11-02-2025
Elder stories: Retired GRPS teacher's years of service about people
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Seventy-three-year-old Annette M. Raden has lived in West Michigan her entire life.
She worked for the Grand Rapids Parks and Recreation Department for 25 years and Grand Rapids Public Schools for more than 30.
In the second installment of our Elder Voices series for Black History Month, Raden sat down with News 8's Brittany Flowers to share what this community means to her, what she's proud of and her advice to younger generations. You can read the Q&A from their conversation below.A: 'It means information and it means family. I think if you know history, then you know what the future's going to be and my family, I made sure that my kids knew. They always tell me, 'Mom, you know too much history.' I said, 'Not enough.' That's what I do. Black history is very important to me.'
Elder stories: Longtime crossing guard talks about progress A: 'It still hasn't grown enough for me, but I've been with a lot of things. I worked in the Rec Department for 25 years, so I dealt with kids throughout the city. I've worked for the Grand Rapids Public Schools for 32 years. I've dealt with people through that. So it's people to me — that's what it means to me is people. I like people, so meeting people, all different people and doing different things. I was involved with the Urban Renewal Grand Rapids, I was involved in the South High School. I was involved in… there's so many different things that I like to say I was part of making this Grand Rapids what it is, maybe helping it be better in the future.'A: 'I didn't really work. I hung around his house when he was doing the maps and stuff like that. It was different, because his daughter and I are the same age and we were good friends and I'd go over there and he would have the maps out, and he had people over. 'What is he doing?' 'He's going to be mayor one day.' 'No, he's not.' And finally, he was mayor and I couldn't believe it. It was different. Politically, it was a time when people didn't see people like him on anything very big and yet he got to be mayor and it was like, 'Wow, this is something.''
The legacy of Grand Rapids' first Black mayor Lyman Parks A: 'My husband, for one. He graduated with his masters at 63 years old and he's now a minister, and we have a pretty good life. I'm proud of my grandkids and my kids and I'm proud to know the people that I know.'A: 'It was the pandemic and I was messing around with material and that one on the back, the one behind you, is when I started. I just kind of put glue on a piece of paper and it came out. I do things. … I do quilts and things. So this was just by accident. However I feel, that's what I do.'A: 'The way people look at other people. I lived on Henry and Logan in Grand Rapids. I went to Henry School. I had a little block that I went around all the time. I didn't venture outside my block and I knew a lot of people. Older people on the block taught me what I know today. I'm partly the person I am because of them. I come from a single-parent family, and they taught me all I know and I've grown and it's just today is a little too fast. People don't pay attention to other people as much.'
Muskegon-area nonprofit works to address disparities in access to housing A: 'Do your best. Be for real and just be blessed by the Lord. That's all you can do. Just be for real. Be yourself. Learn something and give it to somebody else. I've done that many times. All the stuff that that I've done comes from other people that I know and I try to give it back to somebody else. That's my specialty.'
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