The Plantinga Family:
Our Story


POSTED September 11, 2000
DRAFT: Family members are invited to read this draft, make corrections, and send in material for inclusion.

Emigration Plans

Talk of immigration began shortly after Theo's birth in 1947. In 1948 people began to leave for Canada. Why did they leave? After the war things did not go well economically. In addition, some people felt there were too many laws and restrictions. Many said that there was no future for the next generation in the Netherlands. Folkert met a number of people who were already talking emigration. If Folkert had had his way, he would already have left in 1948 or 1949.

The parents on both sides were against it. None of his brothers considered it. The best candidate for emigration would have been Wytze, who went to the Dutch East Indies as a volunteer after the war. Many men who did so did eventually emigrate, but Wytze did not.

As for Folkert, he couldn't "find it" after the war. Anje observes that he always "had a wild hair in his neck" -- his own parents even said so. Because of all the opposition, Folkert did not begin the necessary paperwork; somewhat later, he set the idea of emigration aside altogether.

A large family De Groot in a nearby village emigrated during the early stages of emigration fever, and their example motivated Folkert. It happened that the De Groot clan came to Ontario, and one of them is now a member of Anje's church.

Folkert had first met John Visser at the nearby Landbouwschool (agricultural school), where he took classes for four years before he got married (classes met two or three days per week). Visser was already interested in emigration at this point, and he stimulated Folkert's interest in Canada.

Jan Visser (later called John) had moved to Ee and was a proponent of emigration. He was invited to go to Canada as a "fieldman" who would help other immigrants get established. Visser left his wife in Ee for the time being. Somewhat later, when Folkert decided to make the move, he wrote to Jan Visser in Winnipeg, who then volunteered to sponsor Folkert and his family.

From the very beginning of their marriage, Folkert and Anje had lived in one and the same house in Ee, which they rented from Pake Thede. At that time Folkert was operating a small business in Ee, which did not go well. His business was to sell grain and other farm-related products to farmers.

At one point Folkert got a job as a bookkeeper in a small town in Groningen. He stayed there during the week and came home weekends. His plan was that if the job went well, he would move the family there later. But it turned out that the boss was impossible to deal with. Folkert quit and took some time off, dealing with his overstressed nerves.

It was after this that Gerrit Kamstra in Buitenpost (Friesland) offered Folkert a job as a bookkeeper in an electronics merchandising business. Folkert and Gerrit got along very well together. Folkert was also somewhat involved in the sales end of the business. The next step was to find a house in Buitenpost.

In the meantime, Pake Thede wanted to sell the house in which Folkert and Anje had been living. They then switched to the other side of the family, so to speak, by moving into the other half of Pake Douwe's house. Many years later Tjerk Spriensma (Douwe's brother) occupied this dwelling, when Omme Oenze was occupying the side that had earlier been used by his parents. It happens that Omme Kees and Tante Koos have also lived in Tjerk's later domicile. Folkert and Anje lived in the Pake Douwe house for about a year, with their three oldest children.

The house which Folkert and Anje came to occupy in Buitenpost was a prefab unit from Norway. They were the very first occupants of this home. Folkert liked working for Gerrit, but bookkeeping was not really his interest. There was a "mess" to be cleaned up from a previous bookkeeper.

But as Folkert came into contact with people, he again heard emigration stories, and the old interest was rekindled. At one point, when Anje was expecting Irene, Folkert announced that he again wanted to emigrate. Not long afterward, Anje's brother Peet dropped in on Anje unexpectedly and announced that he, too, was considering emigration. Peet wanted to persuade his brother Berend to emigrate as well, and then, perhaps, their parents could be persuaded to go to Canada too, since all three of their children would be there.

Peet and Folkert both started the paperwork at about the same time. Then it was learned that zzz Saakje (sp?), the stepsister of Peet's wife Anje, was planning to get married and to emigrate to Canada with her new husband (a widower) and his children. Such a move would leave Peet and Anje with the responsibility of caring for Anje's father, Willem Werkman. Saakje and her husband settled in Thunder Bay, Ontario. (The part of Thunder Bay which they inhabited was called Fort William in those days.) Because of this responsibility, Peet and Anje decided they could not emigrate after all.

