>> So I'll get started.
My name is Adina Langer,
and today is February 28, 2020.
I'm here at the Museum of History
and Holocaust Education at
Kennesaw State University with
Marcell Kohler to record
a legacy series Oral History interview.
Could you please start by stating your full name?
>> Marcell Kohler.
>> And do you agree to this interview?
>> Absolutely.
>> Fabulous. Could you please
tell me when and where you were born?
>> I was born in Utrecht Netherlands in 1950.
In fact, October the 11th, 1950.
>> And before we talk about your childhood,
we're going to go back a little bit and talk about
your family's experiences during World War 2.
Could you please tell me your parents' names?
>> My dad's name is Anton Kohler,
and my mother's name was Adriana Henrika.
>> And your father is he still?
>> No, he passed.
>> And do you have siblings?
>> I have an older brother.
I have a brother who's about two years older,
and then I have an older sister who
is probably I can't remember exactly,
but I think, like eight or 10 years old.
I believe she was 14 years old when the war happened.
So she remembers probably more than than any of us.
>> And what are their names, you siblings?
>> My brother's name is Yoan Hankrick.
Everybody calls him Hank,
and my sister's name is Antoinette,
and we all call her Nettie.
>> And what kind of work did your parents do?
>> My mother was pretty much a stay at home mom.
My dad had somewhat of his own business.
He was an upholster by trade,
but he also had very good carpentry skills.
So his main source of income was redoing furniture.
Also he did in theaters.
He would sew and put
together curtains and different things like that.
And one bizarre story that
my mother told me that at certain times of the year,
I believe it was like, especially
in the fall of the year,
and this is going to sound really bazar,
but people would inadvertently accidentally fall into
the canals and they couldn't get him
out right away or couldn't find them or what have you.
So my dad as ways of getting extra work would help.
I can't remember if it was a government agency
or a group of people that would retrieve these bodies,
and my dad would help make coffins
or caskets and for them.
So he did odd jobs,
but his primary source of income was
upholstery and making drapes and that type of thing.
>> And what brought them to Utrecht?
Were they always living there or?
>> I believe so.
I think they were basically born and
raised there to the best of my knowledge.
I've never heard them talk about
any other place other than Utrecht.
>> What was the neighborhood like?
>> To me, the best way I could explain it
is like the old version of condos.
You had two, three story buildings fairly narrow,
townhouses or condos like,
and there was no room in
between the buildings they are all attached.
And what little I remember of our house,
we had three levels
and we had on the back of the house was
a small porch area
with a little I believe it was a metal railing around it.
Just probably a little bit bigger than
a window or do double hung window type setup.
>> And did most of the people who lived in
the neighborhood work in trades like your father,
or was there a lot of variety in what people did?
>> I'm not really sure.
I know that my mother
used to tell me stories about back then,
nobody went to the grocery store hardly.
They went to the butcher shop and got meat.
But in the United States,
they had people with pushcarts would sell
vegetables and different things and they
would get a lot of their groceries
and stuff from the street vendors
that would come to the house.
Everybody had milk delivered to
the house back then, that type of thing.
But I remember my mom would
tell me about going to the butcher shop to get different.
They liked rabbit and back
then horse meat was sold quite readily.
And everybody then back then ate horse meat and
a lot of people over here
pretty amazed at that and discussed with it.
>> Meat is meat. So did your parents or
your siblings tell you anything about how
the great depression may or may not
have affected your family or your neighborhood?
>> No. My sister really never said anything.
And of course, my brother is in the same boat that I am.
He was so young,
it probably it didn't really sink in.
But I remember a lot of times
my mother telling me about how food was
difficult to get hold of and
that they basically traded for food.
Nobody had any money.
So they would give your trade
your fine China or if you had decent quality silverware,
you would trade that for food.
I remember my dad telling me that the farmers did
well during the war because they
had the food and the crops and that type of thing,
and they bartered for it.
