East Lansing Family Stories

Growing up north of M-78 (Saginaw St) in the 1950s

Submitted by: Ron Springer, ELHS 1966

My family moved to Gainsborough Drive which is almost halfway between Saginaw and Lake Lansing Road off of North Harrison in December 23, 1955 from Haslett. Well, it wasn't quite "East Lansing" yet as we didn't get annexed until 1959, although we were in the East Lansing School District. Gainsborough was a gravel road until annexed and it didn't connect with Colorado Drive as "The Big Ditch" (Sanderson Drain) separated us....

East Lansing is a great place to be!

Submitted by: Claudette Joyal Curl

The house at 1836 Melrose Ave seemed so big in August of 1962. We had time to move things in, though the few items our family of six (at the time) had, barely seemed to furnish the house. Our nearly empty house had an open floor plan; we could ride our bikes in a circle through the rooms. When school started the week after we moved in, the walk to Marble Elementary was glorious! I did NOT want my mother to stand with me in line, after all I was 5 years old and didn't even want her to walk to school with me. I was ready for what ever school had in store....

East Lansing Adventures

Submitted by: Barry L. Gibson

I remember as a child walking across what was once my G-G-Grandparents farmland from Lake Lansing Road to M78. The Gibson family had sold the farm around 1905, long before I came along, but a street by our family name marked the spot on Lake Lansing Road, across from where the old farmhouse stood. Forty acres of this is now part of Whitehills. Some of the older kids and my sister would go to Ice Skate on the ponds near what is now the Churh of Latter Day Saints and I would tag along. It was a low area which had flooded and frozen for the winter. We would play an improvised form of Fox and Geese amongst the brush growing up through the ice, making trails in and around the thicket. I remember a small fire built from fallen twigs and a few branches snapped off to keep the blaze alive so as to warm our hands and feet and dry our mittens...

Thank You EL, Happy Birthday

Submitted by: Doug Shaffer, ELHS 1964

My family moved to East Lansing in May, 1956 from Bloomington MN; although my brother Jim and I were born in Lansing. We lived on Sunset Lane (near Saginaw Street), across the street from Dean Emmons home. Our neighbors in the next block (on Clarendon) were the Hoffman's, and the Greer's. Near them lived the Fuzak's and the Busfield's on Sabron. A block away on Oxford were the Green's. During George Romney's time as Governor, (prior to an official governor's residence), he and his family lived on Rosewood, a block north...