Front Porch Living

One thing I love about Grand Ledge is the simple pleasure of sitting on the front porch. Nowadays people gather in their private back yard or stay in the house, but nothing can compare with watching your neighborhood from a comfortable front porch.

My favorite time is around dawn when you can see the town around you slowly come to life. I was recently sitting on my sister’s porch as the sun rose. Everything was so quiet and peaceful. Then you begin to hear a few cars and Jefferson Street slowly gets busier and busier. I often see rabbits scamper around the neighbor’s bushes and I love seeing and hearing all the birds in the area. Squirrels don’t seem to be as common as they once were; they were also fun to watch.

It got me thinking of how all our neighbors used to sit on their porches too. Across the street at 320 Jackson, Art and Olivia Herweyer used to sit out every night, year after year. Next to them at 312 Jackson, Ron and Betty Froehlich and their children always made use of their porch and front steps. Back then it was shaded by a huge old maple tree. Down on the corner, at 327 Jackson The Phillips’ and later the Coles’ used their porch often. Across the street at 328 Jackson Bertha Schilz and her daughter Maude Clark sat in the shade of their secluded porch. Maude told me once that when she was a girl, they used to hang canvas shades between the porch columns to keep the sun out.

Porches just used to be more important than they are today. Back before air conditioning, you went to the porch to catch the cool breezes. Porches were social places too, a place for friends and neighbors to gather. In my family we still use the front porch in this way. A couple years ago when my parents were visiting, many nights we had a porch full of family, neighbors and friends who happened to drive by and decided to stop for a while. Porches are like that, they welcome everyone.

I always feel sad for homes without a nice porch. Traditional porches often had battle-ship grey floors and robin’s-egg blue ceilings. A century ago there was a trend for wide generous wrap-around porches. Several prominent homes had these porches added at the time. Many still exists today.

Some homes also had Sleeping Porches. Our home on Jackson Street originally had one of these. They are second story screened-in porches which held a bed or couch. Here people could sleep in the cool summer breezes.