Sister Trip to Michigan: Part I

In early May of this year, my younger sister and I took a one-week-long trip to Western Michigan to visit family, do a little genealogy, and sight-see.  Both of our parents are from Western Michigan: Mom is from the City of Grand Rapids in Kent County, and Dad was raised in Coopersville, a small town in Ottawa County about 20 miles west of Grand Rapids.

While not everything we did was related to genealogy, and what research we did was minimal, I am sharing our journey here, since we did a lot of follow up to some of the stories I have written about here in my blog.

A little background about our parents' families:  Our dad is the second child and first son of a family of five children.  His oldest sister lives in Spokane, near us.  The younger three siblings, an uncle and two aunts, live in Western Michigan.  Our mom was the only child of the marriage of her parents.  Her dad had been married before and had a disabled son from that marriage who died in his late teens.  Our grandmother was his second wife and he was her first husband.  Our mom was raised in her mother and step-dad's home with a younger brother and sister.  Our grandfather had three sons and a daughter with his third wife.  All of my mom's living siblings live in Western Michigan, except for her maternal half-sister who lives near Detroit.

The first day of our sister trip was Saturday, May 4th.  Our flight from Spokane to Grand Rapids through Denver arrived late in the afternoon, and after picking up our rental car and checking into our hotel, we met up with our uncle's family (our mom's maternal half-brother with whom she was raised) at a restaurant for an early dinner.  Attending was our uncle's wife, their daughter (our cousin) with two of her children, and their daughter's fiance.  After dinner, we headed to our cousin's house for more visiting, but on the way, we stopped at Fairplains Cemetery to visit our grandparents' graves.  It was my sister's first visit to their graves since they had passed away in 2001 and 2007.  I had visited the cemetery when I came to Michigan in 2012 for our paternal grandmother's memorial service.

Our maternal grandmother was born Ruth Lillian DeVries on 16 January 1919 in Blodgett Memorial Hospital, the Village of East Grand Rapids, Kent County, Michigan to John Martin and Lillian Fern (Strong) Hoekstra.  She was the eldest of three daughters.  She first married our grandfather, William Valk, on 11 September 1943 in Junction City, Geary County, Kansas, having traveled to marry him where he was stationed in the U.S. Army during World War II at Fort Riley.  After their divorce in 1946, she met and later married my step-grandfather, Adrian "Ed" DeVries on 3 October 1947 in Wyoming Township, Kent County.  Grandma died 25 August 2001 in Grand Rapids and was buried at Fairplains four days later.  Today, both the Village of East Grand Rapids and the area in Wyoming Township where she married Grandpa, are now a part of the City of Grand Rapids.

Our maternal (step) grandfather, Adrian "Ed" DeVries, was born 10 June 1916 in Grand Rapids to Jarig Egbert Binnes DeVries and his wife Johanna Bos (their names were Anglicized to George Edward Benjamin DeVries and Josephine Bush).  Ed was the third child and third son of five children.  He attended South High School in Grand Rapids just a few grades behind Gerald R. Ford, Jr., and eventually followed him to the University of Michigan, although the Great Depression cut his college education short.  He joined the U.S. Army during World War II and served as a military postal clerk in North Africa.  After the war, he met our grandmother on a blind date with mutual friends, and soon they were courting.  Our mother started calling him "Daddy" before Grandma even married him!  He raised our mother along with his own two biological children and never treated her any differently than if she were his own.  He was the only maternal grandfather we knew well, having met our Grandpa Valk only a few times.  In fact, of the six grandchildren Grandpa DeVries had, only one was biological, due to step-families and adoption.  He loved us all equally.  Adrian died 6 January 2007 in Grand Rapids, and was buried four days later at Fairplains.

After a nice visit at my cousin's house for a couple of hours, we headed back to our hotel, where I enjoyed the previous week's episode of Game of Thrones, having missed it, and then wrapped up the evening with a couple of drinks from room service.

Sister Trip to Michigan: Part II
Sister Trip to Michigan: Part III

Pieter and Maria: Part III

(Part I and Part II)

In mid-to-late 1872, Pieter and Maria (Van Klinken) Ton moved from Cincinnati to Grand Rapids, Michigan with their three daughters, Nellie, Mary, and Jennie (my ancestor), who were about 11, 8, and 5 years old, respectively.

Left behind in the area were Maria's oldest daughter, Cornelia "Kate" Van Klinken and her husband Joseph Meyers, who settled across the Ohio River in Newport, Campbell Co., Kentucky. They eventually had two children, neither of whom married or had children themselves.

Also left behind were Maria's sister, Adriana Van Klinken and her husband Leendert "Leonard" Klinke, who lived in Cincinnati. They eventually had four children, none of whom married or had children, either.

Finally, Pieter's widowed brother-in-law, Izak Pape, and his son Jacob also remained in Cincinnati. It's unknown at this time if Jacob had any descendants. It's likely Pieter and Maria never saw these family members again.

In Grand Rapids, they were joined by Maria's brother, Johannes "John" Van Klinken, who apparently immigrated about 10 years after they did. It's not clear where he lived, or with whom, until he appears in the same neighborhood as them in the 1873 Grand Rapids city directory. That year, John married Barendina "Dena" Lendering. They had two boys who did not survive infancy.

Pieter continued to work as a laborer in Grand Rapids. He and his family attended First Christian Reformed Church, located then at 58 Commerce Ave., SW. On 17 June 1874, he died of consumption. While that term was used most frequently to describe tuberculosis, "an infectious bacterial disease characterized by the growth of nodules (tubercles) in the tissues, especially the lungs" (Wikipedia), it's quite possible it may have been lung cancer caused by his exposure to white lead. We do not have a burial location for him, as the city did not start recording burials until about three months after he died.

Without a husband, Maria had no means to support herself and her three young daughters. A year later, she married a widower who lived down the street, Dirk Bijl (Byle), who had a ten year-old son, and a five-year-old daughter. Sadly, Maria herself died 22 April 1878 of dropsy, an old term for edema, "a condition characterized by an excess of watery fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of the body."

Maria was buried in the Potter's Field of Valley City Cemetery, now a part of Oakhill Cemetery. It's very likely that Pieter had been buried there, too. There are no plot maps for this area, and few tombstones. Across a path from Potter's Field, Maria's brother John Van Klinken is buried in a identified plot. When I planned my trip to Western Michigan for early May 2019, I put Oakhill on my list of places to see. (Update: here is my post about the visit to the cemetery.)

