Nancy Nevelle

MY LIFE GROWING UP. Written by Nancy Nevelle.

I was born on March 31, 1942 in South Bend Indiana to Evelyn and Willard Hansen. I was their first-born child. I did have a stepsister Janice who was 6 years old at the time I was born. Our first home was a war housing project in South Bend. It was a rather small place with a living room, kitchen, utility room two bedrooms and a bath. My father was in the military during World War II and was stationed in Texas.

Three years later my sister Carol was born. Three years after that my brother Jim was born. My brother Jim slept in my parent’s room and my sisters and I shared the other bedroom. We had a pet cat named Spunky.

I can remember looking forward to the ice being delivered for the refrigerator and the horse drawn milk wagon. We loved giving the horse either an apple or carrot - whenever the milkman came around. The horse wore a straw hat with a feather in it.

My mother used to boil liver for the cat to eat. Spunky would lay next to the stove until the liver was done. This was his main source of food for the week. My mother always made everything from scratch. I never really saw much of anything frozen or in a can. When it came to our butter, mom would skim the fat off of the top of the milk and would make the butter from that. When oleo came on the market, it looked like a white blob which came in a plastic bag with a red dot in the center. This was the dye to turn it yellow. We all fought over who was going to get to squeeze the bag until the red dot was gone and the oleo had turned yellow. We didn't have television until I was about 12 years old. Our neighbor got their first T.V. the year before we did, so I would sit out on their porch and watch their television through the screen door.

During my younger days we would also get to help mom with the laundry. She had a wringer washer which we would push into the kitchen and hook up the sink. We loved poking the clothes through the wringer with a long wooden stick. We also got to help scrub some of the clothes on a washboard in the kitchen sink. All of our clothes were hung outside on the line to dry. In the winter, our father hung clotheslines in the long hall upstairs and that is how my mother dried our clothes in the winter months. Another favorite thing to do was iron the clothes using a mangle. Everything we owned went through this mangle, even the socks.

I never remember feeling bored even though we never had much in the way of toys or music or television. In the housing project where I lived all of the kids got together and formed baseball teams or football teams and we played in the huge field behind our home. The girls would often get together and pick clover flowers and make huge flower chains. We would also look for four leaf clovers.

The project had a recreation center where movies were shown every weekend. We all took our own popcorn and koolaid and watched movies such as Ma and Pa Kettle. The Three Stooges and Abbott and Costello.

In the winter all of the kids in the project would go out into the field and build snow forts and we would have these huge snowball fights.

Summertime meant running through the sprinkler or filling my mother’s huge metal wash tubs to sit in and cool off. I loved to wander for miles going through the woods picking violets and bringing home wildflowers. There were many farms in the area and I would wander into their barns and jump from the hayloft into the hay below. That was until the day I sprained my ankle jumping and had to walk several miles home.

We all walked to school everyday rain or shine. I loved school. My favorite time of the year was called May Day. We had a huge maypole and had contests involving sporting activities. I was a huge tomboy. I was always climbing trees. When my parents would ground me in my room, I would crawl out my second story window and drop down to the single story home below. When it was time to go back in I would get back up the same way I came down.

I was commonly called the klutz of the family. I was always breaking bones, getting stitches. This was the case all of my growing up years. I think they knew me by first name in the emergency room.

At the age of 12 our family moved into a house about a mile from where we were living. My brother Eric was born about 2 years after we moved in. My sister Carol, my brother Jim and I shared a bedroom. My oldest sister had her own bedroom and my brother Eric slept in my parents room. It was so hot upstairs during the summer, my father built an enormous fan out of an old washer motor and built a wooden frame with a fan that was about 36 inches across. When the fan was plugged in, it sounded like an airplane and it was difficult to keep our covers from flapping in the wind. I hated that darn thing. Of course it sat right next to my bed by the window.

My father played both piano and the accordion. On weekends he would come up into our room and play the accordion until we were all awake. I hated these weekend concerts.

We all had our chores every weekend. Cleaning up dog doodoo in the yard from our wonderful dog Baroness. Weeding the yard. Washing dad's car. Painting the fence.

I started doing dishes as soon as I was old enough to reach the sink. When we were done with the dishes, my dad would come in and inspect them. If there was a much as one spot on any of them, he would put them all back in the sink and also pull down one entire cupboard of dishes to wash. When we made our beds, our mom would come in and inspect them. If they weren't perfect, she would rip everything off of the bed and we would start over. She always said she should be able to spin a dime on the sheets.

