Chapter 11

A NEW LIFE IN CANADA

On May 12, after eight days at sea, the Brouwer family arrived in Quebec City.  First they had to go into a large hall and had to wait for a long time.  There their papers where checked again.  Finally they were allowed to board the train.  This part of their travelling had all been paid for already in Holland.  From there they travelled by train to Toronto.  They were not very impressed with the train which was quite old, dirty, and slow.  Their first impressions of Canada which they saw from the boat and train windows were not very impressive either.  Along the St. Lawrence they only saw forests and rocks, while they had expected to see good farmland.  Then, when agricultural land finally came into view, everything looked so much bleaker than in Holland.  When they had left Holland the crops were already growing well, but in Canada it was still spring, most of the fields were muddy, and the grass was just turning green.   The trip was also very slow, and the train stopped many times.

When they finally arrived in Toronto, Dick was waiting for them along with his girlfriend Tina and another friend, Adrian Van’t Hart, who came along with his own car since they needed two cars to get them all in.  It must still have been a tight squeeze to get 11 people and all their luggage into two cars!  They had a wonderful meeting and then travelled to St. Catharines where Dick lived.  This took about an hour and a half.  Traffic was much slower than now and the QEW still had a lot of stop lights at that time with just a few viaducts.  They first went to Tina’s parents for a good hot meal.  Then Dick took them to the house which he had built for himself on Lakeshore Road close to Vine Street.   The house was almost finished, except for painting. 

Dick had rented a farm where the Brouwers could live at the corner of Carlton Street and Bunting Road.  This farm had been sold for construction, and Dick had managed to rent it for half a year before construction was to start.  However the house was not empty yet so the family moved into Dick’s house for the first month.  The farmhouse on Carlton Street still stands today.  Although it is somewhat remodelled it is easy to spot since it is quite a bit different from the newer homes built all around it. 

Henk started to work in construction right away with Dick.  Wim soon found a job with an upholsterer, Mr. Peterson.  Wim couldn’t speak much English yet but Trudy went along since she could speak it somewhat better.  Although Trudy had been opposed to the emigration plans, she had followed a radio course called “English for Emigrants.”  They went to every upholstery business, since this was the trade that Wim had learned in Holland.  They had pictures with them in which he was just finishing a love-seat, so that the people could see what he was able to do.  At first they all said no, until they came to Mr. Peterson, who agreed to give Bill a chance.   Opa and Trudy went every morning by bike to the Carlton Street farm to cut asparagus.  Betty and Ineke did not go to school yet, since they were planning to move soon and it was already so far into the school year.

The adjustment to life in Canada was not too hard at first.  Several of their neighbours were Dutch and the church services were all in Dutch.  At first they hoped they could still remain Dutch, but gradually changes took place.  One of the more significant was the changing of Dutch names to English ones.  Derk had changed to Dick already.  Wim became Bill, Beppie changed to Betty and Geertje became Trudy.  The Canadians simply couldn’t pronounce Geertje. 

About four weeks after their arrival they moved again, this time to the farm on Carlton Street.  The two big containers with all their furniture and belongings had arrived, so life started to become more normal again although adapting to Canadian ways took some getting used to.  Coming from Holland where every square inch of land had value, they couldn’t let their big front lawn go to waste and promptly picketed a cow out front, which the neighbours found rather amusing.  When the postman told them that they needed a mailbox, Opa nailed a wooden cigar box onto a post.  However, the mailman didn’t approve of this innovation, and a real mailbox had to be purchased.

About six weeks after their arrival Dick married Tina De Bat on June 25, 1954.  Tina was born on July 16, 1932.  The family De Bat had emigrated a few years before the Brouwers.  They came from Krabbendijke, a city on the island of South Beveland in the province of Zeeland.  They had emigrated with seven children, two boys and five girls.  Dick, who was all by himself, went there quite often and that’s how he met Tina and fell in love with her.  The De Bat’s were members of the Netherlands Reformed congregation, where Dick also attended.  Rev. Lamain from Grand Rapids officiated at their wedding.