Potter's Field, Southeast Corner of Oakhill Cemetery, Grand Rapids, Kent Co., Michigan
Taken for me by Chris Korstange, 2007

Dirk Bijl remarried shortly after. Not wanted in their step-father and step-mother's home, the older girls, Nellie and Mary, worked as maids, living at those homes or in boarding houses. Nellie eventually married Martin Huisman (Houseman) and had six children. Mary married Charles Jerome Cleveland and lived in Muskegon, Michigan. They had one daughter.

Jennie went to live with her Uncle John and Aunt Dina Van Klinken. She had no more than a third-grade education. For a time, she lived with Mary and Charles in Muskegon. Eventually, she became a laundress, and that is probably how she met my ancestor, Martin Jans Hoekstra, who was a teamster, driving a delivery wagon for the American Steam Laundry Company in Grand Rapids.  A laundress' life was hard, hot, dirty, muggy, and dangerous work in commercial laundries.  Google has a historic book about what it was like: https://books.google.com/books?id=g55NAAAAYAAJ&lr=.  She was probably glad to give up the life of a laundress and start her life as a housewife.

Martin and Jennie married in 1886 and had four children, including my great-grandfather, John Martin Hoekstra. His daughter, my grandmother Ruth, had many fond memories of Jennie, who died when Grandma was 24.

I have a precious scrap of paper written by Jennie, with a few short memories of her parents scribbled on it: "I, remember when my mother was kind to me, and took the long walk, with her. Sundays after-noon. and her Love. I, remember the walk, my Father and I, took one evening. in Cincinnati Ohio: the Father's day. and mother's days are a blessing. Sunday Feb 14 - 1943."

I get emotional every time I read Jennie's note. She was not quite 7 when her father died, and almost 11 when her mother died. You can tell by her writing she was not well educated, but I'm so glad she took the time to share the few memories she had of her parents.

The Short Life and Tragic Death of Maria "Maggie" HOEKSTRA (1878 - 1890)

It was a typical evening; nothing out of the ordinary. Twelve-year-old Maria Hoekstra was heading home with her father and two neighbor boys from a visit to a family friend. Likely it was chilly that evening of December 7, 1890 as they made their way toward their home on Thirteenth Street near Market (now Central). Their route took them where the Chicago and West Michigan Railroad tracks crossed Tenth Street between Fish and Land Streets (now Columbia and Lincoln) on what was then the eastern edge of Holland, Michigan, just a couple blocks east of Hope College. In their way was a parked train. Not to be deterred, 15-year-old Jerry Dykstra and 22-year-old Peter Van Dyk jumped over the couplings between two freight cars. What happened next is unclear. One version says Maria's father was helping her over the couplings. A more detailed account said she was attempting to scramble over by herself. But then, the train started to move....

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Historical map of Chicago and West Michigan Railroad crossing at Tenth Street, Holland, Michigan. Digital image from page 41 of Standard atlas of Ottawa County, Michigan...., compiled and published by George A. Ogle & Co., 1897. Loutit Library Local History Resources. http://www.loutitlibrary.org/local-history-resources : 2015.

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Modern map of Amtrak Railroad crossing at Tenth Street, Holland, Michigan. Digital image. Google Maps. http://maps.google.com : 2015.

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She had to have been brave; perhaps a bit of a tomboy. Skirts wouldn't have held her back. Can't you see her trying to keep up with the two older boys? She had to have had spunk, that girl. Yet her short life and tragic death were not given much note in the Family Record book of my maternal great-grandparents, John and Lillian Hoekstra. On page 94, in the section titled "Husband's Uncles and Aunts - Paternal," John had written just a few lines regarding his paternal aunt, who died two years before he was born:

Full name: Maggie Hoekstra

Place and date of birth: Holland Mich. about 1877

Language: Dutch

Date and cause of death: Accidental death when 13 years old.

Where buried: Pilgrim Cemetery, Holland Mich

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Hoekstra, John Martin and Lillian Fern (Strong). Family Record Book, Chicago: S. B. Shaw, 1902. Privately held by Miriam Robbins, Spokane, Washington. c. 2000.

Like much of the information in this book, the details of Maria's life are a bit off from the facts, mainly because it was written down from memories and oral history, rather from researching records. But I immediately recognized an untold story. What was the accident that killed young Maggie/Maria? Could I find more? How? It's difficult enough to locate records and stories of ancestors that lived long lives; unfolding the details of a short life would be even more challenging.

1852 painting of the Arnold Böninger. Palmer List of Merchant Vessels. http://www.geocities.org/mppraetorius/com-ar.htm : 2003.

On a late spring day in 1867, a weary middle-aged man boarded the Prussian sailing ship Arnold Böninger in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Accompanying him was Geertruida, his 15-year-old daughter, the only survivor of three sets of twins that Jan Martens Hoekstra and Pieterke VanTil had borne. Pieterke herself had died only two years earlier; this move to America was Jan's chance for a new life. He and Geertruida had made their way south from their home in Ulrum in the northern province of Groningen. Their destination was Holland, Ottawa County, Michigan, a city of Dutch expatriates seeking religious freedom and a better economy who had settled the area under the leadership of Pastor Albertus C. Van Raalte of the Christian Seceded Church, of which Jan was a member. After arriving in New York City on June 11th, the Hoekstras made their way to Holland, where Jan found work as a servant.

Only eleven days earlier, the British steamship Iowa had arrived in New York City from Glasgow carrying another widowed Dutch immigrant, 35-year-old Grietje (Jonker) Dekker, her twelve-year-old daughter, Cathrena, and nine-year-old son, Freek. Like Jan, Grietje had known her share of sorrow. Within five years she had buried her husband, a son, and her parents. Her orphaned younger brothers, Willem and Henderikus, ages 25 and 15 respectively, were traveling along and looking forward to a new beginning as well. Grietje also became a servant and her brothers found jobs as carpenters in nearby Spring Lake Township.

By late October, Jan and Grietje were married. Neither the short four months between immigration and marriage nor the twelve-year age difference between the couple were surprising; Grietje's home town in the Netherlands was Kloosterburen, situated a mere seven-kilometer (4.3-mile) walk northeast of Ulrum. It was very likely the Hoekstra, Jonker, and Dekker families knew each other prior to immigration. Even if they hadn't, Holland was a small town. Jan and Grietje may have worked in the same household and likely attended services together, probably at the Ninth Street Holland Christian Reformed Church. Besides, marriage in those days was as much about necessity and survival as about love.

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Michigan. Ottawa County. Birth Records. 1878. Digital image. FamilySearch.org, "Michigan Births, 1867-1902." http://www.familysearch.org : 2014.
Maria's birth is record 190; the 10th entry on these pages.