I was a reasonably good student in school. If I got anything below a C, I was grounded until the next report card. It was a great incentive to do well. I never did too well in math. I still hate it to this day.

I loved music growing up. I was in several plays in school. Had the lead in several of them. We always had talent shows as well. I belonged to our church choir and the choir in our school. High School was a big adjustment for me. I went to school with all of the same kids from kindergarten to graduation. Riley High School was a mix of kids from about 4 elementary and middle schools.

My parents were very strict. They had to meet the parents of all of my friends if I were to stay overnight or go somewhere with a friend. I also had a strict bedtime. I had to be in bed by 9:30 every night except for weekends. I always seemed to push my limits and sometimes spent up to three months in my bedroom being grounded. My parents had a rule about being 16 years old before I could date. I was allowed to go out with a boy if my older sister went with us (now that wasn't cool).

I met Glenn in high school. He was always playing practical jokes on people and had this great smile. Of course, my parents didn't like him. I don't think they really liked any boy I dated. We were married right out of high school. It was a tough beginning due to the fact that jobs were difficult to find. Peanut butter sandwiches and hot dogs were a main stay in our meals. When we moved into our first apartment, we had no phone or television. Finally, my mother-in-law felt sorry for us and bought a television.

We moved to Kalamazoo Michigan in 1963. Glenn joined the Kalamazoo Police Department. I was pregnant at the time, so I stayed in South Bend until after our baby was born. We had a tiny one-bedroom apartment and two children. Kimberly, our first born slept in our room and Kathy had to sleep in the dining room. Glenn's pay was only $4,900.00 a year. When our car broke down, we could not afford to fix it so we walked everywhere. Glenn walked to work and I went to the grocery store and laundromat with 2 kids in tow. There were times I had to do the laundry in the bathtub because we couldn't afford to go out to do the laundry.

Glenn went through the ranks of the police department to reach Captain of the Detective Bureau. By then we had 2 more children, Glenn Jr. and Krista. We lived in a very small house and had to have Krista sleep in our room. It was really so crowded, so we made a move into a brand new house in Richland, Michigan.

Our children were always involved in a lot of sporting activities, which kept us on the run. At the ripe old age of 36, I went to work at Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo. Glenn retired at 63 years of age and I retired at 62 years of age.

Our focus in life has become our grandchildren whom we love and adore. We have 6 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren and enjoy every moment of being grandparents.

I would be remiss if I did not mention my wonderful grandmother Anna. I cannot think of anyone I loved more. She came to America from Denmark in 1911. My grandfather left her while she was pregnant with my father. which was in 1917. My grandmother raised my father and his brother Leonard by doing laundry in her home. I loved spending time with her and many times I would walk 7 miles to her home. I loved being with her. We did laundry together and spent many nights playing Canasta and listening to the radio. She was probably the biggest influence in my life. ~Nancy A. Nevelle (Hansen)

Nancy A. Nevelle (Hansen), born March 31, 1942, passed September 25, 2025. A daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and friend. While reading our mother’s words, we are all very touched. Life was not easy in the early days nor the later days.

One thing we learned after our dad’s passing, was the true grit and determination of our mother! She was one touch cookie to the bitter end. Things did not go the way we all hoped for, but our mother was a fighter and she most certainly loved her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren fiercely. Most will say they will miss her handwritten notes, cards or letters… Which, trust us, she had stockpiled for future dates. Mom had notes on pieces of paper everywhere for everything!

Mom leaves behind her children: Kimberly Sue Hansen (Nevelle), Kim’s daughter Amanda Doorlag and her husband Gary and their children Nancy and Gary; Kathryn L. Nevelle and her daughter Sophia Nevelle; Glenn Nevelle and Jan with their daughters, Ashley A. Nevelle (and Patrick) and Alexandria P. Schierbeek (Nevelle) and Elijah and her son Colton; Krista J. Nevelle and her children Claudia Doyle and Tommy Doyle. Mom was so proud of everyone and their accomplishments in life.

We were all so very very blessed to have Nancy A. Nevelle (Hansen) as our mother and we will miss her so very much, but we know she is with dad and her family in heaven. Mom had accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior and we know she is blessed. We love you and will miss you… every day.

Celebrate Nancy’s life online by sharing favorite stories and photos on her dedicated webpage at BetzlerLifeStory.com. Betzler Life Story Funeral Homes, 6080 Stadium Drive, Kalamazoo (269) 375-2900.