>> And in the years
leading up to the Nazi invasion of Holland,
was your family thinking about
the threat of war or aware of the threat of war?
>> I can't really remember any conversations like that.
I don't remember any major issues
or concerns or problems for that matter before the war.
Everybody had a bicycle, nobody had a car.
My dad had two bicycles,
one for Sundays and one
for during the week, running errands.
>> And how did they get
information about what was going on in the world?
Were there newspapers, radio, news reels?
>. I remember my mother told me they had a radio.
And obviously, yeah, they had newspapers back then.
But one of the things that my dad
did when the invasion happened,
he took our radio and hit it.
And kept it away trying to keep it away from the Germans.
>> And was religion important to your family?
>> How much time you got.
One of the reasons I believe that we
relocated to the United States because basically
of what I would consider
a family feud between
my dad and my mother's side of the family.
My mother's side of the family was extremely religious.
They were Catholic, and my dad was a non
Catholic and was not as religious.
So during their courtship,
there was a lot of pressure put on
my dad to become Catholic.
And he just finally said,
no, it's not for me.
So my mother's parents forbid them to get married.
And back in the 40s back then in Holland,
you had to have parents permission
to marry up until age 30.
So my dad was 30 at the time and my mother
was 28 and her parents wouldn't wouldn't give permission.
So my dad took him to court.
And one and got
the court's approval to get married. They got married.
And basically, from that point on my mother and
my dad and us got
excommunicated from my mother's side of the family.
So there was a lot of I don't want to say hatred,
but there was a lot of
friction between my dad
and my mother's side of the family.
And I think the other side of that coin is,
my dad's brother was already living in Michigan,
and my dad thought it would be a good opportunity
to advance because in Holland,
nobody had a car, nobody owned their own home,
probably back then, very few people even had TVs.
Middle class people had radios,
and it was really
a way to improve
our standard of living by coming to the United States.
>> And we'll get into a little bit more of
that when we get to
the decision making to leave right after the war.
Thinking back to the time before the war.
Do you know if there were Jewish families
living in the same neighborhood as your family?
>> I couldn't tell you that.
I know that my mother and
dad did hide Jews during the war.
Now, whether they were neighbors
or friends or friends, I'm not sure.
>> What did your parents and
your sister tell you about May 10,
1940 when Hitler invaded Holland?
>> I don't remember anything.
>> Yeah, that's fine. Sometimes the date is really
intense and people remember on that day this happened,
but sometimes it's more gradual.
How did things begin to change for
them once the occupation started?
>> As best as I can recall,
again, the stories that my mother and dad told that,
they really had to be walking on eggshell, so to speak,
if they were out in public,
because there was a large German army presence.
Not to be exaggerating,
but if you sneezed and they didn't like it,
you got taken away.
They were occupied where they were at.
There was occupation of the city,
and you just really had to watch your Ps and Qs.
You had to, basically, be seen,
not heard and be very respectful of them because
they were SS, they were Nazis.
They didn't care.
They'd just soon haul you off and lock you up
and ship you off than anything else.
>> Did they tell you any stories
of witnessing direct violence,
whether it was round-ups of people or
people being killed in their presence?
>> The only thing along
those lines that I can remember is
either my mom or dad told me that we had
a relative that got taken to a concentration camp,
and I can't remember if it was a cousin
or exactly what relation that individual was,
but fortunately, he did make it through
the war and got out of
the concentration camp somewhat unscathed.
I'm not 100% sure,
I think somehow he got shot or hurt.
But he spent quite a bit of
time in the concentration camp,
and he was one of the lucky ones that made it out.
>> And you mentioned how
your father hid your family radio.
How did they get information once the war began?
>> I'm not really sure.
I know that, from what I've been told,
he had places in the house where he could
undo the boards and then put
valuable stuff underneath the boards
and then put the board back,
and I don't know if they slid a piece of
furniture on it or what,
but he had a way of hiding stuff.
Now, the Germans weren't there 24/7.
