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Posts Tagged ‘Zuidweg surname’

A couple of years ago we digitized the glass negatives of photos taken by Joseph DeKorn. In those photographs I found many children who remain unidentified. Because children change their looks rapidly–some kids more than others–they are harder to pin down than adults.

Here are a few:

This is just a sampling, but it’s important to concentrate on the details, so three is enough for now.  All of these would have been taken in or around Kalamazoo, Michigan. I am fairly certain they were taken on DeKorn property on Burdick Street.

I looked through my family tree, as it stands right now, and the kids who are closest in age would be the youngest DeSmit children (children of John and Mary DeKorn DeSmit).  Could it be Frances herself or a younger sister? Or are they unrelated neighbor children? Because the bottom two photos seem to be the same girl, at least, I suspect they are family.

Why would the boy in the top photo be wearing overalls and a straw hat? This seems more casual than the kids usual dress. Was he ready to go fishing?  If so, wouldn’t he have a pole in his hand?

The Van Lieres, another branch of the family, had a bus load of kids, starting in 1902, but from everything I can find they were all boys, and I think this photo is too early for them.

Any details which speak to you?

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Today would be the birthday of (Lucille) Edna Mulder Zuidweg, my wonderful grandmother, born April 17, 1912. We lost her on September 21, 2000.

In honor of Grandma, I’ll share more from her high school graduation scrapbook, which has quite a few goodies in it.  I wrote about it before in the post Who Put the Ring Stain on the ScrapbookToday I’d like to share one page of the scrapbook.

This page is my favorite because I learn more about my grandmother here.  In the upper left is a photo of my grandparents, which means that they were dating by the point she glued that photo in the book.  Aren’t they cute?  When and where did they meet?

In the upper middle is a photo of Grandma’s best friend Blanche Stauffer, Class Valedictorian.  Grandma was Class Historian and her older sister Dorothy was Salutatorian.  The newspaper clipping on the upper right explains all that.

The congratulations note by Elsa looks treasured.  At the bottom left is a newspaper clipping which is from April 1920:

Miss Edna Mulder celebrated her eighth birthday anniversary with a party Saturday.  Twenty little people were present.

In the bottom right corner is another clipping.  This one is also from 1920:

The first of the spring flowers again comes to our desk through the thoughtful kindness of little Edna Mulder.  Flowers while we live to enjoy them are far sweeter than those at death for does not some one tell us that “Flowers on the casket can cast no fragrance backward over life’s rugged way.”

One more scrapbook treat is the “entertainment” for Grandma’s 8th grade graduation, which took place  in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on June 12, 1925:

Happy birthday, Grandma.  I miss you! xo

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This gavel belonged to my great-grandfather Charles Mulder of Caledonia, Michigan.

He was my maternal grandmother‘s father and his name at birth, in 1885 in Goes, Zeeland, the Netherlands, was Karel Pieter Phillipus Mulder.  His great-great-grandfather was Carel Mulder, born March 8, 1780 in Goes, the Netherlands.  His occupation was a jailor’s hand.

This same Carel Mulder is also an ancestor of my maternal grandfather.  I wrote about the discovery of this coincidence in an earlier post.

Great Grandpa was a working farmer for many years.  I remember his farm with great affection because it had a rope swing from an apple tree, a barn, a chicken coop, outhouse, and fields where we once went on a hayride. Across the country road, a the thick woods nurtured a colorful assortment of wild flowers.

Great Grandpa, me (the first great grandchild), and Margaret

Great Grandpa, me (the first great-grandchild), and Margaret

In the above photo, Great Grandpa is with the only “great-grandmother” I knew, his second wife, Margaret, a very sweet lady.  My great-grandmother Clara passed away from uterine cancer two years before I was born.

Charles and Clara (Waldeck) Mulder

Charles and Clara (Waldeck) Mulder

My father told me that Great Grandpa held the position of Township Supervisor years ago and that is where he used this gavel.

On pages 252-256 of Ernest B. Fisher’s 1918 book, Grand Rapids and Kent County, Michigan: historical account of …, Volume 1I discovered more specific information about Great Grandpa and Caledonia.

Fisher explains that Caledonia was a “wilderness” with narrow trails by the local Native Americans (“red men,” according to Fisher) when Europeans first arrived there.  He states:

At the mouth of Coldwater river was a great Indian camping ground and burial place. The Indians did not leave there entirely until a comparatively recent date. One of them, old Soh-na-go, or “Squirrel,” was seen at quite a late day visiting the burial place and the hunting grounds of his fathers, but the “white man’s axe” had been there and it was no longer a home for him.

