Welcome to the Kent City Area Society of History and Genealogy
Kathryn Morton
Interview: January 24, 2015
Ed Morgan: Kathryn, what was your maiden name?
My maiden name was Saur.
Ed: What is your mother and fathers name?
My mother and father were Lowell and Mabel Saur. Lowell and Harold were in business. When they came home from WW1 they bought my Uncle Charlies share of the store business because grandpa was already in it. It was A.H. Saur and Johnson. Well, Charlie Johnson was just a silent partner. So, dad and Uncle Harold bought their part of the store from Uncle Charlie.
Ed: Where did you go to school?
I lived my life in Kent City until I grew up.
Ed: Where was the childhood home?
The hotel was on the corner. It was north of the hotel. The next block the 2nd house on the west side of the street.
Ione Stark: Was it Johnson’s?
What?
Ione: Johnson’s house? You know, where Mary and Hank bought?
That was Playters. Playters lived there. Art and Pearl Playter lived there when I was a child. On the other side was my, well, she would be a cousin. We called her Aunt Gussie but they had retired and bought that house. So, I don’t know who built that house but there was nothing around us. I remember when the one house was built across the street and Harold Buchanon built that. But way off, over behind where the old Baptist Church is now was where Art Nelson and his family lived and it was all just . . . that was the end of it. Playters was the last house in our block. Then, Bob Starks grandpa lived in the next block – the 1st house.
Ione: Holben?
Yes, the Holbens lived there.
Ione: Bill and Nellie Holben?
Yes. I know that Mabel and Robert lived in their house, Robinsons lived next to them then Mabel and Robert Kriger and then the Alphonses and then probably the Leavers. I don’t know if they had moved there by then. But the last house on the street (Dick Averill owns now), it’s um Jess Umstead built it and lived there and that was the end of town. It was all farmland.
Ed: Wow, so you remember when a lot of it was just being farmed.
Oh yes, and Aunt Esther and Uncle Car Saur l lived across the street. I think they built that house. But I remember when the house next door was built. (chuckle) All of them, you know. It was all just farm land.
Ione: When you say that it makes me think we’re talking about the Holbens place. Grandpa and grandma. That was the farm. That was a barn and a house and that was a farm. So that was attached to the village.
Yes, it was.
Ed: How many siblings did you have?
I’m an only child. I was a single one. I went to Kent City School. The old school. There was a playground. The old school was up on the hill and there was a baseball diamond and whatever down at the bottom and we slid down the hill in the winter and played baseball in the summer. That was our life.
Ed: So most of the land out behind the school would have all been farmland. Right?
Well yes, except across the street where Nelsons lived. Art Nelson was the blacksmith. He shoed horses in the barn that was where the Ford Garage is. I also remember – of course, I was born in 1943 and so automobiles were very much in use then. There was a little . . . between where the Ford Garage is and the hotel. There was a little gas station with a couple of red pumps up in front. Fred Wood worked and ran it. We didn’t call it a gas station. That was the Oil Station across the street from the store.
Ed: I remember that old building. Why was it called ‘oil station’?
I don’t know. That is what it was in the first place. Maybe they had to have gas and oil together like they do with a lawn mower. I was just a little girl.
Of course, the hotel was on one corner and A. H. Saur & Sons was on the northeast corner. The bank was on the southeast corner. The hardware store was on the southwest corner.
Ed: Do you remember when the bank building was built?
I think that was there when I was born. I know it was because Mabel Kriger worked at the bank and she walked by the day I was born. Because I was born at home.
Ed: Mabel would have been what relation to you?
She and my father were first cousins. Frank Saur was their father and Albert Saur was my dad’s father and Frank and Albert were brothers.
Ed: Up above Saur’s Store . . . what was some of that used for?
Well, in the first place, grandma and grandpa lived there when they were married. Grandpa was a school teacher. He taught school in Pierson. But anyway, at one time while the kids were all at home they lived up there. Then they built a house next door east of the store. So that’s where they moved. The house was completed and they moved in in 1900.
Ed: Not that I want to see them now but do you have any old pictures of the house and the store?
Gads! Probably Pat has more than I do. I probably have one or two I’m sure.
Ed: Pat?