So maybe sometimes at night or something they'd bring
that radio out and plug it
in and get some news or something.
I don't know, I'm speculating.
But I think a lot of it was word of mouth,
and I couldn't really say for sure because I'm
assuming that the Germans took over the newspaper,
and even broadcast most normal means of communication.
>> Some people have talked about
there were flyers dropped
from airplanes by the British, things like that.
I don't know if anyone in your family
ever remember seeing that.
>> I don't recall any of that being told to me.
>> And I'll let you take a drink of water.
>> We need to stop. [LAUGHTER]
>> Yeah, we're fine. I'll take a drink of water too.
[inaudible].
So you mentioned that your family
hid Jewish people somewhere in their house.
Do you know anything about where that may have been?
Was it an attic or the floor?
>> I've talked to my sister about that.
I never remember anything of that nature,
but I've talked to my sister recently and she said
she could remember upstairs on the third level,
there was somewhere up there,
whether it was in the floor or in an attic or somewhere,
where they did hide Jewish people on and off,
not all the time, but periodically.
>> And to do that,
they would have had to have connections to
know who needed hiding and how to get them there.
Would that have been both of your parents
probably together or one or the other?
>> I would say both.
They were pretty much a traditional old school couple,
and they didn't have
secrets and what one knew the other knew,
and they never went anywhere without each other.
They're always together type.
So I'm assuming that they both knew.
And I remember my mother telling the stories.
And probably I received more of
the stories from my mother because she lived longer,
and I had more time to talk to her.
But I think they were both pretty much on the same page.
They were both in the loop.
I never really gave it much thought,
but they would have had to have some kind of
communication network with the underground.
That makes a lot of sense.
>> How did they get food during the war?
Did they have ration cards, or?
>> Yes, they had ration cards,
and like I said, they traded.
And another kind of
bizarre story that I love to
tell is my dad used to raise rabbits.
My mother and dad really liked rabbits,
as opposed to chickens.
But anyway, that my dad would raise rabbits and
then there was a black market for food.
They would, a lot of times,
get food on the black market,
and not to get too gross,
but I remember my dad telling me that there was
some unscrupulous type people on the black market
that would try to sell you
a cat and tell you it was a rabbit,
because physically, they're fairly close in size.
And he had this little trick that
if this piece of food he thought maybe it was a cat,
he would take a little piece of it,
and if the cat would eat it,
it would be a rabbit and you wouldn't have to worry.
But if the cat wouldn't want anything to do with it,
you know it was somebody trying to
peddle a cat for a rabbit.
[LAUGHTER] And that was
their unscientific method of verifying food quality,
if you will. [LAUGHTER]
>> I think that says a lot about cats.
[LAUGHTER]
So in addition to hiding people,
do you recall your family
being involved in any other
resistance kind of activities?
>> Not that I can remember,
not that my parents had told me.
I'm sure there was incidents that happened that
they thought best not to tell us and share with us.
>> When the first part of Holland was
liberated in September of 1944,
was Utrecht part of that,
or were they stuck on the other side?
>> The only information I have on that is, again,
I was talking to my sister a while
back and she remembers when
Utrecht was liberated because it was
a big parade. Excuse me.
>> She's got Kleenex behind.
>> She was saying,
when the army came through,
they were giving everybody chocolate.
And the irony was my sister was allergic
to chocolate. I'm sorry.
>> So it was
this very intense emotional time the Army came through.
Were the Canadians,
or Americans or British?
>> I thought she said that they were Americans.
I thought, but there could have been a mixture.
Yeah, obviously.
>> And did your family tell you about
any really hard time right before liberation?
For some people that time,
the months leading right up to liberation,
there were tremendous food shortages.
>> I remember the main trouble
that they would have is food.
And my mother was telling me that,
they would get a potato too,
and that would be the food for the week.
Make soup out of it and add whatever to it
and food was a big issue.
