THE IMMIGRANT ADVENTURE: The Quest to Belong

Foreword:

Emigration has fascinated many people: researchers, family members and descendants, the people who stayed behind, storytellers, and many more.

Hylke Speerstra is one storyteller who pursued the experience of the emigrant seriously.  He traveled to three continents to gather the stories; then he wrote a book, It wrede paradys.  It became an immediate best-seller in Friesland, and it sold well in the Dutch translation too.  [I translated it later: Cruel Paradise.]

The book incited so much interest that the Leeuwarder Courant, Friesland’s main newspaper, decided to sponsor a symposium on the topic of emigration.

Researcher Annemieke Galema who wrote a book on the emigration wave of the 19^th century (Frisians to America, 1880-1914: With the baggage), author Hylke Speerstra, and I were invited to be presenters to an audience of more than 500 in the Harmonie Hall in Leeuwarden, in October 1999.

[Note: the speech that follows was given in Frisian, which version is my blog entry of January 2012]

THE IMMIGRANT ADVENTURE: The Quest to Belong

Speech given at a Symposium on Emigration, held in Ljouwert (Leeuwarden) in October 1999, featuring talks by Dr. Henry J. Baron and Dr. Annemieke Galema, and an interview with the author Hylke Speerstra.

________________________________________

 Introduction

I'm very grateful to Hylke Speerstra and Pieter Sijpersma from the Leeuwarder Courant, because I'm really happy to be participating in this event. The subject of emigration is, after all, close to my heart.

Body

I've had my nose in the books practically all my life. The "School with the Bible" in Opende couldn’t boast of a large library in the 40s; I must’ve read through the whole collection at least twice. The reading and teaching of literature eventually became my profession; literature that reveals all the ways in which human kind practices its humanity and inhumanity. And in literature one soon discovers that a person, in order to remain human, has certain basic needs. One of the most important is a sense of belonging. A feeling that one is part of things. We need it for security. It gives us a feeling of satisfaction. It gives a sense of significance, the conviction that our life has value and meaning, for we cannot live without that.

 Not really. But the immigrant experience jeopardizes that sense of belonging. Now it’s true, that sometimes, when people feel they don’t belong, they don’t count, they have no standing or they’ve lost it, they flee: they emigrate, to pursue that quest in another place. But more often, I think, the decision to emigrate is made without much thought of that basic need to belong.

However, it quickly raises its insistent cry when the immigrants wake up in a strange place where they don’t know anybody, don’t understand anybody, and feel estranged from the culture.

 Let me give you some examples.

After our arrival in Hoboken, NJ, in May of 1948, we took the train from one end of the land to the other. I had had one year of ULO (middle school)-English , and I thought I knew something about the pronunciation system of the language. So I asked a fellow passenger: "We stop in Chai-cai-go?" I soon discovered there was no such place, but we definitely would stop in Chicago. We transferred to another train there that would take us all the way to the state of Washington. When passengers asked us how far we were going, I announced confidently, "To Seetle." There wasn't a soul that had ever heard of "Seetle." Fortunately we did make it to Seattle eventually, but my confidence in what I knew of English plummeted dramatically. We were very much strangers in a foreign land, objects of curiosity and even entertainment.

I worked in the fields that first summer, picking strawberries and then raspberries weeks after landing in the new land. The many other boys and girls I worked with became my language teachers. During the first few weeks they would tell me to deliver messages to the field boss. Well, I was eager to please, of course, for that sense of belonging, you know? But I still had no idea what the words I was to say meant. So I go to the boss with the message of my new friends, and I say without realizing what I said: "You’re full of shit." And another time: "Move your ass." And “Fuck you!” I sort of enjoyed that my new friends got such a kick out of that, much more so than my boss, of course. (Fortunately, she was blessed with understanding and later gave me a private lesson in the meaning of some vocabulary words.)

I wasn’t going to the ULO anymore, but I learned a lot of English that first summer.

The point is that language functions as perhaps our strongest bond of connection.

