Remebering Dr. Lumbert
continue reading "Now and Then"

Rodney B. Wilson  remembered one more time
continue reading "Now and Then"

Governor gives a shout out to St. Johns family
continue reading "Now and Then"

Had it not been for St. Johns, the world might never have met Tony the Tiger
continue reading "Now and Then"

Hometown boy Dr. Mike VanRooyen in Haiti
continue reading "Now and Then"

Christmas on the train, Christmas with old friends
continue reading "Now and then"

If you have ever wondered whether the Internet has helped or harmed our sense of community, we would like to submit the following for your consideration.
Earlier this year the Paine-Gillam-Scott announced their reopening in April.   While they were promoting the upcoming exhibits, they mentioned the 100th anniversary of Scouting in the US.  Their website said in part:

One hundred years ago, in 1909, Wallace Watt of Clinton County, Michigan, joined the first Boy Scout Troop of America, and remained a Boy Scout all his life. (An Englishman, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, organized the Boy Scouts in England in 1908. He introduced them to the U.S. in 1909.) Olive Watt, the wife of Wallace (Wally), donated his Boy Scout memorabilia to the Paine-Gillam-Scott Museum. She also donated funds to have a case built for the artifacts, making the collection a traveling exhibit. Most recently, the collection was loaned to a Laingsburg, Michigan Boy Scout Troop for the kick-off of a year- long National Celebration of Boy Scouts 100th anniversary.

The post sat there all summer, and then on Tuesday a comment to the article suddenly appeared.  In it Steve Restelli wrote:

Wallace Watt was indeed a member of Troop 1 in Barre, Vermont in 1909.

Fortunately his historic artifacts have been saved by your museum since we do not have much left here in Barre as the original Scoutmaster died in 1920 and any early materials were either discarded or returned to Scotland as his widow returned to their homeland.

Here is a link to yesterdays newspaper article:

http://www.timesargus.com/article/20091026/NEWS01/910260350

My special thanks to Catherine Rumbaugh for her help in providing information on Wallace Watt.

Restelli also has a related website at http://firstboyscout.com/

We here at the SJ Indy submit that had it not been for the Internet this man might never have found this confirmation of his belief that the Scout Troop in Barre was, indeed, the first troop in the US.  And so we hail both 100 years of Scouting and the much more recent advent of the Internet.

Alpena: a walk-able city by beautiful blue water

by Rhonda, an “old” Indy writer

Four hours is not enough time to explore an area you’ve never visited before – even if your guide is a top-notch docent who happens to share a love for places that wouldn’t normally appear on “tourist” maps.

Say, for example, the cement plant and old paper mill in Alpena – or Rockport, a little known county park just north of Alpena with an abandoned pier where barges once docked and loaded massive boulders from a nearby quarry for transport on Lake Huron.

Now that’s a fun tour.

It’s easy to see why my guide has fallen in love with her adopted hometown. There’s sparkling blue water everywhere you look, from the open vista of Lake Huron seen from any number of Alpena’s lovely parks to equally pretty views along the winding Thunder Bay River that dumps into the big lake. Excellent bicycle and pedestrian pathways make it easy to keep all that water in your camera viewfinder – you can literally walk or ride pretty much around the entire city.

What a great way to see the sights – like wonderful old churches with towering spires, the marina with boats of all shapes and sizes and lovely flower gardens and parks nestled in the downtown area.

Thanks, Jean, for a great tour.

Next time let’s check out that big, old cemetery, okay?

by Jean Martin

We were enjoying ourselves the other night at a festive gathering when the conversation turned to the question of what on earth would make parents afraid to let their children listen to a short talk about the value of staying in school, a talk delivered by the President of the United States, no less. The fear, as we understand it, is that these innocent children will be brainwashed into believing . . . something.

Now you will remember that these are the same children who will come home after the first day of school minus their jackets, after riding around the county because they missed their bus stop. The ones who will have absolutely no recollection of what the teacher said they needed to do with that paper in the backpack. Yet somehow they will have absorbed every word uttered by the President. And this will presumably render them incapable of independent thought from that day forward.

“Is this some new kind of crazy?” asked a young mother.

Well, no dear, it’s not. Those of us who are blessed, or cursed, with many years and long memories know better.

There was once in St. Johns a prominent businessman who — I am not making this up — would not accept dimes in change because the dimes bore the image of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Really.

You remember FDR, don’t you? The president who said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?

This is not a new kind of crazy. It’s just the same old crazy we hoped might have disappeared forever.

by Jean Martin

We all hear about the celebrities who drive past the ghetto in their limos on the way to the airport so that they can jet into a third world country to pick up an orphan. Someimes we might wonder what the quieter luminaries are like. Are they really as nice as they seem?

We here in northern Michigan have taken the measure of one man and found him to be at least as good as he seems. Maybe better.

Like most arts organizations the folks who are working to restore the old opera house in Cheboygan and keep it functioning hit a dry patch in their fundraising efforts. It so happened, however, that the head of the Arts Council had a daughter who was married to a man whose family were very good friends of Garrison Keillor. For the two or three of you who have been living without books or a radio we might mention that Keillor is best known for his Prairie Home Companion that is broadcast on public radio stations throughout the nation. He also has written many books, one of which Barry Bauer is reading as we speak.

Having obtained Keillor’s personal email address, the Arts Council contacted him and told him what he already knew. Funding has dried up because of the economy. Foundatons are known to make donations from the proceeds of their investments, and we all know how that has gone lately.

Keillor contacted the folks in Cheboygan immediately and asked if they would allow him to appear in a fundraiser for them. They would. So they set up a date in early August and got busy selling tickets. Soon the 586 seats, going for $100 each, were sold out. When Keillor heard that, he wondered whether he might not also put on a matinee. He could, so the organizers got busy. Soon all of those tickets were sold out too.

