Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013 Historical Magazine of The Archives Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary 1855 Knollcrest Circle SE Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 pagepage 6 page 23 (616) 526-6313 Origins is designed to publicize 2 From the Editor 23 A Memoir of One Who Served and advance the objectives of Kenneth Vander Molen The Archives. These goals 4 An Old Note of Sympathy: include the gathering, Considered for Eight Days 32 Big Star Lake: Growth of a organization, and study of James C. Schaap Love Story William J. Braaksma historical materials produced by 13 The Baerts of Zeeland, the day-to-day activities of the Michigan and the Development Christian Reformed Church, of Medical Education in the its institutions, communities, Nineteenth Century and people. Richard H. Harms

Richard H. Harms Editor Hendrina Van Spronsen Circulation Manager Tracey L. Gebbia Designer Janet Sheeres Associate Editor James C. Schaap Robert P. Swierenga Contributing Editors InnerWorkings Printer pagepage 4422 page 45

40 Rev. A. C. Van Raalte on Slavery 45 Book Notes Michael Douma 46 For the Future 43 Book Reviews upcoming Origins articles Cover photo: Harry Boonstra and 47 Contributors The Hemkes and Schaap families Eunice Vanderlaan from the editor . . .

details the history of medical educa- correspondence; papers; articles; tion during the nineteenth century. research materials; periodical clip- Kenneth Vander Molen describes pings; theater programs in the Dutch his perspective on the transforma- language; and manuscripts that detail tion of a high school student from various aspects of Dutch studies as Detroit, Michigan, into a soldier well as material on his textbook, during World War II. Next, William Speak Dutch. We added twenty-nine Time to Renew Your Subscription Braaksma describes several genera- cubic feet of records to the World It’s fall, so it’s time to remind you that tions that vacationed in a community Missions collection in the Christian it is time to renew your subscription on the shores of Big Star Lake. The Reformed Church archives. These to Origins. A renewal envelope is community began with a few families fi les contain extensive correspon- included with this issue. Subscrip- and grew into a summer settlement dence and reports from missionar- tions remain $10 (US) per year. Gifts of Christians. Last, Michael Douma ies. Next, the records of the Grand larger than $10 are acknowledged as found and translated a summary of Rapids Area Center for Ecumenism charitable gifts to Origins, and we are a sermon by Rev. Albertus C. Van (GRACE) were opened for research. grateful for this generosity, which has Raalte, who led Dutch immigrants to GRACE began in 1947 as the Grand allowed us to keep the subscription West Michigan. It is one of the few Rapids-Kent County Council of rate the same for more than thirty of Van Raalte’s sermon summaries Churches and became increasingly years. known to exist, but, more signifi cant, focused on racial reconciliation and it speaks on his view of slavery and justice. In 2011 a new organization, This Issue the American Civil War. The issue Partners for a Racism-Free Commu- This Origins begins with James concludes with two book reviews and nity, took over the work of GRACE. Schaap’s response to a letter of two book notes. Last, we organized the papers of comfort following the death of a Dr. Steve Van Der Weele, professor child, written ninety-fi ve years ago News from the Archives emeritus of English at Calvin College. by his grandfather, a letter fi lled with During the summer we organized These papers detail his scholarship, poignancy as a parent who lost a the papers of Dr. Walter Lagerwey particularly on Christian educa- child writes to console another par- (1918-2005), professor emeritus of tion, English literature, Hungarian ent in the same pain. In the lives of Dutch language and literature at Cal- literature and the work of Czeslaw three generations of a West Michigan vin College. The collection includes Milosz, and his many published book immigrant family, Richard Harms extensive biographical information; reviews.

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Archival material that arrived Among the materials received from and checked facts for accuracy, died during the summer awaiting pro- individuals were the papers (1972- last spring and Fred (Feite) Greida- cessing includes eight cubic feet of 2011) of Christian philosopher Alvin nus, who translated church minutes records from Calvin College’s Offi ce Plantinga and extensive genealogical from Dutch into English, died in Au- of the President, 2002-2012. We also records on the Rozendal, Hospers, gust. Both contributed immeasurably received the records of the Red Mesa Tribbles, and Merrit families donated to our work in Heritage Hall and we Foundation, formed in 1999 to de- by Jean Rozendal. Quentin Schultze, offer our condolences to the families velop, manage, and distribute assets professor of communication arts and and friends. from land just east of Gallup, New sciences and scholar on Christians Mexico, formerly owned by Christian and communication, added thirteen Staff Reformed Home Missions surround- cubic feet of records to his papers. Richard Harms is the curator of ing Rehoboth Christian School as His material on St. Augustine on the Archives and editor of Origins; well as some commercial property communication and the Old Testa- Hendrina VanSpronsen is the offi ce along Route 66. The earnings from ment on communications appears in coordinator and business manager of the endowment helped support the our holdings to be the best collection Origins; Wendy Blankespoor is our ministries of the local Christian of source material on the two topics. librarian and cataloging archivist; Reformed churches and Christian Origins is publishing another book Laurie Haan is the department as- schools. Once the assets had been by Janet Sheeres. Her extensively sistant; Robert Bolt is fi eld agent and distributed, the foundation closed. annotated minutes of the synods assistant archivist; and Anna Kathryn We also received the records of Inner of the Christian Reformed Church, Feltes is our student assistant. During Compass, an award-winning show on 1857-1880 is scheduled for release the summer Denielle McCarron was topics related to US culture, interna- next spring through the offi ces of our student intern. Our volunteers tional issues, faith, life-changers, and the William B. Eerdmans Publishing include Ed Gerritsen, Ralph Haan, relationships; for more than a decade Company and the Historical Series of Helen Meulink, Clarice Newhof, Ger- this television series has benefi ted the Reformed Church in America. rit W. Sheeres, Janet Sheeres, Jean- from national distribution from nette Smith, and Ralph Veenstra.% Calvin College. Last, we received the Volunteers records of New Hope Church of Dun- Since our last issue, two of our dedi- woody, Georgia, a congregation that cated and diligent volunteers have began in the Atlanta area in 1983 and died. Gordon DeYoung, who for years closed in 2013. proofread copy, checked grammar, Richard H. Harms

3 An Old Note of Sympathy: Considered for Eight Days James C. Schaap

Day One The hand is not cramped. It’s a man- perhaps. She is almost seven months nered cursive that would be perfectly pregnant with my father. readable if it weren’t so tiny. Fancy G’s “We were greatly shocked at the on God. An extra swirl on uppercase news that your dear Nelson had W’s. He learned his penmanship well. passed away.” The card that accom- And I can tell, simply by the smooth panied this letter, written in more of hand, that he was still a relatively a cramped hand, explained that the young man, a relatively young father, letter itself belonged to her grand- a relatively young preacher—my parents, who had treasured it greatly, grandfather John C. Schaap. having received it in consolation of their terrible grief, justj after the death ofo their son, who hadh died suddenly of scarlets fever. “Scarlet fever” is oneo of those child- hoodh killers all but banishedb from our livesl today, but the namen still horrifi es, asa if the chill is ar- chivedc in my DNA. A redr mask covers the face,f a light rash cov- Image courtesy of the author. erse the body, a straw- berryb tongue. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s sister “Dear Friends,” it begins—some- went blind from it, and when it came how he knew them. “One cannot help on back then, a century ago, in some to express our heartfelt sympathy communities it came as a plague. in your terrible grief and affl iction.” “Mrs. Schaap burst out in tears James C. Schaap is a published author The hand and the voice is my grand- when I told her what had happened of both nonfi ction and fi ction and father’s, and he’s writing to a couple at your place,” my grandpa says. I’m is professor of English Emeritus at whose son had just died, age six. It sure he’s not lying. Neither of them Dordt College. A native of Wisconsin, 1 much of his work has focused on the was written from Jenison, Michigan. has need to dramatize. descendants of Dutch immigrants and The date is 8 April 1918. Here’s how “We can more feel for you since it on people of the Great Plains. He I picture it—he’s writing this note at is yet so fresh in our memory when currently lives in Alton, Iowa. the kitchen table. My grandma Schaap we lost our little Agnes, of about the sits in the chair beside him, reading same age as your little boy was.”

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Read that sentence again. I teach writing and have for years. It’s my job to evaluate style as well as con- tent, and I can’t help All images courtesy of the author. but recognize that the most fractured syntax in the entire letter sets this sentence apart fromm any other. ents. Perhaps My grandfather was bilingual, of they knew any- course; the language of his childhood way. But it’s here was Dutch. There’s a bit of Dutch in nonetheless in that sentence, especially in inverted composition—in word order; but it’s more than that. both what he That sentence came haltingly from wrote and how both mind and pen because putting he wrote. what he felt into words was no simple My grandpa, task. Simply bringing Agnes’s death the writer, and up required pain as he sat there, his my grandma, wife beside him. All by itself, the awk- his wife, as well ward syntax of that sentence weeps. as the letter’s Their little Agnes died of some- recipients have thing unknown at the time. Doctors all been gone tried to save her life by a procedure for more than a thought then very cutting edge, one half century; but of the fi rst ever attempted in the state when I read this of Michigan—something called a ninety-year-old transfusion. For some time Grandpa expression of Schaap lay beside his precious daugh- deep sympathy ter, the doctors having created some and grief, the means by which to draw his blood out story lingers, as to fl ow into her veins. For three days do the charac- prospects brightened immensely. She ters. seemed to be in recovery. Then, sud- There’s more to be read here, more denly, she was gone. to be felt, more to be learned. My aunt once told me that she remembered her father, my grandpa, Day Two lying face down on the fl oor of the In John Gardner’s story “Redemp- manse after his fi rstborn’s death. She tion,” a little boy dies in a farming was a child herself, but the dark- accident. In the awful wake of that ness persisted, she told me, until he death’s horror, the boy’s father steps packed the family in the wagon and out of the house and runs wild for a took a call to a country church in Al- long time. A Christian psychologist ThisThi sympathy th note t was written itt lendale, Michigan, where the people once told me that, following the death fi ve years after Grandpa and Grandma of the congregation met the family of a child, parents should be ex- Schaap had buried their own daugh- on the lawn when they drove up, and cused—which is to say, forgiven—for ter. If the note had been written six where, she told me, he stepped off just about anything they do for fi ve months after Agnes’s death, it might that wagon as a new man. years. It takes that long for grief to have a different tone; but then, if Some of that story is in this short fi nd its own level in the heart. I don’t twenty years had passed, Grandpa note. He doesn’t tell it to the recipi- know. might have responded differently

5 too. Not in substance—I’m sure the fact that story is still carried along by theology by which he interpreted his descendent family members. The fam- sadness wouldn’t change; what might ily couldn’t attend the funeral. change is how he accepted that theol- I cannot imagine being Mom or ogy. Dad, locked up in the very house of But it takes the preacher a few sen- death, the house with the sign, on tences before he begins to do what he that day while somewhere down the must. First, more empathy. road the body of my child is being “Our thoughts were with you con- lowered into a small grave. Neither tinually,” he writes, after referring to could Grandpa and Grandma Schaap their own loss. And then, this rather imagine that particular pain, I’m strange sentence: “What a gloomy sure, its immense isolation. What an Sunday you must have had!” His own story could not have left him unfeeling, but, to me at least, that last line seems almost callous. To call the day of the boy’s burial gloomy risks understating the family’s horrify- ing sadness. But there’s a footnote here that helps me somehow. The woman who sent the note along to me explained that, because of the boy’s fever and the risk of his fever spreading, the family had been under quarantine. Somewhere in the fog of my earli- est childhood memories, I see a sign that says “Quarantine,” but that’s all, just an image way back somewhere. If families and their homes are quaran- tined today, I don’t know of it. Ninety John C. Schaap about the time he wrote this years ago, both word and practice letter. Image courtesy of the Archives, Heritage were routine, immigrant ships and Hall, Calvin College. their passengers regularly subjected to inspection and quarantine. From incredibly gloomy day that must have 1780 to 1820, not all that far from been. where I live, the population of Arikara But there’s more. Indians, once 30,000 strong, fell to almost nothing at the hands of small- Day Three pox. Containment was a necessity, A colleague—a blood relative—lost and quarantine meant containment. a son in an accident years ago. At Imagine it this way: there is a sign what people here call “the visitation,” Image courtesy of the author. on the door of a house, a legal notice I was, as far as I knew, the only true that makes you shiver with cold. No family relative in attendance. I was we had politely expressed our condo- one enters, no one leaves—save the much younger then; and as we slowly lences, hugged my cousin mightily. dead. marched up to the family at the cas- In a fl ash, I understood why: the man “What a gloomy Sunday” in all ket, I wondered how he might react to who followed us in line had also lost likelihood refers to the fact that this my greeting, the only blood kin there. a child. Blood kin meant little; shared loving, quarantined family, despite It didn’t seem to matter at all as I experience made all the difference. their grief, could not attend their little remember, because his eyes were on So when Grandpa says what he boy’s funeral. Ninety years after the the man behind me, a man who, once does in this note to a grieving fam-

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ily, I’m guessing that both writer and him, and most everyone told me seems to be receding from the shore recipient recognize the bond of shared that he was a kind and loving man, of England’s soul. When such great experience. What I’m saying is that nothing close to the caricature of the authority loses hold, human beings my grandfather, the preacher, might Calvinist hellfi re preacher. are left in a kind of empty sadness. have written the same words he did But the way he characterizes his There’s a remedy, of course, in that that April day, having not lost a child; own preaching here makes him sound old poem, and that, Arnold says, is but the fact that he had changes the fatalistic, as if life itself, end to end, human love: way we read the solace in the words, is little more than a long, shadowy lending as that experience does incal- valley. “Time and time again,” he says, Ah, love, let us be true culable gravity. he’s preached that. To one another! for the world, which seems “This certainly is a shadow in your And that makes me wonder how To lie before us like a land of dreams, life which will never be entirely taken long it took him to get back into the So various, so beautiful, so new, away on this side of death and the pulpit after the death of his daughter. Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor grave,” he says. Today, I would love When he did, I wonder if, time and light, to ask Grandpa Schaap whether he time again, he told his parishioners Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for would have written those same words that “such is life.” pain; . . . thirty years later, when his many kids And I wonder if that changed the gave him dozens of grandkids. I’d character of his preaching once he Arnold doesn’t so much reject the like to ask him whether, in his own got to that new church in Allendale, Christian faith as feel its impotence. consciousness, the horrifying profi le Michigan, once he could hold his “Dover Beach” is not a theological of his own daughter’s death eventually head up once more and, suitably at poem, even though it has theological lost some of its jagged edge. I don’t least, hold his grief at bay. implications; instead, it’s a poem that know that. Undoubtedly, what happens in ostensibly accurately refl ects what Ar- And then a stunning line. “But church is different today. A century nold himself was thinking some night such is life,” he writes. Such here feels later, worship is often a bit short on during the late nineteenth century. something like a vague pronoun, its lament, brimming as it is with praise. Somehow, my students have the exact antecedent only vaguely as- Maybe our perception of preach- opinion that a poem like “Dover sumed. Most readers would guess ing has changed too; maybe our Beach” presents a moral lesson, for that he’s suggesting we suffer agonies well-heeled affl uence demands the Christian readers especially—and it throughout our lives, hurts that, like fulfi llment we need from the joy and does. It clearly offers us the portrait of open wounds, never really heal and hope of the Gospel. It seems to me a thoughtful man trying to determine therefore accompany us right through that today a preacher—even a young how to live in a world in which the own fi nal days. “Such is life.” preacher, as Grandpa was—who tells old testimonies have lost currency. Let me put the two lines together us, “over and over again” that “such From an orthodox Christian point again: “This,” he says, speaking of is life” would soon enough wear out a of view, Arnold is wrong in advising the death of their son, “certainly is a welcome. that human love is the only recourse shadow in your life which will never But then, I need to remember my “. . . on a darkling plain/Swept with be entirely taken away on this side of psychologist friend, who told me that confused alarms of struggle and death and the grave. Such is life.” the rest of us should give a grieving fl ight/Where ignorant armies clash by I can’t help but think that what he parent a fi ve-year window of forgive- night.” To believe that we can some- says here feels immensely dark, but ness. Presumably, even preachers. how garner all we need from human then I’ve never lost a child. love is, well, romantic. He goes on. “I have made mention Day Four But the poem offers more, too, of it [presumably, that “such is life”] Who knows why, but somewhere more than moral lessons we can slap time and time again in my sermons. along the line, probably in college, on a t-shirt or leave behind in the . . .” Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” dust. There are plenty of true-or-false My grandfather baptized me, but I stuck to my innards. It’s a poem full quizzes in life, but to read a poem like don’t remember ever seeing him in a of sadness, really, Arnold and some “Dover Beach” as if it were only theol- pulpit; he died when I was six years beloved companion looking out over ogy stifl es the poem’s own heartbeat. old. Through the years I’ve heard sto- the white cliffs of Dover and think- I am still sort of reeling from what ries from countless people who knew ing about the way in which faith itself I once said to a class, something I’d

