| Notes |
- By Fedde van Eck
http://www.vaneck.be/vaneck-verhalen/tekst%20engels.doc
Introduction.
As a student at high school, already interested in history, after the death of my grandfather and namesake Fedde van Eck in 1967 I received from his inheritance an old writing desk he once bought at an auction from a notary. Not really something every adolescent would look forward to, but to me this big, oak monster seemed to be a quite interesting possession. Not in the least because the family had not been able to open the doors of the desk, because the key had gone. Of course it didn’t take me a long time before I had opened them anyway.
Many of the drawers were empty, but there was one, in which I found a heap of old papers that belonged to my granddad. Between faded picture postcards, letters and books I found four leaflets, stapled together, with the intriguing text:
DESCENDANTS FAMILY VAN E(C)K.
It was a short summary, that started with a Cornelis van Eck, born about 1700. The rest consisted of five names, belonging to successive generations, with the dates of their birth, marriage and death. The last one was a Fedde van Ek, born in 1836. ‘Born from this marriage: Is known to you.’ the leaflet simply ended. ‘Haarlem, September 7, 1938. Presented to You for Your kind cooperation in this matter by the composer A. van Ek Jz, Klokhuisplein 7.’
Is known to you, said the fool! I didn’t know a thing. And my dad wasn’t able to help me much. Yes, sometime before the war an Ate van Ek from Haarlem had visited my granddad. This man had been an inspector working for the business police of Joh. Enschede and Sons, the printer of our banknotes. He had been asking questions about family members and had talked about the using of the ‘c’ in the name Van Eck. My granddad certainly was the right man to come to for a discussion on this subject, for he and his brother had been registered one with and the other without that c in the birth register. Even the father of Ate, Jan van Ek, was still known. My granddad once had made a trip by bicycle in the 1920’s with his oldest daughter, Wieke, and had then visited uncle Jan, who lived in the house of his son Ate at Haarlem. But how these two persons were related exactly to our family and if this Ate maybe had done more research, my dad didn’t know.
Those simple four typed leaflets stayed in my writing desk all the time and were carefully kept each time we moved. Every now and then I saw them and I knew someday I would research the rest of the Van Eck history. But, as happens so often, time went by and you never come to it. Until in the spring of the year 2000 my dad, not for the first time, asked me if I could remember where that paper of Ate van Ek was. With me, of course. Together one afternoon at last we rode to the State Archive at Leeuwarden and, to our big surprise, came back with a load of photocopies because all of the correspondence Ate van Ek had had with the Archive in 1937 and 1938 was still available there. This way the puzzle of the Van Eck family at once got an unexpected big start, that invited to carry on. I did just that and, with the help of many family members (see the acknowledgements at the end) within a year almost all Van E(c)k’s of the last three centuries could be traced. From this information and additional sources a family story has been written, illustrated with copies of documents and photo’s that family members placed at my disposal. I hope that you will have as much fun reading and looking as I have had researching, writing and composing.
Fedde van Eck
(or was it still Van Ek?)
Where the name Van E(c)k comes from.
In the region Lower Betuwe, north of Tiel between the rivers Rhine and Lek, lies the village of Eck and Wiel. The village used to be called Eck, with a ferry nearby across the Rhine to Amerongen called Wiel. Somewhere in the 19th century these names were put together. The name Ecke first appears around 1200 and probably originates from the Latin ‘eki’, to be translated as ‘wagontrail’. A ‘wiel’ is the name of a pool of water that stays behind after a dike brake. There are several of these along the river dike. To put it simply: Eck used to be a small farmers- and trading village in the Betuwe, lying at a land road near a ferry over the Rhine. And actually nothing much has changed since then.
That the village is called Eck and not Ek, something one would expect looking at the Latin form, comes from the rule in the old Dutch language that says that before a ‘k’ at the end of a word you always put a ‘c’. For instance there is an old Dutch song that starts with “Merck toch hoe sterck in het werck zich al stelt.” In 1706 there is a spelling reform, and this rule is put away. Maybe some people think that with that also names of people and places should be changed. The only time I saw the village Eck written as Ek is in an 18th century traveling atlas. It’s also remarkable that in Tiel, just near the village, the oldest known Van Eck is registered in 1716 as Van Ek. In all other instances he is called Van Eck.
In the middle ages only nobility and very important families carry a fixed family name. The rest uses the fathers name, the so called ‘patronymic’, behind their own name to specify themselves. Of course this patronymic changes with every generation. From the 16th century onwards the fixed family name, often the name of the place people grew up in, from the south upwards gets more common. An important impulse are the many protestant fugitives that flee from the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium) at the start of the Eighty Years War of independence to the province of Holland. Also in the nearby Betuwe more and more fixed family names appear during the 17th and the 18th century. As long as a family stays at one place, often the patronymic stays into use, but as soon as someone moves, they call themselves, with their descendants, for instance ‘Van Eck’ (‘From Eck’).
From the 13th century onwards there are some people carrying the name Van Eck. These are noble and important families, among them mayors of the city of Arnhem and in the 18th century some colonels in the army. No relation with our family is apparent.
Still it is highly probable that everyone with the name Van Eck or Van Ek once came from the village of Eck. You can take that conclusion looking at the spreading of the name in the census of 1947. Apparently many Van Ecks moved from the Betuwe in Gelderland to the rich provinces of Holland. At the eastern or southern borders not many Van Ecks can be found. An offspring from abroad, as some family members sometimes assumed, therefore is not likely.
Our family Van Eck came to Friesland in the beginning of the 18th century. In 1811, when Napoleon, who had conquered the Netherlands, ordered that everyone should have a fixed family name, our family is the only one in the province choosing Van Ek (or Van Eck, for that matter). In the 19th century there are three families Van E(c)k in Friesland. In the capital Leeuwarden a family Van Eck, with double, southern names. In southeast Friesland a family Van Ek, with many named ‘Harmen’. And in the northeast of Friesland, mostly the municipalities of Dantumadeel and Ferwerderadeel, our family Van E(c)k, with ‘Cornelis’ as the most important name.
Cornelis is a very common name in The Netherlands. People who carry it in Holland will be called Kees (pronounced: case) in daily life, in Friesland it’s Knillis, but that’s old-fashioned now. My dad and my son are also called Kees. Kees is almost as common as Jan. That’s why the Dutch founders of New York (then: New Amsterdam) were called Yankees.
Is it Van Eck or is it Van Ek?
The most important motive for Ate van Ek to start his research of the family in 1937, is to make clear what the true family name is. Actually he is convinced it must be Van Eck. Instead of his father Jan, who without any hesitation uses Van Eck on his visiting card, it’s against the sense of law and order of the former inspector of police Ate to use the c if this is not legally right. The c is not found in his official birth papers. So this asks for a thorough investigation.
