There we go. Actually, we don't have questions. Uh, I'm uh, Trevor Lowing. This is February the 21st, 2005, interviewing my grandfather, uh, since he happens to be down here in Port Charlotte, Florida, to uh, visit my dad, Thomas Hugh Lowing. Uh, well, guess we can start off, uh, where were you born? When were you born? And, uh, what do you remember? Your some of your earliest memories? Yeah, I was born March 20, 1918. Um, uh, well, I guess 2361 Bauer Road, by the, is good in the, in, uh, Jenison, or maybe just in. Bronco Steve has, uh, where that house is now? Or is that where your house, where your house is now? I see. No, I was really born down the road a mile and a half. Them days they had midwife, no doctors, you know. So, Dad took Mother in March, you know, it was bad weather, down Bauer Road, and you know, I don't know, you them muddy pots, you might remember them. Mud holes? Oh gosh, yeah, the thaw, the frost was coming out. And they'll buggy right up to the axle, Dad said. On the way there? Yeah. And then that Maggie Advisworth, she was the midwife. Them older women, a lot of work, you know, in them days. So, that's where I was really born. But, uh, but there's necessary, I don't know. Born at the Mary Bosworth, uh, the mid, house of the midwife? Mag, uh, Maggie Bosworth. Maggie Bosworth? Yeah. No, I don't know her maiden name, but she married a Bosworth. And she was In their house, huh? Yeah. Huh. Yeah. [laughter] I guess your husband's got to be very accepting of your profession back then. [laughter] Well, you know, we had him Doc Wedgewood. Uh-huh. He didn't have a car. Uh-huh. He'd come around and, uh, oh, in the winter a cutter, and then in the summer he had a horse and buggy. Well, you know, when a woman gets in labor ready to go, yeah, you don't wait for him to go off 50 miles in the buggy, you know. [laughter] What's a cutter? That's a, uh, uh, it goes in the snow. Goes in the snow? It's just like a buggy, only it's got runners on it. Oh, kind of like a, uh, a sleigh kind of thing, or? Yeah, yeah. You ever see a cutter? We used to have one. I remember that when Dad had one. One horse with fills, you know. And, oh, that neat travel around looking down the road with. [laughter] Really? Yeah, yeah, that Now, you remember, um, we're talking early Jenison here, right? Was it, it was called Jenison back there, and that's where you lived, where you grew up in. Was it called Grandville back then, or? No, no. No, it was Jenison. George Town Township. George Town Township? Yeah, Jenison is not really a town today. It's George Town Charter Township. And everybody calls it Jenison that, but there's no organized Jenison, really. Really? It's just the township? Yeah, George Town Township. It's not like separately incorporated or anything like that? Well, it's a Charter Township. There's quite a few of them that do that. And then they got their, oh, the supervisors and the Board of Trustees and, you know, all that business. And we got our own Sheriff Department. Now, it didn't, it wasn't Ottawa County, but now they got a, I guess it still is part of Ottawa County, but they designate one fellow for George Town Township because it's growing so fast around there. And they got their own George Town Fire Department. So, it's, it's, it's an organized area, but I would think they would do something to designate it either George Town or Jenison, you know, but Well, so it would mean confusion, huh? Yeah. People live in Jenison. We do, but Now, um, you know, the, like, topography, the lay of the land in Jenison there is kind of unique. It's sort of like there used to be a river there, and it used to go to the right, and then it eventually shifted to the left, and that's probably the Grand River. And there's muck fields in the low-lying areas, and then you kind of go up the hill, and you got like, I don't know, when you call it an island, but a, a higher. Yeah, it's all river bottom one time, the muck. You know, that was, well, that was, my God, I don't know, centuries ago, maybe, I don't know. Well, they still pull trees, don't they, out of the muck there when they felled the trees? Oh, the muck, yeah. They see, they, they raise up, those stumps and stuff, that comes up. Yeah. The muck is quite deep in some places. At our place, uh, it really wasn't too deep there. But, uh, I don't know, three or four feet, I don't know, is it that much. But most of the muck, it disappeared. That's what the muck right there, it's getting so it ain't any good anymore. Oh, really? Is it getting depleted or dried out? A lot of it blows out, and it's more all, now they're raising, it's all sod farm now. That's what they do with that. And they're turning it into a sod farm. They, uh, Visser's raising a few vegetables and stuff there yet, but, uh, man, these days, onions and celery and My mom talks about when she was a kid, she used to top onions in the fields down there. Yeah. Make a few bucks here and there going to school. Bruce