7 never said before. We were reading house. I may be wrong, but I think is God’s promises—that’s what my three stories from Andre Dubus, and I he’s even talking to me here. grandfather is saying, even though was getting the sense—by way of their Truth may well feel relative until those very promises had to have formulation of theme statements— it is lived. Sermons may well feel like been what they held onto during that that my students were of the impres- exercises until they aren’t. “Dover child’s own last hours. They had to sion that these stories were simply Beach” may be little more than bad have been pleading with God for their exercises used by the English prof to theology until, sometime, we too sit son’s life, on the basis of those very determine grades. somewhere abandoned and alone, as promises. “This is about us,” I told them. if there is no God. And now we’ve arrived at the “If there’s one thing I want you to “But what should comfort you now most diffi cult question believers ever understand about what we’re reading is the comforting fact that God is a face: if God both loves and rules this it’s that: it’s all about us.” So is “Do- covenant God (Verbonds God), who world, how is it that we suffer as ver Beach.” So is Lady Macbeth. So is has said that He would be your God immensely as we do? God loves us, Dorian Gray and Huck Finn and John and the God of your children.” right?—now explain the Holocaust, Ames. “It’s about us,” I said again, Now things get delicate. Sit- Rwanda, the killing fi elds, the death “about us as human beings.” ting there at the table, the Reverend of my aunt in a car accident. To such I don’t know that all my preaching Schaap has written a page and a half profound questions, there are no got through. I doubt it. They probably of empathy wrung from their own simple answers. fi gured I’d just had a bad day. shared experience. Both the letter I don’t think Grandpa would have I don’t believe for a minute that writer and recipient lost children. asked for our pity or sympathy, but my classroom preaching carried the A century ago, however, it was as- we’ve come to the moment in this imperative of the sermons my grand- sumed that a preacher would do more letter when he knows he must offer father claimed to create “time and than sympathize; he was, after all, the resolution, offer a means by which time again,” sermons that advised his dominie, and his words carried au- to put this immense pain behind congregation that “such is life.” After thority second only to scripture itself. them; and I do feel sorry for Grandpa all, school is exercise; it’s not real life Dominie Schaap could not simply say, because I believe there are no good as much as it is preparation for real “I feel your pain.” The grieving family answers. life. would have expected the preacher What did he believe? How did he And I say all of that because what at least to point the way out of their square the loss of a child—of his own my grandfather tells this grieving profound grief, and he does, by way daughter—with the sovereign love of couple, after explaining the nature of what Dutch Calvinists used to call God? I may be reading too much into of so many of his sermons, feels very “covenant theology.” it, but I think the answer is here, in much like what I felt this week. Here’s Honestly, I can’t know what that the letter, for better or for worse. what he says: “Though you agreed family was going through, just as There’s more to come. with it then [meaning, when he was I can’t know how deeply my own preaching that suffering is in the grandparents’ grief still manifested Day Six order of things in this life], you will itself in their souls. For that reason, If I’ve been coached on what hap- be more convinced of this truth now it’s likely a ton easier for me to say pens to parents who suddenly lose better than you ever were before.” this than it would have been for them, a child, I learned what I know from Such is life, says the fellow sufferer. but I don’t fi nd my grandpa’s words a young father who also lost a son, This is us. This is our lot. What he’s as reassuring as he would have meant but lost him in a farm accident. Two thinking is that now—in the deep them to be, largely because God’s stories that young father told me have hurt of deep grief—his sermons have promise of care (“He would be your stuck with me, even though I wrote real meaning. That I understand. God and the God of your children”) his story more than a quarter century And I’m thinking that his use of has just been painfully broken any- ago. One involves being on the tractor you here is generic. For a moment at way; if he had been, in fact, “the God after the accident, after the funeral— least, he may have lost focus on the of your children,” would he have let how especially, he said, moving up grieving couple and marched directly that little six-year-old succumb to and down the back forty begs the into the rhetoric of the pulpit, ad- scarlet fever?—would he let that child mind to travel places far afi eld. Dur- dressing many, many more than those die? ing those times this fi ercely religious who were living in that quarantined The remedy for their painful grief man told me he used to scream at

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God for what had happened. And people his court with young and old rage itself could bring solace. All of then he said, “But so did King David. alike. He wanted the boy, Nelson, this may be revisionist history, but Read it yourself in the psalms.” Grandpa says, for his own court, an I’m wondering if his saying so much The second lesson he gave me answer that can, at worst, make God doesn’t suggest that he knows he has about grief involves answers that seem almost covetous. The second as- very little to say. come too easily—specifi cally, answers sociation is to ripeness—i.e., Nelson But he must say something. So he that people offered him and his wife, was simply ready to be harvested. The does. Because there are no good an- lines like, “Jesus just wanted a little third equates the boy with a precious swers, he hands out a whole, bounte- jewel for his crown.” Answers like fl ower blooming. ous bouquet of clichés. that made him angry, he said. “The I was once told that if you can give One line he offers the grieving best way to offer sympathy in a time ten reasons for not doing something parents here holds a truth to which like that is simply to be there,” he you should, it means you don’t have he will return, however: “. . . and if told me. Silent presence, he taught one good one. Honestly, I don’t want you look at it like that, you would not me, is always best. Cheap answers are exactly that. But Grandpa Schaap’s silent presence wasn’t possible when a boy named Nelson died of scarlet fever back in 1918. The grieving family members were no more his parishioners, so he had to write. And he did, and I have in my hands a copy of that old letter. And, as I’ve already said, the preacher can’t simply sympathize; in the world in which he lived, people looked to the dominie for solutions, for remedy. This is how Grandpa’s remedy for their grief begins: You may ask yourselves the ques- tion, “Why did the Lord give us the child so short a time, only to leave us in grief?” We answer, “God wants The Hemkes and Schaap families; left to right: Rev. Gerrit K. Hemkes, his wife Janntje (nee children as well as adults before His Emmelkamp), Gertrude (nee Hemkes), and Rev. John C. Schaap. According to family tradition, the two children are Nellie and Gertrude. Image courtesy of the author. large white throne, and if you look at it like that, you would not dare to to judge my grandfather’s theol- dare to demand your child back to demand your child back to this sinful ogy, nor may I properly question his this sinful earth. . . .” earth, and not to giving your child propriety—after all, I have not lost a He will have more to say, much to praise and adore God better there child. He did. Who on earth am I to more, on authority. than he would ever be able to do in judge? this world. God sent out his angel to But I wonder if the rapid succes- Day Seven reap the sheaf that was ready, though sion of associations here, one after Feels like a sermon almost. It starts you did not know it and God plucked another (God’s court, a wheat fi eld, with something of an anecdote meant him away so suddenly and unexpect- some lovely fl ower), doesn’t suggest to convey sincere sympathy (“Mrs. edly as a fl ower that bloomed in the his own sketchy estimate of the very Schaap burst out in tears when I fi eld.” answers he offers. He tried, as his told her what had happened at your Grandpa’s explanation lists three grandson might yet today, to throw place”), then affi rms the family in the images or associations, one after words at the problem, to fi ll the bond of their mutual loss by bring- another, all three of them, some might emptiness with a tumble of ideas, one ing up “our own Agnes, of about the say, maybe a bit too easy, almost after another, hoping either that one same age,” then moves into consola- cheap. The fi rst is God’s desire to of them might fi t, or that the bar- tion with a fairly long confession of

9 faith (“God is a covenant God . . . having a “favorite Bible passage.” But inherited the same poetic wit and agil- who has said that He would be your it’s clear to me that some four months ity, and often wrote epic stanzas for God . . . .”), then attempts the diffi - after his study of that passage and just weddings and banquets and what not cult job of answering the doubt both a few years after the loss of his own else. Funny things. He was good at it. Grandpa and Grandma must have felt daughter, the choice of those verses The note my grandfather sent to themselves when their daughter died. clearly suggests how important they grieving parents is fi ve pages long, And now, this precious note moves had to have been—and still were—es- three of which are poetry. It’s remark- smoothly into benediction: “May you pecially to the region of his soul that able to hold that note in your hand believe the truth of the text that I had still ached. All of that makes sense. and realize he took the time to write New Year’s morning in Romans 8:31- There’s a bit more to this benedic- out eight four-line stanzas of poetry 32.” tion: “May the God of Comfort give that, he says, meant a great deal to I should have guessed that an you through his H. Spirit what you him and to Grandma. But he did. old Calvinist like Grandpa Schaap may be in need of in this hours of For a time, I hoped that maybe the would try to draw the grieving back tribulation,” he writes. verses were his own work, but they to Romans 8, just as he must have His grandson, the English teacher, aren’t. They belong to a nineteenth- been drawn back himself in his own has spotted a couple of errors in this century Scotsman named John Dickie, grief: “What shall we then say to these little note, but I think it’s telling that who has his own story. Google him things? If God be for us, who can be he so unnecessarily puts Comfort in sometime. The poem is fi ve stanzas against us? He that spared not his uppercase. Having grown up in the long, has no title. Here’s the fi rst own Son, but delivered him up for us same theological world, I’m quite sure stanza: all, how shall he not with him also I know why: it’s because he—and the I am not sent a pilgrim here, freely give us all things?” grieving parents he was addressing— My heart with earth to fi ll. It’s an either/or proposition that held a particular poetic line at nearly But I am here God’s grace to learn, would have been diffi cult for God- the same level of awe as the Word fearing people to doubt: if He is on itself, that line from the fi rst Q and A and serve God’s sovereign will. our side, there can be no opposition. of the Heidelberg Catechism: Sure feels like a Calvinist’s poem. And, there’s always the consolation What is your only comfort in life There’s more. that even if most of those around us and death? don’t seem to understand what it is He leads me on through smiles and That I we’ve felt at the loss of our baby, God tears, with body and soul, does. He suffered, after all, the very Grief follows gladness still; both in life and in death, But let me welcome both alike same loss. am not my own, Since both work out his will. That those two verses carried but belong unto my faithful Savior The strong man’s strength to toil for deep currency with my grandfather Jesus Christ . . . . is suggested by the date of the let- Christ, ter—8 April 1918. Do the math. He That he would point the family in The fi nest preacher’s skill must have preached twenty-some the direction of the catechism’s fi rst I sometimes wish,—but better far sermons since New Year’s morning, and most famous assertion is not at all To be just what God will. explored twenty-some passages dur- surprising either. Why?—I don’t know, but Grandpa ing weekly preparations. He had to But, even though the benediction chooses to fi ll the page with this have been much more fresh on many has been sounded, there’s still more to poem. The paper is lined, and on far more recent passages, but the one the note. all the other pages he observes the he included in what feels like the boundaries; but here—see the page letter’s own benediction is one he re- Day Eight above—for some reason he fi lls the membered preaching on four months I know that Grandpa’s father-in-law, a page by writing top to bottom. I don’t before on New Year’s Day—Romans 8: seminary professor, frequently penned know why. 31-32. what some call “doggerel,” poems But there’s more to this title-less, I don’t know what Grandpa Schaap written in rhyming verses and tradi- author-less poem. would have said if I suggest it must tional meters. Grandpa too had a pen- have been some kind of favorite; I’m chant for such things. Perhaps in the I know not how this languid life not always taken by the language of days before TV, many did. My f ather My life’s vast ends fulfi ll;

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tot me that that’s With humble hearts and mouths put whyw Grandpa in the dust, spendss almost Let’s say he’s merciful as well as twot pages copy- just . . . ingi out this one Here’s the proof: See the way poem.p “Cropt” breaks the iambic rhythm? But why this In her anger at God, she pushes that poem?p word up to the front of the line, snarl- It reminds me ing. Three times, she seems to want to ofo an old Ameri- rally the troops, using the same com- canc poem from mand form: “let us.” Internally, she’s thet Puritan era, undoubtedly rallying her own doubt. a poem by Anne Either that or simply echoing what Bradstreet,B our she’s been told by her preacher, “Well, fi rst poetess—in Anne, let’s be sure we see this for what alla likelihood it is—God’s own will”—the smarmy ouro fi rst poet. and generic editorial we. So argue the Bradstreet’sB po- critics. etrye shows up in When I read this poem Grandpa anthologiesa be- thought so much of, I feel a similar causec she spun kind of tethered anger because every herh work from last stanza marches the reader relent- herh ordinary lessly back to God’s will. Time and life.l In it we see time and time again, the poem corrals notn only craft, unruliness, as if should it not, the butb also history. human soul would simply take some Contempo- other path, some profane path. And raryr critics laud the truth is simple—life is all about Ms.M Bradstreet God’s will. forf her scrappy Yet, some readers might say this nature,n her poem deconstructs its own theology, soul’ss rebel urging a degree of comfort it can’t Image courtesy of the author. character.c They quite accept itself. claim she Here’s the fi nal stanza of the poem couldn’t buy the rigorous Puritan way. He knows,—and that life is not lost Grandpa sends to the child’s grieving I’m not so sure. In a poem she wrote That answers best his will. parents, and underscores bear in the about the death of a grandchild, con- No service in itself is small, fi nal line: None great, though earth it fi ll; temporary critics locate that unruli- But that is small, that seeks its own ness in the fabric of the lines. Then hold my hand, most gracious And great that seeks God’s will. Lord, No sooner came, but gone, and fall’n Guide all my goings still; asleep The word doggerel has an elitist And let this be my life’s one aim: edge to it—the word carries with it Acquaintance short, yet parting caused us weep; To do or bear thy will. some defamation. Doggerel implies sil- Three fl owers, two scarcely blown, Grandpa underlined that word, the ly, cheap, elementary poetic practice. the last i’ th’bud, only time he underlined anything in But poems, originally, were little more Cropt by th’ Almighty’s hand, yet is than memory devices, means people He good. the poem. That punctuation feature used to remember signifi cant stories With dreadful awe before Him let’s be itself underscores the unavoidably or sentiment because rhythm and mute. resolute character of the poem—it’s rhyme helped people hold on to what Such was his will, but why let’s not all a matter of God’s will: sign on or they chose not to forget. It’s obvious dispute, you’re lost. Bear it.

11 Look, that bothers me—that driv- ing pressure to conform to something Endnote I don’t know well or understand. And 1. Schaap was the minister to the it likely wasn’t easy for that grieving Allendale, Michigan congregation, about ten miles northwest of Jenison, but his family to accept either; in fact, it may mail must have been coming via a rural well have been hard for Grandpa too. route from the Jenison post offi ce. Here’s what I’m thinking. Perhaps my grandpa’s real humanity is on dis- play here, in his use of this particular poem, because what he’s telling those grieving parents is exactly what he’s felt ever since the death of his own six-year-old—that he must, he simply must—herd his own doubt and anger into the corral of God’s own will. Theologically, Grandpa had to have told himself that this poem’s obvious theme was absolutely right; but its own relentless rhetorical style sug- gests the immense diffi culty of some quick and easy reception. Its theme is probably as true to life as its form. I treasure this poem—and I’m thankful for the note itself—because it offers the truth both theologically and emotionally. If you doubt it, “read the psalms,” as another grieving fa- ther once told me. In this poem I see my grandfather and, likely, my grandmother, too, more clearly, ninety years later. And myself.n

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The Baerts of Zeeland, Michigan and the Development of Medical Education in the Nineteenth Century Richard H. Harms

he foundations of current requirements for admission, curricula, Tmedical education in the United and student assessments. Flexner Stated resulted from the 1910 report suggested that medical school admis- by Abraham Flexner, an educator, on sion should require, at minimum, a the status of medical training at the high school diploma and at least two beginning of the twentieth century. years of college or university study; During the study, Flexner visited all that medical school curricula should 155 medical schools in North Ameri- include two years of training in basic ca; several, like Harvard, Western Re- sciences followed by two years of serve, Michigan, Wake Forest, McGill, clinical training; and that the existing University of Toronto, and Johns Hop- “proprietary” schools1 be closed or in- kins, were noted for their excellence, corporated into university programs.2 but most of the rest differed greatly in During the eighteenth century, the

Richard H. Harms is the curator of the archives and director of Heritage Hall at Calvin College. He has degrees in history and has published extensively on the history of western Michigan and the Dutch in North America. He is also the editor of Origins. An 1866 map showing the various polders around Beirvliet, Zeeland. The canals, sluices, and pumps were threatened during the Belgian Revolution. Public domain image.