When the big day arrived, Keillor flew in — at his own expense– with a few members of his regular cast. Once he was in Cheboygan he insisted on taking the whole Arts Council out to dinner — on his nickel. He balked when the Council told him that the motel rooms were already paid for. Once he understood that this was the motel ower’s contribution to the event, he and his cast relented and accepted their hospitality.

Organizers were hoping that each of the two shows might be about two hours long, including an intermission of course. Instead both programs were three hours long. When the matinee ended about 5 p.m., Keillor and his crew had about two hours to recharge before the next three-hour performance began. Keillor used that time to pose for photos with members of the audience and anyone else who wanted a souvenir of the big night.

The folks who have worked so hard to preserve the old opera house are still walking a few feet off the ground. The Arts Council cleared more than $100,000 in that one day, and more importantly they learned that there are people out there who value their work as much as they do.

by Jean Martin

The Thunder Bay Maritime Festival, held practicaly in our backyard, is a feature of every Independence Day in Alpena. This year the Festival featured a music tent, tall ships, free canoe rides and free entertainment for the children.

Elsewhere on the other side of the country a group of Wounded Warriors went crabbing and landed a shark.

Balloons have changed over the years too

Seeing Eweniss’s collection of hot air balloon photos from the recent Michigan Challenge Balloonfest 2009 in Howell made me remember a balloon ascension  I almost saw once when I was a kid.  That time it took them so long to fill it that it was too late to launch.   They just rolled it over on its side, and we all went home.  Bummer.

The balloon I almost saw looked a lot like the one used in this 1938 photo.

Here is what a similar launch would look like today.

Now our readers can keep track of important changes within the community between editions of the SJ Indy.

By visiting our new Twitter account you can keep up to date with the latest obituaries and the occasional mid-week update.  You will also be able to receive a notice as soon as the new SJ Indy is available every Thursday evening.

Visit us at http://twitter.com/sjindyand begin to follow us today.  Don’t have a Twitter account?  Sign up now.  It’s free — and worth every penny of it.

Alpena is thawing out.

We were inundated with a request for information on how well Alpena is thawing out this spring, so here is an update.

It has been over a month since the last ice fisherman floated under the 2nd Avenue bridge on a hunk of ice past the Federal docks and the Coast Guard station.  Now the ice is off the river and the bay and Lake Huron.

A week or so ago the freighter Cuyahogo was back in the harbor offloading more road salt.  We figure this will be enough salt to get us through May at least.

Getting to know Joe VanRooyen all over again

Over the years many people in St. Johns got to know Joe VanRooyen and his family. We visited him in his shoe repair shop; we may have visited in his home. We saw the concentration camp numbers tatooed on his arms. We knew there was a story there, a story Joe was reluctant to talk about. One day he talked a little about his young years on the run from the Nazis and camping out with the Gypsies.

A few journalists got a little information from him. Tim Hulliburger interviewed Joe in his shop once and extracted a bare bones outline of his story. Arlene Lounds discovered a deeper relationship that Joe enjoyed with Fred Meyer when she discovered that Fred’s Army Air Force group had dropped food to Joe’s mother and younger siblings in the Netherlands just as WWII was ending.

A little while ago Barry was chatting with Joe’s widow, Carolyn Cox. “Carolyn said she would go out to the workshop in the garage, and she could hear Joe talking,” Barry says. “At first she thought he was talking to himself, and then she learned that he was talking into a microphone and recording himself on tape. Having done that he put it down on paper.”

What we have for you today is that journal in which Joe recorded his memories in his own hand and in his own words.

In a foreword to Joe’s work his son, Mike, says in part:

He was a great man; a man of integrity, honesty, bravery and genuine goodness. He will be greatly missed.

“There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those.” -Mother Theresa

Joe’s early years

The war years

Moving on with life

Trudy and Joe’s Wedding Album – Hear Joe’s abbreviated version of his courtship of Trudy here too (Turn on your speakers.)

Download a copy of Joe’s Journal to your desktop. [PDF 545 kb]

Download a copy of Joe and Trudy’s Wedding Album to your desktop. [PDF 3.48 mb]

Hint: Right click on the link; choose Save Target As.
.

Joe’s early years

March 19, 1923 Wilhelmina Gasthuis (hospital) in Amsterdam: that is when and where I was born and got the name of Johannes.

Three years before my Mother, who was Johanna Wilhelmina, met a young, upcoming waiter where she worked in the hotel. His name was Willy Willigen.

After some dating they fell in love and set a date to get married sometime in the winter of 1922. Willie had school to finish to qualify for the job of head waiter, a very good profession with a bright future.

One problem was that she was Catholic, Willie was Jewish; and in the ’20s that was a problem, so they kept their plans for themselves.

Unfortunately she became pregnant, and the wedding were to take place in late summer; but he had to leave for 8 weeks to go to Florida in the U.S.A. for his schooling; but he’ll be back in time to marry her and maybe hide from the world and relatives that a baby was coming (this was a terrible shame in this time).

A tragic turn changed everything, and Willie got killed in a motorcycle accident in early 1923. So she had to face a future alone, broken dreams and shattered future.

Still the family didn’t and mustn’t know. A friend offered to help her and see her through the time and whatever would happen afterwards. She told Mother not to worry; things should turn out all-right

So on March 19 the baby was there, and the friend came to visit. She kept telling not to be concerned; everything would turn out all right. After 4-5 days, and the facts are muddled here, Mother was in a deep depression and probably didn’t care much about what was ahead for her.

Anyway, the baby was gone, and nobody knew how and where. Decisions had to be made and finally the family (mother and father) and the police were notified.

Grandpa came to Amsterdam, shocked and sad; but he was an understanding, good person, very calm and the search was on.

