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FRED & LEna MEijERLeaving the World a Little Better

November/December 2019hsmichigan.org $6.95

Fred & Lena MeijerLeaving the World a Little BetterBy Hank Meijer

The supermarket

chain Meijer has

nearly 250 stores

operating in Michigan

and the Midwest.

While the business’s

success is notable,

also significant are

second-generation

owners, Fred and

Lena Meijer. The

ripples of their

philanthropic

pursuits can be felt

across the state today.

Fred Meijer at the future site of the Fred Meijer Heartland Trail, which runs from Greenville to Alma, Michigan. (All photos courtesy of the Meijer Archives, unless otherwise noted.)

18 Michigan History • Nov/Dec 2019

civic life of their community. For instance, Hendrik began serving on the board of Greenville’s Memorial Hospital and, in the 1940s, helped raise money to build a new facility. Family lore tells that Hendrik’s involvement was prompted by a dream he had in which the town’s old wooden hospital had burned down with Fred inside it.

Half a century later, Fred would serve on the board of the Butterworth hospital system in Grand Rapids, which is now Spectrum Health. Encouraged by his friend, Rich DeVos, he made a financial commitment for what became the Fred and Lena Meijer Heart Center in downtown Grand Rapids.

Fred and Lena Meijer’s personal philanthropy was centered on education, starting with the Aberdeen School PTA. On the northeast side of Grand Rapids, which the couple called home, Fred—along with his friend and longtime head of the Grand Rapids Urban League, Paul Phillips—helped bring integrated housing to the neighborhood.

The Meijers became involved with environmental issues more than 50 years ago, while their children were still in school. Fred played a role in the original Earth Day activities held in Grand Rapids in the 1970s, motivated by the same impulse that led him to pick up litter in Meijer parking lots or as he walked through his neighborhood.

Frederik “Fred” Meijer, who died in 2011, would have been 100 years old this year. Lena Rader Meijer, a farm girl who served as a cashier in the original Meijer supermarket, celebrated her one-hundredth birthday in the

spring of 2019. She is the lone survivor of the generation active in the early years of an enterprise that has grown to become a Michigan and Midwestern staple.

Lena’s centennial year is a suitable occasion for reflection on the philanthropic influence she and Fred had—and continue to have—on the people of Michigan and the landscape of the state.

Beyond Business OwnersLena’s father-in-law, Dutch immigrant Hendrik Meijer,

opened a grocery store out of desperation in 1934, during the depths of the Great Depression. He was just trying to pay the mortgage on a vacant storefront next to his barbershop in the Central Michigan town of Greenville. Business was touch-and-go, as it would be more than once in future years, when tough competition or risky expansion added to the anxiety inherent in the low-margin world of food retailing.

It was not until after World War II that Hendrik and his son, Fred, began to play more prominent roles in the

Lena Rader (left foreground), who would become Fred Meijer’s

wife, works at the cash register at Meijer’s Super Market in

Greenville, Michigan. Hendrik and Fred Meijer stand behind her.

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Lakeview—Lena Rader Meijer’s birthplace—has summer concerts in Rader Park.

Supporting local institutions and events was always part of the Meijer family’s and company’s culture, starting with bidding on 4-H livestock at the Montcalm County Fair. Today, that tradition continues as the company sponsors scoreboards, festivals, and community organizations throughout the six states in which its stores are located.

With a heritage in food, Fred and Lena’s company makes its biggest commitment to the fight against hunger in the communities it serves. “Simply Give” is not only the name of the Meijer program that emphasizes reducing hunger but also an expression of the Meijer family’s philosophy. Furthermore, Fred enthusiastically supported a free antibiotics program through Meijer that filled its fifty millionth prescription this year.

What the Eye NeedsThe Meijers have been involved in countless

undertakings in education, social services, and the arts. But any accounting for the couple’s charitable efforts would be remiss not to focus on a project on the east side of Grand Rapids that grew from the hopes of the local horticultural society to create a botanical garden.

Lena loved flowers—she was reluctant to move into a senior citizen apartment because it meant giving up her rose garden. Fred’s guiding philosophy was rooted in an expression of his mother’s. Gezina Meijer was a

The Meijers’ Reach

Since the Meijer name is already on more than a few buildings, the family has sometimes resisted the naming opportunities that would come with substantial gifts or used such occasions to honor others. Still, the name has a way of popping up. For example, Fred and Lena were regular theatergoers at the Grand Rapids Civic Theatre. It worried Fred that the old Majestic movie house had trouble accommodating patrons who needed a more barrier-free environment. Renovating the theater became a pet project, and in 2006, the newly refurbished space was christened the “Meijer Majestic Theatre.”