13 practice of “regular” (or allopathic) about fi fty medical schools in the medicine began to become more com- United States by 1860, the earliest monplace, and by the mid-nineteenth at the University of Pennsylvania century, medical education in Europe (established in 1765), Columbia was beginning to incorporate science (1767), Harvard (1782), and Dart- and technology in diagnosis and treat- mouth (1797), most were intended to ment. But in the United States at the be a supplement to the apprenticeship time, numerous health-care theories system. After the American Civil War, and disciplines, including charlatan- medical education began to include ism and quackery, developed along- full-time researchers and teachers in side what would now be considered biochemistry, bacteriology, and phar- more orthodox medical treatments, macology. In 1874, the fi rst teaching such as allopathy.3 Most medical hospital was built at the University of practitioners of the time received their Pennsylvania.4 During the 1800s in training through an apprenticeship Zeeland, Michigan, three generations system, typically lasting three years. of the Baerts lived this development of Apprentices studied with a physician medical education. who allowed the apprentice to par- Because Zeeland was established Dr. Daniel Baert. Image courtesy of ticipate in the practice in exchange by immigrants from the Province of the Dekker Huis/Zeeland Historical Museum. for a tuition fee and the performance Zeeland, the Netherlands, the story of of menial tasks. Although there were the Baerts begins in two communities oof that province. On of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. 227 February 1810 In 1830, the Belgian Revolution and GGeorg H. was born subsequent independence from the tto Daniel Baert and Netherlands forced Baert to leave the AAntonia Marant in university; he returned home and BBiervielt; the father began working as a notary, munici- wwas a notary and pal clerk, and agent collecting rents mmayor. The next from farmers working poldered lands yyear, on 30 May, for the owners of that land living in MMaatje was born to Belgium. His level of education was AAnthonie Gunst, a such that he reportedly spoke eight mmaster carpenter, languages. aand Hendrika Quist The year before events forced him iin Oude-Vossemeer.5 to leave the university, Baert registered BothB fathers were for military service as he was required well-to-dow and to do by the law in 1817 that estab- encouragede their lished a National Militia. According childrenc to achieve, to this law, all nineteen-year-old men anda both saw medi- had to register for the military lottery cinec as a profession in the province of his parents’ resi- forf some of their dence. If he was selected, service in- children.c During the cluded a period of basic training and 1820s,1 Georg Baert then annual service for several years wasw a student in following, lasting from a few weeks to thet medical school the entire year, depending on the gov- ata the University ernment’s needs. Baert drew the num- ofo Ghent, Belgium, ber twelve, but his number was never abouta twenty-fi ve 6 The Baert daughters, Henrietta, Trijntje, and Lavina, by the fountain called. Instead, Baert volunteered for in the house’s garden in 1905. Image courtesy of the Dekker Huis/ miles south of Bier- the civic guard. Because of his educa- Zeeland Historical Museum. vliet, and then part tion he entered Civic Guard Unit 4 as

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wouldw take the came students at the Medical School NationalN Guard in Middelburg in the midwifery timet to cross the course.9 Scheldt,S Civic An 1818 Dutch law stipulated GuardG Unit 4 three groups of obstetric practitioners: wasw mobilized medical doctors, male-midwives, and underu Baert’s midwives; the training required for commandc and each group; the services each could immediatelyi provide; and the fees that could be marchedm to charged. Initially, training consisted KapitalenK Dam, of an apprenticeship with a trained withw the sound midwife, but in 1823 a Dutch decree ofo gunfi re in allowed for the establishment of pro- thet distance. vincial or municipal medical schools ByB the time the that could include instruction in the guardg arrived at “theory of midwifery” taught by medi- The sluices at Kapitalen Dam that were threatened by military action, KapitalenK Dam, cal doctors and attending both hos- threats which led to the mobilization of Georg Baert’s Civic Guard Unit 4. the skirmish pital and home births with a trained Public domain image. was dissipated, midwife. Between 1824 and 1828, and no enemy six of these schools were established a sergeant-major, the highest-ranking troops could be found. Although no to teach midwifery. In 1861 a state non-commissioned offi cer. civic guard members were engaged in school was opened in Amsterdam, Biervliet was just a few miles from any fi ghting, they were commended and by 1867 the six earlier schools the Belgian border and was consid- for their promptness and bravery.7 closed as a result. Between 1824 and ered vulnerable as a military target. Baert remained with the unit until 1867, 416 midwifes graduated from The community was located in what emigrating and was promoted three these six schools. This relatively low had been a complex of wetlands that times, ultimately becoming a captain.8 total was due to the fact that mid- could readily fl ood if the dikes against The interruption of his medical wives could also still receive training the water of the Scheldt Estuary were training due to the Belgian war for via the apprenticeship method.10 breached. Because creeks and streams independence put an end to Baert’s The school in Middleburg required in the area had begun to silt up, land medical career. Instead he followed three hours of lectures per week, reclamation began about 1650; the in his father’s footsteps to serve in held in the late afternoon so that the last polder was completed in 1907. political offi ce. While in the military, students could attend patients morn- In 1788 a dam with sluices was built however, he became profi cient with ings and evenings.11 Cornelia com- a few miles from the Belgian border, fi rearms and enjoyed hunting, al- pleted the two-year course in fourteen at what would become the hamlet of though his opportunities for hunting months, passing her exam in October Kapitalen Dam, closing off the east with fi rearms was limited, a recreation 1827, and was appointed municipal source of estuary water that had once generally reserved for the very well- midwife in Oude Vossemeer. Maria made Biervliet an island. Control of to-do. completed the two-year course in July Kapitalen Dam determined whether In the central part of Zeeland, 1829 and was appointed the munici- Biervliet remained dry. near the border with Noord Brabant pal midwife in Tholen. Maatje com- On 17 January 1831 a skirmish oc- in Oude-Vossemeer, Anthonie Gunst pleted the course in eighteen months, curred near Kapitalen Dam, between encouraged his three sons to enter the passed her exam on 26 July 1832, and Dutch troops and “mutineers” (those skilled trades, as could be expected. in September moved to Oostburg as wanting Belgian independence). But he also encouraged his three the municipal midwife.12 Shots were fi red, the roof of one daughters to become midwives, so Oostburg was close to the Bel- building was damaged, and Belgian that they too could contribute to their gian border, about ten miles west of patrols were reported in the area. The own subsequent families’ economic Biervliet, and in the following years National Guard at Middelburg was and social standing. All three sisters, Gunst met Georg Baert. The two were called out, and a gunboat immediately Cornelia (1801-1888), Maria (1807- married 9 August 1837 in Oostburg. was sent across the Scheldt. Since it 1880), and Maatje (1811-1876), be- According to Doctor de Man, Gunst

15 did well in Oostburg and, according the mouth of Black Lake (now Lake often left to Maatje and Daniel, who to her own records, attended an aver- Macatawa), a fl atboat as far inland as was nine when the family immi- age of 187 births every year between the Black River was navigable, landing grated. In the Netherlands, Georg had 1832 and 1848.13 Baert bought a fl our at Het Waterhuisje, and then overland become profi cient with fi rearms and mill in Oostburg. Both were active in the last few miles to Zeeland. At the enjoyed hunting. Unlike his home- the church and joined the afscheiding time, the community had 500 to 600 land, West Michigan provided unlim- for which Gunst’s brother, Corne- residents.16 ited opportunities for hunting, which lius, served as a lay preacher in Oude The Baerts arrived with suffi cient meant that the family diet was well Vossemeer. Georg and Maatje had funds to buy a house and to open a provided with meat protein. seven children, four of whom died general store on two lots in Zeeland Maatje resumed her midwife prac- young (Jacoba, Aletta, and Cornelis in on the south side of Central Avenue tice and also administered cupping.18 the Netherlands, and Hendrika, either (then Cross Street) just east of South Medical care was problematic during while the family was en route to or Centennial Street. Georg bought two the early years of Dutch settlement in shortly after the family arrived in Zee- more lots, extending his property West Michigan, when ague (probably land, Michigan). Daniel, the oldest, to Church Street. Like fellow shop- from malaria, due to the mosquitos and Anthoni lived to raise their own keepers Huibert Keppel, Klaas Smits, breeding in the numerous swamps), families.14 Hendrik De Kruif, and Johannes dysentery, typhoid, and smallpox were During 1840 economic condi- Busquest,17 Baert bought goods in common and trained medical care tions deteriorated, and the European Chicago and shipped them to Zee- sparse.19 Dr. Johannes Simon Marinus potato blight signifi cantly reduced the land via Lake Michigan, Black Lake, Cornelis Van Nus had accompanied principal source of carbohydrates in and the Black River. The store often the fi rst immigrants, but he had the diets of the working poor. Leaders bartered with customers for butter, moved to Iowa in 1851. Dr. Elisha within the afscheiding decided to emi- eggs, and oak barrel staves, and these Bailey (born in New York) located grate, including a group from Zeeland local goods were shipped to and sold briefl y in Zeeland; and Dr. Charles that had formed a congregation led by in Chicago. Georg saw to the buy- D. Shendick (born in Canada) settled Rev. Cornelius Van der Meulen before ing, shipping, and selling in Chicago, in Groningen in 1849 but moved leaving. The group, in part fi nanced which meant frequent trips across westward four years later; Dr. N. R. by Jannes Van de Luyster, established Lake Michigan; running the store was Parsons (born in Connecticut) joined Zeeland, Michigan. Because the Baerts were in somewhat better economic condition than others, they did not join this initial group. But the Dutch national debt had increased to ƒ2.2 billion from the unsuccessful military opposition to Belgian independence, and the government was forced to raise taxes, particularly on industry, which included Baert’s fl our mill. This occurring in an economy that was and would remain stagnant for years con- vinced the Baerts to leave in 1848.15 The family left from Antwerp on 3 June and arrived thirty days later in New York, a relatively fast crossing at the time. Georg’s brother Heinrich had arrived four days earlier and met the family at the dock. They followed the typical route of Dutch immi- grants bound for West Michigan: a The house on Church Street that Daniel Baert bought in 1864 when he married Trijntje Boonstra. train to Albany, an Erie Canal boat Previously the Zeeland church had been located on this lot. Image courtesy of the Dekker Huis/ to Tonawanda, a Great Lakes ship to Zeeland Historical Museum.

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support full-time doctors. Further, early accounts make clear that treatment from these doctors often brought little relief from symptoms. In fact, the only ef- fective treatment was quinine from Dr. Baert’s medical bag. Image courtesy of the Dekker Huis/Zeeland Peruvian bark, Historical Museum. mixed with sweet water to make it palatable, whose and his younger brother, Anthony. anti-spasmodic qualities helped con- In 1854 the family’s resources were trol the shivering from fevers.23 such that Georg bought twenty acres Dr. Christian Hendrik Willem Van den The Baert family joined the church of federal land about three miles Berg, the fi rst Dutch-speaking doctor in West Michigan and mentor of Daniel in Zeeland and became respected northeast of Zeeland (northeast of the Baert. Public domain image. members of the community. In 1851, current intersection of Quincy Street when the Township of Zeeland was and 80th Avenue). There is no record Shendick, but the only information organized, Georg Baert was elected of why he purchased the land, but found about him is that he died in one of the three justices of the peace. perhaps he was intending to harvest 1860 and was buried in the New Maatje’s midwifery skills were in de- the wood products from the heavily Groningen cemetery. About the time mand, and she would travel as much timbered plot. Shendick left, brothers and doctors as fi fteen miles via roads, paths, and Early in the morning of 30 May Wells R. and Charles P. Marsh settled unbroken woods to attend deliveries. 1855, Georg died after suffering a in West Michigan, but Charles left When Goerg was away on business stroke or a seizure, according to after two years and Wells a few years and Maatje was away delivering a Maatje.24 Maatje, Daniel (15), and later.20 baby, running the store fell to Daniel Anthony (9) were left to run the In August 1855 the fi rst Dutch- speaking doctor, Christian Hendrik Willem Van den Berg, arrived. From Ypres, Belgium, Van den Berg had married in Buffalo, New York, in 1851 and practiced in Rochester until mov- ing to West Michigan. Van den Berg emphasized his ability to speak Dutch and that he was skilled in medicine, surgery, and obstetrics.21 Van den Berg lived in the Vriesland, Michi- gan, house formerly occupied by Rev. Maarten Ypma, served patients in that community, nearby Drenthe, and one day per week in Groningen. By early September 1856, Van den Berg moved to Grand Rapids, but the next July he was back in Drenthe.22 The frequent moves by these doctors suggest that the community Dr. Oscar Baert’s house was across Church Street and a little to the north from his parents’ house. did not have the fi nancial means to Image courtesy of the author.

17 a farmer. Maatje continued delivering babies, her last just a few days before her death on 30 January 1876.26 A year after Maatje’s second mar- riage, Daniel, now eighteen, left the family mercantile business in his step-father’s hands in order to study to become a doctor. As was common at the time, he became an appren- tice to Dr. Van den Berg, performing various menial duties, being allowed to accompany the doctor as he made his calls and, gradually, allowed to perform some of the more routine procedures. Apparently the appren- ticeship began in 1857 when Van den Berg moved back from Grand Rapids to Drenthe.27 Almost immediately Baert witnessed the doctor’s surgical The Italianate-style house Baert had built in 1872. The one-and-a-half story addition to the rear was added eight years later. Image courtesy of the author. skill when he removed a cancerous growth from below the lower lip of a person and with a subsequent surgery restored the use of the lip.28 At some point during Baert’s ap- prenticeship, Van den Berg moved to Zeeland permanently. Baert studied with Van den Berg for fi ve years, two more than was typically done, and opened his own practice in 1862, as the second doctor in the community of about 700 residents. He had both village and rural patients, traveling as many as ten miles north, east, and south of Zeeland to visit patients (to the west was Holland, with several doctors) via a horse and buggy (or sleigh). He charged $1 per visit and $5 for obstetrics. If patients could not pay, the fee was reduced and even eliminated. Often payment came in The Baert house. The medical offi ce was at the lower left of the two-story section. The current 29 edifi ce of the Zeeland Reformed Church is in the background. Image courtesy of the author. the form of chickens, ham, or eggs. In 1864 Baert bought a small house mercantile business, and she also con- the babies unattended. and lot south of the church (now tinued her midwifery practice. With In January 1856, as the accepted 120 South Church Street). That year a common school education, Daniel nine-month waiting period follow- on October 16, he married Trijntje took over running the store, as well as ing the death of a spouse was com- Boonstra, whose family had experi- buying and selling in Chicago. In ad- ing to an end, Lucas Aling wrote to enced medical crises common in the dition he traveled with his mother as Maatje proposing courtship.25 The nineteenth century. She was born 26 she delivered babies; on one occasion, two married six weeks later, on 16 February 1839 in Ferwert, Friesland, when two women in different places March. Aling eventually took over the to Atze Klazes Boonstra and Trijntje were in labor, Daniel delivered one of mercantile business and later became de Jong, the fi rst of what would even-

18 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

tually be six children. Atze Boonstra years, until he declined to run again. of its furniture industry.33 At the time, was a small-scale market gardener in Professionally he was equally well Grand Rapids had three critical-care Ferwert. By early 1854, two of their respected, since he read and studied hospitals—the UBA (later Blodgett), children had died; Klaas was one year so that he could keep up with medi- St. Mark’s (later Butterworth), and St. old and Renske was three. Further, cal developments of the time. He was Mary’s—as well as a professional doc- economic conditions in the wheat and elected by his peers as president of tors group, the Kent County Medical chicory-growing regions, including the Ottawa County Medical Society, Society, formed in 1889. Ferwert, were so severely depressed the only non-degreed doctor to hold He opened an offi ce in the Wid- that the Boonstras joined others who that offi ce. dicomb Building, one of numerous were emigrating to the United States. Baert and his wife had nine chil- offi ce/professional buildings in the The Boonstra family arrived in dren, six daughters and three sons. downtown area, and had hours there Michigan, to live with relatives in One son and two of the daughters (mid-morning and late afternoon on Kalamazoo, on 31 May 1854. All had died young. The two surviving sons, week days, Saturday afternoon, and been healthy when passing through Oscar (born in 1867) and George initially two hours early Sunday after- Castle Garden in New York on the Henry Daniel (born in 1870),31 fol- noon) and made house calls. When 28th, but all either contracted chol- lowed their father’s career path into the Widdicomb Building was closed, era during the three days of travel medicine. According to the family he moved his offi ce into his home. from New York or upon their arrival history, Oscar was not ambitious as a On the morning of 8 August 1912, in Kalamazoo. Trijntje, the mother, young man, so his father offered him while Oscar was making house calls, died on 3 June; Renske (not yet four the option of fi nancing his start as Maude collapsed at home. She had years old) died the next day; and a farmer or as a doctor. He selected been ill for several months but had Klaas (almost 20 weeks old) died on the medical option, since he thought been feeling much better during the 10 June.30 Atze and his two surviving farming would be physically more preceding two weeks. Orsca, 12, children, Trijntje and Wopke (Wil- diffi cult than being a doctor. Oscar found her mother, tried to help her, liam), began a small market farm in became a student at Hope College and then called neighbors, who called the muck lands near Kalamazoo that in Holland in the pre-med program for a doctor. When Dr. John Rooks ultimately failed when fi re destroyed (1881-1885) and then apprenticed arrived, Maude had already died. He the greenhouse. with Dr. George K. Johnson, a physi- listed heart failure as the cause.34 Two How Daniel Baert and Trintje met cian in Grand Rapids.32 In 1888 he years later, Oscar married Rebecca M. isn’t recorded. Baert’s medical practice began his studies at the University Guthan (née Hewitt). They had no did well, and in 1872 he had a large of Michigan’s Medical School, one of children together. She died in 1937. brick house built on his lot. It was a the better such schools in the nation, When not practicing medicine, Baert true brick house, not a frame house graduating in 1890 with eighty-seven enjoyed hunting and fi shing, much with a brick veneer, but with walls others. George knew he wanted to like his grandfather had, and was an formed by three rows of brick, with enter the medical fi eld, and after the accomplished trap shooter.35 Oscar voids between the rows to provide Hope program (1884-1888) he gradu- died 3 November 1945 in his home. insulation. The Italianate-style house ated from the University Michigan The funeral was held in Zeeland at featured 14-foot ceilings. The doc- School of Pharmacy with a degree in the Baron Funeral Home, which since tor’s offi ce was in a small room at the pharmaceutical chemistry. 1940 had been in the former Baert southwest corner of the building, Daniel Baert encouraged Oscar house on Church Street, and his body with its own exterior door. By 1880, to set up a practice in Zeeland and was buried in the Zeeland Cemetery. with four children, Baert had a large built a house for him across Church After graduating from the Univer- addition built onto the rear of the Street at 117. Oscar served one term sity of Michigan School of Pharmacy, house. At that time beveled lead-glass (1891-1892) as coroner for Ottawa George Baert taught pharmaceutical windows imported from France were County. He and Maude Vyne, from chemistry at Purdue University for installed. Grand Haven, were married in 1892; a year before enrolling as a student His standing in the community is their fi rst two children died young; at the Medical School at the Univer- evident in the fact that, when Zeeland a daughter, Orsca, was born in 1900. sity of Pennsylvania, the fi rst medi- incorporated as a village in 1875, he In 1896 he moved his practice and cal school established in the United was elected the fi rst president and family to Grand Rapids, a city of States. He earned his medical degree was re-elected annually for eleven 60,000 and growing rapidly because in 1893 and immediately set up his

