A cold wedding party in 1929

It was the coldest winter that we ever experienced, with temperatures at an all-time low in this month. We had rented cars for the civil ceremony at the townhall of Stadskanaal in the morning and the church ceremony in the village of Onstwedde in the afternoon. But wouldn’t you know, it when I came into the barn that morning one of the cows was restless and was about to calf. So I decided to keep it quiet and went to see the neighbour to alert him and ask if he could keep an eye out for this possibility. He immediately said, “don’t worry about it, we will look after it” and he was a trustworthy person, so that was all arranged.

Unfortunately, my mother happened to take a look in the stalls while I was getting ready for the wedding party and discovered that the cow was already calving with the legs of the calf already protruding. She immediately told me that I had to stay home, even though I had made arrangements with the neighbour and his son to make sure it was a safe birth. Nothing could persuade my mother, and she insisted I stay home, which angered me greatly. Even though my sisters and brother-in-law, as well as my brother Jan tried to talk her out of this decision, no way—I had to stay home. I told her OK, then, I won’t come at all. When the autos arrived, the whole wedding party left without me. The neighbours, too, found this very strange and at some point said, “why don’t you go—we’ll look after it,” but by then I had no desire to leave. The calf was finally born at 4 p.m. and when the neighbours came again and said, “we’ll do the chores of feeding and milking and you go to the wedding”, I agreed.

I changed into my good clothes and rode my bike to Onstwedde, a distance of about 20 km, in the bitter cold and arrived with frozen hands and ears. The church ceremony had already finished. That evening was the wedding celebration, which I had to MC, but my heart was not in it, it too was cold. At that moment I hated my mother, and the evening and day was, for me, totally spoiled. There was a single, young woman, a friend of the bride, Fientje Huisman—a bit of a bore—whom I was to sit next to at the dinner. Another disappointment. At the end of the evening, everyone said it was a very nice wedding for its 30 to 40 guests. Dina was in Amsterdam at the time, and I thought to myself “I wish she would have been here.”

My sister Grietje is married

Gerrit and my sister Grietje were married a half year later, in October of 1929, on a rainy day, bitterly cold and miserable. In the morning, the civil ceremony took place at the town hall of Sellingen and in the afternoon we had the church ceremony in Vlagtwedde. It was a cozy event, with just family, and was also attended by two of Gerrit’s very nice sisters. My mom and Grietje had gone shopping in Winschoten to buy furniture for their front room, which looked charming with a fancy, fireplace stove. Mother had paid for all of that, so they were in a good position to begin their marriage.

But then came the Crisis/Depression

But then came the Depression. Everything started to collapse; rye prices went from fl 23 down to 10 in three months, oats the same. Milk dropped to 32 cents a litre, butter, cheese, hogs and cows were sold at half price or less. Cows that normally sold at fl 300 to 350 were now sold for fl 100 or less. Straw became worthless. Also, industrial products became very cheap, which was a good thing for the farmers, since it kept things in balance. Fertilizers were subject to the same decline, but unfortunately farm rental agreements and contracts remained the same and finished off many farmers. Those who had a lot of fixed overheads like these soon discovered that they could not keep the lights on and tried to sell their lands, but of course that too was not much of an option since there were no buyers and people simply stayed where they were, hoping for better days to come.

I remember one instance of a farm between Oude Pekela and Winschoten, a very expensive farm of 40 ha that was sold to a Mr. Uden from the town of Gieten (where he had a very large slaughterhouse that exported all of its product) for the sum of fl 38,000. He in turn rented this out to a farmer who had grown sons who then farmed the land and did well in the end, as did the new owners.

Very soon, the government was called in to provide farm assistance and subsidies, but they too were not in a position to do much, since they were basically broke as well. The first thing the government did was to establish a wheat policy with fixed pricing of fl 8 per 100 kg, while importing it for fl 5—that way the government pocketed fl 3 for every 100 kg they imported. The idea was that this fund would eventually help provide subsidies for other products, but all of that took a long time. We were somewhat fortunate in that we had the threshing machine contract workers come to our farm very early on, which allowed us to sell our grains early in the season and at a price twice as much as for those who could not thresh their crops till the end of the season.

The following year—it was now 1930—I said to my mother “we should try to grow some wheat,“ to which her reply was that she wasn’t sure, since wheat had never been grown and cropped on sandy soil in the region. “Wheat on sandy soil,” she continued, “—never heard of it, and it would be very risky.” I too shared those thoughts, but why not give it a try on a small scale and see what happens. Well to that she agreed. I bought two bushels (mud) of wheat in the village of Lutjeloo from the Baas family, and that we planted. Now that went well—it sprouted on time and grew well. The result was that we had a yield of 44 bushels from 1 ha.

When you threshed the grain, you had to register with the wheat commission, since they needed to inspect the quality of the wheat prior to the delivery of the buyer. It was winter, and one afternoon the inspector showed up to look at the threshed wheat grain that had been bagged. So, we headed to the barn where he pulled several bags from the top and inspected the grain kernels intensely. Then he said, “OK, now pull some bags from the bottom of the stack. I took a bewildered look at him and asked him why, but he merely waved and said, “I’ll tell you later.”

