New Love for Lolke

“I worked like crazy to make a dollar, starting at four in the morning as a baker in a bread factory, my job was to put dough in the bread pans, 800 in twenty minutes. They were coming at me like crazy from a forming machine, and all I had to do was put them in the pans, with the seems at the bottom. I'd sweat like a horse, there was a water fountain right beside me but I had no time to drink from it. It took me two weeks to catch the rhythm, after that I could play with it. In the afternoon I drove a gravel truck from one to four in the afternoon”

...in most cases it kills you... 

“After that I worked for the City installing concrete sewer pipes, starting at $1,40/hour, which was 40cts more than I got baking and roofing, but I kept always eyes and ears open for a job that paid better.

It was tricky work, and dangerous, very dangerous, but for me work was all the same where or what it was, and here I was made foreman.

It was my responsibility to make sure that the pipes were laid level, which I checked with a hand level at the bottom of a more than 25 foot deep trench, sometimes deeper. I stood than six feet in front of the last pipe directing the backhoe operator where to place the next pipe, which dangled forty feet above me, and had to be fitted to the previous one, by me.”

“At that time no supports were used on the sides of the trenches to secure the earth from caving in.

I always watched the sides of the trench for sand trickling down, because that was a sign that the side of the trench would cave in, when I saw that I knew it was time and immediately dove into the pipe.

The earth gives you no time at all, it just slides in and covers you and in most cases kills you. Lying in the pipe felt like being in a grave and you had to wait until they dug you out.”

“We had no compensation or insurance but it was easy to replace the unfortunate one who got killed as immigrants were easy to find for that money. It gave me 10cts more/hour as foreman, I never made so much money yet in Canada, $1.50/hour.”

“Cave-ins happened regularly but every time I was just ahead of the grim reaper.”

Even though Lolke had been member of the Old dutch reformed church in Fryslân, he attended the Christian reformed church in Calgary which was mainly attended by the New church people, the Grifformeerden. Differences between the two denominations in Holland did not apply in Canada at that time.

There was also a sizable young people group, with girls and boys meeting together every Saturday night, which was made to measure for socializing.

It didn't take Lolke long to get interested in Agnes, a young woman who smiled at him once in church and after a young people meeting, where he noticed her good command of English, when she introduced a biblical topic.

Probably a teacher flashed through his head and teachers were not his cup of tea, but in spite of that she appealed to him. After the meeting he coughed up enough nerve to invite her in his old Austin to take her home and – she accepted.

He opened the passenger's door for her like a gentleman and took the driver's seat, started the motor he asked “Left or right?”

“Left,” she flashed a smile at him. 'Oh la la, she must like me.' Clearing his throat he said

“Well, here we go than,” as he nudged the old Austin out of the parking lot to swing her left onto the road, then pushed the gas peddle, speeding her up for the second gear, but before he could put it in third, she stopped him.

“Here it is,” she said.

“Here is what?”

“This is where I live. You can park on the side of the road.”

“You mean, I thought that you lived, … this was only a minute...”

“That's why I walk as a rule, but thanks for the ride anyways Lolke, this is where I live with my parents. My dad runs a barber shop here and I work part time for him.” She took his arm.

“Let's go in for a cop of coffee.”

Disappointed by the short drive and almost intimidated by her directness he followed her as a hog to the butchery. Seated in a soft armchair, likely the barber's, the drubbing continued, she just kept playing a cruel game on him. What was she up to?

“What do you want first Lolke, neck or coffee?” she asked.

Lolke felt humiliated and angry. What did he do that made her act so rude at him? Better get out of here. He stood up, heading for the door. “Guess it was a mistake... I'm sorry.” However, Agnes was faster than him, blocking him and – locking the door.

“Lolke sit down,” she said, “I am angry at you, I am very angry at you, you know why?

No idea at all why I am furious at you? I tell you why. I seen you in church of and on, and thought what a nice young man. I even was glad that you weren't after the girls that much.

Why than did you screw that poor girl in your hometown and than acted as if nothing happened. Just disappeared. Big man. What will your little daughter think of a father like that? The great Canadian stud?”

Lolke - “My legs felt as if they were filled with concrete, I could barely breath. I heard her voice as if from a far distance and a thought ran trough my mind, that woman is crazy, but then she switched into her normal voice saying that Helen had become pregnant shortly after I had left for Canada. Of course I remembered our time in the hay field, but I never heard from Helen, while I thought she had my address.

Agnes informed me that the address on the postcard Gert had written and posted was an address in Manitoba. How could it have been from Calgary, as we were only on the way to that city. Agnes cried 'Why didn't you write her after you were settled then, dumb-head?'

She was the first one I told that I wasn't able to write and could barely read.”

Agnes - “He was white in his face when I told him that he had a darling little daughter and then he cried 'God, I worked so hard for her.' meaning Helen, I think, and after a quiet spell he asked what name Helen had given his daughter and when I told him that her name was Johanna, he really cried, and then I felt a little sorry for him.

Did you really not know? I asked.

'Nobody told me,' he said. The coffee had perked long enough I thought, and poured.”

“I said that he owed Helen an explanatory letter and that I was willing to write it for him, and since we did not know her address Lolke suggested to send it to his parents.

I informed Helen in that letter that Lolke was alive and well and that he had a girlfriend in Calgary whom he intended to marry.

We had not decided on anything but I had, and trusted my Lolke would have no objection about our decision, and as 'his eyes were tired' he did not read the letter.”

Lolke's parents, after reading the letter decided to burn it, since they didn't want anything to do with a harlot from the Grifformeerde church, not her parents nor her offspring.

More next time.

Lolke is Canadian

The objective of the immigrants arriving in Canada during the early fifties was goal oriented, they wanted something, which was for them unattainable in the old country, to own their own business in whatever form. For Lolke that was having his own dairy farm and he was willing to work hard and long for it.

When Gert and him after a long drive over the wide expanses of the prairie provinces arrived in Calgary, they found a coffee shop, where they discussed in the dutch language what to do next, when a young fellow sitting behind them said “Hey, I am a Dutchy too.” He knew a place for them to sleep – on a bench in the entrance hall of the city hall, for free.

The following morning they started looking for work and a place to live. They rented a basement suite with two other young men, where they did their own cooking as well.

Lolke - “I found a job roofing. It was still quite cold in Calgary so my fingers just about froze

pounding these little roofing nails all day for 98cts/hour, but after a few months of that I got an inside job, sanding oak floors with a big electric sander. It was tricky work, if you stopped moving that machine you made a hole in the hardwood. It took some learning but I got quickly the hang of it. I did that for almost a year, but it was very unhealthy work, I did nothing but breath in fine dust and was spitting out hardwood dust all day. It was not going good for me, no matter how hard I worked.”

He had been well over a year in Canada now, had saved little money, and still did not have a decent place for Helen to live. He had not heard from Helen since he left Holland and neither of his parents, because they traced him also only to Stonewall Manitoba, where the line went dead. His parents did not worry about it, but Helen did, she sent several letters that came back with the sickening scrabbled message saying that he had moved without leaving a forwarding address.

Helen was given a rough time in the village as rumors went around that something had happened to Lolke, no one had any concrete accounts but parts of stories had it that he was sick, others were talking about him being killed by a a bear or by Indians, lingering in jail, and yet another story went around saying that he had married a native girl. The stories the villagers were circulating were increasingly more unkind as people remembered how Lolke as a child already was a handful, a spoiled youngest child, who didn't want to learn at school and prophesied a nasty end for him.

Helen got a somewhat alike treatment, 'how could she have seduced a young man just before he was leaving for a country on the other side of the world.' Her baby girl was not baptized, and she herself was not allowed to partake of the Lord's supper, Lolke's parents shunned her and her own parents felt the weight of a gossiping and slandering community, which made Helen one evening grab the newspaper looking for the want ad section. Johanna was almost six now and knew her father only from what Helen told her, which was different from what the community said about him. Helen was afraid that soon she would hear the other side.

She pushed the paper to her father pointing to a want-ad where a detached man asked 'for a woman of irreproachable repute to take care of his household which included a two-year old.'

Her father slowly shook his head, which worked up Helen to blurt out

“Does heit think as the rest of this town that I am not of a proper character?”

“You know better than to think of me that way, Helen, but I think about little Johanna here. She is this summer going to be six year old ”

“What about Johanna, heit?” Helen felt her blood pressure rise, would she loose even the respect of her father?

