08/08/2025
Do you love nostalgic Michigan memories? If so, you’ll love the “Remember the Time” section of Michigan History magazine! The author of our most recent “Remember the Time” recounts her peaceful, warm memories of growing up in Kalamazoo in the 1940s.
The author of this piece, Carolyn Comer Wysong, recalls growing up spending lots of time with her grandparents, who immigrated from the Netherlands at a young age and eventually settled in Kalamazoo. Her grandfather owned a grocery store down the street and her grandmother was a midwife. Carolyn describes her grandmother as a “short, stout, no-nonsense Dutch woman” who kept the house immaculate and was always knitting beautiful lace edges for her knit goods. She remembers “passing the cream and sugar and cookies” when the “ladies” came over for tea and helping her grandfather clean and prepare huge loads of green onions for the market. During the harvest season, her grandparents would put bushels of tomatoes, beans, carrots and onions on the steps of their large front porch along with a scale and a tin can for customers to leave money in. Her grandmother would do the canning in the cement basement, where there was a set of low burners near the furnace. Carolyn and her mother would assist in the canning process, preparing string beans and peeling tomatoes. On Sundays, the family went to church, which Carolyn describes as “an important part of our Sundays,” before an afternoon walk and a roast dinner. Though her childhood was very different from the children of today, she remembers her youth in Kalamazoo very fondly. Thanks, Carolyn, for sharing your memory with us!
Want your memory featured in a future issue? Send an email to [email protected] for more information.
