Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011 Historical Magazine of The Archives Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary 1855 Knollcrest Circle SE Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 pagepage 12 page 31 (616) 526-6313 Origins is designed to publicize 2 From the Editor 20 “When I Was a Kid,” part III and advance the objectives of Meindert De Jong, with The Archives. These goals 4 In the Bowels of the City, 1990 Judith Hartzell include the gathering, Larry VanderLeest organization, and study of 30 “Bless the Lord, O My Soul” 10 Heartside Neighborhood, The Bible’s Infl uence on the Dutch historical materials produced by 1850–2000 the day-to-day activities of the Immigrants 150 Years Robert P. Swierenga Christian Reformed Church, H. J. Brinks its institutions, communities, and people.

Richard H. Harms Editor Hendrina Van Spronsen Circulation Manager Tracey L. Gebbia Designer H.J. Brinks Harry Boonstra Janet Sheeres Associate Editors James C. Schaap Robert P. Swierenga Contributing Editors

HeuleGordon Inc. ppageage 38 page 43 Printer 35 Different Worlds: The RCA and 43 Book Review the CRC 1850–1900 Harry Boonstra Harry Boonstra 45 Book Notes Cover photo: Trash collecting in Chicago. 46 For the Future upcoming Origins articles 47 Contributors from the editor . . .

Available On-Line now open for research. Copies of We added the 2010 family informa- the inventory have already been sent tion from Banner notices to fi les to scholars in Grand Rapids; McAl- available via our website (http://www. len, Texas; and Seoul, South Korea. calvin.edu/hh/Banner/Banner.htm) These individuals will soon be using where we currently provide more this collection along with those of than 60 thousand citations to Banner Paul Schrotenboer, Peter Steen, and This Issue family information for the years 1985- Bernard Zylstra when examining the The current issue contains a variety 2010. Since 2007 we have been plac- Christian philosophy of Dooyeweerd of articles written by authors most ing links to digital versions of Origins and Vollenhoven. of whom who have previously been online at http://www.calvin.edu/hh/ Fourteen cubic feet of records were published in Origins. H.J. Brinks, the origins/Origins_Main_Page.htm once added to our collection of Christian founding editor of Origins, has a his- the issues are three years old—2005- school records. The additional mate- tory of the old Dutch neighborhood in 2008 are now available electronically rial came from schools (primarily Grand Rapids, now called Heartside; as PDF fi les. We have also begun to Oakdale and Sylvan) closed because Harry Boonstra reviews the complex scan earlier issues into PDF image of the recent reorganization in Grand relationship between the Reformed fi les, whose image quality is marginal, Rapids. The collection now totals 85 Church in America and the Christian but the text is very readable. Cur- cubic feet and documents the history Reformed Church; Robert Swierenga rently we have links to volumes 1-8 of schools from throughout Canada reports on the central role of the Bible (1983-1990) on our website and will and the United States. We organized among nineteenth-century Dutch add more as we are able to scan more and opened for research the records immigrants; and we present the third copies. of the Christian Reformed Church’s installment of Meindert De Jong’s Psalter Hymnal Revision Committee, autobiography. Larry Vander Leest, a News from the Archives 1977-1987, as well as the records of fi rst-time author in Origins, describes The H. Evan Runner papers have Epicenter Community CRC, a dis- one summer experience driving for a been processed and the fi nding aid continued congregation in Bradenton, garbage hauling fi rm in Chicago. completed so that the collection is Florida.

2 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

We received the congressional extensively annotated minutes of the subscription rate remains at $10, even papers (30 cubic feet), 1994-2010, Christian Reformed Church synods, though $10 no longer covers the cost of Vernon Ehlers. Plans call for more 1857-1881. for the two mailings a year. We are material to be transferred from his most grateful to our supporters, many years in local and state politics. The Staff of whom contribute well above the fi rst research physicist elected to con- Richard Harms is the curator of the subscription cost.D gress, Ehlers represented Michigan’s Archives; Hendrina Van Spronsen is 3rd Congressional District, 1993- the offi ce coordinator; Wendy Blank- 2011. Both Ehlers and his congres- espoor is librarian and cataloging sional predecessor, Paul B. Henry, had archivist; Melanie Vander Wal is de- been on the faculty of Calvin College partment assistant; Dr. Robert Bolt is Richard H. Harms and placed their papers in the ar- fi eld agent and assistant archivist. Our chives. student assistant is Jessica Nieboer. Recently received and yet-to-be Our volunteers include Rev. Dr. Paul organized materials include additional Bremer, Mrs. Willene De Groot, Mr. records from the CRC’s Sesquicenten- Ed Gerritsen, Mr. Fred Greidanus, Mr. nial Planning Committee, 2000-2007; Ralph Haan, Mrs. Helen Meulink, Rev. the research fi les of H. J. Brinks; Gerrit W. Sheeres, Mrs. Janet Sheeres, records from a variety of college, and Mr. Ralph Veenstra. seminary, and denominational offi ces. Endowment Fund Publications Thanks to investment markets that By the time this issue goes to press, continue to improve and the gener- Kurt Selles’s history of the Christian osity of many Origins subscribers, Reformed Church mission effort in our endowment fund has a current China will be published. Our next value of $469,539. Because of the project will be the translated and revenue from this balance our annual

3 In the Bowels of the City, 19901 Larry VanderLeest

nit 23—Base here.” The speaker “Uh . . . I don’t know. The Mart’s Ublasted out the words in a by the river. Can’t miss it. I think I’ll “scratchy fashion. I grabbed for the take Wells, I guess.” As soon as the fi nger-worn mike attached to the words left my mouth, I knew it wasn’t dash as I blissfully sailed through the the right answer. “Why?” I asked the stoplights on Randolph. Driving in mike, “Which one am I supposed to the Loop at 4:30 a.m. is pure luxury, take?” I was thinking. “If you’ve dropped Another moment of silence, un- your empty at 333 Wacker, head to the comfortably long. Mart. You’re after a 20-yarder, in the “Look, 23, you’re not going there cave.” in your car, remember. And you’re not going shopping. You been to the cave?” “To a cave? Yea, sure. I’ve been to some caves. Been to Mammoth Cave, Cave of the Ozarks and . . .” “Look, Unit 23,” thundered the voice from base, “I’m not in the %*# mood. I mean the cave, where we keep our containers, under the Merchandise Mart.” “The what?” I threw my question back into the black piece of plastic in my hand, now sure something was wrong. “Just as I thought.” . . . a long pause When the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, Illinois, opened in 1930, it was the . . . “summer idiot.” . . . another pause largest building in the world with 4 million square feet of fl oor space. As the author notes, providing services (such as trash removal) to such a large and apparently some thinking going structure came with its own logistics. Image courtesy of the author. on back at base. “You ain’t been there, have you? I wondered if I’d sent you. “Roger.” I shouted back, eager to af- The other dispatchers haven’t either, fi rm that I had heard the message and apparently.” glad that I, by accident, was heading By now, I had double-parked on in the right direction. Wells Street as close to the side as I A moment of silence from the little dared without taking off a few car black box hanging from the ceiling in fenders. I put on my fl ashers and ap- A native of Chicago, Larry Vander Leest my cab. plied the air brake. I had been on the for thirty years was a teacher and ad- “Unit 23?” road for thirty minutes—max. Yet, I ministrator in the Chicago area, as well as “working on the truck” during break “Yes, Base?” could tell another adventure was com- periods. He and his wife Kathy own and “Aren’t you going to ask which ing and this radio discussion needed operate The Bluff, a bed and breakfast slot? . . . Hey, wait a minute . . . you my complete attention. on Whidbey Island, Washington. ever been there? Which street are you “OK, Base. I’m parked, got pen and gonna take?” paper, and ready for directions.”

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The crackly voice was hesitant. realized it was cheaper to employ me met one of the Hovings. To the men “You ain’t ever been there . . . ” he at a non-union rate than paying over- who pulled out of his old buildings on repeated. The idea seemed hard for the time to a regular. Halsted, Sam Hoving, the old wooden man to digest. “I can’t give you @&*% Two years ago (in 1988) this cor- shoe founder of the business, was as directions to that place over the radio. poration tried to shed its Neanderthal remote as George Washington or Abe . . .” Another pause . . . more thinking. image and words such as scavenger Lincoln. “Gol’ dang it. I ain’t got anybody else and disposal; and was absorbed by Sam (Siert), the fi rstborn son of in the area right now, either.” I could BFI.2 Now that they were such a Abel Hoving and Trijntje Tillema, almost hear his brain grinding. “Unit modern corporation, they tried to fool immigrants from Loppersum, Gron- 23, I’ll walk you through it; that’s what the public into thinking that all the ingen, the Netherlands, had worked I’ll do. Head for LaSalle Street, going rubbish they picked up was magically the streets of Chicago with his team north. When you’re over the river, get recycled into paper, food, and 100 of horses during the second decade of back to me.” percent oxygen. the twentieth century, and had only “Ten four, Base.” I gladly jammed Such glory in the garbage-hauling purchased his fi rst truck, a Diamond the mike back in its cradle, happy to business! Reo, in 1926. His two sons (Abel and quit this pleasant conversation. Dis- Somewhere along the way, we Dick) carried on—expanding the patcher Ken didn’t like me—that was drivers lost our names as well, it now business, investing in a larger garage, obvious. What I ever did to him was being policy to call us by our truck buying farmland out west for dump- a mystery. Heck, we hadn’t seen each number. That, and the fact that we ing—and were among the fi rst haulers other for nine months. But perhaps were required to weigh in at the scale in Chicago to use hydraulic pack- that was simply it. I was just a part- before and after every load, record ers. For decades, trucks bearing the timer and did not quite qualify in his every move in our log books, and were name Sam Hoving & Sons, Scavengers mind. terminated if we were caught keeping crawled through the alleys and streets This was my third stint for the gar- any item found in the trash, combined of downtown Chicago. Many build- bage-hauling fi rm of BFI (Browning- to make this job more onerous. ings displayed the offi cial markers ad- Ferris Industries). Each season I was Sure, I told myself, the trucks now vertising to anyone who might wonder learning more of their vast repertoire had FM band radios with tape decks; that this stop was the domain of Sam of stops throughout the metropolitan air conditioned cabs, nice paint jobs, and his family. However, by now all area. And by my reckoning, this was and fully synchronized transmissions. such signs of Hoving & Sons were in my twelfth summer on the garbage And yes, we were all issued crisp the trash heap of the past. truck, spread out over some thirty uniforms, the old garage had been I knew this is the way of Chicago— years of being a student, then teacher. renovated, and a lunchroom installed. constantly redoing itself. Like the Now that I was back in the saddle, I But, I wondered, was I just becoming hated S-Curve on Lake Shore Drive, could see that things were changing an old romantic, looking back with the odorous Chicago stockyards, or in this business. I had worked one a rose-tinted vision of the good old the red lip Magi-Kist billboards, the summer for this same company back days? It was obvious that the old ways old businesses, ways, and men were in the 1970s when it was known as were surely disappearing, and I could swept aside, buried, and forgotten. Hoving & Sons. Since then, it had sense from several veterans their frus- I wasn’t in that category yet, but for grown to become a citywide behemoth trations as well. the fi rst time, I could sense it com- that employed hundreds. When the For a few years after the Hoving ing. Dispatcher Ken was at least ten Hovings sold out to a conglomerate buyout, many of the trucks still car- years my junior. Getting orders from a known as City Disposal Systems, the ried the family name on the doors, younger source was unnerving. family members stayed with the com- though in smaller print. Nevertheless, In all the summers I had driven for pany for a time. Now, with the excep- by 1990, the Hoving ticket books, Hoving & Sons/City Disposal/BFI, I tion of two great-grandsons employed Hoving container decals, and Hoving had never been sent to the lower level in some suburban offi ce building, no jackets had long disappeared. Now it of the Merchandise Mart. I gathered Hoving remained in the business. In was called BFI, as generic a name as that where I was headed now, was not fact, it was only through two longtime one could come up with. the Mart that most know. I had the gut drivers and a manager that I was able Indeed, from what I could gather, feeling that I was to go down deep, to to get this job as vacation help. Their very few of the workers knew the its literal foundation. Driving north on offi ce was eager to oblige when they company’s history, let alone had ever LaSalle, over the river, I observed the

5 massive structure on my left. The Mer- Unit 23. I see the chandise Mart was a mammoth edifi ce dock on my left. Is to commercialism; created by Marshall that where I’m go- Field in 1930, purchased later by Ken- ing?” nedy wealth, it was now a showcase of “Nah, you got clothes, furniture, and other durable a long ways to go goods. yet. That’s for the Crossing over the still dark Chicago delivery trucks, the River with the lights of the city spar- eighteen wheelers, kling on the water’s surface, I picked and such. Keeping up the mike and called my friend Ken. the dock on your “Base, this is 23 . . . on LaSalle. Over.” left, head back The speaker-box came to life. “Unit south, toward the 23, listen carefully now. I’m going to river. You’re going talk you through this, right down to to fi nd a little road- Because of the signifi cantly reduced traffi c levels, the nighttime hours are the easiest to provide service trucks to large cities like Chicago. the cave. We got three boxes there, ya way running along Image courtesy of the author. hear. But don’t get the idea that there’s the water. Can you a lot of room.” Ken’s sense of impor- see the river up ahead? Over.” right is the water, to your left, an old tance was growing by the second. The surface below my tires had dock that they don’t use anymore. Am “Rather tight down in the cave; that’s now deteriorated into dirt mixed I correct?” why we call it the cave. Got that?” with gravel. I was in a dark and down “Ten-four.” Sarcasm dripped out of the speaker world, heading back in time. The area “Getting kind of tight down there, and landed on the fl oor next to me. was rather wide, but with a height 23?” “Yes, Base,” I replied, “I’m all ears.” of perhaps only fourteen feet. Rows “Correcto, Base. I take it there’s “Turn right on Kinzie and go about and rows of concrete beams held up room to turn around at the end? This a hundred feet. First right you see, the massive ceiling of the cavernous would be a long ways to back up.” turn again. They built a little alleyway loading dock, each bearing the scars “You’ll have room, 23. You will under the Mart years ago. That’s where of attacks by trucks over many years. need to do some maneuvering, but the you’re headed. With me?” Gouges marked with various colors others do it.” “Right, then another right.” I re- indicated that drivers had unsuc- Feeling pressure now from sev- peated, and hung up the ‘phone.’ cessfully maneuvered their vehicles eral directions, I continued traveling I turned, lumbered down a block, around the supports. The thought parallel to and barely two feet above and turned right again. I said goodbye struck me that a few key beams, hit the Chicago River, separated by an to the city as I began my descent, the by an out-of-control truck, could fail, old concrete and brick rampart that walls of the LaSalle Street Bridge arch- and the Mart, one of the larger struc- showed cracks and a few gaping ing over and on either side of me. As I tures in the world, would collapse. My holes. The path I was on—it couldn’t began my trip into this netherworld, I truck and I would never be found. be called a road by any stretch—was fi gured I would not see the sky again I continued my southerly direc- barely wide enough for my rig to navi- for a while. The concrete surface tion now at a crawl, seeing off in the gate. I plunged ahead, because I knew underneath my truck had deteriorated distance a grayish hue that appeared others had done so, and Dispatcher to gravel. to be a wall. In a few moments, the Ken said to. A few aging lights on the walls barrier in question drew near and I On my left, pillars by the score, tried to penetrate the gloom, but their realized it was the river itself. Just as coated with city grime, and the oc- efforts failed miserably. My headlights I was convinced my route had hit a casional graffi ti. Faintly visible in the shot dusty beams into the growing dead-end, the track I was following gloom of the early morning dawn gray. Somewhere down here is a loading veered again to the left, and dutifully, and almost obscured by the forest of area, I thought to myself. Can’t be that I turned. concrete trees, appeared twenty or hard to fi nd. “Unit 23 to Base. I’m heading east more loading docks, all worn from age Soon the wall of concrete on my left again. How far up ahead is this cave?” and use, seemingly abandoned by the opened to indicate a truck dock, and “You got a ways to go, 23.” He newer, larger trucks. On my right, the I turned in, grabbing the mike. “Base, repeated, almost chuckling. “On your wall of old mortar and stone that kept

6 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

the dark Chicago River and me apart. left the city lights and open sky, I had At that precise moment, the wall Above, aging iron beams, encrusted done a full 360°. With no recourse but became a door and began to rise. An with decades of pigeon droppings and to follow my nose, I swung my truck ugly, yellow glare fell upon soil that remains of nests. I gathered that this and, like before, there was just enough had not seen daylight or rain since was not on the list of must-see sights room to clear the supports. Someone construction of the Mart. The wall/ for the city Bureau of Tourism. years ago had planned this route for door continued its ascent to reveal yet Where was my guiding voice send- a truck of this size and not one foot another passageway. In the low light, I ing me, I wondered? I’m to pick up a longer. detected three well-used Hoving-now- container box down here? How would And there, ten yards distant, il- become-BFI roll-off containers. On that be possible? I observed that the luminated by my headlights, appeared the concrete landing stood a security ceiling had now dwindled to a height a wall of steel. My progress was fi nally guard who had just pushed the magic of not more than eleven feet. Where at an end. I recalled Tom Sawyer and button. I found myself where no would I turn around? How would I his misadventure in a cavern along the tourists and very few Chicagoans ever raise my hoist? One of the cardinal Mississippi. By now I was surrounded get, yet alone know exist. I was duly rules of driving truck is to never get by massive wooden beams, more logs impressed. into a position that you can’t back out than lumber. I pictured the builders of “Base, you’re the man . . . I’m here! of. Yet here I was, plummeting straight the Mart harvesting these immense old Hey—how did they know to open the into a hole. For reassurance, I reached oaks from the ruins of Fort Dearborn door just when I pulled up?” for the mike. and delivering them to this spot. The “I have one of these new things Ken must have read my mind, be- ceiling of the Mart had dwindled to called a phone, Unit 23. Wonderful cause before I could press the button, one foot higher than my cab. A feeling invention, the phone.” More drips on “Keep going straight,” came squawk- of claustrophobia began to creep upon my fl oor. ing out of the box. me. I felt a kinship with the mummies Grudgingly, I had to admit Dis- I returned the mike to the cradle, of Egypt. patcher Ken was right. There was feeling admonished for my lack of “Unit 23 to Base.” I whispered, so room to make a tight turn. Thankful faith, and kept the truck moving at as to not wake the dead. “Can you for power steering, I fi nagled my truck a slow idle. In the murky distance, hear me down here?” around and began to cable up. Bring- another wall was looming larger. My “Loud and clear 23. Did you fi nd ing the box up on the rails proved truck and I had become a mole, bur- the door yet?” uneventful, with the hoist and the rowing further into the box clearing the ceiling by a full two under city. inches. From the telling gashes in the Fifty yards to the wall. ceiling supports, it was obvious other The river on my right, an- drivers weren’t as fortunate. cient columns on my left. As the guard was signing the ticket, Ceiling almost scraping my a fellow BFI truck came lumbering in cab. Thirty yards—I will to my little world. His entrance was follow his directions ex- marked by a swift sure approach and plicitly. I’ll just hit the wall a cloud of dust, the sign of an expe- at fi ve mph. It won’t hurt rienced traveler in this tight confi ne. the truck or me. That’ll This truck and the guy driving it was show him. Unit 17, a vaguely familiar face from Just when I could see no past summers, and from appearances, possibility of continuing, a man in his late fi fties. The massive there, in the shadows, a build of his torso and wrinkled gray cavity appeared on the left hair was striking. I fi gured the driver side. Four times, when it had a name, but recalling the new seemed I was about to hit a company policy, couldn’t verify that. dead end, another hole ap- He was delivering an empty box to the peared to the right for my A typical loading dock where new material is delivered and slot where I had just pulled the full. from which waste is hauled away. In front of the dock to the truck to wiggle into and an far left is an enclosed waste container that can be loaded onto We conversed for a short while on alley to follow. Since I had a truck. Image courtesy of the author. the narrowness of our world here and