Jan and Grietje added more children to their blended family. Their first child was my great-great-grandfather, Martin, born in 1868. Then came the first Maria, born in 1870, who died shortly before her third birthday from liver cancer. Fonytje ("Finnie") was born in 1874, and the second Maria, the subject of this story, was born 4 April 1878. In addition, the Family Record book states that two sets of twins were born to Jan and Grietje and died in infancy. In those days, families generally had children every two years, a natural cycle of pregnancy, nursing (which usually suppresses conception), and weaning; it's possible those sets of twins were born in the years 1872 and 1876. A burial of 10 September 1874 for "a child of Jan Hoekstra" has been found in the Pilgrim Home Cemetery records; whether that is one of the twins born c. 1872 or a possible twin of Finnie is up for speculation. Perhaps it is a different family altogether. Although Michigan kept birth and death records beginning in 1867, until 1897 (deaths) and 1902 (births) they were done annually census-style, and thus many individuals were missed. Regardless, we know from the 1880 Federal Census that only three children survived the very dangerous years of infant and early childhood mortality: Martin, Finnie, and (the second) Maria.

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Michigan. Ottawa County. 1880 U.S. census, population schedule. Digital image. Ancestry.com. http://www.ancestry.com : 2007.
The Hoekstra family is enumerated on lines 16-20.

Typical of many of my Frisian-Dutch immigrant family members, Maria was known by several names. She is recorded as Maria (misspelled "Maia") in the county birth record. But we know from a later newspaper account that she generally went by "Maitje," which to the ears of English speakers probably sounded a lot like "Maggie." While the official recorders of that time were probably familiar with Dutch names, they may not have been as familiar with Frisian spellings and name variations. These English, Dutch, and Frisian variations and spellings create challenges when attempting to locate individuals in official records. For instance, I have yet to find this family enumerated on the 1884 Michigan State Census, even after scrolling image by image through the online pages at Seeking Michigan.

With these difficulties, could I find the complete story of Maria? I was able to locate her record in the Return of Deaths for Ottawa County that gave me an important detail: the cause of death was a railroad accident.

Click on the images to enlarge.
Michigan. Ottawa County. Death Records. 1890. FamilySearch.org, "Michigan Deaths, 1867-1897." http://www.familysearch.org : 2015.
Maggie's entry is record 275; the 11th entry on each page. The date of death is incorrect; according to a newspaper article published on 13 December 1890, she died on the 7th (not the 17th) of December.

In 2006, I created a memorial page for Maria at Find A Grave, after discovering her burial while searching for other family members in the Pilgrim Home Cemetery tombstone transcriptions on microfilm. In 2013, a Find A Grave volunteer kindly took this photograph for me of the tombstone Maria shares with her mother (the birth and death years are off):

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Grave of Maria Hoekstra, Block M, Lot 35, Pilgrim Home Cemetery, Holland, Ottawa County, Michigan. Digital photograph by Find A Grave volunteer "Scout" and privately held by Miriam Robbins, Spokane, Washington. 2013.

But what was the story? Attempting to locate online newspapers or city directories for further information on the family proved futile. However, one day in April, a Find A Grave volunteer contacted me and informed me that the Saline Observer from Saline, Washtenaw County, Michigan, had an online article about the accident:

“State News Condensed,” Saline (Michigan) Observer, 18 December 1890, p. 8, col. 2; digital image, CMU Online Digital Object Repository (http://condor.cmich.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/salineobs : 2015), MDNP-Washtenaw-Saline Observer.

When I posted my find on Facebook, an Ottawa County genealogy friend of mine volunteered to look in the Holland City News archives at the Herrick District Library in Holland. She hit pay dirt:

“A Tragic Death,” Holland (Michigan) City News, 13 December 1890, p. 4.

So now I have the rest of the story. Ironically, in 2000, my family took Amtrak from Spokane, Washington back to Grand Rapids, Michigan. We would have crossed the very site of Maria's tragic death, shown here in Google Maps Street View:

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Amtrak Railroad crossing at Tenth Street, Holland, Michigan. Digital image. Google Maps Street View. http://maps.google.com : 2015.
View looking west on Tenth Street.

What remains to finish my research and honor the life of young Maria? I hope to access the original inquest report and perhaps discover church records for this one whose life was cut much too short. Someday, I'd like to visit Holland again, find the home (or site) where the Hoekstra family lived, visit this railroad crossing, and lay a flower at Maria's grave.

(Coincidentally, today marks 125 years since Maria's death. I did not even realize this until I opened the draft, written months ago, to add citations and put in the finishing touches. She has been "haunting" me to tell her story all year. I hope she rests in peace.)

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I could not have fleshed out the skeleton of Maria's story without help from a number of people. First of all, thanks to Find A Grave photo volunteers "genealogymaster1" and "Scout" for taking photos of Maria's grave. Secondly, to Find A Grave contributer Pat Harney, who discovered the Saline Observer article, and took the time to contact me. Huge thanks is due to genealogy Facebook friend, Mary Raper, who went to the Herrick District Library and found the detailed article in the Holland City News and verified the publication date, which clarified Maria's death and burial dates (there were conflicting dates in various records). Finally, I thank my cousin Michelle "Missy" (Hovenkamp) Alkema, who is a descendant of Finnie Hoekstra VanTil, sister of my Martin and of Maria. Missy researched and provided evidence of Grietje's immigration on the ship Iowa through a very incorrect passsenger list and a number of vital and immigration records in online Dutch collections. It is so fun to have a co-researcher on our mutual Hoekstra line!

Tuesday's Tip: Exploring Ancestry's "U.S., Northern Pacific Railway Company Personnel Files, 1890-1960" Database

Last April, I wrote a Tuesday's Tip on using the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association website. Imagine then my delight when I realized that Ancestry.com had recently updated a new-to-me database called "U.S., Northern Pacific Railway Company Personnel Files, 1890-1960."

Here is a screenshot of the description of the database:

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Please note that although the description says the company was in Minnesota, that is where its headquarters were. The line stretched for 6,800 miles across the northern tier of the United States from Wisconsin to Washington State, so if your ancestors lived in any of those states, and perhaps even in adjoining ones, they well could have been employed by the NPR. Additionally, even if you have found your ancestor's occupation to be a farmer or some such other trade, don't hesitate to check this database. According to the description, "some farmers took railroad jobs during the winter and requested leaves of absence during the summers to work their family farms." Such seems to have been the case of my children's great-great-grandfather, George Rice WESTABY, III.

I did a simple surname search for "westaby" in the database and it came up with the following three results:

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Besides George, the second result, I recognized the names of two of his four younger brothers, Guy Steven WESTABY and Charles Wilson WESTABY.