“I am already missing the little girl and you haven't even left yet,” he said, “but if you think it is better to go somewhere else, I can not and will not keep you.”

Helen's mind was made up, the ad had made her curious. Who was this detached man and why a two year old?

She grabbed her motorbike, setting out north-wards to where the mystery man lived.

The wind in her face made her skin glow and why not? She was only in her mid twenties, where had she been all these half dozen years. She pushed the gas pedal making her bike roar and her mind react. She was alive, and... Lolke seemed far away.

She estimated the man in his fifties, as she was led into a modestly furnished living room.

“I am Doede Harkema, I live here by myself with my son, my mother comes twice a day to look after little Doede. I want to have a house keeper or a wife, because I don't like my mother over the floor. I am used to saying things only once. Now you. What is your name again?”

This was not at all what Helen had expected, and she stumbled over her words.

“Doede, or mister Harkema?” she said. He smiled. “Doede is fine. Didn't get your name.”

”I am Helen, you want my age and weight?” What did this dumb farmer want of her?

Ignoring her unkind remark, he said “Do you know how to handle a two year old boy?”

“I have a six year old girl” So there, now you know that I had sex to, it said in her head. “Daughter?” Helen colored. The man looked as if he was undressing her.

“Yes,” she coughed, “she is my daughter, Harkema. Is that all or do you need details.”

”I will tell you some more about me,” he said, ignoring her last remark. “My wife and I had no children and that was fortunate, because she left me. 'For a man who knew how to make children' as she said. She is out of my life but I had a roll in the hay with a maid who worked for me, just to find out. That made little Doede. The little guy cost me a lot of money, to pay off his mother, but she is out of the picture as well.”

“So, now is it my turn?” Helen said weakly.

“Helen, I make you a deal,” he said, “but before that I have to tell you that I have an incurable cancer, which is in remission. My chances are about five years according to the doctor but I am sure I will live ten, which I will spend with seeing little Doede grow up and eventually taken care off. Now, here is the deal - let us try out for a year to live together, during which time I will not climb in your bed and you will not in mine. Deal?”

Helen wished that she had been the one to set the rules, but found a strange comfort in the strength of this viral yet mortally sick man. Lolke was not in her mind as she yielded to Doede Harkema, and after only eight months they were married, be it under certain conditions.

At about the same time, way out on a ranch in the wilderness of Alberta Canada, Lolke's wife bore him his third of seven sons he, in time, would have.

All in a day at Menno Place

memorial and butterfly release
memories of a friend when needed
delightful children
joy and thankfulness

I was worried about the weather, it was rainy and cold in the morning. Would it clear up for the afternoon release of butterflies? I earnestly hoped the sun would come through, so that letting the butterflies free to fly could take place.

Every year Menno Place holds a memorial service to the memory of those of our residents who have passed away.

Since last year the release of butterflies was added to the ceremony and both activities were much appreciated by residents and the many guests alike. Two of my granddaughters, Katie and Megan with their children joined me.

I had decided that the thought accompanying my butterfly would be for Lee, who passed a few weeks ago.

Forty years ago when our house burned down, my wife Anne, together with our daughters Janice and Jacki were in the Netherlands visiting our relatives, our children Debbi and Len had left for Lee and Hugo's place, the firetrucks had left, so, alone, I summed up the damage - our just completed and occupied house was reduced to ashes.

While the house was burning I had sneaked into it to save the few days old kittens hunkering together in a carton box in Debbi's bedroom while the mother cat had taken off.

The clothes I wore were filthy and smelling, but were also the only ones I now owned.

That was when I went to Lee, who directed me forthwith to the bathroom with the order of throwing my clothes through the bathroom door and get myself washed up while she was cooking up a meal for us and her own family.

While I was cleaning up I smelled pork-chops frying, lots of pork chops, Lee was not only a great cook, she was also generous.

After I had my bath, I realized that I had no clothes to put on. I felt like Adam must have felt when he was hiding in the bushes. I was naked.

From behind the closed bathroom door I called Lee, with whom I was alone in the house, and who I knew mostly only through my children

“What am I going to do now Lee?”

“Take Hugo's bathrobe.” Hugo is of a normal size while I weighed well over two hundred pound, his robe did not nearly cover, so I put it on backwards, while I came out meeting the heartily laughing cook.

“What you need is a stiff drink,” she said and poured us both one, and then Hugo came in.

Luckily he had heard that our house had burned, and we had had a fantastic meal together and like our children already were, we became good friends.

That is why I decided to dedicate my thoughts to Lee whenever my butterfly would fly where ever butterflies fly to, when they are released.

As you can see on the picture accompanying with this story my great grandchildren were so engrossed in the venture of the vulnerable yet beautiful tiny insect flying up and away, and she, the butterfly, was so eager to get away that I had no time to sent a thought with her.

My great grandchildren were a delight to be with, like they always are, just look at the pictures how much they enjoyed it. Afterwards they were thrilled to have a ride in the freshly acquired super golf cart, seating six, in which a staff member-stakeholder gave them the thrill ride of the day as she circled them around the tree in the parking lot. Afterwards I got a ride as well sitting next to a very sociable 100 year old missionary whose name, like most names I forgot.

All in all it was an unforgettable few hours of 'All in a Day at Menno Place.

And Lee, I will never forget - and neither will I you.

More of Helen and Lolke

Helen faced several difficulties which in rapid succession were thrown in her lap, and if it was not for the support she received of her father, she would have been overwhelmed.

Number one was the question of the name of the baby. As soon as the baby was born she was asked what name she wanted to give to her.

She had wanted to name him Lolke after the father, but he was a she, what now? Lolkje was acceptable as it was the feminine form of Lolke, but she didn't like that name, neither Tytsje, her mother's.

Helen's father read, as was his custom, a chapter out of the New Testament after supper, which handles about Jesus with the twelve disciples going from town to town to preach, there are also some women mentioned who served Him with their goods. The three women named are Maria, Magdalena, and Johanna. Before starting a thanks-giving prayer Helen's father opened the bible again to read these names aloud.

“I like Johanna,” he said to his wife, “It's probably the same name as your Beppe Janneke.”

“I wonder about its meaning,” said Helen, who also liked the sound of Johanna. She was going a little early to ask the dominee about it in the afternoon at catechism.

“Johanna? My mother's was called by that name,” dominee Voerman said, “Johanna is a wonderful, biblical name. It means – gift of god, did you know that,Helen?

“I know now,” Helen laughed. She could've kissed the old man – she had been right all the time, how was it possible to feel what she felt that Sunday evening in the hay field with Lolke if God had meant to give her this wonderful gift of a baby-girl?

Dominee Voerman liked this happy go lucky young mother, who he still saw hopscotching by his study as a child only a few years ago. She had not lost her cheerful character and her childlike faith, the old man mused, but hard test were just around the corner.

“Helen, when your baby is born it should be baptized, but how do you know that it is a girl?”

“I always wanted a little girl, I don't know, I never even taught it could be a boy,” she laughed.

“You know Helen, when your baby is born she, if indeed she is a little girl, should be baptized, but before we are allowed to proceed with that holy sacrament you, Helen, will have to do confession of faith, and – and you also have to do do confession of guilt.”

“But dominee, could we not wait with all that till Lolke comes to get get me?”

“When will that be my dear young woman, if ever? Would you take the chance of loosing your baby forever by not having her baptized? You have long enough been instructed by me to know that only baptized believers are going to be saved?”

A terrible feeling of fear and helplessness crept into her heart.

“You are lucky that you do not to live twenty years ago when you would have to confess your sin before the entire congregation.”

“But what about Lolke' s church, do they believe the same thing, dominee?” Helen cried.

“They do, and so do practically all churches.”

“Dominee, what can I do?”

“All I can advise you Helen, is to follow the rules of our doctrines – go before the church counsel to confess your sin against the seventh commandment.”

“And if I refuse?” Her voice was barely audible.

“Firstly your baby will not be baptized, then you will be barred from the holy sacrament, the Lord's Supper, you might be shunned, or ultimately banned from the church. My dear child, maybe one time the church will change, but these are the rules now, I can and will help you as much as I can, but for now, these are the rules, Helen.”

If it had not been for dominee to temper the consistory members to christian mercy, and ruling out of order the rude interrogation of some the consistory members, Helen's self worth might have been destroyed. Thinking of her father she confessed to the sin of adultery, but at the question if she was sorry of her sin she shook her head violently asking -

“How can I be sorry for a gift of God?”