In the meantime, Folkert kept working on his papers to go to Canada. Yet life was good in Buitenpost. On the other hand, Gerrit Kamstra was also thinking of emigration, but he was interested in South Africa rather than Canada, and he tried hard to persuade Folkert to consider it as well: he even kept it up when Folkert's goods were already on their way to Canada. The USA was not in the picture as a destination, partly because it was thought that it was considerably harder to get approval; thus it would take longer to get there. Some emigrants who did settle in the USA lived in Canada first.

Anje's mother had a sister who emigrated to the USA (Massachusetts), but she knows nothing further about how things went with them. During Anje's youth there would occasionally come a letter in English, but hardy anyone could read or understand this language. Her brother Peet once tried to track down the Massachusetts relatives, but he was unsuccessful.

While there was plenty of opposition to emigration from the folks in Friesland, there was one medical aspect to consider. Both Irene and Don had special health needs. The specialist looking after Don said that a move to Manitoba would be good for him -- indeed, good for both children. Most people who emigrated went to Ontario, and Folkert would have gone there too, but John Visser was in Manitoba, and then there was the question of the healthy climate in Manitoba.

When the time drew near for emigration, Nellie began to ask what Canada was like. Folkert's answer is that there were no ditches there, and we would be safe from the Russians. Nellie asked what Russians were. Folkert's answer is that they were like the Germans -- but worse. Nellie asked how we would get there. Answer: on a boat. Nellie wanted to know if she would have to walk on a plank to get aboard. Folkert answered yes. This made Nellie fearful. It was typical of Folkert to pull his children's legs. But thereby he left them living with an element of fear.

Nellie reports that information on Canada was in short supply. The main source was a book (hopelessly inadequate) for learning English. People sometimes said that a long tongue was need for speaking English. John Visser was reputed to have a long tongue. Nellie looked for it when she met him in Winnipeg.

OPEN SPACE

The Journey to Canada

Omme Jaap, then 19 years old, was particularly upset about the departure. He had a special bond with Folkert and his family. Folkert and Anje and their children went to people's homes to say goodbye; they did not receive many visitors in Buitenpost, but Omme Jaap did come.

On zzz Monday, July 9, 1951, the goodbyes were said to Pake and Beppe and other family members who lived in the vicinity of Ee. Folkert borrowed a car from Kamstra for the purpose. The last three visits were to the Spriensmas (Omme Siebren and Tante Yttje), and then the two sets of grandparents. Omme Jaap remembers that Beppe Yttje was on her knees next to Irene's travel bed, crying because the child was so frail and should not have to undertake such a journey. Irene weighed only 11 pounds, although she was 7 months old by this time. Nellie remembers the last visit to Pake Thede and Beppe Jeltje. Pake Thede then said very forcefully: "And if anything happens, take it upstairs" (pray about it). For emphasis, he pointed upwards.

We left on Wednesday morning, July 11. Mom was afraid that Pake Thede would show up early on Wednesday morning in Buitenpost to say goodbye once more; she was relieved that he did not.

Folkert and Anje did not sleep well that last night in Friesland. At about 5 A.M. they heard the sound of a horse and wagon coming down the street, and they knew it was the man to whom they had sold their bed. He was coming to pick it up! The three oldest children slept at the Rusticus home the night before our departure. They lived across the street from us.

The bus arrived very early and stopped right in front of the house. Anje was worried about the bus trip to Rotterdam and feared she would get sick; she also had a baby to contend with. The bus stopped in all sorts of places to pick up more emigrants.

The family then traveled by bus (it stopped right in front of the house) to the Rotterdam harbor. When Folkert and family were standing on the boat (the Volendam) in the Rotterdam harbor, just prior to departure, Folkert scanned the crowd looking for his brothers Kees and Wytze, thinking that they might have come to see them off (they no longer lived in Friesland). He was disappointed not to see them. On the same boat were Saakje and her new family, but Folkert and Anje never saw her. It was a very big boat. As the boat left shore, the meigrants sang the "Wilhelmus" (Dutch national anthem).

The journey across the ocean was not pleasant, recalls Nellie. Anje got sick right at the outset. Eventually everyone in the family got sick. People hung over the edge of the boat and threw up in the ocean. It was said that some even lost their false teeth into the ocean. The women and children were lodged in cabins, whereas the men and older boys were on bunks in the cargo hold. Don was with Folkert at first, but he fell from his berth, hurt himself, and got transferred to his mother's quarters. [zzz Mom does not remember this; check with Don.] The kids thought that food was great, and they got more and more every day because many people got sick and couldn't eat it. By the time the boat got to mid-ocean, hardly any of the passengers appeared in the dining room. The crew of the shop would come on deck with baskets of oranges, and people could have all they wanted, which seemed an undreamed-of luxury.