 Here’s another illustration. A group of us meets every other week for lunch. We call ourselves, just for the fun of it, "the Frisian Lunchers." Nearly all of us are offspring of first generation Frisian immigrants. We range in age from 60 to 80-plus. Not all of us are in the same profession or belong to the same political party. For nearly all of us English is or has become our first language. We get together because we love to practice the language of our parents, even if it’s rather brokenly. It links us together. No matter where we meet each other, in a store or on the street or at a concert, our greeting is likely to be in Frisian, creating an instant bond. Moreover, because in the States Frisian functions as our second language, it doesn’t have to be perfect to make us feel that we have a shared identity, that we belong together.

 But when language fails as the language of the land where you live, the connection is jeopardized or broken. And that was often the case with immigrants.

 I remember what a struggle my dad had with the new language at age 52. How frustrated he would get when he had to communicate with the farmer with whom he was in partnership and didn’t have the words. And Dad was a man who never had to search for a word, because he was a reader and facile with his pen. Now he had to depend on his children to find the right words for him. It’s not hard to imagine how frustrating that must’ve been for him. How could the immigrants feel at home without knowing the language of the new land!

 When you finally gain some mastery over the new language and you can handle it well, but still it's not altogether right and there's still a thick, foreign accent, your tongue is a constant reminder that you don’t quite belong, that you’re different.

Does that explain my struggle I alluded to at the beginning? It’s a struggle, self-conscious or not, that plagues nearly every immigrant who came to their new country too old to fully master the new language. It’s the reason that typically immigrant children at a certain age would feel embarrassed by their parents and tried to distance themselves from their parental roots. It’s one of the reasons that I, because I don’t have native fluency in Frisian and Dutch anymore, don’t and can’t feel as much at home here as I do in the States. It’s an important reason that most immigrants never quite come to feel at home in their adopted land.

 But if language jeopardizes their necessary sense of belonging, what then takes its place?

 For many immigrants, that’s been the church... the church where they could listen to sermons in their own language... where everything was familiar. Where everything could and should stay as it had always been for them: the doctrines and interpretations, the points of view and practices, the liturgy and the music. Where they could meet and talk with fellow immigrants in their own tongue. Where they could feel at home; where they could belong. Church: the safe haven in a sea of change that sometimes threatened to swallow them; the point of stability when everything else was in flux.

Not every immigrant belonged to the church, of course. Those that didn't often had an even more difficult time with loneliness. They tried to establish Frisian societies, but that succeeded only in those large cities where many immigrants had settled.

 My leitmotif in this talk is "the quest to belong." The language, I said, had much to do with that quest, but there were other problems as well.

 To accelerate their sense of belonging as children, they would have to attend school, of course. I had finished grade school already, really, but my parents on the advice of others decided to send me to 8th grade to gain a full mastery of the language. (If they hadn't done that, well, I hardly dare think how differently my life might've turned out.)

 So I went to school. But first shopping with mom for some new school clothes. We couldn't afford much, of course, for it was slim picking at first. But mom wanted her son, named after grandpa Hoekstra, to be well dressed. That good-looking wool pants with the nice-colored thread was a bit more expensive than the ordinary cotton pants, but OK, her son needed to make a good impression, after all.

 But that turned out quite the other way. All the boys had cotton pants, while I was in my dressy pants that was good enough to wear to church. As a new young fellow going to a foreign school in a foreign land you want to be as inconspicuous as possible. But I wore the wrong kind of pants. Everything went wrong. It was a situation something like Joseph and the many-colored coat. The 6th grade boys teased me mercilessly. So poor mom had to go back to the store to buy new cotton pants.

 For young folk between the age of 12 and 18 the quest to belong is especially an urgent and important one. That was often a problem for children of immigrants. In the first years for me too.

 A couple of other immigrant boys were in the 8th grade with me. That was good for some company, on the one hand. But there was another side: the more you would hang out with other immigrants, the more you were separated from the other kids you really wanted to be a part of.

 And then there was sport. As boys you really wanted to participate in sports, of course. But the sport wasn't soccer but basketball and baseball, and you knew nothing about those sports. All you could do was watch kind of helplessly, and the teachers didn't have time, naturally, to start teaching you some of the basics. So the quest to belong was frustrated here too.