7 the right and wrong ways of working Seen many guys come and go. I seen and carefully scanned the surface in in such a small space. I fi gured he had the Hovings go as well. I knew the the dim light of our trucks’ beams. this cave thing down pat. “It looked brothers. Abe was okay, sometimes. “It’s been years since I last seen it, but like you could do that last turn in Me? I got along with Dick the best I think it’s over here somewhere. . . . your sleep, 17. Been down here many [Abe and Dick were sons of Sam – I don’t think anybody would take times, I take it?” ed.]. He hired me, one “Yea, dey send me to the cave a lot, of the fi rst blacks to cuz I’m good at dis place. Yet, I tell ya, work for the company. man, I always feels da butterfl ies when I always appreciated I’m down here. Near as I unnerstan, that.” they only send four or fi ve guys.” He “Hey,” I exclaimed, laughed a deep chuckle. “You should breaking all protocol, feel good, 23, dat dey even thinks you “I think I remem- can handle it.” He paused and thought ber you from when a bit. “Hey—man, maybe dis summer I worked for Hov- dey gonna send you here more and me ings while in college. less.” That seemed to tickle his funny What’s your name?” bone, and he let out a good laugh. He looked around. “How long you been with City?” I “I’m Arthur, but don’t asked. tell the base I told you The hydraulic cylinders on a truck used to raise one end of a roll-off “Long time, man. I was here way that!” and we both for emptying. Image courtesy of the author. back when dis was called Hoving,” laughed. he proudly pointed out. “Dat’s a long I shared with him that I had it down.” He was talking to the old time ago!” worked for the company one summer wooden supports as much as to me, “So you knew that BFI used to be back in 1970. It struck us both, then, scraping the old grime away with his Hoving & Sons,” I marveled. “I didn’t that we had known each other once gloves. “Not too many knew it was think any of the workers here lasted before, separated by a span of twenty even here. C’mon now fella . . . where any longer than fi ve years. Did you years. A bond, the tie of age, drew us are you?” ever meet John Hoving [brother of together. Arthur/17 continued rubbing at the Sam – ed.] or his brothers?” “Hey, 23.” His aging dark eyes glit- age-encrusted walls, as we stood some “Hey, 23. Cut me some slack. Dis is tered. “I bet you’ll be interested in see- sixty feet below the city street. Within my thirty-third year. I’m an old garbio. ing something over here, something a minute, however, he turned to me oldero than bot’ you and smiling and proudly pointed at a small me.”m And he headed tin plate bolted to one of the supports. to a far corner of the “Ain’t that something for the muse- loadinglo area, motion- ums, 23?” ingin that I should follow With several swipes of my glove, him.h I could make out the words Samuel My curiosity was Hoving, Scavenger—Telephone Olympic up,u and I followed him 2-5647. warily,w “What’s that, “There, told you that it was down Arthur,A I mean, 17? here somewhere. Dis thing is old, 23.” WhatW you got over I did some quick math. “Some fi fty there?”th I wondered if years, if it’s a day!” heh had committed the We looked at each other, then back unpardonableu sin and at the small 4x6-inch metal emblem. stasheds some old brass At that moment, time stood still. oro copper piping in a The rumble of the cars and trucks Roll-offs (also commonly but erroneously called dumpsters) are rectangular boxes with wheels that allow the containers to be easily hidingh place. above us, even at this early hour, was pulled off or on to tracks for hauling away waste. Image courtesy of He approached the an annoying backdrop. I pictured Sam the author. wall nearest the door Hoving bolting that plaque to the wall

8 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

ttrash and box from the left slot. Found it with ggarbage. This no problem. Got out of there without ttrek might scraping my head on the ceiling as hhave been well.” aan arduous I thought a second; then added, jojourney, but “Hey, I like the cave, Base. Wouldn’t it must have mind going there in the future. ” bbeen sweet to “Base to 23. Yea, well, forget about ttheir bank ac- it. Haven’t you read the papers? ccount as well. They’re doing a major renovation at TThe stop was the Mart, starting this summer. In a sstill making week or two, that whole area going mmoney de- be all torn up and cleaned out. Ev- ccades later. erything down there going into the I soon landfi ll. About time, too. Nothing but A waste transfer station where solid waste is unloaded from smaller volume ssaid good- worthless old stuff. ” collection vehicles and reloaded onto larger vehicles for shipment to landfi lls or bye to my “Ten-four, Base.”o other treatment or disposal facilities. Image courtesy of the author. reacquainted friend and, Endnotes more than half a century ago as he minutes later, found myself in the 1. This is based on a chapter from claimed the massive new Merchandise glow of the newly risen sun on LaSalle Vander Leest’s book, Garbio: Stories of Mart his territory, hoping to build Street. I was feeling good about myself Chicago, Its Garbage and the Dutchmen his company based on its commerce. now, for I was a veteran of the cave Who Picked It Up. 2. In 1999 BFI was sold to Allied Hundreds, no, thousands of times he, and fi gured I wouldn’t mind taking Waste Industries, which in 2008 was his sons, and his workers ventured that trip again. I grabbed for the mike, purchased by Republic Services, Inc. down into the cave to bring forth the “Unit 23 to base. Coming in with the

A roll-off being emptied at a dumping facility. Image courtesy of the author.

9 Heartside Neighborhood, 1850–2000 150 Years

H. J. Brinks

Introduction The Heartside neighborhood, a rect- appealing residential area than that to angular segment of downtown Grand the west extending to the riverbank. Rapids, did not receive this name until Along Ionia, Spring, and Division the 1960s, but the area had already streets, between Fulton on the north been developed a century earlier. Its and Wealthy to the south, Dutch im- fi rst identity stemmed from commer- migrants clustered and, after 1850, cial activity on the Grand River’s east defi ned the neighborhood with their bank—docks, riverboats, and lum- inexpensive housing, native language, ber mills attracted a boisterous and church, school, and several retail transient work force. Railroad tracks outlets. split the area in the 1860s, making After the Union Railroad Depot the terrain east of the tracks a more was built on Ionia Street in 1870 the

H. J. Brinks is an emeritus professor of history at Calvin College, former cura- tor of the Archives, and founding editor of Origins. He has written extensively about the Dutch in North America, including Dutch American Voices published in 1995. A 1947 image of the central section of Grand Rapids from the north, with the Heartside Neighborhood outlined in the top left quadrant. Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin College.

10 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

residential neighborhood began to in favor of direct deliveries and less displaced residents from the renewed change. Warehousing, brokerage, expensive warehousing on the edges city center to South Division Avenue and cartage businesses fed upon the of the city. Consequently many of which offered inexpensive accom- opportunities created by railroad Heartside’s commercial buildings modations for a desperately poor traffi c, which increased rapidly as were under used or began to stand populace.1 furniture making began to domi- empty. Neglect and decay followed. Since then, and especially during nate the regional economy. Increas- Heartside hotels began to serve the last two decades, a number of ingly railroad workers and dock and economically strapped pensioners, agencies have combined their efforts warehouse employees occupied the migrant laborers, and people disad- to improve Heartside’s physical and walk-up fl ats, while hotels began to vantaged by physical and mental ill- social environment. Dwelling Place cater to sales people associated with nesses. Urban renewal compounded Incorporated has been exceptionally the furniture business. Tenements social distress in Heartside by shifting effective in renovating and managing provided low-cost housing for several immigrant groups, including African Americans. Consequently the Dutch Gerald Ladwig Remembers gradually began to move southward from the area. Symbolic of this trend, H.J. Brinks the original Dutch Reformed church building on Ionia was moved fi ve n a 1997 interview with H. J. Brinks, Gerald Ladwig, who attended Catholic Central High, which, with St. Andrew’s Cathedral, is located in Heartside’s blocks to the corner of Goodrich and I southeastern quadrant, remembers the area well. He walked its streets during his Finney, where it was remodeled as a high school years, 1945-1949, worked on the railroad docks, and lived in two of its tenement house. hotels for brief periods. For about ninety years, 1871- 1961, Heartside was a commercial The Cody Hotel stood at the southwest corner of Division Avenue and Fulton sector which housed a work force Street. One entered the basement of the billiard room from Fulton Street. As I linked to railroads and the distribu- recall the room had between ten and twelve Brunswick pool tables. They were tion of freight. By the 1890s that the standard 4 by 9 size, and appeared to be late nineteenth-century models. The click of the ivory cue ball hitting the object ball was to this sixteen-year- business sector expanded suffi ciently old boy a mesmerizing attraction. to require a new and larger Union Station, together with a massive One door south of the Cody Hotel was a popular watering hole named Wes Ra- train shed. Because a great portion mey’s Sports Bar. The owner, Wes Ramey, died in 1996 but during the twenties of Heartside’s work force was male, and thirties Wes Ramey was an outstanding professional boxer in the welter- single, and mobile, hotel rooms, weight division. The fact that he was never a world champion had more to do boarding houses, and apartment with politics than with his boxing ability. buildings fl ourished. In 1890 the city He set up a boxing ring in the bar’s basement where aspiring amateur and supported forty hotels with a capacity professional boxers could sharpen their skills. One of Ramey’s more famous of 3,000. Most of these accommoda- boxers, Pete Meade, was a young, raw-boned farmer from Truman, Arkansas, tions were strung out along Division who was once ranked in the top ten of the middleweight division. Avenue south of Fulton. Meanwhile the space between Division Avenue In 1957 the Milner Hotel group bought the Cody, razed it, and sold the proper- and the Union Station fi lled with ty to the city. Parking Ramp 2 stood on that location for years until it was razed several years ago, recently a structure with commercial space at ground level warehouses, brokerage houses, ga- and parking above was constructed. A transplanted Canadian named Snook rages, and light industry. bought some of the pool equipment from the Cody Hotel and opened another In 1960 the Union Station and its billiard room named Chinnick’s on the second fl oor of the Zondervan book- steel-girder train shed were dis- store. Snook’s billiard room attracted many of the best players in the Grand mantled to make space for the US Rapids area including its world reigning three-cushion champion, Harold 131 expressway exit ramp. Spawned Worst. by the growing interstate highway system, the volume of truck transport Directly across the street from Wes Ramey’s bar was the Herald Square cut deeply into railway freight traffi c continued on page 13 and bypassed downtown warehouses

11 member families. The 1860 census counted seventy-four households in or near the current boundaries of Heartside. During the congrega- tion’s fi rst decade, Dutch Christian Reformed immigrants worshiped in a plain rectangular wood structure on the northwest corner of Ionia and Weston streets, a site now shaded by the Van Andel Arena. In 1867 the congregation erected a new sanctuary on 57 Commerce Street where the fi rst pastor, Rev. Wilhelmus Van Leeuwen, laid the cornerstone. The structure was ample, with a seating capacity of 1,300 and it was ornamented with a clock tower and raised pulpit modeled after Reformed church architecture in the Netherlands. In 1887 membership peaked at 1,800 but in 1910, with only 500 members, the congregation decided to relocate to Bates Street. Its parish ioners had moved elsewhere The area of Oakes and Ionia in front of the Union Railroad Station early in the twentieth century was originally a Dutch neighborhood in Grand Rapids. Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin and Polk’s Grand Rapids City Directory College. in 1910 records only fourteen Dutch householders on Commerce and Wil- about fi ve hundred rooms and apart- was the nerve center of the fl edgling liams streets—once the vital core of ments. The remodeled Herkimer Hotel Christian Reformed Church (CRC). the ethnic enclave. is a showcase of that effort. Private Its landmark edifi ce, Spring Street During its vigorous heyday Heart- agencies—Heartside Ministries, In the Christian Reformed Church, stood on side’s Dutch enclave supported an Image Clothing, God’s Kitchen, the what is now number 57 Commerce array of ethnically linked business- Dégagé Coffee House, the Guiding Street.2 In 1876 the denomination’s es—Steketee and Kim (dry goods); Light, and Mel Trotter missions—have theological students gathered in the Brink’s Grocery; Van Driele’s Flour, joined the long-standing Salvation upper rooms of the Dutch-language Feed, and Grain; along with a wooden Army and Goodwill Industries to school on number 43 Williams shoe outlet. These and other aspects serve the neediest segment of Heart- Street while the CRC weekly Dutch- of the community are evident in the side’s residents. language periodical De Wachter was correspondence of Marten Jacobus headquartered at 42 Commerce Street. Schoonbeek who arrived there in Ethnic Enclave 1850–1900 These institutions were surrounded 1873. Marten’s seven-member house- That neighborhood has always at- and supported by a large cluster of hold, together with four other fami- tracted the least opulent segments of Dutch immigrants, the fi rst distinct lies, could fi nd no housing on their Grand Rapids people. Its fi rst inhabit- ethnic enclave in Grand Rapids.3 Saturday-morning arrival and spent ants were riverboat hands, shipyard Netherlanders had begun settling their fi rst two nights in a barn. workers, blacksmiths, and warehouse in the area during the 1850s because On Monday, an acquaintance from workers who spent short periods of it offered unskilled jobs, low-cost the province of Groningen, Geert Stel, time and nearly all of their wages in housing, and ready access both to offered his basement as temporary the taverns and rooming houses of the work places and retail stores. By 1857, quarters for the Schoonbeeks at num- quarter. Dutch immigrants, many on when the fi rst congregation organized ber 46 Commerce Street. Within a few welfare in the Netherlands, replaced and built a $3,000 structure on Ionia weeks the family relocated to one of these workers and by 1876 Heartside Street, it attracted about fi fty charter- Piet Otte’s apartments, just two doors

12 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

away from Geert Stel’s home. Schoon- I am required to teach the children hundred students on August 11, beek wrote, well enough so they can read and 1873, one day after my forty-eighth write Dutch. They learn other sub- birthday. . . . It was rather lively here Piet Otte and his wife are Hollanders. jects in the English [public] schools.7 at fi rst and I doubted that I could In fact most people around here are I teach from Monday through Friday, hold out, but now, after eight weeks, Hollanders. . . . Geert Stel has been in 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The prospects I am getting used to it. Still, these Grand Rapids for about three years. He are good because people can live Yankees are uncivilized rascals and was in debt when he came but he now well here on $10.00 per week. So I not easy to control.8 has his own house and another which opened the school with about one has two rental fl ats. He told me that he receives rental of $4.50 per month for them.4 continued from page 11 Restaurant. It was a very popular eatery in the Heartside area. Nothing fancy, For his fl at Schoonbeek paid Piet just good food at a reasonable price; its customers included workers from Otte $2.00 monthly, but within ninety both local newspapers. Dodds record shop occupies the spot where the Herald days Schoonbeek was building a new Square Restaurant stood. home at 36 Logan Street SE. The lot, Just beyond the intersection of Division and Weston on the west side of the purchased from Jacobus De Jong, stood street stood the Show Bar. In its heyday the Show Bar was one of Grand Rapids’ two doors east of Division Avenue on better night clubs. It featured a revolving bar inside a standard bar and on the fringe of the city. Marten wrote, weekends live music with well-known musicians. I was there when they hosted the famous Dixieland trumpeter Muggsy Spanier. We have a fi ne house built entirely of wood, but wood is cheap here, $14.00 The middle thirties brought a young man named Tommy Brann to the Heart- for one thousand linear board feet. side area and he decided to open up a combination stag bar and restaurant. One side of the house is decorated The business prospered. People who ate at the original restaurant testify they with eight windows that have eight had some of the best steaks in town. There are now over a half dozen Brann panes. Each window costs $1.80 and restaurants in the Grand Rapids and Holland area. Some years ago the original they are well made.5 Brann’s restaurant closed its doors. The place reopened under new management and calls itself the Cell, which caters to gays and lesbians. Across the street Two months later Marten added, from the Cell, the Promenade caters to male homosexuals. “We have come to the point here About a block and a half south of the Show Bar on the same side of the street where our lot must be fenced to was Oscar Sear’s Red Mill. The Red Mill, like the Show Bar, featured live music enclose the garden . . . cows roam on weekends, and the word on the street was that on the second fl oor of the bar wherever there are no fences.” there was a bookmaking operation. Schoonbeek’s one-time neighbor on Commerce, Willem Hendrik De The Herkimer Hotel, at 323 South Division, has recently been completely Lange, also arrived in 1873, and pro- refurbished. The original Herkimer Hotel was built in the latter part of the nineteenth century, during the high tide of a local temperance movement so vided a description of the area and his that the management decided to have no bar in the hotel, but that feature was apartment, temporary. Ultimately the building housed a bar, barbershop, billiard room, and a newspaper stand on the street level. A card room behind the newsstand was There are many factories, large stores, rumored to attract big-stake players. It was said that any person who wished to and other expensive buildings here. The many wooden houses are well wager on football, baseball, basketball, horseracing, or boxing could be accom- planned. Currently I live on the sec- modated at the Herkimer. ond fl oor of such a house and pay rent In 1971 I lived on the third fl oor of the Herkimer, and paid $10 per week. The of $2.00 per month. It consists of two room was small, clean and sparse, with a single bed, small closet, and a desk main rooms and two side rooms with- set. There was no in-room plumbing; the bathroom and the shower were lo- out windows [bedrooms?] and several cated at the end of the hallway. The management discouraged the use of electric closets. It stands directly across from my school.6 hot plates to prevent fi res. In 1972 I moved from the Herkimer Hotel to the Carlton Hotel, which was De Lange taught in the Williams located on the southeast corner of Division Avenue and Weston Street. The Street Dutch-language school spon- rooms at the Carlton Hotel were larger and cleaner than the Herkimer Hotel, sored by the Spring Street CRC. Of but the rent was $12 per week.U this he reports,

