Grandpa’s Grandparent Questionnaire

I had a SUPER great idea to have my parents & Rick’s parents complete this cool grandparent questionnaire. I thought it would be SO fun to have for Mallory & Carson when they were older. {I am happy to email this to anyone without answers if you want to borrow it! Just comment below or send me an email at stb (at) smellslikepopsicles (dot) com!}

I originally sent this out to all the grandparents in March 2009…the month I was due with Arlo (aka Carson, my now almost 27-month old son). My dad is the only one who has returned his so far. He actually sent it back the same day I sent it out because I told all the grandparents that they weren’t allowed to see my kids until they filled this out, and my dad said he wanted full access.

So, here is my dad’s. Perhaps this will inspire the other grandparents to get theirs filled out. Or not.

1. What is your full name? Michael Thomas Joseph Txxxx. Why did your parents select this name for you? I’m guessing they liked the name. Did you have a nickname? Mike. My dad called me Butch.
2. When and where were you born? St Joseph Hospital, Detroit Michigan. February 1, 1944, a Tuesday.
3. How did your family come to live there? My dad worked at the Packard Motors Assembly plant
4. Were there other family members in the area? Who? My mother’s family: Sisters Kathleen (with husband and 4 kids), Marion (and son), Helen (with husband and daughter) and brothers Bobby (with wife and 3 kids), and Joseph (with wife and 2 kids).  maternal grandfather Albert Becker.  dad’s brother Vinton (with wife and son who lived downstairs.
5. What was the house (apartment, farm, etc.) like? How many rooms? Bathrooms? Did it have electricity? Indoor plumbing? Telephones? We lived on the second floor of my paternal grandmother’s house. She lived downstairs with Vinton and Bertha and their son Jackie. The apartment had two bedrooms. It was on Lakewood between Jefferson and Kercheval. Jesus, how old do you think we are? Yes, indoor plumbing (one bathroom), electricity and a telephone. We lived there until I was 4 when we moved to a house my dad built in Utica late fall 1948.
6. Were there any special items in the house that you remember? Second floor porch in Detroit. Utica was out in the country at the time we moved. Our house was on 2-1/2 acres
7. What is your earliest childhood memory? Getting spanked for playing with my dad’s Zippo lighter in the living room and starting a piece of paper on fire. I believe I was three.
8. Describe the personalities of your family members. Mother loving and comforting, and strict but fair. Father strict, but loving, except when someone burned something.
9. What kind of games did you play growing up? Cowboys and indians, a lot.
10. What was your favorite toy and why? A play gas station made mostly of sheet metal. It had a strip across the front like a record groove and when you moved the car along it, it said “Gas and oil, please.” No batteries.
11. What was your favorite thing to do for fun (movies, beach, etc.)? Saturday matinee at the movies. Roy Rogers. There were woods behind the new house that we would play in from sunup to sundown. Timothy Korth, and twins Jack and Jim Schuchard lived nearby.
12. Did you have family chores? What were they? Which was your least favorite? Mowing the lawn and tending the big vegetable garden. I didn’t like either.
13. Did you receive an allowance? How much? Did you save your money or spend it? I remember getting about 75 cents per week. Spent it at the matinee on Saturdays.
14. What was school like for you as a child? What were your best and worst subjects? Where did you attend grade school? High school? College? I enjoyed school and did quite well. I had the best grades in my class through 8th grade, except for Marsha Zanardelli, whose parents grew mushrooms. I enjoyed English (diagramming sentences) and arithmetic. Grade school was St Lawrence School in Utica. High school at Sacred Heart Academy, Mt. Pleasant. College?? No question!
15. What school activities and sports did you participate in? Basketball, baseball and football in grade school. Baseball and football in High School. Beer drinking in college. Oh and I played a lot of paddleball at the old I.M. Building.
16. Do you remember any fads from your youth? Popular hairstyles? Clothes? Davy Crockett and brush cuts.
17. Who were your childhood heroes? Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Davy Crockett
18. What were your favorite songs and music? Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier.
19. Did you have any pets? If so, what kind and what were their names? Blaze was a black and white springer spaniel that died when I was in High School. Before Blaze my dad had an irish setter named Rusty for a couple of years. Rusty got hit by a car and I remember my dad crying.
20. What was your religion growing up? What church, if any, did you attend? My mom was Catholic and dad converted when they got married. I went to St. Ambrose in Detroit for Kindergarten; St. Lawrence in Utica for grade school, and Sacred Heart Academy in Mt. Pleasant.
21. Were you ever mentioned in a newspaper? As Mr. Vice for the Navy dinner on Guam. Mom has the clipping.
22. Who were your friends when you were growing up? Ron Berg was my best friend in Utica. I played a lot though with Timothy Korth and the Schuchard twins who lived nearby. In high school in Mt Pleasant I became best friends with Jim Hayden, who is now very successful and living in Beverly Hills, CA.
23. What world events had the most impact on you while you were growing up? Did any of them personally affect your family? I remember the atomic bomb attack drills and hiding under our desks in the 50’s.
24. Describe a typical family dinner. During grade school, when my Mom was alive we ate at the kitchen table. In high school, Dad & I took turns cooking. Did you all eat together as a family? Yes. What was left of it. Who did the cooking? My Mom did but she stopped when she died. What were your favorite foods? Not sure….but I remember eating a lot grilled cheese (our family called it “cheese supreme”) accompanied by tomato soup.