When I clicked on the View Images icon to the far right of George Westaby's entry, I was brought to the following screen:

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This appears to be his application to the Northern Pacific Railway in Glendive, Dawson County, Montana, dated 30 September 1913. Note it gives the names and address of his parents, as well as a physical description of himself.

A few images later, I found the following document, a resignation which was dated a year earlier (12 October 1912), and had his personnel file number (79761) written on it:

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Apparently, like the database description states, George took occasional leaves of absence to work other jobs or help his family. The following document "How and Where Previously Occupied" shows George's work history. You can see he was helping his father, George "Rice" WESTABY, II on his farm from 2 August 1910 to 28 May 1911. This was one of several such cards in his file:

(click on image to enlarge)

The card also contained his signature at the bottom:

I decided to see how many images of documents I could find in George's file. The filmstrip feature made it easy to scroll back and forth. First I clicked on the filmstrip icon near the image number:

The filmstrip option then showed up at the bottom of my screen, giving me thumbnail views of the preceding and succeeding images:

(click image to enlarge)

I could also scroll to the left and the right quickly, using the arrows on each side of the screen. By using this feature, I was able to find the first and last images of George's personnel file to determine he had twenty images of documents in this database. This is important, because when you do a search on a name and then click on the "View Image" icon, you don't necessarily go to the first image in that individual's personnel file. Check backward and forward through the images, and use the personnel file number to help you. It may not appear on all documents.

Even though I knew quite a bit about George's life with the railroad from other family documents and stories, this added quite a bit more information and generated much interest on my part to this period of his life. I'm looking forward to checking out his brothers' files as well. I also searched for two other railroad ancestors of my children, John Franklin MARTIN, and John Franklin MIDKIFF, II. I was unsuccessful, but I believe "Frank" MARTIN actually worked in Idaho for a different railroad, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, a.k.a. the Milwaukee Road. John MIDKIFF was an NPR station master in Mabton, Washington, but I can't find his file. Nor can I find my own NPR ancestors, father and son Martin and John Martin HOEKSTRA, who worked as railroad carpenters and painters in Tacoma, Washington. However, the database description does state "this database does not yet include the entire collection of personnel files." More will be added at a later date.

Did you have ancestors who worked for the Northern Pacific Railway? Check out this useful database!

Disclosure: I am an affiliate for Ancestry.com, and as such, receive compensation for products advertised on and linked from this blog.

Wordless Wednesday: Jennie (TON) and Martin HOEKSTRA

Jennie (Ton) and Martin Hoekstra. 1225 Cooper Avenue SE, Grand Rapids, Kent Co., Michigan. 1932. Privately held by Miriam Robbins Midkiff, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Spokane, Washington. 2010.

Wordless Wednesday: The John M. HOEKSTRA Family, 1944

Left to right: Ruth Lillian (Hoesktra) Valk, Lillian Fern (Strong) Hoekstra, John Martin Hoekstra, Mary Louise Hoekstra, and Hope Mildred Hoekstra. 2710 Forest Grove, S.W., Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1944. Original privately held by Kathy Birnell, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Wellington,Kansas. 2007.

Good Times at Green Lake

The Hoekstra Family at Green Lake, Allegan Co., Michigan. 28 Aug 1937. Original photograph privately held by Miriam Robbins Midkiff, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Spokane, Washington. 2010.

Don't they look like they're having the time of their life? It's the Hoekstra Family, August 1937, at Green Lake in Allegan County, Michigan. When I first saw this photo about a year ago in an album that belonged to my maternal grandmother, Ruth Lillian HOEKSTRA, I immediately knew what I was going to submit for the next Swimsuit Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy!

Those hot, muggy Western Michigan summers in the days before the working man (or woman) had central air conditioning could only be relieved by going out to the local lake. All the young--and middle aged--people are dressed in swimwear, while Grandpa (standing in the back row) and Grandma (sitting on the far right) are more suitably dressed for their generation, despite the heat. Grandpa and Grandma are my 2nd-great-grandparents, Martin and Jennie (TON) HOEKSTRA, both first-generation Americans, and are making their online photo debut! Their son, John Martin HOEKSTRA, is my great-grandfather, and he is the man in the front peeking through the inner tube. His sister, Grace, is sitting on the far left. Her husband, Adrian KLAP, is kneeling on her left behind her. Between Grace and John are four girl cousins, left to right: Ruth HOEKSTRA (my grandmother, age 18), Esther KLAP (unknown age, probably 10-12), Marian KLAP (age 14), and Mary Louise HOEKSTRA (age 14). The tall girl standing in the back is Hope Mildred HOEKSTRA (age 16). My great-grandmother, Lillian Fern (STRONG) HOEKSTRA probably took this photo. Grace and Adrian's eldest two children, John and Dorothy, do not appear. They were in their 20s and probably had their own families by this time.

I don't know if this cabin was rented or owned by any of the HOEKSTRA family. But it's obvious that they were there for at least the day, enjoying themselves, swimming, boating, and probably picnicking. I can almost hear that old tune, "In the good old summertime..." playing in the background!

Written for the 95th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy: The Annual Swimsuit Edition

Fearless Females Prompt 5

March 5 — How did they meet?  You’ve documented marriages, now, go back a bit.  Do you know the story of how your parents met?  Your grandparents?

In my mother's wedding book, there is a place to write about how her parents and my dad's parents met. She titled it "No Love at First Sight!"  It seems neither set of grandparents hit it off at first.

My mother's mother and stepfather, Ruth Lillian (HOEKSTRA) VALK and Adrian DeVRIES:

June 27, 1947 - They were each invited to a picnic on a Sunday afternoon given by mutual friends: 2 married couples. It was a blind date!! He was shy and mostly played with the one couple's small boy and ignored Mom. When he did speak that evening, and after he saw Mom's house and me, he started criticizing the way she did things. She vowed never again with him or fall in love with him. (They were married October 3, 1947). [Miriam's note: They were married for nearly 54 years!]

My mother didn't write about how her biological father and mother met. I do know that my grandfather's sister Barbara was my grandmother's very good friend, so that is likely how they met.

My father's parents, Robert Lewis ROBBINS and Jeanne Marie HOLST:

She was in a drugstore Sunday morning in April before church. He came in after a night on the town and sat down--the minister's son was in between them. Dad asked him to introduce Mom. PK [preacher's kid] did and they had a date that night. They were married in October--Columbus Day, same year--1940.

P.S. She though he was awful cocky and secretly, was amused at him.