19 practice in Grand Rapids. His offi ce College, he and Martina Marguerite was in the Kendall Building, near De Vos, of Chicago, were married on the geographic center of the city, and 19 October 1897. The couple initially he rented an apartment in the same lived on Monroe Avenue but later building. His offi ce hours initially purchased a house on what was then were 10 a.m.-12 m., 3-5 p.m., and 7-8 fashionable State Street. They had p.m., Monday through Saturday, and three daughters, Kathleen, Donna, Sunday 4-5 p.m. Shortly thereafter and Martina. That same year he was he bought a house further north on elected to the Grand Rapids Board of Monroe, and his sister, Lavina, moved Education and served on the Commit- from Zeeland to be his housekeeper. tee of Teachers and on the Commit- Like his father, George Baert sought tee on Apparatus and School Library. continuing education opportunities, George Baert became an active and in 1896 he attended the New member of the Grand Rapids com- York Post-Graduate Medical School munity and a well-respected physi- and Hospital (now NYU Langone cian. Other doctors consulted him for Medical Center).36 his expertise in pathology as well as 39 In 1897 George joined the faculty his laboratory research. He was also Dr. George Baert in 1853. Image of the Grand Rapids Medical College. brought in as an expert witness in courtesy of the Local and Family Located on Eastern Avenue, the Medi- legal matters, as in the case of Ward v. History Department, Grand Rapids Public Library. cal College had been formed in 1895 Heth Brothers, a workers’ compensa- by Dr. Joseph Griswold, with a curric- tion case that went to the Michigan Kathleen DeVos, Donna, and Martina. ulum of three eight-month terms, as Supreme Court.40 Kathleen and Donna married, Martina well as shorter sequences in dentistry Two grandsons of a Dutch gradu- did not. George Craig Ramsay, the and veterinary medicine. Underfund- ate of a midwifery program in a son of Kathleen Baert and Clarence ing plagued the school, and it closed Dutch medical school had graduated Frederick Ramsay, graduated from within two years but reincorporated from two of the more prestigious the University of Michigan Medical in 1897 with better funding and a medical education programs in the School as a radiologist and taught at much expanded faculty.37 The new United States and established their Columbia-Presbyterian, Cornell, and curriculum excluded dentistry and own medical practices, and one, like Downstate Medical Centers in New veterinary medicine and had a faculty his father, a reputation for ongoing York City. After teaching, he was in of twenty-fi ve doctors that eventu- education in his fi eld. The medical private practice in Alabama and Ten- ally increased to forty. George Baert tradition in the family did not end nessee; he is now retired. But the fi rst lectured in pathology, pathological with the death of George Baert on 5 three generations of the Baert family chemistry, and toxicology.38 November 1959; it simply skipped in America refl ect the development of The same year that he joined the a generation. George and Martina teaching modern medicine.n faculty of the Grand Rapids Medical Baert had three children—daughters:

20 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

Endnotes 1. “Proprietary” medical schools 12. Doctor J[an] C[ornelis] de Man, [1] and 1 July 1856, [1]. were commercial for-profi t operations De Geneeskundige School te Middelburg: 23. In the early 17th century, Jesuit that provided a minimum of courses, Hare lectoren en leerlingen, 1825 tot missionaries in Peru learned from in- often easy and nonacademic, leading to 1866 (Middelburg: D. G. Kröber, Jr., digenous healers that bark from several a medical degree. 1902) 130-134. Clearly it was possible species of trees of the genus Cinchona 2. The report was funded by the to complete the two-year sequence in was an effective remedy for malaria. It Carnegie Foundation and is available less time. was variously known as Jesuit’s Bark, online at http://www.carnegiefounda- 13. Doctor J[an] C[ornelis] de Man, Jesuit’s Tree, and Jesuit’s Powder, but tion.org/sites/default/fi les/elibrary/Carn- De Geneeskundige School te Middelburg: came to be known as Peruvian Bark in egie_Flexner_Report.pdf. Hare lectoren en leerlingen, 1825 tot 1866 non-Roman Catholic areas. 3. Roger A. Brumback, “Fragmenta- (Middelburg: D. G. Kröber, Jr., 1902) 24. “Trijntje Boonstra Autobiogra- tion of Medicine in the United States: 134; and Maatje Baert’s obituary in De phy,” Baert Family fi le, Dekker-Huis/ Remnants of the 19th Century and the Hope, 16 February 1876. Zeeland Historical Museum, Zeeland, American Civil War,” Journal of Evi- 14. When the family joined the Michigan, also, Sheboygan Nieuwsbode, dence-Based Complementary & Alterna- Zeeland, Michigan, Reformed Church, 5 Jun 1855. tive Medicine (January 2012) 9-10; also the only children listed were Daniel, 25. Lucas Aling to Maatje Baert, 30 available online at http://chp.sagepub. Levina, and Anthoni. Levina is listed in January 1856, Baert Family fi le, Dekker- com/content/17/1/9.full. the 1850 census, but there is no further Huis/Zeeland Historical Museum, 4. Duke University Medical Stu- record of her. Zeeland, Michigan. dents, “The History of Medical Schools 15. Cornelius Gunst to his sister, 12 26. According to her own records, in the U.S.,” http://www.vault.com/wps/ November 1855 and 4 August 1874, Maatje helped with 3,561 birth; Baert portal/usa/vcm/detail/Career-Advice/ Baert Family fi le, Dekker-Huis/Zeeland Family fi le, Dekker-Huis/Zeeland His- Education-Advice/The-History-of-Medi- Historical Museum, Zeeland, Michigan. torical Museum, Zeeland, Michigan. cal-Schools-in-the-U.S.?id=5586&fi lter_ 16. History of Ottawa County, Michi- 27. De Hollander, 5 Augustus 1857, type=0&fi lter_id=0, visited 1 May 2013, gan with Illustrations and Biographical [2]. 9:50 p.m. Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men 28. De Hollander, 5 Augustus 1857, 5. All family data comes from and Pioneers (Chicago: H. R. Page & [2]. George Craig Ramsay, “The Baert Co., 1882). In 1882 the town had two 29. His will stipulated that all out- Family from Zeeland” Family History churches, fi ve general stores, a clothing standing balances were forgiven. fi le, Heritage Hall, Calvin College, store, a hardware, two boot and shoe 30. “Trijntje Boonstra Autobiogra- Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baert Family stores, two furniture stores, a drugstore, phy,” Baert Family fi le, Dekker-Huis/ fi le, Dekker-Huis/Zeeland Historical a bookstore, a butcher, a wagon and Zeeland Historical Museum, Zeeland. Museum, Zeeland, Michigan; and http:// blacksmith, two hotels, a tannery, two 31. Oscar was named for his ma- www.zeeuwsarchief.nl/zoeken/?q=maria+ planing mills, a sawmill, a cooper shop, ternal grandfather, Oscar being the maertens&tab=archive. and one fl our mill. Americanized version of Atze, while 6. Baert’s National Military Certifi - 17. J. Huizinga, “Zeeland’s Geschie- George was named for his paternal cate, Dekker-Huis/Zeeland Historical denis in ‘t Kort – van 1847 tot 1888,” grandfather and father. Most sources list Museum, Zeeland, Michigan. De Hope (3 April 1880), 2; and Jacob George’s name as George Henry Baert, 7. Middelburgsche Courant, 20 Janu- Den Herder, “Sketch of Zeeland’s His- but his offi cial records at the University ary 1831, [2], and 27 January 1931, [2]. tory,” in Henry S. Lucas, ed., Dutch of Michigan have it as George Henry 8. Middelburgsche Courant, 17 June Immigrant Memoirs and Related Writ- Daniel Baert. 1843, [2], 8 October 1844, [2], and 11 ings, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. 32. The Physician and Surgeon: A November 1848, [2]. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 223. Journal of the Medical Science, v. 19 no. 9. Doctor J[an] C[ornelis] de Man, 18. Anna Kremer Keppel, The Im- 10 (October 1897), 475. De Geneeskundige School te Middelburg: migration and Early History of the People 33. Other area doctors did the same; Hare lectoren en leerlingen, 1825 tot 1866 of Zeeland, Ottawa County, Michigan, for instance, Roelof A. Schouten, an (Middelburg: D. G. Kröber, Jr., 1902), in 1847 (Zeeland, Michigan: Zeeland 1865 graduate of the Haarlem Medical 130-134. Record Press, [1925]), 43. School, worked in Holland, Michigan, 10. M. J. Van Lieburg and Hilary 19. Jan Peter Verhave, Disease and from 1869 until moving to Grand Rap- Marland, “Midwife Regulation, Educa- Death Among the Early Settlers in Hol- ids in 1882. tion, and Practice in the Netherlands land, Michigan (Holland, Michigan) Van 34. “Mrs. Oscar Baert’s Death a Sud- during the Nineteenth Century,” Medi- Raalte Press, 2007). den One,” Grand Rapids Herald, 8 Aug cal History (1989) 296-317. The six 20. Jan Peter Verhave, Disease and 1912, 10. schools and their number of graduates Death Among the Early Settlers in Hol- 35. Sporting Life, 12 June 1897, 28. were in Amsterdam (133), Rotterdam land, Michigan (Holland, Michigan Van 36. The City of Grand Rapids and (91), Hoom (66), Alkmaar (57), Mid- Raalte Press, 2007), 41. Kent County, Mich.: Up to Date, Contain- delburg (43), and Haarlem (26). 21. De Hollander, 7 September 1854, ing Biographical Sketches of Prominent 11. Middelburgsche Courant, 2 Au- [1]. and Representative Citizens (Chicago: gust 1827, [2]. 22. De Hollander, 3 September 1856, A.W. Bowen & Co., 1900), 42.

21 37. Richard H. Harms, “Whatever Happened to the Grand Rapids Medical College?” in “Wonderland Magazine,” Grand Rapids Press, 4 December 1988, 39. The college closed in 1905 as the Medical School at the University of Michigan, and the Michigan Medical College in Detroit expanded. 38. George A. Hendricks, The Physi- cian and Surgeon–A Monthly Magazine, Devoted to Medical and Surgical Science (October 1897), 475. 39. D. Milton Green, “A Case of Carcinoma and Sarcoma of the Nose,” The Medical News (6 February 1897), 173-174; and Albert Adams, Spondylo- theraphy: Physio- and Pharmaco-Therapy and Diagnostic Methods Based on a Study of Clinical Physiology (San Francisco: Philopolis Press, 1918), 39-40; although Adams’ therapy was later demonstrated to be deceptive, he cites the expertise of Baert and other medical practitioners in his earlier works to make the case for his therapy. 40. Northwest Reporter, vol. 180 (St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1921), 249.

22 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

A Memoir of One Who Served1 Kenneth Vander Molen

ive minutes before eight o’clock High School Reserve Offi cers Training Fon the morning of Sunday, 7 Corps (ROTC), complete with a really December 1941, Hawaii Time,2 more cool uniform. I made a big impression than three hundred and fi fty3 Japanese bombers, fi ghters, and torpedo planes attacked Pearl Harbor. My brother and I were members of the junior choir of the First Chris- tian Reformed Church, in De- troit, Michigan. That Sunday afternoon we Gordon (left) and Kenneth Vander Molen in a photo taken when they were had a practice home on leave. Image courtesy of the author. session, getting ready for the Christmas service. Our on the young choir director was Dewey Westra. ladies around During this practice, the janitor came school. I in and talked to Mr. Westra and told went to a lot him that it was just announced on the of football radio that the Japanese had bombed games, not to Pearl Harbor. Mr. Westra said that we see the games still had about one-half hour of sing- but because I was in ROTC Kenneth Vander Molen moved to Grand ing practice and after that we could Rapids from Detroit after World War II. go home. Running home quickly, we and was able He and his late wife, Jeanne Tuinstra, turned the radio on and heard for to guard the had six children. He worked in sales ourselves about the Japanese bombing crowds of after his military experience, retiring of the Hawaiian Islands: All we knew kids. By vol- Dewey Westra, the choir in 1989. In retirement he and his wife was that we had suffered some dam- unteering for director at Detroit Christian traveled to numerous countries. Since Reformed Church, on the completing his book on his military age. I got out a world map to locate guard duty, I was awarded afternoon of 7 December experience in 2001, he has revised and where in the world Pearl Harbor was. 1941. Image courtesy of the expanded it several times. In the tenth grade I signed up to a ribbon on Archives, Heritage Hall, become a member of the Southeastern my uniform. Calvin College.

23 One time I “guarded” the cast of Ir- Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton airport did as well, so we would be leaving ving Berlin’s show “This Is the Army” was a military base, so we had to have together. at the Masonic Temple in downtown the curtains drawn when we fl ew in! Mother had the idea that I would Detroit. I met Irving Berlin in person, We landed in Cincinnati for our short not be able to pass the physical and it was a real thrill for me. I also vacation. On Thursday, 17 August, because she thought I had a bad had the opportunity to hear Lily Pons while in Cincinnati, we received (via kidney or something like that; my and noted that she had the smallest the mail) our questionnaire, which appendix had been removed, so surely feet I have ever seen. we had to fi ll out. This form was one that would keep me out; and, don’t Our ROTC would compete with of the fi rst steps required before our forget, I had another year of school- other Detroit high school ROTC units physical examinations could take ing. Mother was sure that I would get at Briggs Stadium. At these fi eld day place. a deferment for any of these reasons. exercises, there was lots of march- Returning to Detroit, we both went On Thursday, 7 September, I received ing, setting up of tents, and doing the before the consistory of the church the formal greetings from Franklin manual of arms with rifl es. But I had and professed our faith. This was D. Roosevelt, President of the United never fi red a gun; to be able to fi re not done because we were going into States. It was a form letter that stated a rifl e, one had to be in the twelfth service, but because we were ready when to report for service. Along with grade. I held the rank of sergeant. to profess our faith in Christ and felt my brother Gordon, I was to appear I marched along Woodward Avenue that this was the right time. We were on Monday, 25 September, for induc- in the annual Armistice Day parade asked all the questions in our cat- tion into the United States Service at as a member of Southeastern’s ROTC echism book. It was no wonder that Chicago, Illinois. I was glad; Mother unit on 11 November 1942. It was so few young people wanted to make cried. The last few days at home great to be a member of the military. profession of their faith. We received went by very slowly. We left Sunday There were military personnel present a small serviceman’s Bible from the afternoon from the Michigan Cen- requiring us to salute all offi cers. It church. I carried that New Testament tral Station. I carried just a small bag was a great experience. with me all the time I was in service containing clothes. I don’t believe my On 7 August 1944 I would be and read it. I especially remember be- mother was at the station, but I do eighteen years old and subject to the ing comforted, when in combat, read- remember that my father was there. draft. Even though I had one more ing Romans 8: “Nothing can separate I made up my mind that I would not year of high school to fi nish, my me from the love of God, which is in look back but walk straight ahead and plans were to register for the draft in Christ Jesus my Lord.” I even under- enter the train car assigned to induct- August, pass my physical, and then lined those verses, and they are that ees. enter the Army in September 1944. way even today.4 My brother and I sat next to each That way I wouldn’t have to fi nish my On Monday, 28 August, we went other and started to talk with some last year of high school. As required downtown for the physical examina- of the fellows around us. There were by the Selective Service Act, on the tion. As soon as I was fi nished, the men much older than the rest of us, day before our eighteenth birthday we doctor said that I was 1-A. I asked, one being Mike Van Couwenberghe. were required by law to register with “When will I be called into service?” I believe he was twenty-fi ve and mar- our local draft board. On 7 August He replied, “You will probably be ried. The train stopped to pick up my twin brother Gordon and I went called up in about fi ve months.” more inductees in Kalamazoo. Some to our local draft board, number 17, That was not what I wanted to hear, women from the local Red Cross came on Jefferson Avenue, and registered because in just seven days I would on board and gave us doughnuts and with them. We were told that we were be back in school. I had to think of coffee. A paper napkin was printed to report for our physicals sometime something fast. I inquired, “Is there with musical notes around the border before the fi rst of September. That was any way to get in the service faster with the words of a song that was good timing, because school started than waiting fi ve months?” Without very popular at that time, “I’ve Got a on 5 September. looking up from his work, he gave Gal in Kalamazoo.” My brother and I made plans to fl y me the answer that I wanted to hear: After arriving in Chicago we ate to Cincinnati. We wanted to spend “Sign up now for immediate induc- our supper in the Conrad Stevens some time with our older brother tion, and you will leave for service on Hotel. We were assigned to a room Clarence and his wife, Grace. We 25 September.” I signed on the dotted and told to be up at 6 a.m. Most of us left Detroit City Airport and fl ew via line right then and there. Gordon went to bed early and slept well. This

24 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

was the last evening that we would be We were told to line up and fol- sumed a military position with eyes to sleeping as civilians for some time to low the man in front of us as we the front, arms to the sides, and heels come. Some fellows spent their last were about to be assigned to either together. While standing at attention, night drinking Chicago dry. The next the Army or Navy. We did not have we were told to raise our right hand morning left them with severe hang- much of a choice. We were told that and repeat after her the Pledge of overs. today they needed more men in the Allegiance to the United States Army. I had breakfast in the hotel with Army, so it was going to be fi ve men “One step forward,” was her com- the rest of the inductees and then to the Army, with one man going to mand. We did just that. We had just marched (after a fashion) down the the Navy. We had no way of know- taken our fi rst step as soldiers in the streets of Chicago to a building just ing where we would be going. Some United States Armed Forces. She gave like every other building in the area. fellows really wanted to get into the her second command: “Pick up all the We had roll call, and all were present Navy, so they put up a fuss, but the cigarette butts.” One of the fellows and accounted for. We fi lled out a few corporal in charge said that it was said that no woman was going to tell forms and then had a physical exam going to be the luck of the draw as to him what to do, at which the lieuten- by a dentist who thought he was a who went where. We were nearing the ant said, “Give me twenty-fi ve push- doctor. We all went up some steps to counter where the offi cer in charge ups.” We learned early to do what we the second fl oor and entered a room was stamping our wrists Army or were told. and sat at desk-like chairs. The corpo- Navy. Gordon was ahead of me, and We ate lunch, boarded the Chicago ral in charge explained to us that we some fellow stepped in between us. Northwestern Railroad train, and would be assigned to either the Army Army was stamped on Gordon’s right headed for Fort Sheridan, about twen- or Navy. One or two of the inductees wrist and the next man’s wrist was ty miles north of Chicago. There were asked if they could be assigned to the also stamped Army. Now it was my fi ve carloads of draftees all heading Air Corps, as they wanted to fl y. The turn; Army was stamped on my right toward new adventures. The fi rst car corporal responded by answering, wrist also. The ones assigned to the went on to Great Lakes Naval Train- “Go stand by the window and jump, Navy were directed to another door- ing Center about another fi fteen miles because that’s about the closest you way, and we moved on to the next north of Fort Sheridan. It was late in will get to fl ying.” Army offi cer. This offi cer assigned the day when we arrived and marched eeach of us our to our new barracks. We received a AArmy serial num- warm welcome from the fellows who bber with instruc- were already in camp, with such en- ttions to know that couraging words as “You’ll be sorry,” nnumber forwards and “Just wait till you get your shots,” aand backwards. We and “Barber bait.” wwould not be able The next morning a crazy fellow tto go unless we blowing a whistle came through the kknew that number. barracks yelling it was time to get I was now 36-916- up. It was only 6 a.m. Where was I? 1144; Gordon was Where was the toilet? Where was 336-916-142. No I going to eat this morning? What llonger were we to clothes was I to wear? Who was this bbe addressed as fellow blowing that whistle? I had a KKenneth or Gor- hundred more questions but no time ddon, but by our to think, as fi fty inductees were all nnumbers. running to the toilet (latrine) to get Later, a snappy ready for the day’s activities. We hur- WWAC 5 lieuten- ried to shave; formation was at 6:30 anta came into the a.m. I really didn’t have to shave but room,r and the did so anyway just to be like the rest corporalc yelled out, of the fellows. Then off to mess. It The author’s parents, Cecil and Martha Vander Molen, at their home at “Attention!”“ Being was here that I saw my fi rst prison- 2662 Manistique Street in eastern Detroit. Image courtesy of the author. in the ROTC, I as- ers of war (POW) soldiers, keeping