did, too. He did it over Hudsonville. Yeah. That's when they used to do it by hand. Yeah. Now they got a machine that runs down through there and, uh, pull, lifts them out of the ground and tops them, and there's a conveyor, puts them up into a [laughter] big box. Yeah. See, you remember, um, I remember one time I talked to you, you mentioned, uh, like, say, 28th Street, and you said there was a hill there you used to go sledding down? Oh, yeah. Mother and Dad, or Mother did. I didn't, oh, I've been up there, but I never went sledding down there. Yeah, see, all 28th Street by Roger's Plaza, that was all hill, and then they, they threw all this gravel from there up to Perry Street. Got one 28th Street when Mother and I was courting, we'd even run up there on them hills and park up there, you know. [laughter] Yeah, that was just from Byron Center there, it's just, just a trail, and went up into them hills. What all was there? Was there like a park in Byron Center and all that kind of stuff there, or? Well, Byron Center then, the down, uh, well, way down to Byron Center, yeah, I, I, a park, you say? There was a park there, or? I'm trying to remember it from the, some of the pictures. I scanned all your pictures a couple weeks ago. Yeah, the old Settler's, uh, Jamestown Park, we used to call it. We had our, used to have the old Settler's picnic. All the older people, you know, go out there, and, uh, every year they had it from Hudsonville and Jenison and Jamestown and all them. I remember going down there when I was a kid. Always a big picnic. Now, um, uh, there on, uh, off of, off of Bauer, um, or even looking at the old maps, a lot of Lowings owned, uh, the real estate there. Um, if you were standing on your front yard when you were a kid, and you looked around, uh, what would you have seen as far as relatives and relatives' property? Well, right there, of course, I was, you know, at that time a lot of that was divided up. You know, the neighbors across the road, the old Newman Morris lived down there, and the Izingers had the farm next door. But the, the Lowings, originally most of that, they, they just lumped the lumber off and that was it. They just treated it and Yeah, way over to Hudsonville, even. Uh, you know, where Rosewood is there? Yeah. That used to be, they called that the Pinery Road. The Pinery. That's where all the pine trees in there. Used to be pine stumps all around, you know, fences, pine stumps. Uh-huh. They were, huh? But there was some Lowings down on the river that all stayed with the Lowings. They, uh, Uncle Charlie and Uncle Harry, they had big farms there. And up, uh, above the hills on Fillmore and the Clay Hills there, there was George Hubbard. He was, he, that was part of a Lowing farm at one time, but, uh, I don't know just how much it was. But I know one time it was all, settled. I don't, most of that, I don't know whether they just bought from the government to let, they did them timber. Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, the early records show, you know, Lowings owning a bunch of, uh, land in George Town Township, and a lot of the early, um, postmasters were Lowings. Um, you know, and back then, you know, before your town became a real town, the probably the only thing you had was a postmaster and Yeah, yeah. You know, not really much in the way of government body besides that. No, uh, where, where I was born, mile and a half on Clay Hill, Uncle Albert Lowing, he owned quite a chunk in there. There was Lowings all over there. But, uh, So, you had, uh, how many brothers and sisters? Well, I, I had three brothers and one sister. What do you, and I, and Wayne and Boyd and Joyce. Yeah. Joyce and I are the only ones left now. Yeah. So, what all do you remember as a kid? Get along real well with your brothers and, uh, Oh. Did you fight a lot, you know? Me and my, me and my brother used to fight quite a bit. Yeah, kids, I suppose we fought like, like others do, you know, when we was young, but, uh, yeah, tell us Wayne, I tell you, my old man, nowadays you can't touch your kids, you know. That's, uh, Roy? Hmm? Roy? Yeah. Great, Grandpa Roy? We used to go to the woodshed once in a while. We had a razor strap hanging up there in those days, you know. A razor strap? What's a razor strap? Thin leather? Yeah, yeah, it's about that wide, about that long, where they sharpen the razor on. You ever see that? Oh, yeah, yeah, like an old barber. Yeah. And, uh, I had that across my ass a few times. I don't know, I guess all the kids did. No, one time, Ogie and I, you know where the maples are in the yard up there? There was some along the road. They're all about down. I took them, uh, mine. They thought I'd dry rot. I had two in my yard where I live now, and I got them out. One blew over. I had two. And where the doctor lives, there's some there yet, but she won't get rid of them. One's a half a tree, and, you know, with the That, that old house right next to yours? Yeah. Yeah. But