One day later Bill and Jenny Bruinekool, and their one-year old daughter Ineke, arrived by plane from Holland.  It was too bad that they arrived one day too late to be at the wedding.  However, the arrangements for the wedding and the flying had all been made way in advance and couldn’t be changed anymore. 

Finally the Brouwer family was united once more, totalling 13 persons; Opa, Oma, eight children, two in-laws and one grandchild.  The Bruinekools lived for a while with the Brouwers.  Bill and Jenny both started working right away picking fruit in the neighbourhood.  Now that Jenny had arrived Trudy wasn’t needed at home any more and a housekeeping job was found for her.  She went to work for the Anderson family in a huge house at the corner of Ontario Street and Welland Avenue where she cleaned, looked after a disabled child, and lived in the servants’ quarters. 

Everyone in the family had to go to work and earn money, not only for living expenses, but to save up for a farm which they wanted to buy.  In Holland they had sold their livestock and machinery, but much of that money had been used for their boat fare and to transport the two large containers.  So they needed to earn all this money back before they could consider buying a farm of their own.  At first Dick looked after the family’s transportation, but soon they bought a used van and so were able to look after themselves.  Bill Bruinekool taught them all how to drive.  Getting a drivers licence in those days didn’t require weeks of formal training, tests, etc. like today.  You could simply walk into the office, say you knew how to drive, and get a licence.

They soon purchased some animals, horses, a couple of cows and some pigs.  They also had a few cats which were fed on the back porch.  Before long a strange animal came to eat the cat food.  They had never seen such a uniquely coloured animal before and Oma thought it was great to have this animal come to their porch for food.  A neighbour soon told her that this beautiful animal was a skunk, so the cat food quickly disappeared from the back porch.

In September Betty and Ineke started school.  Since they couldn’t speak English they were put in a grade lower than they were in Holland, which they didn’t appreciate.  However, soon they spoke the language well and they were able to move up to the grade level where they belonged.  The Coolen-brander children, who lived close by and had immigrated a year earlier, took Betty and Ineke to school with them and helped them overcome the language problems.

In the beginning there were so many new experiences.  Shopping was a big event.  They were amazed at the large grocery stores where you could walk around and pick items off the shelf yourself.  In Holland the grocer went door to door taking orders.  He would then deliver the order one or two days later.  If you went to a store yourself you had to stand behind a counter, place your order, and the grocer would prepare the order for you.  Also in Holland there were no large supermarkets.  Instead there was the baker’s shop, the butcher, the milkman, the vegetable & fruit stall, etc.  Everything was so cheap too.  When they arrived in Canada milk was 15 cents a quart, a loaf of bread was 15 cents, butter was 67 cents a pound, eggs were 45 cents a dozen.  In Holland eggs were sold by the piece.  In Holland a much larger portion of their income was needed to buy groceries.  The average worker had to work about two hours to earn enough for 1 lb. of meat, while in Canada one hour of work was enough to buy 2 lbs. of meat. 

One time Jenny went to the store and saw some very cheap meat.  It was about 45 cents and every package was the same price so she took the largest package that she could find.  That evening they could eat as much meat as they wanted.  However, they later found out that what she thought was the price of the package, was the price per pound, so they had actually eaten very expensive meat that night.

In late summer Bill Bruinekool found a job on another farm, a large dairy and grape farm on the other side of the city.   This farm belonged to the Vaughn family, and is the farm where they now have elk and deer.  So the Bruinekools moved out. 

At first the family attended the Netherlands Reformed congregation.  They held services in a school building on Mountain Road, about halfway between Niagara Falls and St. Catharines.  There was no minister so they usually had services where an elder read a sermon prepared by a minister in Holland.  Then the Brouwers heard that there was a Free Reformed Church in Smithville where Rev. Hamstra from Copetown preached on Sunday afternoons.  Since the Smithville church only had services in the afternoon and evening, they started going to the church on Mountain Road in the morning and to the church in Smithville in the afternoon.  Both churches tried to convince the family to join.  The Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church also tried to convince the family that they really belonged with them.  In October a Young People’s Society was started, made up of young people from both the Netherlands Reformed and Free Reformed churches.  The meetings were held at the Brouwers’.  