13 liams Street school, quarters which during the Great Depression, the city served the seminary until 1892, when acquired the building for use as the a new structure was completed on City Social Center, to house homeless, the corner of Franklin and Madi- unmarried men.9 The venerable struc- son streets. Grade school education ture was razed in 1956 with the Grand persisted in the old structure until Rapids Press reporting, with a tone of 1905, when enrollment dropped to nostalgia, the following: about sixty students. The Salvation Old Church Comes Down Army purchased the building in 1907 to establish an Industrial School and Demolition of the former Spring Street Christian Reformed Church at Home. 57 Commerce Avenue SW removed a The Spring Street congregation did historic landmark which was once the ‘not relocate into its new Bates Street place of worship of the fi rst Christian sanctuary until 1912, but by then little Reformed Church on this continent remained of the old Dutch enclave’s and the mother church of all the shops, homes, and apartments. Ware- Christian Reformed churches in this area. The picture at left, showing houses, factories, and cartage fi rms the almost classic beauty of the old dominated the area. The Union Depot, structure, was made from an enlarged completed in 1870, conveniently reproduction of an old photograph, transported newly arriving immigrants prepared by Benjamin Hertel, whose to the doorstep of their enclave, but father was an elder in the church, and the station also transformed the local who was baptized and catechized by economy by facilitating the distribu- one of its pastors. The congregation is now known as First Christian Re- The Greek Revival First Christian Reformed tion of goods from both farms and formed Church and its church is at Church in Grand Rapids featured a clock in factories. Ultimately all the region’s Bates Street and Henry Avenue SE.10 the tower as was the case with many churches houses were razed to make room for in the Netherlands. Image courtesy of the commercial buildings, and by 1904 a Archives, Calvin College. Commerce and Railroads new and larger Union Station, to- 1870–1960 De Lange was accidentally killed in gether with a train shed, built a decade Heartside’s commercial fl owering is 1874, two years before the CRC’s fi rst earlier, indicated the rapid growth of easily demonstrated by the expansion crop of theological students began to railroad related businesses in Heart- of its railroad traffi c between 1870 meet on the second fl oor of the Wil- side. and 1920. The fi rst trains, in 1858, The various which linked the city to Detroit and uuses put to the Chicago via Kalamazoo, were joined oonce-hallowed in rapid succession by tracks going SSpring Street north to Mackinaw City (1870), the ssanctuary re- Gulf of Mexico (1882), more directly fl ect the area’s to Chicago in 1899, and to New York ttransformation. in 1903. Both freight and passenger TThe Ryskamps, service tied Grand Rapids to every sig- DDivision Avenue nifi cant market. In 1890 six railroad mmeat proces- lines were running out of the Union ssors, removed rail yard in ten different directions— tthe pews, and one train every ten minutes. Rail sscrapped the high passenger traffi c peaked in 1918 when ppulpit and clock seventy-six trains arrived and departed ttower to make in a single day to serve up to 12,000 sspace for horses, patrons.11 Members of First Christian Reformed Church began this Christian day ddelivery wagons, school on Williams Street. From 1875 until 1894 the second fl oor was The city’s reputation as the world’s home to the Theological School later to become Calvin College and Calvin and eventually furniture capital depended on the Theological Seminary. Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin College. trucks. In 1931, railroads which defi ned Heartside’s

14 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

character. Today the Furniture Manu- persisted southward to Wealthy Street. furnished rooms upstairs. Thereafter facturing Association’s warehouse on There on Heartside’s southern both the shops and apartments were Ionia Street stands as the lone survivor fringe, the history of virtually any frequently vacant. One business, rent- of more than seventy warehouses that building suggests the area’s general ing pinball machines and other games, lined the street in 1890. Commerce character. On the northwest corner has persisted over the last twenty-fi ve Street, a short block to the east, was, of Wealthy and Division a remodeled years; but it has nearly no walk-in by 1911, given over entirely to manu- structure, used currently by Catholic trade. Its neighbor, the Show Bar, facturing, cartage, and brokerage. Secondary Schools, served fi rst as the became Papa Joe’s Lounge and fi nally The products of over thirty furni- City Trust and Savings Bank. Other TJ’s Tap, which survived until about ture factories, thirty-seven lumber and tenant space served a dentist, physi- 1990. Several tenants rented rooms planing mills, and fi ve plaster mines cian, and pharmacist. A Railroad in the upper level until 1996 when were all funneled through Heartside. Pension Company joined them in the fi re left the rooms uninhabitable. The In addition, wholesale goods from 1950s when railroading was giving structure’s future is clearly bleak. candy to horse collars were pack- way to truck transport. Following the Neighboring buildings have experi- aged and shipped to retail markets in pattern of most South Division Avenue enced a similar transition. Suppliers Western Michigan, the city’s economic buildings, the bank’s upper fl oors for barbers, bars, and restaurants were hinterland from Benton Harbor to (numbers 343-360) contained apart- already replacing retail outlets by Traverse City. Without forklifts and ments. In this instance, number 359½ 1950, and thirty years later a major- conveyor belts every item (chairs, provided egress to several Mayfl ower ity of street-level stores stood empty, tables, planks, barrels and crates) was Apartment tenants from 1923-1944. their windows darkened by paint and moved by hand. Loading and unload- Thereafter the complex was remodeled plywood. ing, packing and unpacking required to include nineteen units. Doubtless, Heartside’s dim if not dark age, hundreds of workers and most of post-war housing shortages contrib- 1960-1990, stemmed partly from them lived in or near Heartside. uted to this expansion. structural changes in the general The vigorous nexus of retail trade The Schuchardt Building, a few economy. One obvious factor, the and housing which Heartside resi- doors north of the Savings Bank, has growth of interstate highway truck- dents experienced during the com- been refurbished by Dwelling Place In- ing, combined with the automation mercial heydays is evident from a corporated, but the structure opened of dock work, drastically reduced the review of goods and services provided originally as Louis Schuchardt’s work force on the Ionia Street docks. on South Division Avenue. On the butchery. The family operated from Trucks replaced signifi cant segments fi rst full block south of Fulton, from that address (number 339) for twenty- of railroad traffi c while forklifts and Weston to Oakes Street, fourteen seven years (1890-1917). Following conveyor belts altered warehous- second-story rooming facilities and alteration, another long-term tenant ing. Storage buildings and brokerage two hotels served both regular and was Joseph Cavagnaro’s Confectionery services became increasingly unneces- transient clients in 1910. A jeweler, (1900-1915). Street-level businesses sary when forklifts and conveyor belts clothier, barber, dyer, toiletry, and which succeeded the butcher shop transferred goods from boxcars to laundry tended the block’s sartorial included a grocery (1923-1934), a trucks and then to each retailer’s back and cosmetic demands. Three restau- tailor, a photo business (1941-1948), door. rants, four saloons, with a grocer and and fi nally Nyburg’s Plumbing and Concurrently the once active several butchers provided food and Heating—a business unrelated to semi-annual furniture shows, which drink. A cigar store, two pharmacies, street-level traffi c. By then Heartside’s regularly brought hundreds to Grand and a bicycle shop fi lled other street- character had changed radically. Rapids, the self-acclaimed Furniture level shops. South Division’s transition, from Capital of the World, attracted fewer Upper-level tenants, including the fully-occupied retail units and living buyers. During the 1950s business clients of two hotels, could acquire quarters to drab low-profi le stor- travelers moved from trains to air- every ordinary necessity within easy age businesses, vacant apartments planes and the large Chicago Furni- reach. Their coming and going amid and diminished services, occurred ture Mart provided a more attractive clanging streetcars, clopping horses, gradually. For example, the McGurrin venue for viewing and buying furni- and clattering wagon wheels created Building (numbers 41-43) on South ture than the smaller exhibitions of what must have been an engagingly Division remained fully occupied until Grand Rapids. Consequently pas- vital environment—a panorama that 1949 with four street-level shops and senger rail traffi c and the need for

15 hotels in downtown Grand Rapids declined.12 Nothing symbolizes this transition more vividly than the 1960 demolition of the Union Station and its adjacent train shed which was replaced by an exit ramp from the interstate highway system. Passenger trains gave way to automobiles, boxcars to trucks; down- town hotels could not compete with motels which clustered conveniently around Eisenhower’s proud achieve- ment—the interstate highway system. When jobs evaporated, the most able and skilled workers moved else- where. Employment decreased across the whole spectrum: railroad workers, dock workers, and warehouse employ- ees. Remaining jobs were poorly paid and frequently intermittent. Unavoid- The Harris storefront on South Division today still refl ects the period when the Heartside Neighborhood was slowly decaying. Image courtesy of Richard H. Harms. ably, then, apartments and furnished rooms became vacant and with the twelve hotels were listed as adequate Cody, renowned for its billiard players, loss of their clients, retailers could no for transient guests in the Red Book was razed in 1958 to erect a parking longer sustain themselves. Heartside registry. Six were occupied by perma- ramp.13 became a depressed area attractive pri- nent residents. Until Dwelling Place marily to those who could not afford Incorporated acquired and renovated Urban Blight and Renaissance better accommodations. them for low-income housing in 1989, 1960–2000 Some local hotels survived by rent- the Brunswick, Kenwood, and Carlton Although it was an unintended con- ing to low-income pensioners, truck- hotels had become typical skid row sequence, urban renewal dispersed a ers, and some remaining dock workers fl op houses. The Herkimer served wave of newcomers to the Heartside so that, in 1966, only two of the city’s truckers for the most part and the neighborhood, when about forty acres of the old city core was demolished in 1959. Residents from both the lower Monroe and Bridge Street skid row fi ltered into South Division Avenue’s cheap motels, rooming houses, vacant warehouses, and railroad docks. Sixty- three percent of Bridge Street’s exiles took up residence in Heartside. A careful profi le of the neighbor- hood in 1975 indicates that only 20 percent of the populace were teeto- talers and a growing number of new residents were recently discharged from mental hospitals. Ronald Vander Kooi’s research report counted only 537 permanent Heartside residents, of whom the vast majority were white, older (50+) males. Unemployment Since 1895 the Herkimer Hotel has been part of what is now known as the Heartside Neighborhood. Now transformed into apartments, the ground fl oor features a “trendy café.” Image courtesy of stood at 80 percent among them, but Richard H. Harms. they all earned social security and/

16 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

OakwayO Hotel. our rooms because the Brunswick ItI was reserved people had previously had fi res from forfo residents and cooking. guestsg but by askinga someone During a time in 1978 when I was tot say that you homeless, I had a short streak of good werew his or her guestg you could luck when I found a way to enter the Pantlind Hotel while it was being getg a big meal at lowlo cost. renovated. I slept free for about two WhenW I moved weeks and after the restaurants closed to Heartside after I ate some gourmet leftovers—lob- theth war, Division ster, steak, shrimp cocktail and all the AvenueA had three beer and wine I could want. When I Guiding Light Mission is a nondenominational Christian organization that hotelsh where the became too conspicuous I left and re- DwellingD Place provides substance abuse counseling, employment assistance, and mentorship turned to Heartside where I had been programs. It also provides meals during the day and beds at night for the is now located. homeless. Image courtesy of Richard H. Harms. They were a pret- sleeping in my car. That, however, ty good deal for was soon stolen, along with my cloth- or private pensions. Their income, low income people. I lived in the ing, books, records, and chess set. $1,800 to $4,200 annually, sustained Brunswick for two seasons in 1980 Later, I saw the chess set in the pawn life patterns that were substandard in after I found out I could get fi nancial shop but could do nothing to get it every category—housing, food, cloth- help from the Veterans’ Trust Fund back. Fortunately, David Hansen and 14 offi ce downtown. The Elite restaurant ing, and leisure time. helped me too because it honored some friends gave me a place to stay Beginning in the 1960s, and in Vets’ Fund meal tickets. until I qualifi ed for Veterans’ Fund 15 swelling numbers during the 1970s I liked all the oak trim in the Bruns- support. and 80s, mental health patients were wick and the skylight which bright- Efforts to reinvigorate the Heart- released from dungeon-like state ened an oval space containing the side neighborhood stemmed partly institutions to live more normally in stairways leading to my little room from the Grand Rapids City Commis- neighborhood mental health care cen- (number 26) on the third fl oor. Near- sion’s decision to identify the area as a ters. Over a thirty-year period nearly by restaurants were fun and it was a historic district in 1979. The National challenge to see how many kinds of a half million of the nation’s mental food you could try on a $10.00 blood Register of Historic Places recog- health hospital beds were emptied, but plasma payment or on money earned nized that designation in 1982 and the promised aftercare and neighbor- in other ways. We could not cook in the city renewed its support in 1984. hood care centers were not adequately funded so that the poorest of the liber- ated patients drifted into low-income neighborhoods across the nation. In Grand Rapids, Heartside acquired a signifi cant concentration of these exceptionally visible people. Robert Bell, a mentally disabled Vietnam War veteran, moved to Heartside in 1978 and has vivid mem- ories of that experience. He wrote,

Much had changed in the downtown I remembered from the 1960s when, as a teenager, we used to go down- town from Wayland. It was a big deal. We enjoyed the museum, John Ball Park, the zoo, and sitting in popcorn- scented theaters. We discovered the Part of the renewing of the Heartside Neighborhood is this large mural by Richard Haas of scenes of cafeteria connected to the Milner/ the city’s lumber and furniture making industries. Image courtesy of Richard H. Harms.

17 Consequently the preservation of his- example, Goodwill Industries enlarged cial service agencies fear that the Old toric buildings has been encouraged its employment programs, while in Town renaissance could displace them while at the same time Dwelling Place 1989 Faith Incorporated launched a and push them out of the neighbor- Incorporated has carried on an aggres- successful job training and employ- hood they regard as their home. sive program of building acquisition ment service.17 Jaye Beeler’s 17 August 1997 Grand and renovation. Since 1989, under From quarters leased in many in- Rapids Press article “Ionia Avenue Dennis Sturtevant’s direction, Dwell- stances from Dwelling Place a number Comeback” records the opening of ing Place has renovated eight major of social, medical, and religious agen- the Sierra Room, a new high-end buildings including the multi-million cies provide food, clothing, medical restaurant, and the continuing suc- dollar reconstruction of the Herkimer assistance and hospitality to needy cess of several other ventures which Hotel. Dwelling Place provides rent- people. While nearly every Heartside have benefi ted from the Van Andel subsidized housing for about half of resident is poor, many also suffer Arena. Since its opening more than a Heartside’s 1,400 residents. from chronic mental diseases, physi- million patrons have passed through Those costly renovation projects are cal disabilities, alcoholism, and other the arena’s gates and many of them funded largely from private sources— addictive disorders. Some are elderly have re-circulated through adjacent investors buying low-income and and feeble, while a signifi cant con- bars, restaurants, and art galleries. historic rehabilitation tax credits. tingent of disabled war veterans and Meanwhile, upscale loft apartments Public housing grants are also used unskilled workers also make Heartside have attracted permanent residents frequently to fund gaps in fi nancing. their home. It has become a rather to long-vacated buildings on Ionia In addition, several foundations—the cohesive neighborhood in which Street. While surveying the whole Wege, the Grand Rapids and the Steel- many of the residents know each other region from his rooftop deck one local case—together with other local bene- and meet regularly at one of several investor declared, “There is tremen- factors, have provided funding which religious gatherings, at In the Image dous opportunity here.” He did not enabled Dwelling Place to qualify for while shopping for clothing, or at indicate that his vision incorporated low-interest public loans as well as meal times and during social hours in Heartside’s current populace, but there local bank loans. These investments places like Heartside Ministry, God’s are some developments that auger well have spurred the restoration of several Kitchen, Dégagé Ministries, the Mel for cooperation between the arena’s street-level businesses—a grocery Trotter Mission, and the Guiding Light commercial nexus and the commu- store, bank, deli, sign company, cafe, Mission. nity associated with Dwelling Place barber, laundromat, and fl ower shop Dwelling Place, in conjunction Incorporated. Already more than two among them. For a portion of Heart- with a wide spectrum of institutions, hundred Heartsiders have found jobs side the plywood is down and once has improved Heartside’s appearance at the arena and in its neighboring again attractive display windows look and living conditions, but the future restaurants. Like the baggage han- out on Division Avenue. of these achievements may be jeopar- dlers and dock workers of 1900, the In the late 1980s and early 90s, dized by vigorous commercial activ- maintenance workers, waiters, and when homelessness became a national ity on the area’s northwestern fringe. dishwashers of today may fi nd stable crisis and peaked in Grand Rapids at There, the Van Andel Arena now employment, and an increasingly at- about 1,800, Heartside’s social service occupies the street corners and lots tractive setting in Heartside. agencies responded vigorously and where Dutch Reformed immigrants The Van Andel Arena has been an elicited widespread support from lo- fi rst worshiped and steam locomo- unquestionable success with posi- cal churches and private donors. The tives blackened every window with tive economic ripples radiating in all plight of the homeless focused atten- soot. The arena’s neighboring streets directions. The “Van,” given the ethnic tion on Heartside’s existing agencies and windows have begun to sparkle source of its nickname, indicates with- and brought several new ventures to recently as gentrifi cation attracts a out dispute that the Dutch are back on birth.16 Offi ce space and social ser- middle-class clientele to Grand Rapids’ Ionia Street—not as needy immigrants vices together with professional and “Old Town.” Some of Heartside’s less but as robust employers.o volunteer personnel grew rapidly. For affl uent residents and the region’s so-

18 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

Endnotes 1. See: Ronald C. Vander Kooi, A J. Kuiper wrote, “The pictures herewith First Grand Rapids CRC Collection, Ar- Profi le of the Partial Skid Rows of Grand represent the old Spring Street church chives, Calvin College, box 1, folder 1. Rapids (Calvin College Social Research building, for many years the home of 11. Z. Z. Lydens, ed.,The Story of Center: Grand Rapids, MI, 1975). the mother church of Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids (Kregel Publications: 2. Commerce Street was Spring Street When, in the days of Rev. P. Ekster, Grand Rapids, 1967) 126-129. until 1912. the First Church, as it is now called, 12. See: Gordon Olson, A Grand 3. See Gordon Vanderstel’s, The moved to a better neighborhood, the Rapids Sampler (Grand Rapids Historical Dutch of Grand Rapids, 1848-1900 Spring Street property was sold. Being Commission: Grand Rapids, MI, 1992); (University Microfi lm: Ann Arbor, MI, in the very heart of the city it should James Van Vulpen, Grand Rapids Then 1983). have been kept for church purposes, and Now (Grand Rapids Historical 4. M.J. Schoonbeek to his son, 1 June but the Grand Rapids churches did not Commission: Grand Rapids, 1996); and 1873, Dutch Immigrant Papers Collec- realize how convenient it would be to Gordon Olson, Grand Rapids, a City tion, Archives, Calvin College, box 60, have a building downtown for public Renewed (Grand Rapids Historical Com- folder 13. religious gatherings. So the erstwhile mission: Grand Rapids, 1996). 5. Ibid. dignifi ed church edifi ce was shorn of 13. Lydens, ed.,The Story of Grand 6. W.H. De Lange to H. Houck, 4 its steeple and converted into a garage. Rapids, 230-237. October 1873, Dutch Immigrant Papers The present owners are the Ryskamp 14. See Vander Kooi, A Profi le of the Collection, Archives, Calvin College, brothers, meat dealers, who in the Partial Skid Rows of Grand Rapids. box 16, folder 34. present unemployment emergency have 15. Recollections of Robert M. Bell, 7. In 1884 the South Division Street donated the use of the building to the recorded by author in 1997. School on the corner of Bartlett and city for charitable purposes. It is now a 16. Jerry Wilson, The Plight of the Division stood where the Guiding Light municipal clubhouse for homeless and Poor: A Shelter Report (unpublished re- Mission stands now. The school, with a jobless men. During the winter months search for the Grand Rapids Area Center 700-student capacity, was the largest in about six hundred men were fed every for Ecumenism, 1987). Grand Rapids. day and sleeping accommodations were 17. Dwelling Place News (Grand 8. W.H. De Lange to H. Houck, 4 provided for one hundred and forty- Rapids, MI, October, 1989). Heartside October 1873, Dutch Immigrant Papers fi ve men. Editor’s note to “Our Historic Historic District Expansion Committee Collection, Archives, Calvin College, Churches,” Banner, 25 September 1931, Report, May 1995. Wall Street Journal, box 16, folder 34. 839. 3 June 1987. 9. Refl ecting on the congregation’s 10. Photo caption, Grand Rapids history that year, Banner editor Henry Press, 15 September 1956; clipping in