25. How were holidays (birthdays, Christmas, etc.) celebrated in your family? Did your family have special traditions? Nothing special that I remember. We got together with aunts and uncles and cousins….mostly on my Mom’s side.
26. How is the world today different from what it was like when you were a child? There were no terrorists and everybody loved America. We could ride our bikes in the street without a helmet. No seat belts in cars. We could be gone all day long and nobody worried about you. I rode my bike all the way to my grandma’s house several times….all the way from Utica to Mt Clemens, about 10 miles.
27. Who was the oldest relative you remember as a child? Aunt Tilly. What do you remember about them? Her name.
28. What do you know about your family surname? French meaning “ bean counter” or something similar.
29. Is there a naming tradition in your family, such as always giving the firstborn son the name of his paternal grandfather? I think the tradition of using maiden names as middle names of offspring came from my dad’s family.  His middle name was his mom’s maiden name.  I have no idea where my middle name came from.
30. What stories have come down to you about your parents? Grandparents? More distant ancestors? Philippe duTrieuxe came to America with his parents at age 16 in 1615. He eventually worked his way to Detroit later in life. Philippe’s son or grandson once trapped a pregnant female wolf for the bounty.  But he kept the wolf alive until she gave birth, thereby multiplying his earnings.  I think his dad was an engineer. There is a Txxxx centennial farm in Ortonville, next to Txxxx Lake. Paternal grandparents had a farm in Bad Axe when dad was born. Uncle Vinton, who was adopted, was a few years younger than Ralph. Their father, John Txxxx, died before I was born. There is a Txxxx Road half way between Bad Axe and Kinde. Maternal grandparents had the same last name before they married. Mary Becker married Albert Becker. Mary died before I was born. I was told that the Beckers came from Belgium, but I suspect they were Jewish. Grandpa Albert sure looked like a holocaust survivor when he was dying from cancer. He lived with us for a couple of years before he became sick. We played pool almost every night after school during that time.
31. Are there any stories about famous or infamous relatives in your family? No. Only my step brother for leaving his clothes in the swimming pool room of the Michigan Union, the night we sneaked in through the steam tunnels. The newspaper the next day said “Skinny Dipper Gets Away Without Clothes.”
32. Have any recipes been passed down to you from family members? My Dad taught me how to fry anything.
33. Are there any physical characteristics that run in your family? Besides umbilical hernias, I don’t think so. I guess I inherited the Photic Sneeze from my dad.
34. Are there any special heirlooms, photos, bibles or other memorabilia that have been passed down in your family? Only my dad’s gold watch for 10 years of loyal service to Packard Motor Car Company.
35. What was the full name of your spouse? Julie Cherest Bxxxx. Forgot the second one’s name. Siblings? sister – Carole Ann Txxxx; step-brother Forrest Yxxxxx. Parents? Dorothy Margaret Becker and Ralph Diem Txxxx.
36. Where and how did you meet your spouse? Working together at Campus Corners and went to New Orleans together. What did you do on dates? Drank beer at Fraser’s Pub.
37. What was it like when you proposed (or were proposed to)? Where and when did it happen? Spring of 1967. In the house she was renting on Lincoln Street with Rinda Roo. How did you feel? Nervous and then happy.
38. Where and when did you get married? Grand Rapids at a Catholic church, pastored by Monsignor Edmond Alt, who was also the pastor of Sacred Heart in Mt. Pleasant when I was in high school there.
39. What memory stands out the most from your wedding day? Betty’s social planner kept taking my bottle of Schlitz away. Oh yeah, and I backed into another car while leaving the reception. Mother M (Marilyn Janci) lent us her white convertible since my ushers wrecked Julie’s car several days before, and I had had an accident in my beetle two weeks before.
40. How would you describe your spouse? Beautiful and intelligent. What do (did) you admire most about them? Beauty and intelligence.
41. What do you believe is the key to a successful marriage? I’m not going there, since I have no idea.
42. How did you find out you were going to be a parent for the first time? Julie told me in the trailer we were renting in Whidbey Island.
43. Why did you choose your children’s names? Bewitched and The Bob Newhart Show. The wives were Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery – blonde) and Emily (Suzanne Pleshette – brunette).
44. What was your proudest moment as a parent? Holding my adopted daughter for the first time.
45. What did your family enjoy doing together? Vacationing together. Spending time on the Chippewa River next to grampa and gramma.  Football games (we had four seats together and Bo Schembechler was the coach.)
46. What was your profession and how did you choose it? Civil Engineer. Couldn’t get past Physical Chemistry in pre-med and the counselor said I had most in common with Engineers and Dentists.
47. If you could have had any other profession what would it have been? Why wasn’t it your first choice? Doctor. It was.
48. Of all the things you learned from your parents, which do you feel was the most valuable? Honesty and don’t burn things.
49. What accomplishments were you the most proud of? Samantha and Emily.
50. What is the one thing you most want people to remember about you? That he wasn’t fat when he died, and he could ri-ri almost anything (“ri-ri” is how I used to say “fix”/”make it right” when I was little – I would say “daddy ri-ri”).