That answer did not satisfy the council at all, even the chairman, dominee Voerman looked stern, but tried to save the situation by saying -

“Of course you are not sorry to have the baby grow in you, Helen, but your copulation with Lolke was sinful.” He knew that he and the counsel were loosing ground and knew for sure when Helen blurted out -

“But that was the most beautiful part, and if you mean that we had sex together, we had. But tel me - how could I have a baby without sex.” She shook with emotion. She stood up to flee.

“I am sick of all this. You make God's gift look dirty.”

Dominee hastily adjourned the meeting without a closing prayer and took Helen out of the consistory room, trying to calm her down.

However, the verdict of the church counsel was that her baby when it was born would not be permitted to be baptized, unless Helen would change her obstinate attitude, confess her sins, and humbly submit herself to the discipline of the church.

”Lolke o Lolke” she cried, “I need you so, where are you?”

Lolke

Lolke - “I arrived at Halifax on July 1st 1952. I know this for a fact. We were forbidden to land for it was a holiday. The crew of the ss Waterman sneaked her in during the night, and when the Canadians woke up we had landed. It took seven days on sea, that was long enough.”

The ss Waterman was originally built for freight shipping, than rebuilt to troop transport and finally it became an immigrant ship. My brother John and I made the seven day long trip over the Atlantic in this ship in 1953, which was a rough passage.

The Waterman was too short to ride two waves and when she rode high over a wave, after reaching mid ships, she just hung there, shaking violently as if to break the vessel in two, and passing that ordeal dipped her nose down to plunge the ship deep down into the water of the Atlantic. The next wave pushed her up and the same order would repeat itself again. My brother and I stationed our self on the front top-deck where we enjoyed the wildest ride over the ocean, which was even better when we were joined by a pair of sisters.

Lolke - “From Halifax by train to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where a farmer picked me up and took me to his dairy farm in Stonewall, where he milked a hundred cows. I made a contract in Fryslân with him that my starting wages would be $45 a month plus board and room, with monthly increases if I was a true herdsman and pulled my weight. He didn't give me a raise, so I walked away (after he paid me for the month) and hired myself out to his neighbor. He milked only thirty cows and paid me almost double, $80. Things were going good.”

“At the church I heard from Gert Roorda that his farmer paid him $125, and needed another hand, so I joined him. This farmer milked only three cows. That was the best yet, but Gert and I were still holed up in that small town, in the winter, and boy, did it get cold in that prairie!

We got sick of of the cold and hoped there was more to see in Canada than this little prairie town, and as soon as the weather got a little milder we bought an old Austin, which set us back $125 and took off, to where we didn't know as long as it was warmer than Manitoba. We heard of a city to the west named Calgary where big money was to be made.

“I bought a postcard in Winnipeg for Helen, a nice winter landscape with an Indian in front who had a lot of feathers over his head. I was sure Helen would like it, but had not come to send it out yet. On our first coffee stop I asked Gert to write Helen's address on it because I had stiff fingers from driving. The old lady was a standard, I don't think there were automatic transmissions yet.”

Helen received Lolke's postcard on a Monday and on the next Sunday she became mother of an adorable red-haired baby-girl. She was ecstatic with both, but wondered if Lolke had gone to school in Stonewall because his hand writing had definitely improved.

She promptly wrote him a long letter with the most important news – 'Lolke, you are the father of a beautiful daughter.'

A week later a brokenhearted Helen received her long letter back with a hand written note over the prairie winter-landscape with the Indian saying – moved, no forwarding address.

Helen's Burden

It was not be the first time that a young girl didn't hear from her immigrant lover after he'd left for his new adventure, there were girls sending her fellow a letter every week and stopped only because they didn't receive word back for a year, it even happened to young women who were left behind being pregnant.

It happened to Helen.

Lolke had already arrived in Canada when Helen discovered that she was pregnant, which considerable changed the excitement of love she had felt before, even though it had not come unexpected. At first she was ecstatic, soon followed by bewilderment – what now?

If only she was with Lolke, now that she really needed him. How was she going to handle this? Who was she going to tell? Her friends? All they would do was talk about her. O boy would the blabbermouths talk. And gesture behind her back, but so that she could feel them gab about her. And what about her parents? What if her parents would hear about it ? And o my god, Lolke's parents. The longer she taught about the more frustrated she became, and what about the church. She cringed.

Helen - “After I had been thinking my situation over, I made up my mind not to worry too much about the situation. I remember that I really felt that what we together did on that Sunday evening was from God, and He would help me. I made up my mind to tell mother about it, she might even be happy to become a grandmother.

She was not.”

“She called me an irresponsible hussy, said that I wasn't her daughter anymore and that I would have to ask forgiveness in front of all the church people, that I could've known that the guy was no good and had never been good, not in school either. When I told her that I thought that God had approved, my mother just laughed. You use the name of God in this? You sinned against two of God's commandments – one, about honoring your father, and your mother, and the 7th commandment. She did not spell that one out, but I knew what that was anyways – Thou shalt not commit adultery! It all hit me as so many dagger-stabs and I fled to the barn, but she send one more stab my way - You could've known - his hair is red.”

“Away from her I not only cried but howled and swore to God - I will leave this damned place and never come back, so help me, just as the door opened and my father stood right before me. He had tears coming out of his eyes.

He did what he very seldom did, he hugged me, hugged me hard, and said nothing, just stood there, crying and hugging me.”

“Then he talked – 'Your mother,' he said, 'she was shocked when you said you are with child Helen, and so was I. It is not a small thing what you and Lolke did.' He searched for words.

'The both of you made a child. A child who, if everything goes well, will call you mother.'

He wrestled with words again.

'And call me Pake grandfather.' He eyes wetted again.”

“'As everything goes well,' he said after a while, 'and we shall hope and pray...'

and then I cried.

“My heit father took a kerchief out of his pocket and loudly blew his nose.

'Come, he said, let's see if your mother has some tea left.'”

“'Hello beppe grandma,' he said as we walked into the kitchen. Mother had tear-streaks over her face as she stood up saying only one word 'Tea?'

'Sure, let's celebrate,' said my dad, strolling over to mother to hug her. Mother's face got red all over, and quietly let the tears find their way down her cheeks as she sat down with us.

'It's not easy, not for me,' she said, 'not for you either Helen, with him away and all.'

Heit said 'What has happened can not be stopped, and - we may have Helen not for long with us, so let us make the best of it, and if we get a piece of cake from you, frou, that will be good enough a meal to ask a blessing over.'”

“Heit prayed more for a blessing of the seed that was laid into my womb, than for the meal, and therefore it was longer than his usual prayer.”

Still – not one word of Lolke, why . . . ?

Helen

When Helen as a child hopscotched through the village, her blond hair danced wildly with her. She ran like a hare and was able to outdistance most boys her age, however not Lolke, the redheaded son of a rich dairy farmer, who milked at least thirty cows.

She must've been about fifteen or sixteen when the two ran against each other at the yearly village folk-festival that was won by Lolke, as close to the finish Helen tripped and fell, even though she had been slightly ahead of Lolke. Some villagers wondered about that. Had she let Lolke win...?

Helen was born in a part of of the Lowlands where the air is fresh and green grass fields stretch all the way way around, right up to the horizon where it changes color from grass- green into the blue of the sky. Her grandmother once said 'it not only looks like paradise here, it smells like it too.'

Lolke was the youngest of a dozen children, and knew that he would never inhered the family farm, as his older brothers were all good herdsmen and interested in the farm so he dreamed of trying his luck in the US.

Most every boy in the community vied for Helen's hand as she was a happy, good-looking and energetic famke girl, but they soon knew that her heart was only for one, though they weren't even going together, and not because Helen's parents did not 'milk as many cows' as did Lolke's father – the problem was much deeper than that, knew Helen.

“What was so much more important than who had a few more cows was, that Lolke's parents churched at the Old reformed church, and mine belonged to the New reformed, and then the saying was 'two faiths on the same pillow there sleeps the devil in between.' We could be friendly to the others, but no friends' and a marriage between Lolke and I was unthinkable.”