In a letter to the archivist of the State Archive in Leeuwarden, Ate van Ek writes he is considering, if other family members agree, to put a request to the Court to reinstall the old Dutch name Van Eck for the whole family. Therefore he wants to establish the true name of the family without any doubt. The forefathers in the direct line should be researched. ‘Going back as far as 1600 seems enough.’ For this research by the archivist Ate is willing to pay the generous amount of seven guilders (almost $ 3). He is aware of the fact that when the name is well established there may be another problem to solve: ‘If not all family members alive today, who are carrying the new spelling of the family name, that is Van Ek, agree to change it, then the problem will be much more complicated…..’
Ate, nor myself, succeeded in finding the forefathers up to 1600. Ate did have many contacts and conversations with family members in the Netherlands and the USA discussing the family name. It’s likely many of them didn’t mind very much the problem of the ‘c’. At any rate an initiative to change all names was never taken.
Looking at the c in Van Eck one can approach it from two angles. What is the official name and what name is used by family members themselves. Officially everyone should have been called Van Ek after 1811, but many mistakes were made. Therefore today there are still family branches using Van Eck. The name preferred by family members is a bit more difficult to establish, because they may sign official papers with the official name, and at other times use the name Van Eck. This custom especially seems to have been in use in the oldest family branch, that from Ate Cornelis (signing a birth certificate in 1812) until your writer keeps on using the c. My dad once was rapped over the knuckles by an official of the municipality of Kollumerland for signing a birth certificate with Van Eck. That was not allowed, he was told, and the official rigidly scratched through the c. Happily this will not cause any problem in my case, for no one can read my signature anyway.
Other family branches from the first or second generation onward let go of the c, except for the emigrants that left for America, who at their arrival in 1881, on or without their request, are allowed to make a new start with the old name Van Eck. Maybe because English speaking people don’t recognize the word Van, and therefore the logic of the space, many American descendants now call themselves VanEck or Vaneck. Even the ones that went to Australia in the 1950’s now write themselves VanEk.
The c in Van Eck is not the only point of dispute concerning names. Many family members have Cornelis or Kornelis as a a first name or as a patronymic. It’s quite clear that the original name is Cornelis. But in Friesland the spoken language is not Dutch but Frisian. In some respects it is more like English than Dutch. In the Frisian language Cornelis becomes ‘Knillis’. Cornelis Ates (born 1803) and Cornelis Willems (born 1805) both were registered at birth with a C, but signed their own marriage certificate with a K. Not surprisingly their grandsons were officially registered as Kornelis. Except for the likes and dislikes of family members also the preferences of community clerks contributed to the ever changing registrations. In 1922 my father again is registered as Cornelis and called Kees, but not to the consent of his grandfather, who thinks the Frisian Knillis, as he himself is called, is still appropriate. My grandfather however finds that to be old-fashioned, and also in the small town of Kollum where the family lives and his wife was born, not Frisian, but a kind of Dutch dialect is spoken.
Earlier I mentioned the patronymic. At the end of this part some more remarks on that. Until 1811 common people in Friesland still don’t have a fixed family name. Once they have it, still the patronymic stays in use as a second name in official papers, being convenient to point out family relations. For instance Kornelis Ates van Ek at April 3, 1850 has a son he names Jacob. Then, maybe next day, the community clerk registers him as Jacob Kornelis van Ek. In ten years he will die carrying that name. This goes on at least until the end of the 19th century. In 1895, when the family of Kornelis Feddes van Ek comes back to Akkerwoude, the parents are registered with their patronymic, but the children not anymore. In rural areas between citizens the patronymic is still used far into the 20th century. People will say: his name is Knillis Feddes, but he calls himself Van Eck. As to personal preferences it is notable that family members that are a little more adventurous drop the patronymic first. This goes for Pieter Ates van Ek, who signs his marriage certificate in 1851 as P. van Ek, without the A. of the patronym. Of the children of Cornelis Ates van Ek Jan is the only one to marry without a patronymic. Both men later move to the province capital Leeuwarden.
The army in the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands.
The first Van Eck of which we know for sure that he is of our family, is Cornelis van Eck, a soldier in the army of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands at the start of the 18th century. To be able to understand the story of his life it’s important to know a little more about this republic and its military organization.
The Eighty Years War (1568-1648), in which The Netherlands freed themselves from the Spanish occupation, is in part a revolt of regional interests against central authority. Therefore the new republic doesn’t stand out for having a strong central government. Taxes are raised by the provinces. To defend the country a professional army is founded, and the provinces have an agreement on how much every province has to pay. There is no compulsory military service and also no strong national feeling. Part of the army is formed bij ‘nationals’, other army regiments are bought abroad, commanders included. Because the poor country of Switzerland provides for several of these armies, working for the highest bidder, a well known saying goes: No money, no Swiss. Even in the national army divisions quite some foreigners take part.
The provinces don’t pay their army contribution to some central public fund, but put out contracts to form army regiments themselves. That way the nobility and prominent families living in the province, who also pay most of the taxes, can take some profit from it. Especially in Friesland the government and high military posts are being occupied by members of quite a few families. The army regiment in which we will find Cornelis van Eck is the infantry ‘Regiment Nationals nr. 1’. This army mostly operates in the south of the country (the enemy being France), but it’s still a Frisian army because the higher officers are all Frisians. From 1724 for instance it’s under the command of colonel Hobbe, baron of Aylva. From the Schotanus atlas, published in 1718, we know that at that time also all of the four municipalities (called ‘grietenijen’) in the northeast of Friesland, Dantumadeel included, had a Van Aylva as their ‘grietman’ (mayor).
A infantry regiment exists of about ten companies. A company of about a hundred soldiers has thirteen officers. A captain, a lieutenant, a color sergeant, two sergeants, three corporals, two drummers, a writer, a surgeon and a provost-marshal. In our story we can confine ourselves to the corporal, who has the command of one of the squadrons of the company.
In the spring of each year the captain sends his lower officers into the neighborhood to recruit new soldiers. One who joins the army will get an amount of pocket change, called ‘walking money’, to get to the garrison. Soldiers in those days used to be looked at as the lowest trash of the community. Today historians judge them a little more positive. Mostly they originate from economic weak regions and vulnerable professional groups, like small artisans and day laborers. They join the army as foot soldiers, and although the pay may be halve the income of that of a day laborer, the man who enlists has a steady job and steady income. The first twenty years of the 18th century are, with a war and cattle-plague, economically bad.
One who joins the army, does so for life. Temporary contracts are not allowed. That’s why the wives of the soldiers travel with their husband from garrison to garrison. In the towns oldiers are lodged in the houses of the people who live their. In general the citizens like taking in soldiers, because the payment is quite well. For two soldiers one bed is to be provided, but married soldiers, and one of them will be our Cornelis, have a right to a room with ‘an empty box bed‘ (‘een ledighe bedstede’).
Soldier Cornelis van Eck comes to Friesland.
The first notice of Cornelis van Eck is in the book of members of the Reformed Church of Tiel, to the effect that he arrives there, with some other soldiers, at October 9, 1716 with an attestation from Kampen. An attestation is a letter of tranfer, in which the minister of the place you come from says that you are a church member and there is no problem accepting you in church. The minister of the place where you arrive writes down your name in the church book and this will give you the right to attend the Lord’s Supper. In the church book of Kampen however there is no notice of Cornelis and that’s why the search for ancestors stops here.
