This article was first published in the Chelsea Guardian on May 17.
Lifelong Grass Lake resident Hellen Marilyn Loveland became a centenarian on May 1. She has spent the last 100 years contributing to her community and family, and she’s done everything from driving a school bus to becoming a great great grandma.
Loveland was born a middle child to Edwin and Helen Myers on Church Street. Her father was a mailman, and her family moved to a farm on Grass Lake Road when she was 5 years old. The farm – now owned by her son Tom – will celebrate 100 years of family ownership in 2029.
Her older sister Enid was born in 1921 and passed away in 2011. They have three younger siblings JoAnn, 98, Barbara, 94, and Charles, 88.
She said her earliest memory is from kindergarten going over to her friend’s house after school when she wasn’t supposed to. She attended elementary school on Michigan Avenue where the Schoolhouse Apartments now stand. She said the school struggled to get teachers.
“In first and second grade we had a teacher that was just like a grandmother to us. She was old. She used to read to us. But then in third and fourth grade, they had trouble getting teachers. My teacher committed suicide. Sixth grade was there (at the schoolhouse,) too. They kind of had trouble because the boys were naughty, but finally the superintendent put his wife in there and she straightened them up.”
She said at age 10 she started helping her dad on the farm doing chores. Cows, horses, pigs and chickens filled the farm.
“We had eight cows, and I had one that was my cow and I always milked her. I sat on a little stool with a pail between my legs,” she said. “I don’t know whether I had a name for her or not… Dad was gone most of the day or morning, and if he needed a field dragged after he plowed it, he’d hook up the drag to the horses then I’d just go out in the field. I didn’t like horses, but if I was behind them I was alright.”
Loveland played on the women’s high school basketball team at Grass Lake as well as played the drums in the band. She graduated in 1942 and worked at the Ford Plant in Manchester for four years during World War II.
She said she met her husband Leroy, who graduated from Chelsea High School, through her sister Enid, who married his brother.
Loveland married Leroy on March 30, 1946. They first lived on Kilmer road closer to the plant where she worked, and she still lives in the house they built on her father’s farm in the mid 1950s. They had three children: Clifton, Mary and Tom.
Marilyn and Leroy spent 71 years together before he passed away in 2017. Loveland spoke highly of her adventures with Leroy. She said some of her favorite trips with him include honeymooning in Washington D.C. and visiting Hawaii with friends.
They were members of Grass Lake’s Order of the Eastern Star chapter where they spent hours talking, playing cards and making community plans at what was called the Masonic Temple at the time.
Loveland drove a bus for the Grass Lake School District for 23 years starting in 1965. She said she drove a little van of kindergarteners.
“They had two runs then, one in the morning and then an afternoon. They (students) would come in the morning (for) a few (hours) and then I’d take them home and pick up another bunch and bring them into school and they’d go home on a big bus.”
She said she spent six months filling in for a mail carrier who took a leave.
Loveland has seen many technological changes in her lifetime, including the switch from outdoor to indoor plumbing, electric stoves, the invention of washing machines and dryers and even mobile phones. She said her favorite advance she has lived through is cars, and her favorite car is the one her daughter Mary, who lives with her, drives her in today.
Loveland retired in 1988. The last few years she has traveled to South Carolina with her daughter Mary to visit family. Loveland also spends her days coloring, watching animals out the window and keeping track of her three children, 14 grandchildren, 31 great-grandchildren (one on the way), and six great great grandchildren.
“I have a big family, and I love them all,” Loveland said. “They are good family.”
As a former basketball player, Loveland said she loves keeping up with and attending her grandkids’ sporting events. She also watches Michigan State and women’s sports, her favorites on TV.
She said Grass Lake has changed a lot in the last 100 years.
“It was a lot better then than it is now,” Loveland said. “If you look at the stores downtown, they’re all empty. And then they were all full.”
Loveland remembers all the stores downtown like the back of her hand. She said she misses the dry goods and grocery store on the North side by where Missys Grass Shack is now.
“(If) you went in the store to buy anything, you wouldn’t go around and pick it up,” she said. “You stood there and told them what you wanted, and then they put it on the table.”
She said the other side of the street hosted a dry goods store with clothes and shoes, a barber shop, the post office, and a woman-led store that “no matter what you wanted, she had it.”
Loveland said over where the Copper Nail now sits was a hotel with a restaurant. A bakery owned by her aunt and uncle, who retired in 1937, sat next to the hotel, she said.
“They had the best cookies and donuts,” Mariyln said. “I used to go in there and kind of help them a little bit. My sister used to go in and wash dishes for them, which was a big deal.”
Loveland said other downtown amenities included Carter’s Drugstore, a bank that still stands, the pharmacy, a chapel and a meat market. The big building was Foster’s Furniture. Her brother Dale built a gas station later on.
Loveland said 100 is her favorite birthday yet. She said there’s nothing specific she wants for her birthday, but is excited to see her family reunited at her birthday party and get a group photo.
“I didn’t think I would make it, but I did,” she said. “That must be what’s kept me going.”
Becky Loveland, H. Marilyn’s granddaughter, said she had her knees replaced in her 50s and a few artery stents after she had a heart attack at 71, but has otherwise been healthy.
“She’s got that ‘I got myself syndrome’ that gets her to where she’s at today,” Becky said. “She just took care of everything. Still trying today, even if she falls, she gets herself up.”
She said her advice for the youngsters is to do all the right things.
“Love everybody,” she said. “Don’t hate anybody. That’s what our country needs to do.”
Article and cover photo by Natalie Davies.
Natalie Davies 