Since they could only rent the farm for half a year, many Saturdays were used to go with a Real Estate agent to look for a farm to buy.  They wanted one between St. Catharines and Smithville.  Most of them worked in St. Catharines but the church was in Smithville.  In the fall of 1954 they found a farm at Balls Falls which was about half way between those two places.  Oma was convinced that this farm was an answer to her prayers.  She must have been really sure of this because Oma was scared of water and would not willingly have moved to a farm where the driveway was so close to the falls. 

The farm had some cleared fields as well as grapes and fruit.  It was a good farm but had been a little neglected the last couple of years.  The farm was empty and they could move in right away, so just before Christmas they moved to Jordan.  After moving to the farm they only went to the Smithville church.  The Young Peoples’ meetings were now held in Dick and Tina Brouwer’s basement.

Most of the children had learned some English in Holland.  At first they were disappointed by how little they really knew, but by now they had picked up quite a bit more and Dick was not needed so often for translating.  To everybody’s surprise Gerald picked it up the fastest.  Gerald had not done very well in school, simply because he wasn’t very interested. 

There was a big manure pile on the Carlton Street farm.  Since it wasn’t needed there, and their new farm was quite neglected, they decided to truck the manure over.  This was a really big and rather messy job since the manure was still loaded by hand.  Bill Bruinekool had borrowed a truck from Vaughn’s.  He made about 30 trips in all during evenings and Saturday afternoons.  It was always a big relief, especially to Oma, when they saw Bill returning with the empty manure truck.  To Oma it still seemed like there was only a 50/50 chance that Bill would make it safely driving over that narrow road so close to the falls with the big manure truck.  Moving from the Carlton Street farm to the farm at Balls Falls was a much bigger move for the family than the one from Lakeshore Road to Carlton Street.  Now everything that had come from Holland in the large containers had to be moved too, in addition to the things they had purchased since coming to Canada, but the whole family, and many new friends, all pitched in.  The farm was bought for $25,000 and they had to pay $1,000 each year plus interest.  There was no livestock on the farm, but there was machinery and equipment.  On the purchase list, it had sounded like quite a bit: 1 tractor, 1 wagon, 1 wheelbarrow, forks, shovels, ladders, picking harnesses, etc.  But they soon discovered that most of it was worthless junk.  They suspected that the former owners had sold all their good equipment for some extra cash and left worthless stuff in its place.  The tractor was small, old, and didn’t even have air tires.  Since the purchase agreement list didn’t specify anything further about the equipment, such as the year or model of the equipment, etc., there was nothing they could do about it, so they had to purchase all new equipment.

The family, especially Opa and Oma, were very happy with the nice farm that they were able to acquire so soon.   They were really happy that it was so much bigger than the one they had in Holland.  The farm was about 3 times the size and all the land was together, rather than in separate fields.  They were also very happy that they now had such a big house.  It was altogether a marvellous improvement over their home in Holland.  The house was so big they didn’t even need all the rooms at first.  There was an indoor bathroom and a bathtub, hot and cold running water and  a telephone.  With their own transportation and no neighbours really close by, they felt completely free and independent.

Opa said they should name the house “Eben-ezer” which means “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us,” taken from 1 Samuel 7: 12.  A sign, using the Dutch spelling, was soon made and hung up in front of the house, as well as a sign saying “Brouwer’s Farm”.  Inscribed on a cornerstone was the year the house was built, 1881.  By Christmas 1954, they were living on their own farm.  It had been a year of tremendous changes and there was truly much reason for deep thanksgiving.

1955

Now they started farming in earnest.  Opa who was almost 68 was still a strong, hard-working man, but he was not familiar with grapes or other fruit.  He was also unaccustomed to tractors and trucks and he could not speak English.  Therefore, Opa really never ran the farm.  Gerald who was only 16 became the farmer, along with the help of Oma.  Everybody pitched in to do farm work, but Henk, Bill and Trudy kept their regular jobs. 

Bill Bruinekool was a big help.  At Vaughn’s where he worked, he had learned how to prune grapes, how to operate the farm machinery, etc., and he in turn taught the family. 