“This unfortunate situation was very hard for Lolke and myself as we felt that we belonged together, and - we loved our parents, but the more they argued and pressured us the more we grew together, especially as the date of Lolke's departure neared. O, did I tell you that we had decided to elope? O, no, I missed a very important part. Ya, we decided to elope to America. We really did. However, that did not go anywhere because the US had closed the borders for immigrants. That happened when I was about sixteen, seventeen.”

“Lolke later heard that good herdsmen were asked in Canada, so he made work of it and was accepted but they wanted to see if he was healthy enough. Ya, a medical. I could've told them that there was nothing wrong with him, but anyways, he passed his medical and was wanted by Canada, but not by my parents. And I was not by his parents. It was so stupid. All because we worshiped God in a different church building.”

“So, our plan was that Lolke was going first, to find us a place and I would follow him a year later, but I don't know if I may say this, because we don't know what God's will is for us, for we are only people, but let me tell you anyways. We sometimes went for a walk in the fields behind our farm, and this Sunday-evening after church we did just that. It was haying time and the hay on the field was put in stacks ready to be hauled into the barn. It was a beautifully quiet evening, the kind you only find on Sundays. I can almost feel the calm quietness yet. So, we settled down behind behind a haystack, out of sight of everybody - and talked.”

“We talked a great deal about things we had never talked about before. I told Lolke, that I did not want as many children as his mother had.”
“How do we know how many children we get anyways,” he said. And I said
“No more than four, Lolke,” and he said
“Why four only, isn't that up to God?” and I said
“Four only Lolke, God gave us brains as well.” Then he stammered something I had never heard him utter before, not like that
'Helen,' he said, 'I love you.'

You can't say that in Frisian as slick as in English, that's why he had difficulty saying it.”

Well! My heart beat so fast, I thought it would burst and then I heard the that cuckoo again, it was so weird, and just because of what he said, and how he said it, I felt so close to Lolke.

I felt as if I was married. Yahoo!

I never told my children, but think God strangely approved what we did - I still do.”

“I don't think I have to tell you any more, yes, I became pregnant, but didn't know for sure until after Lolke was in Canada, so he didn't know until I wrote him.”

(next week the second part part of Helen's story)

Important Proclamation

Tauni

I PROCLAIM this day, and six more just to make up for missing out of their very own day, as GREAT-GRAND-DAUGHTERS DAYS. A whole week of celebration, just for them, why should they have to wait two or three decades to finally have their own day as mother-day?

The world has Mothers days, Fathers days, Sundays, and all kinds of weekdays, there is even a distress month with a day, don't believe me? What about May-day, May-day May day?

Menno Place has a Butterfly day, but no-one has come up with the concept of naming a day for great-granddaughters, and great they are, just listen when the mothers get together to show off their babies to each other, how they ooh and aah about how smart and cute and great their babies are, so why not name a day for them? As one baby said

“Don' t forget that we have to put on more than a hundred pounds before we can even think about having our own mother's day, while you do everything to stay slim, is that a meaningful example? We are gratefully thankful to our mothers that you suffered so much for us but did it ever occur to you how we suffered, when you couldn't wait to whip us out of our warm place into the cold world without as much as a pair of little-bitty socks on our cute toes? Reasons to over for making this a better world by giving us our very own day.” SO THERE !

(If you agree put a like in the appropriate place before you go on with your life, please)

Deannah

Georgia

The following video with a message is for my three lovely great-grand-daughters, whom I love totally, who are on the way in life, each one on her own journey - God bless them.

Impresionante comercial de Pantene Rusia. Increíbles imágenes y argumento.

Eleanor

Eleanor is a tall stately woman who undoubtedly has been a beauty in her days and even today cuts a striking figure though now she leans heavily on her walker while strolling slowly to the Pavilion lunchroom at Menno place where she is assigned to a lunch table near mine. We quickly progress from chitchat to more meaningful conversations. She recently lost a daughter through cancer she said, and sighed that I probably wouldn’t understand the pain associated with such a loss even after I told her that I too have lost a child.

“Did you?” she says absentminded, promptly carrying on “She was a real rascal but boy did I love her. She got what she deserved but still, I loved her so much.”

“I was married sixty-nine years with him when my husband died. The first fifty were fine, at least I had that. He used to be a good man, after work when his fellow workers took off for a beer, my husband came home to me. He was ridiculed for that, but then he didn’t care, even when they said things like ‘O, he's got to see mamma again.’

So, one time he did give in and had a few beers with them. The beer tasted good and what was more important to him, I think, he was now considered one of the boys. He liked both I guess, and then from once or twice a week going with them, it became more than that, and in the end he spend more time in the bar than at home. He was a happy man before, a reasonable good man actually, as much as can be expected of a man, I think; he was never miserable before, but then he was. He changed from a good man to a miserable poop. It broke my heart.”

“We used to have fun together and never missed a dance on Friday night, but not the last nineteen years. I can’t say that he was ever rough with me though. O, no. He probably didn’t dare, but our fun together was gone, gone, gone.”

“None of the children took after him that way.” She stopped, tears welling up in her eyes.

“I must rephrase that, my youngest drank too. I cried for her lots and lots, she deserved what she got but still I loved her. I cried for my husband, after all we had fifty good years together but I cried more for my daughter, even though she was such a handful, I loved her; the more troublesome she became, the more I loved her.”

“Why is it that we go through so much pain when we give birth, and yet suffer even more when we lose our babies after they’re grown up? I do not go to church anymore because I can’t walk. I am Catholic, you know. Every Friday Father calls on me to partake in the Holy Eucharist.

So, you be good now and the good lord willing I’ll be seeing you tomorrow again.”

I woke up with chest-pains.

“You look terrible. You should be in the hospital,” said Margaret, my able house keeper, right after she arrived the following morning for the weekly cleaning and organizing of my residence. The hospital is directly across the road on which I live.

What she ordered when she called 911, I don’t know, but within five minutes not one, but two ambulances showed up, followed by a monstrous large firetruck.

My living room was filled up with half a dozen uniformed man including a petite female fireman, and from there on in I was not in control of anything anymore, much less of myself.

I felt myself hovering between floor and ceiling, and being strapped onto a stretcher. This time maybe Margaret was right about me needing help. I asked her to come along and luckily she managed to get a ride in the second ambulance. In this manner the procession of three emergency vehicles transported me from Menno Place across the road to the emergency ward of the City Hospital, a distance of about three hundred feet!

The only one other than my rescuers witnessing my exodus was my table-buddy John, who

pointed a finger at me when I passed him on top of the stretcher in the lobby. Obviously shocked he cried “It is you.” Touched by his sincere dismay at seeing me being carried out to the ambulance I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t all that bad, but the attendants did not stop for John or me and raced me to the wide open doors of the trauma truck.

After being released from the hospital, where they found a blood clot in my lung, John asked if I was still hurting and when I said that the pain was gone, he was visibly excited.

“When I saw it was you” he said, “I immediately started praying that the pain would go away. And it worked. God heard my prayer.”

The blissful smile did not leave his face as he said

“If you want anything of God, all you have to do is ask him.”

Eleanor was less complimentary after my mentioning of getting old.

“Let not anyone tell you that we’re old, we are reconditioned teenagers, you especially, you are way too young to be old; anyways I was not too worried about you,” she said, “it is only the good ones who die young, and I don’t think you are that good. Anyways, see you tomorrow, the good lord willing.”

That did not happen as Eleanor died that very night in her sleep. She was 92 years.

Not 92 years old, for she had lived her 92 years among the living staying young.

Eleanor was special for she was a child of God.

My view of Abbotsford Regional Hospital

Martinus

During my four years at THE PAVILION I have met a lot of characters and an equal lot of stories, but one of the strangest story I heard from my Dutch table partner Martinus. He was one of the people I knew who had kept his full dutch first name. He used to work on a sawmill along the Fraser river and in his spare time grew flowers, mostly dahlias, on his five acre property.

Shortly after their fiftieth wedding anniversary his wife was stricken with dementia and was in that stage where she walk away from home without knowing where she was going and Martinus was unable to look after her, he decided to take her to a rest home. By asking around he was referred to Menno place where she could be placed almost immediately, and if he so desired there was a place in the Independent Living building for him as well. He accepted the offer and after saying goodbye to especially his beloved flowers, he rented a unit at the Pavilion, close to his wife's place at the residential Care Home.

We were assigned to the same lunch table where we quickly became acquainted, and talked about every subject under the sun. One day Martinus asked me

“Do you know how old people in heaven are?” I answered that I didn't have the slightest idea.

