The funeral luncheon following the service was lively and loud with “remember when” story telling. We talked of times before Novi was a city, pre-I 96, Twelve Oaks Mall, Novi High and Middle School, a paved Novi Rd., Catholic Churches and sidewalks.

Most of us “Novi youngsters” in attendance at the funeral are now in our sixties. Growing up, we knew almost everyone who lived in Novi as well as where every street was. We knew who gave out the best treats on Halloween and that regular patrons of the old Novi Inn bar were particularly generous with money on Halloween, if you dared to enter the dark and smelly watering hole. We knew who the “peculiar” people were and accepted them as they were but stayed at a safe distance. Our teachers sometimes ate dinner in our homes and one of my teachers came to our farm with the entire Kindergarten class for a party. The two Novi bus drivers took their busses home with them and we kids thought it a real privilege to be chosen to sweep it out at the end of the school week and then walk home.

I sat in the church pew only a few back from where Laree and a bunch of us old Novi youngsters, including her daughter Kathleen, had been seated for the Christmas By Candlelight program this past December. I said something funny and the entire pew started a muffled chortle. Laree cut her eyes around at us all and said “Kathleen…Shush” with the dreaded pointed finger over her lips….but with an impish grin.

Laree is the only other person besides my mother and 3 sisters who ever called me “Kathleen”. I’ll miss her greatly as I miss all of Novi’s early entrepreneurs…the Tucks, Harrawoods, Mitchells, Wards, Gaffneys, Trickeys, Bells, Harndens, Buttons, Crawfords, Watsons, Cotters, Klaseners, Trotters, and too many more to mention. Laree ran the beauty shop on Grand River where I got my first hair cut…next to Trickey’s Hunting and Fishing. Her Dad was Mr. Trickey and her husband Duane Bell ran the bait shop where many Novi kids got their first job.

I realize now that my values were shaped in large part by my hard-working farm family who came to Novi trying to duplicate the land they left in Tennessee…but the community and neighbors I lived with, played as much a role as my parents. Novi raised youngsters who felt guilty to miss a Memorial Day Parade and who were taught by example to help people and take and active role in the business of the city as well as the community activities.

I don’t ever want to go back to the early Novi days where we had to leave the city for virtually everything such as doctors, groceries, scouts, schools, etc. but we are now -what we were then and I will never…nor should anyone else… forget the special people who got us here.

Kathleen (Kathy) Cotter Crawford