Laurie Cone French

applesauce49079@yahoo.com

64878 41st Street / Paw Paw MI 49097

Spouse: Ted French (Theodore)

Children: Andy French

Education:  Adrian College 1970-72 / WMU 1972-74 BA in Elementary Education / WMU 1991-1994 MSW

Bio: Ted and I were married in 1974 and lived in married housing at WMU in Kalamazoo while he completed his senior year and I taught 4th grade. We stayed in the area, moving only 15 miles west to Paw Paw, and have been there for the past 45 years.

Ted was the manager of a General Electric plant that made tungsten carbide until they moved operations to the east side of the state in 1988. We opted to stay put and he became the Warehouse Manager of Knouse Foods Cooperative, makers of Musselman's applesauce and also bottled Arizona Tea until he retired in 2017.

I taught elementary school for 3.5 years but decided teaching was not for me and I went to work for the county health department as a substance abuse counselor. In 1991 I went back to WMU and got my Master's in Social Work and opened, along with two other partners, a private outpatient mental health clinic. We grew and became the largest private practice in Van Buren county, contracting with 10 therapists, and I sold the practice to my partners in 2017 when I retired.

We have one son, Andy 40 y.o., who lives in upstate NY, Hudson, about 2 hours from NYC. He has a beautiful family; wife Dani, daughters, Flo 5, and Mae 2. They are, of course, the loves of our lives. It is tough to have them so far away, but we now enjoy the time and flexibility to drive out for extended visits!

We live on a small inland lake and love to go boating and entertain. We also have a family cottage on Crystal Lake in northern Michigan. We enjoy traveling and have been to Alaska, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Mexico, the Caribbean islands, the Panama Canal and lots of places in the USA! We look forward to when we can travel again!!

My photos:
Our trip to Australia and New Zealand aboard the Volendaam.  This Holland-American ship was  CAPTAINED by my Dutch brother from my YFU family of  the Netherlands in 1969.  He treated us like royalty and, yes, I have stayed in touch with them for these 51 years. We have also stayed with my Dutch sister, who now lives in Belgium, and visited with my 94 year old Dutch mother who is vibrant and lives independently near Amsterdam / Our dream was to go to Paris and we did one month after we retired!  Aboard a Viking riverboat cruise (highly recommend this line!) we toured France and the beaches of Normandy, a emotionally staggering place /  Me with a few of the dancers from the Cabaret in the Latin Quarter of Paris, OOOLALA!!