“Thirty four,” he said, which shocked me and I must have been a little blunt asking him

“Where did you read that?”

“I didn't read about it, I talked with one who was there.” I knew Martinus was not demented, but this was more than I could take from him and told him to lay off.

“I had a feeling that you wouldn't believe me,” he said with a hint of hurt in his voice.

“You make it very hard for me to take you serious Martinus,” but he wasn't finished yet

“I got it from somebody who's been there,” he started again, but I had enough of it.

“Martinus” I said, stop fooling me, you're talking about heaven, where god abides. Did you talk to that young boy who died and came back to life again?”

“No, my grandson told me,” he said calmly. “Whether you believe it or not has nothing to do with it, my grandson told me that he was in heaven and that people there were thirty four years old, and I believe him.”

I knew I did not have to reason with Martinus, for he was convinced that what his grandson told him was the truth, and who was I to say that he was making it all up anyways. I think it bothered him that I was skeptical about his grandson's information about heaven, so to support his story, I suppose, he shot off another arrow, this time about his departed wife of whom I had never heard him talk before.

“When my wife passed away the funeral home people about asked what clothes they should use for her burial. I knew she had this red dress she really liked and told my granddaughter who was a great help to me with the arrangements and all that, to take that dress over to the funeral home, which she did.

So, the viewing was held in the church and just before the service I was going to see her too.

He swallowed hard before he continued. “For the last time.”

“When I looked at my wife I got the shock of my life. I was horrified to see that they had not dressed in her beautiful red dress, but in a red working dress. My granddaughter had taken the wrong dress to the funeral home. I felt so bad about it, I didn't hear a word of the sermon. All I saw was my wife laying there in her work clothes.

“So, now we're standing all around the grave site, all the family, the pastor, and everyone in unison say the articles of faith, except me, as I was still seeing her in her working outfit and thought I heard her scold me. I never in my life felt so bad. I cried, I really did.

My grandson was standing beside me, and you may not believe this either, but he said

“Grandpa, don't worry, I saw Oma in heaven, and she was standing there like an angel, and she was dressed in a beautiful white dress.”

Boy in Paradise (google)

My New Life

About thirty years ago I built our retirement house halfway up on Sumas mountain facing the Valley with the mountains of the united states in the background, where we lived longer than anywhere else in Canada or in Holland, but after my wife Anne passed away I started thinking of living somewhere else, yet it took another five years when I finally made the move.

Several things I had on decided already, and one of them was that I did not wanted to remarry because at Anne's death I was close to eighty years old, and determined that was too old to start over again with another woman and in my mind I was still attached to Anne, I still am.

I chose Menno Place where I now live, because of an incident that happened when I as an immigrant landed in Canada and found work at a pre-cast concrete factory in Winnipeg. There I teamed up with a French-Canadian who taught me English. However, he taught me English words that should not be repeated in front of children, but he told me something else which I never forgot -

“If you have a Mennonite as a neighbor, you will never be hungry,” that is why I chose Menno Place which has been my home for four years.

It was quite a change from living solo for five years in a roomy house halfway on the mountain with an unobstructed view over sky and valley, to a a two-room unit on the second floor of Menno-Pavillion, where the view is obstructed by the regional hospital, and a tall one-hundred year old Douglas fir in front of the living room window preventing the sun from transmitting light and warmth to my home but keeping it nicely cool on hot days.

The reasons for continuing writing my stories are threefold

• one, to relate that growing old does not have to be a sad and miserable ending of life

• two, to tell you something about the history of our extending families and

• three, perhaps something about my discoveries in, and about, life and faith
  
  I believe now that everyone has been created for a purpose. This purpose is not chiseled into a rock somewhere or written in black and white on parchment. We may not know what the purpose of our creation is but the creator, who I know as GOD, does know and would not have created us knowing that we were unable to do the tasks he created us for. This is part of what I believe.

In most of my stories you will find some of these reasons, but there is also something in it for myself – I find enjoyment in writing, maybe because I never really studied the subject at a higher level and feel a lack of knowledge and skill about it, yet I am driven to do it.

I have heard repeatedly that writing, like puzzling, is good for the brain and may forestall dementia and that is another reason for me to keep on writing.

Who knows, writing short stories may well be the purpose of the remainder of my life, and if

so, I am grateful to the creator for making it such a pleasant purpose, even though I continue to struggle with the computer which is, however, pleasantly countered by the guidance of my able granddaughter Megan.

Sumas Valley

Part Two of Gypsies and Other Tales

The sun was still high when I left school after finishing my detention and was able to be in time for supper. There was a strict rule at my home about supper – be there and – in time. My father was there, in time, ready for asking the Father in heaven for a blessing on the food; my mother had the pan with heaped-up steaming potatoes standing on the the the table in front of her, ready to be distributed among our family, and my siblings and I were sitting at our designated places around the table with folded hands and closed eyes, ready to do our prayers after father had finished his, in which he thanked God for the food that we were about to have. That was the order of things and it was regarded and if it was the ten commandments.

So, though I was late, I would be at my post around the table at the appointed time. The sun was still high enough in the sky to supply light and warmth over the field of potatoes as far as the eye could see on the right side of the road and the flax, rolling like the waves of the sea on the left. It all made me happy as I hopscotched on my wooden klompen clogs over the narrow brick road when …

I saw at least four gypsy wagons, and women with long skirts, and kids running around, and barking wild dogs, on the narrow road I had to travel to go home in time for supper.

I was so upset I said 'God help me,' without realizing it. Well, wouldn't you be scared?

Going back to follow the much longer route home was out of the question because I would be late for supper.

I once heard that girls always get you into trouble, and sure if the little girl with the long blond hair had not been there non of this would've happen. I had been so happy one moment and now I was not only scared, but terrified, and there was no way I dared pass those gypsy dogs. I heard enough horror stories about them. I was sure that the trouble I was in was not my fault this time, and actually it was not the little girls fault either, but whose fault was it then? The gypsies?

On the berm between the road and the ditch stood a tree planted years ago by one of my cousins or so the story goes. We called it Frank's tree.

I kicked off my klompen and climbed that tree, however not to the top because my weight bent the young tree over the ditch but at this height I was was the closest to God I could get. And there in Frank's tree I told God of my predicament. I fervently prayed for God to chase the gypsies away and even suggested a way to accomplish it. I thought a hurricane would do it alright, or a flood. There was not a fiber in my body doubting God's capability to chase the vicious dogs and its owners away, but so far I had not heard a hard wind, but perhaps miracles were taking some time. I also did not for a moment doubt that God would refuse my request, besides He knew that I was going to be late for supper, He knows everything.

Slowly I opened one eye – partly. I saw the flax field, still moving like the waves of the sea by a soft breeze, and then the potato field, blooming as it had before, and when I opened both my eyes wide I saw that not even the gypsy wagons had disappeared. --- I was sorely disappointed.

Warily I climbed down and when I was down I got good and angry – why was I rejected, were God made a path through the sea for the Jews and left me to fend for myself?

Something snapped in me. Stomping in my klompen I walked right to the middle of the road - I would show that wild dog, and the gypsies, and God too.

There was one boy writing something on the bricks of the road, but I marched straight on for the wild dog who, would you believe it? – who licked my hand!

The boy lifted his head
“He likes you,” he said.
“What are you writing there,” I asked him.
“Nothing much, just a name,” the boy said and I didn't know what to say.
“Rajah,” he said again. The dog really liked me I thought, as he sniffed my pants again.
“What's the dogs name,” I asked. The boy started to laugh.
“Rajah! ” he said, and then I had to laugh as well.
“Got to go now,” I said, “Suppertime.”
“Me too, see ye around.”
“See ye around,” I said and took off – in the middle of the road.

Rayah, I thought, what a funny name for a dog, but I liked the boy. We could be friends ...

Part One of Gypsies and Other Stories

Once upon a time I was a little boy, a little dutch boy who lived in a small village, behind a dike close to the sea. I was not the little dutch boy who stuck his finger in the dike to hold the water at bay, if it had depended on me and my finger, than Holland would've drowned long ago, besides my finger was ordained for greater things, but I didn't know that yet. I was a nice little boy and in school sat behind a nice little girl with long blond hair. When she moved, and she moved frequently, her hair brushed over the top of my desk and this time it bothered me, or perhaps I wanted to tease her, so I grabbed her blond locks and pretended to drive a horse, hop horsey hop, which was fun.