 And then the girls. I already had an eye for cute girls. But most of the cute girls didn't want to have much to do with immigrant boys. Those girls had their own quest to belong, to be sure, and because immigrants were pretty low on the totem pole, the cutest and best looking turned their backs to us.

 Most Frisian immigrant children at that time were finished with their education after 8th grade. Though I wanted to continue, I too quit school. It was a difficult time for my parents, and as children we had to help out. But, of course, that also meant that you hardly had anything to do anymore with the young people of your own age who were still in school. I recall that time of the immigrant adventure still very clearly. Sometimes when I'd be working in the field with the tractor, my thoughts would wander back to the fatherland, to the fields around our farm where I knew every gully and thorn bush, and to the relatives and friends we had left behind. It would catch me by surprise, but all of a sudden the tears would come and a profound feeling of homesickness would momentarily weigh on my heart. Maybe that's why I started to write letters to girls in Friesland and other places in the Netherlands. But it's not easy to stick a date inside a letter, so that finally didn't go anywhere.

"The quest to belong" in the new land, however, continued, for the parents, but also for the children. And as the church played a role in the life of the parents, it often did likewise in the life of the children. In my church--and later on I attended a different church from my parents--I became a leader of the young people's society, a singer in a male quartet, became friends with non-immigrant young people, and gradually became completely integrated into the spiritual and cultural and social life of my second country. The church for me has always been a very positive influence. And it still is. And I'm grateful for that.

 I could, of course, go on to talk in detail about a lot of other things. About what happens when the church changes too. About the years of hard work for most immigrants before the future began to look a little brighter. About the ambitions of immigrant children and the remarkable success achieved by so many of the first and second generation. But we have Galema's book and Speerstra’s book, and we're still going to have a discussion period.

 Let me end on a personal note; and I wish that my dad and mom could’ve heard me say this, especially right here in the capital of Fryslân, for I think it would’ve warmed their hearts.

I don’t know why my parents emigrated. I regret that for them, for the most part, it turned into "it wrede paradys," especially because dad died before he had the chance to enjoy the heavy labor of his hands. But my brother and sisters will always be grateful that they did, for it has enriched our lives immeasurably.

[I must add something here too, at my wife’s request. She said on the way to the airport where she was dropping me off, "Tell them that your wife is grateful too." Wasn’t that sweet of her?]

Emigration opened up a New World of experience and opportunity in a land we have come to love. But it also intensified our connections to the Old World, our fatherland with its unique beauty and identity; the place of our roots, of the family we left behind: uncles and aunts and many cousins. We’ve kept coming back to all of it because it still fulfills for us our own "quest to belong."

THE CROSSING: a family’s emigrant journey

[tr. from the Dutch diary I kept just before, during, and right after the journey of the Baron family when it emigrated from Opende, Gr. to Lynden, Washington in l948]

  Notes: I tried my rudimentary school English a bit now and again, such as in the “preface,” indicated by quote marks:

“In this book is written the travel to the USA made through the fam. Baron.  This travel is written through Henry Baron.”

Also, I’ve tried hard to retain something of the style of the original.

                                                                                    *-*

May 24, 1948;  Monday evening, 11:30 PM.  Opende

I’m sitting by the table that’s loaded with stuff.  Tante Janke is sitting behind a mountain of buns that she’s buttering.  I have no idea where we’re going to put all that.
Brother Sietze and I just went to pick up Jan Westra. It’s been a terribly busy day.  Handshaking all day long.
Fiancee Bouke and sister Lies are snuggled next to each other on the sofa.
Dad and Mom are getting ready.
Folkert and cousin Griet are sleeping on a bed in the barn, now their barn.
We’re staying up, except Griet and Marijke.
I’ll be glad when it’s 3 o’clock and the bus stands waiting for us.
Well, I’ve made a start:  the rest will simply follow, we hope. 
For now this is enough.

May 25. Tuesday morning.
We did not go to bed.  At twenty-to-three the bus stood by Boonstra’s. At 3:00 we took off.
The bus was not full.  Let me tell who all went along:

-the fam. Baron (7);  -the chauffeur, Oom Martin (1);  -Oom Roel and Tante Luts (2);  -Tante Anke (1);  Oom Andries and Tante Janke (2);  -A. Kuperus (1);  -Tollie (1);  -Albert Baron (1); -Henk Boersma (1);
-Jan Westra (1);  -Bouke Steiger (1);  -altogether 19 people.

