Dutch naming traditions in the Van den Bosch family

I’m a little late with my first “52 ancestors in 52 weeks” posting.  Last week’s prompt was “same name,” and it took me a while to wrap it up. In response to the prompt, I looked at a Dutch naming tradition I learned about only in recent years and how it may have been used by my Van den Bosch ancestors.

I have tons of families in my tree who used the same names generation after generation. The Case family favored Obadiah, Separate, and Keziah. The Kreykes family liked Jan (or some version thereof). The Hendricksons often used Lars and Oliver (Haldor).

I only recently realized, however, that my Van den Bosch family in the early 20th century closely mirrored a Dutch tradition in which the eldest son is named after the father’s father (Hendrik became Henry); the eldest daughter is named after the mother’s mother (Lubbigje became Lucy); the second son is named after the mother’s father (Harman became Herman); and the second daughter is named after the father’s mother (Hendrijke became Henrietta).

Because in this case all of the grandparents were born in the Netherlands and their grandchildren born in America, the Dutch names became Americanized, even as they passed them on. Some of the grandchildren received American names and others a Dutch name that later became Americanized.

When I heard about this tradition and applied it to this family, I was interested to see that it fit so well for the first two boys and first two girls. It’s a little more complicated to figure out how the later children received their names. The third daughter was named Hermina. I don’t find that name in the family tree, though I wonder whether it was a feminized version of her maternal grandfather’s name, Harmen/Herman. When Hermina was born, it was the maternal grandfather’s turn to pass on his name, but a second boy had not yet been born who could be named Herman. A couple years after Hermina’s birth, a boy was born who was indeed named Herman. It took me a while to consider this connection for Hermina because she was always called “Mina” by everyone I knew.

The source of names for the younger children remains somewhat of a mystery, although one could certainly speculate that “Gertie” may have received a form of her father’s name Gerrit or perhaps the name of two of her great-grandmothers who were named Gerritje. Margaret, who died at age 5, may have received a form of her mother’s name Merrigje, although her mother’s own name was Americanized to “Mary.” Daughter Stella may have received an Americanized form of the name of her great-grandmother “Stintje.” The biggest mystery is the name of the daughter Winifred, for which I am unable to find a source in the family tree, although it certainly is a pretty name. It almost seems they ran out of ancestors with names that had not yet been passed on to their children. Perhaps there is a namesake I’ve yet to discover.

Unfortunately, this is all speculation because I never really discussed this with my grandmother. I’d love to know. The Van den Bosch siblings appear below in adulthood. Henrietta, second from right in the back row, was my grandmother. It seems likely that she was named after her paternal grandmother, Hendrikje Top Van den Bosch, who died in the Netherlands in 1901.

Two of my sources for the Dutch naming tradition were FamilySearch and Dutch genealogist Yvette Hoitink via Dutch Genealogy.

Here in February, I’m late to the party in blogging about “52 ancestors in 52 weeks.” Still, I’m giving it a try, even though I can’t promise to respond to every weekly prompt (in fact, it is unlikely I will carve out the time to do so). It will be a helpful tool, though, in filling those gaps between ancestral birthdays and exciting new research discoveries. 🙂

Genealogy in fiction: What to read?

I recently learned of a series of books that feature a forensic genealogist solving family history mysteries. How could I not snatch up the first in the series and read it?

That’s what I did last week with Hiding the Past by Nathan Dylan Goodwin. It was a fun read, to be sure. It does require one to suspend disbelief on some of the less plausible scenarios, but I was quickly taken with the idea that a genealogist’s work can make for some fascinating stories. Of course, those of us who do family history already knew that.

I won’t provide any spoilers here, but this series is set in England … relatively present day. It’s fun to follow a character in a novel who logs into Ancestry and visits local archives. And as is to be expected, the answer to one question always leads to a brand new question. The main character gets into some pickles, and I question some of his methods … but it is fiction. I’ve read only the first book, but the series has eight. I bought the first three as a single volume in the kindle version for the pretty economical price of $9.99 and will read all three.

In the meantime, this has piqued my curiosity about other series or novels that might feature genealogists. The “recommendations” one gets online after reading a similar novel, plus a little googling, provide more information than I can sort through with any efficiency. Still, I will be looking through the online suggestions. If anyone has recommendations that will get me to a great novel sooner, though, please share them.