there was some up in the old one, uh, west of the house, that my dad planted when he was pretty young. And of course, they're growing up now, trees like that. But I'll never forget the time Ogie and I, we didn't, hell, we didn't know any better. I guess we should have, but we had a big hammer. We kind of had a, uh, a sledgehammer, but it was, I don't know, maybe four or five pounder. We was out there with that, and we could see who could take the most bark off with one hit. [laughter] I'll never forget that. Boy, Dad come home, I don't know, he's working wherever he was. But they, we caught hell for that. He took some bark off you, huh? Yeah, we caught hell. [laughter] But there's a lot of things like that. I guess all kids go through, you know. But, uh, that's what I've always said. If kids don't get in trouble somewhere, they never amount to anything. You know, they got to have a little activity. [laughter] I saw a picture, uh, in one of the pictures I scanned, it looked like it was you and your brothers sitting in front of a tent. Um, you were probably in your teens. Yeah, yeah. I don't think it was my brothers. I can tell you who they were. We used to go camping out at Holland Beach. Them days, you know, it was the biggest whorehouse in all of Western Michigan, they claimed. You couldn't Really? Holland Beach? take a woman, lay on the beach, you know, and all that. [laughter] No, I didn't say everybody was bad, but, uh, yeah, they, but we used to go camping. I think we were eighth grade. Bert Kramer, Mike, and John, Adelman, and Al Rolland. I think it was four of us. We used to go camping together. We had a good time. Did, but did we ever been to Susan? Did you? I did the picture. Oh, in the picture. Um, yeah, I think that. [inaudible] making out long. Of course, they were the thing them days, but [laughter] Yeah, that, uh, Did you take much in the way of like family vacations when you were a kid? You know, you take the kids out to Holland Beach or your, uh, not many, but we'd leave you out on our own there in that. But, uh, How long would it take you to get to, say, Holland, Holland Beach? Well, we had cars in them days. The roads weren't like they were, but I, not as fast today, but I suppose we went 40, 45, 50, you know. And go right along. But, uh, yeah, there was, uh, my brother Ogie and, uh, I and my cousin Bob Lowing, the '33 Chicago World's Fair. That was a big deal. Three of us went down there. Drove down, you know. Really? You were at the Chicago World's Fair? Yeah. Wow. In '30, That's the one where they had that huge planet-looking thing, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. I don't remember, but I think it was '33. Let's see, '18, uh, I'd have been 15 years old. Probably was. And Ogie was three years older, and Bob was, that was him, so they were probably 18, 20. And they could, uh, they had a car. Bob Lowing, he, he had a car. It's quicker than we did. He, uh, he'd been car crazy on cars, and he ended up a truck driver in his college life. And we used to come around with them. But yeah, that was a big time. And that was quite an experience for, but, you know, the one, the traffic that wasn't today, and getting around Chicago wasn't simple. Now, there's places you wouldn't dare go, you know, down there. Oh, yeah. But even when we had our conventions down there, Dairy conventions, we used to have them in the McCormick Place. One year in Atlantic City and the other year, we'd get out on Rush Street, which they claim is real rough right now, and walk all around there, think nothing of it. I know Ireland's Restaurant, the seafood restaurant. That was a, a nice place we went right on Rush Street. I don't know if you know anything about Chicago. No, I don't think, um, I don't think I've ever been downtown Chicago. That's such a, I've been through the outskirts, and it's, yeah, it's so big now. It's no place that, uh, really, I, I guess probably right downtown where all the stores are and the big hotels, it, it would be all right. Well, you know, the shopping area and that. Well, it's a working town. I mean, it was back then, yeah. But there's some rough areas there. No, Mother and I, see, when we took our honeymoon, we married on Thursday, and we had Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, of course, had to be back to work Monday, you know. Well, we, uh, yeah, Thursday night, we was married in the First Christian Church in Grand Rapids, and we had the reception down to her folks, and my cousin Max, I don't think you'd remember him. No, you wouldn't. He was just killed at Anzio Beachhead on the, when he was in service. Oh, you know what? I think I, when I was scanning the family history book, um, I came across his name quite a bit. He was decorated. I mean, he was heavily decorated. Yeah. I know. Just hear, his wife, uh, made the group she was in, and Max and Nancy and I used to run around together all the time. So, hear and there one night, Uncle Ivan, never had a