19 “When I Was a Kid,” part III This my childhood autobiography must be dedicated to the beloved wife of my old age—Gwendolyn De Jong

Meindert De Jong, with Judith Hartzell1

First Cars and First Planes them—and again I plastered myself I only too well remember the fi rst au- hard against Johanna-Jantje’s store tomobile I ever saw—it all but scared and must have all but put a dent in its the young life out of me. I was cross- brick wall. ing the village square on my slow way I saw an airplane once too, in 1913, to Grandfather’s, and there, turning the year before we left the Nether- out of the road below the dike came lands. One day a small gray plane, the enormous, terrifying, dreadful piloted by two Germans, went down thing. Fast as I could, I fl ed back to in the sea outside our village. Fortu- Johanna-Jantje’s grocery store, the nately the tide was out, so the two last building on Peppermint Street, men could pull the light thing to the with its windowless brick wall, and dike, and the villagers, who had gath- plastered myself against the wall, too ered to watch something so unusual, terrifi ed to run inside. I liked Johanna- helped to drag it up the dike. It stood Jantje and loved watching her ma- atop the dike for two days. The sight nipulate her abacus on which, fast as of it was so unusual that school— lightning, she’d often add our grocery which was usually never dismissed for bill for me to bring my mother. anything—was let out. The teacher When the horrible machine had evidently thought that seeing a plane stopped its roaring and stood still, my would be more educational than any- heart began beating again. The driver thing we’d see in our books. got out and went into the public inn— Then at last a mechanic came from no doubt for a snort of brandy or a Leeuwarden and worked on it for a quick beer. whole day. Finally the propeller start- In moments, a crowd of women ed to whirl and, almost immediately gathered (the men being either at sea after, the plane, with its two pilots, or at work in the fi elds), all women ascended from our dike into the sky, except for an old fi sherman. Now I too and fl ew in the direction of England. dared to go back to the silent machine. The plane incident happened about The old fi sherman knowledgeably a year before we left the Netherlands Meindert De Jong (1906-1991) was an pointed to the two big brass headlights in 1914. We left in June, barely in award-winning author (the fi rst Ameri- and said, “Ladies, now that’s where time; the war broke out right behind can to win the Hans Christian Ander- the power lies.” And the women all us. Everyone in Wierum was sure war sen Medal) of twenty-seven children’s nodded as if they knew it all that time. was coming. books. Judith Hartzell is a professional writer now living in Greenville, South I marveled how they could all know Carolina, who became a friend and such mysterious things. Master Pelican co-writer with De Jong when they both But at that moment the driver came Wierum always had two sets of people lived in southwestern Michigan. out of the inn, and all the knowledge- who could be amiable to each oth- able people fl ed pell-mell—I with er—like on skating days—or hostile.

20 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

Basically the division was between the live intense lives, old-school-old-church people, who full of “gusto.” included most of the fi sher folk and We northern some farmers, and our school and Frisians were church people. We were the Re-re- too drab, color- formed church, which had splintered less, and staid, apart from the old church some years he said, implying before in a quarrel over doctrine. that where he Our church people believed that came from, the our Christianity was more pure than southern prov- the “worldly” Reformed people. For ince of North instance, they allowed dancing, which Brabant, life was we considered sinful. And they were lived far more lax about observing the Sabbath, at enjoyably. least to our eyes. When the ice was At his request, good, their pastor would dismiss Sun- the school board day afternoon services saying, “This ordered the main God-given ice is not to be missed!” school room But we would never skate on the to be painted Sabbath. We observed it strictly as a apricot, trimmed day of rest. in turquoise. The Besides us Reformed-type Chris- other school- tians, there were in Wierum only a rooms were paintedd bbrightright blbluesues schoolmasterschoolmaster was sometsomethinghing new in handful of others, a few Lutherans and and yellows. Pictures of the Dutch Wierum. a few atheistic Socialists. Fights be- navy and action scenes from battles For some reason, in school Pelican tween groups of children were always were hung to replace old lithographs singled out David as a special pet and between the public school kids and us showing representative trades, which even made a call on Mother to discuss private school kids. But after Master Pelican considered too tame. her eldest child. Pelican2 came to be the Christian All this time he was making “You don’t understand David, Mrs. school headmaster, the fi ghting came friends of the fi sher folk and farm- De Jong,” he said. “You can’t. You’re to include the whole village. We split ers whose children attended public too pallid yourself, but your son David into two warring camps. school. He liked to fi sh and he let is a jewel.” He seemed odd from the beginning, himself be entertained in fi sher folk Perhaps this is when my parents but at fi rst it was exciting. He dressed homes. Man-to-man friendship be- began to wonder about the teacher’s fl amboyantly and urged everyone to tween a lowly fi sherman and a lordly sanity. It was by that time already evident in the schoolroom that something was wrong with him. He seemed unwill- ing or unable to keep any order in class, and eventually even to remain in class himself; he put David in charge and gave him a big club “to split the skulls” of any trouble-makers. Then one day he brought his three dogs to school and seated one of them, a drooling, big-headed bulldog, beside David. The headmaster had been, for weeks, encouraging David to draw, On the left is the house of the schoolmaster and on the right the minister. As De Jong notes these telling him he had a genius for art, but neighbors were antagonists in the riot that required the Dutch military to quell. Image courtesy of the dog drooled all over the drawings. the Archives, Calvin College. After a couple of days of this, David

21 told Mother and Father what was oneo dared to touch happening and was amazed at the re- him—theyh silently sult. They withdrew him from school fadedf away at his ap- and sent him to stay with relatives in a proach.p nearby village. Somehow the I still attended school, of course; I pastor’sp youngest was in a lower grade, not in the head- child,c barely out of master’s class. babyhood,b who had About this time Pelican’s wife and beenb sent to friends newly-born son3 were found wander- inin the country, ing in the fi elds early one morning, wanderedw into a because he had beaten her and then shallows pond on locked her out of the house. The hish host’s farm and Christian school parents understood drownedd in a foot or that the headmaster was mentally ill; sos of water. To show but the fi sher folk and farmers refused howh high the feel- to believe it. Pelican insisted that the The four De Jong brothers (right to left): David, Raymond (Remeren), ingsin had run, when pastor4 of our church, his next door Meindert, and Neil (Corneil). Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin the little coffi n was College. neighbor, had abducted his wife, and brought down the they preferred to believe him. Pelican of our district, and quartered in our main street of Wierum, the people didn’t act crazy around the ordinary village. Night after night there were lined up to see it pass by, and one old villagers. On the contrary, he espe- battles in the streets. The farmers and fi sherwoman shrilled out: “Here now cially befriended them. They couldn’t fi shermen used pitchforks and scythes comes the pastor’s present!” Her own believe ill of anyone who accepted against the police, who defended son slapped her across the mouth and their hospitality, ate their food, and themselves with sabers. Nobody shoved her into the house. praised their children. was killed, but some were hurt. We People appeared in a different light Our school board decided to children and all of us from the church in those dire days, even to us children. have the headmaster taken away to had to leave our beds and sleep in our The church organist became a hero— a mental hospital in another village, attics, for stones were hurled through almost like an American cowboy. A but the fi shermen and farmers simply our windows in the nighttime and mob had ganged up outside his house wouldn’t permit it. They chased our often landed in our downstairs living with big rocks to break his windows. lone policeman out of Wierum and room closet beds. There was no school He stood his ground in the middle of conspired to keep the horse-drawn for weeks, nor could we play in the his parlor, pulled a pistol out of his ambulance, which would carry the streets even in daytime. pocket and shot right straight through schoolmaster away, from entering the For safety our pastor sent his chil- the window glass—fortunately just village. dren away during this dangerous time. above the crowd. Nobody was hurt, Here’s how they did it: while the They stayed with friends in the coun- but the crowd scattered pell-mell and men were working, the farmers’ wives try, though he and his wife continued never molested him again. and fi shwives kept a vigil from their to live in town, and he kept up with Once they came to our house while houses, and if any one of them saw his duties of visiting the sick. He was a my father was away. We had a pistol police authorities or an ambulance ap- gentle but courageous man. too, for the government had issued proaching Wierum, she would run to The schoolmaster, in his insanity, them to all householders who stood the bridge over the canal—the highest had settled on harming the pastor, so with the preacher against the mob. I spot outside the village—and blow a there was a chance that his allies, the didn’t know about the gun: I was only trumpet. On hearing this, all the men farmers and fi sher folk, might attack seven years old, but when the crowd would come running from their fi elds him too. began yelling at Mother, she calmly or boat-tending to act as bodyguards The preacher, however, was perfect- opened the door and told them we for the headmaster. ly safe, visiting the sick even at night. had a pistol and that we had been told It fi nally came to a pitched battle in The superstitious fi sher folk said by the authorities to shoot any trou- Wierum. Twenty mounted policemen they’d seen an angel walking on his blemakers, “not in the feet but in the were sent from Ternaard, the capital right side and an angel on his left. No head.” We three boys were astonished

22 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

by her courage, and the crowd swiftly business, a job he didn’t like much. It ice races, held on a great roped off melted away. Afterwards Mother took was all he could do. ice rink near Wierum, were outside us up to the attic, where the pistol During the worst of the fi ghting, the limits of our Christian faith. Such had been hidden, showed it to us, and Father had been forced to stay at competition was a temptation to sin, especially warned Rem never to touch home all the time, as had we all. It was my parents said, and they refused to it, for it was loaded. Then, for safety’s tough on Father, but even tougher on participate. sake, she hid it in a new secret place. Rem, seeing that the Pelican problem It was to get away from the ice rac- She never had to use it. happened in summer—Rem’s favorite es that Father and Mother took Dave Finally, one day at mid-morning time to be outdoors. and Rem to Dokkum that last winter two horse-drawn ambulances raced Father’s business was ruined for the in Friesland. On the way they met into the village at top speed. While time, and probably that was the fi sher folk surrounded the decoy what fi nally convinced him ambulance, the other one rammed to a that we must move away. He stop at the schoolmaster’s house. The and Mother had been consid- authorities then grabbed him, bundled ering emigrating for a long him into the ambulance, and raced time, though we learned this away at the same wild speed they’d only through hints. It was to come.5 be either America or South With that, Wierum’s rebellion sput- Africa for us. tered out, but some of the ring-leaders were put in the big jail in Leeuwarden, Adventures on Ice Friesland’s capital. Our neighbors on The winter after Master Peli- either side both went to jail. Little can left us, we had wonderful Aage was one of them; he had gotten ice. This was fortunate, for a split nose from the saber of one of the village needed something the police. They all returned much to promote harmony and later, very thin and very pale and healing, and an ice holiday subdued—and they weren’t heroes was made to order. anymore. Father and Mother decided School began again when peace was that Dave and Rem were restored, even though it was a long strong enough skaters now time before a new headmaster could to travel down the canals to Already in the late eighteenth century there were reports of ice skaters visiting all eleven cities of Friesland on be hired. Dave had already turned visit “ice relatives,” people in one day. In 1890 Dutch athlete Pim Mulier suggested an twelve, and was therefore an adult. He Ternaard, Hantum, or even organized tour of the eleven cities. Because Dutch winters had outgrown the little local school. as far away as Dokkum who are not always cold enough for the water on the nearly 200 Father wanted to send him to Dok- were somehow related to the kilometer course to freeze, that race has been held only fi fteen times during the twentieth century, the fi rst in 1909. kum for further study, because it was family. evident to both Mother and Father And so one fi ne day they that Dave had superior ability. The were off, skating grandly away in a and skated for a while with Mother’s dream was that he might become an little tandem line, led by Father, then sister from Nes, Tante Grietje, and her architect, because of his drawing and Mother, then Dave, and Rem. Skating husband and children. math skills. But to study in Dokkum families always arranged themselves in “Your father seems to have hun- would mean that Dave had to ride this fashion, tallest down to shortest. dreds of relatives,” Mother said later his bicycle seven miles to school and When another skating family hove to the boys. “I suppose I haven’t more seven miles home every day. He was into view, Father and Mother greeted than forty.” overcoming the weakness caused by them and exchanged news. Our De “But,” she added, “mine are poor- his chronic digestive problem, but he Jong tandem could and did outskate er.” By that she meant her relatives didn’t have the strength yet for that almost any other family group. Father should be paid special attention, since ordeal. was reputed to be the fastest skater they couldn’t go visiting any old time So Dave began to work as an ap- in Wierum. It was only reputation they wished. prentice to Father in the building though, never demonstrated fact. The At Dokkum Mother and Father left

23 the boys and the ice, visiting relatives “If you can still skate on that ice, Anyway, Rem and I were spank- too old or infi rm to skate. Dave and then so can I,” she said. “May I ac- ing our hoops down the road that ran Rem had a great time with some cous- company you?” alongside the canal, when mine left ins. Instead of tipping the ice sweep- They skated together several miles, the road and uncertainly wobbled ers with the half pennies Father had with Father in the lead. The athletic to the canal and, with a dismay- provided for that purpose, the boys young woman behind Father pushed ing kerplunk, sank from sight. Rem bought treats to eat. So their main him so fast, he was amazed. Recklessly instructed me to stay at the spot where game was outskating the sweepers’ over holes they couldn’t see until they I thought my hoop had gone down, thrown brooms. were upon them they skimmed—right while he ran home for a rake to dredge All this I learned the night after over their tops. it up from the muddy canal bottom. their big trip. Knillis and I weren’t The young woman left Father when Face down over the edge of the strong enough for such a far journey; they got to her hometown, but fi rst canal, Rem and I were fi shing with the Dokkum was seven miles away. So we he asked whom he’d had the honor rake for my hoop when Dave came spent the day with Grandfather and of skating with. When she said her running and, long before he reached Muoike (Frisian for aunt). This didn’t name, he realized she was the all- us, yelled out, “We’re going to Ameri- bother Knillis at all. He was barely time women’s champion skater of ca! We’re going to America!” three. But I was greatly offended at be- Friesland. Rem must have thought we’d be go- ing left behind. “Will you enter Friesland’s skating ing that moment because he jumped “Never mind,” Father said. “You competition with me next winter as up, pulled up the rake, and said to me, and I will skate together to the New my partner?” she had sweetly ques- “You don’t need that hoop if we’re go- Church’s Pipe.” tioned. ing to America.” It sounded wonderful. I didn’t “But no, boys, I withstood that Suddenly he added, “Hey, but nei- know what it was—the “New Church’s temptation.” ther do I.” And he threw his hoop in Pipe”—but I sounded the name over It was his standard, solemn con- the canal after mine. and over in my mind and excitedly cluding line. In fi ne excitement we three raced imagined skating that far, just Father Again this year Father skated off on home to go to America, only to fi nd and me. the Eleven-Cities Tour, as a distance that adults needed time to prepare— But fi rst Father was going to skate skater, not a speed competitor. pack, sell the house and household the “Eleven-Cities Tour,” about a hun- “The day after I return,” he prom- goods—and that it would be weeks, dred-mile excursion, with stopovers at ised me, “I will take you to the New maybe months before we could emi- all eleven of Friesland’s ancient cities. Church’s Pipe.” grate. This was a distance event which only But when I woke up that promised It must have dampened our excite- the best skaters of the province could morning, a thaw had set in, and the ment a bit over going to America, attempt. ice holiday was fi nished for the year. but not by much. What did we know The winter before, Father had about America? Also not much, skated alone the twenty-four miles to Going to America! although it was common knowledge Groningen and back, just before the Hoop rolling was in style, so it must among the kids of Wierum that there thaw set in, and he had come back have been late spring and dry weather, was a man in New York City, John D. over dangerous, cracking ice. But this since marbles were always in style in Rockefeller by name, who was the was against his usual policy. He be- the wetness of late winter. In Wierum petroleum king of America—whatever lieved no married, family man should we kids spanked our hoops ahead of that meant. But he was so hated by the go adventuring off over the canals us with a stout stick, and since the New York Indians that he had to ride alone. streets were cobbled and the roads around in an armored vehicle that had He always told us the story of how, graveled, and there were ditches on only small windows in it the size of years before, he had once skated to both sides of the road, and then still glass fruit-jar tops—so he could only Leeuwarden alone—over ice so dan- the canal threatened, spanking hoops look out with one eye. Even so the gerous it was full of holes and cracks. was much more adventurous than lat- Indians along New York’s streets, with He was the only one upon it, racing er in America. There we pushed hoops their bows and arrows, tried to shoot to get home, when he passed under a with sticks which had cross-pieces John D.’s one eye out. bridge and was hailed by a beautiful nailed to their ends. That seemed to us Why the New York Indians hated young woman. dead tame, if not actually girlish. the petroleum king we didn’t know.

