RECOLLECTIONS



Page 2


Ralph S. Ondersma



How I always wanted to go to America, and lots of poor people did go, but my folks never spoke about that big country over the water and we had no relatives in America, which could have made it easier to get away. At this time a neighbour took his family to Paterson, New Jersey, and came over to talk about us going too, but nothing came of it as far as our family was concerned.
A little later on an uncle of a young man I worked with came to Hallum and offered to take the young man along to Chicago, and he even offered to pay for the trip, but he did not want to go. I begged him to take me instead, but it did not work out and I had to do the next best thing. We had no relatives in the U.S.A. to lend us the money, so we had to earn it ourselves. We (the boys) did not want to go so far away and leave our parents the way so many did, so we saw a chance in Germany. There was always call for Hollanders that were good at taking care of animals, milking cows and so forth. The wages there were much better than in Friesland. This was in the Ruhr district such as Essen, Bochum, Dortmund, and others. We saved as much of our wages as possible. That meant save it all, and the first 10 months I was there I earned 50 marks per months, and in ten months I went home with 500 marks. That was 100% saving!
Along in May or June we would go home, work a couple of months near our village, and back we would go to the Kaiser and his friends. After the third time I had done that I had a falling out with a Frisian farmer, who wanted me to work the entire year, instead of just for haying time, but I didn’t want to do that. The next year he told his neighbor not to hire me for haying time. This man was an important elder in the church and had influence. Mother didn’t even care to go to church. She and father walked out during communion.

I told mother that’s enough of this poor paying outfit, and I am leaving for good. I say poor. Poor pay to start with. From school when I was 12 the farmer paid me one guilder and 50 cents for a 60-hour week, and four years later that had gone up to 3½ guilders, only a little more than I ate every week. So I made up my mind I would leave come what may. Now in the meantime a cousin by the name of Ysbrand Brouwer had left with his family for Whitensville, Massachusetts. So I wrote him. You see I felt I had a foothold in America. But then I met a young fellow I had gone to school with, Dave Sytsma, and I asked him where he was going in the U.S.A., and he said Grand Rapids. He wanted to know why I could not go there too. I said I could, it did not make any difference to me and to this day I have never been in Massachusetts. To show how little I knew of America, the people where I boarded in Grand Rapids had a son who had a bike, and I asked him if I could use that some night because I wanted to find my cousin in Whitensville, Massachusetts. He said that took a week with a bike and they had a lot of fun over that.

I left Hallum alone, with the understanding that my brother Frank (Feike) would leave one year later if I thought it was all right in America. But he came in just two months. When I left alone mother was very much upset, but I told her I would maybe come back in a year. I said this just to satisfy her, but I told other people I would never come back.
Later another brother, Richard (Rienk), also wanted to go to America, but mother did not want to let him go. She then said everyone had better go, and so then we made preparations to have the whole family go. Our eldest brother, Folkert, was married*, and he was to come a year later. To pay for this trip we had to save every cent, and with the little additional money they got from selling their belongings we had enough to pay for the passage.

Now for the first couple of years we were in this country we worked on anything we could find, such as roadwork, and in the winter we worked in the furniture shops. But I did not like these jobs too well, and in 1911 I bought out a man who had a little milk business for $350, and Frank bought another milk business for about the same amount of money. Later two more brothers got in the milk business also.
At first we had our business in a basement, but soon I noticed that could not go on for long, and so I had a little creamery and a horse barn built where we did business for many years. We lived in the house on the same premises, but later I bought a house and some land outside the city. We lived there for 20 years, and two of the children were born there.

As I write this in 1967 it has been over fifty years since I left Friesland in 1909. Father died in 1926 at the age of 79, and mother died in 1944 at the age of 89 years. Our only sister** died when she was 46 years old. Brother Richard died in 1966 when he was 73, so the old ones are becoming fewer all the time.
It is worthwhile to notice how our relation in this country has grown. When I stepped off the boat in New York I was the only one in America by the name of Ondersma. Then our family came over, and a cousin came from Utrecht a few years later with his son. He was the last male Ondersma to leave the Netherlands. And today in 1967 if you look at our telephone book you will find 20 names of Ondersma, besides some in other states.

Since the time that I had left Friesland I have been back there for a visit four times. I have always enjoyed visiting the old country, but never had any desire to stay there. The Netherlands is today to me a foreign country, and I was always glad to see the American flag on the boat again on the return trip.

While I have the time I will write a few things that I have seen and lived through in the old country and in America.





*
Folkert Ondersma married on November 21, 1907 at Ferwerderadeel to Gerlofke Bakker from Menaldumadeel. They left Hallum and emigrated to the USA in March 1911 with their four children: Sybren, Berend, Pietje and Anna.
** Jetske Ondersma, born in Hallum on February 9, 1884. Three younger sisters all passed away as an infant. Jetske married to Marten Sytsma on May 23, 1907 and emigrated to America in April 1910, along with their daughter Antje, her parents and brothers.



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