Bill Brouwer, who was never much of a farmer, was a great help to Oma.  He helped with painting and hanging wallpaper, since the house needed a lot of fixing up.  Henk helped out on Saturdays. 

They were anxious to get started but they found out that spring arrives in Canada much later than it does in Holland.  In Holland often the fields were prepared and sometimes even seeded as early as March, but here it was April and still winter.  While waiting for warmer weather, they decided to start by clearing the bush.  At the back of the farm there was a lot of old, dead grass, junipers, cedars, and other small shrubs.  They wanted to clear this all away and turn it into pasture land.  However, it was soon evident that this would take much longer than they expected.  So they decided to make short work of this task by clearing only a ring around the outside and then burning the centre.  This too, however, took quite some time, and it was almost evening by the time the safety belt was cleared.  At last they set the rest on fire.  Then things took a surprising turn.  The dead grass went so fast and the evergreens almost exploded in the heat.  This fire was set at the edge of the escarpment, and since it was by now quite dark it looked as if the whole mountain was on fire.  Uncle Henk yelled, “Sapperloot! — get that fire out or we’ll get the fire trucks here!”  “Sapperloot” was one of those words Uncle Henk loved to use, although just what it meant, no one knew.  He had hardly said this, though, when they heard the fire sirens blaring and the trucks coming up the hill.  So with shovels and forks, they feverishly tried to get the fire out.  The field was still very wet so it wasn’t too hard.  When it was almost out the fire truck came up the hill.  They were not sure where the fire was so they drove into the field of George Culp, thinking that was where they had seen the fire.  However, the fire truck sank into the mud and they were soon stuck.  The truck was stuck so deeply, that the firemen left it and ran across the field to where the fire was.  There was a very deep ditch between the two farms, and by the time the firemen had crossed it, the fire was out.  The firemen couldn’t see anything more in the dark, so they gave up and went back to their truck.  The Brouwers had all run back home once they got the fire out and  pretended nothing had happened.  As newcomers to this land, they didn’t know whether you had to pay for the fire trucks to come or whether they could get a ticket.  The firemen looked all over for the fire, but couldn’t find a trace of it.  They didn’t know who had called them, only that they had seen a huge fire all along the escarpment, which had somehow disappeared without a trace.

The word “sapperloot” wasn’t the only strange word they used. They thought they spoke Dutch, but it was really Gelders, a dialect.  Some words sounded as strange as French words.  For instance, Oma would say, “take a toet from that schepke (take a bag from that shelf).”  Opa needed a new tasse in the box (a new pocket in his pants), and they thought that was Dutch. 

It was hoped that Opa would learn to drive the tractor.  It would have been so much easier for him, but he refused to try.  He felt much more comfortable with a fork, shovel and hoe.  Fence making was certainly not one of his gifts.  The pigs were always getting loose and had to be chased.  When they were finally back in the fence, Opa would bang one or two nails back into the post, and declare that it was impossible for the pigs to get out now.  However, in no time at all, they had broken loose and had to be chased all over again. 

Opa never tried to learn English either, and didn’t really need to.  There were always some Dutch neighbours or friends around and at church only Dutch was used in those early years.  When they needed to speak English the children took over.  Oma tried to learn some English with the help of Betty and Ineke who were going to school, but she didn’t have much success.

Of course, none of us spoke English perfectly yet.  It was still mixed up with some Dutch and Gelders words, plus a few homemade ones, but we got by, and most people figured out what we meant to say.  Pronunciation caused some problems too.  Words like “thirty” sounded like “dirty.”  We fed the “shikens,” drove the “trekker,” and “uitgefigured” how to fix things. 

Opa and Oma were married in 1925.  At their fifth anniversary there were three children.  At their tenth there were five, at their fifteenth there were six, at the twentieth, there were seven and at their twenty-fifth anniversary there were eight.  Then in 1951 Bill Bruinekool came into the family and in 1953 Ineke was born, making a total of 12 people who came to Canada.  Soon after their emigration Tina came into the family and from then on the family really started to grow.  Two more granddaughters were born in this year.  On January 19 Marietta Bruinekool was born.  When the Bruinekools came to Canada in June of 1954 Jenny was expecting but had not told anyone.  She was always very hungry when she came home from fruit picking and she always said “I’m eating for two,” but only later did they understand what she meant by this.  They lived in a nice, but very small house on Highway 8 at the Vaughn farm.  Now they had two girls.