24 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

But, like all kids, Throughout his adult years, Father we didn’t let facts had been forced to serve in the Dutch get in the way of Army. When we moved to America imagination. he was still doing that, and he was When at last, a already thirty-eight.10 He always re- month or so later, turned grumbling about the injustice we got to Rotter- of compulsory military service for a dam to board our man in business with a family to sup- ship, New Amster- port; he wished something better for dam,6 what should his four sons. This was one reason he get in our way decided to leave the Netherlands. but a parade for a He also wanted more opportunities couple of queens In 1905 Nieuw Amsterdam was the fi rst of four vessels to carry this for his boys than Wierum could offer. in a carriage. It name for the Holland America Line. The De Jong family sailed on Nieuw Only one son would be able to follow Amsterdam when emigrating to the United States. Image courtesy of the was followed at Archives, Calvin College. Father into the building business— intervals by bands probably Rem, since David had no and important men in formal forma- gan, to move to? We never knew. But aptitude for that kind of work. There tions. We could see the funnel of our we did fi nd out later that Father had was no future in the Netherlands for ship over the roofs. Sadly it had only given our destination careful consid- David, who excelled as a student, or one funnel, while the catalog we’d eration; ever since the schoolmas- for young Knillis and me. In Wierum paged through for weeks, showed that ter incident he had been gathering we three most likely would have to Rotterdam7 had two. Why two funnels information about America and South be hired out as farmhands. That was on our going-to-America ship seemed Africa. about all the opportunity that awaited more important than two queens in a He had Aunt Sjooke’s Wisconsin8 us there. So thank goodness it was to carriage with a parade following them, letters to tell him about America, plus be America for us. I don’t know, but my two big brothers the reports of occasional Dutch travel- plotted and I was sternly instructed to ers who’d been there, or said they The Leave-Taking run through one of the open spaces had. About South Africa Father heard Leaving Wierum was a diffi cult expe- in the parade. Then Rem and Dave from General Louis Botha, the South rience for my family, but less painful would chase after me as if they were African general who fought against than Mother’s sister Sjooke’s leave- trying to catch me, and then Dad and the British in the Boer War. Repre- taking. We learned from their experi- Mother with little Knillis would willy- senting the Dutch settlers, he (Botha ence. nilly have to follow, and that way we’d was descended from Dutch people) Sjooke, her husband Ulke (Uilke), get across to our going-to-America had fought bravely but lost to a more and their fi ve children11 had left Wi- ship. powerful English army. The Boer War erum for Wisconsin two years before It worked, although my Father, ended in 1892, and after that General in broad daylight. At high noon the with two heavy suitcases to carry, and Botha visited Holland to try to create carriage and horses arrived to take Mother, having to hold Knillis by the goodwill between the Dutch and the them to Leeuwarden,12 some eighteen hand as she scuttled after my laden English—he was a great statesman as miles away, to catch the train. Their father, both made it with diffi culty. well as a good general. leaving caused a near uproar. However, we all made it safely to our When Botha visited near us once, The whole village gathered around one-funnel ship. Later onboard ship Father traveled to hear him and to the carriage in front of our house, so Father told us he’d fully expected question him afterwards about his that it couldn’t move. My deaf and to be arrested for disrespect to two native country, of which Botha spoke dumb Uncle Meindert had to beat the queens. But who cared about that glowingly. It wasn’t his fault we didn’t crowd back with a big stick to keep now? Anyway, America didn’t have move there. I really don’t know what them from entering the carriage for a any queens—not even one—only made my parents decide on Michigan last tearful good-bye. The family was kings of things, like John D. Rock- as the right spot for us to grow up. bound for America, which, according efeller, the petroleum king. They didn’t share their counsels with to the sobbing fi sherwomen, was “a Why did my parents pick America, us boys—they held no summit meet- living burial.” and especially Grand Rapids, Michi- ings.9 So when we too left for America,

25 to start by carriage to the train station hands, to hastily plunge into the cold to Grand Rapids, Michigan, Father in Leeuwarden, we chose the middle North Sea. had bought lunches for us all—cold of the night for our exodus. Even so a Where he swam the water wasn’t food in packed paper packages. He crowd gathered to bewail our “living over his head, and we never could see, gave each of us one to carry, but burial” and once again my deaf and from the water’s commotion, whether Rem’s lunch parcel broke, and his one dumb uncle had to stave-drive them he was really swimming or just orange fell out and rolled far away. He off. splashing. After about ten minutes of chased after it, but just then the great Since Mother’s oldest sister was frantic activity, he would whoop again, iron gates opened, and the rest of the already in America and her two other emerge and run back up the dike and family had to proceed to the train area. sisters lived in other towns, Grand- rip into his clothes. As they walked through, the heavy father and Muoike were as much He was the unusual character who metal gates slammed shut between as grandchildless when we left for ushered us away from our native us and Rem, busy chasing the rolling America. It must have been a ter- village on the fi rst leg of our ten-day orange. rible blow for them—all that young journey. He stood there, bellowing his loud- life gone from them forever, for there est while clutching his broken box of was no possibility of our ever coming Immigrants food and lone orange. They opened back to visit. America was too costly People always want to know how an the gates just exactly enough to let and far away; money in those poverty immigrant feels when he arrives in him through. days far too scarce. There were no America, and especially if he is thrilled The most impressive sight I re- international telephones then as far by his fi rst sight of the Statue of Lib- member in America was our fi rst as we knew—nor did it matter. We erty. I remember her hardly at all. The black man, to us kids ten times more couldn’t have afforded them. We’d awful thing I remember is crowded El- impressive than the Statue of Liberty. unfortunately arrived in the US in a lis Island, where we had to go through We had stopped at a railway station depression. So all there was from then customs. Even though we had traveled during the night, and I, happening on were occasional scribbled letters to America on the ship as third-class to wake up, saw him standing all which inevitably began with the stan- poor people, I didn’t realize we were alone on the night-empty platform. I dard fi rst line, “We are well, and hope one of the huddled masses until Ellis shook both my big brothers awake in the same of you.” Island made us so. We were herded my excitement, and we three sat and The last Wierumer we saw in our through customs much like cattle gaped at the wonder of him as long leave-taking was a village hero. In were in Chicago slaughter houses. Im- as the train stood there. To us he was those days almost nobody could swim. migrants were pouring in from every beautiful. If a fi sherman, by some accident, fell European country, and Ellis Island was On the other hand, I still have from his boat into deep water, he a madhouse. nightmares from another nighttime drowned. But our driver was one of And, of course, immigrants always train stop on that journey. Having three out of about a thousand who bring the wrong things with them. My to go to the toilet, I woke up Father. could swim, and when he did it, about parents brought their prized feather Since the lavatory was already occu- two or three times a year on the hot- bed, neatly packed in one of the great pied, he and I went to the train door test evenings, it was a public event. wooden boxes my father had built. and waited until the train stopped. The other two swimmers discreetly An offi cial from the Immigration Then, we being way out in wilderness did their swimming from a boat, far Service, a big naked-to-the-waist country, I climbed down. Suddenly out of sight. But he had no swim suit brute, came with a long, naked knife the train started up. Father, who had and swam naked right by the dike. and ripped our feather bed open end fortunately followed me only part-way When our driver decided it was to end. So my fi rst vivid memory of down the high train steps, grabbed me the right night for a swim, a crowd— America was not of Miss Liberty, but by the back of my collar and hauled both men and women—would gather of my mother sitting, weeping, among me bodily back on board. And that behind him as he made his way up to the fl uttering feathers and goose is still my self-repeating nightmare: the dike walk. Then he’d walk som- down, and in all those tears sewing up without one word of English, I am lost berly down the seaside of the dike those bed-long gashes with needle and in that endless wilderness of wide- and, suddenly, with a loud whoop of thread. open, uncultivated, night-black space. excitement, shed his clothes, and run, Shortly before going to the train In Friesland every square foot of land covered for privacy only by his cupped which was to carry us from New York had been tidily occupied.

26 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

bbirthday and one around vengeance. We didn’t know, but we’d CChristmas, which were arrived in a depression. For weeks sspent, it seemed, mostly Father found no work. He would in church-going instead walk around the city and look for a oof school-going. Ah, the house under construction, then ask eendless days of that fi rst the foreman for a job. This automati- ssummer vacation, and cally limited him to Dutch-supervised tthe awesome heat, utter- construction jobs, since he knew no ly new to us who’d lived English. Although that was a limita- bby the cold North Sea. tion, it was not too serious, because TTo escape the burning much of the house-building business ssun, we happily found in in Grand Rapids then was conducted ddowntown Grand Rap- by the Dutch. Some banks in Dutch iids the fi ve-and-ten-cent neighborhoods even posted signs on sstore. Amazingly, you their windows in Dutch. ccould just walk in and In the meantime, for weeks, we nnobody asked you to barely survived. Mother bought day- bbuy anything. You even old bread and skim milk. We subsisted ddared play stealthily on that. She would try to make it a bit wwith the toys on display. more interesting by fl avoring the milk TThen if tired of one, you with chocolate one day and tea the ccould adventure in two next, but that was all she could afford mmore fi ve-and-dimes— to do. We actually hated to go home Meindert (Mick) and his younger brother Neil in front of the wwhat a wealth! All these for lunch. family’s fourth home on Robey Place. Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin College. were somewhat rewards Probably the greatest single shock for the loss of our we got on arriving was at our fi rst Our fi rst days in Grand Rapids my native town. lodging, on Freyling Place, one of sev- brothers and I—Grand Rapids being The most astounding of our new eral alleys in a poor section of the city. a hilly town—spent our time racing American fi nds was chewing gum. You Mr. Vander Wal, the Dutch-American toward high-terraced lawns in the could chew and chew all day and by who had paid our passage over, found forlorn hope that at last we’d found a nightfall it still was there! A neighbor a small house for us on this forlorn dike in this new country, for behind boy gave us one stick, which we three alley. It had no water. None at all. Not the dike would be the sea. Fortunately older boys divided equally. Then, even a well or a cistern in the back- we did fi nd the railroad depot and the when night came, we stuck our gum yard. We were a family of six and not double tracks with the trains and their outside on the kitchen window sill. one drop of water! mighty locomotives. We had never Unfortunately, the next day the very We arrived exhausted and dis- lived nearer than eighteen miles from a fi rst before-breakfast-morning one couraged from our long journey, and railroad in Friesland, and we content- of us—Rem—swallowed his sliver Father thought a cup of tea might edly played along the tracks day after of gum. Were we scared! We rushed cheer Mother up. So his fi rst action in day, putting little boxes and cans on to Mother, who assured us he would America had to be to go down the al- the rails and watching the great turn- not die from the swallowed gum. It ley, house to house, begging for water. ing wheels crush them. The locomo- was such a relief we never questioned And all the neighbors—all Christian tives seemed almost as mighty as the where Mother had gotten to know Reformed, members of the church we sea. In a few weeks the railroad games so much about gum, but she proved would later join—turned him down began boring us, but they’d been our right. Rem lived. until half way down the alley fi nally solace for the loss of our dike and a the only non-Christian Reformed whole sea. Freyling Place neighbor said, “There’s my well. Use it We’d landed in Grand Rapids in Our fi rst months in America were a as much as you need to!” June during the great summer vacation nightmare. In Holland we had never This was in June 1914, and we of endless length, we who’d only been known what it was to be poor, but stayed in that miserable house through used to a meager week for the Queen’s we found out in Grand Rapids with a the full blast of summer’s heat.

27 The other disgusting thing it were the rotten stumps from Mr. about it was the backyard, Vander Wal’s farm, which was located which stank from two sources, in a muck swamp. He had hired Rem an outdoor privy (we had to work for him; together they drove had only indoor toilets in to the farm in early morning. Then in Wierum), and an enormous payment for Rem’s day of labor, Mr. “Tree of Heaven.” This mis- Vander Wal drove him home at night named plant gave off a stench with sodden swamp stumps and some worse than the alley’s privies. vegetables. Rem’s job then still was to We had a walkway along chop up those tough stumps with an the side of the house where axe for our fuel. During this diffi cult grew a row of “Snow-on-the- time Rem was so worn from his day- Mountain” fl owers. They must long labor that he had no energy left have been part weed. Other- for mischief or fun. wise I don’t know how they The people who had mistreated us survived in that heat without in the beginning eventually apologized water. They became to us the when we acquired enough money to most horrible fl ower on earth, have some standing. Our immigrant and seemed to fi t right in with “greenness” was fading a bit, thus the hot stench of our back- making us acceptable. It seems some yard tree. They remain to me immigrants can be at ease in a new a symbol of that misery house country only when they are disparag- standisstandingng in popoolsols ing the latest newcomers. iin the dank cel- We didn’t know any Americans llar. Little Knillis then—that is, people whose families aand I used to had been over here more than two or aamuse ourselves three generations. Each immigrant bby dropping peb- group stuck to itself in those days— bbles through the the Dutch, the Polish, the Germans, ccracks and hear- and the Irish—all had their ghettos in iing them splash Grand Rapids. Our ghetto was solidly iin our basement religious Dutch. ppools. In winter For our railroad transportation wwe couldn’t play to Grand Rapids from New York, we oour game. The were in debt to a shirttail relative.13 bbasement water (That means somebody so distantly ffroze over. The related you can’t remember exactly (top right) When the De Jongs arrived in Grand Rapids they lived on ppebbles thumped how it works.) This skinfl int benefi ted Freyling, one of three narrow, one-lane streets (the others are Robey Place and Donald Place) on the city’s near southeast side. Image courtesy of but didn’t splash. from our helplessness. He brought all Richard H. Harms. That was no fun. his old junk from his house and sold The house at 317 Freyling Place still stands almost 97 years after the De Mr. Vander it to us. My parents felt too beholden Jongs briefl y lived there. Although it has new windows and a door, the house Wal owned the to him to object. Mother even thought was vacant in February 2011. Image courtesy of Richard H. Harms. Donald Place she had to buy an old bearskin coat, house, so now no doubt inherited from his grand- on the alley that hot summer. he was our landlord, and we couldn’t mother. It went on our bill. Once they We didn’t stay in the Freyling Place complain about the wretched house brought over an organ so huge and house very long, but the next house on he’d furnished us. At least it had water, ornate it took six men to get it into the next alley we graduated to, Donald in places too much—but the problem our little house. We had to buy that Place, wasn’t much better. You could here was heat. A little wood-burning too. Dave played it for several years; look through cracks in the living room stove had to be stoked continually he taught himself and played mostly fl oorboards and see the stagnant water with wood, and all we had to feed hymns. For a long time it seemed we

28 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

would never climb out from under the burden of debt our Dutch peers loaded on us. It is pathetic to be at the bottom of things. Hopeless. I don’t know how my parents endured it. In Friesland they had been a respected family in Wierum—Large Beppe was like roy- alty in that village—and suddenly we were zero. The First World War closed things off behind us. We were about the last emigrants, and the last and poorest were, of course, at the bottom of the social ladder. So we stayed on the bottom longer than we would have if other poor Dutchmen had followed us over. Then we too, in superior- The De Jongs’ second American house, 302 Donald Place, was on the vacant lot (just past the house ity, could have lorded it over the new in the center of the image) that now has a small community garden in the summer. Image courtesy “green” ones.o of Richard H. Harms.

Editor’s Endnotes 1. De Jong and Hartzell met after he place of birth. In 1921 he was teaching 10. Because Meindert’s father’s had retired from writing and became her in Sappemeer, Groningen, where he had brother was a mute and could not serve, writing mentor. married Jantje Lutjes on 5 February Remmeren had to serve both his own 2. The schoolmaster’s name was 1919; they divorced 8 June 1928. term and his brother’s term of military Gijsbert Pellicaan (also spelled Pel- 6. In the original De Jong writes the service. likaan), born 1 December 1885 in De ship’s name in English, but its name was 11. In the original Meindert states Werken en Sleeuwijk, North Bra- Nieuw Amsterdam. there were four children, but Dutch bant, Netherlands; died 4 June 1941, 7. In the original De Jong here calls birth records and the passenger list Coeverden, Drenthe, Netherlands. He the ship “New Rotterdam” but its name make clear there were fi ve children: Ko- married Femmiena Fokkelina Klooster- was Rotterdam, which did have two fun- rnelis, Jiltje, Tjitske, Renze, and David. man, 22 June 1911, in Emmen, Drenthe, nels; Nieuw Amsterdam, on which they 12. In the original De Jong says just after taking the headmaster position sailed, had one funnel. Presumably the Dokkum, which as he noted earlier was in Wierum. Pellicaan and Klooster- young boys confused the two ships. seven miles from Wierum; eighteen man divorced in 1919; www.genlias.nl. 8. Meindert’s mother’s oldest sister miles away is Leeuwarden the provincial He was appointed headmaster in April Sieuke (pronounced Sjoo-ke) had mar- capital. Later De Jong notes that the 1911 to begin the school term in May ried Uilke Stiemsma in 1889; they with closest rail line to Wierum was eighteen that year having taught in Werkendam, their children immigrated in 1911 to miles away. There was a rail connec- North Brabant. Columbia County, Wisconsin. tion to Dokkum into at least the 1930s. 3. Johannes Christoffel Pellicaan, 9. According to the records at Ellis David De Jong also reports that the fam- born 14 June 1912. Island, the fare for the family was paid ily took the train from Leeuwarden; see 4. Rev. H. van Dijk. by Heine Vander Wal, listed as a cousin With a Dutch Accent; How a Hollander 5. Only episodes of Pellicaan’s life from Grand Rapids. Ellis Island Record: Became an American (New York: Harper after Wierum have been found. His Page # 940, Manifest for Nieuw Amster- & Brothers Publishers, 1944) 181. second son, Pieter, was born on 16 dam, Date of Arrival: 2 June 1914; Port 13. Heine Vander Wal, who had November 1914, in Woudichem, North of Departure: Rotterdam. Available via emigrated with his wife in 1880. Brabant, the village east of Pellicaan’s http://www.ellisisland.org/.