Folkert had bought pills for seasickness, and Anje took them on the boat. She got so sick that eventually the ship's doctor was summoned. The doctor told Anje that she had taken far too many of the pills (at Folkert's urging). Folkert was always very free when it came to taking pills.

The ship had nurseries to look after children. The three oldest were brought to one, but Nellie and Don feared they had been abandoned. Many years later it was learned that Harry der Nederlanden, a friend of Theo and Ed and Rick, had sailed with his family on that very same voyage. Whether Theo and Harry ever played together on the boat is not known; years later they were collagues at Paideia Press in St. Catharines.

At one point Theo seemed to have gotten lost. Had he fallen overboard? A thorough search of the ship was made, with shipboard friends helping the crew. The boy was eventually discovered sitting in a lifeboat on the very top deck. The searchers were anxious, but Theo was having a great time and was not upset in the least.

As for sightings of land, the boat did stop in England to take on more passengers. The next sighting of land was on Friday, July 20 -- Newfoundland. Then came a journey along the St. Lawrence River, with pretty houses and churches visible. The boat landed at Quebec City on July 21, 1951, after a journey of ten days.

When the immigrants get off the boat, they were sent into a large, warehouse-like processing facility, where much paperwork remained to be done. The paperwork took almost the whole day, with much waiting. The family boarded a train in the afternoon, at which point Folkert and Anje were responsible for their own food. Folkert therefore went into town to buy some food, taking Don with him [zzz check with Don]. Anje was afraid that train would leave without them. Folkert came back with corned beef. The train left in the evening.

There were two young couples (both just married) who had been friends of Folkert and family on the boat. They were also on the train, but they got off in Ontario, and they came during the night to say goodbye. Folkert and Anje had no further contact with them.

There was aso a man on the boat from Buitenpost who belonged to one of the "liberated" (vrijgemaakt) churches. Folkert had quite an interest in the church struggle of the 1940s and was quite sympathetic to Schilder. He used to say: "Schilder was a good man -- he stood up to the Nazis." The man from Buitenpost was also on the Volendam heading for Canada. He told Folkert that he did not intend to seek out any sort of "liberated" church when he got to Canada. (By this point the 1940s split was spreading to Canada; in Canada the "liberated" churches took the name "Canadian Reformed.")

Folkert had come close to joining the "liberated" church in Buitenpost. Back in 1944, when the upheaval took place, there was not a "liberated" church in Ee, where Folkert and his family then lived. Years later Folkert had "liberated" friends in Carman, Manitoba, whom we visited on a Sunday. Theo still remembers attending church there that day.

The next and final step of the journey was to push on to to Winnipeg by train. The train carrying Folkert's family left in the evening (zzz check) and headed west by way of zzz Montreal, Ottawa, and northern Ontario. There was no proper place to sleep on the train. The journey seemed to take forever.

Folkert and his family were supposed to be met by John Visser when they arrived at the CN station in Winnipeg at about 1 p.m. on zzz Monday July 23, but he wasn't there, and so the family had to wait. Klaas Stuive and his wife zzz Tina were on the same train and also got off in Winnipeg. Mr. Visser finally arrived wearing farm-laborer clothes. Anje and Irene rode in the front of Mr. Visser's truck, and the rest of the family got to stand in the open cargo area on the back. The destination was East St. Paul, which was some distance north of the urban area called Winnipeg. The family had been told that the destination was just a little ways outside Winnipeg, but at the time it seemed a very long way. Dutch perceptions of distance were not rhe same as Canadian ones.

Early Days in Canada

Roel Numan and his wife Jetske were then occupying the house which was being held for Folkert and his family. The Numans had been in Canada for about three years and were in the process of buying a house. They became good friends of Folkert and his family and played a role in the 1965 move to Ontario. In 1975 Mr. and Mrs. Numan also attended Folkert's funeral and came to the house in Kohler afterward.

