"I think that I shall begin with the summer of 1901, when I was sixteen, not seventeen until August 31, and had finished my third year in high School. Lottie and Alfred were working in Dixon at the Grand Detour Plow Company, Lottie as stenographer and Alfred as bookkeeper. Percy was with Aunt Annie and John Mayo, where he was sent when we broke up housekeeping after having lived in one of the flats for a year after our parents’ death.

 

 

ANNIE, WHO TOOK CARE OF US

 

Annie Grant, who had come into our family as housekeeper in 1893, when our father had the Dixon grocery and bakery store, and our mother was too ill to care for the family, stayed on with us for 16 months after Papa’s death. Then she went back to her home in Tippecanoe City, Ohio – and from then on until her death in the early 1920s. She presided over another motherless home. When those two children were grown, she married the man, Mr Pohlman, who was a dear!). In 1918 when I visited Lottie in Washington D.C., I spent two or three days with her. What joy that was! Lottie and Alfred had visited her when Alfred was at Muskingum, Ohio, going to school. “Paddy Grant,” we called her affectionately.

 

What a woman she was! A fine housekeeper and cook, she sewed beautifully, made all our clothes, and after our mother’s death, she made over all her dresses for Lottie, Muriel and me. She had two trunks brimming over with lovely things for her own marriage, which in sudden pique she had broken off and fled to Dixon (Illinois) to friends there, and so to our family. The man waited for her return; she was stubborn and waited for him to come for her; and after two years he married someone else.

 

When I was to be married in August 1906, she came and spent three weeks in the Dixon parsonage which Alfred had rented for us children for the summer, and she sewed the whole time, making me housedresses and aprons, underwear and blouses. I sewed with her, and it was then she told me of her early love affair, and about Mr. Pohlman, too, whom she hadn’t married yet – and wouldn’t, she said, until the children were grown and away. She had the daughter with her then – about 14 – and the son was married.

 

Dear Annie! We learned to love each other as we hadn’t when she was with us. Somehow, we had not understood each other at all those other days. I remember what Lottie told me: that Papa, had he lived, should probably have married Annie eventually, but he had told her that “something would have to be done about Annie and Ethel’s relationship.”

 

Strange, how it was all cleared up during those three weeks we were together! I was running the home then, cooking for the whole bunch, etc., and this had surprised her immensely because as a child I was worthless as a home helper, always my nose was in a book and I had no interest in my surroundings. I was obnoxiously pious, drinking in everything taught at the neighborhood Sunday School, which was run by an ultraconservative group.

 

“All you’ll ever be is an old maid school teacher!” Annie used to tell me then, and I believed her. You can fill in that picture! My father, though, who was a very wise man (like your grandfather [Alfred Leland]), and as long as he lived he understood me, and all five us. What Annie didn’t know when she saw me just before my marriage, was that it was Bern’s mother (Bernhardt VanSpankeren, of Pella, Iowa), your great-grandmother Harriet VanSpankeren, who had changed me, and given me a wholesome perspective on life on general and people in particular.

 

There was a woman! How I adored her and all my life I worshipped her memory. (In) those early days, Annie had tried to teach Muriel and me to sew a little. Muriel did quite well, but Annie finally said to me disgustedly, “Oh, let it go! You’ll never learn – you don’t even know how to hold a needle.” So after that I never tried until I met Mother V.S. She saw the scarcity of my wardrobe. In those days we wore “shirtwaists” and skirts. So Mother V.S. said, “Ethel, can’t you sew? If you can, we can get some materials and you can make a few blouses.”

 

“Oh, no,” said I, “I can’t sew at all. Why, I don’t even know how to hold a needle!” How Mother V.S. laughed that off. “Well, you have a brain, haven’t you? Don’t you know that you can do anything, within reason, that you want to do?” I’ve remembered that all my life and I was eagerly saying, “Now, let ME cut it!” You show me and I’ll do it!” Lottie walked in about then. She too had believed everything that Annie had said.

 

“Ethel – sewing?” and her silvery laugh sent me to the depths. I’m ashamed to say I lost my temper completely and threw the scissors down on the table, but Bern’s mother, with a few quick words, brought me back to reality. Thoroughly chastened, I returned to the task and shall never forget the thrill that completed blouse gave me, nor my eagerness in making the second one while Mother V.S. was away, to surprise her!

 

Her approving smile was the most precious thing on earth to me, and in those years I lived in that home and went to college (and after I married Bern, too) she was a real mother to me. I could go to her with my faults and failures as well as with the things that made me happy, and she was always ready to listen, to understand and to help.