25 BELOW Kenneth Vander Molen’s selective service registration card.

RIGHT The author’s identifi cation tag with name, tetanus vaccination date, serial number, blood type, and religious affi liation. Images courtesy of the author.

somes reason our group stayeds longer. Of course, thet Post Exchange (PX) wasw open, and we could getg some goodies like icei cream or, better still,s meet some of the youngy girls at the PX. It wasw boring just sitting arounda camp with no placep to go. We could go the grounds clean and working in these tags were inscribed with our to the post movies; the cost was only the kitchens. Most of the food was name, Army serial number, tetanus fi fteen cents. dumped on top of each other—green shots, blood type, and religion. Our It was at Fort Sheridan that I at- peas put right on top of our mashed civilian clothes were packed in the tempted smoking. We were all called potatoes or ice cream on top of our small bags we came with. The mili- to the orderly room. We were intro- bread. When we complained, the tary saw to it that these were shipped duced to a civilian who was from POWs looked at us as if to say, we home. the American Tobacco Company. He don’t understand English. Later, I We spent the next three or four said that he had something free to watched as the POWs played soccer days fi lling out more forms. We were give each of us—two packs of Lucky and observed that they were having given the Army General Classifi cation Strike cigarettes. He told us how good a good time. They seemed glad that Test (GCT). Recruits were classifi ed the cigarettes would be for us while their war was fi nished while my war into fi ve groups according to the test we were serving our country and was just beginning. results. The higher the score, the bet- that smoking was really cool. I didn’t Next we went to the barbershop for ter chance for specialized training. know what to do with my packs. A our military haircuts, one-inch length The highest score possible was 163. couple of the fellows gave their ciga- all over the head. Some guys had a I was in Class I, with a score of 120, rettes to others who smoked. I fi gured good head of hair, but not after meet- which made me eligible to attend Of- that now was as good a time as any ing with the Army barber. We then fi cer Candidate School (OCS). I took to start smoking. I put the packs in went to the warehouse to be fi tted for a typing test and passed with a good my pocket and went back to the bar- all the clothes that we would need. score. I fi gured maybe that I would racks. What I really did was to suck in It was done like an assembly line, be a clerk. Finally, we were able to smoke and blow it out of my mouth moving fi rst to get measured for our call home to inform the folks how we without inhaling. In about twenty shirts, then pants, later our jackets, were doing. minutes I had the whole two packs shoes, underwear, and even ties. We We stayed near camp until the time fi nished. If that was all there was to were given the famous Army duffel when we would go “bingo,” mean- smoking, I couldn’t see any enjoy- bag. Everything we owned had to fi t ing shipped out to our basic training ment in it, so I quit smoking the day into that bag. If it didn’t fi t, you didn’t camp. No one knew when we would I started. need it. We were issued our dog tags, go; some guys who came in after we On Monday, 2 October, we were or- which we wore around our necks; had arrived were shipped out, but for dered out of Fort Sheridan for places

26 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

RReynolds, from old and had been in the Army for GGobles, Michigan; twenty years. He had seen service in a GI named Rothe the Aleutian Islands, and right away ((I don’t remember I liked him. Three platoons form a hhis fi rst name);6 and company, three companies a battalion, DonaldD R. Twork three battalions a regiment, and three Jr.,J from Menomi- regiments an infantry division. I was nee,n Michigan, who in the second platoon, B Company, spents most of his 128th Battalion, 81st Infantry Regi- freef time calling his ment. wifew or writing let- During this fi rst week of training terst to her. we received helmet liners. The steel Our new home helmets didn’t really fi t our heads; wasw about twenty a liner was required to support the byb twenty feet. In helmet. In basic we wore this plastic thet center was a gas helmet liner printed with our name stoves that was lit on the outside. Mike Van Couwenber- withw a match. It re- ghe had such a long name that it went allya could throw out completely around the back of the thet heat. The cots helmet liner. werew placed around On Saturday, 14 October, we were thet room along all ordered to wear combat boots, thet outside walls. helmet liners, and nothing over our TheseT were not like skin except our black rubber rain- thet soft beds that coats. That Saturday must have been The water tower and barracks at Ft. Sheridan, where the author and wew slept on while the hottest day the state of Arkansas his brother were inducted into the US Army, prior to basic training at Camp Robinson in Arkansas. The fort began in 1877 as Camp at Fort Sheridan. ever had. We were marched over to Highwood and closed in 1993. Public domain image. These were canvas the infi rmary, where we were to be cots. The windows given our smallpox immunization unknown to us. There was no time to around our hut had screens but no shots. We went inside, where it was call home. We traveled through many glass. At night we would go around cool. I walked down the corridor and small towns. Going slowly through outside the hut and drop the shut- was told to take my raincoat off and one of these towns, we yelled out to ters making it cozy. One large light to move down the hallway as a medic ask the name of the city; the answer bulb hung above the stove. Each GI struck a needle into my arm. Not only was “Joliet.” We were still in Illinois, had a shelf above his cot; under each on my right side, but another medic but heading south. We ate on the cot was a trunk, which held clothes, from the opposite side would jab his train and slept in the seats assigned to writing materials, and maybe a book needle into my left arm. It didn’t hurt us. It was a long, long trip. After some or two. Reynolds had a radio with going in, but I’m sure they had a hook time our train pulled into a large him, and we could listen to local sta- on the needle when they pulled it railroad siding; we could tell that this tions. He had the radio set to turn on out! We got three different shots that was an Army post. at 5:30 a.m. and the very fi rst noise day. We were told to take a shower We had arrived at Camp Robinson, we would hear was Roy Acuff singing and to stay in bed because these shots Arkansas, an Infantry Replacement “Top of the Morning, It’s a Bright and would easily knock us out. Some fel- Training Center (IRTC). After roll Sunny Day.” lows passed out when the shots were call we were assigned hut numbers. On Monday, 9 October, my sixteen given. On Monday we were all back to I located my new home and was weeks of basic training began with a our regular routine of basic training. introduced to other GIs with whom bugle call over the loudspeaker. We For about two weeks no one slapped I would be sharing sixteen weeks of formed into squads of twelve men anyone on the arm. basic training. They were Mike Van each; three squads made a platoon. The second Sunday there I thought Couwenberghe (the older fellow from We met our platoon sergeant, named I would sleep in and miss going to Detroit); my brother Gordon; Charles Stripmaster. He was thirty-nine years chapel. I was far away from Detroit,

27 and no one would ask if I had at- that we had to run three miles and in most important, how to fi re them. We tended church on that Sunday or not. the near future we would be march- even slept with them. It was exciting Wrong. Just as I was turning over for ing twenty-fi ve miles. Every morning at the fi ring range. We were given live forty more winks, there was a knock we had PT fi rst thing. We would walk ammunition and had to fi re at a fi xed on the front door and a voice from the about a quarter of a mile and then run target. If we missed hitting within the other side asked, “Is Private Vander a quarter of a mile. The next week we target area, we would get a “Maggie’s Molen here?” Gordon had left, so would run half a mile and then walk drawers.” This was a red fl ag which I said sleepily, “My name is Vander half a mile. At the end of ten or twelve was displayed on the target area to let Molen.” He came into the hut and weeks we were easily running three us know that we didn’t hit anything. said, “My name is Private Hunder- miles every day. I was really getting in We also fi red other pieces of equip- man from Byron Center, Michigan.” shape. Another of the exercises was ment, such as the mortar, the machine He had obtained my name from the a real killer, the telephone pole carry. gun, the Browning Automatic Rifl e Young Calvinist membership list and Our squad of men would pick up a (BAR), and the carbine. We would fi re was also a member of the Christian thirty-foot telephone pole and extend the mortars at barrels located about Reformed church. He invited me to it over our heads. We would swing 1,000 yards from our fi ring point. go to chapel with him. Even when it to the left, then to the right, and Each of us was to fi re three rounds to away from home, the Lord moves in overhead again. That really developed get our “shell” into the barrels. We mysterious ways. muscles. fi red blanks, not the real shells. We We did a lot of physical training We were now part of the infantry; were trained how to use a gas mask (PT) in camp. We called it physical we were issued rifl es. We practiced to be prepared for gas attacks and, of torture. Sergeant Stripmaster told us cleaning them, taking them apart and, course, fi rst aid. We were also in-

The completion of basic training at Camp Robinson. Image courtesy of the author.

28 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

structed in squad infantry tactics. was hard-earned, and I always set of soldiers with their girlfriends. The smallest infantry unit was a aside $18.75 each month for a war They ran into the hotel trying to fi nd squad, consisting of twelve men. The bond. Four dollars each month was who had tried to “bomb” them. The squad leader plus nine others were taken out for the laundry service. military police were called and came armed with M1 Garand semiautomat- Once every two weeks we would send knocking on every door to locate the ic rifl es; one with a Browning Auto- our dirty clothes to the supply room; culprits. They rapped on our door, matic Rifl e, and one with an M1903 they would be cleaned and returned and I opened it and claimed that I Springfi eld rifl e fi tted with a sniper the next day. We had to mark all of had been sleeping and didn’t know scope. The squad generally operated our clothes with the fi rst initial of our anything about anything. as a two-man scout section, a four- last name plus the last four numbers During the last two months of man fi re section, and a fi ve-man ma- of our service number. All my clothes basic training we acquired a new com- neuver and assault section. The squad were marked V-6144. My pay after pany commander, a full-bird colonel;7 leader customarily advanced with the scout section and held the rank of staff sergeant. We were very busy at Camp Robin- son during the sixteen weeks of basic training. We had to learn many ways to survive. I had never fi red a weapon before going into service. I learned that there were other Christians in service, and I wondered if they, like me, could kill another person. The chaplain at camp told us to trust in the Lord and obey the higher mili- The Browing Automatic Rifl e developed during World War I became standard issue in the US Army in 1938 and was used extensively during World War II. Public domain image. tary authority. When the time would come, could we really kill one of God’s creatures? expenses was in the neighborhood of he was from the Americal Division. Payday was once a month. On the twenty-eight dollars a month, or more He wore the blue shoulder patch, fi fteenth of the month we signed the like seven dollars per week. with four white stars that formed payroll, and on the thirtieth we got On 23 November my parents came the Southern Cross. We went into a paid. Payment was distributed accord- to visit us at Camp Robinson. They different training program; instead of ing to rank, so the sergeants got paid came down on the Greyhound bus, doing things as a squad, we started to fi rst and fi nally the lowly privates. were put up in the guesthouse on do things more or less by ourselves We were paid alphabetically in each the grounds, and had dinner with us. or with one other fellow soldier. We rank. Being a private with the name Mother didn’t think much of the food. practiced more hand-to-hand c ombat, Vander Molen, I was near the end of The weather was damp and cold while crawling around on the ground, and the line. We always got paid in new they were with us. Father didn’t have digging in the dirt. We did a lot more money. Since the sergeants were paid too much to say. We did get a few night marches in silence. We would fi rst, they would go to the orderly days off; we showed them the camp take off across fi elds instead of follow- room and cover our pool table with and they also saw our hut. ing the roads, as we always had done a green cloth. This was the table On 25 December we all were given previously. Our training seemed to where we could play poker. Some- the week off to celebrate Christmas. be heading more toward the Pacifi c how the sergeants always seemed Gordon and I went into Little Rock Theater of Operation (PTO). to win. Other tables were set up to to see the big city. We registered at Some of the soldiers in camp want- play dice or other games of chance. a local hotel and, since we were not ed to go to Little Rock every weekend It was a real temptation to play, but heavy drinkers or interested in girls, if possible. I really had no interest in I watched some of the new recruits we stayed mostly near the hotel. I going there. When these fellows had lose all of their month’s pay in one do remember that we fi lled a balloon kitchen police (KP) duty on Sunday, I throw of the dice. This is not what I with water and dropped it out of the would volunteer my services to work wanted. My fi fty dollars per month hotel window. It landed near a couple their KP for them. Sunday morning

29 breakfast usually consisted of cold ship medal to wear. On the 25th we cereals or pastry. Normally eggs were were given our orders where we were not prepared on Sunday mornings. to report next. Most of us were given For lunch the menu was cold cuts a fourteen-day delay en route, which with lots of fresh fruit. You can see meant that we could travel home. by the menu that there weren’t a lot The name of the camp was to be top of dirty pans that had to be scrubbed secret. Some fellows were to report to clean. I also got a little extra pay from Fort Dix, in New Jersey, so they knew the GIs who wanted to be in Little that they were headed for the Europe- Rock. Sunday KP duty was a snap. an Theater. I opened my papers, and We were still faced with the twen- on 9 February I was to report to Fort ty-fi ve-mile hike that was required of Ord, California. Most of the men in all men before leaving Camp Robin- our hut and company were to report son. Private Twork said that he wasn’t Shoulder patch of the Americal Division. to Fort Ord; we would be going to the going to march for twenty-fi ve miles; Public domain image. Pacifi c Theater. he would fi nd a way out of marching. The Army gave us money for Well, the night arrived. With full fi eld This deals with the law that governs travel. We had to arrange for our packs on, we started out down the us while in service, such as that being own transportation to California. The road for twenty-fi ve miles. Twork was AWOL (absent without offi cial leave) cheapest price was by rail, but fl y- marching in the column behind me, could get you three months at hard la- ing allowed us to spend more time and I kept looking to see if he was bor, the forfeit of all the pay received, at home. Since I really didn’t have a still with us. He was, with a big smile and then a dishonorable discharge lot of extra cash, I decided to travel on his face. I saw an ambulance going from the Army. Disobeying an offi - by rail. Things surely had changed by me and there was Twork, sitting on cer could cost three months and the since we left Detroit. My cousin Ken the back of that ambulance, head- forfeit of all pay for six months. If the “Dutch” Zylstra left Grand Rapids ing back to camp and the hospital. enemy captured us, all we had to give and came to Detroit to work. He was I knew there wasn’t anything wrong them was our name, rank, and serial staying at our place, and while both with him. We kept marching for the number. If we gave anything else, we Gordon and I were home, he made his rest of the night and arrived back at could be considered traitors, and be bed in the living room. camp, dog tired. The weather was shot. Another very interesting class My folks insisted on having our cool and rainy; we knew that when we attended was sex education. We pictures taken, so we went to a photo we returned to our hut we would saw graphic movies on venereal dis- shop called John’s Studio. Mother have to light the fi re in the stove and ease (VD). An airman who had spent also wanted us to have our pictures wait for the room to heat up. When the night with a call girl contracted taken together. I would have liked we got to our hut we opened the door VD and later, while fl ying his plane my picture taken alone. The time at and, believe it or not, the stove was in combat with an enemy plane in his home seemed to just drag on. All of lit, the room was nice and cozy, and sights, he passed out because he had my friends were in service. Gas was Twork was sitting on his bed. He had VD, crashed into the ocean, and died. rationed, food was hard to get, people prepared hot coffee and had gotten an It got much worse and almost made worked many hours in defense plants. apple pie from the kitchen for the fi ve me throw up, and I wasn’t the only I did fi nd the time to visit Southeast- of us. Twork had pulled the heel off person in that condition. Then the ern High School, and I watched the his shoe, and no way will the Army chaplain got up in front of us and told ROTC unit in action. It seemed to me let a soldier march with a missing us not to go out with girls who had that these kids were really young. heel. We had a good laugh at that one. VD and that it was morally wrong and On 5 February we left by train for Twork went to all the other huts that a sin to be with a woman unless you Fort Ord, along with Mike Van Cou- night and lit their stoves also, so he were married to her. wenberghe. The train was loaded fi rst wasn’t such a bad fellow after all. Basic training was fi nished on 19 with servicemen; the remaining seats While in Arkansas we were re- January 1944. I had survived. I was were for civilians. On boarding the quired by the Army to attend several now qualifi ed to sew a shoulder patch train, we all decided that each one of classes. We had to hear the Articles on the left sleeve of my uniform. I felt us would sit by a window to see who of War read to us every six months. like real Army, and I had a marksman- would be sitting next to us. We were

30 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

going to be traveling to California for he knew that if he left, even to go to When we got to the other side, they at least three days. We all had coach the bathroom, one of us guys would told us that if we couldn’t swim across tickets requiring us to sleep in our jump right in and take his place. We the pool we would have to stay until seats. We were hoping, of course, that would have done it too. It was really we learned how to swim. Of course, some nice young, good-looking girl funny as I think about it now. We they told us this after we swam across would sit next to us and we would went through Kansas City and had the pool. While at Fort Ord, we were have a pleasant trip out West. Well, a four-hour layover, so we went to a issued new suntan uniforms. We were the fi rst one in our coach was a very steak house and had a very big steak. headed for the tropical climate, for large woman with a small crying Everywhere servicemen went, they sure.n child; she sat next to Gordon. Both were given fi rst-class service. Mike and I had a good laugh at this. We reported for duty and were Another fellow came onboard and assigned to a barracks. The following sat next to me and didn’t have much morning we again had many forms Endnotes 1. The article in an extract from the to say. No one sat next to Mike, so I to fi ll out, mostly insurance papers author’s I Remember When: The Memoirs moved to sit next to him. Someone and next-of-kin information. I was of One Who Served, 1944-1946 (Grand said that there was room in the last able to get GI insurance for only Rapids, MI: Chapbook Press, Schuler car and the large woman and child $6.40 per month for a $10,000 death Books, 2012), which is available from Schuler Books in Grand Rapids. left and went to the rear car. Gordon claim. There was a very large swim- 2. The time in Detroit, in the Eastern had a smile on his face. Just then a ming pool in camp, and one morning Time Zone was fi ve hours later than the young, attractive girl came in and we all had to swim across the pool. time in Hawaii. asked in a loud 3. Various sources report that voice if there between 351 and 366 planes attacked Pearl Harbor. Most offi cial sources put were any empty the total at 353, 183 in the fi rst wave seats in this and 170 in the second. car. Gordon, 4. When I was elected an elder in our without hesita- church, I carried that New Testament on hospital calls and home visits, and when tion, jumped my grandson, John Mark Vander Molen, up and said he entered the Marine Corps, I gave him had an empty that Bible. seat next to 5. Women’s Army Corps (WAC) was the women’s branch of the United States him. He carried Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, her bag and put the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in it in the over- 1942, and converted to full Army status head storage as the WAC in 1943. 6. He never seemed to associate with and began to us. He always went to bed in his birth- get a conversa- day suit, that is, stark naked. tion going with 7. As opposed to a lieutenant this beauty. colonel. She sat next to him the whole trip to Califor- nia. When it came time to sleep, she put her head back and went off to sleep. This was about the only time that Gordon left his The author’s $10,000 government insurance policy naming his mother as the seat, because benefi ciary. Image courtesy of the author.