car. The damn thing was all Model A's and stuff, all beat up, which was a good car in them days, but tires had bulges on them, and, oh God, he, he never kept a car up. Well, Max was turned to drive this night, and we went out. And so we went up to Holland Beach, and horse around there. Well, it's over we headed. But, uh, right in Grandville before we left, we had two flat tires on one side. We run over something in the road. Both tires blew. [laughter] So, I went down to Bert Little had a station there in Grandville right on 21. I told him, Bert, I said, "Guys, Max and I are out on a date with a couple gals here, and we need them tires fixed. Can you do it?" Oh God, he says, "I don't know. I'm too damn busy." Look at the tires. He wouldn't think they could ever fix them anyway. He says, "I'll tell you what. Leave that car here. Let me fix it. You take mine." A little shitty convertible, black and white, had them big donut tires on. I don't know if you remember them. Yeah. We had all rolling about that. White walls or? Huh? Did it have white walls? Oh, yeah, big ones. [laughter] Oh, that was slick. And that Bert was a wonderful guy. So, we took his car out there and went to the beach. Did it win you a few points with the ladies? Oh, they liked it, too. Yeah. [laughter] And, uh, we got down, uh, I don't know, time to come home because I had to go to work early and milk them, you know, and that. But to close the damn gate, which I didn't know, I think it was 10:00, 11:00, and it was after that, and we was chained in. They had a big chain that was looped, you know, across like that. And hell, we was stuck. We couldn't get out. Oh, really? Well, there's a bunch of guys around there. We lifted that damn car right over that chain. You lifted the car over the chain? Yeah, first the front end, you know, and wheel her in, and [laughter] Yeah, it was, uh, Guess where there's a will, there's a way. Eight or 10 guys, you can do about anything, you know. They were all young, husky teenagers. Yeah, I'll never forget that. But, uh, hell, Bert, he was, he was something else. Yeah. So, uh, anybody, you know, what do you recall of, uh, uh, World War II? World War II? Oh, I remember Pearl Harbor real well. When that come, of course, uh, I never went to service. I, Ogie and Wayne were in the National Guards. Both of them, 126th Infantry, you know. They were in that. So, shit, they went right away. Went down to Camp Beauregard, and they didn't know where they'd go. Or they know Wisconsin first, Camp McCoy. Then they guess they, they'll send them down to, uh, the Japanese War. That's where Wayne went. And, uh, Ogie, he got hurt. He didn't go because he got hurt down at Camp Beauregard and broke his leg or something, damn thing, I don't know. And, uh, Boyd, of course, he was only 16 years old. He lied about his age and went to the Navy. Them days they'd take anything, you know. Yeah. And, uh, but I didn't go. I went and signed up. It was an honor in them days. How you didn't go, you know? It just, it was an honor to serve. And I went down right away to, uh, signed up for, uh, for the service, but, uh, the old man was on the Draft Board on the Grand Haven. He was a supervisor. Uh-huh. My name came up, and he yanked it right away. He says, "I got three in. You got to stay home and work on the farm." And it, it ended up all right, but I didn't like it. I was, I was kind of pissed off because everybody went. Yeah. In my high school class, every kid went, uh, to service but me, went to war. Every male? Yeah, it's just that age, you know, where we all went. But, uh, I never did. Well, you made up for it in your grandkids. You had a whole slew of them going in. I know, I know. Well, I, you know, I've always said I probably did as much good as a lot of them guys in service. Shit, I knew some of them that didn't do a damn thing, you know. They just screwed around, and you probably know some, too, that, you know, hell, they didn't amount to anything. Yeah. And I talked to a lot of them that didn't do anything. But, uh, we had these conscientious objectors on the farm that the supervisor, he'd get them. You know, these guys that didn't believe in, uh, carrying a gun or some damn thing. Nice guys, a lot of them. And we worked them from daylight to dark, you know. You get them on the farm, you know, work their ass off. God, I remember Bob Raider. He was a nice kid. And a good worker. And he'd work on the farm and get done with the job, put him on another one. And he, goddamn it, he says, "It never gets done. They get one job right after another here. Never get done with it." [laughter] But he, uh, he was, was quite a while. So, they had to work on the farm, or was that just a job that was available? No, if you didn't go to service, they'd put them out where they, uh, did some good, you know. And farming was quite a valuable thing, raising food and stuff, you know. All right. