William John Koster

​Happy Birthday to my Great Grandfather, William John Koster, who would be 150 years old today. He was born on July 28, 1869, in Spring Lake, Michigan, his father, Tamme, was 27 and his mother, Grietje, was 23. He was #2 of 8 kids (only 6 of whom survived childhood).

The family moved to a farm in Crockery when he was 10, but by age 12, his father Tamme died. When William was 14, his mother necessarily remarried, to Jacob VanderLaan. Simultaneously, as the lumber industry dried up in the Grand River basin, many families who had immigrated together 20 years earlier moved again from Ottawa to Missaukee county to homestead farms.

At 25, Willliam married Marigje/Mary Haveman on June 25, 1895, in Lake City, Michigan. They had 12 children in 25 years. The oldest, Thomas, was killed in action during WWI, and is buried in France. William bought up several farmsteads over the years in hopes of passing them on to each of his sons, but his children went in several directions. My grandfather John, however, farmed that same homestead most of his life.

​William died on September 1, 1932, in Clam Union, Michigan, at the age of 63, and was buried in Missaukee, Michigan.