The first consternation was Marijke’s vomiting.  The swaying of the bus must have made her sick.
At 3:35 we were in Leeuwarden.  It was almost light enough by then for the lights to be turned off.
Every now and again  Jan Westra would liven up the trip with a little harmonica music.  At 4:20 we were on the Afsluitdijk.  There’s not much else to tell about the trip.
At  5:40 we were in Alkmaar, so we made pretty good time—a good 60 km. on the average, which is pretty good speed for a bus.  
In Velsen by the ferry we discovered that the people from Stroobos who were returning to America stood behind us.   
At 7:30 we were on the outskirts of Den Haag.  There we dropped off A. Kuperus because he had some business to do there.  At 8:15 we were in Rotterdam at the Wilhelminakade.
                                                                           ***

As I am quietly writing all this down, the VEENDAM peacefully continues its journey.  We are now at sea.  Dad and Mom and the others are downstairs in their cabins.  I’m quietly writing in the tearoom, and Sietze is sleeping on a sofa not far from me.
Not much news right now, and it’s gradually getting time to start thinking about dinner.  It’s 6:15 now, and at 6:30 it’s dinner time, so I’ll quit for now.

May 26,  Wednesday,  4 o’clock.
This morning I had a slight case of seasickness.  This is what happened:
I had had a great sleep.  When we sat in the dining room and we were served our meal, I suddenly felt sick.  I couldn’t eat a bite, but I ran as fast as I could to the cabin and threw everything I had in me up into the toilet.  Not a nice start, I thought to myself.  But it didn’t turn out too badly, fortunately.  I went to bed for a while, and then got up again, and I was OK.  I still did feel a bit nauseous, but I sure had improved a lot.
Mom felt worse at first, though.  But when at 10:00 we sighted England and when at 11 or so the boat lay still (to allow the mail to leave and people to board), Mom struggled out of bed.  We went up to the deck, where Mom lay down on a deck chair.  We had a beautiful view of the English coast.  At 1:30 we got underway again.  We were enjoying dinner at the time.
Now we see nothing but water.  And it’s going to be quite a while before we see land again. Sietze and I spent some time in the smoking room where they were showing a sound film.  But we didn’t get much out of it because it was all in English.
Now I’m sitting at a writing table.  Outside it’s blowing a storm.  The boat is going 14 mph.  A fairly good speed.  Sietze is going down to get the camera because there’s still a piece of the English coastline visible.  I’m going to quit now because I’d like to see it, too.
We admired the last view of England’s chalk mountains.  Took a picture of it, too.  That’s fun to do.  Well, I’m going to drink my tea.  Till next time.

May 27,  Thursday morning.  8:30 AM.
All of us had a great night and now are almost ready to go for breakfast.  Oh yes, I should tell of my adventures of last night.  First what came before:
We had met an old Scottish lady.  She talked English, of course.  But we were able to talk together a bit, though it wasn’t easy.  We had had something to drink in the smoking room (where Sietze earned a $1 from her) and took her at about 10:30 to her cabin.  Then we went to our own cabin.  And then it happened:
I had to go to the lavatory.  At the conclusion of that ceremony I was going to wash my hands.  First I turned on the cold faucet.  Then the hot faucet.  And then it happened.  First everything worked normal.   But then all of a sudden the water began to spout out of the side of the faucet.  That scared the dickens out of me.  I adjusted the faucet so that the flow lessened a bit.  For a while I held it like that, but I realized I couldn’t stay standing there like that.  Then I discovered a bell  button.
I thought to myself, let me press that once, maybe somebody will show up.  But to do that, I had to let go of the faucet and the boiling hot water would spout in full force, and the stream was directed right at the spot where the button was.  Still I took a chance at it.  But nobody came.
Then I could think of nothing else to do but to start screaming for Sietze with all my might.  The first to appear was a steward and right after him came Sietze.  The steward said I should take it easy.  “Yes, but sir, take a look at this,” I stuttered.  The steward saw it all too well.  He abandoned us in a hurry to fetch an expert who set things right again.
But that isn’t all.  When after all this we were standing in the hallway, a man emerged from the lavatory dripping wet.  He had been on the toilet and then got the full shot from the piping hot water right on his brand new suit.  What an experience:  “What kind of an outfit is this here,” he said.
We had ourselves quite a laugh then.