On June 30 Dick and Tina had a daughter, who they named Tonny.  There were now three grand-daughters, and the family had grown to 15.  

1956

In this year more changes took place.  Shortly before they emigrated, Henk found a girlfriend, Henny Vleeming.  She was born on July 26, 1932.  He kept writing to her after he emigrated and felt he was now well enough established to get married.  Shortly before Christmas of 1955 he went back to Holland for the wedding.  Henny lived in Westervoort, not very far from Lathum.  She was the youngest daughter of a farmer, and the last one at home.  On January 25th, 1956, they were married in Westervoort.  In the beginning of February Henk came back with Henny and they settled on the farm also. 

When the Brouwers moved to Jordan they had moved into the south side of the house, while the north side, on the other side of the main hall, was rented out.  Henk and Henny now moved into this half of the house, and also had a bedroom upstairs.  Henny was brought up in the Gereformeerde Kerk (Christian Reformed Church) and didn’t feel at home in the Free Reformed Church, so they later started attending the Christian Reformed Church.  So from then on the family went to three different churches, as Dick and Tina had remained in the Netherlands Reformed Congregation.  This, however, didn’t bring a strain to the family and didn’t break any family ties. 

When the farm was bought they had been told that the electrical wire was all new.  However that year an inspector came to look, probably for fire insurance reasons.  He condemned the wiring and it had to be redone.  The former farmer had done all his own wiring and had used very cheap material which was not up to building code standards.  When the new wiring was completed, the cost came to more than $500.00, which was a huge amount at that time.  Because they also needed a lot of money for things like machinery, and livestock, to bring the farm up to better production, they couldn’t get the $1,000.00 needed to pay the mortgage that first year.  This continued to be an ongoing struggle. 

Their largest source of income on the farm was from the grapes.  There were also other fruit crops such as cherries, pears, apples, strawberries, etc., but they largely depended on the grapes to support the farm.  This wasn’t always easy, especially in the early years when grape prices were very low. All the money that was earned from the crops was re-invested in the farm again.  Opa, who was already at retirement age when they emigrated, could not collect a Canadian pension until he had been in Canada for ten years, so he was seventy-seven before he collected a pension.  Later he also received a pension from Holland.  To help Opa and Oma out, the five married children all gave them a certain amount of money for groceries every week, on a rotating basis. 

Grape picking was also very labour intensive in those days.  The “Fredonias” had to be hand picked into 6-quart baskets and needed lids stapled on.  The other kinds of grapes were put into wooden crates.  First all those wooden crates had to be distributed throughout the rows of grapes.  Then the grapes had to be picked by hand with a small scissor.  Then all the filled crates had to be picked up again.  One person walked beside the wagon to pick up the crates from the rows.  This person handed the crates to another person on the wagon who stacked them.  A third person was needed to drive the tractor that pulled the wagon.  Most of the time all the work was done by the family, but sometimes lots of other people had to be hired when Winery orders came that had to be filled on very short notice. 

At first they had a contract with Brights Winery, but this winery occasionally wanted the grapes delivered on Sundays which was a real problem with the Brouwers.  After a few years they switched to Jordan Winery where they didn’t have the Sunday delivery problem anymore.  However, soon a new manager at Jordan Winery also insisted that the grapes be delivered on Sundays and the trouble started again.  Years later, when Andres Winery opened in Grimsby, they were able to get a really good contract there.  They did not have to deliver on Sundays and Andres guaranteed to buy 100% of the crop.  The other two wineries sometimes took only some of the crop and it was very hard to get a buyer for the remainder.  