And my sister I think probably
to this day she's had a lot of health issues,
and I think my personal opinion
is that because she probably didn't get
the proper nutrients and milk
that attributes a lot of
her health issues now because when you're growing up,
you need to build good bones and all that.
>> And she would've been right at
that cusp growth spurt age during that time.
>> And milk was hard to get.
I remember they would get powdered milk.
But my sister too,
was allergic to a lot of stuff,
so they were really had to be careful
what they could get her and food was really limited.
So the food was really a struggle.
>> And did they tell you any stories about air raids
or blackouts having to make sure that they were.
>> I don't remember any specific stories,
but I remember in general,
it was very common.
The power would go out.
There'd be blackouts.
That would go on quite a bit.
And I believe that
there's some parts of the city that the Germans bombed.
And I can't be 100% sure,
but it seems like one of the stories is
about a aid sirens
going off and bombers overhead and that type of thing.
But I don't have
any real specific information
when and where and that type of thing.
>> Sure. Sometimes it's just this general impression
that people experienced.
So liberation comes, there's a parade.
How did life begin to return to normal for your family?
>> Wasn't a whole lot talked about that,
obviously, there had been a big relief.
And I'm not really sure on how quickly after that,
things got back to somewhat of a normal existence as
far as everyday life and work and getting food.
But I can't remember
very many or any stories
that my mother told me about that.
>> Well, eventually, things were normal
enough that you were born in 1950.
But your family immigrated to the United States in 1955.
Did you have any first impressions,
which track do you remember it at all?
>> I remember a little bit.
I remember playing out in from of the house,
soccer was the big thing.
I remember going to school,
but I don't remember too much of it.
And my mother said
that there was a Montessori school there,
and we went to that.
And I think I might have been going to
school like three and a half,
four years of age and going to school.
So it almost sounded like
maybe the modern version of
pre-school or the early version of preschool.
But I think back
on that because my dad had learned English in school.
My mother spoke really broken English,
and she struggled with the English language.
And my sister, you couldn't tell she doesn't
have an accent or my brother or I.
And I don't remember taking English lessons in school,
but yet coming over here to the United States.
We spoke the language and growing up,
her mother and dad would speak to us in Dutch,
and we answer back in English.
So consequently, I have a reasonable ear for it,
but I can't speak it.
My sister is the only one that can read and write Dutch.
But my brother and I were too young to
really learn those skills.
>> So how did your family make
the decision to immigrate to the United States?
>> Well, I think that's a two part story I alluded to
earlier and this is just speculation on my part,
that what my gut tells me that he had enough
of being outcast by their relatives.
And then, like I said,
my dad's brother was over here
and I'm sure that he told them about,
owning your own car and owning your own house
and it's my understanding in Holland.
Currently if you want
to rent an apartment or buy a house,
you get put on a waiting list.
And there's so much more opportunity
in the United States,
and the old fairy tale
about United States was paved with streets of gold.
There was a little bit of truth to that,
probably in my parents eyes,
that it was a good opportunity for a new life.
>> Do you remember the passage over?
Did you did you go by ship?
>> Yes. We were on
the Waterman and it was a two week voyage.
And I remember my mother telling
me I did the best because I was only sea
sick three days and everybody else
was in bed for a week or more.
So I do remember
bits and pieces on the port
running around and getting candy.
>> There were people there who were generous?
>> Yeah.
>> And was it all immigrants people coming together?
Were there soldiers to you?
>> Actually, from what my mother had told me or my dad,
I can't remember which one.
It wasn't a traditional passenger ship.
Part of the ship was dedicated for cargo.
And then the other part of the ship
was dedicated for passengers.
So I don't know if all or
what percentage were immigrants or just normal people,
going from Holland to the United States.
>> So what were your first impressions
of America when you arrived?
>> It was interesting because
I started obviously kindergarten.
And to me, the biggest what you'd call
shock was Halloween because
there's no Halloween in Holland.