Now it’s 11:00 o’clock.  I’m writing this in bed.  We’ve had a wonderful fun day since I started feeling sick again.  But I quickly headed for the deck and lay in Coopman’s chair (he’s really a good fellow) and didn’t go down again for the rest of the morning.  But it didn’t get any better.   At about 10:00 I fell asleep and had a good nap for a couple of hours.  I threw up just a bit.  Sister Griet had a worse case and Mom was bad off too.  I didn’t go for dinner at noon.  I just stayed in my deck chair.  But around 3:00 I tried again and fortunately it went well.  I walked around a bit and gradually started feeling better.  Tonight I enjoyed eating in the dining room again.  Griet didn’t.
We’re really enjoying the Veendam.  The days fly by.  Lies seems to be enjoying herself, too.  Nothing bothers her—not seasickness nor homesickness.  You see, that’s how it should be.  Bouke has nothing to worry about.
Tonight we watched boxing a while with Chris Kooistra.  His brother Jelle was sick in bed too.  All in all the evening passed quickly, and now it’s 11:00 already.
Readers, listeners (in case someone should be reading this to you) I’m going to end this again for now and will try to catch myself a nice snooze.  “Good-night!”

May 29, Saturday evening.  10:30.
I better begin with the beginning again, and that’s of course this morning.  This morning all of us, except Mom, were present in the dining room.  We took Mom upstairs, so that’s a sign that she felt a little better.  But then the sea wasn’t nearly as tumultuous either.
I find the time racing along, so it’s clear that we’re not bored.  We’ve been playing games, such as ring throwing, table tennis, etc.
And now it’s night already again.  Pretty soon when I go to bed I’ll have to set back my watch another hour.  That’ll be the third time.  In Holland now it’s quarter-to-one.
I’m sitting in a very quiet spot here.  Everybody is sleeping peacefully while I’m writing at a writing desk.  Yes, we have a desk in our cabin.  Rather nice, eh?  I can hear the ocean roar below me.  Very interesting!  Well, people, tomorrow is another day, so “Cheerio!”

May 30, Sunday evening, Dutch time about 2 o’clock
So,  there they’re in deep rest.  My watch says 10 o’clock.  I’ve turned it back an hour for the fourth time.
This morning all of us except Mom made it to the dining room again.  They brought Mom some food in our cabin.  After that I played some table tennis and to the church service at 10:00 in the tourist class lounge. (We are first class passengers because the tourist class was full.) Well, it wasn’t a very good preacher, to be sure.  First we sang some hymns, then some scripture readings.  Then a short meditation, and after that the people could request some more numbers for us to sing together.  At 11:30 it was all done.
We didn’t do much in the afternoon.  This is a very strange Sunday, one we’ll not likely experience again for some time.  By next Sunday we’ll be a long ways from here.  The weather was beautiful today.
Two were missing at our table tonight, namely Mom and Marijke.  The little tyke was in need of sleep.  After mealtime we spent most of the night on the lower deck visiting Kooistra’s.  We did some singing, etc.  At 9:15 there was another service, but we didn’t go.  Dad and Mom did, though.
I’m the last one again tonight, so I better end this.  People, goodnight, and people in the fatherland, sleep well!

May 31, Monday evening, 10 o’clock
I just moved my watch back an half hour, so not an hour this time.
Well, I’ll make it short this time.  There’s not much news to tell.
It was a beautiful day today.  This noon there were nine of us gathered around the dinner table, namely our own whole family and Beverly and Elizabeth Commager.  Both of those are girls who talk English and don’t understand us, but still they’re always with us.
Marijke raises a fuss every night.  Last night was another really bad one.  There’s an old man in the cabin next to ours.  He’s bothered by all the racket and then he knocks with all his might on the wall.  And once awake, he told us, he can’t get back to sleep again.  Well, he turned in a complaint on us, and now we’re going to try something else.  Dad is going to sleep in our cabin and Griet is moving to 109.