The connection with Friesland has in Tiel already been made, because the captain of the company of Cornelis is called ‘Aisma’. His full name is Horatius Lauta van Aysma, according to the weapon shield he placed in the church of his village Driesum ‘Captain of a Company on foot at the service of the United Netherlands’. At Driesum in 1707 he becomes the owner of Rinsma State (the Rinsma Estate). After his death in 1745 this estate is sold for 5600 Caroli guilders to the family Sytzama, who has it demolished and replaced by the estate in classical style that is still there today.
The second registration of Cornelis, in 1719 at Zwolle, says he is a soldier in the army of general Ammama. According to known army movements the Regiment Nationals nr. 1, under the command of general Ammama, after the closing of the Spanish War of Succession in 1716 returns from Doornik in Belgium and takes quarter at Nijmegen. At the time Cornelis arrives at Tiel from Kampen, also some soldiers are coming in from Doornik. So maybe in this year of transition between war and peace some regrouping took place, before the army united at Nijmegen.
We don’t know where and when Cornelis van Eck was born, married or joined the army. If he was in the army before 1716, it’s quite likely he fought in the Spanish War of Succession against France in the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium). Around 1710 the regiment for a short time resides at Deventer, Zwolle and Kampen. Maybe that’s the time Cornelis joined.
According to the church book of Tiel, Cornelis is married to Aaltje Rùmmiùs. The burial book of the city of Zwolle says that Cornelis van Eck at June 13, 1719 had his wife Aaltien Romijes buried. The army at that time just had arrived from Nijmegen, where it left May 26, 1919. Also in Nijmegen Cornelis and his wife are not mentioned as church members. This is not really surprising considering that at the time the army left for Zwolle, only four church members got an attestation! Also the notice in the church book of Tiel in 1716 gives us, if we assume army movements of no less then companies, only a few names of soldiers. If we look at the amount of registrations we find of Cornelis in all, he must have been relatively a devout man.
Maybe during the army movement to Zwolle, not always very orderly in those times, something happens that causes the death of Aaltien Romijes in 1719. Anyhow, it looks like Cornelis has enough of the army and because of the circumstances and a good army record he is allowed to leave. The explanation for his remarkable journey to Friesland almost certainly must be an invitation from his captain Van Aysma to come and work at his estate at Driesum. Before he goes Cornelis pays a short visit to Tiel. Maybe this is a family visit to report the bad news, but there are no concrete clues to who these family members might be. Another possibility is that in the years before he never was in Nijmegen, but stayed with a certain army company from 1716 at Tiel. In that case his visit may well have been to the minister of his church there.
In Driesum he must have been a remarkable figure. A sturdy soldier with a family name, in Friesland only used by important families, who doesn’t speak the Frisian language. After some time he gets engaged to a local girl, Tietske Jans. They marry at an unknown date and in 1722 their first child is born, a daughter called Gertje. The second daughter, called Maria (presumably called after his mother), dies young. A year and a half later a third daughter is born, again a Maria. The register calls the father a ‘corporal’ now.
Apparently Van Aysma, by promoting him to corporal, has persuaded Cornelis to join the army again. In 1724 he leaves for Yperen, in Belgium. After the Spanish War of Succession the Netherlands has got the right to stage garrisons in a number of Belgian cities (at that time under Austrian rule), as a protection against France. Yperen is one of these cities. Army regiments are moved from one garrison to another once in a few years, so in 1725 the regiment of Cornelis settles in Breda, and Cornelis lets his wife come over. After Bergen op Zoom and Maastricht Cornelis van Eck leaves the army for good and comes back, with his wife Tietske, to Driesum.
The occupation of Cornelis after his leaving the army is unknown, but he may well have worked at the Rinsma Estate again. Four children are born, of which Marike, Cornelis and Johanna presumably are named after members of the Van Eck family. The second daughter after returning to Driesum, Moerke, has a typical old Frisian name.
In 1742 Cornelis van Eck dies and leaves behind his wife with four young children in poor circumstances. Two years later a census names ‘widow C. van Eck’ as a person on poor relief. The fate of Tietske Jans after 1744 is unknown.
The second generation of Van Eck’s consists of five daughters and one son, of which of course only the last one can preserve the name. The first Maria dies young and of the second only the birth is known. Because the name Marike may be seen as a kind of third Maria, also the second may have died as a little child. The oldest and the four youngest children all get older than eighty years, not withstanding the poverty after the death of their father.
After the notice in the census of 1744 the name Van Eck disappears from the (church) books. Instead the children, after Frisian tradition, are named with the patronymic, their fathers name Cornelis. For a simple worker or even a small farmer it would have been inappropriate and ridiculous to use a fixed family name. That’s why the second Cornelis van Eck when he declares the birth of his children is called Cornelis Cornelis and his sisters marry as Gertje Cornelis, Marijke Cornelis, Moerke Cornelis and Johanna Cornelis.
None of the children stay in Driesum after their marriage. Gertje moves to Zwaagwesteinde, where her husband Minne Brandts comes from. He is a shipper and a salesman. Gertje dies, 91 years old, in 1813. Two of her sons and two sons-in-law are fined in 1797 for joining the ‘Kollum riot’. After the French Revolution their supporters, with some help from abroad, take over power in The Netherlands. The riot occurs after someone has been arrested for calling ‘Hail Orange’ (orange being the color of the prince of Orange-Nassau, our later royal house).
Marijke marries Wytse Claases at Driesum, but then they move to Veenwouden and have seven children. After the death of her husband Marijke marries Popke Jelgers of Akkerwoude in 1784. She stays there until she dies in 1820 at the age of 89. She then lives on poor relief. At the diacony of the church of Akkerwoude in 1818 she is known as Maria Kornelis van Ek. ‘Maria’ will be a Dutch translation of her Frisian name ‘Marije Knillis’.
Moerke marries in 1760 the basket maker Bartels Gerben at Dokkum. She has three children and remains till her death at the age of 84 in Dokkum.
The youngest child, Johanna, lives with her husband Ype Dirks in Murmerwoude. No children are known. She dies at the age of 86 in 1826 as ‘Johanna Kobelia van Nek’, declared by two illiterates. Like her sister Marijke in her last years Johanna lives on poor relief from the church.
The life of the son Cornelis Cornelis will be discussed in the next chapter.
Cornelis Cornelis moves to the trading district.
Let’s suppose Cornelis Cornelis has a few options to try and make a living for himself and his family. First of all he can stay where he is. Presuming he can’t get work at Rinsma Estate or some other estate, chances for work in the sand region of Driesum and villages nearby are very scarce. For the main part small farmers live there, with no or very few steady personel. Cornelis could go south and live in an area consisting of heather and mores. Poverty is even greater there. The life of a peat digger, living in a sod house, is not really attractive. So he goes up north a bit, looking for a job in the neighborhood of the most important trading route between the province capitals of Groningen and Leeuwarden: the Dokkumer Ee canal.