31 Big Star Lake: Growth of a Love Story1 William J. Braaksma

uring my pre-teen years, in that Mother and Dad rented, almost Dthe 1950s, the best weeks of always the same cottage. I’d run down my summers were spent at Big Star to the water. We were there. Lake. I still remember my anticipation The object of my affection, love, growing as the summer days crept really, lies about eighty miles directly toward the time for us—Mother, Dad, north of Grand Rapids in lightly pop- (eventually) my sister Barbara, and ulated, densely forested Lake County. me—to leave Kalamazoo for the drive Big Star covers 912 acres; it stretches of about 140 miles to Big Star. Once about two and a quarter miles east to on the road, we’d head north and then west. Big Star is really three large bays circle west of Grand Rapids (this was connected at the lake’s middle; as a The author on the dock, c 1958. Image courtesy before US-131 was constructed) to result there is no point, except from of the author. Fruit Ridge Road.2 North of Grand the air, where the entire shoreline Rapids we’d turn onto M-37. We’d can be seen. But a physical descrip- drive down a long, steep hill into Ne- tion does not do Big Star justice. To waygo, a hill which Mother each year me and to hundreds, likely thousands remarked had frightened her mother of Dutch Reformed4 vacationers, Big when they’d make the same drive in Star was—and still is—a special place, the 1920s and ‘30s.3 We’d often stop our place, that transcends mere sand, for groceries in Newaygo and lunch sun, and water. Quietly, since the in White Cloud. When, after what early 1920s, an ethnic and religious seemed to be an interminable drive, vacation community has developed we’d turn off M-37 onto Big Star Lake at Big Star, a community of the Dutch Road, I’d know we were close. As the Reformed.5 Drive around the lake lake grew nearer, I’d know where we during the intervening decades, and could fi rst glimpse Big Star’s water in even now you’ll see dozens of Dutch shimmering sunlight, just before we’d surnames on signs nailed to trees or pass the Blue Horizon Resort. Curiously, I have no recollection of ever driving to Big Star on a rainy day. Within minutes we’d Bill Braaksma is a Calvin College turn off the graduate and in 2012 completed a pavement and master’s degree in history at Western Michigan University, as a “non- onto a dirt road, traditional” student. He lives in the really just two Kalamazoo area. This is his fi rst article ruts through the written for publication. woods that took us to the cottage

32 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

posts: Huizingh, Tiggleman, Koning, Ryskamp, Elhart, and many others. Ethnic and religious resorts are not unique. Jewish resorts in the Catskill Mountains, made famous by “borscht belt” comedians, were popular during the fi rst half of the twentieth cen- tury. The African-American resort at Idlewild, Michigan, coincidentally also in Lake County, has become the subject of a host of books, magazine articles, documentaries, and even movies in recent years. Methodist camp meetings have attracted thou- sands across the country for nearly two centuries. Yet the Dutch Re- formed resort community at Big Star has developed a staying power that many other resort communities have lacked. Perhaps equally signifi cant is the fact that its origin, growth, and A postcard from Big Star Lake, c 1920. Image courtesy of the Archives, Heritage Hall, Calvin staying power are not attributable to College. any marketing effort by a corporate resort or developer. Rather, the Dutch learned of Big Star from “a man years after the Ryskamps and Bouws- Reformed who vacationed there were named Mathieson,” almost certainly mas initially visited, perhaps no more knit by the stronger ties of faith and W. B. S. Mathieson, secretary of the than a dozen cottages existed on the ethnicity and the desire to share fam- Grand Rapids School Equipment lake; many visitors to The Bowery ily vacation experiences. Company.7 Henry rented a cottage still stayed in the tent colony, though, Big Star Lake attracted vacationers at Big Star for two weeks during the with time, clusters of cottages grew at at least as early as the fi rst years of the summer of 1923 and took Flora, his Canterbury Park, Pine Grove Beach, twentieth century. Possibly as early as bride, there for their honeymoon. Snug Harbor, Blue Horizon, Minis- 1901, Frank Basford and Martin Free- While the newlyweds had the cot- ing Point, and on individually owned man opened a resort called The Bow- tage to themselves for the fi rst week, lots around the lake.9 Although these ery on the north side of the lake. In its a host of family members descended resorts (with the exception of Blue fi rst years, vacationers at The Bowery on them for the second.8 Among the Horizon) and a few others existed stayed in tents set up by the owners. guests were Henry’s sister Pearl, her on Big Star by the late 1920s, none The Bowery eventually included a husband, the Rev. John O. Bouwsma appears to have marketed cottages dance fl oor, an attraction for young (my grandparents), and their two specifi cally to the Dutch Reformed. people from all over Lake County on small children, my mother, Margaret, No resort or land development adver- summer Saturday evenings. Another and her brother, Otis. John Bouwsma tisements appear in issues of the Ban- resort, known as Canterbury Park, was pastor of the First Christian Re- ner or the Church Herald during these projected to have 162 lots in as many formed Church in Jenison, Michigan, years, for example. Instead, reports as eight rows back from Big Star’s at the time. of the northern vacation paradise south shore, was platted in 1916.6 The Ryskamps and Bouwsmas there spread by word of mouth. When Other resorts eventually followed. enjoyed Big Star suffi ciently that Henry Ryskamp and John Bouwsma The beginning of the Dutch Re- they returned again in succeeding returned home to Grand Rapids and formed history at Big Star appears to summers. The vacation and recre- Jenison, respectively, they described have occurred when Henry Ryskamp, ation industries were just beginning their vacation experiences to their a young economics professor at a period of growth there during the colleagues, academic and clerical.10 Calvin College and later dean of the 1920s, aided mightily by the develop- Big Star offered clear water, many faculty, and his bride, Flora DeGraaf, ment of the automobile. The fi rst few sandy beaches, wonderful fi shing,

33 and relative solitude, pleasures not time, much of the route north from hauled to Big Star.15 Floors were often available in the cities of southwestern Reed City or Fremont consisted of simply concrete, so rugs would be Michigan or metropolitan Chicago. In dirt roads, not appreciably better than packed for the trip north with other the years following 1923, increasing the drive off Big Star Lake Road to the supplies.16 Big Star was not electrifi ed numbers of Dutch Reformed clergy, cottage where my family frequently until 1938.17 Vacationers as late as the as well as professors from Calvin and stayed. If two cars met on such a 1960s, this writer included, still have eventually Hope colleges, vacationed “road” where woods encroached on vivid recollections of those cottages: at Big Star. Some weeks every cottage the sides, one car or the other would outside toilets, studded walls inside, along Minising Point, a ridge along have to back up to the nearest clear- a hand pump for water, a little wood the north shore of the lake, was rent- ing to allow the other to pass. People stand behind the cottage for cleaning ed to a clergyman and his family, till who rode to Big Star as children with fi sh, old furniture, and no hot water. eventually that area became known their parents during those years still The cottage at Minising Point that my informally as “holy hill.”11 recall many fl at tires and other mis- parents frequently rented in the 1950s This presence of clergy at Big Star haps.13 One regular vacationer to Big and 1960s18 had no hot water, heat Lake may well have been signifi cant Star remembers that, as late as 1936, only from a wood stove, and toilet to its development as a Dutch Re- highway M-37 was gravel all the way facilities in a small enclosure off the formed vacation community. Clergy- from Newaygo (perhaps forty miles back porch, effectively insulated from men have occupied positions of great south of Baldwin) to Big Star Lake any warmth from the stove. When respect in the Dutch Reformed com- Road.14 we’d come up to the cottage from the munity, both in the United States and Once at Big Star, vacationers lake, we’d wash sand from our feet in in the Netherlands. That a minister during the 1920s and 1930s stayed a pail of water just outside the back took his family to Big Star Lake for a in cottages that were often spartan door, water that could be breathtak- vacation may well have legitimized it affairs—simply square or rectangular ingly cold. We didn’t have a TV at the for the Dutch Reformed laity: if Big structures in which curtains were cottage—why would we?—though I Star was good enough for the dominie, often hung to simulate walls. Some do recall hunching over a radio in the it was good enough for members of of the cottages along Minising Point cottage trying to hear Detroit Tigers’ his fl ock. were reputedly workers’ housing, play-by-plays on WKZO Radio from The number of Dutch Reformed from a CCC project near the Croton Kalamazoo, through the static. vacationers at Big Star continued and Hardy dams on the Muskegon Of course, worship was an essen- to increase through the 1920s and River during the 1930s, which had tial part of a Big Star Lake vacation. 1930s. These vacationers typically been loaded onto fl atbed trailers and During the early years no church, came from towns in western Michigan possessing large Dutch Reformed pop- ulations: Muskegon, Grand Rapids, and Holland, as well as from Dutch Reformed enclaves around Chicago. Most people who vacationed at Big Star during those early years rented cottages. Records of those rentals have long since disappeared; thus, recreating a detailed history of renters is virtually impossible. However, the names of some of those identifi ed as having vacationed at Big Star at the time give a fl avor of the presence of the Dutch there: Ryskamp (includ- ing Henry and his brothers), Musch, Laansma, Huizingh, Zuidema, Stob, Holtvluwer, DeKoster, and DeJong.12 Trips to Big Star during the early Dick Stob, his sister, Ellen, and the author at a camp fi re. The Stobs are children of Henry and Hilda years were often adventures. For a Stob. Image courtesy of the author.

34 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

ship.s 21 Often ing Point (“holy hill”), was donated vvacationers by Mr. and Mrs. McCallum of Hes- wwould carry peria, owners of several cottages at BBibles and Minising Point, and the Big Star Lake ffolding chairs Chapel Association was incorporated tto the loca- in 1948. ttion chosen That same year a wood-frame ffor the Sun- structure (35 by 50 feet) was erected. dayd worship. Dutch Reformed laity played a large The pat- role in the construction of the build- ternt of use of ing. The fi rst secretary of the asso- ana informal ciation, and signatory of corporate placep for wor- documents fi led with the State of The chapel with construction materials, c 1948. Image courtesy of the author. ships persisted Michigan, was Henry Huizingh, of through the Grand Rapids. Others heavily in- certainly not a Calvinist church, was Depression and the Second World volved were Albert Zuidema, Henry immediately accessible. Vacationers War. Despite economic conditions, Holtvluwer, and Harvey Holwerda. would attend services at local church- many continued to vacation at Big The constitution of the chapel es in Baldwin and the surrounding Star during the Depression. Some va- association declared that the associa- region. Occasionally they would wor- cationers trace their families’ histories tion’s purpose was to provide a loca- ship at the Tabernacle in Idlewild.19 at Big Star to the Depression years.22 tion for religious services on Sundays Tabernacle worship services must Marva DeVries recalls her parents during resort seasons and to provide have been memorable for Dutch Re- saving money through the winter so means to secure ministers or theologi- formed visitors: they were loud, ener- enough would be available for the cal students to preach: “the Word of getic, joyous affairs, punctuated with next summer’s trip “amens,” up-tempo gospel songs, and to Big Star.23 In clapping of hands, distinctly differ- the years imme- ent from the somber Dutch Reformed diately following worship. On one occasion, likely in the Second World the late 1920s, elders at the Taber- War, as service- nacle discovered that my grandfather, men returned John Bouwsma, was a minister and home the numbers prevailed upon him to take the pulpit of vacationers at and speak to the congregation. While Big Star swelled, he spoke, his children sat on the and with them the stage at the front of the large, packed numbers of Dutch sanctuary, their legs dangling over its Reformed gather- edge; my grandmother, Pearl Bouw- ing for Sunday sma, sat in a chair on the stage with services similarly the wives of the Tabernacle’s elders.20 mushroomed. By Eventually, the number of Dutch 1947, some per- Reformed vacationers at Big Star sons of foresight grew to where conducting their own concluded that the services became feasible. This was erection of a cha- often done in a cottage or outdoors pel in the vicinity if weather was conducive. As minis- of Big Star was ters were almost always among the feasible and in fact vacationers, they would frequently necessary. A parcel conduct services; on other Sundays, of land on Big Star Henry Ryskamp or another professor Lake Road, at the Rev. John O. Bouwsma and an unidentifi ed child in the early 1930s. Image or a layman would lead the wor- entrance to Minis- courtesy of the author.

35 Fourth of July and Labor Day holi- swimming, fi shing, and much more. days.24 Two years later, two Sunday Cane poles, tackle boxes, large con- morning services were held from July tainers of night crawlers and earth- 2 through September 3. Eventually the worms, and cricket boxes made the two-Sunday-morning-service schedule trip to Big Star along with other items was extended through the entire vaca- of lesser importance—clothes, bed- tion season. Currently the chapel once ding, and kitchen supplies. One of again has one Sunday morning service my Grandpa John Bouwsma’s prized and two on holiday weekends.25 possessions was a cricket box made The rental season at Big Star typi- for him by a member of one of his cally ran from Saturday to Saturday. congregations. When he’d drive to Big I recall that on one visit, likely in the Star, the cricket box and the contain- late fi fties, Sunday dawned clear and ers of worms and night crawlers were hot. We went to a service at the chapel packed in the favored location, the that morning and had a large Sunday coolest corner of the Bouwsma sedan, dinner that noon, and I then discov- for the trip “up north.” The Braaksmas’ frequent vacation cabin on “holy hill” west of Minising Point. At the time ered to my dismay that the cottages By the fi fties, fi shing tackle may it was owned by Maynard Spaak and George on either side of ours were rented by have been modernized somewhat, and Owen of Grand Rapids. Image courtesy of the ministers and their families. The cool we could buy red worms and crawlers author. water beckoned. Dad told me that I at several stores on Big Star Lake Road could go in the water when the min- or in Baldwin, but we still generally God as interpreted in our Reformed isters’ kids did. My fate was sealed: I fi shed from a rowboat using hooks Confessions, particularly the Belgic spent the afternoon in the cottage. and bobbers. Occasionally I’d walk the Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, Once the Sabbath had passed, few hundred yards down the beach to and the Canons of Dort” (Article 2). though, recreation at Big Star included the Minising Point peninsula where Rev. Lubbertus Oostendorp, pastor of Mayfair (then known as Dennis Av- enue) Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, conducted the chapel’s dedication service, preaching on “Life More Abundant,” on 2 August 1948. The chapel’s initial seating capac- ity was three hundred. This quickly proved inadequate. The chapel was frequently fi lled to capacity, and, to accommodate crowds, children were often invited to sit on the edge of the platform at the front of the sanctuary. By 1954, planning for an expansion of the existing chapel structure had begun. This second project was com- pleted in 1957. The shell of the initial structure was retained, but seating ca- pacity was increased to approximately 650 by adding to both sides of the building. A small offi ce and restroom facilities were also added. Even with the increased capacity, however, the chapel’s size gradually proved insuf- fi cient. In 1976, second services were added on Sunday mornings of the Worshipers after a service at the chapel. Image courtesy of the author.