Obadiah Case and the hazy past

Obadiah. The name shows up more than once in my family history, but today’s focus is my 3rd great grandfather, Obadiah James Case, who was born on this date 219 years ago … at the dawn of the 19th century. Thomas Jefferson became president that year, and Abraham Lincoln had not yet been born.

Getting to know Obadiah — to the extent I have — has been a gradual process. I know little other than a few facts of his life. Nobody alive during my lifetime was alive during his. However, the more I learn, the more I see him as key to the westward migration of this line of my family.

Besides, Obadiah is probably the most frequent “common ancestor” among my DNA matches on Ancestry (example at right). When a distant DNA cousin turns up on my dad’s side, our connection can frequently be traced back to Obadiah. This is not uncommon for ancestors born in America when the country was still relatively young and families were still relatively large. Obadiah was the great grandfather of my maternal grandmother, Dorothy Clausen Hendrickson.

He was born in 1801, likely in Tennessee or Kentucky. Like I said … hazy.  Federal Census forms indicate Tennessee as his birth place, while less formal sources sometimes say Kentucky. I need to research whether those borders were shifting at the time. Still, finding my ancestors in these regions came as a total surprise to me, and I have long had on my agenda a potential blog post for my “Genealogical Surprises” series on that “Kentucky root.” They clearly lived among a community of people who were gradually moving westward into the prairie.

The best theory of Obadiah’s genealogical origins so far is that he descended from a group of English Puritans who settled the community of Southold on the north fork of Long Island in the 1600s before later generations began migrating westward. There is a fair amount of evidence for this, including DNA support, but certain links remain unverified, so the research continues.

Obadiah’s parents were Separate Case and Lydia Moore Case. He lost his father when he was just a young child, and yes, his father’s name was Separate Case. Or Seperate. Or Seprate. The best, and really only, theory I’ve heard of his father Separate’s given name points to Scripture:

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord …”           (II Corinthians 6:17 (KJV))

The theory is that Obadiah’s immediate forebears were involved with the Separate Baptist denomination that began in Massachusetts but grew strong in places like Kentucky and Tennessee. If so, they would be the only Baptists I’ve discovered in my ancestry thus far. However, Obadiah had not only a father, but a brother, a son, and a nephew who received the name Separate. Subsequent generations in my line of descent from this family were Nazarene, then mainline Methodist, so it is a plausible evolution.

In 1825, Obadiah married Elizabeth Louisiana (“Louisa”) Royalty, granddaughter of a Revolutionary War soldier who had migrated with his family from Virginia to Kentucky after the war, a common scenario at the time.

Obadiah and Louisa’s young family continued the westward migration begun by their ancestors. Some of their children were born in Kentucky, some in Indiana, and most in Iowa. Obadiah’s family finally settled in far eastern Iowa, near the Mississippi River. An 1848 land record places Obadiah in Iowa just two years after it attained statehood. The 1860 Census places the family in Elk River, along the Mississippi, in Clinton County. Obadiah appears in the agricultural schedule for Elk River that year with a farm valued at $1,200 and various amounts of livestock, wheat, corn, and oats.

Obadiah and Louisa had about a dozen children, including my ancestor Joseph Case. I could stay busy for at least a year exploring the stories of Obadiah’s children. It is highly likely that one of his younger sons, Beniah (Benaiah), died in the Civil War as a Union soldier from an Iowa regiment … six years before Obadiah himself passed on.

It’s always challenging to write a profile of a person you’ve never met … and that nobody you’ve known in your lifetime has ever met. However, the more research I do, the more real Obadiah becomes to me. His family’s migration story runs through the generations … culminating in Iowa, where most of his children were born, where he is buried, and where a new chapter of family history takes root. The story starts putting real people to my late father’s DNA results that place him with an American westward migratory community (see above). Obadiah was one of the key figures in this movement for my family.

A few years ago, I made my first trip to eastern Iowa and visited the little McClure Cemetery in Charlotte, Iowa, where Obadiah and Louisa (Louisiana) are buried. With them in that cemetery were a few ancestors related through other lines. The gravestones were very old and mostly unadorned — a few were even broken — but Obadiah and Louisa had a symbol on their shared grave marker that was fairly common for the era — pointing skyward, hope of heaven.