Until far into the 19th century canals are the most important routes for traveling or trading in the lower parts of The Netherlands. From the east the tow-canal between Stroobos and Dokkum and then west of the city the Dokkumer Ee are part of a busy inland waterway between Groningen and Leeuwarden. South of Leeuwarden this canal goes on in the direction of Sneek, IJlst and Lemmer, where if necessary one can cross the Suydersee to Amsterdam. Most villages have small canals connecting them with the main canal. That’s how the crop of the land comes to the market in the cities and trading from the city, but most of all peat for the winter, comes to the village.
Dokkum is the most northern trading centre on this route. Within the town wall, that also is the border of the municipality, there is a lot of business going on. But just outside the town gate, along the water of the Dokkumer Ee a new trading district is growing. For historical reasons, namely the old course of the border river Paessens, the eastern part of this neighborhood falls under the jurisdiction of the ‘grieternij’ East-Dongeradeel and the church of Aalsum; west of the Paessens falls under the jurisdiction of West-Dongeradeel and the church of Hiaure. The neighborhood itself is mostly called Betterwird. Although this is all very confusing (I haven’t even mentioned all names that are given), it’s most likely Cornelis Cornelis van Eck, looking for a job, came with his family to this neighborhood.
At July 8, 1801 the family is transferred from the church of Hiaure, that is also the church of Betterwird, to Wanswerd. In 1811 the family lives in Birdaard. Both villages are situated close to the Dokkumer Ee, somewhere in the middle between Dokkum and Leeuwarden. The original village of Birdaard is situated on a mound, but later it moves to the border of the Ee, while Wanswerd has a separate neighborhood along the Dokkumer Ee, at the other shore of the canal, called ‘Wanswerd aan de Streek’ (Wanswerd on the Strip). Most likely moving from Wanswerd to Birdaard was no more than crossing the bridge, that is also the border between the municipalities of Ferwerderadeel and Dantumadeel. In 1984 Birdaard and Wanswerd aan de Streek have been united as Birdaard and completely added to the municipality of Ferwerderadeel.
Although people must have known him in the Frisian language as ‘Knillis Knillis’, Cornelis Cornelis didn’t forget his real name. In 1811, during the French occupation, Napoleon orders that everyone in his empire must have a fixed family name, like the French already have had for a long time. Therefore the oldest male member of the family is asked to come to the ‘mairie’ (the French name for town hall) at Rinsumageest, to declare what name the family wants. The ‘pater familias’ of the family, then 75 years old, declares to the clerk H.P. Hellinga as ‘Kornelis Kornelis van Ek’ that he wants to keep the name ‘Van Ek’, but that he cannot write and therefore cannot sign the statement. He declares he has a son Jan, 50 years old in IJlst, Kornelis, 47 years old, who sailes with a ship, Willem, 36 years old in Birdaard and Aate, 33 years old, also in Birdaard. The clerk writes down the family name as he hears it. The name is unknown in Friesland. Our family is the only one in the province that takes it. To a further defense of this town clerk can be said that also in the church books names are often written down the way the minister hears it. Just look for instance at the registrations of Cornelis van Eck and his wife at Tiel and Zwolle. Cornelis Cornelis van Ek dies, 81 years old, in 1817 in Birdaard.
Cornelis Cornelis and his wife Jitske Willems have eight children, five sons and three daughters. The oldest son, Cornelis, and also daughter Tjitske, die young. Both are named again.
The second son, Jan, appears 1788 at the age of 26 further along the trading route in the south of Friesland. He marries at Jutrijp Aagje Foppes Huitema and dies in 1817 as a farmhand, still with the name Van Eck. Jan has two daughters and no sons, so his moving doesn’t spread the Van Eck family name in this region. His sister Tjitske, who settles with her husband, a shoemaker, nearby in IJlst, cannot change this.
Shipper Cornelis van Eck is during the first research by Ate van Ek in 1937 a mysteriously lost family member, of whom birthdate nor death is known, only his marriage with Saapke Jennes Tammenga at Wanswerd in 1802 and the notice at the naming in 1811 that he ‘sails with a ship’. Ate van Ek states in a letter to the State Archive at Leeuwarden that family information would show ‘that this Cornelis presumably made over his ship between 1811 and 1816 to his brother Aate Cornelis’. He supposes that maybe Cornelis joined the army with Napoleon to Moscow. The state archivist answers that he finds this to be an interesting thought, but no option for further research. From the family book Ate van Ek made we can see that later he discovers that Cornelis, still called a shipper, did not go to Moscow but dies in 1839 at Leeuwarden. Information from the internet site of the Archive of Leeuwarden shows that Cornelis is registered as a member of the shippers guild at Leeuwarden on November 26, 1810. In 1824 he is owns a market-boat, pays no state taxes and the rent of his house on nr. L118 (Zuidvliet) is f 84,-. In 1829 and at the time of this death he lives at nr. M24 (Noordvliet, in a house with two other families) and is married to ‘Saakje Jilles’. The Vliet (another name for canal) in the 19e century is an industrial area at the northern side of Leeuwarden, just outside the city wall, with windmills and shipyards. Saapke dies fifteen years after her husband in 1854 as ‘Saapkje Jennes’. The couple has no children.
Antje marries Frederik Haaks at Leeuwarden, but their son Kornelis is born in 1797 at Birdaard. After that they are nowhere to be found. They died or they moved before 1812. No family takes the name Haaks in 1811.
Willem is the ancestor of a family branch we shall deal with in the next chapter.
The youngest son, Ate, who’s name on several occasions is written as Aate, is called a shipper in 1816, a driver in 1829 and at other occasions tradesman. At the end of his live he tries to survive as a day laborer. We now know that the suggestion of Ate van Ek that his namesake takes over the ship of his brother Cornelis, is not true. That ship lies in front of the house of Cornelis in the Vliet canal. However, it is possible that the two brothers work together. At Birdaard most employment is in milking, trading and land labor. Most trading is done with meat or cattle at the markets of Dokkum and Leeuwarden. A lot of sheep are kept in the neighborhood. The story goes that the people of Birdaard got their nickname ‘skieppekoppen’ (‘sheepheads’) in regard to the habit of dumping worthless heads of slaughtered sheep into the Dokkumer Ee canal. So maybe Ate takes care of trade and Cornelis takes care of transportation. But we don’t know this for sure.
At the time of his marriage Ate Cornelis lives in Wanswerd, presumably with his parents. If we take a look into the church books we can see his family lives in Birdaard from September 19, 1802 till June 19, 1809, then they go back Wanswerd until March 11, 1814 and then stay again in Birdaard till the couple dies 1841. According to the birth certificate however, Antje was born in 1812 at Birdaard. It’s surprising to see that the book of members of the church at Birdaard in 1814 and 1821 still writes Ate’s name without his family name Van Ek. Apparently he is not addressed that way. Man and wife both die January 1841 soon after another and are buried at the same day at Birdaard. It is possible that the very strong winter of that year has something to do with that.