After several days, the police had a lead and found the baby in a cellar in Amsterdam. Whoever was responsible has never been found out, but the person disposed of the tiny infant after poisoning it and left it to die.

Rushed to the hospital, very quickly the doctors worked on bring it back and succeeded. The swollen tummy what was, “As hard as metal,” went back to normal; and the boy was on his way.

Now the problems just started, what to do with this child. They couldn’t tell anyone who the mother was; she had to get back to work and didn’t trust strangers with her baby. (This was 1923) I was christened in the St. Bonifatius Kerk (Andre Bond Str. Weesper). Grandpa had a solution. He and grandma would take care of the little one; but nobody ever could know who it was, where it came from.

The answer was in the flood of Hungarian refugees, children starving there and being send to Western Europe to Holland, who took on thousands of these hungry children.

So, there was in the Pieters’ family a new baby from Hungary; and Jo as I will call her for now, was allowed to visit once in a while, but not as the mother of course. She was to be a sister like the others still at home who very quickly adopted the baby as their little brother. It was a loving family, very very poor but it didn’t matter; there was food, little wooden shoes (klompen) and love.

My name was Jopie Pieters, the little Hungarian, what was better than Jewish I suppose; but then, it didn’t need an explanation.

Joe with his Uncle Ger

I grew up loving my Mother and Father. He worked as a laborer what meant hard work, sometimes in the bulb-fields digging for weeks, sometimes pulling barges loaded with bricks, sand or whatever.

The pulling in these days was done by men, strapped in a leather harness, what was cheaper than having horses to do that. The days were long and hard, the money small; and the winters were brutal because work was hard to find then.

We had a kitchen where we lived in, the front room (they called it the “Good Room”) was kept for special days except at night when Mother and Dad slept in the one bedstead, and I was in the other.

Those bedsteads were built in the wall with the doors closed at night (at least my door) and a small kerosene night light was on the table every night. The kitchen was cozy with a coal furnace, the kind that had the cook top, the oven and a well for water in it. Even the ironing was done, the irons were heated in the coals and the clothes go ironed after the weekly washday.

That was a full day’s work and started usually Sunday late afternoon where the big cast iron pot was filled with water, lye and soda, the fire was lit under this and boiled all night. This was done in a wooden shed away from the house; the water had to be taken out of the well with a pail on a long rope or what was more common, it came out of the rain barrel what collected water from the roof.

The washing was done on a ribbed washboard with scrub brush and green soap (Murphy’s soap) hung up to dry and take in at evening. On Saturday afternoon the house was cleaned, soup was cooking for Sunday and bread was baked.

At about 4 o’clock the tub was set on the kitchen floor for my bath, and the klompen were whitewashed and hung up to dry.

Bert would be home from work, and we would sit down for a couple hours and sing the popular songs of today. I remember, “Danny Boy,” “Ramma,” “After the dance is over,” of course in Dutch, and many others.

Sunday was Church, a walk of about 1 mile, and then dinner.

After that Mother would sit down and always had to read the paper, even sometimes upside down because very soon her eyes were heavy and the news didn’t mean anything. Dad would for that one day sit down and enjoyed his weekly cigar in his big tall leather chair.

Later we sometimes would wind up the phonograph and play records.

At school I did well and had my own slate; didn’t have many friends because being a foreigner was a little out of the ordinary.

Circus came to town one day and I was only 5 years old and couldn’t just go and see all the fascinating things I heard about. Bert en (and) Rie and Ger would talk about these wondrous things they saw; but for me, I was too little.

Until one afternoon when it became too much and I just had to venture out of the yard to see what was going on. After spending a couple of hours I had to get home before my father came home from work, and you didn’t fool around with him. He was calm but strict, and he meant what he said.

On my way back I picked up a souvenir; the black bear on the chain had fascinated me all afternoon and I took him along with me, nobody was watching!

Why people were scared I couldn’t figure out, and when I approached home, the neighbors did not welcome us; everybody ran away.

I called into the house that I was home, and Mother came out yelling where I have been and just as quick stepped back fearfully when she (neighbor?) saw us. Very soon some people came to get the bear, wouldn’t let us keep it I suppose.

Football played a big role in my life, and Sundays Thurs. were spent on the football fields.

When I was 6 years old I could go to the wedding of Rie en (and) Henk; after all, I was her little brother (this was in 1929). At about midnight a friend of the family visited for awhile. He was a night watchman and had his German Shepherd with him.

Naturally I played with the dog a bit, gave it some treats; but suddenly the dog attached and bit a good chunk out of my check at the corner of my mouth. Rushed to a doctor who did emergency repair and the orders to go to the hospital in the morning.

That was a trip with the steam street car; we left at 6 o’clock and arrived in Leiden at about 9:30. The dog had rabies, so I had to undergo treatment for this. The doctor talked to me about this; and soon I found out that this was Dr. Wamsteker, a player in our National football team and believe me, that man could do anything, sewed my mouth up, bandaged it, gave spine treatment and there were no complaints, no tears. He was my hero, and I got his picture and stories about the team to go with it.

For the next 6 weeks we made that trip a couple times a week, but everything healed all right and this turned out O.K.

When I was 8 years old there was another wedding, my sister, or so I thought. After the wedding, or a week later I was told to go with them to Heemstede where I was to stay and live with them.

My Mother en (and) Father were my Grandma and Granddad. My ‘sister’ Jo, was my Mother and Jan was my new father.

The home I lived in wasn’t my home anymore; the school was new and suddenly my familiar world turned completely upside down.

Pa was good to me and I never had any reason not to like him; it was just a very difficult adjustment, and I never really felt ‘home’ in Heemstede. In my later years I spent a lot of time with friends in Amsterdam, and that was my home town.

Played with them around the Westerkerk, the canals, but for now it was all brand new.