In 1956, on July 23, Henk Bruinekool was born.  He was the first grandson, and third child of Jenny and Bill.  Their house was now definitely too small for a family of five.  Bill had taken a course in welding and worked now as a welder for Moyer and Diebel, a factory along the QEW at the end of Nineteenth Street.  The Bruinekools moved to Jordan, to a little house on the other side of the QEW.  Only eight days after Henk’s arrival, a second grandson was born.  On July 3,1 Albert Brouwer was born, a son of Dick and Tina.  Henk and Henny had a baby girl, Ria, who was born on November 2.  So the family grew by four in 1956.

1957

This year the Brouwers had their fourth wedding.  On May 18 Trudy married Cornelis De Jong.   Cor had also emigrated in 1954 and arrived in Canada just a week after the Brouwers.  In Holland he worked for the Department of Agriculture, but he wanted to start farming for himself, and so he moved to Canada.  However, shortly after arriving in Canada, he found out that his hay fever was too severe to become a farmer and he had to find another occupation.  With the different climate in Holland that had never been a problem there.  Cor grew up on a farm in a big family, being sixth out of fourteen.  He was born on April 9, 1928, in Stolwijk in South Holland.  In Canada he boarded with his brother and sister-in-law, Jaap and Riek De Jong.  Their house was also on Carlton Street so they were neighbours of the Brouwers, and that’s how Cor met Trudy.  They also attended English evening classes and Young Peoples together, and Cor also worshipped at the Free Reformed Church. 

Cor and Jaap worked for the same farmer, Fred Stewart, one of the five Stewart brothers who owned the Avondale dairy.   The soil at this farm was a very heavy clay, unlike anything in Holland, where the soil is like peat.  One of the first jobs Cor had to do was to help dig a trench for the foundation of the ice cream bar.  He was given a 5″ wide shovel and a pick axe, and couldn’t figure out at first what the pick axe was for.  He found out soon enough.  The top layer was so hard, that even with the pick axe they only broke away slivers of dirt.  Finally, when that layer had been removed they had to dig out clay that was like putty.  It was extremely difficult to get on the shovel and just as difficult to get off again. 

The dairy bar was quite small.  Many people had thought it was silly to build an ice cream bar in the middle of nowhere, but it was an instant success.  For the first number of years it had to be enlarged almost every year.  In those years the farmers still sent their milk to the dairy in 40 litre milk cans.  It was Cor’s job to load the milk cans onto the truck.  One day, while loading he picked up an empty can, expecting it to be very heavy.  He wrenched his back, and has had minor back problems ever since.  St. Catharines had nine dairies in the late 1950s, of which Avondale was one of the two largest.  The milk was delivered door to door, usually by horse and wagon.  Only glass bottles were used then.  Shortly after the Brouwers arrived in Canada the dairies started using plastic jugs and cartons. 

Fred Stewart had two farms, one on Carlton Street, at Bunting Road,  where the shopping plaza is now, and the other one on Stewart Road where he lived and where the ice cream bar still stands.  Cor and Jaap lived on the Carlton Street farm.  The cows were all at this farm too.  Every day, hay, crops, cattle, etc. had to be transported from one farm to the farm on the other side of the canal.  The canal was much busier than it is today with many smaller boats using the canal, so they frequently had to wait for the bridge.  One day Cor had to wait three times for Dutch boats, the “Orange Line” to pass through.  These boats were all named after Dutch princes.

The Free Reformed Church didn’t have its own building yet but rented space from the Presbyterian Church in Smithville.  Trudy and Cor were married in this church on May 18, 1957.  It was the first wedding in the congregation, officiated by their first minister Rev. De Waal.  At this time he still didn’t have his license to perform weddings in Ontario.  So they were married by two ministers.  Rev. De Waal preached the sermon in Dutch and Rev. Scott from the Presbyterian Church did the official wedding requirements in English.  A severe storm warning had been forecast for that day, but although it was very windy, the storm held off.  Cor had already planted a vegetable garden at the farm.  The night of their wedding the storm broke loose and it poured.  The next morning the garden was covered in several inches of water and everything drowned.

Trudy and Cor also moved to the Brouwers farm after their wedding and lived in the back part of the house.  They had a living room, a small kitchen and a bedroom upstairs and shared the bathroom.  Cor worked in the Loblaws store and Trudy helped on the farm.  Cor liked living on the farm since he had a lot of spare time and there was always lots to do on the farm. 