29 “Bless the Lord, O My Soul” The Bible’s Infl uence on the Dutch Immigrants

Robert P. Swierenga

ne year before his death in Bless the Lord, O my soul!” The aged O1876, Rev. Albertus C. Van dominie closed his brief oration with Raalte addressed a reunion of the 25th a prayer that the veterans “may earn Michigan Infantry, in which the sons that never fading crown in the higher of the Colony, including two of his battles under our Captain of Salva- own, had served during the Civil War. tion, Jesus Christ.”1 “Welcome, welcome then, beloved Biblical idioms came naturally to and honored 25th!” Van Raalte began. Van Raalte’s lips. His public addresses, “Your presence thrills our heart with speeches, and writings are full of scriptural references. This was the coin of the realm in Dutch Reformed circles. In his sermon on 4 August 1864, which President Lincoln had declared a Day of Fasting, Humilia- tion and Prayer, Van Raalte selected a passage from the prophet Jeremiah (18: 5-10), which portrays people as clay and God as a potter at the wheel. “Can I not deal with you, O Israel, like this potter? Behold, as clay in the hand of the potter so are you in My hand.” God has the “incontestable authority, [the] irresistible power,” said Van Raalte, “to form nations unto His end.”2 In a service of commemoration two years after the Holland fi re (19 October 1873), Van Raalte chose the parable of the talents in Luke 19:13 to stress the obligations of Divine stew- ardship. “Seeing that your homes and Cover page of a 1690 Staten Bible, the offi cial Dutch translation of the Bible, fi rst printed in goods have been restored, Congrega- 1637. Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin tion at Holland, I remind you of what Robert Swierenga is the Albertus C. College. Jesus says concerning all our posses- Van Raalte Research Professor at the A. sions. They are a trust . . . [and] must C. Van Raalte Institute, Hope College; professor emeritus of history at Kent the deepest emotions. . . . You all are be placed in the Master’s service. He is State University, Ohio; and a contribut- monuments of God’s sparing mercy watching us.”3 ing editor to Origins. He is currently and love! . . . Surely your presence A year earlier, at the 25th anni- writing a history of Holland, Michigan. is a solem[n] voice within us: Bless versary of Holland’s founding, Van the Lord, O my soul . . . . Yea, we say, Raalte declared that the purpose

30 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

notes and wrote a book entitled The Pioneer Preacher, discovered a surprising fact. In his sermons Van Raalte seldom chose Bible texts that applied to any specifi c needs of the colonists, such as times of poverty, disease, and death in the early years. He Rev. Albertus C. Van Raalte (1811-1876) did not use the led the fi rst groups of Dutch immigrants Bible to give his to western Michigan. Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin College. people strength to face their problems. Rather, for establishing the colony was “to his sermons were secure a center of unifying religious evangelistic, call- life and labor for the advancement of ing the hearers to God’s kingdom. . . . In truth, God has repentance and a wrought great things for us!” (para- life of obedience.6 phrasing Num. 23:23).4 Perhaps Van Van Raalte preached every Sunday Raalte’s parishio- for decades, knew the Scriptures, ners needed no and quoted passages liberally in his specifi c biblical sermons. Some three hundred sets of applications. The his sermon notes have survived, many entire Scriptures scribbled on scraps of paper. His fi rst were their guide student sermon at Leiden University for faith and Van Raatle’s sermon on “The Preciousness of God’s Dwelling Place” based was on Romans 6:1 (about the call by life, as befi tted on Psalm 84. Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin College. Jesus Christ to Paul to be an apostle, disciples of the set apart to preach the Gospel of Secession of 1834. “God’s will, not my Netherlands into a spiritual sign that God). Van Raalte had to preach the will,” was their credo. They would God in His providence had prepared sermon without the notes he had so make no major decisions without fi rst America for them. After all, God said carefully crafted, because his profes- ascertaining the will of God.7 This to Adam, “By the sweat of your brow sor had slipped the sermon manu- was especially true of emigration. you shall eat your bread.” This was script from Van Raalte’s coat pocket The Dutch believed that God called diffi cult, if not impossible, in the shortly before the service without his them to leave the fatherland and homeland. The dominie wrote in a realizing it. Van Raalte didn’t know they explained (some would say they widely-circulated pamphlet: “With that he had no text to read until a few “rationalized”) their decision by an our eyes upon God, and not until minutes beforehand. After he recov- appeal to the Scriptures. Although the after a long and agonizing struggle, ered from his panic, he preached a emigrants were poor and sought eco- we are taking the step” to emigrate magnifi cent sermon that impressed nomic betterment, for them deciding to North America where our people, his professor and all his fellow semi- to go to America was fundamentally a “living in quiet obedience to God nary students.5 religious, not an economic, decision. . . . can eat their bread, earned by The late Gordon J. Spykman, who Van Raalte even turned the lack diligent labor and sweat.” Moreover, read all of Van Raalte’s extant sermon of work for the laboring class in the who “can doubt that the future of the

31 fi rst in France and spreading quickly to Germany, Austria, the Nether- lands, and elsewhere, mob violence and street fi ghting behind barricades seemed to presage the breakup of European civilization. Europe stood under judgment, Scholte taught, because it was inextri- cably linked, historically and geo- graphically, with the Roman Empire, an empire marked for destruction for having crucifi ed Jesus of Naza- reth. The intentions of the Almighty had been clearly predicted centuries earlier by the Jewish prophet Daniel’s Rev.Rev. Hendrik P. Scholte (1806-1868)(1806-1868) vision of the great “Image” crushed by led a group of Dutch immigrants to a huge stone “hewn out of the moun- what is now Pella, Iowa, when Rev. tains without hands.” Since America Van Raalte was leading his group to had never been part of the Roman Holland, Michigan. Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin College. world, Scholte believed it was a safe haven, a place of escape from divine lelest you take part in her sins retribution.10 aand share in her plagues,” Scholte insisted that his Pella col- SScholte proclaimed, quoting ony be directed by the Bible. In 1846, RRevelation 18:4. several months before embarking, he A Scholte follower, Mrs. wrote in his religious periodical, De CChristina Budde, of Burl- Reformatie: “As far as the ecclesiasti- iington,n Iowa, echoed the cal fellowship and organization of the ddominie’s teaching in a letter colony are concerned, the Word of to a female friend in Amster- God shall be the only rule, founda- ddam in 1849: “In Amsterdam tion, and touchstone.”11 wwe saw a dark dense cloud Rev. Cornelius Vander Meulen, Van spspreading over all of Europe, Raalte’s colleague at Zeeland, Michi- aand considered the diffi cul- gan, wrote in a widely-circulated Like many Dutch immigrants, Derk Natelborg took comfort from the words of Psalm 107, verses 23 and following, before tities of farm life [in America] letter to the Netherlands in 1847 that embarking on the 3,500-mile voyage across the Atlantic easier to get used to than the prospective immigrants had to see Ocean. Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin College unanimous report of the dark God’s leading in their decision, and future for the old Fatherland, realize that the fatherland “is going Netherlands looks dark,” given the and even more so for those who fear under” because “God is just and chas- national sins of religious apostasy and the Lord. . . . We praise the Lord for tises sin with sin.” Rev. Gerrit Baay, economic oppression practiced by the having led us here.9 pastor of the Alto, Wisconsin, colony, government.8 Scholte named his colony Pella, the declared in a letter to his followers Van Raalte’s friend and fellow Se- biblical “city of refuge” in the district in Gelderland: “In leaving for North ceder cleric, Rev. Hendrik P. Scholte, of Decapolis (east of the Sea of Galilee America, one should also be mindful founder of the colony of Pella, in the mountains of Gilead) where of the Lord’s admonition, Luke 17:32: preached even more strongly that the Christians fl ed in 70 AD following ‘Remember Lot’s wife.’“12 Europe was Netherlands and indeed all of West- the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. Sodom and Gomorrah, and the emi- ern Europe was a decadent, doomed In Iowa’s Pella, the faithful remnant grants should not look back. civilization ripe for God’s judgment. would be saved. The revolutions To obey this injunction, they had Believers must escape the wrath to throughout Europe in 1848 gave cre- to cross the sea which some feared. come. “Come out of her, my people, dence to Scholte’s prophecy. Erupting When Derk Natelborg bade farewell

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in 1862 to his fellow congregants at thodox Calvinists in the Netherlands Uithuizen, Groningen, and set out developed quite elaborate rationales on the ocean for America, his pastor’s for immigration. For instance, the wife insisted on reading aloud Psalm Central Committee of the Anti-Rev- 107 (vs. 23-32), which speaks of de- olutionary Party (founded by Guail- liverance from the sea: laume Groen van Prinsterer in the nineteenth century, and later led by Some went down to the sea in Abraham Kuyper), cited the cultural ships, . . . mandate, to “be fruitful and multiply,” they saw the deeds of the Lord, and the great commission—“go ye his wondrous works in the deep. into all the world”— fi rst voiced by For he commanded, and raised the Van Raalte a century earlier. Overpop- stormy wind, ulated Holland had no room for large which lifted up the waves of the sea. families, especially of small dissenting They mounted up to heaven, they subcultures. By emigrating, Calvin- went down to the depths; Rev. Cornelius Vander Meulen ists could expand the kingdom of their courage melted away in their evil (1800-1876) led the group of Dutch God and his church, fi nd room, and plight; . . . immigrants that founded Zeeland, become a majority culture.16 They reeled and staggered like Michigan. Two of his sons and three In 1952 the editor of the Friesch drunken men, grandsons also served as ministers. Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin Dagblad, reporting on the character of and were at their wits’ end. College. the numerous Frisian families depart- Then they cried to the Lord in their ing for North America, wrote: “Al- trouble, facing death they turned to it. In a last though they wished to improve their and he delivered them from their letter to her children, a widow wrote: lot, yet that can never be the one and distress; “Dear Children, oh, pray to God daily only thing. The fi rst question must He made the storm be still, and do not let a day pass without remain: Can I with my family there in and the waves of the sea were hushed. reading his Word. Let nothing keep that far land, in the new fatherland, Then they were glad because they had you from doing that: it alone remains be helped in the building of spiritual quiet, when all else fails.”14 life; can I also be a pioneer of Jesus and he brought them to their desired Geesje Vander Haar-Visscher, a Christ?”17 This was the same mental- haven. close associate of Van Raalte and ity that motivated Van Raalte’s trek in member of his congregation, recalled the 1840s. Natelborg noted in his “Memoirs,” as a young child losing her grand- The same centrality of the Bible written years later, that God answered father during the dying time in the was evident in church education this prayer. When the storm was at Holland colony in 1847. Years later, (catechism and Sunday school), its height and the passengers were she wrote in her diary: in men’s and women’s societies, in at their “wits’ end,” they cried to the I felt very sad. My father and moth- psalm singing and choral societies, in Lord and he “made the storm be still, er were also ill with typhoid fever and evangelism, around the table at home and the waves of the sea were hushed. many people died at that time. . . . I (the so-called family altar), in Chris- Then they were glad because . . . he was with Grandmother a great deal tian day schools, and much more. brought them to their desired ha- and during the day I went to school. Clearly, the Bible was the focal point ven.”13 In the evening Grandmother would of life among the Dutch Reformed in The Seceders were steeped in the kneel to pray with and for me. Many America. It sustained them as they Bible and turned to it in every crisis pious people came to call on Grand- faced privation, illness, and death. It or turning point in their lives. It was mother and on those occasions I had fed their souls and enabled them to said of many of them that “a Bible to read chapters from the Bible.15 persevere. With such a trustworthy always lay close at hand.” And when After World War II, some of the or- guide, they could hardly fail.o

33 Endnotes 1. “Solders Reunion of the 25th Michi- English translation in typescript, pp. 3, 7, gan Infantry,” 22 Sep. 1875, in Gordon 8, Archives, Calvin College. J. Spykman, Pioneer Preacher: Albertus 9. C. M. Budde-Stomp, (Burling- Christiaan Van Raalte (Grand Rapids: ton, Iowa) to J. Wormser-Van der Ven Calvin College, 1976) 141-142. (Amsterdam), 1849, Wormser Letter No. 2. Spykman, Pioneer Preacher, 100. 33, p. 305 (quote), in Johan Stellingw- [Sypkman refers to the sermon as the erff, Robert P. Swierenga editor, Walter “President’s Day Sermon” of 4 July 1864, Lagerwey translator, Iowa Letters: Dutch but the original sermon has 4 July changed Immigrants on the American Frontier [pub- to 4 August and the sermon is labeled lished in 1976 as Amsterdamse emigranten: “President’s dag van verootmoediging and onbekende brieven uit de prairies van Iowa, gebed” – President’s day of humiliation 1846-1873 (Grand Rapids; William B. and prayer. Van Raalte omitted ‘fasting’ Eerdmans, 2004). from his description. See: Sermons, 1864, 10. Hendrik P. Scholte, Tweede stem Van Raalte, Albertus C. Collection, box 6, uit Pella (1848), published in English folder 8, Archives Calvin College. ed.] translation by Robert P. Swierenga, ed., 3. Ibid., 106. “A Place of Refuge,” Annals of Iowa, Third 4. A. C. Van Raalte, “Commemoration Series 39 (Summer 1968) 321-357. Address, 1872,” in Henry S. Lucas, Dutch 11. Stellingwerff, ed., Iowa Letters, 34. Immigrant Memoirs and Related Writings, 12. Letter of C. Vander Meulen, 2 vols. (Assen: Van Gorkum, 1955, rev. Holland, Michigan, 8 Oct. 1847, to the ed., Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, church community in Goes, Zeeland, the 1997) 2: 487. Netherlands. Published in a pamphlet 5. Gordon Spykman, “The Van Raalte by Widow C.W. de Jonge, Aan al mijne Sermons,” Albertus Christiaan Van Raalte, geliefde vrienden in Nederland (Goes, Jan. 1811-1876-1976: Centennial Studies in Re- 1848); Letter, Gerrit Baay, 4 Jan. 1849, to formed Review 30 (Winter 1977): 95-96; “Dear Friends in Holland,” published in Leonard Sweetman, From Heart to Heart: pamphlet form in Amsterdam in 1849. Letters from the Rev. Albertus Christiaan An English translation, “Dear Friends Van Raalte to his Wife, Christina Johanna Back Home,” is published in Delta (Sept. Van Raalte-De Moen, 1836-1847 (Grand 1959) 26-35 (quote 34). Rapids, 1997) 10-11. 13. Derk Natelborg, “Memoirs,” Chi- 6. Spykman, Pioneer Preacher, 38. cago, 23 Dec. 1890, provided by great- 7. Robert P. Swierenga, ‘“Pioneers for great-grandson Robert Zwiers. Jesus Christ’: Dutch Protestant Coloniza- 14. Stellingwerff, Iowa Letters, xviii; tion in North America as an Act of Faith,” Mrs. H.S. van Hall-Schermbeek, ibid. 31. in Sharing the Reformed Tradition: The 15. “Geesje Vander Haar-Visscher Di- Dutch North-American Exchange, 1846- ary, 1820-1901,” typescript, p. 1 (quote), 1996, eds. George Harinck and Hans Genemuiden, Netherlands & Holland, Krabbendam (Amsterdam: Free Univer- Mich. Translated from the Dutch by Clar- sity Press, 1996) 35-55. ence J. Jalving, Feb. 1954, Joint Archives 8. A. Brummelkamp and A.C. Van of Holland, Hope College. Raalte, Landverhuizing of waarom bevorden 16. Stellingwerff, Iowa Letters, 33-35. wij de volksverhuizing en wel naar Noord- 17. J. D. Wildeboer, Friesland verliest Amerika en niet naar Java? (Amsterdam, zijn kinderen (Assen: Van Gorkum, 1954) 1846). Quoted from John Verbrugge’s 39.

34 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

Different Worlds: The RCA and the CRC 1850–1900 Harry Boonstra

he intertwined history of the versy over Freemasonry between the TReformed Church in America two churches had been largely played (RCA) and the Christian Reformed out, the story has its roots in the ChurchC (CRC) has seventeenth century.3 ofteno been a compli- catedc one. The early History: The Reformed Church writingsw about their in America relationshipr and The RCA dates to the beginning theirt separation were of America with the semi-offi cial frequentlyf caustic, founding of a Reformed congrega- anda brotherly love tion in “New Amsterdam” in 1628. wasw often buried RCA members experienced and underu respective participated in both the struggles accusations.a 1 These and victories in the colonies and ddescriptions also later nation since that time.4 Because ttended to concen- the British had taken over control ttrate on theological of New Netherlands from the Dutch aand liturgical is- in 1664 and were victorious in the ssues—sometimes various colonial wars, by 1850 the pperceptively, some- Dutch Reformed parishioners, living ttimes prompted and predominantly in New York and New ccolored by adversari- Jersey, had become loyal (English- aal attitudes. Certainly speaking) colonists. In the 1600s ttheological questions and 1700s these Reformed folks had aare involved in this observed and participated in the iintertwined history, displacement of Native Americans, bbut a broad-angle who were driven ever farther west or pperspective shows annihilated. The beginning of trade tthat the differences in African slaves was part of their The painting of the Synod of Dort by Pouwles Weyts (also Pouwels bbetween the two history as were the Salem “witch- Weyts de Jonge). Image courtesy of the Archives, Calvin College. churches were deep craft” trials, albeit the latter only and wide—in fact, remotely so. They had been shaped they inhabited and constituted dif- especially by the Revolutionary War Dr. Harry Boonstra is an associ- ferent worlds, which made genuine and the quest for independence from ate editor of Origins, a minister in cooperation and union extremely the English monarchy. The history the Christian Reformed Church, and 2 theological librarian emeritus at Calvin problematic. Although this story (and myths) of Washington, Jeffer- Theological Seminary. He has written of the intertwining of history be- son, Franklin, several Adamses, and on such topics as worship, the history gins in 1850 when Dutch immi- countless other heroes and villains of Calvin College, and the difference grants to the American Midwest was theirs, as were such shameful between the RCA and CRC. joined the “old” eastern RCA and events as the British military using ends by 1900 when the contro- Middle Dutch Reformed Church in

35 New York City as a horse stable and lifestyles, as did the tavern-owning Spanish Catholicism) as political. Un- riding school during the Revolution- parents of Martin Van Buren, in the like their American religious kin, for ary War. village of Kinderhook, New York. nineteenth-century Dutch emigrants The members of the RCA had lived But in 1837 Van Buren emerged from the Duke of Alva, who had carried under more than twenty presidents his humble origins to become the out his campaign of terror, was the and experienced both the highs and president of the country. Theodore ultimate villain. Their celebrated lows of political and economic life (an RCA member) and Franklin D. heroes were the Watergeuzen, intrepid by 1850. The “peculiar institution” Roosevelt (Episcopalian), distant fi fth privateers who made hit-and-run at- of slavery was debated as hotly in cousins, took very different paths.5 tacks on Spanish ships and garrisons, their homes as in other American Their families had long been mem- and were largely responsible for the homes. They had seen the population bers of the economic and social elite Dutch rising up in full revolt against of New York City grow to 515,000 and assumed their presidency as the the Spanish. The Dutch national hero inhabitants by 1850, and that of the fi nal step befi tting their privileged was Prince William of Orange and nation to over 23 million. Much of status. their chief allegiance continued to this growth had come from immigra- be to the House of Orange, although tion; for example, between 1851 and History: Nineteenth-Century regional and provincial loyalties were 1860, two and a half million new Immigration often as strong. The harsh Dutch war immigrants arrived in America. Since By the early nineteenth century the for independence was eclipsed by the these immigrants came from all over RCA was attempting to reach out seventeenth-century Dutch Golden the globe, America came to be known to people on the nation’s westward Age of arts, science, and commerce. (for better or worse) as a gigantic moving frontier. Many of those on Dutch banks fl ourished especially, melding of languages, nationalities, these frontiers came as immigrants races, and religions. from many parts of the world to a This melding also included a wide land of promise. Even though some diversity of social, economic, and immigrants experienced abject pov- educational circumstances. Rural erty, illness, and death in America, areas often continued at a low or most achieved a measure of success middling standard of living, while and some became wealthy, and if some plantation owners became not themselves their children did. enormously wealthy. The big cities The nation experienced times of exhibited a broad range of living stan- economic deprivation and cycles of dards, from pauperism to those with economic depression, but overall the millions of dollars. Although America American spirit was characterized did not have the same class structure by confi dence and optimism and the of family and aristocratic descent as American experience saw economic Europe, a new class structure built growth. on economic wealth was at times Dutch immigrants had been part just as rigid in the new land. Educa- of this immigration for years, but the tion differed greatly from one region 1847 arrival of Rev. Albertus C. Van to another, depending partly on the Raalte and his people marked the be- local level of economic development. ginning of more large-scale immigra- Although some British and French tion, especially to the Midwest. These visitors mocked American education immigrants came from various prov- and learning, the colleges in the older inces in the Netherlands, often under East Coast towns and cities eventu- the leadership of ministers, of whom ally began to rival European universi- Albertus C. Van Raalte was the best Rev. Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen was ties. known. Their forebears had fought buried without a tombstone in Elm Ridge The members of the RCA became their own war of independence, Cemetery, North Brunswick, New Jersey. part of these American economic and the Eighty-Years’ War (1568-1648) Because the exact location of the grave was lost in 1884, this cenotaph was placed at the social patterns. Many of them con- from Spain; a war that was as much cemetery. Image courtesy of the Archives, tinued in small-town positions and religious (Dutch Protestantism versus Calvin College.

