Excerpt 11
of The Comfort Bird, a translation of
De treastf ûgel by Hylke Speerstra.
Here the
scene shifts back to immigrant family in the Dakotas.
The Twenties … Douwe as the
American David puts himself behind the wheel of his third-hand Model A Ford,
and Geertsje sits behind her American pedal sewing machine made by Singer. … Grandma Ytsje, who sticks to psalms and
hymns, tries by warnings and admonitions to keep her flock on the narrow
path. “Douwe in a passenger car! Oh vanity of vanities, it is all vanity.”
…
The courage and the persistence
of Douwe and Geartsje Hiemstra were rewarded: … they enjoy a favorable spring
three years in a row. The farm
production in the Midwest is doubled, the production of the David Hiemstra Farm
as well. … In the meantime almost every
village now has a bank branch.
“Well Geartsje, I’m inclined to
make an investment too.”
“Go ahead!” And there goes Douwe, behind the wheel of
Henry Ford’s miracle, on the way to Avon to make an investment. In the backseat are the twins Nammen and
Lolke, born in the snowstorm at the end of November 1919. … The
twins are already farming their own little place, even if it’s just for fun:
their Frisian pedigree is assembled by black-white painted pieces of cow
bone. …
Old doctor Greendale from Avon
came up with a nickname for the small gentleman farmers: “The Blizzard
Boys.” The doctor feels attached to
these twins; a picture of both boys hangs in his consulting office.
When in the spring of 1925 the
twins Nammen and Lolke scurry to the wooden school on the other side of the
hill, an upsetting message awaits them.
The teacher stands by the door and says in English: “From now on Nammen
will be called Nanno and Lolke Lawrence!”
…
In March 1926 the family gets hit
by tragedy. Brother Jacob, who as a boy
of barely four came to America nearly naked, so to speak, loses control of
horse and wagon and is killed at age nineteen….
On November 10 another Jacob is born.
And that with Geartsje well on the way to age fifty.
…
It is Thursday, 24 October 1929,
the day that will afterward be known as Black Thursday. The New York Stock
Exchange crashes on Wall Street. …The
first thing that father Douwe thinks of is to get his money from the bank in
Avon, that very same Thursday.
Son Nanno some eighty years
later: “I still remember, Lawrence and me were sitting in the back of the
little Ford, we arrived at the bank and there was a piece of paper on the door
– “Closed.”
“The bank is closed, Dad.”
“Is that really what it says?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Then we’re in big trouble, we’ll
become dirt poor.” Douwe Hiemstra is so
shaken, he hardly dares to drive home in his Ford.
…
It turns into a grinding
poverty. Nanno in 2012: “... Dad and Mom had sacrificed nearly everything
and crossed the ocean to make a better life.
…now they were caught in a poverty that was even worse than that around
1885 in the Frisian countryside.
…
The drought hangs on. …
If something does grow, like some
leaves on a bush or tree, then the grasshoppers approach like an enormous green
cloud. Whatever is left on earth to
plunder is consumed in a half hour’s time.
And then the coup de grace is still coming: the dust storms – the Dust
Bowl – which are more destructive than the worst snowstorm.
…
Three-fourths of the herd dies
from splenic fever and lung disease, and the animals that escape this
death-dance contract foot-and-mouth disease.
The milk cows dry up.
…
Nanne: “And then came the terrible
day…. That morning we were about a mile
and a half on the way to school and noticed that there was something odd about
the sky. At first we thought there was a
thunderstorm brewing; later we figured it was a tornado. The kids wanted to hustle back home. But Lawrence and I were about eleven, twelve,
and said: ‘Nothing doing, the school is closest!’ So we ran as fast as we could. And then, all of a sudden, it became dark
from the dust storm. If there hadn’t
been a barbed wire strung along the school path, we would’ve completely lost
our way. Fortunately our teacher pulled
us one by one inside the school.
…
It went on and on, and then the
door sprung open and someone stumbled into the room. Completely covered with dust, it looked like
the devil himself. I saw that he had
blood on his hands and that tears were rolling down his blackened cheeks.
‘Dad!’ Lawrence cried. And it was our dad! Nearly blind from the dust, Dad had followed
the barbed wire fence. He wanted to find
out if we had made it safe and sound to the school.
…
In the icy winter of the
Depression year 1934, Beppe Ytsje Namminga-Wytsma begins to fail; soon she
can’t be on her feet anymore. …
On 13 February 1934, in de
darkest time of the Depression, Ytsje Namminga-Wytsma passes on at age 83. A few days later she is entrusted to the soil
of her Land of Deliverance.
…
After that winter, spring follows
again, and a summer, and a fall, and a long winter, and then at last some
improvement comes.
…
The Hiemstras regain
courage. …
Nanno hears that there’s a great
place for rent near Sharon in Wisconsin.
On December 5, 1941, a Santa
Claus (Sinterklaas) evening is celebrated in a new, comfortable place near
Sharon. The voice of Beppe Ytsje can
still be heard… “Beppe would say, ‘The crisis has passed, good, a Second World
War has taken its place, but that’s happening on the other side of the ocean.’”
Two days after the Sinterklaas
celebration the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; WWII had now started for the
Americans too. Only nine days later
they’ve located Nanno in the village of Sharon, WI. He’s dressed in his old overalls with patches
over the knees, compliments of Beppe Ytsje, when the mailman personally hands
him the draft notice for military service.
…
Nanno Hiemstra travels with the
train to the training camp, Camp Barkley in Texas, …. The military training is
super tough and long. Nanno and Alice (the love he had discovered in
the meanwhile) look each
other in the eyes and decide to get married.
He is 21 now, she almost two years younger.
…
Life goes on till a telegram
reaches them from Wisconsin. Nanno’s
older brother Charles has unexpectedly died from an internal hemorrhage. Nammen and Alice decide to take a train back
to Sharon, WI immediately. … Two days later they stand by the grave of the
brother who was also their best friend.
Beside them a young mother with two small children. Next to them his deeply grieving parents who
for the third time must bury a child:. first their twins in Hichtum, then a
grown son in Avon, SD, and now again a wonderful boy who already had a family.
And then, that same evening, a
farewell at the little station of Sharon, WI.
Mother says: “And now you have to cross the ocean soon to fight to your
death.”
“No, Mom, I promise that I will
come back.”
…
At the beginning of March 1944,
Nanno finds out that he will be shipped out to an unknown destination. First he may go on leave, back with Alice to
Wisconsin. Then on to the war.
Goodbyes at the small station of
Sharon. “I pressed myself to Alice’s
bulging belly. ‘Can you feel the baby?’ she wanted to know. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I can feel it move.’ She had been expecting for seven, eight
months already.
“And then, at a short distance, I saw Dad and Mom standing there,
crying, holding hands.”