Girls, even little girls, can really be fun, but real mean as well. Alie, pronounced Ah – lee, did not like to be my horse and turning around slapped me across the face, which was definitely not funny. The teacher, who must have seen her whopping me, did not give her a detention, but me, which I thought was not quite fair.

So, here I sat, after the class had left, all by myself in the empty room, waiting for the teacher to hand me my punishment. He gave me one hundred lines to write - 'I must behave myself like a gentleman in class and out.'

I started the lines according to a system I had invented at a previous occasion, by writing one word at a time thirty times underneath each other. First the word I, next must, followed by behave, but was horrified to find that the sentence was too long for my note book. What now?

It was too late to change my system, but then I hit upon a brilliant idea, all I had to do leave a few words out of the sentence, and I knew exactly which ones, and my problem would be solved. I deleted 'like a gentleman,' the meaning of the line would not suffer extensively, and the teacher would probably not notice. But he did.

Now, my teacher was a nice man who I liked very much because he was a really good story teller who just that morning had told us about how the Jews were caught between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea and how that scared the wits out of them and had shouted at Moses 'What have you done to us, now that we all either get killed by the soldiers or drown.'

My teacher not just stood in front of the class like a pillar when telling a story, he sat on one of a students desk in the front of the class, with his legs on the seat, so he was facing us, that way it looked as if he was one of us, anyways we thought so and paid a great deal of attention, in fact we hung on his lips, if that makes sense, so please you be quiet too.

“And Moses spoke to the scared and upset crowd 'Fear ye not,' but the Jews seeing the army swiftly approaching were shaken with fear and scolded Moses 'Why did you bring us here? So we all die in this godforsaken* place? Do something, can't you do something at all? Where is your God?'”

The best part was when my teacher stood up, right on top of the desk seat, his outstretched arms almost reaching the ceiling when he yelled, imitating Moses, 'BE QUIET YOU,” to the angry crowd. He jumped off the seat to grab his card stick, jumped up again, pointing the stick over our heads and roared “In name of the Lord, 'LET MY PEOPLE GO!'

Now we were trembling, hunkering in our seats, but my teacher was not finished yet, he stepped off the seat, put the stick away and said in a calm voice now,

“Boys and girls, you know what happened after? God made a path through the sea, to let His people go.”

I never forgot my teacher and neither the story he so vividly related, and it was like an echo from the past to me when in the sixties black people started protesting singing 'We shall overcome' and 'Let my people go.' Fast forward fifty years and the mightiest country in the world is led by a black president! But I forgot all about my punishment lines. Sorry about that.

My teacher did see my deceit. Did I tell you that he was a nice teacher? Well he was.

“Nice try,” he said,“ some of my former students used two pencils held together to write two lines at the same time. That is why I make the lines extra long, it confuses them. Now what about you? I don't want you to write the whole thing over again but I do want the words you left out from you - but only ten times, not a hundred, on one condition - I also want you to show me how good your penmanship is. Deal?” I wrote the deleted words like a gentleman, ten times as good as I was able to. My penmanship had markedly improved.

What? Did I forget to write about the gypsies? You're right, I got too much involved about the story of my teacher. Some stories do that, well, you'll have to wait for the next one. Promise!

The Wonder of Makkum

The reason I (re) wrote this moving account is that I was born in Hijum, only a stone's throw away from Makkum 86 years ago,' but even more because it makes me proud to be part of these brave women by being born a Frisian. Sincere thanks to my son in law Allan McLeod from Philadelphia who woke me up to this
 

What made these noble animals hunkering together awaiting death in the frigid waters of the north Sea? Was it for warmth and comfort that they crouched together or was it fear?

More than hundred-twenty horses were forced together on a fast decreasing strip of land in the midst of a steadily rising sea. A heavy storm was approaching fast, making the water come up higher yet to swallow up the last piece of land above the water line. And no help in sight for the horses.

There was one woman following the desperate situation and sounded the alarm.

Norma Miedema is not only a woman with a compassionate heart for animals but one with a strong perseverance. She alarmed the authorities about the plight of the desperate animals ready to give up, comforting the dying horses and trying to save a drowning foal, who still died in her arms. The forty year old woman waded into the cold water neck deep to cut barbed wire fences to make a safe path for the horses on their way toward the shore.

Yet she had to fight the authorities to take action without cooperation from them, even offering to ride her own horse to entice and lead the stranded animals to shore, but they had 'better ideas.' Finally, when the international press got involved putting the bureaucrats in a bad light they came into action. But real action had to come from one of the six horse-women, Micky Nyboer, who called in the Frisian Horse Forum for “…only experienced riders with horses without fear of water,” exactly what Mrs Miedema had wanted.

Six rider teams answered the call and eventually four women of the six riders got the call to approach and entice the more than hundred still alive horses. When they were right close, they turned around and it was then that the wonder happened.

You have to watch the video to experience and appreciate the home coming of those grand animals and their rescuers...

The six woman riders were -
Susan Frances riding Blizzard,
Micky Nyboer riding Berber,
Antje Dijkstra riding Humphrey,
Hinke Lap riding Guinevere,
Christina Stormer riding Perfect, and
Farrow de Ruiter riding King,
all were justifiably recognized by press and government for their bravery.

Norma Miedema meanwhile, who stayed to the final rescue, was totally exhausted and contracted pneumonia. She was also totally ignored by media and authorities...*

*all pertinent information is from Quinton de Verneuil BWP 2008

Stranded

The Wonder

Coming Home

Norma

Spring is Coming

I am an old man.

There are men and women older than I am, but let's face it 86 is not young by any measure.

One of my best friends once said – 'you will dance on my grave.' We were just middle age, which then was around 40. My grand children are approaching that number now.

Presently people live a few years longer but half of 90 is still only 45, with the majority not making the 90's.

When I was an early teenager we came together after the Sunday evening service at seven and the rest of the night up to about ten, high out eleven o'clock we were what is called now hanging around. Being in a group at that age was safer than pairing off for only one reason, and we stayed away from sex like it was a contagious sickness, only because of the chances of a girl becoming pregnant. Did we receive any sex education from home or school? Never, perhaps a - 'Be careful now, you hear'

The names of the girls were – Tsjitske, Akke, Aukje and Ellie; the boys Wopke 2X, Jurrit, and Leffert. The first letters of those names spelled the name of our club – TELJAWWA, which sounds a bit like a Jewish city, and one of the girls, Ellie, was indeed Jewish. She came into our life during the war, when the Nazi's did their utmost to kill the entire Jewish race in several concentration camps. Everyone in our village knew about her and her whereabouts but no one ever squealed on her. She was exceptional beautiful and every boy was crazy about her.

What I really wanted to tell you that several stories have done the rounds in our family and beyond, that with practically every one of my birthdays I had prophesied that I would not live to that particular age. Only one of these stories is true, and here it comes -

When I was nine years old, I had made a sling with a rock tied into onto the end of a piece of rope, which I would swing around and then let fly. This act was usually combined with a game of who could throw the farthest. This time I was by myself standing on the road in front of the old church in Hijum where I lived then. As I swung the rock around I told myself that if it would not fly over the trees around the church, I would die before I was eighteen.

I swung the rock around an around as fast I could and then at the right moment – let go – and missed by just a little. I must have told somebody in deepest secrecy, and that somebody obviously leaked my secret just as miserable as now politicians sometimes do.

So, that is the true story and when the day of my eighteenth birthday arrived there was one who remembered it. I got a postcard from Ellie, with nothing else written on it as wishing me a happy birthday and two big pencil marks under the letters 18.

My birthday is coming up soon, and I suspect to hear some chiding of one, or more, of my children about hearing ad nausea about me telling them that I would never become 66, as I am going to be on April 30, 2017!

I must confide that I took some precautions, I quit driving, drink two liters of milk a week, I laugh a lot and smile even more at pretty women, walk with a walker, eat well and let Margaret, my housekeeper, do the chores of cleaning, washing, ironing, every week clean bedding, ironing, and vacuuming. I refrain from drinking alcoholic beverages, and excersize three times a week.

So, that is it about me and the stories about me, and as for my friend, who figured that he would not live beyond 60, he became 69, and as for dancing on his grave, would I be that crazy to dance on anybody's grave? I can hardly get my one foot in front of the other, as it is.