He goes on to say:

Caledonia, situated on Section 29, is a prosperous village of 600 people. It was settled in 1850, the first plat was made in 1870, and it reached the dignity of an incorporated municipality in 1888. It is situated on the Michigan Central railroad and hence has good shipping facilities which make it the center of trade for a wide extent of fertile country. It has one Methodist and two United Brethren churches, a bank, and a weekly newspaper, the News, and the requisite number of mercantile establishments and general industries.

The township of Caledonia is one of the best agricultural districts in Kent county, and the thrifty farmers are profitably engaged in all classes of diversified farming.

What interested me is that I saw that inside one of Great Grandpa’s books he went to a (Dutch) Reformed Church in 1903.  He was so ensconced in life in Caledonia by 1915 that he was Township Supervisor (and Grandma was born in 1912 in Caledonia).  The quote above says that there was one Methodist and two United Brethren churches, and I do know that my grandmother was a Methodist and that we used to have family reunions in the basement of the Methodist Church in Caledonia when I was a kid.  So where did he go to the Reformed Church?

According to records I found through ancestry.com, he immigrated to the United States with his family when he was two or three and grew up in Grand Rapids, not out in the country on a farm, after all.

Back to what Mr. Fisher had to tell me about my great-grandfather:

Below is given a list of the supervisors of the township from its organization down to the present time: 1840, John P. McNaughton; 1842, Norman Foster; 1844, Roswell F. Tyler and William Gibson; 1845, John A. Cornell; 1846, Justus G. Beach; 1848, Reuben H. Smith; 1849, William H. Brown; 1854, Lyman Gerould; 1857, Zabin Williams; 1858, William H. Brown; 1860, Warren S. Hale; 1861, William H. Brown; 1863, William J. Wood; 1865, Adam B. Sherk; 1868, William J. Wood; 1869, Marcus Buell; 1870, Adam B. Sherk; 1871, Robert S. Jackson; 1872, William J. Wood; 1873, Martin Whitney; 1877, Austin W. Hill; 1878, Marcus Buell; 1879, Sherman T. Colson; 1889, Alfred W. Stow; 1891, Sherman T. Colson; 1895, Eugene Ward; 1900, Joseph E. Kennedy; 1901, Alfred Newman; 1904, EugeneWard; 1906, Alfred Newman; 1907, Frederick W. Ruehs; 1912, Merrill M. Kriger; 1914, John J. Luneke; 1915, Charles R. Mulder, present incumbent.

Great Grandpa was the Supervisor of the Township of Caledonia.  He used this gavel to call the meetings to order.  Maybe this desire for order comes to him from his great-great-grandfather, the jailor’s hand.

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My grandfather was left-handed.  And so am I.  I get it from him because my parents are both right-handed.

Grandpa holding me

Grandpa holding me, his first grandchild, 1955

I’ve written about both Adriaan Zuijdweg/Adrian Zuidweg (the elder) and Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, my great grandparents.  They had one son, my grandfather, Adrian Zuidweg (1908-2000).  He owned a Sunoco “filling station” on the corner of Burdick and Balch in Kalamazoo where his father had previously owned the soda shop.  In the photos above and below, he’s wearing his Sunoco uniform.

When I was a kid, I loved the fold-out maps Grandpa carried inside the station. Out back, he planted a strip of petunias and vegetables.  He knew how to make use of a small space for gardening.  When I visited, he would climb out of the pit where he worked under a car.  The most memorable part of the station for me was the lettering on the front door:

Adrian Zuidweg, Proprietor

A – Z Lubrication

I loved how it played off his initials A.Z.

"Adie" "Zuidy" by the pump

“Adie” “Zuidy” by the pump

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When I was a kid, the oldest person in our family was “Aunt Jen.”  After the death of her only child, Aunt Jen went to live in a group home for elderly ladies run by the mother of one of the 4th grade teachers at Haverhill Elementary School (Portage, Michigan), Mr. Sweringer.  My fourth grade class was directly opposite that of Mr. S who made kids put a penny in a jar if they cussed.

My daughter’s middle name is Jennifer, and I gave her this name in honor of Aunt Jen.

Aunt Jen was born Jennie DeKorn in Kalamazoo, on March 8, 1873, to Richard and Alice (Paak) DeKorn.  She was the oldest of the three siblings, which included Cora (my great grandmother) and Joseph (the photographer).

At age 23, on May 20, 1896, Jennie married Lambertus Leeuwenhoek.