 

When prominent educators and ministers came to Central College to speak, it was always Mother who was asked to entertain them and I always noticed how much they enjoyed talking with her. She presided over her household like a gracious queen, and I never heard one of her children, nor Mr. VanSpanckeren, speak rudely to her, or with the least impertinence.

 

 

THREE BROTHERS AND TWO SISTERS:

The VanSpanckerens 

 

Mother V.S.’s father, Lambertus Henricus VanSpanckeren, the oldest of three brothers who came from Amsterdam to Pella in 1846, lived with the family until he died at age 87, in 1907. He stayed in his own lovely room most of the time, eating all his meals there. I can see him now, a little hunchbacked man with lovely brown eyes, of whom we children saw little. His room was next to the “old house.”

 

When I was practicing my elocution lesson one day, he knocked on the door. When I opened it, he looked all around and said, “That’s an awful sound in here. What makes that?” He had been very well educated in Holland, and once he quoted line upon line to me from The Siege of Leyden, in Holland, of course.

 

The three VanSpanckeren brothers came to America in 1846, and after a year in Baltimore, came overland by way of St. Louis to Pella, which was then a new little town founded by a Holland dominee and his flock. I have a book about it which I shall try to remember to send you when your grandparents come next time. Better still, ask your grandmother whether you can have hers to look over. I think you’ll enjoy reading a little of it, especially the story of Pella’s beginning.

 

These three brothers – Bernhardt H., John H.H., and Lambertus Henricus (the oldest) – left Holland after the death of their father. All were well educated and spoke English, and Uncle John had been studying to be a college professor, and was already what was called in Holland an undermeister. He was greatly beloved by all the family and came regularly each week to see Mother, who gave her afternoon to him so graciously, serving him tea and listening to his conversation – they talked in Holland, although he spoke English well – with great deference. After Bern and I were married, he visited us as well, too, and we went there regularly as we both loved Oma John and Tante Nellie.

 

When Muriel came to Pella, the first time she saw him Uncle John) was when he was passing the VanSpanckeren Dry Goods Store, where I had gone to see Bern. “Oh, Ethel, come quickly and see this cute little man!” He walks just like a little tin soldier!” I followed her to the door and there was our dear Uncle John marching along. I hushed her, of course, and remembered my experience the first time I had seen him, one afternoon when he came to visit Mother. He had a long beard and his hair was lovely, too, each with gray mingled with the black, and when I was introduced to him the light from the window back of him made me conscious that all his hair wasn’t his. When I went out to the kitchen where Ettie (Bern’s sister, Harriet VanSpanckeren) was fixing the tea things, I burst out “Your uncle wears a toupee, doesn’t he!”

 

Ettie was shocked. “Oh, no!” she answered, for she hadn’t noticed it and later Mother gently reproved me for mentioning it. “I have never told the children,” and I learned my lesson. He used to write Bern and me beautiful letters, and I wish I had them still. He was very wise, a real philosopher.

 

The three borthers came to America after the death of their father, bringing Katherine (“Mother V.S.”) and their other sister, Charlotte, with them. When he was about 27, Uncle John married a little 15-or 16-year old girl – Tante Nellie, who came from Holland when she was 10 years old. Her mother had died at sea, and she and the newborn baby were buried there. That voyage those days took three months usually.

 

The father joined a party coming overland to Pella, and became infatuated with one of the women in the group, so little 10-year-old Nellie was badly treated and made to do heavy work which so injured her that she was unable to have children. She wasn’t allowed to go to school, and when Uncle John heard about this he married her and educated her. They told Bern and me all this and we just adored them both and hoped that our marriage could be as lovely as theirs was! We didn’t dream that our marriage, too, would be childless.

 

• Bernhardt Hermann VanSpanckeren, for whom Bern was named, as was Bern’s father, was very different from the other two in that he was outgoing, hail-fellow-well-met, and as Mother V.S. used to say, not always sincere in his effervescent greetings to everyone who came along. He married Derkje Versteeg on October of 1852, and they had four children who lived to maturity;

 

• Caroline, who married Bart Reerink; I forgot to say that Carrie and Bart had a number of children. Your grandmother will know their names. They moved to Wyoming and the children are out there still, I believe.) John was the youngest son, and he didn’t marry until late in life. After Bernhardt H., Senior’s death, he went to live with Dad (?) and stayed on there when he was in Pella. Your Grandfather Leland (Alfred W.) called on him and his wife. He can tell you about them. Johnny, as we called him, was a peculiar little fellow and never worked much.