Have a great spring.

The Roelevinks

Every human, whether male or female, rich or poor, black brown or white, newly born or thousands of years in the past, has one father and one mother and equally so, everyone has two grandfathers and two grandmothers. I am not an exception, and while our family stories have so far dealt mainly with pake and beppe Smid, my other pake and beppe, the Roelevinks, are equally responsible for creating me. So, thank you all, grandparents, great - and great – great grand patents of hundreds, perhaps thousands of generations in the past, who have never known known in which way they shaped my life.

Pake Leffert was president of the local Christian school society, and for that reason master Klaas came regularly at the Roelevinks for tea, and at these times master Klaas shared often of his knowledge and wisdom. He told pake Leffert and whoever was there to learn or listen how special the Netherlands was created. From the few times that I witnessed his lessons I learned that what is called the Netherlands or Holland for that matter, had not been there from the beginning, but had evolved over thousands of years by the gradual built-up of silt carried down by the great rivers the Scheldt, the Meuse, the Rhine, Vecht, Ems, and Weser, having their origin in France and Germany.

Uncle Johannes, who checked master Klaas for accuracy had to admit that his mentioning of the main rivers according to his map had been correct, so that actually the biggest part of our Fatherland was in fact part of Germany and France.

But, master Klaas dramatically said, not so Gasterlan, where the Roelevink's lived.

“No, because Gasterlan is created by God,” reminded pake Leffert master Klaas cautiously, but the teacher went enthusiastically on, raising his voice, when he arrived at the climax of his argument.

“Our beginnings did not come from the mountains of Germany and France, but from Denmark and Norway!”

He then went on to lecture that during the last ice age the glaciers moved from the North-pole slowly via Scandinavia to about where Haarlem is situated now, before it turned back to where it came from.”

“Nou, first mar an cupje thee,” said beppe Dirkje, which stopped master Klaas' argument temporarily.

After he had gulped his tea down he started dramatically up again.

“Those glaciers carried enormous amounts of earth, gravel, sand and rocks with them which is called moraine, and when the ice melted, the moraine was left behind. In this way Gasterlan came to be as an island,” said master Klaas. Pake Leffert felt uncomfortable about all these new things and only allowed master Klaas to tell his story because he had studied and was a Christian teacher, but he mentioned one thing again.

“But it was God that made made Gasterlan,” pake said, and master Klaas agreed.

“It was God alright who made it happen, using the earth of Denmark and not of Germany, like he did with Holland,” he said.

Pake Leffert and beppe Dirkje lived their entire life in Gasterlan, which is located in the south-west of Fryslan. They received three daughters, Jantje, Jacobje, and Minke, and six sons, Jan, Johannes, Wieger, who died as a baby. The next year another boy was born who was also named Wieger, after him Lutzen and as the last one Lolke.

They were god fearing people, raising their children up in the fear of the Lord and were very hospitable to whoever visited them. I was welcomed there many times and received a positive and happy example from them.

Sins of Youth

Pake Roelevink maintained a large vegetable garden of which a considerable part was set apart for growing winter carrots. Master Klaas, a school teacher, advised pake (grandfather) that the children of the Christian elementary school, of which pake was the chairman, did not receive adequate vitamins. After master Klaas explained what vitamins were, the old man immediately cultivated an addition to his carrot plot and during the winter months each student received a long, vitamin laden winter carrot twice a week, and that settled the perceived vitamin shortage of the schoolchildren.

While on my two of the three weeks summer holidays, I had eyed the luscious green carrot tops and was tempted like Eve was in paradise, for the luscious carrot was desirous in my eyes. No one ever had forbidden me to take a carrot, but still I felt hesitant to go for one, knowing that this plot was grandfather’s pride, but I mustered enough courage to pull one carrot out of the sandy loam. My choice was not the right one since it was not nearly full grown and looked more like a long rat tail. I gingerly pushed the rat tail back into the hole it came from, and tried another one which wasn’t any bigger. I went all around the plot to find an edible carrot, before I quit in disgust, leaving the patch as I found it by pushing all the rat tails back from where they came from.

My grandparents celebrated the Sunday by going twice to church dressed in their best clothes. Grandfather wore a black three-piece suit, a black high hat and back laced boots. He walked the ten minutes it took to walk to church three paces ahead of grandmother, who wore a plain black outfit which included a black hat, soberly adorned with a (black) feather. In her purse she carried a little bottle of eau de cologne of which she put a few droplets on her handkerchief to sniff on just before the sermon started. Grandfather consulted his pocket watch, covered by his right hand to hide his intent from the preacher. At the end of the sermon he would repeat the action so he could calculate the length of time the student preacher preached about his sermon.

It was not pake's day. The sermon was barely an hour and a half long, way too short, and then the young student preacher had the gall to make the congregation sing one of the twenty nine newly added songs, which were, totally unnecessary, added by the Synod to the hundred and fifty psalms of David. Out of protest grandfather refrained from singing.

When on the way home he passed the carrot patch, he noticed the devastation, and then the milk boiled over. His face paled and his eyes were spitting fire when he saw the wilted carrots in between the healthy green. His voice trembled when he called out my name, pointed to his ruined garden and shouted “Did you do that?” accentuating every one of the four words.

As in a dream, I heard myself saying “No.” Pake didn’t say another word and went inside leaving me sad, dejected and guilty, outside. I had gravely sinned. I had lied. I had lied after just coming out of church. I had lied on a Sunday. That made it at least a triple sin. I didn’t dare to go inside, where all were sitting around the table now waiting for pake to take off his hat and say a prayer over the chicken soup with mini meatballs, (as beppe grandmother could only make it) and over the steaming potatoes, and the green beans, all fresh out of pake's garden. The water ran out my mouth just thinking about it, and as dessert they all would get a big slice of vanilla pudding with red berry juice over it. But all that was happening inside and I was outside, sitting against the brick wall of the living room, which was used as a dining room as well. So close to all that delicious food and yet so far away.

I heard somebody coming. I hoped it was not uncle Wieger, because he was the strongest and the tallest of the three brothers. Would grandfather have sent him to punish me? He was liable to take a strip of my back, and then some. Afraid I peeked up to him, but nothing of the kind happened. Uncle went down on his haunches besides me. Maybe he was going to send me home.

“The carrot patch out of which you took some samples are winter carrots; they will be ready a few months from now, even if you had tried the entire patch you wouldn’t have found one big enough to eat. Pake knows that you were not out to destroy his garden, because you put the carrots careful back into the same holes they came from, right?” He pulled me up and said that we better go quickly into the house, otherwise the food would be cold and led me into the living room where everyone was waiting. Pake had not even taken off his hat, but he did so as soon as I sat down.

Pake Leffert and Beppe Deirkje

Everybody bowed their head while pake started his prayer of which I long remembered whole sentences,

“Our Father in heaven, we come before Thy holy countenance to worship and to praise Thee…”

Starting off with pake, beppe gave everyone a plate of soup including me. I kept my eyes to my plate because pake was sitting across from me. I felt him looking at me.

“Do you like grandmother’s soup,” he asked. I nodded “Yes.”

“I like her soup too,” he said, putting his hat on again.

After the soup came the next round – potatoes, green beans, a small piece of meat with a ladle of meat gravy over the steamy potatoes, wow, - and the vanilla pudding with red berry sauce still was to come.

And then everything was as it was before again.

My Father In Law, Polder Pioneer

Three pioneers of the polder, with three different stories - my father got what he wanted including to rent a new house in the polder, where he lived for more than a quarter century. Uncle Jan worked for several farmers in Fryslân, went broke as a grocery man, worked in North Holland and Limburg, later in the North East polder, mostly away from his family, he packed up his family and left it cruel paradise were he was born for a country were it was said that the roasted geese could be picked from the trees, the prairies of Canada, where he was king of his own property as farmer.

My father in law's story was different, he was a born Groninger where men are not talkers but doers - he also would not muck up a sentence by adding an extra word and even would bite off the ends off most words. Besides that, he was a fine horseman, a great marksman, a good produce grower and he loved dogs. He could not stand Nazis, and perhaps on account of that, definitely did not want to be bossed around. His word was as good as gold or even better. He had three very pretty daughters and a nice wife. And three sons.