Pat Patterson. Grandpa and grandma had two daughters. Agnes and Neva. Neva was Pats mother.
Ed: When I was doing research before there’s quite a few old pictures I found with Neva as a little child in them. So, do you remember anything other than them living above the store like I’ve heard before of different organizations?
Oh yes, they tried over the years. In the first place, my memory of the past over the women’s dry goods department was just storage. Nothing. Plaster falling and it was kind of a mess up there. But across I think was three buildings that were kind of incorporated. Kind of put together so the stairway went up between them and of course the American Legion met in the one on the east side and later the Kent City Ladies Study Club took it over at one time. They were going to have meetings and of course there was no bathroom and the heat wasn’t good either. They didn’t last long. I couldn’t give you a year for that.
I remember when the road was gravel. The road that went by our house which is Peach Ridge was gravel and that was the road to Newaygo. So, it must have come up north and then turned at 17 Mile Road and then into Casnovia. My mother tied me up so I wouldn’t get out in the road and get run over. The man next door was a push over. So, he’d be working in his basement and I’d go over and look in the window and I’d say, “Uncle Henry I don’t like to be tied up.” He’d come right up and get me. I don’t remember that but they told me.
Ed: Now when did they pave it?
I can’t recall that. That was the least of my worries. I don’t remember because I was little. They must have paved it while they had money before 1929.
Ed: Now did you as a child or your parents work in the store?
My dad did. My mother didn’t at that time and of course I did off and on and now and then Marcia, my cousin who was Harold’s daughter. She was six months older than I. She was the oldest grandchild. Anyway, she and I had the terrible job of putting up cookies. Cookies used to come in a big box. We had to put them up in bags. And that was our job after school. We ate more cookies. Every time there was a broken cookie we ate it. (laughter)
Ed: I just had a memory. Your dad was Lowell?
Yes.
Ed: Was Lowell a veteran?
Yes.
Ed: Did Lowell die at the Veteran’s Facility?
Yes.
Ed: Did he have cancer?
No. He had mini strokes.
Ed: I think my mom and dad took care of him though. I can remember going into the store and Harold, it seemed like every time we’d go in he would thank my mom and dad for taking care of him. He was always thankful for it.
Yes. Maybe they did.
Ed: That’s where my mom and dad met. It was at the Veterans Facility.
I wonder if your mom is the one in that picture. Don’t ask me where but I have a picture of some lady pushing him in a wheel chair.
Ed: (laughing) That’s amazing. So, now I can remember going into the store and you could barter or you had a charge account or you could bring in eggs or butter. Do you remember any stories along that line?
Nothing in particular. But sure, people brought their eggs in and you went out in the back room and you had a big egg case ad you put the eggs from their basket into the big egg case and you counted them up and they could have the money for it if they wanted it or it could go on their grocery bill for that day.
Ed: They did the same way with fire wood out back?
That I can’t answer.
Ed: Do you remember them selling fire wood?
No. I have no idea. Before they had refrigeration in the store I remember my grandma bought her butter from a lady who brought it in from the country. I suppose that was a barter type of thig. I thought I would rather not eat butter because when they put the cows on grass I thought it tasted funny.
Ed: Earlier we wanted to talk about the war years didn’t we?
Ione: Not necessarily.
We don’t have to get there yet. Let’s do the early years. I remember our little house had a front porch and a rose trellis on the south side. A swing. That’s where all the kids used to play. I had a playhouse out back that used to be a chicken coop. I served a lot of catnip tea in that place.
Ed: Do you remember some of the kids you used to play with?
Sure. Carl and Ralph Nelson, Jack Leaver, Edna Elkins and Marsha. But she lived in the other end of town. But that was an overnight because she lived down across the creek.
Ed: Now you mentioned an Elkins family. Is that the family that Edith Loomis was from?
Yes. Edith had a brother Malon who was older. I do not remember Malon because by the time I was old enough to know what was going on he was in Detroit. Mr. Elkins worked the depot. Edna was a couple years older than I so we used to play together. We used to go down and her dad would let us put something on the tracks out in front of the depot. We could put it on the tracks when the train came through. I remember being in awe of that great big locomotive.
Ed: What are some of the things you remember having to go down to the depot to get or anything?