[Miriam's note: Somehow my grandfather discovered that the pretty girl he was trying to impress was the daughter of the farmer who grew cantaloupes, his favorite fruit...AND the owner of the farm where he'd been swiping the melons! Eventually, my grandfather won over my grandmother. She was still in high school; after 10th grade, she no longer attended--something fairly usual in those days. They were married the following fall; it was to last 63 years.]

My own parents met while both were camping at Silver Lake State Park in Western Michigan. You can read more about it here.

For more on the Fearless Females Blogging Prompts, visit The Accidental Genealogist.

Surname Saturday: HOEKSTRA

The HOEKSTRA line is my maternal grandmother's line. The name is Frisian and means "from the corner." In English, it is pronounced "HOOK-struh." There are many, many people with this surname whose roots originated from the provinces of Friesland and Groningen in the Netherlands, and since it is a common descriptive location surname, these families are usually not related to each other.

Stories and History:

The HOEKSTRA Family History on my website.

Ahnentafel #224 - Liewe HOEKSTRA (b. c. 1750) - my earliest known ancestor of this line may not even have used the surname HOEKSTRA, since surnames were not required until 1811 in the Netherlands. The only reason I even know his first name is because of the use of patronymics: using the father's first name as an identifying surname, or middle name (once official surnames were used).

Ahnentfael #112 - Marten Liewes HOEKSTRA (c. 1775 - bef. 1847) - the only thing I really know about this ancestor is that he married a 43-year-old woman, Fokeltje Jans HAAN, on 14 November 1820 in the municipality (similar to American counties) of Westdongeradeel, Friesland, the Netherlands, and died before she did on 22 Jul 1847, because her death record states she is a widow. They apparently had only one child, my ancestor listed next, who was born eight months before they were married, a situation not at all as scandalous as it would have been if it had happened in New England at that time.

Ahnentafel #56 - Jan Martens HOEKSTRA (1820 - 1909) - Jan was my immigrant ancestor. His first marriage ended when his wife died young and although they had had many children together (including two sets of twins), all died except one child, Geertruida, who accompanied him at the age of 12 in 1867 from Ulrum, Groningen, the Netherlands, to Holland, Ottawa Co., Michigan. Here he immediately married a widow with two children, Grietje (JONKER) DEKKER. Jan and Grietje had several children together, but only two survived, one of which was my great-great-grandfather. After Grietje's death, Jan married yet another widow in his elder years.

Ahnentafel #28 - Martin HOEKSTRA (1868 - 1944) - Originally working as a teamster for a laundry company in Grand Rapids, Kent Co., Michigan, where he probably met his wife, Janna "Jennie" TON (a laundress), he later got into carpenty work, both for the railroad and as a private contractor building houses. His railroad carpentry work got him a job for a couple of years in Tacoma, Pierce Co., Washington, a surprising discovery for me when I realized I wasn't the first of my family line to live in this state.

Ahnentafel #14 - John Martin HOEKSTRA (1892 - 1975) - I have a few faint memories of my great-grandfather, whom I last saw when I was five. They have been recorded in my AnceStory of him here.

Ahnentafel #7 - Ruth Lillian HOEKSTRA - (1919 - 2001) - my dear maternal grandmother. You can read her AnceStory here.

Ahnentafel #3 - my mother (living)

Ahnentafel #1 - myself

More about the HOEKSTRA family:

1. Online database (I update this at least once a month): HOEKSTRA ancestors and relatives (no info on living persons available).

2. Some HOEKSTRA obituaries

3. Posts about HOEKSTRA ancestors and relatives on this blog

4. Some scanned HOEKSTRA documents (more here)

5. Some scanned HOEKSTRA photos

6. Baby Book of Ruth Lillian HOEKSTRA

7. HOEKSTRA - STRONG Family Record Book - not completely scanned and uploaded

8. My HOEKSTRA Virtual Cemetery on Find A Grave


My HOEKSTRA immigration trail:

Holwerd, Westdongeradeel, Friesland, the Netherlands > Ulrum, Groningen, the Netherlands > Ottawa Co., MI > Kent Co., MI > Pierce Co., WA > Kent Co., MI > AK > Stevens Co., WA > Spokane Co., WA

Bling! Bling! My Garnet Ring

This garnet ring once belonged to my maternal grandmother, Ruth Lillian HOEKSTRA VALK DeVRIES. It's probably not extraordinarily valuable, although it does have four genuine garnets and is made of 14K gold. Garnets are not my birthstones; aquamarines are, having a March birth. It's not even an antique, but it's worth to me is in its sentimental value and the story of love behind it.

Ruth's mother, my great-grandmother Lillian Fern STRONG HOEKSTRA, was born January 10, 1897. The birthstone for January is the garnet. Over the years, my great-grandmother received several pieces of jewelry adorned with her red birthstone from my great-grandfather, John Martin HOEKSTRA. A little more than a year after Lillian died in 1967, John married their housekeeper, Anna STULP. Several years later, I recall overhearing a conversation between my parents. Apparently my mother had received a phone call or a letter from her mother in Western Michigan, in which my grandmother shared her frustration that her father had given Anna the garnet jewelry that once had belonged to her mother. Although I'm not sure, it possible that this occurred in early 1976, shortly after my great-grandfather's death in December of the previous year. It may be that this gift of the garnet jewelry to Anna was decreed in John's will; I'm not sure. Regardless, my grandmother was upset for a couple of reasons: she felt the jewelry, having belonged to her mother, ought to go to her and her sisters (it may even be that her mother once indicated it would); and also, my grandmother, having a January birthday herself, probably felt that having garnet jewelry would be extra special.

You must also understand that my grandmother was a generous, friendly person, and never a small, mean individual. My grandfather managed his money well, so although they lived frugally, they well could have afforded some nice jewelry. So Ruth's distress was not out of financial need, but was exacerbated by the fact that she felt she could not go to Anna and ask for the jewelry without appearing to be selfish and demanding.

From my childhood memory of the occasion, I believe I remember my mother being upset as well over the situation. I also believe that it was my father who came to the rescue and suggested that for their (birthday?) gift to my grandmother, they would order a nice garnet ring for her. It was likely ordered through Jafco, which is where we ordered all our jewelry in those days, living as we were far from any major stores on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska.

The ring was ordered and shipped to my grandmother. I know that she loved it and thanked my parents profusely. She was wearing the ring when I last saw her when I visited her in Grand Rapids in October 2000. The garnet jewelry of my great-grandmother's was not mentioned again, to my knowledge. After Anna's death in 1992, her family probably inherited it. It doesn't matter; to me, this ring is a precious statement of the love my parents had for my grandmother. When she died in 2001, I inherited it.