I have no reason to think Obadiah’s life was filled with anything other than the common struggles of his era. I’m grateful for his courage and fortitude, and that of his family, in forging into new and relatively unsettled territory, while realizing also that, like men of every era, he no doubt had flaws that, for now anyway, are lost to time and grace.

Happy Birthday, Obadiah James Case. Rest in perfect peace.

This is the twelfth in a series, Birthday Profiles, which includes descriptions of ancestors on the anniversary dates of their births. It is one good way to slow down on gathering data and focus on individuals in their totality.

Arie Kreykes: Netherlands to Iowa

My great-grandfather was born in the Netherlands 147 years ago today.

Arend Jan (“Arie”) Kreykes was born in Rijssen, Overijssel, in the eastern Netherlands, the son of Jan Willem and Hendrika Smalbrugge Kreijkes, who themselves were also born in Rijssen.

In fact, the Kreykes (Kreijkes) family dates back to at least 1690 in this region of the Netherlands, so his family’s roots there were deep when Arie, at the age of 16, crossed the ocean in 1889 on the ship Rotterdam with his parents and two of his siblings to come to America. The passenger list from their ship, shown below, shows Arie’s parents, Jan and Hendrika, as well as Arie and his older brother Johan and younger sister Jenneken.

Arie grew into adulthood somewhere near Hospers in northwestern Iowa, but I am still working out the details of precisely where. It was a region already being settled by Dutch Americans when they arrived.

Letters that Arie’s father wrote from Iowa to family and friends back in the Netherlands offer only a few snapshots of young Arie. In one letter, his father writes that Arie has been ill, and in another letter he says that Arie and his siblings are using their earnings to help pay for land on which their parents have built a house. The letters indicate that Arie is contented in America. He is the young man standing behind his mother in the picture at right.

Arie married Mattie Reitsema in 1896, when he was about 23. Mattie had also immigrated from the Netherlands as a teenager, although her family had come from Groningen in the north. Arie and Mattie had seven children, of which my grandfather, Joe Kreykes, was the fourth. One son died at the age of 2.  It is my understanding — and the Census taker’s — that Arie did learn English, though apparently he often still spoke Dutch with close family members. According to Census data, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1896. I am still researching the details. Arie and Mattie are pictured below with their family. My grandfather is the youngest boy.

Arie and Mattie raised their children in the Christian Reformed Church, the denomination of Arie’s father, and we learn in the 1911 Hospers Tribune that Arie attended, with Rev. Van der Heide, the denominational classis in Sioux Center, Iowa, as a representative of Hospers.

My mother remembers her grandfather as a man with a calm and good-natured disposition who was not easily upset. This is illustrated by an October 1918 newspaper article from the nearby town of Alton:

As Mr. Arie Kreykes drove through, three little tots of about three years old … were throwing stones at him and one hit his wind shield and went straight through. Mr. Kreykes is a good natured man and took it as a good joke. Still, parents better warn their children not to throw at cars, as men are not all like Mr. Kreykes and it is very dangerous.

As far as I know, Arie farmed for his entire working life. In a land where agriculture reigned, we learn from the Hospers Tribune in 1910 that Arie had lost one of his best horses the week before. It is rumored from a source I’ve forgotten that Arie and Mattie suffered losses to a hailstorm one year, helping to prompt their retirement and move into town. I’ve yet to determine if that is related to a story from the Boyden Reporter in 1929 telling us that

… on Friday, Jan. 18, Arie J. Kreykes will dispose of his farm machinery and stock at public auction. The Kreykes family will probably move to Hospers. Mr. Kreykes has attained the reputation of being a good farmer who has made a success in the farming business. He listed a large amount of machinery in his sale bills printed in the Reporter office and it may be well to note here that his machinery is in good shape. Comments from farmers who have viewed his livestock lately state that they are in good shape and should draw a good crowd.

By this time, Arie would have been in his late 50s, with most of his children grown. This was just before the dawn of the Great Depression and five years before the birth of my mother. Arie and Mattie eventually resided a bit farther south in Orange City, the county seat, where they were members of the First Christian Reformed Church, from which they lived just across the street.