36 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

and for many generations their loans fame, but admission was virtually national church of the Netherlands.8 went to various European countries closed to the lower classes. At best, This denomination was born out of as well as to American commercial their children would receive three or the religious controversy and per- enterprises. four years of education in a village secution from the Roman Catholic The immigrants’ more recent school and join the workforce before Church and the political struggle for history included European alli- they were teenagers. independence of the Seven Provinces ances and wars, with the Netherlands Nineteenth-century emigrants of the Netherlands from Spain in the gradually losing its position of power. were drawn to America, a land seen sixteenth century. Although begin- This decline reached its lowest point as fi lled with opportunity and op- ning as a persecuted minority, the timism, with the late 1800s even Dutch Reformed Church later grew becoming the Gilded Age for the into a dominant, national church, upper classes. Of course, there was a with many of the attributes of a state measure of wishful thinking in these church. The States-General, repre- images of prospects in America, but sentatives from the seven provinces the immigrants continued to come. that attempted to rule as a national For those from the Netherlands there government, were very intertwined in were such push factors as the general the life of the church. For example, economic malaise that largely gripped the Synod of Dordrecht (1618-1619) the nation; and the potato blight that was called by the States-General, and destroyed the principal source of car- the government representatives took bohydrates for the poor in the 1840s an active part in the deliberations to was seen as symptomatic of a national settle a religious controversy that had William I. Source: Encyclopædia failure. arisen following the spread of Armin- Britannica Online. 25 January ianism. So also with the translation of 2011. http://www.britannica. Church Life: The Reformed the Bible into Dutch—it was man- com/EBchecked/media/33120/ Church in America dated by and paid for by the States- William-I-detail-of-a-painting-by- JA-Kruseman-in. The history and social worlds of the General. early and later Dutch immigrants Since the Dutch West India in 1795 when the country became were very different, as were their Company, which was required by a de facto province of France under church lives. The story of the settle- its charter to establish and support Napoleon, and William V, Prince of ment of the Dutch in North America the churches, was headquartered in Orange, had to fl ee to England. The in 1625, the founding of New Amster- Amsterdam, the congregations in New mythological heroes at this time were dam as a settlement under the control Amsterdam came under the supervi- patriots who were able to smuggle of the mercantile Dutch West India sion of the Classis Amsterdam, one of contraband into the country. This Company, and the beginning of the the regional bodies in the Hervormde period ended in 1813 when Prince Reformed Protestant Dutch Church Kerk. This connection continued for William VI of Orange returned and (the later RCA) in 1628 has often over 160 years—virtually all the deci- was crowned as King William I. been told.6 Just a few major facts sions for the RCA were made in Am- For many people in the Nether- and issues that came to the fore in sterdam, nearly all the ministers were lands the 1800s were not kind. They the middle and late 1800s need to be Dutch, and even when they were not, were subject to a rigid system of fam- presented here. they had to receive their theological ily, aristocratic, and social preference. Initially the RCA congregations training in the Netherlands. Given the The upper classes had economic op- were mostly small, struggling to sur- time cross-Atlantic communication portunities and wealth, while laborers vive.7 But by the eighteenth century took at the time, the churches in the and their descendants often lived a the number of congregations grew colonies were at a signifi cant disad- pauper’s existence, usually with no steadily; by 1700 there were 25; 68 vantage in resolving questions under assistance (other than the poorhouse) in 1750; 120 in 1800; and 296 in this relationship. Not until 1754 were from either state or church. Education 1850. The fi rst issue of signifi cance the colonial churches allowed to form was similarly based on class prefer- for these colonial churches was their their own classis, and in 1792 their ence. The universities of Utrecht and relationship to the Hervormde Kerk own constitution as an independent Leiden had achieved international (or Dutch Reformed Church), the denomination.

37 The colonial immigrants came to however, the community be- New York and New Jersey with their came more Americanized; the Dutch Bibles and their psalmboeken opposition to Dutch became that also contained the Calvinistic stronger, until it developed creeds of the church and the liturgical into a severe controversy “forms.” These documents thorough- from 1794 to 1804 as young ly shaped the life of the RCA. The people, unfamiliar with heavy hand of the Amsterdam classis, Dutch, began transferring to the preaching in Dutch, the adher- the Episcopal or Presbyterian ence to the predestination theology churches that worshipped in of the Canons of Dort, the practice of English. The consistory tried singing psalms instead of hymns— a number of options, but in these factors were the glue that kept each case either the Dutch the RCA together, but frequently also or the English proponents became a major source of controversy felt cheated. One resolu- and division. tion reads: “To wit . . . that But as with all immigrants, the for all coming time so long Dutch immigrant churches experi- as there are twenty families enced acculturation. Acculturation in the church, who attend involves every aspect of the immi- Divine Service in the church grant’s life, from the minute to the of the village, who contribute momentous: language, food, religion, from time to time with oth- clothing, marriage, schooling, voca- ers their just proportion for tion, family relations, hygiene (or the maintenance of Divine lack thereof), child rearing, politics, Service, and who declare that race, holiday customs, and so on. they can be better instructed This acculturation affects the fi rst in the Dutch than in any generation of immigrants the most other tongue, so long, either dramatically (and often traumati- the forenoon or afternoon cally), but it continues over several service in the church of the generations, as a family changes from village shall be delivered in its original nationality to becoming the Dutch and the other in American. the English tongue.” The Cover page of the Dutch national church’s book of psalms To take one of the most prominent and hymns. Dutch seceders objected to the use of hymns percentages for preaching Reformed families as an example, we in offi cial worship since only the psalms were based on in either language changed can focus briefl y on the Roosevelts. the directly inspired words of God. Image courtesy of the several times, including a pe- The fi rst Roosevelt (Claes Martenszen Archives, Calvin College. riod in which one half of the van Rosenvelt, from the province of service was to be in Dutch Zeeland) came to America probably and social prestige. The families’ ac- and one half in English! The chapter in 1647. The family joined the RCA, culturation had resulted in virtually closes as follows: “When Dominie as did most Roosevelts after them. complete Americanization. Dirck Romeyn’s long and honored Theodore, born in 1878, and Frank- A major aspect of acculturation is ministry terminated in 1804, stated lin, in 1882, were fi fth cousins, each language and language change. Often Dutch preaching ended in the First descended from one of Claes’s two this change becomes a burning issue Church of Schenectady.”9 sons, and by the years of their births in a church and, if new immigrants A third issue that affected most the clans had experienced American keep coming, it can last for several congregations was the rise of pietism. life to the fullest (including Indian, generations. For example, in Sche- Certainly the Reformed tradition has Revolutionary, and Civil wars), ris- nectady, Dutch was the language of always recognized the need for Chris- ing through the ranks of prosperous worship from the beginning in 1680, tians to lead a pious life, but it is also merchant and land-holding class, without much resistance. As fewer true that the expression of experi- educational stature, political power, members were conversant in Dutch, ential faith has often come in waves.

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The RCA was very much involved in joining with the United Foreign Mis- fi rst entered the universities and then the American waves of revivals and sionary Society in 1821, as the RCA the church, creating a spectrum of spiritual awakenings. The First Great carried out mission work in China, factions from hyper-Calvinism to Awakening occurred from approxi- India, and Borneo (then a Dutch liberalism and modernism. mately 1730 to 1760. During these colony). This cooperation generally An additional issue troubling the years revival meetings took place in worked well, as each denomina- churches was the frequent interfer- many RCA congregations and this tion maintained semi-independent ence from the government. This infl uence made a lasting impression status. However, by 1857 the RCA interference became severe again with on the church as a whole. The RCA wanted closer identity between the the return in 1813 of the House of was more than just a follower, since mission work and the denomination Orange, after the French occupation. its own Dominie Theodorus Jacobus and separated from the ecumenical In 1816 the government published Frelinghuysen was one of the early mission effort.10 The denomination a church order that virtually made leaders in the revival movement. also participated in a number of local church government a branch of the The revival meetings tended to be and national religious ventures. These civil government. Through all of non- or inter-denominational and included the American Bible Soci- this, traditional believers often found were usually led by itinerant preach- ety, the American Tract Society, the spiritual nourishment outside the es- ers. Besides extended preaching American Sunday School Union, and tablished church in various streams of sessions, the gatherings also included the American Temperance Society. pietism and met in conventicles (in- prayer, singing, and times of con- A different connection was fostered formal meetings in homes for prayer fession. Some of the more extreme with the international Presbyterian and mutual encouragement and Bible revival practices included fainting, Alliance (later called the Alliance of study). dancing, occasionally speaking in Reformed Churches) in 1876, which The modernist versus orthodox tongues, and other expressions of has continued to the present. controversies came to a head in 1834 spiritual “enthusiasm.” The tone when Hendrik de Cock, a pastor in of RCA revivals tended to be more Church Life: The New Immigrant Ulrum, Groningen, had taken the side subdued, but the general encourage- Churches of those protesting the liberal trends ment for more expressive manifesta- Like the RCA, the nineteenth-century in the church. He was suspended from tions of the faith became part of the Dutch immigrants to the Midwest his ministerial offi ce; his consistory, religious tenor of the denomination, had their roots in the Netherlands however, supported his stance, and as did the worshiping with those of and in the Hervormde Kerk, which the congregation separated itself from other denominations. One particular had undergone many changes and the national church on 13 October instance of spiritual deepening and theological controversies since the 1834. This date is usually cited as the renewal arose in the RCA—the Fulton founding of the RCA churches in the beginning of the Secession (Afs- Street Prayer Meeting. Beginning with seventeenth century. The most im- cheiding). A number of other pastors a few men in 1857 in the Old North portant among the controversies was and congregations also seceded soon Dutch Church in New York City, the the dispute between Calvinists and after this date, forming what later be- church became the gathering place Remonstrants (Arminians), which came the Christian Reformed Church- for noon-hour prayers. These noon- culminated in the famous Synod of es (Christelijke Gerformeerde Kerken ) time prayer meetings blossomed, fi rst Dordrecht in 1618-1619 and the pub- in the Netherlands. This Afscheiding fi lling Old North to overfl owing and lication of the “Canons” and “Church group was harassed by both the then imitated by New York churches Order” of Dort (the RCA began about government and the Hervormde Kerk, of all denominations, then by wider ten years after this synod met). Of- who denied the right of existence of areas, and even world-wide. (A 150th fi cially, the Hervormde Kerk remained an alternate Reformed church. Their anniversary was held in the New York faithful to those documents, as well as meetings were broken up by police Hilton Hotel in September 2007.) to the Belgic Confession and the Hei- and soldiers, the ministers’ ordination In terms of interaction with other delberg Catechism. In time, however, rights were taken away, and some of churches and denominations, plans the church suffered from both a dead them were imprisoned. It is this de- for union with other denominations orthodoxy and the spiritual ravages of nomination that fi gures prominently faltered, but the RCA did interact and the Enlightenment. The eighteenth- in the relationship to the RCA. Others cooperate with other churches. The century Enlightenment, as imported sought to reform the Hervormde Kerk most signifi cant cooperation came by from England, Germany, and France, from within—among these was the

39 grant congregations were invited to economic level, and social standing. join the RCA and in 1850 this union Some congregants in the East worked took place. at humble jobs and made a simple The processes of acculturation living. But others were successful in for the seventeenth-century and the professions and still others were nineteenth-century Dutch immi- millionaires. Two of them became grants were similar. Both had to learn United States presidents. Education American ways. Language was one also presented an incredibly different of the most immediate adjustments picture. Ministers such as Van Raalte and also the cause for disagreements had a superb university education, in local congregations—when should but most of the immigrant ministers English catechism classes be allowed did not, and the church members and when should the fi rst English often had no more than a few years sermon be preached? But the problem of rural elementary schooling. In the The protest of Rev. Hendrik de was compounded for the Midwest East, however, college and university Cock (1801-1842), grandson of churches—how could the Dutch- education was often taken for granted a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, against the singing of speaking immigrants interact mean- in many families. (In the Acts and Pro- hymns in offi cial worship and ingfully with the eastern churches ceedings of the RCA General Synods other practices in the church led that used English exclusively? This the names of many ministers were to a secession in the Netherlands. difference was particularly in evidence followed by the prestigious DD.) Dutch immigrants that joined the RCA and CRC both came from at General Synods, where the Mid- Moreover, in church practices this secession. Image courtesy of western delegates were at a disadvan- and theology the gap was often a the Archives, Calvin College. tage in discussions and debates. Also, wide gulf. Van Raalte and others the church magazine Christian Intel- may have thought that RCA history, famous Abraham Kuyper, but in 1886 ligencer (all in English) was virtually theology, and practice were similar to he also became the leader of a sepa- unknown in the West and De Hope those of the Afscheiding church, but rated group (the Doleantie, that is, (in Dutch) was not read in the East, the dissimilarities were many. The “mourning” or “lamenting”). These and thus the two sections in the RCA Afscheiding represented a very nar- two groups came together in 1892 lacked genuine communication. Also, row slice of Reformed theology and to form the Reformed Churches in as all immigrants can testify, not mas- church practice (and even then the the Netherlands (De Gereformeerde tering the local language places one in Afscheiding brethren continued to Kerken in Nederland ).11 an inferior position. quarrel about which of their par- The immigrants who arrived from Place and geography also fed the ticular interpretations was the truly the Netherlands after 1847 came from tension for some in the Midwest with Reformed stance). To compare all both the Hervormde Kerk but particu- their religious kin in the East. The the theological issues would take too larly from the Afscheiding, and it was distance between the eastern and the long, but two examples of church the latter group that generally set the western regions of the RCA made reg- life—worship practices and the rela- tone when new congregations were ular communication and interaction tions with other denominations—are organized in America. Leaders such diffi cult. Moreover, those in the West useful. as Albertus Van Raalte and Cornelius were struggling to establish farms, Hymns were introduced in the Vander Meulen (Zeeland, Michigan) around small and simple communities RCA in 1789, no doubt following the were intent on founding congrega- where rural roads were often impas- example of other American churches, tions that would be free from govern- sible. New immigrants sometimes had and infl uenced by revival experiences; ment control and would continue the to live in sod homes; in what is now psalm singing became increasingly teachings and practices of the Afs- South Dakota one congregation built rare. The orthodox in the Netherlands cheiding churches. its church with cut sod. Although (when they were still members of the These immigrants of 1847 and the East also had rural congrega- Hervormde Kerk) despised the 1807 the following decades were warmly tions, there were also the Collegiate Dutch Hymnbook, and hymn sing- received, encouraged, and assisted by Churches of New York City inhabiting ing was completely banished in the the eastern RCA, both materially and a bustling cosmopolitan city. Other Afscheiding congregations. It took the organizationally. In 1849 the immi- dimensions of distinction were work, CRC until 1934 before they offi cially

40 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

accepted hymns. No doubt the wor- comers had problems with the an abomination since the Masonry ship style of the RCA confused the RCA (ranging from admitting non- movement in Europe was actively immigrants. Some congregations in Reformed people to the Lord’s Sup- anti-Christian. From 1868 to 1884 the East had accepted certain practices per to the singing of 800 hymns in various congregations and classes from the Episcopal church, and writ- worship), and in 1857 two ministers attempted to have the General Synod ten prayers, for example, became rath- (one returned to the RCA after a few of the RCA decide that Masonic er common, either from a prayer book months) and four congregations of membership and church membership or composed by the minister. Other about 300 individuals broke their ties were incompatible. Because these ef- congregations had been infl uenced by with the RCA. This “secession” was forts failed, a number of members and revivals, and spontaneous prayers and congregations left the RCA (including testimonies of faith during the service the First Reformed Church of Hol- became accepted practice. land, which had been founded by Van Secondly, relations with other Raalte). Most of the protesters joined Protestant denominations were non- the CRC, and after 1884 the Christian existent in the Netherlands. Since Reformed Churches in the Nether- the Hervormde Kerk was the national lands encouraged new immigrants to church, there was in effect no room join the CRC. for other groups. Anabaptists, Luther- Certainly theology and doctrine, ans, and Remonstrants were tolerated, church customs, and worship prac- but there was no signifi cant con- The square and compass symbols tices were often different and some- tact with those groups. Members of of Freemasonry. Allowing times confl icting and these fed the Afscheiding churches were even more Freemasons to join the church was misunderstanding and strife that loath to interact with other denomina- another practice that divided the prevented the joining and fusing of Dutch immigrants since the RCA tions. The RCA, however, had devel- allowed them as members, while the old Dutch Reformed and a part of oped a wide range of “ecumenical” the CRC did not. the new Dutch Reformed. Moreover, contacts. Their physical proximity to the stubborn and mulish personalities many denominations, their involve- the beginning of the Christian Re- of some (many?) leading personalities ment in the revivals, joint efforts such formed Church. About ten years later often made joining and even discus- as the American Bible Society, and this small, struggling group was soon sions problematic. The history, the common interest in foreign missions bolstered by the growing Freema- experiences, the culture, the language, had all promoted friendly relations sonry dispute in the RCA. One of the the acculturation, the gaps of time with other Protestants. A casual glance Americanization features in the RCA and space—all stood in the way of at the Christian Intelligencer reveals had been the acceptance of Freema- good intentions of religiously joining this interest and involvement. Every sonry, and a goodly number of RCA the old Dutch with the new Dutch in issue of the paper reports favorably on members, including ministers, had nineteenth-century America.o activities in other denominations. ties with the Masonic movement. For Further, a number of the new- the former Afscheiding people this was

41 Endnotes 1. For two contemporary examples and books dealing with the RCA, such Reformed Church, 1571-2005, Allan Jans- see, Brochure op Kerkelijk Gebied as John P. Luidens, “The Americaniza- sen, translator (Grand Rapids: William (Holland, MI: Cornelius Vorst, 1869), tion of the Dutch Reformed Church” B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006). For an attack on the RCA, and Nicholas (PhD dissertation, University of Okla- a recent analysis of the Hervormde Kerk M. Steffens’ characterization of the homa, 1969); Gerald F. De Jong, The during the same years covered in this CRC, whose schism was “unnatural, Dutch Reformed Church in the American essay, see Annemarie Houkes, Christeli- unhuman, unchristian, unbiblical, Colonies (Grand Rapids: William B. jke vaderlanders: Godsdienst, burgerschap unreformed.” Quoted in De Wachter, 1 Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1978); and en de Nederlandse natie, 1850-1900 (Am- September 1881, 3. Firth Haring Fabend, Zion on the Hud- sterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 2009). This 2. M. Eugene M. Osterhaven alluded son: Dutch New York and New Jersey in book provides an excellent overview to this “two worlds” cultural gap in his the Age of Revivals (New Brunswick, NJ: of the conservative Reformed members essay “Saints and Sinners: Secession and Rutgers University Press, 2000). (orthodox-protestansen) who stayed in the Christian Reformed Church,” in 5. Theodore Roosevelt and Martin the Hervormde Kerk (Abraham Kuyper is Word and World, James W. Van Hoeven, Van Buren were third cousins, three no hero in this book). ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans times removed, while Theodore was 9. Jonathan Pearson, Three Centuries: Publishing Co., 1986) 66. Elton Bruins the uncle of Franklin Roosevelt’s wife The History of the First Reformed Church deals with a number of Americanization Eleanor. of Schenectady, 1680-1980 (Schenectady, issues in “1882—Secession Yet Again: 6. Boonstra, The Dutch Equation in NY: First Reformed Church, 1980) vol. the Masonic Controversy” in Robert P. the RCA Freemasonry. 1, 126-128. Swierenga and Elton J. Bruins, Family 7. For the sake of consistency the Re- 10. For more details see Herman Quarrels in the Dutch Reformed Churches formed church congregations in North Harmelink, Ecumenism and the Reformed in the Nineteenth Century (Grand Rapids: America will be referred to as RCA con- Church (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerd- William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., gregations even though independence mans Publishing Co., 1968) 22-29. 1999) 108-135. from the church in the Netherlands 11. For a thorough discussion of the 3. This article is based partly on my did not come until 1792 and the name Afscheiding and the subsequent story The Dutch Equation in the RCA Freema- Reformed Church in America was not of the Reformed Dutch immigrants to sonry Controversy, 1865-1885 (Holland, adopted until 1867. America, see Robert P. Swierenga and MI: Van Raalte Press, Hope College, 8. A helpful (although brief) in- Elton J. Bruins, Family Quarrels. 2008). troduction to the Hervormde Kerk in 4. There are many excellent essays English is Karel Blei, The Netherlands