Because it was rather crowded at the Visser home, Nellie and two of the Visser girls had to walk about a mile to the Numan home (the house we were later to occupy) and sleep there each evening. The remaining five of us slept in one bedroom in the Visser home. The family stayed with the Vissers for a couple of weeks and then moved into the "Numan house." And It was not until they had been in Manitoba for about four weeks that the goods they had shipped over from Friesland finally arrived. Until that time the family had to live out of zzz six large suitcases they had taken along as luggage. And during the boat trip, some stuff had been stolen from them, including clothing for Theo which he was not allowed to wear on the boat because it was too nice.

There was no basement under the house on the banks of the Red River which served as the Plantingas' first real home in Canada. Winter arrived early that year, and the house seemed impossible to heat. The family lived there until November, by which point Mr. Mulder had no more work for Folkert.

Mr. Numan was working in a foundry at that time. Folkert went to work in the fields for George Mulder, the farmer who owned the house and the fields around it. Mr. Mulder grew mainly tomatoes. Theo remembers this summer home and environment with great fondness, but Anje did not like it at all. The house was infested with mice, and rats were also rumored to be on hand.

The Mulders also supplied the family with a couple of names. They had two daughters named Nellie and Irene. Folkert's two daughters would need Canadian names, and so Mrs. Mulder suggested her own daughter's names. The names were needed for school, which began in East St. Paul in September. Within a couple of months the family had moved into the city, and Nellie and Don began attending the Seven Oaks School (also very small -- four rooms) in West Kildonan.

Nellie remembers Sunday as a trying day. The way the family got to church was on John Visser's spacious truck. As many as four or five families (including the Kingmas) would be transported at once, with most everyone standing on the back part.

The morning service was in English, since the local Christian Reformed Church had been in existence for many years (zzz check). The church building was on Newton (in the general vicinity of Elmwood). There was an afternoon service in English, and in a different location (a nearby Lutheran church), a Dutch service. Theo remembers that the pulpit in the Lutheran church was well above the congregation. Ed was baptized by Rev. Disselkoen in a Dutch service in the Lutheran church.

The first Sunday Nellie went to a Sunday school class taught by Martin Wyenberg, in English. She couldn't understand much of it, and was puzzled as to why the teacher would talk so much about onions. Later, after learning more English, we realized that he was actually talking about "disciples" (which sounds, in Frisian, like "the onions").

Maarten Posthuma and Sietske lived near John Visser. They had come to Canada a mere matter of weeks before Folkert and family. Folkert rented a house on Smithfield Aveue in West Kildonan, and he sublet the top of the house to Maarten and Sietske. They eventually got a place of their own, and moved out; in time Maarten became a baker. They were replaced by Mr and Mrs Debets (zzz ch sp), who had just arrived from the Netherlands. Not long afterward, Folkert and his family moved to the Clarence Avenue house in Fort Garry.

zzz Tjeerd Visser, brother of John, knew some English and read the job ads in the paper. Through him Folkert got leads on jobs. For a week or so he worked in East St. Paul for someone who kept animals. That winter he also worked in a foundry in Winnipeg, where some of the other immigrants were also employed. The job in the foundry only lasted a matter of weeks.

The news of Ed's birth was passed on to the Plantinga home via Maarten Posthuma, who by then was by then working in a donut shop equipped with a phone. (Many people did not have a telephone at home in those days.) Folkert had hired a taxi to get Anje to the hospital, and then he returned home to look after the children. Ed was born at about 8:30 or 9 in the evening, and Folkert did not get the news until about 11 that evening. The very next day Folkert went to his job as usual, and in the evening he visit Anje and the baby at the St. Boniface Hospital. It was quite a distance from the house on Smithfield, and he got there by bicycle.

Rev. zzz Arie Disselkoen was our minister. Shipments of clothing would arrive from the USA, and the pastor would help to distribute them to the needy. The pastor also helped immigrants find jobs. It was through Rev. Disselkoen that Folkert got a lead on the job at the Eaton home, where he worked happily for quite a number of years. He started at the Eaton home in 1952. Eventually the family got a lot of clothing and other household stuff from Eaton's.

Mr. Eaton was part of the prominent Eaton family that owned a major chain of department stories. He liked Folkert, and in 1953 he arranged for better lodging for him. He bought the house on Clarence Avenue and Folkert rented it from him. In September of that year Theo started grade 1 on at Pembina Crest School on the Pembina Highway, where he completed grades 1 through 3. Grade 4 was at the newly-opened Ralph Maybank School.