And I had like the week leading up to Halloween,
they were decorating the school
and kids were talking about a costume,
and I thought to myself they're crazy.
They're not going to wear a costume to school.
And sure enough that day of Halloween,
everybody had a costume except for me.
And another tradition is Christmas.
In the Netherlands, you have St. Nicholas,
and then you have Black Pete.
They ride around on horses.
And if you're good,
you get candy or
a present or something in
your wooden shoe by the fireplace.
And if you were misbehaving,
you got coal in
your wooden shoe or in your stocking or whatever.
So that was kind of different too that in Holland,
at that time, nobody bought presents for anybody.
It was just I think if the kids were
good the parents gave the kids a reward or a treat.
>> Did your family carry on any of those traditions?
>> Oh, yeah. We started celebrating
Halloween and giving out candy and all that.
Same thing with Christmas.
We would exchange gifts and that type of thing.
>> I remember and I don't know if it's
a tradition in the Netherlands or only in Sweden,
there's something St. Lucia,
or the women wear candles on
their head or I must be thinking of a different country.
>> I don't remember that in Holland,
but the St. Nicholas did have,
I don't know, a pope looking head dress on.
[LAUGHTER] Not exactly a crown but kind of
a fancy thing something maybe the pope
would wear or a clergy.
>> A maya.
>> Something like that. Yeah.
I don't know what it's called.
>> So when you came to the US,
where did you come in and then where did you go?
Where did you live?
>> Obviously by that time Ellis Island
was no longer functional.
So we ended up somewhere in New York
where I'm not particularly sure where exactly.
But I remember we got on a train and from New York,
we went to Michigan and my uncle,
at that time, when we first arrived,
had a bakery on the north side of Lansing off of
Grand River Avenue and above his bakery,
he had living quarters.
He allowed us to stay above his bakery
for I can't remember the first 2,
3, 4, 5 months or
whatever until we could get a place of our own.
And let me back up a little bit before that
that before we could come over to the United States,
we had to go through an extensive physical.
And I think every shot known to man we got.
And everybody in our family has
got a minimum of three vaccinations.
And I think my sister,
I think she's got like six because
they gave her a couple of
them and they weren't sure if they took,
so they gave her a couple more.
And they gave you
a pretty thorough medical evaluation and health
screening that before they
would grant you a visa to come over here.
>> And did your parents
want to go through the citizenship process
early on or was that a goal?
>> I'm not really sure.
I can't remember any conversations of that.
But the thing that's still amazing to
me is being back in 2000,
I was a single guy
and the company I worked for transferred me from
Michigan to Georgia and
basically took care of everything for you.
And I'm thinking to myself,
to pack up your whole family
and to move to a different country.
I wish I could have communicated that to
my dad when he was alive.
>> It's a hard choice to make and so much
support that love he had
for everyone wanting to give them that life?
>> Yeah.
>> What kind of work did he
do when he got work in Michigan?
>> Well, he had an opportunity to go to
work for General Motors at a fisher body plant lancing,
and he should have.
But that's water under the bridge.
But the interview that he had
the general motors interviewer said he had
too much skill to work on a production line.
But in retrospect, he would have had a lot more benefits,
made a lot more money.
As it turned out,
my dad went to work for
a little portering shop
where the owner worked and he was the only employee.
So he had no medical insurance, no paid vacation,
and it put us in
some financial difficulty when
my dad had a heart attack and didn't have insurance.
But that's the balance of life.
You do something you
like or you do something where you can make
money at the two don't always meet.
>> And when he was working in
the upholstery shop in Lansing,
did he have clients all over?
>> He was basically an employee.
So the owner of the company had a shop and
people would come in and
then they didn't acquire business that way,
but basically all the work my dad
did was for the shop or for the owner.
And I remember my dad telling us and
asking my brother and I if
we wanted to go into the business,
be upholster and my brother said,
no, I didn't want to do it.
So dad says, if you two would
have wanted to join and be an upholster,
he'd set up his own shop.
