Growing Up in the Community. By Kathy Tisdale Sturm Since I am a volunteer, not only as your president, but at the Society's museum, Mary Voss, chief recorder of volunteer hours, asked that I share some of my memories of growing up in the area as part of a focus on our volunteers. Thank you for asking. I have had the privilege of living near Pier Cove, Fennville and in Douglas as a child. As an adult add Saugatuck and now Saugatuck Township. I moved here in 1959 with my parents, Sue and Jerry Tisdale, along with my younger brother Dennis, and sister, Peggy. My dad worked for the State of Michigan and with the new I-196 being built he was transferred here from Lansing to be part of the maintenance crew for the "new" highway. I must say I too happy to learn that the road we lived on did not come with sidewalks for roller skating, but that dissipated very quickly when learned that the Big Lake was a short walking distance away. At that time we lived on the Lakeshore near the County Park. After my youngest sister, Tris, was born, we moved to a house on US-31 near 126th Ave for a few years and we attended St. Peter's School downtown Douglas. We moved into Douglas (town) in 1964. Our house was sited where the Petter sculpture garden is now located at the corner of Main and Douglas streets, the building was later destroyed by fire after we moved. Our yard was a collecting point for the downtown kids as opposed to the uptown kids. Center Street was the dividing point. We would play ball together, ride our bikes, fish, slide down the hill behind the house on sleds and saucers in the winter and cardboard boxes in the summer. The hill was too steep to mow, so my mother invented this option to keep the yard "tidy." A funny story I will share. We moved into town just before my birthday and as was and still is the custom you go to the Post Office for the mail. It was my turn so that I could collect my birthday cards. When I arrived at Center Street I was amazed to find that flags lined both sides of the street. My Grandpa Pratt had always told me it was just for my birthday and I couldn�t figure out how they knew it was my birthday, so I retrieved the mail and my cards and proceeded to walk down the middle of Center Street back toward Main Street to celebrate my day. Jerry Bekken, then a clerk at the Post Office, noticed the new kid walking in the street and came running out the front door to tell me to get out of the street, one it was not safe and even more so because Tom Gifford was due to drive by soon. Remember Tom and Merge Gifford? Another story for another time. I attended Saugatuck High School from the 6th to the 12th grades. My mother began working at the high school when I was a junior. Most kids would have hated that situation. I didn�t- my mother is one of my best friends. Some of the special advantages of living in a very small community I enjoyed, and there were some I didn't enjoy. During my teen years Douglas and Saugatuck observed many short term transitions as they tried to define themselves after the loss of the Bib Pavilion. Many different groups... [text continued in image, at left] Source: https://sdhistoricalsociety.org/publications/NLHist/NLHist/P503-504.php SDHS newsletter insert pages 503-504

This information was OCR text scanned from SDHS newsletter supplements. Binders of original paper copies are in the SDHC reference library.