So we took down the large stack and pulled out a couple of the bottom bags. He opened those bags, took samples and compared them to the earlier samples from the top layer and said that it looked fine and closed the bags. I asked him why we had to go through all this effort, to which he responded that he was looking for consistent quality and wished to make sure no cheating was taking place. Apparently, authorities were suspicious of the yields and suspected that additional poorer quality wheat could have been purchased to stack the deck, so to speak. This was enlightening to me and I understood more why governments needed civil servants.

So that fall, we planted 4 ha of winter wheat and no rye. Rye at that time fetched fl 4 per 100kg—half the price of wheat. We had a great yield of the wheat that summer, 52 bushels per ha, so that, all in all, we came out of this crisis without too many torn clothes, as we say in Groningen. However, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

A day trip to Amsterdam with the Young People

In August of 1929, a day trip to Amsterdam was organized for our church young people, which was a big deal for us. I had never been to Amsterdam, let alone been on an express train. We arrived in Winschoten, at the train station from where the train left, at 5.30 a.m. [assuming they biked here, they would have had to leave home at 4 a.m. that morning]. The train made several stops, but we arrived in Amsterdam at 10 a.m., so all in all about a 4-hour trip.

We first went for a coffee and then off to the Artis Zoo till 1:30 pm. Then off to another restaurant for lunch, after which we visited several museums. At 4 pm, my friend E.Wisman said “I have to go, but will see you later tonight at the train station when we are heading home again.” Sure enough, we found him back at the station with his fiancée as well as my friend Dina Beekhuis. I was glad to see her, but she told me that she came to see her brother Meindert, who was also part of our group. However, it was the first phase of a relationship where we started to appreciate one another.

She came home for Christmas, which I didn’t know until I saw her in church and winked at her, which made her look ahead and blush, which I found to be a good sign. So we started to go around as usual but I noticed that she appeared to be glad to see me. I waited some time, just to be sure as I could be, before asking her for a date. In early February, the ‘Reciteer’ Society (society that would share in and practice reading poetry) gave a public performance that I attended, and that is also the evening that I asked her for a date.

I expressed my hope that we could build a deeper, more intimate relationship so that we both would know each other’s deepest thoughts and know each other at this deeper level. That she agreed to and resonated with her and it became the first time that we embraced each other and kissed. I can still point out the exact place and tell you where we both felt this overwhelming moment of happiness. The time was short and the intermission was over and we had to get back to the performance and were the last two people to enter the hall. As luck would have it, I was the first up on stage to give my recitation on “The disaster of the Titanic”, a very complex and somber piece. I think I probably made a mess of it, but that was not all that important to me anymore since the prior event meant a whole lot more to me than anything else. The first meeting with my future wife. After the performance I walked her home.

Dating years and engagement

The following Saturday evening and Sunday, I went to Dina’s home and quickly learned that our relationship had changed dramatically. She was always kind to me now and I no longer teased her as the relationship matured. I realized that this relationship was to become one of an ongoing commitment that would result in a lifelong relationship, a feeling that seemed strange and happy at the same time. We had a lovely time together during those years and spent most of our time at either her home and now also with my family. Easter, I think, was the first time at our place and I remember sitting together at the church services. So, we lived a happy and fulfilling life during this period.

However, all of a sudden, she threw me a curve ball when she announced that she had taken a position in the town of Scheemda, some distance from where we lived, and that she would move there the next week already. That, for me, was like a lightning strike, but I had little choice but to accept it for what it was. Still, it was a real downer, to say the least. To, off and on, drop in on each other during the week was no longer in the cards and now we had to bike one and a half hour each way once a week to see each other. There was something special about this too, but it wasn’t quite the same. She had taken a good position as a nanny for the children of a very nice family who always greeted and hosted me generously, but it wasn’t the same as dropping in on her at home or she coming to my home.

Once a month, she had the weekend off and would come home, which to me was always a celebration. The very first weekend that she came home we went, after the afternoon church service, to visit with her sister Trijn en husband Ekke who lived in Veelerveen. Trijn had just recently given birth to twin boys Jan and Henk (01-06-1931), and we ended up having a wonderful visit that day and evening. We teased each other a lot and I remember Ekke saying that “once you two have children, when they walk by our window with their heads sticking out above the sill, we will know it’s one of Harm and Dina’s” (I was considered very tall in those years at a little over 6 feet). To which our response was that it probably would be the same for their boys, since they would be much older. From the very beginning we had a wonderful relationship with the Bousema’s and there always continued to be a very harmonious relationship. We became engaged in September of that year 1931.

Sister Mannie and her Hat Atelier

In the meantime, the routine of everyday tasks and making a living continued with much satisfaction on my part. We had a live-in married farm workers couple, Jan and Grietje. During that time there were just the four of us on the farm, my mother and my two sisters Mannie and Tine and of course myself. The farm helpers name was Berend Hansen, who came from the town of Nieuwe Pekela, and was about 40 years of age. In the meantime, Mannie, who had been trained as a hat designer/maker, started up a hat store in our village of Vlagtwedde, which really started off very well and became quite well known.