A 1946 clipping describes the celebration of Arie and Mattie’s 50th wedding anniversary at the town hall in Orange City, with 110 guests, as well as the Men’s Society “Dient Den Heere” (“serves the Lord”) of Hospers and the Hospers Quartet. “The decorations were in gold,” the newspaper said, “and several pretty plants were set about the room.” We learn that the program consisted of a song by the audience, a prayer by Rev. Schuurman, a number by the Hospers Quartet, and several contributions and readings from their children and grandchildren, among others.

My great-grandfather turned 90 the year I was born. His wife Mattie had passed on by this time, and an open house was held for him at the home where he lived with his daughter and son-in-law. About 100 guests called on him throughout the day, according to the newspaper. Arie survived his wife by 16 years. He lived with his daughter for more than a decade, during which time the typical newspaper clippings of the day report on his visits to the homes of friends and family members and on occasional visits to the hospital. He spent a brief time in the Hull Nursing Home the year before his death in 1967 at the age of 94. He and Mattie are buried together at the Hospers Cemetery. Pictured below are Arie and Mattie in their later life with their adult children and their spouses.

From his birth in the Netherlands, to his immigration to America as a teenager, to his farming years, growing family, then quiet retirement in Iowa, my great-grandfather seems to have lived a straightforward and dignified life, and I am grateful for him, for his life decisions, and the legacy he left. Dank u wel, Arie Kreykes. Rest in perfect peace.

This is the eleventh in a series, Birthday Profiles, which includes descriptions of ancestors on the anniversary dates of their births. It is one good way to slow down on gathering data and focus on individuals in their totality.

Studying legal concepts at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy

So … last week I attended the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) for the first time. I’d been wanting to attend an institute for a while, but timing was always an issue, so with some hesitation, I signed up for SLIG this year. I’d gotten fairly familiar with Salt Lake after a couple of visits to RootsTech, but wanting something that went a little deeper than a broadly themed conference, I opted for SLIG. I sighed a little in exasperation that it was so soon after the holidays, when all I was really craving was some routine. But having committed myself in advance, I went.

One observation I’ve made is that committed genealogists are some of the smartest people I’ve met … every bit as bright as my classmates were at Georgetown Law School. I took the Legal Concepts course with Judy Russell at SLIG, and the historical legal research to which we were exposed, which included a trip to the University of Utah law library, was probably more challenging than a lot of the more contemporary research I did as a law student. I enjoyed learning about the various sources available for legal research in the 19th century and earlier … and gaining an understanding of how useful they can be in genealogy (also, the view from the law library was lovely). Understanding the legal framework in which our ancestors lived helps us to know both what kind of records to look for and what those records might mean. I think this course helped me more with the former. It also drove home to me the incredible access to legal resources I have in Austin — from the University of Texas law library, to the state law library, to the state archives — and made me realize I should make more use of them. Because pretty much none of my ancestry is grounded in Texas, I’ve tended to overlook the potential access to non-Texas resources I might find at these places.

I did finally manage to get to the Family History Library for a short while on the last day. However, as is my routine in Salt Lake, I did not carve out enough time for library work. The Saturday following SLIG was dedicated to that in the schedule, but I needed (and wanted) to get home. Unfortunately, I also got sick in the final days and arrived home not feeling well. Apparently, there is something known as the “SLIG crud,” and I can now call myself a veteran of that after my first year. I wore a facemask in class on the last day and on the plane home, to keep others from sharing in my illness. I rarely get sick, but when I do it’s often because I’ve been on a crowded flight or at a conference with lots of people, so in some ways, this wasn’t that surprising, despite my nightly downing of EmergenC starting the second day I was there.

Despite the illness, which is lingering, I’m glad to have gone. It was challenging, but I like a good challenge. The illness will pass. And it was good to meet so many enthusiastic and committed genealogists who share my excitement about this work. Most of them have been at it for longer than I have and have engaged in more serious training, so it was enlightening for me to have a chance to talk with some of them. Also, it snowed almost every day, unsurprisingly, which was a refreshing change from Austin. It was worth it to stay out of a routine for a bit longer. Now, though, I’m planning to be home for a good, long while. I might even get some research done.

Joe Kreykes: Iowa born and raised

Joe Kreykes was my maternal grandfather. He was born on this day in 1907 in Baker Township, O’Brien County — a rural area in the heart of the fertile farmlands of northwest Iowa, between the towns of Granville and Hospers. He was the son of Arend Jan (“Arie”) Kreykes and Metje (“Mattie”) Reitsema.

