by Howard Spaan

Part One: Holland

Anna Slotemaker was born on June 5, 1865 in Noord Scharwoude in the province of Noord Holland. Anna is the daughter of Cornelis and Aagje Keppel Slotemaker. At the urging of Terry and David, sons of Henry Slotemaker, my wife and I on a European trip went to Noord Scharwoude, making a call at the home of Jan and Grietje Keppel Yff. Jan was the curator of the town's small museum. In the museum there were three rooms: living room, dining room, and kitchen furnished as they would have been in a typical home of 1882, the year Anna and her family left Nederland for the United States. The bedroom was an opening in the wall of the living room. People slept in a sort of sitting/reclining position on what we would think of as a very short bed. The museum was housed in a building which was the town hall in 1882, and Jan said its appearance was the same as it was in the 1880s. 

Jan also drove us by the old house where Aagje Keppel's mother was born and where she lived. He also showed us a map of the 1880s on which the properties of the vegetable farmers were located. Each plot of ground was a small piece of ground (I'd guess an acre or so in size) which was an island. In the shallow water of that portion of the Zuider Zee canals had been dug, creating a whole series of small islands. The farmers would travel in a boat (presumably a rowboat) to reach their island plots of ground. Jan identified the Slotemaker plot on the plot map. He said the most dominant vegetable grown was red cabbage. 

Noord Scharwoude is one of three villages on a dike. To the east of the dike were the vegetable islands. On the western side of the dike, which was also low land with a network of smaller canals, was pastureland. Seeing this landscape with its Holstein cows, I immediately recalled a story Grandma Spaan told me. She related that when she was a very young child, her father made cheese. There was a special room in which the cheese was aged before taking it to nearby Alkmaar where the cheese auction took place. Alkmaar has since become a world famous cheese center. She told me she was a naughty girl, for one day she went into that room and took a bite out of several of the round cheeses. Of course, these cheese rounds did not go to market in Alkmaar. 

Beyond the cheese incident, Grandma never related more of life in Holland. Living next door to Grandma as we did, I was with her a lot, helping her with her flower garden. She told me about the trip across the Atlantic. Grandma was 17 years of age at the time. She confided in me that she danced with the captain of the ship on several occasions. Growing up in Lynden among the Dutch-Americans who took such a strong stance against dancing, I was completely amazed. In later years I learned of the ecclesiastical disputes in Nederland, leading me to the conclusion that her family must have belonged to the more liberal state controlled Reformed (Hervormde Kerk) Church. In Iowa they were in a conservative Reformed Church community which denounced dancing.

Continue to Part 2---Early America