The Bakkers Arrive

Anje does not recall how it was that Peet and Anje changed their mind and emigrated after all. The idea came up again of getting the whole Bakker clan transplanted to Canada. Peet and Anje came in 1954, and the plan was that Beppe Jeltje, who was a widow by this time (Pake Thede died on March 26, 1952), would come with them. It happened that she was not approved on medical grounds when the time for departure came, and so they left without her, but shortly thereafter she arrived in Winnipeg.

The original hope was to get Berend and his family to emigrate as well, but Berend was doing quite nicely by this point with his butcher shop in Ee, which he had taken over from his father. But many years later, when Berend was visiting Canada (Ontario), he expressed the view that if he had known back then what Canada was like and how things would go for the immigrants, he would have left the Netherlands too. On the other hand, his wife was generally thought not to be a suitable candidate for life in Canada. During the days when Beppe Jeltje was living in Canada, Berend sold the butcher business in Ee and bought another in Veenklooster, where he stayed for the rest of his working life.

Why did Berend sell his business in Ee? There was another butcher shop right next door to him, which he did not like. In fact, there was even a third butcher establishment in Ee at the time. Today there is only one butcher shop left in Ee -- the one next to Pake Thede's establishment. Beppe Jeltje was in Canada when Berend made his move, and she quite upset by it.

When the Bakkers came to Winnipeg, they had Opa (Willem Werkman) with them. At first Beppe lived with Folkert and Anje in the front room at Clarence, which was unheated. When Peet and Anje found a somewhat larger home on College Street, Beppe went to live with them. They then had two grandparents in residence.

Beppe had a hard time with the children of Folkert and Anje, who had gone over to the English language by that point and could not -- or did not -- communicate well with their grandmother. Moreover, Beppe got homesick for the old country, and it was finally decided that it would be better for her to go back to Friesland to live. She returned by boat in 1957, shortly after Nellie met Bill Kramer. She did not get seasick on the boat trip.

Nellie reports that one day the family went on an outing to Clear Lake, and Marion, quite young at that time, was left in Beppe's custody. Beppe and Marion were very close. Yet when we got back, Beppe said: "That girl talked to me all day long, and I didn't understand a single word! I'm going back to the Netherlands."

Peet and Anje and their children moved into a small house on Clarence Avenue (Fort Garry district), directly across from where Folkert and Anje and children were living. Marion was about five weeks old when Beppe Jeltje came over by plane.

Beppe was scheduled to arrive late one evening, to be met by Folkert, the two Anjes, and Peet. She did not get off the plane she was supposed to be on, and so the greeting party when home, after having made inquiries. She arrived instead on a later flight in the middle of the night, at which point there was no one at the airport to greet her. And she spoke no English.

Pake Thede wrote a letter to his daughter and her family every week. His last letter arrived after he died, but Anje, holding the letter in her hand, did not yet know he was gone. She was then expecting a baby -- Ed. The news of Pake Thede's death was kept from her at first and then passed on in two stages (separate letters, written by zzz Peet). First Pake was said to be ailing, and in a second letter it was made known that he had died.

----- The day we lost Don stands out vividly in our minds. The family went downtown for some Christmas shopping. On Portage Avenue, in front of the big stores, there were many streetcars lined up, ready to take people to various parts of the city. After shopping was successfully concluded, Folkert and Anje, wit their first-born son, made ready to board the streetcar and head home. But Don got on the wrong streetcar. Anje arrived home, and Anje announced: We have lost our Don, and we're never getting him back!" Now, Don realized the error of his ways sooner than his mother suspected, for the streetcar he was riding on made a right turn on Elmwood and then crossed the Elmwood bridge to the part of the city that lies east of the Red River. As soon as that turn was made, he realized he was on the wrong streetcar. A man on the streetcar realized that something was wrong and made contact with the police, who managed to reunite Don with his anxious parents. Don arrived home in a police car. zzz check this story with Don.

The main family event during the Smithfield days was the birth of Ed, on April 21, 1952. Nellie was nine at the time, and it fell to her to look after three younger siblings while her mother was in the hospital. Sietske Posthumus (zzz Nellie says ...us) was living upstairs and could be called on for help if something went wrong.

Irene was not eager to give up her role as the baby of the family. There is a family picture in which she appears to be pushing him off the table, with the table perhaps standing for the privilege of being the youngest. Theo was more easygoing about Ed's arrival. he was playing outside when the baby came home. Folkert went out to tell him the exciting news, but he stayed outside and showed little interest.