 

• Bernhardt Hermann, Sr., your great-grandfather, who married Katherine VanSpanckeren, daughter of L.H. VanSpanckeren, so that means they were first cousins, though very different in both looks and personalities; Bernhardt H.Jr., and Katherine had five children, three boys and two girls, Bern, Harriett, Hine, Bess and ?) and it was into their lovely home that I went when I finished high school. More later about that.

 

• Dora, who married Henry Welle and had one son, Cornelius, who is a dentist who lives in Newton, Iowa (16 miles from Pella).Dora and Henry spent a winter in Mesa while we were there, and Bern and I enjoyed them and had them out to our home on the farm frequently. Dora was just a dear, and she lived to be past 80 and died in Pella, in the old folks’ home there. Cornie, as we called their son, Cornelius, visited down here one time before Bern passed away, and stayed at Hine’s. He’s a nice boy and if you ever drive over that way, call on him. He has a lovely wife and children. 

 

• I think that I didn’t tell you about the oldest of the three older V.S. men. Lambertus Henricus, your great-great grandfather, as the oldest son had the courtly manners and the old world ideas straight from Holland. He did not marry until he was in his forties. I can’t remember just what Mother V.S. said he did except that as eldest son he considered ordinary trades beneath him. He lived with the family in Pella. His daughter, Katherine, married his younger brother, Bernhardt (see above).

 

Bernhardt H., Sr. had learned the bakery trade, and started a bakery in Pella which he conducted until 1871, when he became the proprietor of one of the leading general merchandise stores until 1892, when his son, Bernhardt H.Jr., your grandmother’s brother and the man I married) became the sole owner and managed it so successfully that it was known as one of the leading mercantile establishments in the city until it was sold in September 1907 as Bern’s health failed and we were sent by doctors to Alberta, Canada.

 

In 1905, Bernhardt H., Sr. had bought into and become the manager of the newly formed Citizen’s United Bank and Bern, who was only 21 and had been managing the store in Olivet, eleven miles from Pella, was put in charge of the Pella store – under his Dad’s direction, of course. This responsibility proved too much for "my" Bern H., and his chest condition worsened to such an extent that he suffered a general breakdown and was obliged to stop work and leave Iowa. That was 1907, a year after our marriage.

 

Bernhardt, Sr.’s second son, Lambertus Henricus, was still too young to assume responsibility, so the store was sold and Bernhardt, Sr., then on devoted his entire time to the banking business. He died on May 24, 1919, a year or so after his marriage to Anna VanderPloeg, who was also a banker.

 

We all liked her very much and she was wonderful to Bess (Harriet and Bern’s little sister), who was the only one at home then. Anna and Bess spent Christmas of 1918 in Mesa with us, and I still remember how rainy it was all the ten days of their stay. Our roosters’ tail dragged in the water. Anna died suddenly and I had a letter from her on the same day the telegram announcing her death came to us.

 

The book, Souvenir History of Pella 1847 - 1922, shows Bernhardt H. Sr.’s picture and says, among other things, “He was born in Amsterdam, Holland, October 15, 1826, where he was raised and received his education. He came to America, landing in Baltimore in 1846, where he worked as a baker for a year, then came to Pella by way of St. Louis, where he worked for one year. He opened a general merchandise store in 1873, and continued in that business until he retired because of advanced age in 1892.”

 

Charlotte VanSpanckeren, the sister who came from Holland with them, married and lived in Pella. You’ll see her name in the genealogy I shall send you. Charlotte VanVliet is her granddaughter and the mother of Robert Renaud, who was reared in Pella. He came to Mesa after finishing his college and law courses. For three years he lived with Warner VanSpanckeren’s family and worked in Warner’s law office. He then came to Phoenix and is a member of a prominent law firm here. His mother, Charlotte, is still living in Pella. She spent several days with Bern and me while Bob and his bride, Margaret, were on their honeymoon.

 

Among the passengers on the good ship Catharina Jackson, which left Rotterdam, Holland early in April 1847, for Baltimore, are listed Mr. and Mrs. J. Smeenk and their five children. Lambertus Henricus VanSpanckeren, who did not marry until he was 37 or 38, married Mrs. Smenk after the death of her husband. I think the children were all nearly grown by that time, as I remember Warner was 13 years older than she and Aunt Maggie was even older. Mother was the only child Lambertus Henricus had and he was very strict with her, but she adored her mother, who died some years before I came to Pella. Perhaps your grandmother will know when. I think Mother told me she was 82 years old when she died.

 

 

 

​Click to continue reading.

 

Next: "SARAH & GEORGE"