All his siblings and parents lived in or around the town where he was born occasional came together in the cafe to talk and have a beer, but as they were doers in the first place, the drinking was the doing part and the talking a mere nodding, or, if more reaction was really an must, a nod and a a sigh. It is likely that my father in law at this place on a Saturday evening heard a stranger, say a city-man, talk about the new polder where a market gardener could make more money, even become his own boss if he was able to rent a farm from the government.

Of course there were some conditions to that, but doesn't the government always come with conditions? Agreeing nods all around. And, there were of course medical examinations, police reports, more nodding, of course, they wouldn't rent a farm to a handicapped criminal, all very reasonable, and they need the prospective renter to have some money. That breaks the silence. Money? Where does the government need money for, they get enough income from our taxes. One of the men asks how much money they want from a prospective renter. The city-man has the answer – 5,000.00 guldens. The man asking the question made some some calculations on his beer underlay. 'Workman's weekly wages,' he murmured, - 40 guldens, times 52 weeks equals – 2,080 guldens a year.'

“So, they want you to pay them about 2 ½ years workers wages.” is the scribbler's conclusion.

The tongues come finally loose.”And no food and shelter for my family for years?”

“It's a stupid idea, because there is not a workman with 5000 guldens of his own.”

“It's not so stupid, they don't want slave workers on a brand new farm, this will prevent them.”

“The whole deal is made, like it always has, for rich farmer's sons, for the capitalists.”.

My father was quiet but thought a lot. He was not even a pioneer, but what if he sold his house would he realize that much money? The whole family had to move to the polder where he had to work for at least a year for a farmer. That was also a condition. The more he thought about the more he liked the idea of owning a farm. After all he was from farmer come-off, he called the waiter. “A roundje for all.”

“Birthday?”

A nod.

He took a day off to bike to the polder and contacted a Groninger farmer who had moved a few years earlier from a neighboring town and came home with an work agreement for a year, subject to the sale of his house, in his pocket. The house sold fast and after fees and costs and mortgage, left them with more than 6000 guldens!

They soon after moved to a new house in Ens near an little island, swallowed up by the new polder, called Schokland.

More to follow

Third Encounter

The polders - land created out of sea - are without a doubt great achievements of the people of the Netherlands, but having loved and worked in the south of my proud country, the polder could not compare to the people, the traditions and environment of Limburg, where I worked and lived and found peace. 

However, feeling unable to return there without hurting my parents who considered my like of boarding with a divorcee and omitting to attend a church, so against their way of life that they never could not would understand how free and happy I was there. 

Since nothing of value was urging me to stay in the new but bare and inhospitable new land I decided to emigrate to Canada. I hadn't seen Anne much, but heard from her brother, who was friends with my brothers, that Anne was having a boyfriend. My brothers were quite enthusiastic about the guy who drove a Yamaha motorbike. 'A Yamaha eh?' Ya, Anne like driving in the rear seat behind him. Well, good for her, no worry about her then. I hadn't seen her for some time, and was not sorry about it neither. I was not forgotten my humiliating bike ride in the snow. So, let her have fun on a Yamaha.

And then, there she was. Wow! 

She wore a white summer dress with soft green polka dots, topped by a same green bolero with white polka dots loosely over it. 

It was a beautiful summer day when I, purely by accident, caught up with Anne in the fake little man-made Kraggenburg forest. She was off her bike and watching something intently. I stopped beside her, out bikes forming a barrier between us. 

'What are you looking at?' I asked. 'Rabbits.' she said. And just then two little rabbits in no apparent rush, hopped by. We watched the frolicking rabbits for awhile not knowing what to say and just when I really noticed that she was not at all a bad looking young woman with a very healthy tan, she took her bike saying she had to go, and off she went.

Sometimes, you can't loose for winning. You never know where help comes from. Anne's brother dropped by and, seeing me, causually mentioned that his sister was calling it quits with her boyfriend. 'If you're interested,' he said, 'today's your day. Her boyfriend is drafted into the army which means he can spend only one weekend seeing her in two months. She takes him to the 4 o'clock bus this afternoon. 

I couldn't' believe my ears, was he instructed by his sister to tell me she was available? I biked as fast as I could to the next village over and waited for her in a coffee shop conveniently close to the bus stop. And there they were, he was pushing a normal bike and not the Yamaha, which he wasn't aloud to drive since it was Sunday. His right arm was around her middle. The bus driver was already on top of the bus to receive the bike. Before the boyfriend handed his bike up, they kissed. A farewell kiss? What if this was set up by my brothers? But as soon as the bus with my competitor took off I interceptor Anne, who didn't seem much surprised, and walked beside her, my left arm on the bike and the right arm around Anne. 

We walked that way until we found the narrow path along the canal out of the village. The berm to the water was overgrown with reeds, which here and there were flatted out by young couples seeking privacy. Anne was seventeen and I was twenty-one and we talked easy as if we had been together for yarns, about things older people talk about, like how many children we should have. Then Anne asked when I was going to Canada and I said, 'in a month.' And I asked, 'Anne, will you wait two years for me?' And she said 'YES.'

It was dark when I took Anne home. Her father had locked the doors and windows, except the bathroom window. That is where Anne crawled through. It was the her first time, I thought. 

This is not the polder, but Arizona

How Things Clicked

My life was not that hot after I moved with my family to the North-East-Polder from Limburg, and the romantic bike ride taking a girl home, not turning out that romantic in the end, did not help things either. However, we were living now in a brand new house in the most southern town in the polder on highway A4 called Ens.

How did our family get into a brand new house in the polder? The information about that is from my father. In previous stories I have mentioned that as far back as 1940, when the new polder was pumped dry, the men to do the real work, digging ditches and canals, right from the beginning were called pioneers and were promised the first to be considered for obtaining a farm in the polder as a reward for their effort and loyalty. My father and uncle Jan were pioneers. How did that work out? It didn’t. Very few if any of these pioneers received a farm.

During the war one could (and did) blame Hitler, or ‘the Germans.’ But what aboutafter the war when the ‘party of the workers,’ the Dutch Labor Party, formed the government of the Netherlands again? My father, uncle Jan, and also my father in law, never became the promised owners of a (rented from the government) farm. It mattered very little what stripe of government was in power.

Starting with uncle Jan, he told my father once ‘Hendrik, if you still believe that the socialist (the Labor party) will help you getting a farm, you are dumber than a goose. And the Christian parties won’t rent you one either.’ His wrath turned against the last ones, because ‘they should know better.’ He contacted an emigration society, and applied to move to Canada, which got him in trouble with the church because he had chosen the neutral over the christian immigration society. Since he didn’t have money for the passage he applied to, and received from, the government a subsidy. Had he wanted to talk about that, which he never did, he might’ve said ‘At least I got something out of them.’ He landed up in Saskatchewan and became a happy dairy farmer.

My father meanwhile landed a nice job of inspecting water levels in a sizeable area of the polder. How he obtained that position I don’t know, but a former foreman of him was jealous and wanted the job for himself. His work territory was located at kavels (plots) A and B. But to go from A to B he had to make detour past a sluice at Lemmer because the two plots were separated by a canal, which was time consuming. There was a possible solution, if only he had a boat he could just cross that canal. But he had no boat.

It was a warm day and a novel plan brewed in his mind. What if he would wade through the canal, that would save him a lot of time, and he did not have to pass the office of his former foreman which was located in the sluice building, either.

Father kicked off his rubbers and clothes and and waded, for as far as I know he was not able to swim, across. The foreman, who obviously had missed him passing by, reported to his higher-ups that he had proof that Smid was not doing his work properly. Father received a severe dressing down, which he didn’t take lightly. He was so angry, he told me, he wrote a very nasty letter to the highest authority. He also told me that he ‘forgot’ about the letter for two days, after which he rewrote it. He left the letter overnight once more to check it for spelling mistakes and only then send it away.

Father had made three demands in his letter to compensate him for the undeserved defamation of his good name as an honourable pioneer of the polder. His demands were:

1 – an increase in wages
2 – a permanent appointment including a proper title
3 – a new house in the new polder, preferably a corner house(!)

He did get a salary increase.
He did get a proper title and his job was made secure by making it a permanent position.
He did get his new corner house at Kerkplein 28 in Ens, NOP.

They apparently had some trouble with finding a suitable title for him which up to now was onder-opzichter, under-overseer, which is an oxymoron. The title opzichter was given to men higher up in the polder anarchy. What title he got I am not sure.

That is how the Hendrik Smid family got a new house in the polder.