I don't wear it often; it slips on my ring finger just fine, but my knuckles tend to swell during the day, and often by afternoon, I can't get it off. Since I tend to be claustrophobic about such things, I wear it for special occasions only, for short periods of time. I never put it on without remembering the story behind it; someday, I hope to pass it on to either my daughter or a granddaughter.

Written for the 16th Edition of the "I Smile for the Camera" Carnival - Bling, Ancestor Bling

Friday Findings: DeVRIES and other Dutch Lines

The last couple of weeks have just been rather crazy and chaotic, and although I did have some great finds, keeping up with blogging about it wasn't easy.

The first big find was when Henk van Kampen read my DeVRIES Surname Saturday post and left a comment, having found more information on this family. I am so excited, because I was able to trace this line back another two generations, using data that has been added to Tresoar (the Frisian Historical and Literary Centre) since I last researched this line!

Then my distant VALK cousin, Anja van Huesden, was looking at my online database and found more information on my JONKER line in the Province of Groningen. Groningen has long had their marriage records indexed on Genlias, but thanks to Anja, I discovered that birth and death records for my ancestral town of Kloosterburen have been added to Genlias. I was able to obtain specific birth and death dates for a few of my ancestors (instead of the "c. 1809" type dates used from their ages at the time of marriage). Plus, I discovered that my HOEKSTRA 3rd-great-grandfather and his first wife actually had eight children, instead of two before the wife died. Most of these were twins, and all died young, except for Gertrude, who accompanied my widowed 3rd-great-grandfather to America in 1867. When my uncle brought me a bunch of old family photos, I found a couple of Gertrude as an elderly lady. She was my 2nd-great-grandfather HOEKSTRA's older half-sister.

One of my husband's maternal cousins friended me on Facebook. Besides being glad we are back in touch after so many years, I am delighted to be in contact with her because she has always had an interest in genealogy. I have asked her to keep an eye out for old family photos, since there seem to be so very few in existence in my mother-in-law's family.

Genealogical Publishing Company has been having fabulous book sales on Fridays. Last Friday, I ordered Virginia Genealogy by Carol McGinnis. I have her Michigan Genealogy, which I've raved about before on this blog many times, so I expect to learn much about how to research in Virginia and how and where records were/are kept. Although I have no Virginia ancestry, my husband has a multitude of lines from that state. (Yippee! It just arrived in today's mail!)

Speaking of ordering, I'm going to renew my Footnote subscription for another 12 months at the reduced rate of $59.95 ($20 off the cost of annual subscriptions after today).

Lastly, I received the July issue of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Interesting and scholarly reading here, impressing me on the importance of citing one's sources!

Friday Findings: My Swedish Line, KLAP, MIDKIFF, DICKINSON, Free and Low-Cost Resources

On Sunday, I worked on my adoptive great-grandmother's (Ida Carlotta GUSTAFSDOTTER) Swedish line. Anna-Karin had done some lookups for me with her resources quite a while ago and using the information she found, I was able to then trace back another two generations of ancestors, along with many collateral relatives. My main source was the International Genealogical Index and the Vital Record Index on FamilySearch, and while I know that the IGI is not always very reliable, the records I found seemed to be consistent with other information I found, and precise in date and location. I also spent some time on Swedish database websites found on Cyndi's List of Swedish websites, but what little records I found that could possibly be my family's required paying subscriptions.

Received an email from a KLAP descendant. My great-grandfather HOEKSTRA's older sister, Grace, married Adrian KLAP, and the individual who contacted me states that Adrian's uncle married his great-grandfather's sister. That particular line immigrated to Australia in 1950. I will add the info to my database, in case I come in contact with a descendant of Aunt Grace.

Received an email from a possible MIDKIFF descendant, as well as from a woman researching the 44th Indiana Infantry who has info to share regarding my ancestor, Ezra DICKINSON.

An amazing array of free and low-cost resources continue to be listed on my discussion forum at GenealogyWise. I have found some wonderful sites and gotten some ideas for offline resources, too, and I'm sure you'll appreciate them as well. Check them out!

Friday Findings: A Potluck of Goodies

This week brought a hodgepodge of different genealogical goodies my way!

The Photo Album
I've been reviewing and analyzing the contents of a photograph album/scrapbook that my maternal great-grandmother kept (one of the items my uncle brought out to us from Michigan). It's not complete, as many photos were either lost or were removed to give to descendants of her three daughters. What was left in the album were photos and birth announcements of many extended family members and my uncle felt that I, of all people, would be able to identify many of the individuals that were unknown to him or other family members.

My great-grandmother was an invalid for the last 15 or 20 years of her life, and she spent much of her time in bed, labeling photographs in albums and writing in her Family Record book (which I also inherited) during the days when she felt well enough to do so. Of course, this is a boon to me, and I have been going back and forth between the labeled photos and the descriptions she listed of family members, friends, and neighbors in the Family Record book, as well as checking vital and census records at Ancestry, FamilySearch's Record Search, and SeekingMichigan. By doing so, I was able to figure out who some of the cousins she had listed were: the LANINGA "children" (they were elderly in the photos) were children of my great-grandfather's father's older half-sister, Geertje "Gertrude" (HOEKSTRA) LANINGA. In my records, I had three children listed for Aunt Gert, one of whom died at age 18; the photos showed four children, allowing me to add two more to the family tree. One of the daughters' photos listed her married surname and I was able to find her marriage record and her sister's birth record on FamilySearch Record Search (earlier attempts to find more children in this family group had been unsuccessful because the transcriptions of their name were spelled wrong).

Now I'm trying to get more information on the STRONG family, which is the maiden name of my great-grandmother. There are many photos and birth announcements of children and grandchildren of my great-grandmother's siblings. There were seven children who survived childhood in this family, and several of them had multiple marriages, so compiling a complete list of descendants has been tricky. The album is helping, but also challenging me, where some names and dates do not "jive".

