deaf, but he was a very interesting man. He made a lot of toys for his children. They were all homemade toys, and then Sunday when the grandchildren came, we all went over there and played on the porch with all those nice toys. In fact, he has a lot of ancestors left in our community, but they were very nice people, and he showed me how, he was always growing things, and he showed me how peanuts grew, 3 and he would teach you all these little things. Then we rented from them for a number of years, and then this Mr. Rhonda and his maiden daughter that lived there on the corner, Mr. Rhonda was deaf, and the depot was just a block away. My brother was a paper boy, and he came home as white as a ghost because Mr.

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