June 1. Tuesday morning.  11:00 o’clock.
I’m sitting at a table here in the smoking room with Sietze.  A steward just brought us bouillon.
It went well with Marijke last night.  She never gave a peep.  But at 6:30 she started calling for Mom.  But Dad had her quiet in a hurry.
When I woke up this morning I heard the foghorn.  A thick fog hung over the ocean.  But at around 10:00 the sun broke through and by now the mist has cleared up to such a point that the foghorn is now silent.  Otherwise it sounded every minute.
The trip is coming along nicely.  We’re far past the halfway point.
Every night they deliver a paper to our cabin—“The Oceanpost.”  It includes the news of the whole world.
Well, I’ve told most of the news now.  Oh, yes, I forgot to tell that there’s a kind of theater on the ship.  They show movies there every day.
In the evenings at 9:15 there’s entertainment in the dining room of the tourist class.  Till 10:30 there wasn’t much fun. They played with cards with numbers on them.  Somebody called off certain numbers all the time, and when the number appeared on your card you’d have to put a red tag on the number.
Whoever had the completed card would get 50 cents.  But at 10:30 things got a lot better.  A magician was going to demonstrate his tricks.  The magician was a waiter from the first class.  All of his tricks were really worth seeing.  I’ll describe a couple of them.
He took two small balls in his hand—in the right hand a red one and in the other a white.  Then he made some motions, blew some air over them, and both balls disappeared.  Then again a white ball in his right hand and in the other a red one.  I couldn’t follow so quickly how he did that.  And so there were all sorts of tricks that made you watch with amazement.
It’s really interesting to see something like that.  It was 11:30 before we got to bed sound and safe.

June 2.  Wednesday morning
It’s 11 o’clock, and therefore 4 o’clock in Holland.  Right now I’m peacefully scribbling in the library or non-smoking room.  I just enjoyed a cup of bouillon with a cookie.  The service is fine here, to be sure.
It’s getting warmer, let me tell you.  Time for the jacket to come off.  The boat makes a lot more motion now, too, which means that Mom is getting worse again.
The voyage will soon come to an end now.  I believe we’re supposed to arrive in New York at 4:00 on Friday.
This afternoon at 5 we took a bath.  That was nicely refreshing.  Sietze didn’t feel like taking a bath.
I had a scare this afternoon.  I came to the discovery that my watch cover was gone and that only one hand was left.  What a pain!  And I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how that ever happened.  Anyway, nothing I can do about it now.  I put the watch away; it’s no good like this.  And the funny thing is that the watch was still running.
People, it’s a late night again.  So it’s high time for this “little boy” to get to bed!

June 3.  Thursday evening.  10:30.
I’m alone in the cabin.  Sietze and Lies are still in the tourist class where they’re enjoying a jolly party.  They have singing and readings, etc.  Really fun.  Griet and Marijke are asleep.
I have the chance now to catch up on this diary a bit.
The dining room was beautiful tonight.  They had the whole place decorated.  And there were all kinds of goodies on the long table and a decorative centerpiece with the words “Au Revoir!”  Well, I thought to myself, that might be a long time before you see me again.  But let’s hope for the best.
Griet and Marijke are lucky.  I picked up 6 balloons for them from the dining room.
In the meantime the boat just keeps on steaming along.  The foghorn blasts continually because it’s very foggy again.
A lady stopped me a moment ago to ask me if she could use my mouth harmonica.  Well, I didn’t understand her too well because she said it in English, but I did figure out what she meant.  I told her that Lies had it in her pocket and I didn’t know where she was.  Well, if I then would be so kind to find her?  And she dropped an American quarter in my pocket.  Well, at that point I couldn’t very well refuse her, right?  So I went to the lounge, and sure enough, there they were!  I got the thing and went back upstairs.  But they sure had a lot of fun in that lounge.  The lady was still waiting, so I gave it to her.  Tomorrow morning she is going to return it.
I must have sent at least 10 picture postcards of this boat to the Netherlands today.  Really!
Now I‘ve never said anything yet about my best friend.  His name is Casperd Coopman.  He is 55.  He is Belgian by birth.  Lives in Hawaii, I think.  I believe he is a priest.  Blue eyes and always jolly.  There you have him—my friend.  He’s an awful lot of fun.  I often play table billiards with him—for the championship.
Dear folks, I’m just about talked out.  Dad and Mom better not know that I’m still here, because I was supposed to go to bed early tonight, and now it did get late again.
So, till tomorrow!  Dididididadida!