During the Smithfield period there was a fire in the basement. There was no smoke alarm in the house, but Agnes, the daughter of Maarten and Sietske, functioned as one. She cried loudly enough to waken some adults, who then sensed the fire and took prompt action. The damage was confined to the basement. Some good overshoes were ruined.

The Clarence Avenue house still had an outhouse; a bathroom was installed in the house while we lived there. Right in front of the bathroom was a sort of trap door leading to the basement; Irene fell down it one day but escaped largely unscathed.

It was an interesting neighborhood. Three doors down we had the Muth family -- Germans, with children the age of Folkert's children. Theo remembers happy times up in the trees in the Muth yard. Next door to the Muths lived Hector, an elderly Belgian bachelor (Flemish-speaking), of whom Marion was frightened. Between Hector and Folkert's house was the home of Donna and Paul, the twins, in whose yard the younger ones used to play. They also had a older sibling named Barbara.

Don and Theo did not have a bedroom in those days. They would start their night's sleep in their parents' bed. When Folkert and Anje retired, they had to wake the two boys up and get the to transfer to a sofa bed in the living room. To wake Don was no great accomplishment, but Theo was another story: he always wanted to hop right back in the bed from which he had been summoned. In the summertime, when it was warmer, the two boys slept in a front room which was too cold for winter use. But when Beppe Jeltje arrived, she got the use of that bedroom.

Marion was born on October 18, 1954, during the Clarence Avenue days. It was a very difficult birth. Marion had her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck three times. She could easily have died during childbirth. Nellie remembers waiting with Folkert, at home, for the phone to ring, announcing Marion's arrival. It was during this period that Folkert purchased his first car, a blue 1950 Chevrolet. When Marion was six weeks old, Beppe Jeltje arrived from the Netherlands. Marion's first words, at seven months, were "Bep, Bep."

In those days Nellie used to lead expeditions of the kids into the city, using the city buses. Our church was in the northern part of the city, and Clarence Avenue was in the south. On Saturday mornings during the school year there was catechism, and in the summer the church ran Bible classes for the children of its members. A delegation as large as ten, including Plantingas, Bakkers, and Wierdas (cousins of the Numans mentioned earlier) would head north, all under Nellie's supervision. Don was the navigator, and Theo was a dreamer who had no idea where he was. There was a transfer to be made downtown.

In those days the family did not have a car, and so the buses, which only ran once per hour on Sundays, had to provide transportation to church as well. Folkert would lead the delegation for the morning service, and Anje would attend the afternoon service at 3 P.M., also using the bus But in 1954, when Marion was born, Folkert got his first car, a 1950 Chevrolet.

Nellie was an accomplished babysitter back in the Clarence Avenue days, sometimes keeping an eye on kids in two separate houses at once. Back at Smithfield, at the tender age of ten, she had watched over kids in three separate houses at a time!

Theo recalls being quite amused by Dutch words his mother would use because she didn't know the English ones yet. One such word was "jeugd" (youth). Another was "vergadering" (meeting). It seemed that Folkert was always at a "vergadering." Back in those days he was indeed involved in quite a few societies and organizations, such as the funeral society, the local Christian school society which eventually managed to open a school in North Kildonan, the credit union, a "ziekenfonds" (there was no government health insurance in those days). He was also involved in helping new immigrants.

During the Clarence Avenue days, Ted Eisses came into our lives. He was a somewhat younger immigrant from the province of Groningen. He established a bakery on the Pembina Highway, not too far north of Clarence Avenue. Eventually he found a bride during a trip to the Netherlands. His bride was Fenna Jansen van Doorn. When she came to Winnipeg to marry Ted, Folkert gave her away, and Nellie served as the bridesmaid. Fenna had a sister in Winnipeg -- Mrs. De Gruyter, another friend of or family. Ted and Fenna went on to have a family of four zzz ask Mom boys. Fenna eventually died of cancer some years after Folkert and Anje settled in Ontario. Today her brother lives in the same building as Anje. Theo was employed in Ted's bakery. Ted was so close to the family that the kids called him Uncle Ted.

Folkert was quite strict in those days, but every rule has an exception. Sunday shopping was forbidden, of course, but one Sunday he found he was just out of cigarettes, and so he told Nellie and Don to go and buy him some more. They refused, citing the rule against Sunday shopping, and so he had to go and get them himself.


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