REMEMBERING GRANDPA BUTTERBALL, THANKSGIVING EVE , everytime I go to mcdonalds , icant help but think of my grandpa Leo Peters & grandma Helen Mills Peters..most people think of turkey when they think of butterball & thanksgiving, but the name "butterball" originally applied solely to my grandpa's butter. Later, grandpa sold the name to the turkey company, but retained the rights to use the name for his butter. And his big contract is with McDonalds.
Grandpa Peters went to Calvin College (as did I)and then started working at a food company in Chicago, during which time he came up with an idea to make butter more colorful. It was a simple idea, but like clothes hangars, toothpicks, paper clips, etc , somebody had to "invent" it..& patent it...& become rich..as did grandpa..
Ironically, when grandpa brought the idea to his supeeriors, they shrugged it off, not impressed. So grandpa went solo with his idea, albeit not entirely solo. He had his small family (the original Peters family, including Helen his wife who was from the Chicago area and loved horses, & then the first few kids wereborn, including Martha & my mom Linda, & later Diana, Barb,Sandra, & Brenda (who was born developmentally disabled, severely so).
From their little apartment in Evanston, grandpa & family started mixing a little packet of colorful dye with the then drab, colorless, shapeless butter & made it beautiful & gave it shape & form, like an artist.It was the beginning of food aesthetics. Not only do we need to eat & drink (some more, others less) but why not make it a visually edifying experience? That's what grandpa believed, & it took off like a space shuttle to the sky. His beautiful butter captured the imagination of millions, including McDonalds executives.
And the rest, as they say, is HISTORY...! Grandpa moved his garage business across the "big lake" (Lake Michigan) to Grand Rapids, found a place to expand on Buchannan Ave, called it Butterball Farms & started producing butter patties of different shaps & sizes, all with a beautiful maize hue.
Of course, when I was born in 1967 I had no idea my grandpa was Mr Butterball. And by the time I was born my grandma Helen had passed away, & my grandpa had remarried to a woman by the name of Nancy, & they were in the process of starting a 2nd family with new kids, including Mark, Ani, & Teri (ironically, Teri is my age & actually was in my same graduating class from highschool..what a coincidence !..)
It was area soap opera growing up in Grand Rapdids about 5 miles away from grandpa who by that time had bought a mansion (perhaps the biggest house in GR) on Plymouth. It had its pros & cons.
The pros were that,for a while, all was bliss & we enjoyed a few weeks every summer at grandpa's cottage on Lake Michigan in Holland. That's where I learned to water ski & do a flip on a trampoline. That's where I had fun walking to tunnel park & cimbing the sand dunes,or even further to the channel, & big red lighthouse. It was greatt!
For a while (fragment intentional for effect). Then came the "break up." There was a big dispute about my grandpa wanting to change the last will & testament of my grandma Helen, many provisions of which would go into effect after my grandfather's death (ie 50% of all the property would go to Helen & Leo's children, from his 1st marriage). As you can imagine, this caused some consternation. Grandpa said to the girls, "Trust me, I just want to change the will so that I can use some of the reserve for the business" (which for a brief while was allegedly not doing well). That'ss the best I can do in terms of a quick paraphrase.
Was the business really suffering? I don't know. Did grandpa truuly intend to keep the daughters in mind according to the intentions of Grandma Helen? I don't know. Nonetheless, after some time, grandpa persuaded (or coerced; I believe it was the latter, psychological coercion) ALL the daughters (it had to be ALL of themm, otherwise he couldn't touch it) to relinquish any claim they had to the will of their mother.
Subsequently, grandpa became very cold & distant towards the daughters, showing no love towards them.
Ironically, again, this effected me as well, becaus while this "discussion" was going on, & afterwards, grandpa apparently enlisted his kids (from the 2nd marriage) to "badmouth" the "1st family" daughters & their kids, especially our family because we were the only ones who lived in grand rapids at the time. And because my mom & one ofher sisters, Diana, initially balked at relinquishing their claim to their mother's will, grandpa was particularly upset with these 2 daughters. He considered them "disloyal."
Hence, I remember there was a definite shift in the relationship I had with the kids of grandpa's "2nd family" (Mark, Ani, Teri). I am convinced that Teri gossipped negatively about me during highschool (ie our classmates, since we were in the same graduating. Class). And it was below-the-belt stuff: I.e. he's a "jerkoff".
If the 2nd Peters family could successfully denigrate us and marginalize us (the 1st Peters family) theycould psychologically justify taking ALL of the money & propery of the 1st family, which ended up, essentially, being the case. As far as I know Grandpa Leo Peters left NOTHING to the 1st family. If there were/are "negotiations" behind the scenes I am not privy to such. Whenever I ask my mom about any particulars, she will not answer. The good thing is that they seem to have no concern about their financial future & if I ever need a loan they are glad to help me, so either they did settle something favorably but don't want people to know, or they have done well enough via their own employment income & investments.
Every summer my mom & dad still spend a few weeks at the holland cottage, using "Uncle Joe's" half of the lakefront property. I know its hard on my mom to go to their cottage & see the "2nd Peters family" occupying the main residence , living so fine & dandy off the fruits of her labor (along wth Martha, Helen, Leo, & Diana) yet all the whole my mom is in smaller residence. And that was the way it was when we came to the cottage every summer durng the 70's. Our family & the Kammingas (Linda's sister Diana was divorced at that time & came with her 2 kids, Matt & Caitlyn) were given "the castle" to stay in, while the 2nd Peters family resided more comfortably in the main residence. The 'castle" was merely a garage, refurbished as a "guest house" of sorts. It was fine for us, but symbolically it was an inequity. And Nancy treated my mom & her sisters poorly, almost condescendingly as if she were superior to us (by the way, my grandpa met Nancy when she was the housekeeper for the family. She was not "fancy Nancy", just Nancy putting on "airs" after marryng the butterball millionaire. It must have gone to her head. From rags to riches. How she managed to go from being my grandpa's maid, to being my grandpa's wife, to owning the entire estate I DO NOT KNOW or UNDERSTAND. Nancy was NOT there when butterball began. My mom was. She was not there when they were packing butter in their Evanston garage. My mom was. She was not there when they moved to GR. My mom was. & Yet today she OWNS EVERYTHING ! The maid owns the ENTIRE BUTTERBALL FORTUNE.
& you can be sure that she's got an airtight will that will leave nothing to the 1st family . Mark Peters, however, essentially controls all aspects of the properties & assets, yet I don't anticipate he will try to balance the scale. Again, remember, they were convinced (brainwashed?) at one point that all of the 1st family were a bunch of "jerkoffs." I don't think they will ever be able to think of us as good, honest, decent people. And that's how thieves justify stealing..they convince themselves that the people they rob "deserve" to be robbed.
Its a shame, really. I hope my mom did settle something behind the scenes but doesntwant to tell people about it because then the leeches would attach themselves to her. I hope that all of what I've been told was semi-fiction & that actually my mom was fairly compensated as the 2nd daughter of the original Leo Peters family. I know that if I knew my mom got a million from my grandpa I would be asking for more..depending on her, etc. As itstands now, under the belief (right or wrong) that she didn't get anything, I don't depend for too much from them, except for emergencies.
Whatever the case may be, this was/is meant to be a story about butterball, turkeys, & Thanksgiving. Have a happy Turkey Day ! Eat butterball ! God bless you all, God bless America! God bless the world !