June 5. Saturday morning.  7:30 PM.
I’m writing at a table in the dining-smoking car of the train on the way to Chicago.  Dad is in the dining car sitting next to a man, waiting for something to eat while Sietze and I are in the connected smoking car.
I will try to recall all the recent experiences.  I’ll make it short. 
Yesterday morning, Friday the 4^th of June, we really kept our eyes peeled.  There was something new to see all the time. First, all the airplanes that came circling overhead.  Then the small and big pleasure and fishing boats, etc.  Around 10:00, a harbor pilot boarded ship.  An hour later the customs people.  Something new going on all the time—a sign  that we were reaching the end of our voyage.
At 12:00 we had to eat.  When we finished at 12:45, we lay motionless in the water.  We were on the Hudson River.  But after 15 minutes we were moving again.  In the distance we could see the Statue of Liberty.  In another half hour we were there.
At the dock of the Holland-America Line we saw the Nieuw Amsterdam.  Yet another half hour and we were finally at our destination.
Meanwhile Dad had to show the papers, etc., so that around 3:30 we could finally leave ship. But that still wasn’t the end of it.
More next time.

                                             TRAIN TRIP:  NEW YORK-CHICAGO-SEATTLE-BELLINGHAM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          June 6, Sunday evening, 9:15.
I’m in the smoking car again.  Not far from me lies Sietze because we are going to try to sleep here tonight.  We’re now on the way to Seattle.  But first I have to catch up.
When we stepped off the boat, we walked to a large area where all the First Class passengers gathered with their baggage.  A lady from the Seaman’s Home took us there.  We must have waited there at least two hours before they inspected our baggage.  It was then that we experienced the inconvenience of not being able to speak the language.  When our turn came up, though, things went very quickly.  Fortunately we didn’t get a real tough customs inspector.  We saw the Kooistras again too.
A brother of Oom Gilbert took us to the Seaman’s Home.  He was going to take the Nieuw Amsterdam to Holland the next day.  He also in part arranged the train trip for us.  The Kosters had already left.
We spent about an hour in the Seaman’s Home.  We bought a few things there, such as candy and bread, etc.  Then on to the station.  We left New York around 7:45.  It got dark before long, and then we had to try to get to sleep.  That wasn’t easy, but eventually you get used to everything.  Of course, you don’t sleep nearly as well as in bed.
We woke up early the next morning.  It gets dark early at night and light early in the morning here.
At first there wasn’t too much to see but when we got closer to Chicago the landscape improved.  I won’t say much about it because then I’ll never finish.  It’s better to experience and see it for yourself than to describe it.  We haven’t seen any mountains yet.
On Saturday, June 5, at around 5 o’clock we arrived in Chicago.  We had to transfer to another station, and there they told us that we could depart at 11:15.  So, a wait of 6 hours.  That’s a long wait.  How to spend all this time?  Well, we ate first.  It was almost 7:30 already when we finished.  We still had to take care of some things then, like tickets and information.  We also bought some candy, drinks, timetables, etc.  (Yuk, it’s miserably hard to write on the train.)  We did some window shopping and looked at a tape recorder and went into one of those booths where you can take a picture of yourself.  That works like this:   You deposit a quarter in a slot.  Then you see a bright light.  When you’d hear the quarter drop, they snap the picture.  Then you’d hear all sorts of sounds inside the machine and within 5 minutes you’d have the photo inside a neat frame on hand.  Unfortunately I didn’t have a quarter left.
Mom and Marijke slept.  At 10:30 a lady came to bring us to the train.  First we bought some apples, and then to the train.  That was quite strenuous, because we had quite a load to carry.  All of us were relieved when at last we sat safe and sound in the train.  This then would be our “home” for a few days.  By now we really began to look forward to the end, but there would still be lots to see before getting there. 
What a strange Sunday we had, like one I never experienced before and maybe never again.  Sunday on the train.  We stopped often.  I don’t like that.  But we knew the time of our arrival, and that is Tuesday morning at 7:30.  We took food along out of Chicago and in the train we bought our drinks.  In Milwaukee we bought some candy.
We didn’t get bored because there was a lot to see.  Beautiful scenery.  And you won’t believe the number of cars we saw—thousands of them.  We’re not used to that.
Sietze and I decided to sleep in the smoking car at night.  It’s quiet there and we’re able to stretch out.  But it took quite a while before we could settle down.  People kept coming in and then it’s hard to go to sleep.  But at last we went ahead anyway.  The people just kept sitting around and we got sleepy.  This is the first night that we slept well.

