by Howard Spaan

Part Four: Politics & School

Except for the youngest son, the four older Spaan offspring went to the one or two room public school in Middleburg. My Dad could not identify the last grade he attended in Iowa when he came to Washington, since the pupils went from book to book. He thinks his education probably ended at the 7th or 8th grade level. Uncle John, on the other hand, became a pupil in the new Lynden Christian School which began in 1910. He was a member of the school's second graduation class in 1912 with two other students. None of the siblings went on for higher education. Except for one person in the next generation, all the cousins attended high school and two of these cousins graduated from college/university with post college degrees. However, the whole clan was always very much alive to events taking place in the world.

The Henry and Anna Spaan family tended to be independent in their thinking which also extended into politics. They were supportive of William Jennings Bryan¹ and Theodore Roosevelt, especially when the latter ran on the Bull Moose ticket for president. Grandpa had a brother who was an attorney who became a state senator in Indiana, and he had two brothers who became pastors in the Reformed Church of America and the Presbyterian Church.

During World War I Grandma came under surveillance by American government agents. Apparently her allegiance to the Dutch opposition to the British ran strongly through her veins. This all came about because of the British military excursion into South Africa during the Boer War.² Agents would shadow her at the bakery of Peter and Ida De Vries, where Grandma would voice her strong opposition to the British and her resulting support of the German Kaiser, because he was fighting the British crown. However, her voice was changed after the Americans entered the war in 1918. Grandpa was a mild mannered gentleman, while Grandma was dominant and often outspoken. We always concluded Grandma and her brother John were such a contrast in personality on that score. 

I never knew Cornelis and Aagje Slotemaker. But a great grandson of John Slotemaker, who learned a lot about them from his Dad, said the husband (Cornelis) was a domineering man and his wife (Aagje) was so mild-mannered. My response was, "Grandma Spaan must have taken after her father and Uncle John, after his mother." 

After the armistice in 1918 Uncle John returned to Lynden. He joined his brother, Henry, in Grandpa's dairy. In fact, the brothers took over the dairy operation via a purchase of the livestock. This he continued to do until 1923, when the brothers held a sale and half of the dairy cows left the farm. John then took a job at the Northwest Washington Implement Company, the sales center for John Deere implements. After a few years he became co-owner with Mr. Craighead and later, sole owner. He continued as a prominent business man in Lynden until his retirement. The implement building on Front Street at Third Street is now a museum and it also houses the show horse memorabilia of Fred and Cora Polinder. 

When the Spaan family had a family gathering, there was normally a time for singing. Grandma's favorite hymn, "Nearer, Still Nearer," was always sung. Music was one of the hallmarks of the Spaan family. While yet in Iowa, Grandpa was the director of the "Singing School" (choir) of the Middleburg Reformed Church. When the family left to move to Washington, he was given a gold pocket watch. His three sons sang in the Lynden "Singing School." Uncle John sang the title role of King Ahasueras in the cantata Queen Esther. He also did other solo work from time to time. In the presentation of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, Pinafore, Uncle Cornie sang the role of Dick Deadeye. The piano was Aunt Agnes' forte. In another area of expression, Aunt Cora emulated Grandma's reputation of entertaining in class. 

Henry, Jr., continued on his father's farm for a decade. Just before the Great Depression, Cornie returned from southern Alberta and his wheat farm occupation. Both Cornie and John remained bachelors living in the home of their parents until the 1930s arrived. When my Mom's cousin and her mother arrived from Des Moines and Newton, Iowa, to visit the De Hoog family in 1928, they also came to our little house and slept in Grandma's "spare room" (guest room). When Grandpa showed Marie Muilenburg his chicken enterprise and they were walking through the orchard-chicken yard, they came upon Uncle Cornie up in a tree picking cherries. Shortly Marie was also on the ladder. This began a romance which culminated in marriage three years later. The wedding took place in the well known Little Brown Church in the Vale near Nashua, Iowa. Later Uncle John pursued and won the hand of Ruth Peck. Thus bachelorhood ended for the two brothers who were just over and under 40 years of age. Cornie's Washington occupation became raising silver foxes on a plot of ground which was just within the western highland boundary of the Spaan farm. Every now and then a fox would escape its kennel and would find a restricted freedom within the outer fencing of the fox farm. For a kid, it was such fun chasing the fox into a trap to capture it and return it to its kennel.

Footnotes

1. William Jennings Bryan was a gifted speaker, lawyer, three-time presidential candidate, and devout Protestant. Although he was born in Salem, Illinois, Bryan made his career in Nebraska politics. He won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1890. A tireless defender of the small farmer and laborer, Bryan worked closely with the Populist Party, a group of poor Midwestern and Southern farmers who suffered economically due to low prices for their crops, which they blamed on Northeastern business interests. Bryan's efforts on behalf of farmers and laborers (the so-called "common" people) earned him the title the "Great Commoner."

2. It took the British Empire nearly three years, 1899-1902, to crush the Boers, a pioneering people who tried to build an independent nation for themselves in South Africa. The Dutch, Huguenot and German ancestors of the Boers first settled the Cape of South Africa in 1652. After several earlier invasions, Britain took over the colony in 1814. Refusing to submit to foreign colonial rule and the takeover of their farms, 10,000 Boers left the Cape in 1836. They moved northwards in the Great Trek, first to Natal and then to the highlands where they set up the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic. The Boers (Dutch: "farmers") worked hard to build a new life for themselves. But they also had to fight to keep their republics free of British encroachments and safe from Bantu attacks.

Continue to Part 5---Theology