But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, she had had a competitor move in from the neighbouring village of Bellingwolde, just two doors down from her business, and start selling her hats at unbelievably low prices. She really became worried, as did my mom, but I was totally unaware until one day Mannie shared with me her concerns and asked for advice. When I thought about it, I gave her my solution and that was to start selling her hats at cost until the competition would give up and close their business—there simply wasn’t room for two hatmakers in a small village like ours. I promised Man

nie that we would make up the shortfall so that she could survive this crisis. As far as I was concerned, the competition had asked for it and we were ready to take up the challenge.

Before too long, our strategy proved to be the correct one, and their store closed, but it cost us fl 500, which was a lot of money in those days and which we could ill afford to lose during the economic crisis. Farm commodity prices were very low, but on the other hand Mannie was trying to build a business for the long term and be of excellent service to the community they lived in. She needed an income for her long-term future and there simply wasn’t room for two competing hat stores.

Looking back now, many years later, I wonder how Christ like this decision really was, but at that time the thought never entered my mind. Once you get older, however, you do reflect back and wonder if a different decision should have been made, especially when later in life you experience God taking control of your dreams and redirecting them in ways you cannot quite grasp.

I worked for but one Ideal

That’s how my life evolved around just one ideal, and that was that my Dad’s farm in Vlagtwedde, called the Renneborg, would become mine. For that I would give anything and everything—it became my ultimate goal. After my father died, my mom would once in a while comment that at some point we should probably sell the farm so that each of the children could then receive their share and everyone would move on, but that certainly was not on my agenda. I had the character of my Dad, a son who would follow up on the farm and as much as possible grow the business. In the meantime there did not seem to be the opportunity to marry either, given the circumstances of mother needing a new home for retirement, and building a new store for my sister Mannie, and all of that had to be earned by the farm products, which were at an all-time low during these years. We seemed to have very little perspective and focus on things, which irritated me greatly, and just to create fl 1,000 profit each year was next to impossible.

So, staying on this track another three years would be required to meet the financial objectives, and I was already 30 years old. All this pressure had a negative impact on our engagement relationship as well but, fortunately, Dina was better able to deal with it then I was and had a more mature attitude towards the reality we were facing. “So we will have to wait a few more years” would be her comment. This was encouraging to me, since she was willing to compromise in a less than ideal situation.

One rainy weekend, bundled up in my raincoat, I was biking to visit her in Scheemda against a strong headwind and also lost my bike fender mud flap. It was not a fun trip. As long as I was riding in the sand portion of the terrain it wasn’t so bad but the closer I came to Scheemda the worse the road became. I was up to my knees in the clay. I was late and Dina had already left for church so I ended up sitting in the back of the church by myself since I did not have the courage to look for her and sit toward the front of the sanctuary. After church when she saw me she exclaimed “what a mess you are,” as if I didn’t know already and was obviously embarrassed to see me look like that. It certainly put a damper on things.

At the family Boelman’s home, the place Dina worked, we cleaned my shoes and hung up my pants by the stove to dry. Boelman and his wife were sensitive enough to realize we needed some time on our own and they left to visit a neighbour across the street. A week later Dina harped back on this incident once again with her aunt Betje—I just wished I had not gone to church that Sunday.

We didn’t go out much with just the two of us, but made plenty of visits to family in the towns and villages such as Ten Boer, Slochteren, Oude Pekela, Scheemda and, Winschoten, as well as visits with brothers and sisters. Vacation? Forget it—that just wasn’t in the cards. Dina changed one more time in her service to others, as we were planning to get married the following year. The Boelman family she was working for experienced financial difficulties and the solution was to have her transfer to a neighbour’s mother’s estate—an elderly, very wealthy lady, Mrs. Boezeman. She soon settled in and was highly regarded, but Dina soon got bored with the old lady and her little dog. She became bored out of her skull and, further along to spring, it became clear that she couldn’t stay much longer—she longed for the day to be married.

However, the building of the new home for my mother and two sisters was rather slow and tedious and we couldn’t get married until the three of them could move. So I spent a lot of time with the contractor and carpenters trying to speed things up. The guys soon figured out that I must have an ulterior motive and were teasing me about wanting to get married and get my sisters and Mom off of the farm, to which I replied, “wouldn’t you if you were in my shoes?” This seemed to resonate with them, and sure enough things started to speed up, so that by the middle of March they completed the house project.

I was ready to move our newly bought furniture into the farm, since we had set the day to be married, the 21st of March, but my Mom slowed everything down because she believed it to be inappropriate for us to take possession of the farm without being married. Frustrating! The front room as well as the rear room had been cleaned by Dina and her sister Iet and was ready for occupancy, but my Mother stayed in the rear room until the day we were married. My mother was a very suspicious woman which we did not very much appreciate.