Both of his parents were Dutch immigrants who had come to America as teenagers with their families. The original spelling of their surname was Kreijkes. His father Arie, a farmer, was from Overijssel in the eastern Netherlands and will be the subject of a birthday profile later this month, and his mother Mattie was from Groningen in the northern Netherlands. Grandpa’s parents were married in Iowa in 1896, and he was their fourth of six children, all of whom were the first generation of their family to be born in America. My grandfather had two brothers and three sisters.

I do not know much about my grandfather’s school days except that he allegedly graduated first in his high school class of two students. At right is a picture of him, the lone boy behind the teacher, with another small class that looks to me like 6th or 8th grade if I were guessing. Even the teacher looks young.

I remember my grandfather as a mixture of seriousness and humor.

As I said in a previous post, he was a man of deep faith who read aloud to his family from the Bible every night after dinner. He was raised in the Christian Reformed Church, a conservative breakaway denomination from other expressions of the Dutch Reformed Church in America.

I’m fairly convinced that his upbringing in the CRC established his devotion to and deep knowledge of Scripture. I’ve come to respect this about my grandfather more and more, and it has become a distinguishing part of my memory of him. He joined the more mainstream Reformed Church in America when he married my grandmother, but I somewhat doubt that this fundamentally changed the way he practiced his faith.

Grandpa married my grandmother Hattie in 1930 in Boyden, Iowa. Hattie was also the daughter of Dutch immigrants, and together, they had four children — two boys and two girls. My mother was their second child and eldest daughter. Based on both my memories of him and what I’ve heard from others, Grandpa was a hard-working man who believed in self-reliance. He delivered cream for the creamery, farmed, and eventually owned a hardware store with my grandmother in Orange City, the county seat of Sioux County, Iowa.

My mother has said that when she was a girl, she enjoyed riding along in the truck with Grandpa sometimes to make deliveries from the creamery. I’ve gotten the sense from his adult children that he was a man who liked things done a certain way on the farm, and I don’t suppose he had much patience for idleness.  Mom once told me that Grandpa encouraged her to take physics in school because it “teaches you how to think.” He was not a frivolous man, but he did have an active sense of humor … and sometimes when my mother laughs, I can see him in her.

Grandpa worked hard but also enjoyed himself and took his family on vacations to New York, Texas, Colorado, and other places … more frequently, to closer places like the lakes of Minnesota or the Black Hills of South Dakota.

I remember my grandfather in his senior years as a kind but smart and no-nonsense man who communicated his standards quietly but left little doubt as to what they were. He and my grandmother were both that way.

He took it pretty much in stride when he visited us in New Mexico once and accidentally mistook a jalapeño pepper for a pickle, which obviously startled him but also left him laughing. He laughed easily, but it was a quiet laugh.

I learned after his passing that my grandfather knew more Dutch than I realized. He never really spoke it around us. There were certain words he said, though, that always seemed distinctive to me … such as the way he rolled his r’s a little when he said certain words. I wonder now if it was a little Dutch influence.

The years that I knew my grandfather were during the time they ran a hardware store in town and later when they were retired. We sometimes visited my grandparents in Orange City, where they lived in their later years, and spent a little time hanging around the store. The storefront is pictured here.

While we probably spent more of our time with our grandmother, my grandfather was always in the picture somewhere nearby. I remember him going along for ice cream and always having a stash of white peppermints handy during church services. His voice and mannerisms left a lasting impression on me, and I can still conjure them up when I think about him.

In the 1970s, as a gift from their adult children, my grandparents made a trip to the Netherlands to visit relatives and see the towns from which their parents had originated, including Rijssen, Overijssel, the home of my grandfather’s Kreykes ancestors. The picture at right is from the street Kreykesweg (or Kreijkesweg) in Rijssen.

Since his passing in 1993, my grandfather has continued to influence me. Learning more about him through my research and conversations with his family has only increased my respect and gratitude for him. I loved him very much, and I miss him. He was a good man whose life made a lasting impact.

Rest in perfect peace, Grandpa.

This is the tenth in a series, Birthday Profiles, which includes descriptions of ancestors on the anniversary dates of their births. It is one good way to slow down on gathering data and focus on individuals in their totality.

