In 1994, five and a half years before he passed away, my grandfather, Adrian Zuidweg, was interviewed by Connie Jo Bowman, the head of residents at Crossroads Village, a retirement community in Portage, Michigan. Connie was taking a course about the elderly at Western Michigan University and chose Grandpa as her subject. I’ve written about Grandpa in a post about our left-handed connection.
The entire interview is eight typed pages, so I’ll divide it among a few blog posts.
Connie begins by introducing my grandfather, Adrian Zuidweg. To read the excerpts of Connie’s report, you can click them for a better view (I hope):
Connie identifies my grandfather here as a “tall, gentle dutchman with a big friendly voice.” That would probably be how Grandpa thought of himself. He identified strongly with his Dutch heritage. He had a lot of jokes, but one of his favorites was to say, “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.” He didn’t really mean it, which you will see by the end of the interview, but he was very proud of being Dutch.
She also notes here how after talking with Grandpa for two years it wasn’t until she began interviewing him that she realized how much there was to know about Grandpa. Grandpa’s powers of observation were impressive to her, especially in light of his blindness. He only became completely blind in his old age, but he had been blind in one eye since he was a small child.
Connie was right–Grandpa had an amazing memory. He also loved to tell stories, especially stories about the past. As the oldest grandchild, I was privy to more of them than the other kids, but I still only know a few from his vast store.
Now that I realize that Grandpa knew the name of the midwife who delivered him, I wish Connie had put that information into her report, but perhaps it didn’t fit with the class assignment.
Here she mentions how Grandpa’s father came to the U.S. from the Netherlands when he was a child. This was Adriaan Zuijdweg, who I have written about in the past. He owned a fish market and then a candy and soda shop. You can find a story about his retail businesses here.
When Grandpa was a baby his parents moved in with “his recently widowed grandfather,” Richard DeKorn, the brick mason and contractor. You can read more about Richard in the following posts:
Richard DeKorn: Brick Mason and General Contractor
More Mighty Kalamazoo Buildings from Richard DeKorn
Richard DeKorn and His Bride Tied the Knot in Kalamazoo
By the way, a big thank you to Linda at Living with My Ancestors for her help with watermarking my photograph.
Isn’t that wonderful you have this interview? I am always astounded at your search results…look forward ti the other posts…
Sheila, my grandmother gave me a copy of the interview years ago. I’m so glad I kept it and then found it!
I agree with Sheila that it is awesome that Connie selected your grandfather to be the subject of her paper. Your grandfather must have been a really special person. I’ll looking forward to upcoming posts that tell the rest of the story.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Sheryl. And your loyalty as a reader :)!
Looking forward to the next post. It must be great to have so much about your ancestors right there at your fingertips.
I admit it’s wonderful! Of course, I’m greedy and always want more!
Fascinating! It’s neat that you had such a young grandpa and that he was so smart and had such a good memory. You’re lucky to have that report from Connie!
I have a young grandpa because my mother was the oldest and she was young when she had me. He was a good guy. If you ever see Connie tell her thank you for me, please!
This is wonderful that you have this special article. I’ve been struggling the past couple of weeks trying to find just about anything on my father’s father. My dad just wouldn’t talk about him and I haven’t figured out why. Since my grandmother died in 1912 and he died in 1939, it’s going to just be whatever I can glean.
Linda, that is very difficult since he died such a long time ago. What kind of information do you have to go on?
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[…] about my grandfather’s love of mechanical toys. On my genealogy blog I have been serializing an interview of my grandfather which was conducted in 1994—when he was elderly, but still healthy. I could post […]
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Reblogged this on telling family tales and commented:
One of my regular readers, currentdescendent, is doing a great project that I wanted to share with you, a multi-part story about her grandfather. Luanne has been blessed with an interview with her grandfather that was done about five years before he passed away. She has taken this interview and broken it up into short parts and then expanded on the interview with stories, photos and memories of her own. Great job Luanne!
[…] Click this link for Part I […]
[…] Click this link for Part I […]
[…] Click this link for Part I […]
[…] grandfather (the one of the 12 part story) was a Zuidweg and my grandmother (his wife and the creator of the scrapbook I’ve posted on […]