Ate’s oldest son, Cornelis, is born July 4, 1803. After nine years, on February 8, 1812, a second child is born, a daughter called Antje,. She is the first Van Eck registered in the new civil registration service. In spite of the name giving a year before, Ate signs in a very clear way in full Aate Kornelis van Eck. It is the first time we see a Van E(c)k signing his name. In church books all notices are made by the parish minister. Also the marriage of Ate in Court in 1802 is no more than a notice by an clerk. And then, in 1816, Ate signs the birth certificate of his son Pieter, in which he is by mistake called Van Eck, somewhat unclear as A:C: van Ek. The clerk of the municipality, who writes down the birth certificate of Antje in 1812, is the same Hellinga that just before robbed the Van Eck family of its c. He is then 62 years old. In 1816 apparently he has retired. Ate’s youngest son, Jan, is born November 28, 1820.
Signing your name in the 19th century obviously is not a daily routine for a day laborer or a shipper. Only at rare occasions, like a marriage, declaring births or deaths, one is asked to hold a pen. Therefore it is surprising how well Ate signs his name in 1812. Because the civil registration had just started, the phenomenon of a ‘signature’ may have been altogether new to him. That’s why I think he just spontaneously writes down his full name as he thinks it’s right. That’s as Kornelis with a K (because he is called ‘Knillis’) and Van Eck with a c. We can only guess why Ate thinks he should put a c in the name. You cannot hear it and his father is supposed to be an illiterate (or maybe not altogether?). Apparently Ate went to school. He went to the school of Hiaure, known to have had twelve pupils in 1840, or maybe a school within the town of Dokkum. Possibly aunt Moerkje at Dokkum told him the correct name. We will never know.
I suppose in 1816 Ate has had instructions on how to write down a signature. At any rate without the first name. Also it seems that he has been informed that the family officially got the name Van Ek. At least in the municipality of Dantumadeel, because in Ferwerderadeel and elsewhere for the time being Van Eck still keeps in use. After that many more mistakes are made. Sometimes signatures, always consisting of clear readable names without much decoration, follow the mistakes in the certificate. That’s why often it is not clear whether a person simply copies the name that’s in the certificate or that he or she really signs it the same way they would sign for instance a personal letter.
The oldest son, Cornelis Ates, will be discussed in a following chapter. Daughter Antje marries Sybe Hendriks van Huizen. They own a store in the small village of Genum (Ferwerderadeel), and this doesn’t change after the death of Sybe in 1873. Three children of her brother Pieter, who has died by then, live with aunt Antje in the 1880’s. She gets eighty years old.
Pieter Ates will become the ancestor of the USA family branch, and is also to be discussed in a next chapter.
Jan Ates moves as a farmhand to Wonseradeel. From his marriage with Jeltje Jacobs van Tuinen a daughter and a son are born. The son however lives only to be fourteen days old.
Willem Cornelis van E(c)k and the poor branch of the family.
Willem and Ate are the two sons of Cornelis Cornelis van E(c)k that bring forth a family branch. The family branch of Willem by now has become extinct, so all now living Van E(c)k’s have Ate as their common ancestor. But also Willem and his descendants of course deserve a chapter in this family book.
I look at Willem Cornelis van E(c)k as the ancestor of ‘the poor branch’ of the family. The day laborer Willem Cornelis van Eck marries in 1801 in church at Wanswerd as Van Eck and then in court at Birdaard as Van Ek Sjoukje Pytters (later with the family name ‘De Vries’). They settle in Birdaard and have nine children. The information on the children and grandchildren of Willem Cornelis in the 19th century show the great poverty of simple day laborers at the countryside of Friesland. Also other family branches have a lot of (farm-)laborers. But the branch of Willem Cornelis stands out with large families, illiteracy and an enormous infant mortality.
What should we think of the life of laborers in those days? Dr. J. Botke, who wrote a book on the ‘Griternij Dantumadiel’ paints us a picture. He tells us the daily life of the country laborer starts at daybreak. He gets out of his box bed, puts on his clothes, wipes his head with a wet tea cloth, gets a comb through his hair, lightens his pipe with tobacco and the usual daily routine can start. This means working until ten o’clock, then a warm breakfast, working until two in the afternoon, then a slice of rye bread and a roll, working again until six, having a warm dinner and after that doing some odd jobs, resting with a newspaper, talking, smoking, then sleeping.
The menu for most common laborers is very simple: potatoes with beef dripping. In a pot on three legs potatoes are cooked, in another pot the dripping is warmed. The stone lid is turned around on the table and is filled with some spoons of dripping. Everybody just dips his potatoes in there. In the evening some porridge is served.
People who have a little more to spend, or who have their own field, also will have potatoes as their main food. Aside from that they will eat other meals made of products they grow themselves or that are grown in the neighborhood. Buckwheat groats, pancakes made of buckwheat flour, rye ‘prip’ (rye-flour cooked in water), sour barley (barley cooked in buttermilk, with bacon, bacon fat and molasses), ‘greveltsje’porridge, also called health porridge (rye with currants, raisins and currant juice), rye porridge and rice porridge. Also green and grey peas and French beans are often eaten. Vegetables are not popular in those days. Beef is seldom served, but more often bacon with bacon fat and in the winter hotchpotch with bacon or sometimes mutton.
Everyone tries as much as possible to be self suppliant. Many laborers have a field on which for instance potatoes and chicory are grown at alternate years. Potatoes are for own consumption, and chicory (the root being used for making a surrogate coffee) brought to the chicory plant, that can be found in almost every village. Growing chicory is very vulnerable for weeds and therefore needs a lot of work. Many farmers therefore are somewhat reluctant to grow it, but this is no problem for the field next to or behind the laborers house when the wife and kids are weeding. There is also no problem of storage, because the end product can be delivered straight away to the plant.
Besides chicory during the 19th century the growing of flax, basic material for linen, gets important. This provides for a lot of work of farm laborers, especially in the wintertime. The growing of flax is mostly done by ‘gardeniers’, small contract farmers, who hire the flax fields. After the harvest all during the long winter the stored flax is being braked in the wooden brake shed: small bunches are battered, chopped and grinded till clean bundles of six pounds of linen are produced. In part this linen is used by local weavers, another part exported to Belgium.
The country laborer prefers payment in goods rather than cash, since money is hard to keep when there is no bank. Most farmers pay their intern personnel at May 11, at the end of the year of service. The payment is for the negotiated amount of money, after deduction of board and lodging. When something has been bought, for instance clothing, or there are some extra earnings, this also is settled at the end of the year. One can look at it as some kind of checking account, of which the administration is done by the farmer. Money received is being hidden or sometimes brought to a trusted person in the village, maybe the notary, at some interest.