Grandpa Hendrickson: born on the first day of 1903

My late grandfather was born on the first day of 1903 in a small town in Central Iowa.  It was a Thursday and, for context, apparently the same day President Theodore Roosevelt and his wife Edith unveiled new renovations to the White House.

Just as both my grandmothers were born in March, both of my grandfathers were born in January. Today, though, is the 117th anniversary of the birth of my paternal grandfather, Carl Harold Hendrickson, in Kamrar, Iowa. He would have been born in the heart of winter. It was probably cold and there may even have been snow.

Grandpa was American through and through, but his name was pure Norwegian. His mother Petra was born near Lillehammer. His father Martin was born in western Illinois, the child of Norwegian immigrants from the Stavanger area of coastal Norway.  Grandpa’s parents had each found their way to central Iowa before marrying in 1889. My grandfather was their fourth of six children. He had one brother and four sisters. His younger sister Alice Sylvia died at age 2.

Grandpa was baptized in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, on the same day in 1907 as his younger sister Alice, and parts of his baptismal record are in Norwegian.

He grew up on a farm near Kamrar, about 30 miles north of Ames.  At right is a picture of him with what is described on the back of the photo as a “pet lamb” (though it seems to be approaching ‘sheephood’ to me). The picture below is my grandfather, probably a few years later, near the Boone River that runs through Central Iowa.  Newspaper clippings of the era indicate that he attended family reunions and events and once was in a buggy accident as a young man.

Grandpa graduated from high school in Kamrar, then attended Grinnell College in Iowa, leaving there to go to work after three years of study. His college years and his decision to leave are something I wish I had discussed with him more. He married my grandmother, Dorothy, a high school English teacher, in 1927, in Sioux City, Iowa, at which time Grandpa’s stated occupation was “clerk.” He would work in sales in one form or another for much of his working life. Although baptized and married in the Lutheran church, he was a Methodist for most of his adult life and a member of Grace Methodist of Sioux City, perhaps an influence from his mother.

He had one son, my father, whom he and my grandmother raised in the Morningside neighborhood of Sioux City, as well as four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He retired with my grandmother in southern California in the 1970s, where they both enjoyed the sunshine.

My grandfather was a social man with a healthy sense of humor but not what I would call gregarious. He was a conservative and relatively reserved man who was clearly devoted to my grandmother, whom he cared for patiently after she became ill with Parkinson’s Disease.

He was a gentleman, my grandfather … a man of his era from the Midwest. He rarely talked about himself … at least to me. I wish he had, though, and I wish I had asked more questions. Grandpa worked hard but enjoyed life, too.

My grandparents and I lived in different states but visited regularly … resulting in a collection of memories of my grandfather that seem random but probably are not.

He liked to watch and talk about football and had played a little when he was younger. When he traveled or visited some place new, he routinely collected “literature” or brochures to learn about the place he had just visited. I may have picked up this habit from him. Except in warm weather, my grandfather in his later life often wore a sweater … and that is the visual image of him I usually carry in my mind. He had definite opinions, but his manner was kind, if sometimes stubborn.

Grandpa also loved to golf, and he pursued this into his 90s before suffering a stroke in 2000 at the age of 97.  He had survived my grandmother by nine years, and I know he missed her. I reflected on the two of them in an anniversary post in November.

My grandfather’s speech patterns and mannerisms made enough of an impression on me during his lifetime that as my own father aged, I could not help but notice the uncanny similarities between them … the way they walked, a certain expression they took on when they were thinking hard about something … the older my father became, the more frequently the similarities stopped me in my tracks.

I am grateful for everything that I learned, usually more indirectly than directly, from my Grandpa Hendrickson. I loved him very much, think of him often, and miss him. May he rest forever in perfect peace.

This is the ninth in a series, Birthday Profiles, which includes descriptions of ancestors on the anniversary dates of their births. It is one good way to slow down on gathering data and focus on individuals in their totality.

Joe and Hat: Married 89 years ago today …

Today is the 89th anniversary of the marriage of my late maternal grandparents, Joe and Hattie Kreykes, in Boyden, Iowa.