But he said, no sense setting up
a shop if you're not going to take over the business.
So my brother and I we didn't want to do that.
My brother had the skills.
My brother's got that carpenter gene,
but I can barely pound a nail in,
so it didn't make a whole lot of sense
for me to be an upholster.
>> What kind of work did you end up doing?
What excited you in school?
>> Well, not a whole lot.
I had probably in this day and age,
if I was in school,
I would be diagnosed with ADD.
I could spend all day
in classroom just looking
out the window and day dreaming.
I just didn't have any interest.
I on a very good day,
if I applied myself 110%,
I was a B student.
And I remember my first year in junior high,
I got Cs and Bs,
and my parents were just delighted.
They thought I had made
the corner and I was headed down the right path.
And then in junior high,
you get to know kids and you get to be
more concerned about being
accepted and social and having fun.
I actually swam competitively in junior high,
and I swam competitively in high school,
and I set some city records
and school records and pool records.
And I was offered a couple of swimming scholarships.
But the goof off I was in high school,
I barely maintained a D average,
and I barely stayed on the swimming team because
my grades were border line every semester.
And there's a lot of things I don't remember,
but I remember I
applied at Central Michigan
because they offered me a full scholarship,
and I got a letter back.
And it was a boilerplate type letter
and at the bottom that said,
Mr. Kohler, we're sorry to inform you that you
have some inadequate grades in some academic areas.
Really? D average they were very polite.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Did you have a sense at all with
your other siblings and your parents?
Did they miss home, home being the Netherlands?
>> Yeah.
>> They miss?
>> Yes. It's ironic that after my dad died,
my mother's relatives came out of
the woodwork and they
all wanted to come over and they all wanted to visit.
And I by that time
I wasn't real happy with my mother's side of the family.
But after my dad died,
my mother did go back several times.
My sister went back.
I think twice, and even my niece,
one year went back with my mother.
And I can remember one time when they came back,
my mother was telling me that
they had torn down our house where we used to live,
and it was at that time,
parking lot for a bank.
And I don't know if I've told her this,
but I was a bachelor for years.
We just recently got married like four years ago.
So all this time,
my mother was always getting on me for being single.
And I don't know how many times she says, well,
why don't you come back to Holland with
me and find a nice Dutch girl to marry.
[LAUGHTER]
And I told I told her then.
I said, if I'm going to spend
that much money and go to Europe,
I want to go to Switzerland and go scan.
I wouldn't know my relatives.
I want to do something fun or something interesting.
But I never did go back.
I just you stop and
figure that when my parents got married,
my dad was 30, my mother's 28.
I have no grandparents left.
The majority of my aunts and uncles are deceased.
And like I wouldn't know
relatives if they came up to me on the street.
I just unfortunate.
And you got people
that are not family that are considered family,
and you have family members
that you really don't want anything to do with.
So I think it's different for everybody.
>> Absolutely. Well, the first
time I met you brought in a medal.
And one quick note before I ask you about that,
you have a little bit of tissue?
>> Oh, I'm sorry.
>> No. That's okay.
[OVERLAPPING] I wasn't sure if it was.
>> Thank you.
>> Sure. So you had brought this medal that
your parents had saved after
the war which marked the liberation of Holland.
What were the family stories about that?
Were there any stories that were in your family?
>> Not really. And I think we
talked a little bit about it previously
that I was under the impression that,
that was given to my mother and father.
And after the research that you did to me,
I question that now if they might have purchased it.
I'm not so sure now that it was given to them,
but a couple of times,
my mother had mentioned that because of
what they did to help the
underground and hide Jews and
and make life miserable
for the Germans where and when they could,
that's what it represented.
>> And that's always one of those things
where it represents is important,
when it meant to the family,
whether or not they were given it
as a gift by someone who purchased it
at the post office or whether they were the ones that
purchased it at the meeting that is important.
So how did you eventually come to settle in Georgia?