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's why, oh gosh, we couldn't get gas or anything back in them days, you know, but the farm, because we had those, you get, everybody got their A cards, which is about three gallons a week, I guess. But we got all the C cards we wanted and all the gas. Well, I was with the, that for quite a while. I was running the dairy and the whole business. Then I tried to join up three or four times because I just wanted to go. Well, they got mad at the old man. I, I quit him. I guess I shouldn't have did that, but I did because I, I just wanted to go to service. And, uh, then I had to have a job because we was married in '39, see, before the war. So, I went down to Kelvinator, and I got a job there right away, but the second month. Kelvinator? What's that? That's Kelvinator Refrigerator. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, that was, man, everybody worked there. It's right on Chicago Drive there. And Urban Dale, everybody worked there. It was a good place to work, but they're awful seasonal. They just made refrigerators, and they get it made up, they lay everybody off. So, then they laid me off. So, I went down to Lear Siegler, who was in Grand Rapids then. They did a lot of, uh, military work, you know, in that airplane business and stuff, you know, build airplane. Yeah, airplane, yeah. Yeah, he was around there, too. And, uh, I worked there for quite a while, and I really got advanced up pretty good in tooling die work and stuff. Then I heard there was an opening in Muskegon that paid more money. At, uh, Campbell, Wyant, and Cannon, CWC. Biggest white metal factory in the world at the time. They made the motor blocks and Is that aluminum? Uh, well, they did have, but during the war, they made, uh, aluminum blocks for that Herc engine. Hercules, you ever heard of them? Uh-huh. And they made a lot of them. But they also made, uh, lugs for tanks. You know, the track, The big cogs that turn the tracks? Yeah. And they made those. And, uh, I went down there and got a job. I had a good job there. I worked up. He's one of the highest paid in there after we was there a while because I was in the machine repair, which is good, you know. We made bearings and gears and all that stuff and the mills and lathes. I, I liked that work. But they was, uh, at the time, they was hiring all these niggers out of the South, Muskegon, you know, had an awful lot of them over there. They'd bring them up out of the South and hire them and get them on. Cheap labor? Oh, yeah, cheap labor, but they're still more money than they ever made. Right. Hell, down in the cotton fields, you know, they didn't make nothing. Yeah, well, sharecropping, you know, all that time was horrible. That was worse than slavery. Yeah. But they're working, uh, the buffing department, see, them, uh, big lugs come out of the foundry, they all got these seams on them, you know, where the, where the two blocks clamp together. Yeah. And they had to put them on these grinders and grind them all down, and you're talking about a dirty job. Of course, nowadays they cleaned them factories up, but I had to walk through it to my department, and you couldn't hardly stand to breathe. That damn dust in the air from that stuff, all that metal. Them guys standing right out there working all day in it. See how bad the old died young. Exposed. Yeah. That shit nowadays, they'd sue the, the government, or the government would come in probably and shut them right down. Oh, yeah. Oh, shit, we'd need them a lot to do it, you know. But they did it. And we, we worked, I worked down there, and I worked nights was premium. I did that, and I, I got, I think it was $2.41 an hour, which is big money in them days. You made $2.41 an hour in 1939? Yeah. Well, it was a little later than that. I suppose it was '40, '41. It was right when the war started, about what, '41, '42? Yeah, '41. Yeah, it was after that that the war started. Oh, yeah, that was good wages. Wow. Shit, there's a lot of them making a lot less than that. Where were you living with Grandma at the time? Hmm? Where were you living with Grandma at the time? Uh, we lived in Grandville then. Yeah, see, first married, we lived in Cutlerville, at Pete's place. We rented that for $15 a month. $15 a month? Oh, yeah. Holy cow. Yeah, I was getting, then Dad, I don't know what I was getting on the farm, but he raised my wages into $15 a, a week, what I got for money. Well, we lived there a while, and there was a place in Grandville came open. The house has been moved, but it's in Grandville. Yeah, you know where the, uh, that round bank is, the Fifth Third Bank, right downtown? No, Fifth Third Bank. That's the Fifth Third. Yeah, we got them around here. I don't know if you got them over there, that big, But that, at that time it was Steer's Lumber Company, and they owned that, and they owned that house, and I, I rented it. And it's right on State Street there. Nice house. And, uh, then, but then I had to pay $25 a month, so then Dad raised my wages to $25 a month. Oh, he raised the, uh, rent? The rent went from 15 to 25. Nicer house and that. Oh, you moved to Jenison, and, uh, they raised the, yeah, with $25 a month, I paid rent. But it, uh, it was a nice house, and it was a good deal. Yeah. But we lived there for a while, and, uh, then later I moved over on Crystal Street. A nice big house there. I don't know what we did pay there, probably about the same thing. Oh, man, Hamilton owned it. And, uh, that's when I went to work in Muskegon nights. I had, uh, had really had a deal going. I was driving down there every night. Of course, the highway wasn't then, it was old 16, you know. There wasn't no freeway going down there then. But I bought an old Buick car, old man Hamilton. Yeah, your dad knew where he lived there in Grandville. He was retired. He run, uh, one of the big plaster companies there in Grand Rapids. He was the manager of that, and he had that Buick car, but he's getting too old, and his wife said, "You can't drive it anymore." Only nine passenger, straight eight Buick. Nine passenger, huh? I don't know, they're '33, '34 in there somewhere. I think, yeah, I don't know. It wasn't new, but it only had 5,000 miles on it. And, uh, I went over and asked Mrs. Hamilton. I said, uh, "I wonder if you'd sell me that car." She said, "Well, I guess we might as well." She said, "My husband can't drive it anymore." So, she went and asked her husband. He's a grumpy old shit. She was nice. "Hey, let's sell that car. That car's going to stay right where it is," you know. [laughter] Well, I waited a little while. She said, "Well, let me, let me talk to him. I'll cool him down a little bit and get it." Because Mrs. Hamilton liked me. She owned the property I was renting from, in fact. They did. So, one day she called me up. "Come on over." She said, "You can have that car." Three, uh, $300 for it. Only had 5,000 miles on it. Big straight eight Buick. Wow, nice car. So, then I started, uh, carrying guys down to Muskegon. I'd pick them up there in, and, uh, uh, just a few heights there, Standale, 250. Uh, uh, under the table taxi kind of thing, or? Well, yeah, taxes were no problem in them days. It wasn't like, I mean, taxi, like a taxi, you were basically a taxi. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we got together, you know. It, uh, it saved gas, saved this and that and everything. That's what they encouraged. It was wartime, you know. That stuff was all rationed. Rationing, yeah. And the gas stamps that them, oh man, Campbell, Wyant, and Cannon give me all I want if I bring all them guys down to work there, you know. Big deal. And one time the tires were getting kind of bad on that old, Corduroy tires on it. They were pretty good tread, but they were getting older and getting rotten going down there. I told them down where I work. I said, "I ought to have a new set of tires on that. They're getting kind of poor." That time, Corduroy Rubber Company is in Grand Rapids. You remember Corduroy tires? No. Yeah, they're in Grand Rapids. And they give me a slip paper, and he says, uh, "You go down to Corduroy with this, and you'll get tires." Because you couldn't buy them on the street. They had tires anywhere. Hell, it was all rationed, that stuff. Yeah, they were all sent, probably sending them over to the war. Oh, yeah, all that stuff. So, I got them new tires on it. Free? They, yeah, Campbell, Wyant, and Cannon paid for them. [laughter] Give me a slip to get them. That's a good deal. Yeah, it was. I had a big deal going there for a while. So, you, um, so you're on this impromptu, uh, uh, uh, whatever, taxi cab service driving back and forth, and at the time you were working at the, um, the plant that was making white metal. CWC. CWC. That's Campbell, Wyant, and Cannon. Campbell, Wyant. Muskegon. Yeah, that's not anymore. I don't know what happened, but it's not there anymore. But it was, it's the biggest it was in the, in the states. So, where'd you work after that? Well, see, after that, uh, Dad, he got sick of the business, running themself and hiring help, you know. Dad was getting older. Dairy? Yeah, the dairy. Was, did he start the dairy himself, or was that? Oh, yeah, we all, in 1928. I was just 10 years old, of course. Yeah, that's when he started it. What'd he do before that? Dad, well, he worked the old Grand Rapids Creamery, and then he was working on, uh, getting the farm going, because he bought that from Grandma, you know, when Grandpa died. And they paid $12,000 for it, which in those days was one hell of a lot of money back then. Yeah. And there was years that they just worked enough to get to pay the interest. That's all they could pay, you know. So, he'd work out. He'd work the old Grand Rapids Dairy. And, uh, then he started that, and we, he'd run that, too. He'd bottle milk in the morning, and Mother would bottle it. Was it called Cedar Crest? Yeah. Well, yeah, a little, I don't know, right when it started. I don't know, it must