Things were poor in Holland; we had to move to another house, what was condemned but cheap. Mother made the house look clean and cozy. We had gas light (no electricity), and the upstairs was just one floor, no rooms, and I could find some fine snow on my blankets after a storm or ice on the [bed covers] from breathing, but somehow it didn’t do any harm. I stayed healthy.

There Hubb (Hubert) was born, and he was a very sickly baby that needed lots of attention and care.

The depression was getting worse, and there were no luxuries at all. Once a week maybe a small piece of meat to make gravy for the whole week, lots of vegetable and potatoes but we never went hungry

Shoes were another problem; I was out of the klompen (wooden shoes) and Pa would repair them, but no matter how hard he tried, it was terrible.

There was no work available; sometimes a part time job and we had some social service assistance but it was minimal. We did get some help from St. Vincent de Paul. We would get a coupon to get a pound of fat pork, some flour, and for me, I could get 2 books form the library, what would have cost 10¢ a book. Finally there came a house free, a nice clean place and that is where we moved to.

When I was 14 years old I finished school and to help out with some money, I had to find work and became a delivery boy for a produce store. No chance to go the high school, but I did go to evening school what was free. I earned $3.00 guilders (coins) a week, enough money to buy a pair of shoes, some groceries, etc. A haircut was 10¢, sugar 9¢ a pound, so the money helped out.

The Nazis had at that time some groups and set up storefronts to spread their hatred for England, America, even our Queen; and soon we would have our little group to get into fights with them, smash their windows, burned their posters and pamphlets.

In 1939 I received a scholarship to go to another school, like a community college, and went to Hibersuon to go to Drakenburg and study orthopedic; the right word is Orthopaedie. All schooling, all expenses were paid for and it looked like I was on my way to a promising future, until May 10, 1940.

The war years

Moving on with life

Trudy and Joe’s Wedding Album – Hear Joe’s abbreviated version of his courtship of Trudy here too (Turn on your speakers.)

Download a copy of Joe’s Journal to your desktop. [PDF 545 kb]
Hint: Right click on the link; choose Save Target As.

Back

The war years

The Germans invaded our country that early morning [May 10, 1940] and in 5 days it was all over; we just were no match for that army. There was a lot of fighting, Rotterdam was bombed and ten thousands of people killed in that city. The refinery outside Amsterdam was burning after bombing, and the Nazis marched on into the east side of Holland.

The Dutch are very patriotic and proud of our independence and loyalty to the Queen. Queen Wilhelmina fled to England; the Germans were trying to capture her and her family. So she was safe and set up a new government from England.

May 15 we were occupied by the hated Nazi troops. Soon we had our newspapers and radio news censored; we lost our freedom. They showed that they were the rulers. Movies were only allowed to show “their” movies; we had a curfew to be off the streets at 8 o’clock p.m. and in my school we were forced to sign a loyalty promise to the Nazis and join their party what almost all of us refused, and our school was closed.

I went back home and became an apprentice in an orthopedic shoe shop, and things were very difficult. Leather and rubber were scare; we found a way to make our own glue by buying benzyl on the black market and shred crepe rubber into that what would dissolve and become glue.

Coffee and tea was not available anymore, and we roasted chicory roots and bummed sugar and mixed that to make a surrogate coffee. We had to turn in our radios; only piped in broadcasts were allowed. I took our little radio and build that in underneath my work stool so it would not be visible, and I could listen to the 7 o’clock BBC news from England and also got “Radio Vry Nederland” (radio free Netherlands). We had to be very careful because punishment for these things were very severe.

Cars and motorcycles had to be turned in, also anything made out of Copper and Brass. Most of us would bury all that in the yard wrapped in tar paper till the end of the War.

Food, clothing was rationed and it was tight; no electricity at night, natural gas limited to a few hours a day, coal for heating very limited and above all, no freedom of speech. We had to be careful for our own people; some turned to the enemy, and you didn’t know who to trust. Friends and brothers betrayed each other; children would turn in their parents in some cases.

Soon we had a loosely knit group together and formed or joined a resistance movement. We only knew each other by nicknames; my name was Sam. We started to help Jewish people to find a hiding place and supply them with food. Sometimes I became involved to get some of them out to Vlissingen (Zeeland) where a boat was waiting to get them to England. It was frustrating because the Jewish people I approached, most of them, didn’t believe that there were concentration camps; they didn’t wasn’t their homes and belonging behind. One friend, the Greenewalds, were not to be convinced no matter how hard I tried. They had a beautiful 17 year old daughter and I wanted them to flee. They refused, and their name is now in the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

My parents didn’t know any of this; it was too dangerous to get them involved. They had 5 little ones at home and plenty of worries.

One day in 1942 we found an American pilot whose plane was shot down in the dunes, took him to safety and I had the good luck to return him to England. We got false papers, doctor documents to state that the man was a deaf and dumb mute and needed special medical assistance in Belgium; from there another doctor’s statement to send him to France etc, and after we crossed the Pyrenees (mountains), what was the border between Spain and France, he was free to go back to England. Spain was a neutral country. The trip on bike took about 3 weeks. It was a very dangerous undertaking, but I was very lucky and got my task done. After that I made a few more trips to return people back; sometimes we had to hurt them so they couldn’t talk, some days to carry them in a truck that went our way; but in spite of being stopped many times to inspect our papers, we were always safe.

In between time we would help Jewish people to hide because more en (and) more they were rounded up during the night and sent to Germany. They were required to wear a yellow Star of David at all time sewed on their clothing with the word, “Jood” (Jew). They were not allowed to go into restaurants, sports events; and many stores would have a sign, Jews prohibited. We had contact with many different resistance groups, all small by design because we had to be very careful and alert for traitors, our own people!