42 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

book review

central character, a transplant from bore the brunt of this poverty was Vermont, where he had achieved rath- his wife, Arvilla. Equally devoted to er spotty theological education, most the Christianizing of the Indians, she of which confi rmed his steadfast Cal- also had the task of providing for the vinism. He and Chief Wakazoo estab- ever growing family of fi ve surviving lished the Old Wing Mission (named children. She had several miscarriages after Wakazoo’s recently deceased and fi ve children died. And when he brother) near the Black River (in Alle- traveled and traipsed for days on end, gan County just south and east of the she was confi ned to the house, usually city of Holland). Smith became fully without any neighbors or friends. No involved in the life of the Indians, wonder that she suffered the plight freely accepted them into his home, of many pioneer women—loneliness and became a close friend of Chief and deep depression, with virtually no Wakazoo. Although Smith’s main goal emotional support from her husband. was the conversion of the Indians to Smith’s dearest friend among the In- the Christian faith, he also was the dians was Chief Joseph Wakazoo, who Old Wing Mission: Cultural schoolmaster trying to teach both also became his staunchest supporter. Interchange as Chronicled adults and children English, “white” Although Smith grieved that Wakazoo farming, and living permanently in did not always follow the Christian by George and Arvilla Smith settled communities. He also was an (Calvinistic) way, they were like blood in their Work with Chief agent for the US government, trying to brothers and became related by blood Wakazoo’s Ottawa Band on be a bridge between the government when Smith’s oldest daughter mar- the West Michigan Frontier and the Native American people. The ried Wakazoo’s nephew. At Wakazoo’s obstacles in carrying out these roles death in 1845 Smith wrote, “I almost Robert P. Swierenga and William Van were immense and a person with less felt that the doom of our mission was Appledorn, eds. (Grand Rapids: William determination and faith would have sealed. He was wise in council, noble B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008) given up after a few years. Smith’s in spirit, and upright in life. His advice ISBN 978-0-8028-6381-2, hardcover greatest disappointment was that only was sought for, far and near, among $49.00 a few accepted Christianity; most his fellow red men, and he should be remained confused or uninterested or regarded as a benefactor of his race. . Old Wing Mission contains details, antagonistic. Sadly Smith was unable . . Perhaps in his grave is buried the summaries, interpretations, and to master the Ottawa language and for hope of our mission. True, God can histories for many readers. They will years he had to rely on (unreliable) raise up other help, but things to us encounter many historical fi gures and interpreters. His diary notes that the look dark” (p. 39). events from the middle 1800s that largest Sabbath attendance was about Wakazoo’s Ottawa band of about represent the changes of American forty people, and on many Sundays 120 people forms, in many ways, the pioneer life. The tome contains a mar- none came. One entry is typical of the collective main character of the story. velous introduction by Robert Swi- latter case, “Sabbath, Jan. 8, 1843. But They spent summers in the areas erenga; the diaries of Congregational one little boy came. I explained to him of Mackinac Straits and the Leela- missionary George Smith, and of his the four fi rst commandments.” nau Peninsula and in the winter in wife, Arvilla Smith; and various other The Smith family lived a “pioneer” the Black River area (near modern documentary pieces and correspon- life in abject poverty most of the time Holland and Allegan). They were dence to and from Smith. and sometimes relied on the Indi- mostly hunters and gatherers, with The Reverend George Smith is the ans for their food. The person who farming and gardening as needed to

43 supplement their food. Native Ameri- Swierenga’s “Introduction” is a metic- on the edge in so many ways. They can cultures were often complicated, ulous recording of this slice of history, can be characterized as “pioneers,” as were their languages. One need not and immensely helpful in setting the and they were more involved with the idealize their lives and still be horri- stage for the 50-year drama described. Indians than virtually all other settlers. fi ed by the treatment they received He spends considerable time on the The reader alternates between admira- from virtually all Europeans. The Ot- charge by some historians that the tion for their endurance, pity for their tawa suffered the same fate that nearly Dutch settlers “drove out” the Native hardships, and dismay at their inabil- all Native Americans suffered. They Americans from the area. His explana- ity to really identify with the American were driven (several times) from their tion is mostly even-handed, but he Indians. traditional lands; they had endured probably “protests too much” in his The picture, the image, of the military defeat from the better-armed defense of the Dutch. Also, in dis- Native Americans is, of course, seen Europeans; they were often taken cussing the Ottawa (and other tribes) through the eyes of the two Smiths advantage of by government, trad- he consistently uses the designation and from their perspective, and there- ers, and settlers; their traditions and “Indians.” I realize that many histo- fore limited. But one sees the Ameri- languages were threatened. They rians do the same and that there is can Indians up close. And what comes were infected with “white” diseases no unanimity about the terminol- through clearly is that they were at and tempted with strong drink. Mis- ogy (even among American Indians the end of their way of life. They sionary Smith and others had what themselves), but I would have liked to were buffeted by endless challenges they thought were noble intentions see the term “Native Americans” given to their traditions, their culture, their of Christianizing these “heathen,” more prominence. language, their religion, their indepen- and converting them into “civilized” Like all such works, the Smith dence, and their pride. They were a Americans. But they had no under- diaries have boring sections. (In 1842, lost people. And those losses show us standing or appreciation for the Indian Smith records the number of inches of a microcosm of the European con- way of life, and their conversion tech- snow for nineteen consecutive days, quest and destruction of the peoples of niques were paternalistic at best and until it was “hip-deep.”) However, the the continent. The tale is a tragic story ruthless at worst. meticulous record by husband and that needs to be told, acknowledged, I heartily recommend the book. wife weaves a record of their living and remembered.o Harry Boonstra

44 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

book notes

One Allied Sailor: The American Diary of The Sweetness of Freedom: The Story of Dirk Battenburg Jacob Van Hinte Stories of Immigrants de Jong and the Sinking of Peter Ester, Nella Kennedy, Stephen Garr Ostrander and SS Maasdam Earl Wm. Kennedy, editors Martha Aladjem Bloomfi eld Carol Ann Lindsay Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010 Michigan State University Press, 2010 Lulu Books, 2010 (www.lulu.com) ISBN 978-0-8028-6661-5 ISBN 978-0-87013977-2 $29.95 $16.00 $22.00 Paperback

45 for the future The topics listed below are being researched, and articles about them will appear in future issues of Origins.

When I Was a Kid, the autobiography of children’s author Meindert De Jong Brother Ploeg: A Searching Saint or a Burr under the Saddle? by Janet Sjaarda Sheeres Now I Will Tell You Children: Hendrik De Kruif’s Account of His Immigration by Jan Peter Verhave The New Jersey Dutch by Richard Harms Frisians: Destination — Paterson, NJ by James J. de Waal Malefyt

HendrikHendrik DeKruif, immigrant and entrepreneuentrepreneurr in Zeeland, Michigan.

Yes, I wish to join the “Friends of the Archives.” Yes, I would also like a gift subscription for:

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Subscriber $10.00 My Name ______Contributing Member $50.00 Address ______Contributing Sponsor $100.00 ______Contributing Founder $500.00 ______

Send to: Origins, Heritage Hall, Calvin College, Send to: Origins, Heritage Hall, Calvin College, 1855 Knollcrest Circle SE 1855 Knollcrest Circle SE Grand Rapids, MI 49546 Grand Rapids, MI 49546

46 Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011

Mr. and Mrs. John Zonneveld Sr., Laton, CA Mr. and Mrs. Allan J. Van Popering, contributors Grand Rapids, MI Contributing Sponsors Mr. Adrian Van Sledright, Caledonia, MI Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Alsum, Ft. Collins, CO Sam and Judy Van Til, Crown Point, IN Dr. Gene and Sylvia Van Zee, Grand Rapids, MI Origins is designed to publicize and Mr. and Mrs. Jay A. Anema, Seattle, WA advance the objectives of the Calvin James H. and Diane Bloem, Louisville, KY Dr. and Mrs. Daniel R. Vellenga, Waco, TX College and Seminary Archives. These Mr. Ted W. Vliek, Portage, MI goals include the gathering, organization Ed and Betty Boersma, Visalia, CA and study of historical materials produced Samuel and Corinne Bosch, Portland, OR Wilbert and Berendina Wichers, Bradenton, FL by the day-to-day activities of the Christian John and Sharon Bouma, Holland, MI Mr. and Mrs. Teunis Witte, Byron Center, MI Reformed Church, its institutions, commu- Dr. Burton and Ellen Wolters, Spring Lake, MI nities and people. We invite you to support Sid and Virginia Bouma, Visalia, CA Mr. and Mrs. F. A. Wybenga, Tallmadge, OH the continued publication of Origins by John and Beth Bouws, Holland, MI becoming “Friends of the Archives.” Mr. and Mrs. Jay L. Zandstra, Highland, IN Connie and Roger Brummel, Holland, MI Mary Zwaanstra, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Conrad J. Bult, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. John Buursma, Holland, MI Enabling Contributor Contributing Members Dr. and Mrs. James A. De Jong, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. John Meyer, Palos Park, IL Floyd J. Antonides, Central Point, OR Jan and Jeannie de Vries, Berkeley, CA David and Rene Baatenburg, Jenison, MI Mark and Ginny Dykstra, South Holland, IL Friends of the Archives Endowment Fund John and Maria Bajema, Lowell, MI John H. and Marcia R. Evenhouse, Westmont, IL Builders Richard and Cynthia G. Bandstra, Grand Rapids, MI James and Rosemarie Evenhuis, Novi, MI AEGON Insurance Group, Cedar Rapids, IA Dr. and Mrs. John D. Beebe, Alto, MI David and Connie Fennema, Durham, NC Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth J. Baas, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. and Mrs. Kenneth J. Betten, Kalamazoo, MI Dr. and Mrs. David Holkeboer, Jenison, MI Robert and Jane Baker Foundation, Kalamazoo, MI Dr. and Mrs. Allan Bishop, Ripon, CA Les and Viv Hoogland, Zeeland, MI Mr. Duane D. Binns, Oak Park, IL Mr. and Mrs. Henry Boersma, Marne, MI Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth A. Hoving, Oak Brook, IL Mr. and Mrs. Roger W. Boer, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. Harmon S. Boertien, Houston, TX Rich and Carla Huizenga, Seattle, WA Dr. and Mrs. Richard H. Harms, Grand Rapids, MI Harry and Thelma Boonstra, Grand Rapids, MI Herb and Bernace Korthuis, Lynden, WA Holland American Wafer Company, Carl and Elizabeth Botting, Ada, MI Grand Rapids, MI Lois and Jack Kuipers, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. and Mrs. Herman H. Broene, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Peter Huizenga, Oak Brook, IL Martin and Annette LaMaire, Oak Park, IL Ralph A. and Elaine A. Bruxvoort, Bloomer, WI Dr. William Huizingh, Scottsdale, AZ Mrs. Nellie Lucas, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Conrad D. Bult, Northport, MI Estate of Dick and Dena Kortenhoeven, Highland, IN Dr. Gerard W. Mulder, Janesville, WI Jacob and Sandra Bulthuis, La Grange, IL Meijer, Inc., Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. William Noordhof, Lacombe, AB Peter and Milly Buma, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. Gerald W. Meyering, Denver, CO Ms. Tietje Piera, Calgary, AB Syd and Ethel Cammenga, Caledonia, MI Drs. Kornelis J. Storm, Aerdenhout, the Netherlands Mr. Roger Riewald, Thousand Oaks, CA Wayne and Greta Clousing, Shoreline, WA Jay and Betty Van Andel Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. A. Charles Schaap, Holland, MI Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Ronald W. Corstange, Hudsonville, MI Mr. and Mrs. P. John Shooks, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Claude J. Venema, Jackson, MI Mrs. Viola L. De Boer, Grand Rapids, MI John and Eunice Stegink, Caledonia, MI Mr. and Mrs. Gary J. Vermeer, Pella, IA Dr. and Mrs. W. P. De Boer, Grand Rapids, MI Henry and Evelyn Stevens, Tucson, AZ Robert L. and Frances De Bruin, Mt. Pleasant, MI Contributing Founders Dr. and Mrs. Robert P. Swierenga, Holland, MI Mr. and Mrs. Willard G. De Graaf, Hudsonville, MI Mr. and Mrs. Richard T. Dykema, Laurel, MD Mr. and Mrs. Gerald A. Talen, Tucson, AZ Dr. Daniel and Marian De Vries, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Bastian A. Knoppers, Oak Brook, IL Bill and Judy Terpstra, Schererville, IN Ms. Barbara DeWitt, Grand Rapids, MI Peters Import Marketplace, Grandville, MI Steve and Barb Timmermans, Palos Heights, IL Henry and Shirley De Witt, Chino, CA Mr. and Mrs. Leo Peters, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. John C. Vander Haag, Sanborn, IA Mr. and Mrs. Henry Docter, Ontario, CA Clara and Leonard Sweetman, Kentwood, MI Benjamin and Debrah Vander Kooi, Luverne, MN James W. Doezema, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Max B. Van Wyk, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. William J. Vander Leest, Leduc, AB Rev. and Mrs. Sidney Draayer, Grand Rapids, MI

47 Mr. and Mrs. Robert Dykstra, Holland, MI Hessel and Alice Kielstra, Calgary, AB Mr. and Mrs. Peter Sytsma, Holland, MI Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth D. Engelsman, Centennial, CO Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kiemel, Colorado Springs, CO Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Talsma, Bellfl ower, CA Phil and Trudy Erffmeyer, Prinsburg, MN Mr. John E. King, Wyckoff, NJ Gil and Joanne Van Baren, South Holland, IL Mr. and Mrs. Robert Essenburg, Grandville, MI Dr. and Mrs. Simon Kistemaker, Oviedo, FL Mr. and Mrs. Richard Vandenakker, Ripon, CA Harold and Nancy Gazan, Holland, MI Mr. and Mrs. Martin O. Kloet, Simcoe, ON Roger and Joyce Vanden Bosch, Zeeland, MI Dr. and Mrs. Samuel E. Greydanus, Saugatuck, MI Chaplain Louis and Frances Kok, Lynden, WA John and Jane Vander Heide, Grand Haven, MI Mr. and Mrs. Albert J. Griede, La Mesa, CA Mr. and Mrs. Andrew R. Kooistra, Grand Rapids, MI Jan and Gary Vander Meer, DeKalb, IL Mrs. Wendlena Groen, Manteca, CA Ms. Ardene Lambers, Grand Rapids, MI John and Donna Vander Meer, Grand Rapids, MI Carl and Sandy Gronsman, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Mast, Jenison, MI Dr. and Mrs. Ronald Vander Molen, Modesto, CA Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Haagsma, Grandville, MI Mr. Gerald Meyer, Holland, MI Dr. and Mrs. Eugene Vander Wall, Citrus Heights, CA Dirk and Gladys Hoek, Modesto, CA James E. and Janice S. Monsma, Medford, MA Dr. Steve J. Van Der Weele, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Van Dokkenburg, Caroline and Henry J. Hoeks, Ada, MI Mrs. Marian Mulder, Grand Rapids, MI West Lafayette, IN Dr. Paul D. and Mrs. Hoeksema, Holland, MI Mrs. Hilda Ormel, Abbotsford, BC Dr. John Van Domelen, College Station, TX Bill and Caroline Hoekstra, Oakdale, CA Mr. and Mrs. Neal Peters, Hudsonville, MI Catherine Van Eck, Lansing, IL Ms. Grace Anne Hoffa, Kalamazoo, MI Quentin and Harriet Remein, Bethesda, MD Dr. Dick and Carol Van Eldik, Gainsville, FL Ms. Kay Hoitenga, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. Frank and Mrs. Doris Roberts, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. and Mrs. Larry Van Genderen, Jackson, WY Rev. and Mrs. Alvin L. Hoksbergen, Spring Lake, MI Al and Rika Scheenstra, Chino Hills, CA Mr. Art Van Groningen, Ripon, CA Dr. Richard E. and Alyce Houskamp, Ada, MI Dr. and Mrs. Jacob W. Scheeres, Venice, FL Mr. and Mrs. Henry Van Mouwerik, Redlands, CA Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Houskamp, Grand Rapids, MI Al and Mary Scholtens, Caledonia, MI Mr. Carl J. Van’t Hof, Tinley Park, IL Dr. and Mrs. Harvey D. Huiner, Lynchburg, VA Mr. and Mrs. William C. Schultze, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Van Tuinen, Longmont, CO Harold and Esther Huizenga, Grand Rapids, MI Ben and Henny Senneker, Lethbridge, AB Dr. and Mrs. Peter D. Van Vliet, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. C. J. Huizinga, Jenison, MI Carl and Cora Mae Sinke, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. and Mrs. William Venema, Grand Rapids, MI Rich and Jane Iwema, Caledonia, MI Dr. and Mrs. Richard D. Sjoerdsma, Racine, WI Mr. Evert Volkersz, Stony Brook, NY Ralph and Elaine Jaarsma, Pella, IA Bernard and Melinda Smit, Lafayette, IN Mr. and Mrs. Philip Wassenar, Uxbridge, MA Ms. Mary E. Jellema, Holland, MI Mr. and Mrs. Albert Snippe, Belwood, ON Dave and Brenda Wiersma, Tucson, AZ John Kamp, Holland, MI Mrs. Juliana Steensma, Holland, MI Rev. and Mrs. Donald P. Wisse, Wyckoff, NJ Dr. and Mrs. John R. Kamps, Gallup, NM Dr. and Mrs. LeRoy Stegink, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Bernard H. Zandstra, Holt, MI Rev. Harvey A. Kiekover, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. Joseph C. Stevens, New Haven, CT Kenneth and Elaine Zimmerman, Woodstock, MD Donald and Elizabeth Kiel, Carlsbad, CA Richard and Joyce Stienstra, Okemos, MI David and Cresta Zwart, Sioux Center, IA

48

The Archives Calvin College and Theological Seminary 1855 Knollcrest Circle SE Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

The Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary Archives contains the historical records of the Christian Reformed Church, its College, its Theological Seminary, and other institutions related to the Reformed tradition in the Netherlands and North America. The Archives also contains a wide range of personal and family manuscripts. Historical Magazine of The Archives Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary Volume XXIX • Number 1 • 2011