Lambertus, known to everyone in the family as Uncle Lou, was born in the Netherlands  on May 3, 1972.  He passed away April 20, 1949 in Kalamazoo.  Uncle Lou’s parents were Arie Leeuwenhoek and Mary Hoogedoom.  The story I was told by Grandpa is that Uncle Lou and his brother Gerard were orphans.   He told me that Uncle Lou was a very intelligent man.

Additional info added later:  I discovered a letter from Phil DeKorn, son of Joseph, to my parents, which says that Uncle Lou was a wizard at chess and checkers.

Gerard or Garret Leeuwenhoek

He also said that Uncle Lou was a direct descendent of Antony van Leeuwenhoek, the inventor of the microscope.

Uncle Lou and his brother-in-law, my great grandfather Adrian Zuidweg, spent a lot of time together.

Aunt Jen and Uncle Lou had one child, Alice Leeuwenhoek Moerdyke.  She was born in Kalamazoo on April 16, 1897.  I suspect she was quite spoiled because:

a.  I have so many photos of her!

b.  She had a lot of pretty clothes–much nicer than the rest of the family.

c.  My grandfather once told me so ;).

And look how cute she was:

Aunt Jen and Uncle Lou lived the rest of their lives in Kalamazoo.  They celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1946 and the Kalamazoo Gazette ran their photo.

When I was little, she attended our family get-togethers, and she wasn’t a mother or aunt of anyone from my generation or my mother’s.  I couldn’t grasp that she was my grandfather’s aunt, as that seemed to me impossible.   My parents took me to visit her regularly, and I always respected them for their attention to her.

On March 15, 1968, at the age of 95, Aunt Jen passed away.

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This is another post which I dedicate to Yvette Hoitink at Dutch Genealogy.

I described in other posts that  Yvette Hoitink, a Dutch genealogist, quickly and easily found a wealth of information about the Zuidweg family–my grandfather’s Dutch ancestors. 

Where in the heck is Kalamazoo

I grew up hearing that expression (or a more direct variation of it which reminds with “bell”).  When Kalamazooans travel outside Michigan, they tend to hear people ask some version of the phrase.  Even today, living out west, I find myself being asked the same thing.  I do what I have always done:  open my right palm and point to the fleshy lower outside section.  “Right there.  That’s where Kalamazoo is.”

With the help of Yvette’s genealogical research, I can now say that approximately 3/8 of my more recent ancestors come from Zeeland, a Dutch province–and most significantly from the town of Goes.  When I was young my grandmother taught me how to say it.  With an H sound, instead of a G, and a double O (rhymes with “goose”), as if you’re blowing out air from the diaphragm.  I have no idea if that is the correct Dutch pronunciation, but that has been our pronunciation.  I never knew where it was located.  I didn’t even bother to look or to ask “where in the heck is Goes?”

I’m not sure I trust pronunciations which are passed on through the family.  My grandparents were “Grandma and Grandpa Zuidweg,” pronounced like Zould (as in “should”) and weg (as in . . . “weg”).  At some point my uncle and his family started pronouncing their own name to rhyme with the name “Ludweg.”  That sounds wrong to me, but then it’s their name and not mine.

Once you start looking back into the generations, my ancestors are a little more spread out.  This is what Yvette wrote in her report:

All the Dutch immigrant ancestors of Adrian Zuidweg were found in Dutch records. Using birth, marriage and death records from the civil registration, four generations of his ancestors were traced. For three ancestors, the family was traced one generation further. In total, all 16 great-great-grandparents and 6 g-g-g-grandparents of Adrian Zuidweg were traced. His ancestors came from different provinces in the Netherlands: Zeeland, Zuid-Holland and Overijssel.

Don’t forget:  Adrian Zuidweg, my grandfather, is two generations before me, so this is actually going back pretty far.

English: Map of The Netherlands (including the...

You can see from the map that Zeeland and Zuid-Holland are the two southernmost provinces along the North Sea.  According to Lonely Planet, these provinces are the areas that give rise to our stereotypical ideas of “Holland.”

These two provinces are home to some of the strongest imagery – and biggest clichés –

associated with the Netherlands. You want dykes? Uh-huh. Windmills? Yeah. Tulips? OK.

Well, alright fellas, let’s gooooo…

The Keukenhof gardens are a place of pilgrimage for lovers of the lancelike leaves and

bell-shaped, varicoloured flower of the tulip, and the Zuid (South) Holland area is great for

biking and hiking, with trails and paths everywhere. Meanwhile, the built-up beaches of

Noordwijk aan Zee and south to Scheveningen are popular with locals.