When something went wrong, many people would suffer. I remember that a few German SS soldiers, the worst of the Nazis together with the Gestapo, got killed by our resistance; and the next day the SS troops went into a small village, Petten, rounded up all males including babies and toddlers, killed many of them and shipped the rest to the camps in Germany. Nobody ever came back.

When questioned sometimes I always had friends to back me up that I stayed with them for a week or a few days. Many times there were narrow escapes, and in 1943 I got caught.

They gave me a chance to go home, and the next week I had to report in Haarlem for transport to Germany. This was not too bad because I knew that someone would meet me in the train station to get me off to another part of Holland or Belgium. That never happened; I got put on a train and transported to Amersfoort, a camp where they decided who should go where. The same afternoon I was with a hundred others stuffed in cattle wagons, doors locked, and for 3 days we steamed along to somewhere.

[Editor’s note: Amersfoort is located south and east of Amsterdam. In relation to other concentration camps Kamp Amersfoort was a small and provisional camp used between 1941 - 1945. It was supervised by the German police.]

When I saw the doors open and we had to get out, we were surrounded by guards with automatic guns and watchdogs, was loaded into an army type truck and transported to Charlottenburg in Berlin. To my surprise it was a bunch of neat clean barracks; we had meals that were not too bad and settle down in bunks with a clean blanket. Very soon I was to find out that this was the time for questions. What do you know, names, dates, places, and they suspected from my files that I knew what they wanted to know.

I could not tell anything because my chance to survive would be gone. I’d become useless to them and besides, I hated them so much I would never help them. The atmosphere soon changed, and I was transported to another camp outside Berlin. Bergen was the place and there was a big difference. Dirty barracks, brutal guards, very little to eat and daily executions.

I was put to work at Bamag-Mequin, a factory where steel was made and shaped. My interrogation resumed again and I was jailed in Alexanderplatz in a deep underground room. Daylight was a sort of vent pipe 35-40 feet high; if there was light it was day.

After 3 weeks in that bare cell and that is what it was, nothing but dirt floor, I was brought back to the Camp. There they wound my body in rawhide leather straps soaked in water and put me on the floor. Slowly the leather dried and my fingernails were driven into my hands. Circulation was nearly cut off, and the pain was hard to bare. Just the thought of how much I hated them kept me sane.

This process was repeated 4 more times. In between they questioned, names, places, where and if I know hidden places, etc. Suddenly it was over and back to my barracks again.

My work was now in a big building where railroad rails were made. They were welded and rows of rolls moved out of the building by cranes.

The game was to get and pierce the prisoners that were working because the rails moved very fast on rollers, and we could never tell from where it was coming and many did get hit and the big steel rail would go through the body of the victim.

Another game was with our caps, we had to wear these with our number on it. Caught without a cap was a capital offense and thus we kept them on. Now there was in many areas a yellow line, a sort of no man’s land. Crossing the line was strictly prohibitit (Dutch for prohibited).

The guard would take our caps and threw them over into the territory behind the lines. Very soon, (I have had this one time) we were chased by 10-12 guards with bayonets; and if you were lucky you would cross the line to get the cap and another 6-7 would start shooting from the walls or the tower. I made it back somehow, and the ‘game’ was over. Many, many never made it in time.

A month or so later the questioning started again; this time I was strapped in a chair. A hole was drilled in my tooth and a small chain with a winch fastened on that. Every question got a little tap on the winch and after several hours the tooth came out and another one was started.

After 3 days (or was it 4 or 5, I don’t remember) they started to drill a hole into the roof of my mouth to hook the chain on. Then I passed out knowing that this was the end. Somehow they touched and damaged my mouth a little but didn’t do much damage.

How and what happened then I don’t know, but I woke up in my barrack where my roommates took care of me and had washed my face and had some warm water to drink.

In 1944 the Allies “visited” every night and bombed the city and country with a 1,000 planes daily. The fires destroyed everything, and we too lost our buildings. Fear? No, we enjoyed this, to see them scared and worried.

One day we got packed into the wagons, and my unit got bombed and I wandered around. I don’t know if they believed me; but there was no way or time to find out so I was put to work on a chain gang fixing railroads. I am glad today that I never have to travel on these.

Hunger was our constant companion; we didn’t get more than a bowl of cabbage soup a day. Sometimes I could sneak in a line for German population where they distributed good food after a bombing raid.

A new job came my way; I had to dismantle the unexploded bombs that were 4-5 feet deep into the ground! A fat German officer that became impatient showed me how to do it. He got into the hole’ I got out and was suppose to watch and listen to his instructions. Instead I ran away, too risky; and within minutes he went to hell when his bomb exploded.

I was locked up for sabotage and my death sentence announced.

Tuesday and Thursday mornings were the executions; and one fateful Thursday it was our turn, about 60 of us. This was done by hanging a dozen at the time; and while we were lined up and watched, suddenly about 6 Spitfires swooped down and shot, bombed, and terrorized the area. Again I ran away in the confusion and the fires breaking out the next day, a different crew picked me up and another camp started. They didn’t know what happened and I stuck to my story that I became separated, guards killed and don’t know where I was or came from.

Put to work this time in a factory that made parts for sea mines. I got beaten a lot but not as brutal as some past experiences. How we kept alive is hard to explain. We would catch rats, dogs, sometimes a cat, would find discarded potato peelings or any garbage.

Things seemed hopeless, and we never received any news from the outside anymore. Christmas Eve, 1944 we came out of the factory; and instead of getting our daily bowl of soup we had to stand out in the yard without our clothes on (had rags). It was cold and snowing and hundreds dropped during the next 5 hours, old men and women, little children, even 8-9 months old babies.

When we went inside, but didn’t get any food. One of my friends, a small Jewish man from Poland, called me over and gave me 3 Hosts, got them somehow from a Catholic Priest for communion and I found about 2 dozen prisoners to divide these; so we could have again some hope.