Joe Kreykes married Hattie (Henrietta) Van den Bosch on Dec. 17, 1930. He was 23 and she 20. So young.  At the time, my grandfather’s occupation was listed as farmer and his residence as Hospers, Iowa, which had been home to Kreykeses for two previous generations. My grandmother’s residence was listed as Boyden, Iowa.

It was the first marriage for both, and their fathers served and signed as witnesses. The marriage was officiated by Rev. John W. Brink, “Minister of the Gospel.”  A little intuition and online research indicate that Rev. Brink was likely from First Reformed Church in Boyden.

Joe and Hat had certain things in common. They were each the first generation in their families to be born in America. Both also had parents who had been born in the Netherlands and had immigrated to Iowa as children or young adults. In fact, Joe and Hat grew up in a region dominated by Dutch immigrants and their descendants who were, at the same time, grateful Americans.

By the time of their marriage, which was at the start of the Great Depression, neither Joe nor Hat had wandered far from their birth places. Joe was born in farm country near Hospers. He was the fifth eldest of eight children. Hat was born in Capel Township near Boyden, the third eldest of eight children. She lost her mother when she was only 16, then took on more responsibilities at home. In the 1930 U.S. Census, the same year as her marriage, Hat was listed as living in the Van den Bosch family home in Boyden.

My grandparents would eventually have four children, with their first, a son, born in 1932. My mother was their second child, born two years later, and the family ultimately grew to two boys and two girls, all shown at right. My grandfather worked at various times delivering cream for the creamery, farming, and running a hardware store in town. Grandpa had grown up in the Christian Reformed Church and my grandmother in the Reformed Church in America. The former denomination had broken from the latter in the 19th century — the differences between the two, and their common origin in the Dutch Reformed faith, has a long and complex history. Joe and Hat would raise their children in the Reformed Church in America. They later were able to travel out of Sioux County on vacations throughout the country and even to the Netherlands to visit relatives.

I can’t really know much about their marriage, but I do remember my grandparents as people of deep faith, as were many in their community, and I like to think it got them through the inevitable difficulties of life in the era in which they lived. When we visited, Grandpa would read aloud to the family from the Bible every night after dinner. The man knew his Bible.

By the time I knew my grandparents, they were living in Orange City, Iowa, where they ran a hardware store and eventually retired. We’d go to the First Reformed Church on Sunday, visit friends and relatives, work in Grandma’s garden, go for ice cream, and occasionally visit the store. I’ve written before about my pleasant memories of those visits. My grandparents had high expectations for behavior, which may at times have seemed unattainable, but I don’t remember them being anything but loving toward us and I’m grateful for them still today. When I was in high school, we visited for their 50th anniversary celebration.

My grandmother battled health issues in her later years, including a bout with breast cancer and a form of dementia that may or may not have been Alzheimer’s. However, it was my grandfather we would lose first. He died in 1993 and my grandmother two years later.

I’m grateful for the legacy my grandparents left through their marriage and children and subsequent generations. I don’t know anything about how they met — maybe someone who knows will tell me. As with all of my ancestors, through good and tough times, I like to think Providence had a hand. I miss them. May they rest in perfect peace.

Lucy Van der Maaten: Oldebroek to Iowa

She was my mother’s mother’s mother’s mother. Lubbigje (“Lucy”) Van der Maaten, my 2nd great grandmother, was born on this day in 1840, in Oldebroek, a village in the province of Gelderland, in the Netherlands, to Frank Janszoon and Gerrigje Klijn.

Thus far, I know only a little about Lucy’s family of origin and her community of Oldebroek. The town is one of several communities outside the very old Dutch city of Elburg. The family’s history in the Oldebroek area goes back at least to the early 1700s, probably earlier. Lubbigje had at least three siblings, including a sister Janna. Lubbigje and Janna would eventually marry two men who were brothers, Harmen and Willem.

A third cousin recently pointed me to Dutch records that show a series of deaths in Lucy’s family of origin over a five-year span. It appears her two eldest brothers died at ages 26 and 24, just two years apart. I do not know the cause. Her father Jan died two years later, at age 71. Lucy was still only 20 at this time so had suffered some grief and loss at a young age.