Scanning Large Items
I also mentioned last week that I scanned a large number of photos and some documents that belonged to my mother. My flatbed scanner scans items at the standard 8 1/2" x 11" size, but there were a couple of larger photos, and rather than photograph them, which would create a .jpg file, I decided to see if I could take them to a copy shop and get them scanned into a .tif file. I called my neighborhood Office Depot and found out that they could scan items up to 11" x 17", so I brought a couple of large photos AND the marriage certificate of my ROBBINS great-grandparents (one of my goals for MayDay - better late than never, I say!). The copy clerk told me she could scan items in 300 or 600 dpi (dots per inch) resolution, in color or black-and-white, and in .jpg, .tif, or .pdf file formats. The first scan cost me $2.95, with each additional scans being .25 each! That is, I had three different things scanned and it only cost me $3.45 plus sales tax! The only problem is, the marriage certificate was larger than 11" x 17" and I had asked to have it centered to fit as much of the main document in the scan as possible, as it had wide margins on all four sides. However, when I viewed the file at home, it had been scanned from the bottom edge up, and the top part of the document, including the title, was cut off. I'll need to get it rescanned and ask the clerk to either try to center it again, or scan it from the top down, as there is a larger margin at the bottom of the document than at the top. This document was rolled up and its cracks and tears taped, which of course has damaged it greatly. When I got it, I slowly unrolled just a bit of it at a time, sandwiched between layers of cloth to protect it and using books to weigh down the unrolled edge until it could lie flat. It will deteriorate; there is no stopping that process, but by scanning it, I can preserve what it once looked like, and even perhaps clean up the image a bit to remove the yellow tape stains.

So there you go: if you have some large items too big for your scanner, call a copy shop! And make sure they handle your items with care (I brought my scanning gloves along).

Birth Certificates
I've been interested in genealogy for 30 years as of this summer, actively researching records for 15 years, have been a mother nearly 19 years, and only this week obtained the last of the birth certificates for my immediate family! Yes, that's right, I have birth certificates and birth records for great-great-grandparents and didn't have my own kids' documents (other than hospital certificates)! The motivation? My son got his driver's permit and the State of Washington has become increasingly picky about citizenship documentation, so what was acceptable two years ago when my daughter received her permit is no longer so. I figured since I was at the county public health building picking up my son's certificate, I might as well get my daughter's. My parents gave me mine a few years ago, and we purchased my children's father's three years ago when he had to prove citizenship while working for a company that contracted with the military. And yes, the kids' certificates will go in our safe deposit box.

Busy, Busy, Busy
I didn't work at all on my Online City, County, and Rural Directory Site since I was busy playing around with two new websites. First of all, I became a member of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society (NEHGS) - a great society if you have ancestors from New England, New York, French and Atlantic Canada, or mid-Atlantic states, or have Jewish, Irish, Scottish, or African-American roots. They have a $15 off special on their annual membership through the end of July now which offers access to their online and premium databases, a subscription to two publications, and discounts to a variety of goods and services (DNA, research assistance). The other website that has kept me busy is GenealogyWise, and I wrote about this earlier here. I also spent a lot of time preparing posts that my team members at the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society blog, Donna and Charles, had pre-written, getting them scheduled to be posted. My intent is to get a lot of publicity for the Washington State Genealogical Society 2009 State Conference through our blog, Facebook, Twitter, and GenealogyWise.

Publications
Both NEHGS and RootsWeb sent me their free electronic newsletters via e-mail this week. You do not have to have any kind of membership to receive them, and they are always chock full of genealogical goodies. Click on the links to sign up for these freebies yourself!

Home and Neighborhood History
This week an elderly woman stopped by with her daughter. This woman had lived in our home for 20-some years as a renter back in the 70s and 80s. She had all kinds of stories to tell about the house and the neighborhood. In addition, she had gone to school with a girl that had grown up in this house in the late 30s and early 40s, who had related the ghost story to her. However, it was a bit more chilling than what we had originally heard. Apparently, the story goes, two sisters lived here and one of them murdered the other and buried the victim in the basement. Supposedly, people heard the ghost of the murdered girl when they went into the basement. It so bothered the woman who lived here in the 70s and 80s that she had a priest come and bless the house. I don't believe that this story is true...I think it had its roots in the tale two sisters made up during the Depression years to get out of paying the rent. However, I will do a little investigation with city directories and old newspapers to see what I can find.

That same evening, I was talking to my 30-something next-door neighbor who told me she had grown up in a house over in the next block. She, too, had stories to share about the neighborhood. I felt like I had done some time traveling that day, having listened to tales encompassing seven decades!

Carbonite
Is your genealogy protected? Our main computer has been down for nearly two months, now, and attempts to get parts and repair it have been both frustratingly long and unsuccessful (we may actually have to take it to a shop!). It's especially been difficult not having easy access to my genealogy document and photo files, but I do have access, nonetheless. I have had everything backed up by Carbonite, and while my laptops do not have the room to download everything I need, I can remotely access a few things at a time. I spent some time this week doing an online chat with customer service to make sure those files and folders still are safe in online storage, although we are running out of time to reinstall everything. I am hoping that a) our hard drive was not damaged when the power supply blew; and b) if that is so, we'll be able to reinstall everything smoothly, once we get the computer back up and running. Fingers and toes crossed!

My Parents' Wedding Photo

Source: Robbins-Valk Wedding, Bride and Groom and Their Parents. Photograph. 25 Jun 1965. Original photograph in the possession of Miriam Robbins Midkiff, Spokane, Washington. 2008.

Growing up--like most little girls, I suppose--I loved to look at my parents' photo album of their wedding. The big 8" x 10" black and white glossies made them look like the movie stars I was sure they were. In addition, there were photos of members of the wedding party--my beloved aunts and uncles whom I rarely saw--and individual shots of my parents with each set of their parents, my grandparents who were like celebrities when they visited us in Alaska from their homes in Michigan.

But I never saw the photograph above until eight years ago, when I visited Michigan last and spent some time with my Grandmother DeVries, who had arranged for my husband, my children, and myself to take a memorable vacation that October. She handed me a miniature photo album filled with forty-four 3" x 4" shots, including the one above, which I had never seen before. It quickly became my favorite, showing my parents, my paternal grandparents, and both sets of my maternal grandparents (my mother's parents having divorced and remarried to other spouses).

From left to right are my paternal grandparents, Robert Lewis ROBBINS (1920 - 2003) and Jeanne Marie HOLST (living; birth name, Jane Marie YORK); my parents, Bryan Henry ROBBINS and Faith Lillian VALK; my maternal grandmother and step-grandfather, Ruth Lillian HOEKSTRA (1919 - 2001) and Adrian DeVRIES (1916 - 2007); my maternal step-grandmother and grandfather, Elaine Estelle SEIF (living) and William VALK (1912 - 1989).

This photograph was taken the evening of 25 June 1965 by Werkema Studio of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the chapel of my parents' alma mater, Grand Rapids School of the Bible and Music (now a part of Cornerstone University), Crescent Street at Bostwick Avenue.

Wordless Wednesday: Happy 43rd Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Source: Robbins-Valk Wedding, Bride and Groom and Their Parents. Photograph. 25 Jun 1965. Original photograph in the possession of Miriam Robbins Midkiff, Spokane, Washington. 2008.