The next afternoon we got bombed (the city) and we were sent out to help put out fires, etc. About 5 o’clock while going through debris the Allies came back and started bombing again. All hell broke loose, and the Germans were so scared and fled into their bomb shelters. I spotted a big house with tables full of food ready for Christmas dinner and in no time did we get a hold of meats, breads, cans of Applesauce, all we could eat and carry. It was a meal I haven’t had for years.

In February, 1945 we noticed more and more allied planes. Nervous German troops retreating and train after train with wounded soldiers from the fronts in France or Russia but still, we had no idea what was going on. Several weeks later the killings in the camp increased, but security was almost nothing anymore. Guards were gone and we found hiding places. Many guards were getting caught and killed, many SS troops were attacked; it was chaos.

March 22, me and 3 others got picked up and again I was sure that this was the end of the line. The SS troops were ugly by now. We got locked up in a bunker. They locked the doors and somehow start flooding it. The water level came up to plus or minus 5 feet, shoulder high and the hours passed; the days passed. One of the men gave up and went down; another went berserk and also drowned.

Later we found out that we’ve been in this for almost 3 days when suddenly the doors opened. I remember seeing soldiers standing outside and yelling something, guns pointed at the door; but I also knew that this were not Germans. We crawled out of this and with the two of us lay down outside, surrounded what was men from Gen. Patton’s 3rd Army.

Finally we were free, liberated; and I can’t describe the feeling I experienced these moments looking at a bunch of GIs. The rags we had on were taken off. One of the GIs gave me a piece of soap, and I washed until the soap was gone.

I was treated with DDT to kill the bugs we all had, was given some kind of lotion or skin oil because my body was covered with sores from bug bites, disease, scurvy; and they didn’t have clothing so I got an army blanket to wrap myself in; it was clean!

One of the men asked if I was hungry, I was 72 pounds and he came with a skillet, put in a ½ pack of butter, pork and beans and potatoes. That was gone in no time; I ate the whole skillet as fast as I could get it in. Very shortly after that I became sick, very sick and my insides turned inside out. The food didn’t do much good, and I was put in a huge tent field hospital.

For the next several I was fed biscuits, little oatmeal, and some very weak coffee. One incident I remember is the time I asked one of the Red Cross workers what date it was and he told me, March something (I forget what day). I wanted to know what year, 1945! It couldn’t be. I felt that I have been prisoner for many years and thought it was 1955 or ’59. No, it has been only 2 years and it was 1945.

At that time, still in the field hospital, we got a visitor. Gen. Patton walked through the rows of people; we were on the ground and (he) stopped to say a word, to nod.

He was a tall man and very impressive; and while I was one of the last ones on the end he stopped briefly, looked and asked, “You OK?” “Yes and thank you,” that much English I knew. As he turned to go outside he shook his head a little; and I can still hear him say, “God damn Germans!” It was many years later that I really understood what he said. In between time I started to walk again, to eat a little more and gaining weight.

The news was good; the Allied troops were reaching Berlin. Holland was still not liberated, and I couldn’t go home yet. With some friends we found a truck like vehicle and made plans to take off to France, and so we did with 8 of us. We crossed the Rhine River over a pontoon bridge and came to the Belgium border where we got stopped by the officials and very quickly were directed to an area to be transported to somewhere later on.

Walking around and visiting with others, mostly French and Belgium former prisoners, I spotted a group of crying and sad looking people (girls). They came out of the camps also, and their homeland was Lithuania and Estonia. Small countries now occupied by Russia.

They didn’t get permission to get into Belgium; some political agreement between the super powers and had to be transported to their country. They didn’t want to because of Russia was their enemy also. I talked with the Belgium officials but they were helpless. One of them mentioned that the only way they could come to the free world is if they were married to someone from Western Europe.

One of my friends came with me; and after some talk, we took one of the girls with us. We found a Justice of the Peace in a nearby village and talked him into marrying me and the girl (we had a gun that made him cooperate quicker). I signed the marriage certificate; so did she and it was properly witnessed and (she) went back to the border and without any problems she got her proper papers and stamps. I did this with the 22 or 23 others and they were permitted in. Never saw any of them again.

I was transported to Andenne (Belgium) where a family took me in for 3 days. From there I went to Namur (Belgium) and stayed there for 3 weeks. We got lots to eat and even got some money; it was heaven after the years in Germany.

In April, 1945 I got on a train heading home with hundreds of others. When we reached Amsterdam, people were standing along the train tracks, waving flags like they did the whole route we traveled. The boats in the harbor blew their whistles, bells were ringing; it was home!

My parents got the news that a batch of prisoners were under way and when I arrived by bus and walked to the backdoor they finally believed that I was still alive. It was a joyful reunion, and we had a lot to talk about.

I didn’t realize how I had changed and how bitter and hateful I have become. It became a long struggle to try to fit in somewhere. This is one area I don’t want to elaborate on too much except that for many years it was there and I struggled with this. I tried a lot of things and couldn’t really settle down.

Joe’s early years

Moving on with life

Trudy and Joe’s Wedding Album – Hear Joe’s abbreviated version of his courtship of Trudy here too (Turn on your speakers.)

Download a copy of Joe’s Journal to your desktop. [PDF 545 kb]
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Moving on with life

I met Trudy Breed because of Ans (nickname for Anna), her sister; and she asked me to take Trudy to a movie once in a while. Ans and me were good friends, and so why not.

From a movie came a dance, and she too had a lot of problems. Her home life was not good and was treated as if she was inferior by the others except Ans who was good to her but never home. We did talk a lot about our personal problems and grew closer together.