There used to be a firewood shed where the egg room is now.  Most of the cooking and heating of the house was by wood stove so a lot of firewood was needed since there were three families living in the house.  All big branches and broken grape posts were brought home and several times a year they spent a day sawing wood.  They used a large saw blade that was mounted on a frame and powered with a big belt from the tractor.

Betty had finished grade school by this time and attended one year of high school at Great Lakes Christian College.  She then started working for the Kelders at Queenston Bakery, a Dutch bakery in St. Catharines.  Betty worked in the front of the store, but judging from the way she bakes today, she must have learned a few trade secrets in the back of the bakery too.  Since Cor worked at Loblaws, he drove Betty to work everyday. 

Ineke still went to school, but worked on Saturdays at Richardson’s, the grocery store in Jordan.  Henk, who had always said that working in construction was only temporary, and that he wouldn’t be like Dick, finally also forgot about farming and kept working in construction.  Bill was still working at Peterson’s, the upholsterer.  Another addition to the family came in August, when on the 24th, Wilma Brouwer was born, the third child of Dick and Tina.  Now there were 21 members in the family.

In November Cor and Trudy went to Holland for a belated honeymoon.  Trudy had not met Cor’s family yet.  They travelled by boat again since that was still cheaper than flying and more luggage could be taken along.  They were away for three months altogether, and brought a lot of stuff back with them from Holland.  That winter Henny and Ria also went for a trip to Holland by plane to visit Henny’s parents. 

1958

The Brouwer family grew by five new members this year.  On February 22 another Albert Brouwer was born, the second child and first son for Henk and Henny.  Albert was born during a terrible snow storm.  Henny, who thought she still had plenty of time, didn’t take the advice to leave before the storm got bad.  But then, when it was finally time for the baby to be born, it was too late.  Even though everyone helped to shovel the driveway, we couldn’t get the road cleared and so Albert was born at home, in a birth attended by Trudy and Henk.  Dr. Vandermaas arrived after he was born.  He had managed to get his car as far as the Scott’s house.  We had cleared enough of the road that the tractor could get that far, so Dr. Vandermaas was brought to the farm on the back of the tractor.  Soon after he had gone again, and everything was alright with Henny and Albert, the township sent the snowplow in to clear the driveway.  One of the neighbours had called the township about the emergency.  There were now two grandsons with the name Albert.  To avoid confusion, this one was nicknamed “Appie.”

The road was much different than it is today.  It was much narrower with the two sides built up a couple of feet so the road blew full of snow very fast.  Balls Falls was not a park yet, but a mixed farm.  When the Brouwers arrived John de Kater farmed there and later Tony vanYsseldijk.  There wasn’t a fence either around the falls and many people found it quite scary.  Since they had a lot of snow storms then and the road was often snowed in Cor usually parked his car at the Scott’s and walked the rest of the way.

On May 31 Bill married with Rinie Eckhardt.  The Eckhardt family had emigrated several years before the Brouwers came.  They came from TerNeuzen in Zeeuws Vlaander, which is also in the province of Zeeland, close to the Belgian border.  Mr. Eckhardt was a baker and had a bakery and store in Thorold where they also lived.  The Brouwers had known them since coming to Canada since they also attended the Netherlands Reformed Congregation and they also came to the Young Peoples meetings.  They had four children and Rinie was the oldest.  She was born on February 16, 1936.  Rinie was in charge of the store and even worked on the morning of her wedding. 

The custom then was for the whole wedding party to travel together to church.  Everyone was ready at their house in plenty of time, but they had to wait for Rinie and her family who were late because they had worked the whole morning.  When they finally got there, everyone took off for the church as fast as they could go, breaking speed limits the whole way.  The service got started about 45 minutes late.  At that time the Free Reformed Church rented the Old Mennonite Brethren Church on Victoria Avenue in Vineland.  In this church they could have services in the morning also, whereas in the Smithville church they had afternoon and evening services.  The wedding took place in this church in Vineland, officiated by Rev. De Waal who now had his license.  Bill and Rinie rented a house in Thorold since Rinie kept on working in the store. 