36 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

would give each customer an order number and, regardless of whether that customer was the only one of the day, would bark out the number “One!” when the order was ready.26 In his 1941 book, A-Hiking We Will Go, outdoor writer Jack Van Coevering27 described two favorite recreational sites at Big Star: the fi re tower and the “haunted cottage.” In 1932 the State of Michigan moved a 92-foot fi re tower to a spot a little south of Big Star (actually just across the county line in Newaygo County).28 Van Co- evering wrote of taking children on a nature hike.29 Of these children, Carl was Jack Van Coevering’s son, Jimmy was Henry Ryskamp’s son, and Elaine was Henry’s niece. After stopping to observe a variety of plants, the group A recent view of the chapel. Image courtesy of the Archives, Heritage Hall, Calvin College. arrived at the fi re tower: a drop-off existed a few dozen yards Golden Bun stood on a side road a “And now to climb the fi re tower,” from the edge of the water. I’d bait my little north of the lake. The Golden said Jackie after he had eaten his last sandwich. Jimmy was already at the hook, toss my line beyond the drop- Bun was memorable in several regards. top and visiting with the tower man. off, and wait till the twitching of my Its hamburgers and fries are uniformly For the others, it was going to be their bobber meant that a perch or bluegill recalled as having been wonderful. fi rst climb up the hundred-foot ladder, was investigating my bait. Service was breathtakingly slow: some which ran straight up the side to the Older vacationers at Big Star still joked that they could place a food top where there was a lookout cage recall with great fondness many order there, drive to Baldwin (about with windows on all sides. other experiences. For several years, six miles away) to grocery shop and “All right, Elaine, you go fi rst,” I said, into the late 1950s or early 1960s, a return before their food was ready. “then Jackie. The rest of us will go up later, because there won’t be room for small hamburger stand known as the And in his later years the proprietor all in the lookout cabin at the same time.” Elaine started up bravely. There were steel hoops which stood out straight from each rung of the ladder30 and, as she got up inside the hoops, it seemed as though she were climbing up through a long tube. . . . When Elaine was half-way up, she looked down. “Ooh,” she said. “This is higher than I have ever climbed be- fore in all my life. I don’t know if I can go farther.”31

The fi re tower was removed a few decades later. While it stood, climbing it was an adventure not for the faint of heart. The north shore of Big Star Lake, west of Minising Point. Image courtesy of Andy and Caroline Another chapter in Van Coevering’s Braaksma. book described an experience many

37 still recall, a hike to the “haunted cottage” on the north arm of Big Star Lake,32 really a dilapidated old cot- tage. Phil and Chuck, sons of Henry and Flora Ryskamp; Mavis, the Rys- kamps’ niece; and Jack Van Coever- ing’s daughter Grieta made the hike which the book relates:

[W]e soon came out from among the sedges and rushes onto high land again. A shadow hung over the lake and, as I looked up, I saw that the sky was beginning to show heavier clouds. At a distance, we could see the cottage which the children called The author’s sons, Will (left) and Andy, c 1990. Image courtesy of the author haunted. It was built at the base of a hill with a few pines behind it. There was a porch all around the cottage, attractive pottery manufactured only but much of the screening was torn by a North Carolina family. Eventu- and the screen door was off its hinges. ally the patriarch of the North Caro- As we approached the cottage, the lina family died, the proprietors of children slowed their pace. As if to Nook in the Woods aged, and the reassure himself, Jimmy said loudly, shop closed. While it was in business, “This cottage has no spooks in it. I though, it sold wares to many, many know, because there is no such thing as a spook.” But Chuck was not so Big Star Lake vacationers. I still own a sure.33 few pieces, as I suspect many do. Hope College professor Robert For many years, bogs in the west- Swierenga has titled his study of ern half of Lake County produced Dutch immigration to the United crops of wild huckleberries.34 Many States Faith and Family.38 The im- vacationers picked them; mothers portance to the Dutch Reformed of often canned the harvest.35 Evenings, these two foundational elements has vacationers played Pit, Monopoly, and been evident in the history of the Big Will and Caroline, two of the author’s children, Sorry, had marshmallow roasts, or Star Lake vacation community. The on the beach. Image courtesy of the author. played cribbage and caroms.36 manner in which they have for many Jones Home Made Ice Cream, years conducted their vacations there ers who canned quart after quart of established in Baldwin in 1942 and conformed to Dutch Reformed ideals huckleberries might not recall that selling homemade ice cream, malts, of community. particular activity with unalloyed shakes, and sundaes, has been a The most important commitment joy). While hunting and fi shing favorite institution for nearly seven in Dutch Reformed life, whether at lodges elsewhere have been male decades.37 I can personally testify to home or on vacation, has been reli- preserves, and night clubs and dance the high quality of its chocolate malts gious faith. That faith was not shelved fl oors were reserved for adults, the and to the old photos of Baldwin during weeks at Big Star. Instead, Dutch Reformed respect for the com- hanging on its walls. In the 1950s a worship has been a centerpiece of mitment to family is evident in the small—even tiny—pottery and curio those vacations. The existence of the history of the Big Star Lake vacation shop called Nook in the Woods was Big Star Lake Chapel stands as a testa- community. opened on Central Park Boulevard, off ment to that faith. Of course, whether Big Star Lake Big Star Lake Road, on the north side The other half of Swierenga’s equa- will continue to fulfi ll the needs of of the lake. Nook in the Woods was tion is family. Pastimes and pleasures Dutch Reformed vacationers in the owned by a couple from Milwaukee in which vacationers at Big Star future remains to be seen. Cultural, who ran another shop there during engaged suggest that vacations there economic, technological, and other the offseason. It featured unusually were family affairs (though moth- changes may affect the viability of 38 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

that community. But I still visit Big Star and still love it. I hope to spend more time there in coming summers. 1948-1998 suggests that Henry Ryskamp, 23. Marva DeVries interview, 4 Services at the Big Star Lake Cha- his two brothers, his sisters, and their March 2011. spouses owned a cottage at Minising 24. The chapel since its opening has pel are still well attended by young Point. See p. 2. This is not correct. None held both Sunday morning and evening families with children as well as by of the Ryskamps of Henry’s generation services. older generations (though attendance ever owned a cottage at Minising Point 25. Big Star has become increasingly at evening services may have dropped or elsewhere on Big Star, though Henry’s an owners’ lake and not a renters’ lake. son Philip and his niece Maxine both This changing pattern of occupancy off a bit). And Dutch names still deco- eventually did. Maxine for a time owned may be affecting attendance, in the rate large numbers of signboards on a cottage jointly with Dena Busscher, sense that owners don’t necessarily drive trees in front of cottages.n both teachers from Grand Rapids. Phil to their cottages every weekend. Ryskamp still owns a home on Big Star. 26. Numerous interviews with Mar- 12. “Big Star Lake Chapel History,” garet Braaksma (the author’s mother). www.bigstarlakehistory.com. 27. Van Coevering was Dutch Re- 13. Author’s interview with Marva formed, from Grand Haven, Michigan. DeVries, 4 March 2011. He was related by marriage to Rev. John 14. John Lansma email, 11 November and Pearl Bouwsma. Though he was Endnotes 2009. my mother’s uncle, I remember him as 1. The author thanks the many 15. This story has not been verifi ed. “Uncle Jack.” friends and Big Star Lake vacationers 16. Interviews with Marva DeVries, 4 28. “Move 3 Fire Towers,” Lake who assisted him in conducting research March 2011; and numerous interviews County Star, 16 September 1932, 1. for this project. with Margaret Braaksma (the author’s 29. P. 101. Elaine Ryskamp later mar- 2. There were occasions when we mother). ried Rev. Leonard Hofman, a Christian took Peach Ridge Road, which was 17. “Big Star Lake History,” www. Reformed minister who eventually con- farther east. bigstarlakehistory.com. ducted several worship services at the 3. In retrospect, driving down that 18. Owned by Maynard Spaak and chapel and who became stated clerk and long steep slope in a Saxon or a Model T George Owens of Grand Rapids. later general secretary of the Christian Ford would have been something of an 19. Idlewild was a prominent Reformed Church. adventure. resort, organized by white develop- 30. As my dad later pointed out, 4. Reformed and Christian Reformed ers in the early 1920s for prosperous these rungs didn’t guarantee a great deal vacationers will be referred to collec- African-Americans denied access to other than that you’d likely bang your tively as Dutch Reformed. segregated white resorts. It was located head on each one on the way down if 5. For example, an otherwise quite in the northeast corner of Lake County you fell. thorough and well-documented history ( Walker Lewis, and Benjamin Wilson, 31. Jack Van Coevering, A-Hiking We of Lake County, Lake County, 1871-1960, Black Eden: The Idlewild Community). Will Go (Louisville, OH: Hubbard Press, makes no mention whatsoever of the That the Dutch Reformed would at- 2011), 110-111. Dutch Reformed vacation community tend non-Reformed or even non-white 32. Ibid 123-143. or of the Big Star Lake Chapel. Neither churches while on vacation suggests 33. Ibid 139-140. does a history of Lake County published that their desire to worship was power- 34. Douglas, The Lake County We in 1993 by the present owner of the ful and their motivation to worship Love, Then (1840) and Now, (1975), 4. Lake County Star newspaper, Pictorial among their own was not racially 35. Marva DeVries interview, 4 History of Lake County, Michigan. motivated. March 2011. 6. Canterbury never remotely ap- 20. Numerous interviews with Mar- 36. My mother, Margaret Braaksma, proached that size. garet Braaksma (the author’s mother). recalled an example of clergy humor at 7. Numerous interviews with Mar- Sitting on the stage at the Tabernacle Big Star involving an evening’s games. garet Braaksma (the author’s mother); during the boisterous service had to During a game of charades her father, “Erect 12 Cottages at Pine Grove,” Lake have been a memorable experience for Rev. John Bouwsma, lay on the cottage County Star, April 25, 1924, 1. my grandmother, a quiet, gentle lady fl oor and placed a few small potatoes on 8. Flora’s reaction to the arrival of raised in a Christian Reformed family in his chest. The answer to the charade, her in-laws has not been preserved. Grand Rapids. which stumped the house, was “com- 9. “Minising Point” refers to both a 21. Jack Laansma at “Big Star Lake mon taters [commentators] on John.” peninsula separating the west and north Chapel History,” www.bigstarlakehis- 37. It still is. bays and to a low ridge stretching west tory.com. 38. Subtitled Dutch Immigration and from that bay. It is not a resort. 22. Written communication from Settlement in the United States, 1820- 10. Numerous interviews with Mar- Berton and Jeanne Wierenga, undated. 1920 (New York and London: Holmes & garet Braaksma (the author’s mother). Jack Laansma posting, www.bigstarlake- Meier, 2000). 11. A History of Big Star Lake Chapel, history.com.

39 Rev. A. C. Van Raalte on Slavery Introduction and translation by Michael Douma

Introduction Historians of the Dutch in America only a few remaining stray issues ex- have often repeated the idea that tant from the Civil War period. I have Albertus C. Van Raalte was an op- provided an English translation of an ponent of slavery who during the interesting column about Van Raalte Civil War spoke from his pulpit in found in the 12 August 1863 issue. defense of the Union. Until recently, The article is a summary of a Van however, only secondary sources, and Raalte sermon by a contemporary. It no primary sources, could be shown is not clear whether the newspaper to support this view. Even Eugene editor, Jan Roost, wrote the article Heideman in his recent and extensive himself, or if it was submitted to him reading of Van Raalte’s sermons did by someone else. The article makes not discover any mention of slavery clear a few points: (1) Van Raalte did or the Civil War. Heideman’s fi ndings, indeed speak about political issues presented at a conference in October from the pulpit, and he did so be- 2011, surprised me because I recall cause he felt that the political issues coming across a Van Raalte anti-slav- had intruded on the church. Van ery source in my own research. Raalte not only rejected the prem- In the summer of 2005, while ise that the Bible defended slavery working as an assistant to Robert in America, but he also rejected the Swierenga at the Van Raalte Institute, idea that others should be allowed to I conducted a survey of the major hold such a position without retalia- archives across the state of Michigan tion from the church. (2) Van Raalte with the goal of locating any materi- was vehemently opposed to slavery, als relating to Holland, Michigan, or specifi cally racial slavery, as it was to Dutch immigrants. Elton Bruins practiced in the United States, but he and I travelled together to the Clarke was supportive of the type of slavery Historical Library at Central Michi- found in the Old Testament of the gan University, Dr. Swierenga and I Bible. (3) Van Raalte held that both visited the regional archives at West- the restoration of the Union and the ern Michigan University, and I struck defeat of slavery were aims of the out on my own to visit the Bentley Civil War. (4) Van Raalte felt that Michael J. Douma has a doctorate in Library in Ann Arbor and the State God’s hand was active in supporting history from Florida State University Archives and Michigan State Univer- the North against the Confederate and was a Fulbright Scholar in the sity Archives in Lansing. rebels. Netherlands. He has researched and Among the materials I discov- written about the Netherlands, as well ered in Ann Arbor was a copy of De Translation as Dutch immigration to the United Grondwet, a newspaper published in Many people here recognized the States. He is the author of Veneklasen Brick: A Family, a Company, and a Holland, Michigan, from 12 August national thanksgiving and prayer day Unique Nineteenth-Century Dutch 1863. Because a late-nineteenth-cen- last Thursday. In the First Reformed Architectural Movement in Michigan. tury fi re destroyed many of the back Church religious exercises were held issues of this newspaper, there are in the morning and in the afternoon,

40 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

and during the evening there was a to that. Like the Reverend remarked, were, in their fanaticism, in favor of regular weekly prayer service. it is fi tting for us, in particular, to be philanthropy that was unpractical and In the morning the Reverend Dr. thankful for the wonderful sparing of unobtainable; others attempted to A. C. Van Raalte held an especially our loved ones. show that the Bible protected slav- serious, powerful, and, according to As reasons for serious and fi ery ery. Both were wrong. The Reverend the circumstances, fi tting sermon on prayer, the Reverend named: the showed clearly the difference between 1 Samuel XIV: 1-15, wherein it was desperate and reckless attempts of the biblical, Old Testament slavery pointed out that the hand of God is the rebel leaders, who, while they and our American slavery. The Old always present, in defeats as well as themselves are sinking, will risk Testament slavery was through God, victories. everything, and who if they were to and was allowed in the present state In the afternoon the Rev. contin- succeed in their plan, shall cause of sin, and restricted, guided and ued on this theme, and showed most scenes for which angels and men softened through his mercifulness. of all the reasons which the nation, shall cover their faces; the quick- It differs completely in origin, laws, and in particular, we ourselves, must tempered agitation, spread every- and defi nition and extent from the be compelled to thankfulness and where through the land, and mostly present American slavery, which was prayer. Reasons for thankfulness were in the large cities, lit by property-less grounded upon breeding men and named as: the glorious victory at demagogues, cause spectacles there was therefore absolutely forbidden in Gettysburg, where the rebel invasion which cause the blood to stand still; the Bible. The two systems had noth- was stopped and the north remained New York gives us an example, where ing in common with each other, and saved from immeasurable suffering the populace of millions has lost the biblical slavery allowed none of and terrors; the surrender, without property, and the city burdened with the atrocities that are characteristic of the loss of blood, of Vicksburg and a blemish which cannot be obliter- our slavery. The Reverend hoped that Port Hudson, by which the Missis- ated in a half century; the terrible never shall he, nor one of his descen- sippi, the great artery of the West, has lack of principles, selfi shness, lust for dents, ever help support an institution been returned to us; the victory and money; and thousands of other cases, like our present slavery, and that no progress of Rosencrans; the capture each of which is enough for the coun- one will be found who should misuse of the guerilla-chief John Morgan, try to sink and not be saved. God’s word in defense of such a god- and God’s wonderful protection of The Reverend also took a few mo- less, cursed institution. Never before our loved ones, who with about two ments to focus on the slavery issue, did we hear the difference between hundred men drove back and defeat- about which he gave a short and the two systems of slavery better rea- ed 2,000 to 4,000 rebel pirates; the prudent lesson. The slavery issue, soned and explained more accurately. demoralization of the rebel armies said the Reverend, was often used by Both sermons testifi ed of the deep, of Bragg and Johnston; the complete the political parties as a means for serious loyalty and love of the Union, frustration of the cunning and well attaining their political goals and for and the many-sided political knowl- thought out rebel plans; the aversion desire for money and honor. People edge of the beloved teacher, and were of the unthinkable and uncountable had, just as well, made this question given in a lively and exciting manner. pain and suffering, which threatened into a religious issue, and so doing All true patriots, loyal citizens, and during the last week; the uncommon the Reverend was required, as servant lovers of Union and freedom were rest, peace, and well-being, which of the gospel, to communicate his especially edifi ed, encouraged, and in- we, in contrast to many others, enjoy; view. In connection to this question spired with new seriousness, to once and fi nally the increased trust and there were two extremities which again pick up the weapons and set the grounded hope for the restora- both erred. Some appeal to the Bible, forth on the “insuppressible fi ght.”n tion of the Union, with the countless because people assert that this book prayers and benefi ts in connection stands for and approves slavery, and

41 Marietta, Georgia Sept. 23rd ‘64

Dear Father, Today we* received your letter of September 12. I was surprised that you did not yet know that I had been wounded. I hope that this does not cause mother too much concern. EDITOR’S NOTE Rev. Van Raalte I am healing well, my wounds appear to be [healing] exceptionally well. I came to experience the horrors of walk a lot, and appear to be so healthy that no one would think I had been the Civil War personally, when two wounded. The amputation of my arm did not weaken me much because I of his sons joined the Union Army. have much time to exercise by walking, and thus far also haven’t lost any Benjamin (1840-1917) and Dirk weight. Our corps inspector amputated my arm and did an exceptionally fi ne (1844-1910) both mustered in 23 job, because every doctor that examines it comments on the fi ne job he did. September 1862 and served in Benjamin is still here and takes very good care of me, and will stay with me Company I of the 25th Michigan until I can go home. In October I will try to get a furlough, and if I do, I will Infantry. They saw service in Ken- come home then. tucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. Both Excuse my sloppy penmanship since I am writing with my left hand and were part of the battle for Atlanta this is a bit diffi cult. It is raining today. Greet everyone for me. in 1864. On 26 August 1864, Dirk and another soldier were riding and Dirk Van Raalte attacked, Dirk was shot in the arm, *Dirk and his brother Benjamin. and his companion was killed. The wound was such that his arm was amputated at the shoulder. He spent two months recovering in Marietta and became a hospital orderly. He was discharged 13 April 1865 and became a successful business leader and politician in Holland, Michigan. Benjamin was discharged 24 June 1865, and returned to Holland where he operated a farm.

