Sunday Coffee: Where I’m From

When and where were you born? Describe your home, your neighborhood, and the town you grew up in.

I was born in Plainwell, Michigan, which is the town with the nearest hospital to Martin, Michigan, where I grew up. There is a small medical clinic in Martin, where we would go for routine checkups or to get a prescription for common ailments, but for childbirthing or lab tests we would go to Plainwell. If it was something REALLY serious, we would go to Kalamazoo.

DH likes to say that I grew up under a rock.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Martin is a village in southeastern Allegan County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 410 at the 2010 census.

As of the census^[2] of 2010, there were 410 people, 162 households, and 109 families residing in the village. The population density was 525.6 inhabitants per square mile (202.9/km²). There were 176 housing units at an average density of 225.6 per square mile (87.1/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 92.9% White, 1.0% African American, 2.9% from other races, and 3.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.9% of the population.

There were 162 households of which 31.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.5% were married couples living together, 10.5% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.3% had a male householder with no wife present, and 32.7% were non-families. 27.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.53 and the average family size was 3.06.

The median age in the village was 37.8 years. 24.9% of residents were under the age of 18; 11% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 23.8% were from 25 to 44; 26.9% were from 45 to 64; and 13.4% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the village was 50.7% male and 49.3% female.

As small as Martin was, I grew up in an even smaller subsection called East Martin. My neighborhood was a cluster of houses among cornfields on M-22 (named 116th Ave through our neighborhood). I grew up in a 3 bedroom 1 bath ranch house with three younger sisters. There were two more bedrooms in the basement. My best friend was a neighbor who lived immediately to our east. Most of the families in our neighborhood attended East Martin Christian Reformed Church and East Martin Christian School. It was a small farming community and there were eight kids in my class. The school where I grew up had combined classes, with Kindergarten on its own, then grades 1 & 2, 3 & 4, 5 & 6, and 7 & 8. After eighth grade we graduated and most went either to Martin Public High School or, more likely, Kalamazoo Christian High School.

We felt very safe growing up. Almost stiflingly safe. We were allowed to walk to our neighbors’ houses and also “up town” to buy candy from the dime store. There weren’t many businesses in town; a small grocery store, a couple of gas stations, a hardware store and wildlife museum, a library, a doctors office, and a bank. Everyone knew pretty much everyone else. It was really hard to get away with anything because there wasn’t really anywhere else to go, and parents all knew each other. So if you were somewhere you weren’t supposed to be, like maybe hanging out at the gas station at 10 PM, your parents were sure to get a phone call.

I’m guessing that most people in our community were lower middle class. Primarily farmers and working folks. We had a strong work ethic, noticeable especially in the Christian Reformed bubble of second and third generation Dutch immigrants to which I belonged.

Sundays, most things shut down. You didn’t want to mow your lawn or work outside. If you went to the grocery store in the next town for doughnuts after church, you pretended not to see the other people from church. My Dad would often take us fishing, but we were not to tell people at school. We also were one of the few families who did not go to church twice on Sunday. We always went in the morning, but in the afternoon we would go to my maternal grandparent’s to visit.

My parents still live in Martin, and I go to visit twice a month or so. Sundays are still a day for visiting.

What are some of our favorite memories about where you grew up?