Further south, Zeeland (Sea Land) is the dyke-protected province that people often associate

with the Netherlands when they’re not thinking of tulips, cheese and windmills.

Middelburg is the centre, with a serenity belying its proximity to the tragedies that spawned

the Delta Project.

Zuid Holland’s major cities are the biggest attractions: there’s Leiden, with its university

culture and old town (and proximity to the bulb fields); Den Haag, with its museums, stately

air and kitsch beach; charming, beautiful Delft, the home of Jan Vermeer; and mighty Rotterdam,

blessed with an edgy urban vibe, gritty cultural scene, and innovative architecture.

Several smaller places are also worth your time: Gouda is a perfect old canal town, while

Dordrecht has its own surprises – for humans and sheep alike. Just east and south of Dordrecht

is Biesbosch National Park, a sprawling natural area along the border with Noord Brabant.

What I want to know is if Spiced Leyden cheese comes from Leiden.  It’s my favorite cheese.  My husband’s is Gouda.  And what do you know, but I have family photos taken in Gouda, including this one of a beautiful baby:

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00000001This is the scrapbook which my parents gave to me.  In it my grandmother (Lucille) Edna Mulder (later Edna Zuidweg) recorded the events of her high school graduation from Caledonia High School (Michigan), as well as a few clippings from her first year at Western Normal School in Kalamazoo.

In 1929, my grandmother graduated a year early, at age seventeen, along with her older sister Dorothy Mulder (later Dorothy Plott).  Grandma earned the 3rd highest GPA at 93.85% and thus was honored with the title “class historian.” Her sister was salutatorian. Grandma’s best friend Blanche Stauffer was valedictorian. Clearly, grades were not inflated in those days at Caledonia High School.

Grandma was the 2nd oldest girl in her family of three girls and two boys. When I was young and reading my mother’s copy of Little Women, Grandma told me she always thought that she was just like Jo, the 2nd oldest and the writer of the family.  Her sister Dorothy was Meg, and her younger sister Alvena (called Vena, later Vena Stimson) was Amy.  It makes sense to me that “Jo” would have been placed a year ahead so she could go to school with “Meg,” and that she would earn class historian to her sister’s salutatorian.

Salutatory

Dorothy Mulder’s Salutatory (beginning portion)

Edna Mulder’s high school transcript

Edna Mulder’s class history (beginning portion)

The scrapbook contains wonderful photos of Grandma, her friends, classmates, and teachers, but it doesn’t solve the mystery of who put that drinking glass ring on the cover.

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As I shared in my last post Intriguing Coincidence or An “Of Course” Moment?, Yvette Hoitink, a Dutch genealogist, quickly and easily found a wealth of information about the Zuidweg family–my grandfather’s Dutch ancestors.  Dutch Genealogy is a site which describes Yvette’s amazing services.

I knew that the father of my grandfather, Adrian Zuidweg, born 1908 in Kalamazoo, was Adrian Zuidweg, born in The Netherlands.  Adrian Sr. owned a fish market when Grandpa was young.  In this photo he stands with an unidentified young employee.

Fish Market on Eleanor Street

Fish Market on Eleanor Street

My grandfather, Adrian Jr. told me he used to clean fish at the fish market when he was 8 or 9.

Adrian Zuidweg, Jr.

Adrian Zuidweg, Jr.

Eventually, the man who was my great-grandfather opened an ice cream parlor and candy store, and according to a story Grandpa told me, during the height of the Great Depression, he was able to buy a $1,000 marble countertop for his business.

Ice cream parlor and candy store

Ice cream parlor and candy store

All I knew of this man was of his life in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  I knew that he died at approximately age 50 of what might have been Bright’s (kidney) disease.  My grandmother told me that he didn’t eat all day long at work and would come home and eat a steak the size of a plate.

What I discovered from Yvette is an idea of who he was before he emigrated from Holland.  He was born Adriaan Zuijdweg on 3 January 1871 in Goes, Zeeland, the Netherlands.  He was a “letterzetter,” compositor or typesetter–possibly for a newspaper.  This fits with a photo I published on an earlier post of Adrian Sr. and another relative working on a newspaper in Kalamazoo.

Printshop at Holland American newspaper, 1899Adrian Zuidweg 3rd from left; Lou Leeuwenhoek 5th from left

Printshop at Holland American newspaper, 1899
Adrian Zuidweg 3rd from left; Lou Leeuwenhoek 5th from left

So it seems that Adrian took his typesetter skills to the United States, but decided to become an American “entrepreneur” by opening the fish market.