In 1953 we were married and had a room in her mother’s house, Kerklaan 53, very pleasant and homey. I still was restless, worked for a life insurance company, the R.V.S. and did well but was not happy. Several attempts to find a job overseas failed. I tried New Zealand, but because of the housing problems the authorities wouldn’t let married couples in.

I could have a job on the Gold Coast in Africa where Shoemakers were needed; but the climate is very, very hot. Then something opened up in Canada; the job sounded good and the papers came.

We were to sign a contract to work in Alberta for 5 years on a farm, and I couldn’t do that to Trudy. She had to work too, but she was not a strong woman so I refused.

In the meantime on my route for Insurance I visited an old couple weekly and helped them once in a while to do some small things for them. They had written letters to a daughter in the U.S.A. and told her that I was interested in immigrating. Cathrien (Manche) found a sponsor (Uncle Bill Vieming) and soon the ball started rolling.

Paperwork, endless interviews by the American consul In Rotterdam, affidavits, etc. for a seemingly hopeless cause. You see, the U.S.A. would allow only about 3,000 people from Holland a year to get a visa, and there were hundreds of thousands applications.

Christmas Eve, 1954 a hand delivered mail package came to our house, and we got a visa for the U.S.A! We made our preparations, packed our furniture and belongs in crates and March 19, 1955, we sailed on the ‘SS Maasdam’ to our new land. We each were allowed $25.00 and via the Hasre Dublin, Halifax, we reached the Statue of Liberty on the morning of March 22.

The ship was beautiful, the voyage luxurious; and we traveled and felt like millionaires. After the customs in New York we had a whole day to get our train from Grand Central Station to Kalamazoo.

So on a rainy day we went into New York and were in awe to see the skyscrapers, the enormous department stores (Macy’s), the traffic. Everything was overwhelming. But one gets hungry and there are restaurants, but after getting in I didn’t know how to order. I didn’t know the language! Trudy did but froze and couldn’t come up with anything. I finally figured out to order toast, eggs, and coffee; but after the next meal I needed to learn something different but these! They had automats there where you could deposit a quarter and get something good to eat. The first one we looked and quickly skipped to go to a better one, but that one had the same menu and I was not about to eat dog meat. America or not!! Later I would learn that hotdogs didn’t mean what I thought it meant.

The train trip was something that we couldn’t figure out. It took 18 hours to get to Kalamazoo, a distance that coming from Holland was hard to imagine. When we arrived they had 22″ of snow, and everything was buried; our friends that were supposed to pick us up were not there so as long as we had to wait we ordered coffee.

They did come and many hours later we were in Holland, MI. Cathrien and Heini were good people and made us feel welcome. The next couple of day I try to become familiar with the town and looked for a job. They told me that there was a depression, lots of people laid off, etc. I found Baker’s furniture and they told me that nobody hired, but the foreman wanted to show the factory to me. He talked a little Dutch, me, a little English.

Soon we ended up in the Sanding Department where they needed skilled help on their machines. After my remark that this was an easy job, he challenged me to back this up and he started a big machine. I started sanding furniture legs and was hired to report to work the next day for $1.10 per hour, what was 20¢ more than in other furniture factories. Trudy got a job at Woolworth and started to go to specialist because we knew that she could not get children.

Some doctor gave her some hope; we went there and he talked about all the risks and dangers, but being determined, she went ahead, doctored and when she became pregnant, de doctor kept telling her that the chances of carrying this baby were almost nil.

Joe and Trudy with Rick

Trudy was a saint and had a very strong faith in her God and the Blessed Mother. March 20, 1957 Rick was born a healthy chubby baby in Holland Hospital; and she was one very happy proud mother. So we had a little, happy family; and everything went well from day to day.

Joe’s mother and his brother Huub

In 1960 my mother wanted to come over for a visit and she stayed with us for 6 months! A time full of joy, parties, visiting, and showing her around. Everything was a fairy tale to her. After many years in poverty it was every day like the heavens opened up. Many, many memories are still alive today. When she went back to Holland she was very heavy, had gained about 40 pounds and was forever “Americanized.”

In between time I worked as a shoe manager at Miller Jones and was asked to go to St. Johns where they had a run down store that had to be closed. I liked the town and wanted to stay there; what in time did happen, so we moved to St. Johns. There Mike was born Nov. 19, 1962; and both boys were doing fine.

In the spring of 1966 Trudy had to go to the family doctor, and we were sent to Ann Arbor University Hospital. The diagnosis was Malignant Melanoma, a deadly skin cancer. The doctors talked with us and gave her about 3 more months after the suggested operation.

There again she showed her tremendous faith and trust in God and told the doctors that she would be O.K., “The boys needed her for a few more years.” The operation was terrible; the many treatments after that were a painful ordeal, but somehow she managed to hang in and never complained; the pains were getting worse and she became too weak to do much.

Finally in Nov 16, 1969 she peacefully passed away in Clinton Memorial Hospital; and she was buried on Mike’s birthday, Nov. 19, 1969. In between Trudy was active and became involved in Cub Scouts. She was a den mother, still went camping and never gave up. She was a remarkable person.

My life went on and kept raising my two boys and we did alright. Sometimes it was difficult; I had to work Friday evenings and Saturdays, but somehow we managed. I know that I had a problem cooking meals and many things I couldn’t make but we survived.

I remember a camping trip to the U.P. and how we got more rain than the tent could handle. We packed up that afternoon, everything was soaked and after visiting the Pictured Rocks, we went home to dry out.

The big change in my life came when I met Carolyn. I knew very soon after we got to know each other that I wanted to marry her. There were many obstacles; but in August, 1972 we were married. That morning we went to a little Chapel in DeWitt to have “our” Mass at 6 o’clock in the morning. Our reception was at night at the Eagles in Lansing, and we went from there on the honeymoon to the Smokey Mountains.