Evidence of Fred and Lena Meijer’s influence can be found throughout Western Michigan. At Grand Valley State University in Allendale, the Frederik Meijer Honors College encourages undergraduate achievement, as does the campus’s Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors. Other components of regional culture bear the Meijer footprint too—from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum to Millennium Park to the Fred Meijer-Saul Lake Bog Nature Preserve to the whale skeleton on display at the Grand Rapids Public Museum.

While Grand Rapids in particular has benefited from the Meijer family’s retail enterprise, which moved there in 1951, other communities across the state have felt its influence as well. Muskegon Community College has the Hendrik Meijer Library, and the little town of

Fred Meijer (second from left) and head of meat operations, Roland Van

Valkenberg (far left) stand with 4-H participants and their steers in 1949.

20 Michigan History • Nov/Dec 2019

place for sculptures were it in a more convenient and inviting location. Betsy Borre of the horticultural society had a suggestion and, ultimately, a solution. Meijer owned property on East Beltline Avenue and intended to build a new store there, but he had been unsuccessful in obtaining commercial zoning. Borre wondered if Meijer would donate the property.

At first, Meijer was hesitant at the idea of giving up more than 100 valuable acres in a prime Grand Rapids location. But he quickly recognized the potential of such a large parcel so convenient to the city—plus, now he had a place to install his collection of sculptures. Money was raised for a cultural destination that few of its early supporters could readily envision. In 1995, the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park opened its doors.

Leonardo’s HorseFred now had a home for his sculptures, and Lena

had a garden that far exceeded anything she might have dreamed of for her own backyard. As the unique blend

plainspoken and progressive Dutch immigrant with an exceedingly thrifty lifestyle. But she and Hendrik both came from the Netherlands, a place where art mattered, even if one was not financially well-off. Fred would always remember Gezina saying, “The eye needs something too.”

The “something” the eye required was often part of the natural world—on the bike trails Fred campaigned for and funded across the state or in the forests and parklands that he helped preserve. When the horticultural society of Kent County approached him for help with its campaign to create a garden, Fred Meijer knew that such an undertaking could be an important source of delight for Lena and countless others.

The couple’s newfound goal of establishing a botanical garden converged with another of their interests. Every summer, Fred and Lena attended the annual Danish Festival in Greenville. There, they met Marshall Fredericks, the Danish consul for Michigan and notable Cranbrook sculptor. As Fred and Marshall became good friends, the former quietly began acquiring works by the artist.

Fred Meijer had no intention of amassing for personal use what would become the largest collection of Fredericks’ bronze sculptures. The Grand Rapids house where Fred and Lena raised their sons and lived for nearly half a century did not have a yard that lent itself to a collection of huge sculptures. Instead, the pieces began to accumulate in a storage garage near Meijer’s corporate offices in Walker, Michigan, while Fred searched for a setting that would do them justice.

Kent County was willing to give the horticultural society some parkland north of Grand Rapids. On that land was ample space for a greenhouse and gardens, though the acreage was relatively remote from the city. While continuing his support for the establishment of the botanical garden, Fred—almost in passing—remarked that such a space might be a good

Fred and Lena in the parade of the Greenville Danish Festival in 1984.

Right: The American Horse by Nina Akamu. (Photo

courtesy of Kevin Beswick, Frederik Meijer

Gardens & Sculpture Park.) Below: Flowers

at the entrance of the Meijer Gardens.

(Photo courtesy of Peter McDaniel, Frederik

Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park.)

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of art and nature came to life, Meijer found that having plenty of room for sculptures only whetted his appetite to acquire more. He was in a frame of mind to grow beyond the work of Marshall Fredericks and a handful of other pieces he had collected when, in the summer of 1996, a curious story appeared in The New York Times.

Fred Meijer apparently was not the only amateur dabbling in the world of sculpture. In a barn in Pennsylvania, Charles Dent, a retired airline pilot, hoped to realize a grandiose dream: to create and donate to the city of Milan a tribute to the Renaissance in Italy. It would be the world’s largest equestrian sculpture and the realization of a monumental unfinished work by one of the greatest Renaissance artists, Leonardo da Vinci.