You mentioned that your company transferred you here?
>> Yeah. I had the luxury of back in the '60s,
I was able to go to
Florida a couple of times on vacation.
And the older I got,
the less I like snow and blowing 10 below zero.
So I've been bugging my supervisor to transfer me South.
And every year during your evaluation,
where do you want to go on a company,
where do you see yourself,
and I want to go South.
Just somewhere where it doesn't snow.
And they offered me a position here in Kennesaw.
We have a district office
in Kennesaw right off of Chastain.
And I actually tried to talk my boss into
relocating me in Tampa
because we have a facility in Tampa.
And he said, no,
we want to keep you with
the environmental folks and
the other safety folks and so on.
And so I didn't want to push my walk.
>> Remind me again, what company you work for?
>> Marathon Petroleum.
And they hired the moving van
and took care of all the issues and it
was interesting because when
the moving an showed up at my house,
the mover comes in the house and says,
Mr. Cole, we want to sit
right there in that chair and don't move.
We'll take care of all the rest.
And since we've been married,
we've moved four times.
And we've had to pack and unpack everything ourselves.
It's really nice when somebody does
all the grunt work for you.
>> Absolutely. So tell me about meeting your wife.
Did you meet her here in Georgia?
>> Yeah. I actually met her online.
And then we had some online chats.
And then she got
brave and figured she'd meet me and we met
at Bahama Breeze over here on
Bart Parkway and had dinner and took off from there.
>> That's great.
>> And I always liked telling this part of it.
I asked her after a while.
I says, well, what about
my online profile attracted you.
I said, my dimples,
my green eyes, my smile.
And she says, no, I saw you like to drink wine.
[LAUGHTER]
>> [OVERLAPPING] All that fun
that you had in high school paid off.
>> There you go.
>> So these are
questions I always ask
everyone at the end of an interview.
What do you think students should take away
from learning about your family's experiences.
>> That's hard to do without getting on a soapbox
and preaching and lecturing.
But I get a little
irritated when people complain
about how bad United States is.
And it's by no means perfect granted,
but going through hard times.
And you get the same thing that
people over in this country,
older folks that have gone through the depression.
I've known lots of people that people
that still to this day will
take a piece of
aluminum foil that they've used to cook on
clean it and then put it back to use it
again or a plastic bag.
If you experience something like that,
it gives you a totally different perspective.
You appreciate life a lot more experiencing those things.
I said, not and I can see that in my own family.
When I was 12, 13,
14 years old, I was mowing yards for $0.50.
I was shoveling snow in the wintertime
for one quarter $0.50 or whatever.
I remember my first job,
we lived about,
I'm going to say about two miles
from Lansing Country Club.
So I'd hop on my bike
and ride to the country club and I'd be a caddie.
And on a good day,
you could make three or $4 plus the guy
would buy you a pop or an ice cream con.
And that was great.
And my own my own nephew,
he didn't get a job until he started at Michigan State.
And then he was just delivering
pizzas for Papa John for beer money.
And I don't know.
I sound like an old fuddy daddy when
I start talking this way, so I'll stop.
>> That's okay.
So is there anything I haven't asked you
about that you'd want to talk about?
>> No. I'm trying to think.
There was something I wanted to
but I can't think of what it was now.
Yeah, we pretty much covered everything.
I think pretty much all the relevant stuff,
I think we've pretty much covered.
>> Well, thank you for your time.
>> Well, thank you for putting up with me.
>> [inaudible] challenging. We really appreciate
your story sharing it with us.
Thank you. What a great job you do.
>> She wanted me to have it.
She said, after I'm gone,
I want to know what's in a safe place.
But the youngest is always the spoiled one.
Of the youngest of the family can get away with murder
and just natural chain of
events that I see stuff that my brother was able to do,
my sister never was,
and I had them all beaten because I could do no wrong.
I could walk on water
especially after I had moved out of the house.