Just let us take as an example Pieter Cornelis van Eck. He is a ‘gardenier’ at Blija, married to Antje Pieters Haga. The couple has two daughters, Hiltje and Sjoukje, and they marry at the same day. The parents are both not able to sign the marriage certificate, because they did not learn to write. Hiltje marries peat shipper Egbert Eizes Boonstra, Sjoukje laborer Aris Dreyer, who once in his youth was arrested for digging up and trading cow bones, the cows having been buried there because of some contagious cow disease. When the sisters try to name their father, Hiltje has to give birth to three, Sjoukje to four Pieters to accomplish this. Hiltje has eight, Sjoukje seven children.
The last Van Eck we know of from this family branch is Cornelis van Eck, who takes a classic escape route for a son of a farm-hand with brains at the end of the 19th century, living in Stiens in the neighborhood of the province capital Leeuwarden: he attends the teacher training-college and becomes a schoolteacher. In 1911 he marries the daughter of a headmaster, Rinkje Smits, and moves to The Hague, where Ate van Ek finds him in 1940 still being a head teacher. He has no children then and looking at his age at that moment I presume he really is the last representative of the Willem Cornelis van Eck family branch.
The baker’s business in the 19th century.
The brothers Cornelis and Pieter, sons of Ate Cornelis van E(c)k, started the baker’s tradition of the Van E(c)k family from the 1820’s onwards. In part it still goes on in our days. In this chapter I would like to tell you something about the baker’s trade in the 19th and the early 20th century in Friesland. Of course I am not completely sure everything I wil describe exactly took place like that in the Van E(c)k bakeries.
The oven of the bakery is a brick made hole, heated by burning fire on the oven floor. As fuel peat is used. Also branches, but they generate less heat. For the second warming of the oven, to get the oven ready for baking cook products, branches are always used. When the oven is warm enough, fire and ashes are pulled out by a ‘haal’, a kind of hook, from the oven floor into an extinguisher. The thing will be emptied outside on the ash heap. Using a wet salt sack on a stick the oven floor is cleaned and after that it’s ready to use.
Frisians know two words for bread: ‘Brea’ always is rye-bread, ‘bôlle’ always white-bread, made of wheat. The daily bread for farmers and laborers in the 19th century consists of rye-bread with bacon or lard. Before the introduction of potatoes, rye is the most important agricultural crop in the sand region of Dantumadeel, alternated with buckwheat and oats. Wheat has to be imported from the clay area.
J. Botke tells us how in Dantumadeel farmers and bakers work together to prevent the baker having to make large investments to buy rye. The farmer delivers sacks of rye at the baker and gets rye-bread in return. A sack of rye stands for thirty half-breads (5 pounds a piece) of rye-bread. If, for instance, the farmer delivers twenty sacks, this means that during the wintertime he will have the right to claim 600 half-breads, of which the whole farmer's family and lodging personnel can eat. The baker receives money for the baking. The account is put ‘on the tally stick’. Every rye-bread delivered is marked by a notch on the stick. Waling Dijkstra, a Frisian writer of that period, once a baker himself, explains how it goes. The stick looks like a thick ruler having flat sides. The baker has one and the farmer has another, just like the one of the baker. When getting the bread, the farmer takes the stick with him. Both sticks are laid down aside each other and then in one move for each bread a notch is cut. Once the stick is full, the notches are counted and the baker gets paid for the baking. The baker has several of these sticks, one for every customer.
The rye for the rye-bread is not being milled but only bruised or broken. To do that the baker brings the grain to the miller. The rougher the breaking, the nicer the rye-bread. A fifth of the rye flour is soaked into water for a couple of hours. Then the dry flour, together with the salt, is added. The rye-dough is trodden in the kneading-trough with bare feet till it’s ready to bake. Breads made of dough are being put into the oven with a bread-shovel, a flat board with a thin ending and a long stick attached. There are half-breads weighing five pounds and quarter-breads weighing two and a half pounds. Two kinds of bread are ‘pale’ and ‘brown’. The pale stays in the oven for eight hours (inside the oven at night, to get it out in the morning), the brown for twenty-four hours.
Bread made of wheat is not a traditional Frisian baking. Frisian think this bread, compared to rye-bread, is much to dry. Therefore Frisian bakers used to sell it half-baked, to keep the inside a little tacky. My dad told me that his father when he started got comments his bread was way too dry, for he had before worked at a bakery near The Hague, Holland. Even about 1890 stories are being told that white bread is a ‘steady poison’, and bakers use grinded bones, maybe excavated skeletons, to make it that white.
Kinds of wheat bread are first of all the floor breads, baked directly on the oven floor, with smaller kinds named in Frisian ‘broadsjes’, ‘pofkes’ and ‘bôltsjes’. Later the bread is put into the oven on a baking tray. By baking some fifteen breads against each other and pulling them apart afterwards, the breads get less crusty. Some farmers are quite fond of this so-called ‘richelwich’. Still later breads are baked in boxes, each one apart.
Dutch rusk is a Frisian specialty, still being made by the Van Eck bakery in Akkerwoude today. A little heap of dough is placed upon the baking tray and over it a round baking tin is placed. During the baking the product takes the form of the tin. After the baking the tin is emptied and the ‘pof’ is cut between two boards exactly in half. Then the two pieces are placed back on the baking tray and baked a very short time until they are crisp and have the right color.
For Sunday-evenings and when expecting visitors people will buy currant bread and sugarloaf (Frisian: it krintestikje and the sûkerbolle) at the bakery store. As special Frisian pastry baker Koksma mentions the ‘soes’cracknel and the sugar cracknel, the Swiss pastry full of marchpane (stamped almonds, sugar and egg), the ‘Frisan thumbs’, the Orange-cook with a red icing and white trimming (a special treat at fairs and at birthday parties), the spiced gingerbread, for which every baker has his own recipe, the ‘keallepoat’ (‘calfleg’, a kind of cook) and at Santa Claus (in the Netherlands the fifth of December) some special gingerbread and ginger-nuts. A lot of very sweet products. One old recipe is the ‘sûkerpof’ (sugarloaf). Two slices of currant bread dough are baked with a clod of sugar and cinnamon in between. Before eating it it’s cut open and part of the sugar with butter is spread and then the whole thing is eaten, leaving the middle part with most sugar for last.
Of old the baker can make his best sales at funerals, when even the poor, at the disgust of ministers, think they should honor the deceased with a big gathering and a lot of eating and drinking. All kinds of bread are ordered in large quantities and sometimes the baker included as the one who will cut the bread. This baker will be sure to cut as many breads as possible, so to avoid having to take back unused breads.
The bakers from Akkerwoude.
Although Ate Cornelis married as Van Ek before the Court in 1802, his oldest son Cornelis is baptized a year later by the church as Van Eck. At his marriage in 1828 Cornelis’ bride, Gertje Ekes Westra, needs a certificate of indigence, supplied by the mayor of Dantumadeel, in which the storekeeper Johannes Bartels van der Kolk and laborer Wouter Johannes van der Meer, both living at Dantumawoude and ‘respectable people’ declare that ‘she lives under poor circumstances and is not capable to take care of and to pay the costs due for the drawing up of documents and certificates’. Cornelis, then a bakers hand at Dantumawoude, after his marriage becomes a baker at Veenwoudsterwal, where his wife dies two years later.