On August 10, Elsie Bruinekool was born, the fourth child of Jenny and Bill.  Elsie was named after Opa with her full name being Albertina.  She was called “Abbie” for a while.  As in several other cases with children not being too happy with their parents’ choices, her name was later changed to Elsie. 

On November 6 Wendy De Jong was born, the first child in the De Jong family.  She was not born in a hospital but at the home of a Dutch doctor in Hamilton.  At that time they still felt that anything Dutch was still superior to anything Canadian.  According to the minister’s wife he was a wonderful doctor, but their experience with him was not very impressive.  Wendy was in no hurry to be born and labour lasted almost two days.  They weren’t even sure which day she was born on.  In the excitement they forgot to look at the clock.  When they realized this, it was already 10 minutes past midnight, but by then she was almost 10 minutes old.  The doctor asked Cor which day he should mark down.  He though it was much nicer to have a 24 hour birthday, so he chose November 6, rather than November 5.  She was called Winnie when she was little.  Elsie and Wendy were the first two babies baptized in the Vineland church. 

On November 19, Joanne Brouwer was born, the fourth child of Dick and Tina.  So there were now five in-laws and 11 grand-children, making a total of 26.  They had come to Canada with 12 persons and now after four years, the family had already more than doubled.

Travelling had become more common by this time.  In the fall of 1958 the first charter flight was advertised, with fares at half that of normal air fare.  The family decided that this would be an excellent opportunity for Opa and Oma to go back to Holland and visit old friends and relatives.  Shortly before they were to leave, the airline announced that the half-price fare wasn’t valid and the full fare had to be paid.  Bill Bruinekool had booked tickets for Jenny, Elsie and himself, and for Opa and Oma.  Everyone still felt that Opa and Oma should go with Bill, since they couldn’t travel alone, so they all pitched in to raise the extra money needed.  Jenny and Elsie did not go, and Jenny moved into the farm with all their children while Bill was away.  They had planned to go for three weeks but they stayed away for five.  They left in early December and returned in January of 1959.  Opa and Oma thoroughly enjoyed going back to Holland for this trip.

1959

Opa Brouwer was now 72 years old and still strong and hard working.  In the fall he became ill and had to have an operation, for prostrate cancer.  Being in the hospital was very hard on him.  He couldn’t understand anyone or communicate with the nurses and doctors.  And the strange food didn’t agree with him either.  He had never eaten anything that was not real Dutch.  For a while he was very sick, but slowly he recovered.  Later he did some small jobs, but he never went back to farm work.  After the operation Opa also suffered from a bladder problem for the rest of his life.  He also stopped smoking after the operation.  Before that he loved his pipe and a good cigar.  There were now 11 grand-children, but none of them really knew him as the happy, strong man he was before, and neither have the later in-laws known him this way. 

There was only one addition to the family this year and that was almost at the end of the year.  On December 13 Allan Brouwer, the first child of Bill and Rinie, was born.  He was named after Opa, but there were already two Albert Brouwers so they changed the name slightly.  More and more grandchildren were given an English name and later the custom to name the children after relatives fell away.  Opa and Oma had some difficulty getting used to this, and Opa was very upset that he was named Allan and not Albert.  In Holland the rules about naming children after parents, brothers and sisters, was very well established and changes to this custom were not easily accepted.  Oma even tried to use the story of John the Baptist, when the relatives were planning to name him after his father, as Biblical proof that the Dutch custom was right.

In September the first grandchild, Ineke, started school.  She couldn’t speak any English, which made the experience and adjustment quite difficult.  The neighbour children took her along with them to school.  They had to walk from their house beside the QEW all the way to Jordan Station school on Fifteenth street.  At Halloween, Ineke, completely unfamiliar with this custom, came to school as the only child without a costume on.  One of the other girls gave her a ghost costume to wear.  The whole experience was very strange and scary to her.

Besides Ineke Bruinekool who couldn’t speak English when she went to school, Ria and later Wendy also had this experience.  In Dick and Bill’s families they were more accustomed to Canadian ways and already spoke more English at home.  They also were more prepared for what to expect from school through friends and cousins.