On May 24 1952 a baby girl was born into the world in Sparrow Hospital, Lansing Michigan and her name is Katie Rees. Her parents didn’t know how soon to go to the hospital so they drove around Lansing in their car until they were sure it was time and they stopped at a little restaurant called Dog(Hot Dogs) and Suds(Root Beer). She was named after a great aunt and her middle name just sounded good with it. Katie’s first brother Tom, was born in 1954 and John in 1961. She didn’t get along with Tom very well, but she did with John. Sadly her first TV only had the choices of three different channels.
In her neighborhood, she had a lot of friendly acorn fights. Katie’s dad had 5 siblings and they would meet every weekend at grandma dyers house and she would meet all of her cousins. Half way through first grade Katie’s family moved to Benton Harbor because her dad’s job was transferred. Benton Harbor is located along the shore of Lake Michigan. In the city there was a river that flowed through and a lift bridge to let big boats pass through. 2 blocks away from the new home was a high school and Katie liked to watch the band practice on the football field. One summer, Katie’s grandma Rogers watched her grandkids.
A day in that summer, Tom and a buddy found in an alleyway a paint can and a brush. After that discovery they decided to paint a neighbor’s sidewalk red. Grandma Rogers tried to scrub it off but it stayed crimson all summer long and she never stopped apologizing to that neighbor. Grandma Rodger used to own a farm and Katie loved to gather eggs from the hen house and ride the cow’s back. A very angry goose used to chase her and make her cry. Her Grandma had her best years were on that farm gardening, sewing, cooking and canning. When Katie was 9 years old, she moved to a new neighborhood that a lot of kids lived on.
Her other grandma had the kids over for sleepovers, liked to do crafts with them like painting or making other things like popcorn balls, fudge and would take them to places to see farm animals and stuff. That grandma would take only one kid at a time for the weekend. The only thing Katie didn’t like is that grandma thought kids should take naps because that grandma liked to take naps. In Katie’s free time she liked to read books, her favorite series was Nancy Drew. She also liked to ride her bike and play sports with the neighborhood kids like softball, kickball, football and more.
At home she wore shorts and slacks, but at school was forced to wear dresses. Some games Katie loved were Monopoly and Chinese Checkers. Katie’s best friends were Linda and Karolyn. Teenage Years Katie took school seriously and got good grades. At age 12, Katie started babysitting for $0. 50 per hour. At her high school there were thousands of kids because she was apart of the baby boomer generation. She loved to watch movies, play putt putt golf and shop. John would tag along on dates with her and her boyfriend because she was 9 years older than John.
When John didn’t tag along on dates she would go to shakey’s pizza, they had a person playing the piano and it was more for teenagers and up so John didn’t go there. In 10th grade Katie meet with her soon to be husband in band, they were both clarinets. She was 2nd chair and he was 5th chair. Her first job other than babysitting was as a waitress at a coffee shop that her aunt owned in Harrison, Michigan called The Coffee Cup. She worked there for a summer because her family’s cottage was right next to her aunt’s house, so they would ride together to the coffee shop.
At the age of 16 Katie learned how to drive at her school, which had a training course and a few cars. Lansing Everett, the high school she went to was famous for Magic Johnson. A very fashionable thing to wear would be penny loafers, they were a big thing. Her dad and one of his brothers who already made one made a dune buggy out of a volkswagen body. Katie had a big fluffy orange friend named Fufi and he was a cat. When she would walk to the nearby convenience store, he would patiently wait outside for her to come back out through the door. Her high school graduation was huge, it was in a big civic center.
Adulthood Once out of high school, Katie worked as a chef at a daycare. Later she went to a nursing school in Flint, which her friend Barb was going to go to. It was only $350 per year, which included a dorm which was right next to that hospital, the required books and classes. In 16 days she went to see 6 countries with her grandma in europe. Hustling and bustling Katie first started working at Lansing General Hospital 11pm to 7am in the pediatrics unit. She liked that job, but hated the hours. She was married in 1973 to Rick Rees. On that same year she got her first car, it was a 4 door red chevy impala.
Soon she found a job with better hours at Ingham Medical Hospital 7am to 3:30pm. A special thing about Ingham, was that they would work on really serious stuff like heart deforms. Tragically there weren’t many cures yet for some of those kids and that made her really sad. Three years after being married Katie had her first kid, April. She was born in 1976 so they call her the bicentennial baby, since that was the United States bicentennial year. Happily on a day in 1978 her second kid Scott was born. Her third and final kid Timm was born in 1981.
When Timm was born, Katie and her family took a long and fun trip out to see many interesting western states. They soon bought a popup camper and camped in a lot of state parks in michigan. The next thing the family invested in was an Intellivision and got Burger Time to play on it. April remembers angrily watching her mom and dad playing Burger Time through the barely creaked open door. Katie said the best part about having kids was playing and having fun with them, but the worst part was getting really sleep deprived when they wouldn’t sleep. One of Katie’s all time favorite meals would have to be spaghetti.
When Scott was a little kid he would climb on things all the time. One time he started climbing up the inside of the refrigerator door and started dropping eggs, then watching them explode on the ground. When Katie saw she yelled for Scott to get down. The yelling startled him and he started falling, trying to hang on he grabbed a Tomato juice pitcher. He fell onto the floor and was covered in hives. Now Katie goes to lansing and meets the other nurses at Ingham she worked with every 6 weeks. She moved in next to her daughter April, Geoff and grandkids. Her daughter April has 3 kids and her son Timm has 6 kids.
Memories Cabin Cody and his family arrived at the huge cabin his grandparents booked. When they walked into the stunning cabin, they were greeted by Cody’s grandparents. Everyone settled into their rooms. As the first day passed, more people arrived for the week of awesomeness. Later in that week, Cody, his family members, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents went a hike to an astonishing beach. At the beach, they built sandcastles, played in the water and did many more beach activities. After that, they went to the cabin and played board games. Cody, his uncle and cousins played munchkin.
A while later, a photographer came in and took pictures of everyone and single close-ups. The back of the cabin had a huge stairway leading up a room on the second floor that we stood on for a picture of everyone together. For their single close-ups, the kids could choose what they wanted to do. For example, one of Cody’s cousins choose to climb up a tree, only to a foot or so. Cody just stood on the ground because he didn’t want to go to the ER. Some time afterwards, they went to this huge maze, which had an awesome gift shop. Cody bought fake parking tickets there, which would be good for pranks.
There were a lot of bonding moments there. Daily Hangout Everyday Cody would walk over no matter what weather to his grandpa and grandma’s house next door. He would always knock a different way, his grandma would always open the door, “Hello Cody,” and he would reply, “Hi Grandma! ”. He would then walk into the living room and say, “Hello Grandpa,”, and he would be replied with, “Oh, Hi Cody! ” and Cody would look to see what was on the television. Cody always saw that grandpa had popcorn and then would turn to grandma and smile, “Can I Have Some Popcorn To Please,” and would soon have his own bowl of popcorn.
Cody’s grandpa would usually have a random channel on. They watched things from animal planet to ESPN. The dog, Snickers would always stare at Cody and beg, “Snickers Come Over Here,” his grandma would say and would give Snickers a doggie treat. Sometimes when his grandma’s kindle fire messed up, Cody would fix it in one to two minutes and say, “There Ya Go,” and slouch back into the couch. With two couches and a recliner chair, everyone had their own seat. By the time, it was time to go Cody’s grandma had gone to sleep and his grandpa would stand a few steps from the doorway and watch Cody walk into his house.