We still have very beautiful memories on that week. The last day on our way home we stopped in Bardstown, KY. We saw the play “My Old Kentucky Home,” had dinner in the old hotel, a lot of history.

The house was being remodeled and there was a lot of work to be done yet, but we got that finished in time. We had extension cords running all through the house, and little by little we became organized and had 10 kids to take care of.

We loved each other very much; we still do, and life was good. I pray everyday for a long life together and thank God for the blessings I receive daily with my wife.

Joe VanRooyen, St. Johns, died Saturday, November 16, 2002 at the age of 79. He was born in Amsterdam, Holland on March 19, 1923, the son of Johannes and Johanna (Pieters) VanRooyen. He was a veteran of World War II and a Nazi concentration camp survivor. He emigrated to the United States in 1955. He was a member of St. Joseph Catholic Church and the owner of
VanRooyen Shoes and Repair in St. Johns. Carolyn, his wife of 30 years, survives him.

Also surviving are his children; Theresa Riley-Lane (Fred Lane) of Colorado, Frances (Eric) Mohnke of St. Johns, Richard (Annette) VanRooyen of St. Johns, Margaret (Shawn) Young of Ionia, Patrick (Lori) Riley of Ft. Wayne, IN, Rosemary (Alan) Cook of St. Johns, Joyce (Bradley) Rinckey of Lansing, Michael (Julia) VanRooyen of Baltimore, MD, Michael (Doreen) Riley of St. Johns, William Riley of St. Johns, 34 grandchildren, 9 great grandchildren, four brothers, Gary (Maria) VanRooyen of Grand Rapids, Huub, Theo, Ton VanRooyen of Holland, two sisters, Rita DeDroog of Georgia and Corrie (Piet) Souwer of Holland. His first wife, Trudy, preceded him in death.

Funeral mass will be celebrated at 10:30 A.M. on Tuesday, November 19, 2002 at St. Joseph Catholic Church with Rev. Fr. Innocent Kujur officiating. The family will receive friends Monday, 2-4 and 7-9 P.M. at the Osgood Funeral Home with a rosary prayed at 7:00 P.M. Monday. Memorials may be made to Clinton Memorial Hospital Home Care or Hospice or St. Vincent DePaul.

Joe’s early years

The war years

Trudy and Joe’s Wedding Album – Hear Joe’s abbreviated version of his courtship of Trudy here too (Turn on your speakers.)

Download a copy of Joe’s Journal to your desktop. [PDF 545 kb]
Hint: Right click on the link; choose Save Target As.

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by Jean Martin

Something strange happened last night. It didn’t snow in Alpena. The temperature was well below zero, but it didn’t snow. My mother used to say sometimes that it was too cold to snow. She was wrong; it’s never too cold to snow.

One of the obituaries that came in this week brought back special memories. We received word that a classmate, Dan Herbruck, passed away in Mishawka, a town just outside of South Bend, Indiana. The last time we had seen him was at the class reunion a few years ago, and we had a good time catching up.

Dan will probably be remembered as a really nice guy, kind of quiet. This week my mind, however, raced back to a much earlier time before we kept track of friends with shorthand catch phrases. When Dan and I were very young, before we ever entered school, our families lived next to one another; and they neighbored back and forth.

I remember one afternoon when Loveoan had brought Danny and Dallas over while she and my mother visited. Now the common myth has always been that my long braids had never been cut until I went into the eighth grade and became a member of the Senior Band.

That afternoon while our mothers were drinking tea and settling world issues Danny and I decided to play barber. I still have the little strand of white blonde hair that my mother saved from that adventure. In the end I was scolded, and Danny’s mother hustled him out the door. I thought that since he had wielded the scissors, he should have been the one in trouble. Of course it never occurred to me to wonder what was said in the Herbruck household once my little friend got home.

Rest in peace, Dan.

Here in Alpena we are dealing with a great deal of snow as best we can. No one can back out of a driveway without a little help from those who are already on the street. The snowbanks are so high that there is no way to guess who might be coming or from whence. We have to look both ways, jump in the car and hope that no one came barreling around a corner. Likewise once we are on the street we need to expect to see a car or truck emerging from each and every driveway.

The annual snow sculpture on Lake Street is already in place about a month earlier than usual. We must express our gratitude to Kurt Dziesinski for delivering another masterpiece, Winnie the Pooh and Friends.

See more photos here.

The ghost of Inaugurations past

by Jean Martin

Like many in American this week we easily became caught up in the moment with Barack Obama’s Inauguration. We were especially impressed with the many people who spoke of how they wished that their grandparents could have been there to witness the scene.

Those comments took us back to a long-ago Inauguration. It was 1953, and the country was preparing to welcome war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower to his first term as President of the United States.

This bright occasion prompted my parents to break down and purchase their first television set — finally. It seemed that we were the last family in our neighborhood to get one of the new, finicky contraptions; and my mother had serious doubts about the long-term health consequences of bringing one into the house.
On the morning of the Inauguration I went to school and my parents set out for work, but the television was nowhere to be seen.

Sometime in the late morning a hulking big console model Muntz was delivered. There was no one present who could make the executive decision as to where the monster would reside, so it was just left there. Rabbit ears were placed on top of the cabinet, and the device was more or less ready for action.

Family members rushed home for lunch and found the new television in the middle of the living room. My grandmother had placed her favorite chair right in front of the set, and she was staring intently at the screen.

My grandmother had been a Centennial Baby born in 1876 to a mother who was a Civil War widow who years later married a Civil War veteran after her first husband just never came back from the war. My grandmother had raised eight children through many years, most of them hard.

“I never dreamed that I would live long enough to see a presidential inauguration with my own eyes,” she said simply.

It was all like a dream to her, she had seen it now — just as all of those other grandmothers and their grandchildren saw their dreams come true last Tuesday.

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