Also Cornelis’ second bride, Folkje Feddes Braaksma, needs a certificate of indigence in 1836. And she also needs a certificate of known birth. A couple of witnesses declare that Folkje was born on September 2, 1809, ‘without having been registered in the birth register, because she was not baptized.’ The reason for not baptizing was that the Braaksma family was Mennonite, and Mennonites don’t baptize until a person has reached the age of an adult. Folkje however does her confession on May 17, 1840, in the Dutch Reformed Church. Her husband does the same on April 28, 1839, as Kornelis Ates van Eck.
Cornelis Ates has a son Ate with his first wife, but he dies when he is twelve years old. Then, with his second wife, he has nine children. According to the census of 1839 the family consists of five persons. Cornelis is a bakers hand and lives with his wife and the children Ate, Fedde and Pieter in Akkerwoude. Eleven years later the head of the family is a baker and his son Fedde a bakers hand. Pieter, Ate and Sake are schoolboys. An add in the Leeuwarder Courant announces the public sale of the bakery of Kornelis Ates van Ek on Februari 16 and on March 2, 1861:
‘A house and bakery, premises and garden, standing and laying at the New Artificial road at Akkerwoude, known cadastral as section E, nr. 381 and 382, large 10 rood and 90 ell.’
The reasons for this sale are unknown. Maybe it’s no more than the fact that the children have left the house by now and Cornelis wants to have some easier living. After that he is again registered as a bakers hand. After the death of his wife Cornelis leaves April 4, 1888 to live with the family of his son Ate, who is a blacksmith at Oenkerk. There he dies a year and a half later.
The children and grandchildren of Cornelis Ates spread the bakers trade all over Friesland. The oldest son, Fedde, first may have worked as a bakers hand in his father’s bakery and then, between 1855 and 1860, has to enlist in the army for five years. After that he works and lodges at the bakery of baker Thomas Jacobs Laverman in Driesum. He gets engaged there with Sjoukje Wopkes de Vries. They marry in 1862, two months before their son Kornelis is born. Twelve days later Sjoukje dies. With his second wife, Antje Doekes Dijkstra, Fedde has a daughter called Hendrikje, more often called Hinke. In the 1870’s the family lives in Akkerwoude. Fedde and his son Kornelis both are bakers hands. Fedde now works for Geert Martens Sikkema, a baker at Murmerwoude. His bakery stands just north of café De Krúshoeke and burns down some time later. In 1880 or 1881 Fedde starts his own bakery at Akkerwoude. Februari 12, 1883 his son Kornelis comes back from Lioessens to help out and after that still two more bakers hands come lodging. One of them is Thijs Kuitert, who marries Antje Sakes van Ek. In the early 1890’s there are six more bakers hands who for some time lodge and work in the bakery, among them Kornelis Sakes van Ek. Daughter Hendrikje in 1891 marries laborer, later farmer, Jan Louws van der Zwaag.
At Murmerwoude in 1883 a society for the Publicity in Dantumadeel was grounded, that publishes a list concerning taxes citizens are paying in 1887. Akkerwoude then has 160 taxpayers, and Fedde Kornelis van Eck, as he is called, takes 85th place. Fourteen people have a taxable income of more than a thousand guilders, six don’t exceed ten guilders (taxes: 72 cents!). Fedde is thought to have earned a hundred guilders, of which five guilders and one cent have to be donated to the municipality. I think that what is called ‘income’ here should be profit, because even a laborer will not have been able, even at those times, to survive on that kind of low income.
Pieter Cornelis lives and works as a bakers hand at Metslawier at the time that he dies unmarried at the age of 25.
A son again called Ate works as a smiths hand and later settles as a blacksmith in Oenkerk. His family has no children.
Sake Cornelis in his younger years works as a ‘servant’ for a baker-innkeeper at Akkerwoude, but at the time of his marriage he is a butcher ( the population register says: meatcutter) at Murmerwoude. By means of his children however he contributes strongly to the bakers image of the Van Ek family. After his early death his widow, with the help of his son Kornelis, starts a bakery at Wouterswoude. After his marriage Kornelis is a baker at Blija, Niawier and later at Oosterwolde, in the southeast of Friesland.
Sakes daughters Antje, Folkje en Tjitske all marry bakers(hands).
Sakes second son, Hendrik, is a baker in Eernewoude. His marriage stays without children.
After Kornelis Sakes leaves the bakery at Wouterswoude at first is taken over by Antje Sakes and her husband Thijs Kuitert, while Sake’s widow, and their youngest daughter Tjitske, move to Buitenpost.
The youngest son of Cornelis Ates, Jan, starts as a baker using an old bakery at Kollum, but soon leaves for Leeuwarden, making a living as a bakers hand and bread hawker. The family lives at thirteen different addresses, among them four in the Torenstraat (Towerstreet), near Leeuwarden’s famous old Oldehove tower. Jan probably is an independent hawker, buying his bread from a bread factory. After the death of his wife in 1924 he lives his last years in the family of his son Ate in Haarlem, where he dies in 1931.
The emigration.
Just as the oldest son Cornelis, also Ate Cornelis’ second son Pieter starts a career in the bakers trade. In 1851, as a bakers hand living at Rinsumageest, he marries Sytske Keimpes van der Meer. After that they start a bakery at De Streek (earlier called Betterwird), the trading district along the Dokkumer Ee just outside Dokkum and the place where his father was born. Officially he is registered living in Aalzum, meaning that he lives on the eastside of the border river Peassens. In the 1850’s four children are born, among them the brothers Keimpe (1852) and Mient (1859). Apparently to many mouths to feed from the baker store, so May 31, 1862 the family moves to the neighborhood Oud Galileën near Leeuwarden, where Pieter gets a job as a hodman. Oud Galileën also is situated along the Ee just outside the city borders and so it can be compared to De Streek. At this place in the Middle Ages the convent Galilea was situated. In 1870 Pieter dies in Birdaard. According to the death certificate the family is living there then. According to the population register however, Tjitske stays with her children in Leeuwarden until February 1, 1878, and then moves to Birdaard. Probably they go to live in the house of Taede Willems van Ek (he lives at nr. 15, they at nr. 15a). Taede dies some months later.
In 1880 daughter Tjitske serves as a maidservant, lodging at the farm of Tjeerd Tjeerds Straatsma in Birdaard. The same year she goes to Janum, lodging and working in the house of storekeeper Popke Jans Zuidema. At August 13, 1881 she has a daughter from an unknown father, but the child dies less then a month later.
