Michiel de Vries was a son of Jacob de Vries and Sophie van der Klei. In 1925, he married Agatha van Zuiden in Enschede. They had two sons, Israël and Sophius. The family lived in the Oosterstraat 24 in Winsum. It was a shop with living quarters, which they had built with borrowed money. The husband and wife ran a textile shop from this address.
Michiel was originally a butcher and only later a draper. Agatha looked after the shop while Michiel went to visit farms. With a carrier bicycle, he took his cases to the farms to sell aprons and cloths. The sons Israël (nicknamed Issie) and Sophius (nicknamed Sofie) attended the general primary school in the village square. Issie could sing well and it was suggested that he would make a good cantor. The shop in the Oosterstraat was closed on Saturdays.
H. Hamburger and J.C. Regtien, Een joodse erfenis van Winsum (Bedum 1993) 25-28; H. Hamburger and J.C. Regtien, Sporen van een joods verleden in Noordwest Groningen (Bedum 1995) 35, 36
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