According to Yvette, it was in the United States that he lost the other “a” in his first name and the j in Zuijdweg–becoming Adrian Zuidweg.  The son he eventually had in 1980 was also named Adrian Zuidweg (no middle name, which is according to Yvette the Dutch tradition) and it was young Adrian who eventually changed the ice cream parlor into a Sunoco gas station.

One of the photos I have yet to know more about is one of him in what Grandpa said was his Dutch army uniform.

Adriaan Zuijdweg

Adriaan Zuijdweg

Four years after emigrating from the Netherlands for “amelioration of existence,” Adriaan/Adrian married my great-grandmother Cora Wilhelmina DeKorn.  The date was 18 May 1897 and the place was Kalamazoo (of course).

Adrian Zuidweg (Adriaan Zuijdweg) 1897

Adrian Zuidweg (Adriaan Zuijdweg) 1897

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This post is dedicated to Yvette Hoitink at Dutch Genealogy.

Two wonderful events have occurred recently which add to my treasure trove of genealogical information and old family photos.  One is that my mother sent me my grandmother’s high school graduation (and beyond) scrapbook.  In my last post I showed off my grandmother’s teacher contract from 1931-32 and a photo of my grandparents two years before they married.  These were from the scrapbook.   I will be posting more of these treats in the future.

The other event is that Yvette Hoitink, a Dutch genealogist, quickly and easily found a wealth of information about the Zuidweg family–my grandfather’s Dutch ancestors.  Dutch Genealogy is a site which describes Yvette’s services.  You can contact her through that site.  What would have taken me years of effort and a good knowledge of the Dutch language, took Yvette a few hours.  In the next few posts, I’ll be examining some of the information Yvette found.  Among other tidbits, she discovered incorrect information I had catalogued, information which discredited family stories, and an intriguing coincidence.

Today’s post is to share the coincidence.  My grandfather, Adrian Zuidweg, born in 1908 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, married my grandmother, Lucille Edna Mulder, in 1932.  See the last post for a photo of them as a young couple.  Here is a wedding photo.

Adrian Jr. and Edna (Mulder) Zuidweg

Adrian Jr. and Edna (Mulder) Zuidweg, 1932

Grandma’s father was Charles Mulder, of Caledonia, Michigan.  His name at birth, in 1885 in Goes, the Netherlands, was Karel Pieter Phillipus Mulder.

My great grandfather Charles Mulder with his parents and siblings.  He's front row, second from the right.

My great grandfather Charles Mulder with his parents and siblings. He’s front row, second from the right, with the curly dark hair.

In the 5th generation of the Zuidweg family, Yvette discovered a Carel Mulder, who was born about 1781.  She writes, “On 5 May 1836 he was a jailor’s hand in Goes, Zeeland, the NetherlandsHe died on 19 May 1847 at the age of 66 in Goes, Zeeland, the Netherlands.”  I’ll hazard a guess that this is a common name, but the same town name is certainly intriguing.

Looking back a little further, I see that my great grandfather’s grandfather was Karel Mulder, born February 21, 1837 in Goes, Zeeland, Netherlands.  He died in April 22, 1881, also in Goes.  Obviously not a match.

Not his father either.

But look!  Another generation back was yet another Karel Mulder, born March 8, 1780 in Goes, Zeeland, Netherlands.  He died  May 19, 1847, also in Goes.  HE’S A MATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And now I know that this ancestor of my GRANDMOTHER and of my GRANDFATHER was a “jailor’s hand.”  Whatever that is.

My husband isn’t as excited about information like this.  He says, “Do you know how many people were alive in those days?  It’s not that big a coincidence to have that happen.”  And actually today, in the land of Facebook, where I’m two degrees removed from almost every other American Facebooker, it might not be that big of a deal either.  But to me it was fascinating to see that name which is a “staple” of my grandmother’s line show up on my grandfather’s!

According to Ancestry.com the “jailor’s hand” is my “5th great grandfather”:

Karel Mulder (1780 – 1847)
Son of Karel
Son of Karel
Son of Karel
Son of Pieter Philippus
Daughter of Charles Peter (Karel Pieter Phillipus)
Janet Ann Zuidweg
Daughter of Lucille Edna
Moi
You are the daughter of Janet Ann
This is the marriage which connected the Zuidweg and Mulder families back then: Adriaan Zuijdweg, a tailor who was born about 1801 in Goes married Johanna Mulder on 5 May 1836 in Goes.  She was born about 1807 in Goes.  She worked as a maid and a laborer and died on 11 June1878 at the age of 71.

This is a family rumor which proved to be true.  My mother has always told me that my grandparents were cousins of sorts.

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