Anderson Family Snapshot

Now that we knew for sure where to look, we checked the media archives for Grand Rapids, where we found this photo of Gillian with her mother and little brother Aaron, taken when she was in 7th or 8th grade. The photo was taken from a 2001 article in The Grand Rapids Press about mothers of local celebrities. Also featured were the mothers of American Pie writer Adam Herz, Red Hot Chili Pepper Anthony Kiedis, Verve Pipe members Brad and Brian VanderArk, the several singing DeBarges, dcTalk-er Kevin "Max" Smith, and soap actress Kim Zimmer. (Evidently the mothers of Jerry Ford and R&B legend Al Green weren't available for that article.) We discovered that the city of Grand Rapids was the first in the nation to fluoridate its drinking water, and we intend to investigate further the possibility that this has contributed to this rash of celebrities coming from this conservative mid-sized mid-western city.

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