Dent died, and his collaborators arrived at an art foundry in New York with an enormous but sadly misshapen model for the equestrian sculpture. They hired Nina Akamu, a classically trained sculptor, to rescue the project. Akamu recognized that she would have to start over, but the Dent group had run out of funds. That was when Meijer, a lifelong horse enthusiast, caught wind of the dilemma and wondered if the Pennsylvanians would consider creating a second bronze casting for the new Grand Rapids botanical garden. The Dent collaborators were skeptical; they had envisioned a horse for the people of Italy that would be situated in the Sforza Castle, where Leonardo’s original model had been destroyed by French archers. They wanted a piece that was one-of-a-kind.

A compromise was negotiated to take the horse destined for the Frederik Meijer Gardens off its pedestal. That made the one bound for Milan taller—but visitors could interact with, and even touch, the horse at the Meijer Gardens.

In subsequent years, Fred trusted a volunteer sculpture committee at the Meijer Gardens to begin building one of the world’s great collections of contemporary sculpture. As the institution grew into the state’s second-most-visited tourist destination, Lena’s fondness for Japanese gardens found expression in the DeVos Japanese Garden, which was completed after Fred’s death. Expansion at the gardens continues even today, in a way that would have gratified its founder’s vision for what had once been derided as “Freddy’s Farm.”

A History of GivingFred and Lena Meijer’s community initiatives

traditionally have had a way of spreading. Thirty years ago, Fred was approached by civic leaders in Montcalm County to help turn a few miles of abandoned railroad right-of-way into bicycles trails. Some farmers along the route were wary of having public access to lands bordering their fields. Meijer testified on behalf of the project and helped sell the idea to skeptical neighbors, explaining that the benefits of biking trails outweighed their concerns.

One trail led to another, and soon, the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail ran north out of Grand Rapids. Today, those original Montcalm County trails have been augmented by approximately 300 miles of biking paths that have made Michigan a national leader in the rails-to-trails movement.

Early on, Fred had been an advocate for the urban renewal movement that reshaped downtown Grand Rapids, though in hindsight he came to wonder about the removal of some of the city’s prime examples of Victorian architecture. But he also had a passion for

From left to right, Senator Carl Levin, Governor John Engler, President Gerald Ford, First Lady Betty Ford,

Lena Meijer, and Fred Meijer at the ribbon cutting of the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park.

Fred and Lena Meijer at the opening reception for the first gallery exhibition at Frederik Meijer

Gardens & Sculpture Park in January 2001.

22 Michigan History • Nov/Dec 2019

history and was eager to preserve or help restore iconic buildings, including the Grand Rapids Public Library.

That passion for preservation took some unexpected forms, such as archiving the papers of the late Michigan poet and novelist, Jim Harrison, at Grand Valley State University or supporting the preservation work of the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan. The Fighting Falcon Military Museum in Greenville was also a beneficiary of the Meijers’ interest in history—as was Calvin University, with its Frederik Meijer Chair in Dutch language and culture, and Aquinas College, with its Lena Meijer Endowed Chair in art history.

It is not easy to compile a list of the ways in which the couple’s charitable interests have touched the lives of many Michiganders—even this account is incomplete. Depression-Era childhoods marked by lifelong thriftiness certainly colored Fred and Lena’s world views. What they did not spend on themselves enabled them to commit more of their resources to their community. Fred had a puritanical streak, a belief in plain living, but a passion also for never doing something halfway.

Visible around the Meijer enterprise is a quote Fred often used: “I want to leave the world in a little better shape than when I entered it.” Whether in education or health care, at the art museum or the symphony, the spirit that animated him was the one he inherited from his mother—that “the eye needs something too.” A

Hank Meijer has written biographies about his grandfather, Hendrik Meijer, as well as Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg. He worked as a reporter and editor for Detroit-area newspapers before returning to his family’s business, where he currently serves as executive chairman.

The Meijer Heritage CenterThe Meijer Heritage Center (MHC) opened in September 2016 with the goal of informing and inspiring employees and visitors with the Meijer legacy. The 5,000-square-foot museum is housed in the Frederik Meijer Building on the Meijer Corporate Campus. Permanent and changing exhibits explore the company’s rich history and heritage, drawing on an extensive collection of documents, photographs, and artifacts from the Meijer Archives.

The MHC—located at 2929 Walker Avenue NW, Grand Rapids, Michigan—is available for guided tours for school and public groups by appointment. For tour information, general questions, or inquiries about donating historic materials, please contact MHC staff at heritagecenter@meijer.com. (Photos courtesy of the Meijer Heritage Center.)

Fred and Lena admire Arnaldo Ponodoro’s Sfera con perforazione.

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