The Family Kalamazoo

This year has been very intense-with both overwhelmingly sad events, especially my father’s illness and eventual passing, and more positive events, including the publication of my first book (of poetry). So I have really let the genealogy slide, although I’ve continued to post occasional photos and story tidbits.

Eventually I hope to get back into working on all branches and with others I have been in contact with, namely the Paak/Pake, Van Liere, Van Gessel, Mulder, as well as information that people have sent me about the DeKorns (deKorne, deKorn, DeKorne). Additionally, I owe information to a couple of people, including Hubert Theuns. Jose from Enhanced News Archive is using his research abilities and newspaper knowhow to help me with a Noffke (surname also known as Neffka) project.  If you don’t see your family branch or name mentioned, feel free to send me an email or comment here reminding me. I would be so grateful, although maybe not any more prompt ;).

This post comes about because of a Dutch connection that is related to my last post about Alice Leeuwenhoek, my grandfather’s first cousin. Alice and I are blood related on Alice’s mother’s side, but Grandpa and the family were very close to Alice’s father, shopkeeper Lambertus (Uncle Lou) Leeuwenhoek. In fact, Grandpa’s father and Uncle Lou were close and even worked on the Dutch-America newspaper together: see this post.

I’ve written before about Uncle Lou’s Bible collection here. Eventually, I would like to write about his retail enterprises. Uncle Lou and his brother Gerrit were orphans who immigrated to the United States. His brother died during the Spanish-American War, which I wrote about in Good Manners and Genuine Dutch Intrepidity in Fierce Battles.

I was contacted by Adriaan Leeuwenhoek, who lives in the Netherlands. Adriaan’s great-grandfather Cornelis Leeuwenhoek was the cousin of Lambertus and Gerrit.

Lambertus (Uncle Lou) was born in 1872 and Gerrit in 1877. Cornelis was born in 1866, so he was about the same amount older than Lou than Lou was than Gerrit, if that makes sense.

Adriaan shared this fabulous photograph from the Leeuwenhoek “family archives.”

Cornelis Leeuwenhoek circa 1917

MORE FROM ADRIAAN IN THE NEXT POST, including the origins of the surname Leeuwenhoek!