The HOEKSTRA Girls

Featured in the February 23rd Edition of Terry Thornton's "Harvest from the Blog Garden" at Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi.

I learned about George Geder's Genealogy~Photography~Restoration blog through Craig Manson of GeneaBlogie, I think. George has been doing Wordless Wednesday posts for a while, both of his ancestral photos and of his fantastic own pix (he's a photographer by trade). Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I thought I'd emulate his actions here.

These two little cuties are my maternal grandmother, Ruth Lillian HOEKSTRA, and her younger sister, Hope Mildred HOEKSTRA, taken as the captions indicate, in Tacoma, Pierce County, Washington in 1921, when Grandma was 35 months old, and Hope was 13 months. This would have been in December of that year, as Grandma was born on 16 January 1919.

Ruth and Hope were the oldest of three girls born to my great-grandparents, John Martin HOEKSTRA and Lillian Fern STRONG. Originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, John, Lillian and Ruth came out West for a few years because John's parents, Martin HOEKSTRA and Jennie TON, and his brother and sister-in-law, Peter Louis Ton HOEKSTRA and Reatha Pearl DONOVAN, had also relocated there for better job opportunities. Lillian's parents, Charles Frisbe STRONG and Mary Lucy WRIGHT, were living several hundred miles south near Hubbard, Marion County, Oregon, with her brother Frank Charles STRONG. While the family was out west, Hope was born in Tacoma. The Hoekstra family returned to Michigan and remained there for the rest of their days. Mary Louise HOEKSTRA, John and Lillian's youngest daughter, was born in 1923 in Grand Rapids.

Ironically, after Hope grew up and married, she moved to Tacoma with her husband, had four children, and died and was buried there in 1968...the same city in which she was born.

Wordless Wednesday: The HOEKSTRA Girls

Source: Hoekstra, Ruth Lillian and Hope Mildred. Photograph. 1921. Original photograph in the possession of Miriam Robbins Midkiff, Spokane, Washington. 2008.

The Birth Certificate of Ruth Lillian HOEKSTRA

The image below is a photocopy of the birth certificate of my maternal grandmother, Ruth Lillian (HOEKSTRA) VALK DeVRIES, and comes from the DeVries-Hoekstra Collection:

Birth Certificate of Ruth Lillian Hoekstra, 1919

SOURCE: Michigan. Kent County. County Clerk's Office, Grand Rapids. Ruth Lillian Hoekstra birth certificate.

Certificate as to Birth

STATE OF MICHIGAN } ss.
County of Kent }

I, LEWIS J. DONOVAN, Clerk of the Circuit Court for the said County of Kent, do hereby certify that upon careful examination of the original records on file in the office of the Clerk of said County and Court, I find the following record as to the birth of Ruth Lillian Hoekstra
Date of Birth January 16, 1919
Sex Female; Color White; Legitimate
Birthplace East Grand Rapids

PARENTS

Name of Father John Martin Hoekstra Residence Grand Rapids
Name of Mother Lillian Fern Strong Residence Grand Rapids
Birthplace of Father Michigan Occupation Plater
Birthplace of Mother Michigan

All of which appears as of record dated 5/7/19 and the same being the whole of such original record of said birth as
Recorded in Liber 21 of RECORD OF BIRTH on page 382

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and official seal, at the City of Grand Rapids, in said County, this 4th day of February A. D. 1943

LEWIS J. DONOVAN, Clerk
Paul Smits [signed] Deputy

This birth certificate brought me a bit of a surprise, as I had never heard that Grandma had been born in East Grand Rapids, but instead in Grand Rapids, proper. Was East Grand Rapids a simple adjective for part of the city of Grand Rapids, or was it a separate community altogether? I searched Wikipedia and discovered that it is indeed a separate community, established as a village in 1891 and incorporated as a city in 1926. I knew from scanning Grandma's baby book that she had been born in Blodgett Hospital, but the picture postcard affixed within her baby book was merely labeled "Blodgett Memorial Hospital, Grand Rapids, Michigan." I then did a search for Blodgett and discovered this transcription of A Citizen's History of Grand Rapids, Michigan compiled and edited by William J. Etten and published in 1926 by the A. P. Johnson Company (location unknown) on the Kent County, Michigan GenWeb website. This resource told me that construction on the building began in 1914 in East Grand Rapids, verifying that Grandma's birthplace was in that community. The hospital would have been a fairly new building and probably had all the latest medical technology and conveniences. Transcripts of newspaper articles from the Grand Rapids Evening Press announcing the new hospital can be found here.

SOURCE: Ruth Lillian Hoekstra Baby Book. Privately held by Faith Valk Robbins, Colville, Washington. 2008.

So these resources together confirm that my grandmother was born at Blodgett Memorial Hospital in the Village of East Grand Rapids (now the City of East Grand Rapids), Kent County, Michigan. It was fun to discover the location on Google Earth at Latitude 42.9534° and Longitude -85.6236°. I can even see the original brick building surrounded on the south and east by more modern structures!

Other information that was interesting to me on this certificate was that my great-grandfather was listed as a "plater." My grandmother had once mentioned that her father had been a plater in a printing plant, but I wasn't too sure what that occupation entailed. After doing a little hunting, I found some information by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics on Prepress Technicians, which I believe is probably the modern version of the occupation my great-grandfather held: preparing plates of images (photographs, drawings) for printing. He may have learned this trade while a young man, as he writes in the Family Record book he and his wife kept:

[I] went to various schools and graduated from eighth grade in 1908, then started to work in a print shop for $3.00 per week. I was errand boy, swept out the shop, and learned to feed press in my spare time. However I did not stay at the print shop, as the propietor [sic] went bankrupt, I worked at a lot of various jobs. At 24, married Lillian Ferne Strong, who I got acquainted with, while working as a grocery clerk and delivery man.

Birth certificates at that time and place were not created and made available to parents at the time of their children's births, as they are now. The births were recorded in large books, called libers, in the county clerk's office. This particular document is a certified copy of the record that appears in the birth liber; in other words, the deputy clerk carefully copied the information from the birth liber onto certificate paper, then sealed and signed the document attesting to its accurate reproduction. Looking at the date that this certificate was acquired (4 Feb 1943), it appears that my grandmother may have obtained it either as preparation for marrying my grandfather on September 11th of that year, or perhaps to prove citizenship during World War II for job purposes, as I recall she said she worked at a plant that made airplane parts during the war.

My grandmother was the first of three daughters of John and Lillian; all are now deceased. She lived her whole life in Grand Rapids, passing away there on 29 August 2001. Her AnceStory (biography) and some photographs can be found on my website.