Tag: school
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Emigrating to Canada: 1954
Read More: Emigrating to Canada: 1954Some time after the war ended and things were settling into place in Holland my brother Jaap emigrated to Canada, as farmland was still very hard to come by. That went well so I wanted to emigrate too. About two weeks before I was to be granted permission, I told a friend of my plans…
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Back in Holland: 1949-1954
Read More: Back in Holland: 1949-1954This is the period of dad’s life that we know the least about. The few paragraphs here are written by Wendy with input from her sisters based on the few stories dad has told us. From pictures we know that he enrolled in an Agricultural School, probably in Gouda, and that he worked for the…
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Highschool Years: 1941-1945
Read More: Highschool Years: 1941-1945In my class there were three students who planned to go to high school so the principal gave them extra lessons to help them prepare for this. I was interested in this too and when I mentioned it once at home, my dad was strongly in favour of that. He knew that it was impossible…
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The Depression Years: 1928-1939
Read More: The Depression Years: 1928-1939The depression began in 1928. By this time the oldest three had left school which was normal after finishing grade 7 and were helping on the farm. That was really needed because we couldn’t afford outside help anymore. When dad married on March 30, 1921, three years after the first world war everything was still…
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A Typical School Day
Read More: A Typical School DayWhen we were in school a typical day was as follows: We got up shortly before our parents came back from milking and did some chores such as feeding chickens and rabbits, etc. Then we had breakfast with the whole family and then finished our chores, changed our clothes and were ready to catch the…
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Grade School Years: 1934-1941
Read More: Grade School Years: 1934-1941When I was six years old I started school on May 1, 1934. There were nine of us children in our family. The youngest was 1 ½ years old and my oldest brother was 12 and started grade 7. There were seven grades at that time so one of us was in every class except…
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The Slingerland Farm
Read More: The Slingerland FarmI don’t know when Opa and Oma married. It must have been around 1895. [March 15, 1895] They farmed in Berkenwoude on the Jacobshoeve. [Benedenkerkseweg, where the de Jong’s lived, is one leg of the road running between Stolwijk and Berkenwoude] We went there often when we went to school since it was not so…
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The First Few Years: 1928-1931
Read More: The First Few Years: 1928-1931I was born on April 9 in the year 1928, on an Easter Monday morning. Easter Monday is celebrated in the old country about the same as Sunday or Christmas day. I was born at home as was the custom then. My brother, Adam, who was the oldest at 6 years old would start school…
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Religion and Faith
Read More: Religion and FaithOne can talk about religion in generalities and about churches being staunchly Reformed and very orthodox, but what was my personal experience as a child? I can’t remember that my mother often told Bible stories, but she must have done so. At table Dad read from Anne De Vries’ Bible Story Book and when I…
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Organ Playing
Read More: Organ PlayingI have no recollection that I played much with my siblings, Kees, Truus and Sense. I imagine they had their own friends as I had mine. Of course, they were 5 and 4 years older. All of us had organ lessons, but I was the only one who took lessons for over one year. My…