The population register of 1880-89 has the widow Tjitske Keimpes van der Meer living in Birdaard with only the children Mient (labourer) and Korneliske still with her. The family, when arriving in Birdaard registered as Dutch Reformed, now has Christian Reformed behind their name. Keimpe and Antje have moved into the house of their aunt Antje Ates van Ek, who, as a widow, owns a store in Genum. According to the population register they are still Dutch Reformed. Keimpe is a shipper. Antje in 1881 marries Doede Hofman, a peat shipper, who serves the village with fuel. The baker gets long peat and branches for the oven and the citizens get small peat. Doede and Antje have a ship of 32 tons, that just can make a turn at the turning point, the ‘wiksel’ of the canal. Their son Pieter later has a ship of 43 tons. Also grandson Doede still earns a living in the fuel trade, until natural gas takes out the trade altogether. From the different birth places of the children of Doede and Antje one can conclude that the family is living on the ship. Later they have a centuries old house in Genum behind the mediaeval village church.
When Keimpe and Antje have already left, Korneliske also comes working as a maidservant and lodging at aunt Antje Ates’ house. October 31, 1891 she marries the shoemaker Lieuwe Jacobs Sprietsma, and the couple leaves for Wanswerd. They then are registered as Reformed.
The timing by widow Tjitske Keimpes van der Meer to move, taking her children with her, from Leeuwarden to the countryside in 1878 is not well chosen. Just that year a big agriculture crises breaks out, and the northern clay area of Friesland is especially hit. For many the future looks grim and apparently this also goes for the Van Ek brothers.
There is a way out however: emigration to America. As a Frisian song of that time says ‘ the land of dreams and wishes’. The first emigration wave has been during the economic crises of the 1840’s. Then the example is set by the ministers A.C. van Raalte and H.P. Scholte of the new Christian Reformed Church. Van Raalte settles in Michigan, where towns arise having names like Holland, Zeeland and Vriesland. Scholte founds Pella in Iowa. Between 1835 and 1880 almost 4.000 people emigrate from Friesland to the United States, and many of them are from the northern clay area. No Van Eck’s are among them, though.
When in 1878 the agricultural crises breaks out letters from earlier emigrants (so-called bacon letters), newspapers and recruiting ‘agents’ present emigration as a solution for all hardship and poverty. A big advantage is that a clear goal can be presented, because of the many places in America where the Dutch have already settled.
Especially for Christian Reformed people emigration is attractive, because their fellow believers have erected churches everywhere, where many times Dutch ministers are asked to lead. For instance in a fairly short time four ministers that once stood at Ferwerd, are emigrating. That’s why Christian Reformed people are somewhat overrepresented in the emigration. But most important however, is the bad economic situation. The Frisian emigration in the 1880’s mostly is a family emigration. Parents often are about forty years old and they bring their children with them in order to get them a better future. A minority consists of people who travel alone, like Keimpe and Mient, and these people often are about ten years younger.
Most emigrants before never left the village of birth or the nearby surroundings. In fact, Keimpe and Mient van Ek, born at De Streek near Dokkum and grown up in the city Leeuwarden, relatively speaking have seen more of the world than most. But also to them the long trip by train and ship for America must have been an impressing experience that they will have remembered all their life. Probably they sent letters from far away Chicago to their mother and sisters, but nothing has been saved. Fortunately many letters others sent are still there, and from them we can get a fairly clear picture how the emigration took place.
In the spring of 1881 for instance also Johannes K. van Dijk, a building laborer of 24 years old from Ferwerd and Pieter Goustra, a carpenter from Ee, made the trip and it’s even possible they took the same ship as the Van Eck brothers. Johannes reacts to an advertisement that stands in the newspaper Het Noorden (The North) of March 15, 1881:
‘Dirk Miedema, since 29 years American citizen and now visiting Marrum, will leave April 23, 1881 with the N.A.S.M. (Nederlandsch-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij) from Rotterdam to America. Anyone who wants to join him can get information and register at J. Stroosma, innkeeper at Marrum or J. van der Veen, agent at Dokkum.’ Johannes has a talk with Miedema and leaves, after getting permission from his parents, at May 7, 1881 on the steamship P. Caland from Rotterdam.
By far most people leave in April or May, trying to have some good weather crossing the ocean and to arrive at their destination at the start of summer. Johannes van Dijk tells us:
‘Thursdaymorning at six o’clock, accompanied by M. Fokkema, I left the village of Ferwerd. A great many people were about, to see many of us for the last time and to say goodbye. And no wonder! This morning fifty people were about to leave the village… The crowd in Leeuwarden, with many emigrants, put our mediation to an end. What a people who were traveling with us!…Old and young, men, women and children, youngsters and girls, all ages were ready to reach their goal. Many were very sad, the circumstances forced them to leave family and friends, village and the home they loved.’ For Keimpe and Mient the stop at Leeuwarden was the last time they saw the city they grew up in.
From Leeuwarden emigrants travel by train to Rotterdam or Amsterdam. Johannes van Dijk travels a whole day before he reaches Rotterdam. There he has to wait two nights in a cheap hotel. Rotterdam looks impressive for its international look, thousands of emigrants from all over Europe leave from here.
For the trip across the ocean Johannes pays 42 guilders. The P. Caland takes on almost a thousand passengers, but only 36 first or second class. The rest has to take third class in the hold. The hold looks like a small floating city where people are talking in many languages and dance, sing or play cards to cover time. According to Johannes the food isn’t bad, with meat at the warm meal.
After twelve days the P. Caland arrives at New York. Before they can leave the ship a doctor comes on board to check if everyone is healthy and there are no contagious diseases. Then the passengers are taken to Castle Garden by a steamboat. In the wooden building they can get everything they need: train tickets, money change, information on hotels and work. For his 105 guilders Johannes receives 39 dollars and ninety cents, about the same he would get today! For thirteen dollars at the Erie ticket office Johannes buys a train ticket for Holland, Michigan. The train ride takes another two days. In all the costs of emigration amount about 96 guilders.
For Pieter Groustra the trip is less fortunate. He sets out from Amsterdam on the freight boat ‘Castor en Pollux’. The ship is used mainly to transport cheap grain from America to Europe, in doing that feeding the big agricultural crisis going on there, and then for economic reasons takes the victims of this crisis back as emigrants. The trip across the ocean this time takes eighteen days, infested by bad food, storms, seasickness and vermin. After a stay of a day and a halve in New York, there is a two day train ride to Chicago, according to Pieter, ‘ sitting day and night, and with a heat no one of you have ever experienced.’ There is no more money left and in the train the last parts of moldy rye bread from Ee is eaten with water.
Arriving in Chicago, like Pieter Grouwstra, Keimpe and Mient van Eck will travel on to Roseland, a suburb in the south where many Dutch people and especially Frisians are living. The Grouwstra family first gets a room in a shed that has been build especially for housing the many newcomers for a while. All kinds of new furniture is bought: ‘ … of course everything on credit, as most people do who come here, everyone can be helped here, for a laborer earns so much, that he can pay off easily.’ Pieter immediately gets a job at the new Pullman factory for railroad carriages. He has to work ten hours a day for six days a week, but doesn’t complain, because according to him one doesn’t have to work as hard as in The Netherlands and there is enough to eat and drink. The boss is a Dutchman, and so are many colleagues. Many Frisians are living in the area. ‘We are speaking as much Frisian as you do.’ Carpen
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Abt 1700 - 1742 (~ 42 years)