I remember my mother criticizing my brother and
criticizing my sister and I thinking,
why spend time on that?
What good is it going to do?
You're not going to change anybody.
>> But he and his mom were very close,
and they would sit on the front porch
of her house and she would
share stories with them at her house in Lansing?
What neighborhood did they live in?
>> Do you know roughly where
Mount Hope and Logan Street intersect?
>> Yes.
>> In fact, we were growing up,
we were basically two blocks
from St. Casper's if you know where that is.
I went to Moors Park Elementary School
and then Walter French Junior High,
and then Sexton High School.
We basically stayed in that general vicinity.
We lived in a duplex for I don't know how long.
When we moved out of our uncle's place,
we moved into a duplex and
we stayed there for years and years,
and then finally my parents bought
a house on the other side of Mount Hope on Rondel.
Do you know where Shafer's Bakery was or is?
>> Yes.
>> Wow. [LAUGHTER] Because
Rundle Street runs right next to
the bakery and then it crosses Mount Hope.
We're basically two blocks off of Mount Hope and talk
about an enjoyable childhood at night.
This was a huge bakery and they'd bake bread
and you'd sit on the front porch
and you could smell fresh bread.
That sensation, that aroma was just fantastic.
[LAUGHTER] One of the advantages
of living near the bakery.
We used to go up there, they
called it the Dael bread store,
buy bread all the time.
We never lacked for anything,
but we always had hamburgers and chicken.
We didn't always eat steak,
but basically traditional middle-class upbringing.
A lot of fun memories.
I learned how to swim at Morris pool.
I don't know if you remember or know where that is?
>> Morris?
>> Morris Park swimming pool.
Actually, back in I think it was
'67 and '68, I was a lifeguard there.
I worked there, and I think
that pool they need like a million five to fix it.
The pool, I want to say it's 100 years old,
and there's a big effort to try and save that pool.
>> When I lived there, I remember going by.
It wasn't open to the public, but it was still there.
>> It was closed for a couple of years,
and then I think they put some money into it.
I think maybe in the last
two or three years it's been open,
but I think it's on the chopping block again.
It needs a lot of money.
>> But it's fun to reminisce
about a place that I've also lived.
[LAUGHTER]
>> One thing and think about it,
but that coin I have,
I think there would be
value if I donated it to you to the museum.
>> We would use anything
like that for educational purposes.
>> Like I said, think about it,
I would be honored if you would display it somewhere.
>> Anything that's in our collection would
become part of a rotating display.
So I don't know if you've been inside
our Parallel Journeys Exhibit.
We have currently this currency on display
related to Nazi Germany and Jewish life.
But we also, those cases are always changing.
We're always trying to bring in
different stories and in
our introductory exhibit space as well.
I could see this coin telling multiple stories.
We talk about how artifacts can
tell different stories [inaudible].
>> Visual always helps.
>> Exactly. So for you,
it has this deep familial connection.
It's also a story about the Dutch government
minting a coin to
commemorate this really important moment.
>> Because if you don't put it on display,
it's going to end up in a box somewhere,
and I don't think any
of our kids or grandkids are interested in that,
and I'd rather have it here
than at Salvation Army or goodwill or someplace.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Think about it because we protect artifacts too.
Nothing is ever on display all
the time because otherwise,
that's not the best thing for the object, either.
So when it's rotated off display,
we keep things in preservation boxes.
In our collections catalog,
we always know that they're there.
Sometimes we bring things out for a home school day
about liberation or on a particular topic.
And then it might go back off display,
but that's how museums works.
Things are on display, off display,
but they're part of the tools
that we have to tell these stories.
>> And I can imagine there's a benefit to that
because that way you're
growing more people because it's changing.
[OVERLAPPING] You've got different and not the same old
thing over and over again.
>> So you can certainly think about it.
But if you decide that
that's something you really want to do,
we can accept an appointment and you can donate it to us.
Thank you for the offer. I know
that was a lot of extra stuff.