42 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013 book reviews

Envisioning Hope College: brief, some mini-essays about the con- vision for an expansion of Hope Col- Letters Written by text of the letters, about Van Raalte’s lege. These dreams were not to be. Albertus C. Van Raalte family, Hope College, the Holland col- The depression of 1873, the continu- ony, and the Dutch Reformed church. to Philip Phelps Jr. ing fi nancial problems of the col- Many of the footnotes take up more lege, the reduction of support from edited by Elton J. Bruins and space than the text on the page. Some the general synod—these all came Karen G. Schakel pack a great deal of helpful informa- together in 1878, when the general Holland, MI: Van Raalte Press; tion. For example, note 6 on pp. 113- synod took direct control of the col- Grand Rapids, MI: 114 summarizes the often contentious lege, asked Phelps and the faculty to William B. Eerdmans, 2001 question of “Christian schools.” resign, and discontinued the theologi- Pp. xxvi+520; $49 Future scholars on the history of the cal program. Hard cover Reformed Church in America (RCA) The work also details Van Raalte’s will also be grateful for the notes on learning of the English language. He the identity and careers of hundreds Albertus C. Van Raalte (1811-1876) had no training in the language until of RCA pastors. At times the footnotes was a minister and leader of the emigration and tried to learn the immigrant group that founded a become verbose. Although the great fi re of 1871 in Holland was a cata- basics during the voyage to America. “colony” of several villages in western After arriving, he did as much reading Michigan, with the town of Holland strophic historical event, do we need in English as he could and began to as its center. As the colony grew, the to know the names of all the members preach in English. The letters show immigrants focused on the education of the relief committee and the names how much he had learned—and how of their children and young people. of the stores they owned? Envisioning takes place in the context The problems of Hope College many Dutch words and spellings he of the education of the young people, were many, including its governance, still interjected. Comparing the early and the fulfi llment of Van Raalte’s fi nances, and academic programs. The letters of 1857 with those of 1875, dream—founding a Christian college, governance of the college involved the one can detect his improving mastery that is, Hope College. The main body general synod and its board of educa- of the language. of Envisioning consists of Van Raalte’s tion, the classis of Chicago, the local Envisioning Hope College is a trea- letters to Rev. Philip Phelps Jr., the board, the president, and the faculty sure trove about Van Raalte and his fi rst president of Hope College. (with Van Raalte always in the wings frustrating experiences in fundraising, The letters are faithful reproduc- trying to fulfi ll his dream and main- but also about his family life, Hope tions of Van Raalte’s ninety-fi ve tain a hold on its operation). A partic- College, the relationship to the RCA, letters, with careful interpolations ular and frequent bone of contention his leadership in the Holland colony, and guesses by the editors when Van was the teaching of theology and the and immigrant life in general. It is a related preparation of ministers. Raalte’s English prose becomes murky. fi ne addition to the Van Raalte bibli- The text is accompanied by approxi- In the late 1860s Phelps wrote ography! mately 1,100 footnotes and followed several reports to the general synod, by explanatory commentary—some enthusiastically recommending his Harry Boonstra

43 The History of the ten farm so that the Scholte could con- their fi replaces in the kitchen grown County of Bentheim fi rm that a body was being buried and over with weeds, and in their stables that it had not been cremated as was wolves were nursing their young Ludwig Sager the practice in pre-Christian times. ones.” The French, under Napoleon, translated by Swenna Harger, Sager notes that surnames like Roer- paid worthless paper currency for edited by Loren Lemmen ick, Rottgers, Rottering, and Rolink impounded wagons of straw, hay, Bentheimers International Society, 2012 derive from “roden,” individuals who clothing, leather goods, and whiskey. Order from Bentheimers International knew how to clear land for farming By 1866 the Prussians had ousted the Society, 124 Round Top Rd. and were selected by Charlemagne to Lansing, MI 48917 Hanovers, and the Reformed Church be model Bentheim farmers. of Grafschaft Bentheim had become $12.50 The religious history of the region part of the church of Hanover. Two includes Martin Luther nailing his decades later, Bentheim became part theses to the church door in Witten- Ludwig Sager (1886-1970) taught of Bismarck’s greater Germany. Then berg. The Reformation that followed school for forty-three years in Ben- the threat of military conscription, the swept through northern Germany, the theim, Germany. After World War depletion of the region’s economy, and Netherlands, England, and France. By II, he was asked to write a history of the struggle of the German Reformed Grafschaft Bentheim free of Nazi ide- 1544, Lutheranism had become the state religion in Bentheim. Arnold II, secession convinced many Ben- ology. It was published in 1952 and is theimers in the Reformed tradition to now available in English. son of the Count of Bentheim, how- emigrate for a better life in America. He paints pictures of Bentheim ever, was sent to study with John Cal- Here, they linked with fellow Re- that transport youthful scholars from vin in Strasbourg and returned with formed people from the Netherlands. the Stone Age to the beginning of Calvinsim, the Heidelberg Catechism, World War II. He begins with “Axes, and the resulting Bentheim Church Swenna Harger’s translation of daggers, saws, chisels, stone ham- Order of 1708 that is still in force. Sager’s book is a welcome contribu- mers . . .” and ends with “The dark- The political history includes tion toward an understanding of these est day was on May 10, 1940 when vivid descriptions of the Hanovers German immigrant co-founders of Nazi forces overran our neighboring taking control. Then, during the the Christian Reformed, Reformed, country, the Netherlands . . . a neigh- long confl ict between Spain and the and Presbyterian churches. It joins bor . . . with whom we shared a lan- Netherlands, the city of Nordhorn in another helpful volume, Beloved guage, family ties and the Reformed Bentheim was forced to billet 4,000 Family and Friends: Letters between faith.” cavalry and 2,000 infantrymen even Grafschaft Bentheim and America, Vol To explain the coming of Christian- though Bentheim was a party in the 1: 1847-1914, translated by Harger in ity to Bentheim, Sager explores the war but was under Hapsburg rule. 2007. Perhaps soon, similar efforts in name “Scholten,” a name familiar to Spanish troops took Bentheim chil- English will document the history of his students. Scholtes, Saxon admin- dren and teenagers into captivity for Reformed Ostfresians, the other Ger- ransom. Marauding troops stripped istrators appointed by Charlemagne, man branch in Calvinist denomina- were tax collectors and guardians of fi elds of crops so that frightened fami- tions in the United States. godly behavior. For instance, funeral lies deserted their farms. Once these processions had to stop at the Schol- families returned, “. . . they found Eunice Vanderlaan

44 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013 book notes

Loyalty and Loss: The County of Bentheim The Reformed Church Oepke Noordmans: and Her Emigrants to in America, 1945–1994 Theologian of the Holy Spirit North America Karel Bl ei; Allan J. Janssen, transaltor Lynn Japinga Swenna Harger and Loren Lemmen Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans 2013 Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013 Publishing Co., 2013 Softcover ISBN: 978-0-8028-7085-8 ISBN: 978-0-8028-7068-1 $26.00 Softcover $30.00 Softcover

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

Minnie Voetberg Brink’s journal of her childhood in Montana, 1911-1924 Douglas Rozendal details Jan Hospers’s dilemma of staying in Iowa or returning to the Netherlands Angie Ploegstra has documented the brief history of the Dutch in Liverpool, Texas Paula Vander Hoven recreates the history of the Dutch in Hamshire, Texas

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46 Volume XXXI • Number 2 • 2013

Mr. and Mrs. John Zonneveld Sr., Laton, CA Sam and Judy Van Til, Crown Point, IN contributors Max and Carol Van Wyk, Grand Rapids, MI Contributing Sponsors Dr. and Mrs. Daniel R. Vellenga, Waco, TX Walter and Carol Ackerman, Superior, CO Dr. and Mrs. William Venema, Grand Rapids, MI Origins is designed to publicize and Mr. and Mrs. Jay A. Anema, Seattle, WA Mr. Ted W. Vliek, Portage, MI advance the objectives of the Calvin James H. and Diane Bloem, Louisville, KY Mr. and Mrs. Henry I. Witte, Ada, MI College and Seminary Archives. These goals include the gathering, organization Ed and Betty Boersma, Visalia, CA Mr. and Mrs. Teunis Witte, Byron Center, MI and study of historical materials produced Dr. and Mrs. Robert Bolt, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. Burton and Ellen Wolters, Spring Lake, MI by the day-to-day activities of the Christian John and Sharon Bouma, Holland, MI Mr. and Mrs. F. A. Wybenga, Tallmadge, OH Reformed Church, its institutions, commu- nities and people. We invite you to support John and Beth Bouws, Holland, MI Mr. and Mrs. Jay L. Zandstra, Highland, IN the continued publication of Origins by Connie and Roger Brummel, Holland, MI Mary Zwaanstra, Grand Rapids, MI becoming “Friends of the Archives.” Mr. and Mrs. Conrad J. Bult, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. John Buursma, Holland, MI Contributing Members Dr. and Mrs. James A. De Jong, Grand Rapids, MI Mrs. Phyllis Baarman, Grand Rapids, MI Enabling Contributor Jan and Jeannie de Vries, Berkeley, CA David and Rene Baatenburg, Jenison, MI Mr. and Mrs. John Meyer, Palos Park, IL Mr. Robert Dirkse, Corona, CA Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Bajema, Grand Rapids, MI Mark and Ginny Dykstra, South Holland, IL John and Maria Bajema, Lowell, MI Friends of the Archives Ms. Jennifer Baker, Grandville, MI Endowment Fund Builders James and Rosemarie Evenhuis, Novi, MI Martin and Helon Everse, Birmingham, AL Richard and Cynthia G. Bandstra, Grand Rapids, MI AEGON Insurance Group, Cedar Rapids, IA Mr. and Mrs. John Bielema, Grand Rapids, MI Dave and Connie Fennema, Durham, NC Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth J. Baas, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. and Mrs. Allan Bishop, Ripon, CA Harold and Nancy Gazan, Holland, MI Robert and Jane Baker Foundation, Kalamazoo, MI Mr. and Mrs. Henry Boersma, Marne, MI Mr. and Mrs. Samuel E. Greydanus III, Milton, MA Mr. Duane D. Binns, Oak Park, IL Dr. Harmon S. Boertien, Houston, TX Mr. and Mrs. Roger W. Boer, Grand Rapids, MI Kay Hoitenga, Grand Rapids, MI Harry and Thelma Boonstra, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. and Mrs. Richard H. Harms, Grand Rapids, MI Dennis G. Holtrop, San Francisco, CA Carl and Elizabeth Botting, Ada, MI Holland American Wafer Company, Dr. James and Barbara Hoogeboom, Mrs. Ruth E. Brinks, Grand Rapids, MI Grand Rapids, MI Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Lester Brouwer, Holland, MI Mr. and Mrs. Peter Huizenga, Oak Brook, IL Les and Viv Hoogland, Zeeland, MI Elaine and Ralph Bruxvoort, Bloomer, WI Dr. William Huizingh, Scottsdale, AZ Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth A. Hoving, Oak Brook, IL Mr. and Mrs. Duane E. Bulthuis, Ripon, CA Estate of Dick and Dena Kortenhoeven, Highland, IN Herb and Bernace Korthuis, Lynden, WA Milly and Peter Buma, Grand Rapids, MI Meijer, Inc., Grand Rapids, MI Annette LaMaire, South Holland, IL Robert Bytwerk, West Olive, MI Mr. Gerald W. Meyering, Denver, CO Mr. and Mrs. Graydon M. Meints, Kalamazoo, MI Wayne and Greta Clousing, Shoreline, WA Drs. Kornelis J. Storm, Aerdenhout, the Netherlands Tom and Greta Newhof, Ada, MI Mr. Stuart E. Cok, Sparta, MI Jay and Betty Van Andel Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Scheeres, Grand Rapids, MI Grand Rapids, MI Henry and Evelyn Stevens, Tucson, AZ Ron and Cathie Corstange, Hudsonville, MI Mr. and Mrs. Claude J. Venema, Jackson, MI Dr. and Mrs. Robert P. Swierenga, Holland, MI Dr. and Mrs. W. P. De Boer, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Gary J. Vermeer, Pella, IA Mr. and Mrs. Gerald A. Talen, Tucson, AZ Robert L. and Frances De Bruin, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. William C. Terpstra, Schererville, IN Mr. and Mrs. Willard G. De Graaf, Hudsonville, MI Contributing Founders Mr. and Mrs. Richard Vandenakker, Ripon, CA Ms. Helen Den Boer, Germantown, MD Mr. and Mrs. Richard T. Dykema, Laurel, MD Mr. and Mrs. John C. Vander Haag, Sanborn, IA Mr. Ronald De Valois, Lynden, WA Mr. and Mrs. Bastian A. Knoppers, Oak Brook, IL Jan and Gary Vander Meer, DeKalb, IL Lucas and Ann De Vries, Grand Rapids, MI Peters Import Marketplace, Grandville, MI Warren and Martha Van Genderen, Jackson, WY Barbara DeWitt, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Leo Peters, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Allan J. Van Popering, Henry and Shirley De Witt, Chino, CA Clara and Leonard Sweetman, Kentwood, MI Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Robert Dykstra, Holland, MI Mr. and Mrs. Max B. Van Wyk, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. Adrian Van Sledright, Caledonia, MI Jake and Frances Engel, Ripon, CA

47 Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth D. Engelsman, Centennial, CO Ms. Ardene Lambers, Grand Rapids, MI Roger and Joyce Vanden Bosch, Zeeland, MI Phil and Trudy Erffmeyer, Prinsburg, MN Rev. James C. and Carol Lont, Holland, MI Hugo M. Van Den Dool, West Hyattsville, MD Mr. and Mrs. Robert Essenburg, Grandville, MI Mr. Gerald Meyer, Holland, MI George and Pat Vander Laan, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Geldof, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. Ted and Mrs. Tena Minnema, Grand Rapids, MI John and Donna Vander Meer, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Albert J. Griede, La Mesa, CA James E. and Janice S. Monsma, Medford, MA Evie and Al Vander Plaats, Blaine, MN Carl and Sandy Gronsman, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. William Noordhof, Lacombe, AB Dr. and Mrs. Gerald L. Vander Wall, Grand Haven, MI Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Haagsma, Grandville, MI Mr. and Mrs. David Ondersma, Holland, MI Dr. Steve J. Van Der Weele, Grand Rapids, MI Ulrich and Elizabeth Haasdyk, Calgary, AB Robert and Faith Ottenhoff, McLean, VA Jan and Adriana Vanderwerf, Mosinee, WI George and Audrey Hiskes, Munster, IN Mr. and Mrs. Neal Peters, Hudsonville, MI Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Van Dokkenburg, Dirk and Gladys Hoek, Modesto, CA Quentin and Harriet Remein, Bethesda, MD West Lafayette, IN Caroline and Henry J. Hoeks, Ada, MI Dr. Joan Ringerwole, Hudsonville, MI Dr. John Van Domelen, College Station, TX Toots Hoekstra, Kentwood, MI Mr. John Ritsema, Mableton, GA Dr. and Mrs. James Y. Van Dyk, Comstock Park, MI Ms. Grace Anne Hoffa, Kalamazoo, MI Mrs. Doris Roberts, Grand Rapids, MI Catherine Van Eck, Lansing, IL Dr. Richard E. and Alyce Houskamp, Ada, MI Mr. Art Robyn, Visalia, CA Dr. Dick and Carol Van Eldik, Gainsville, FL Bob and Joan Houskamp, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. Jake and Dot Scheeres, Venice, FL Dr. and Mrs. Larry Van Genderen, Jackson, WY Dr. and Mrs. Harvey D. Huiner, Lynchburg, VA Al and Mary Scholtens, Caledonia, MI Henry and Clemmie Van Mouwerik, Redlands, CA Harold and Esther Huizenga, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. William C. Schultze, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Brian Van Stee, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. C. J. Huizinga, Jenison, MI Ben and Henny Senneker, Lethbridge, AB Rev. and Mrs. John W. Van Stempvoort, Barrie, ON Fred R. Jacobs, Holland, MI Dr. Gradus L. Shoemaker, Louisville, KY Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Van Tuinen, Longmont, CO Miss Rita Jager, Edmonton, AB Carl and Cora Mae Sinke, Grand Rapids, MI Dr. and Mrs. Peter D. Van Vliet, Grand Rapids, MI Glenn R. Jasperse, Sheboygan, WI Dr. and Mrs. Richard D. Sjoerdsma, Racine, WI Evert Volkersz, Stony Brook, NY Mary E. Jellema, Holland, MI Mr. and Mrs. Edward Slenk Jr., Holland, MI Bill and Pat Waanders, Grand Rapids, MI Mrs. P. Ruth Jepkema, Jenison, MI Bernard and Melinda Smit, Lafayette, IN Mr. and Mrs. Philip Wassenar, Uxbridge, MA Chaplain and Mrs. Herm Keizer, Caledonia, MI Mr. and Mrs. Albert Snippe, Belwood, ON Mr. and Mrs. Klaas Wielinga, Grand Rapids, MI Rev. Harvey A. Kiekover, Grand Rapids, MI LeRoy and Anjean Stegink, Grand Rapids, MI Dave and Brenda Wiersma, Tucson, AZ Donald and Elizabeth Kiel, Carlsbad, CA Dr. Joseph C. Stevens, New Haven, CT Rev. and Mrs. Donald P. Wisse, Wyckoff, NJ Hessel and Alice Kielstra, Calgary, AB Richard and Joyce Stienstra, Okemos, MI Robert and Joanne Yonker, Grand Rapids, MI Peter and Janet Kiemel, Colorado Springs, CO Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Talsma, Bellfl ower, CA Mr. and Mrs. Bernard H. Zandstra, Holt, MI Mr. John E. King, Wyckoff, NJ Steve and Barb Timmermans, Palos Heights, IL Kenneth and Elaine Zimmerman, Woodstock, MD Chaplain Louis and Frances Kok, Lynden, WA Dr. and Mrs. Ryan Tolsma, Redlands, CA Henry and Verla Zuiderveen, Hudsonville, MI Rev. John M. V. Koole, Strathroy, ON Dean and Carol Van Bruggen, Grand Rapids, MI Mr. and Mrs. Case M. Zwart, Ontario, CA

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 XXXI • Number 2 • 2013