Lucy was already married to Harmen (Herman) Van der Maaten when she arrived in America, most likely in the early to mid 1880s. She was reportedly his second wife and married him in Oldebroek in 1866 when she was about 25 years old. Most of their children were born in the Netherlands, including my great grandmother Mary, who was born about 1880. It is likely that a son born in 1881, Jan Willem, died in the Netherlands before the age of 2. Only their youngest daughter Stella was born in America, in 1885. At that time, the family lived in Sioux County, Iowa, a northwest part of the state that was already home to many Dutch immigrants and their descendants.

A Van der Maten family book published in 1941 speaks about the arrival in America of three of the Van der Maten siblings and their families, including Harmen and Lucy’s family, asserting that “God, in whose hand are all things, determines also the destiny of man. Therefore, we believe that it is not by chance that we are where we are. When our forefathers came to America from the Netherlands, the Lord led them.”

Lucy and Harmen are pictured together at right, seated, with their nine children. They likely had been in America for 5-10 years by the time this photo was taken. Their eldest daughter, my great grandmother Mary (Marrigje), is the serious-looking girl in the middle. I do not know many details about the lives of this generation of Van der Maatens, aside from what I have heard here and there. They lived on a farm a few miles south of Boyden and probably attended the Free Grace Reformed Church in Middleburg. It’s been said they had a regular pew, but to be honest, I don’t even recall where I heard that. Harmen, about whom I will write a birthday post next year, built a pipe organ that is now housed in a local historic home, and someone once told me that the family did enjoy music together.

Lucy died in Boyden, Iowa, on May 4, 1897, at the relatively young age of 57, unfortunately not living to see the dawn of the 20th century. She is buried in the cemetery in Middleburg, not far from Boyden. The Americanized form of Lubbijge’s name, “Lucy,” did not get passed on to her own daughters but would be used again by the family for at least two subsequent generations, with my great-grandmother Mary giving the name to her eldest daughter … my great-aunt Lucy. None of the women named Lucy were my direct ancestors, however.

It almost goes without saying that I would love to know more about my 2nd great grandmother. One of these days I will do a mitochondrial DNA test to learn more about my direct maternal line. But mostly, I hope to learn more about Lucy’s life in Oldebroek and Iowa as I continue on the family history quest. Rest in perfect peace, Lucy Van der Maaten.

This is the eighth in a series, Birthday Profiles, which includes descriptions of ancestors on the anniversary dates of their births. It is one good way to slow down on gathering data and focus on individuals in their totality.

Carl and Dorothy: Married 92 years ago today …

Today, Veterans Day, is also the 92nd anniversary of the marriage of my late paternal grandparents, Carl Hendrickson and Dorothy Clausen Hendrickson. They were married on Nov. 11, 1927, by a Lutheran pastor in Sioux City, Iowa. They were married for 64 years, until the death of my grandmother in 1991. I am grateful for the length and strength of their marriage. While I can’t know much first hand about their early married years, based on accounts from my father, an only child, they were busy and social people. I remember them that way in their later years as well.

Grandpa grew up on a farm in Kamrar, Iowa, and Grandma grew up in the nearby small town of Duncombe. Grandpa attended Grinnell College for a few years before apparently leaving to go to work. Grandma graduated from college, then taught English for a few years. He was 24 and she was 23 when they married, and his job at the time of their marriage was “clerk.”

They raised my father in the Morningside neighborhood of Sioux City, Iowa, where they lived for decades, with the exception of a brief sojourn in the town of Cherokee. They belonged to the Methodist Church. Dad once told me that Grandpa  was offered a demanding position in Chicago at some point, but he turned it down, thanking them but telling them he was a “family man” and wished to stay where he was.

Sometime around the 1970s, my grandparents retired in Escondido, California, near San Diego, where they enjoyed the sunshine, and where in their later years both spent a few years volunteering at the local hospital. They also enjoyed traveling together. We visited them several times in the summer. I think my first airplane ride may have been to San Diego to visit them … but usually we drove. They took walks with us in the early evenings in Escondido, and they took us to SeaWorld, the Wild Animal Park, and the San Diego Harbor, among other places.  My grandfather, who lived to be 97, survived my grandmother by nine years. I know how much he must have missed her. They are buried together at Oak Hill Memorial Park in Escondido. I miss them very much. May they rest in perfect peace.

My grandmother was a subject of one of my birthday profiles earlier this year: Dorothy Hendrickson, 1904-1991. I’ll be taking a closer look at my grandfather for his birthday profile in January.