June 7.  Monday, 2:00 o’clock.
We can’t stop looking.  The world is beautiful here.  High mountains with eternal snow.  It’s simply indescribable.
Now and again it gets completely dark.  That’s when we go under a mountain.  Sometimes fairly long, sometimes short.  Or we twist our way up a mountain.  I’m looking right at the mountains now, covered with evergreens.  A beautiful sight.
It’s very warm outside here.  That’s not for me.  It makes you sleepy.  I better quit for a while now.
Till the next time.

OK, here we are again.  It’s evening now, 8:30.  The clock’s set back another hour.
This afternoon we enjoyed the beautiful scenery around us.  Mountains and more mountains.  High ones with snowy peaks, and smaller ones too.  And the train just kept twisting through it all—now climbing a mountain and then again going through it for a ways.  We had a great time!
Gradually we’re getting closer to our goal.  The three days which at first we dreaded haven’t been bad at all and have gone rather quickly, it seems to me.
The train is way late; I hope it’ll do some catching up tonight or else we won’t get there by 7:30 in the morning.
We did some singing a little while ago.  A couple of ladies liked that so we roared ourselves hoarse to the accompaniment of the mouth organ.  I’ll put down my pen again for now.  Till tomorrow.  “Good Night!”

June 9.  Wednesday.  9:30 PM.
I’m sitting here in the front room by Oom Gilbert and Tante Jeanette.  We’ve just finished eating.  Late, right?  But it isn’t like this all the time.
Let me start by telling about yesterday’s experiences.
At 7:05 on Tuesday morning we arrived in Seattle.  First we saw a huge airport with all kinds of airplanes, large and small.  A lady was waiting for us at the train station to help us.  Oom G. and Tante J were not there.  I’ll tell you why pretty soon.  The lady took us to the waiting room.  Then she called Oom G. and Tante J.
Let me tell you now why they weren’t there.  There were other reasons, too, but they are of lesser importance.  They had gotten confused by the three brothers Koster who went here for three weeks of vacation.  They left New York before us and therefore arrived before us too.  And the agreement was that all of us were going to get picked up together from Seattle.  So that’s how things got tangled up.
In spite of all that, we got here OK.  Dad and Mom talked with Tante J. a while on the telephone.  They were going to pick us up in Bellingham. So, we bought tickets, etc., and then on to another station.  At 8:30 we were on the train.  The last lap is always the toughest.  I think that’s true.  I got a headache and lost all my pep.  I tried to sleep and succeeded for a little while.  We thought we’d arrive at 11, but it turned out to be 11:45.  That was a long time.  We all were glad to be here.
It was unbearably hot on the train besides.  We did get to see some nice scenery again.  But all of us were very happy to finally get there.
When we got off the train we spotted familiar faces at once.  Oom G. and Tante J. as well as Meindert Tjoelker with his wife.  Then in the cars and off.   We  drove through Lynden.   It looks like a nice place to me.   Nice  surroundings, too.  At 12:30 we arrived at Oom G. and Tante J.  There we were treated to a wonderful dinner.  Tjoelker and wife also stayed for dinner.  It tasted terrific after such a long trip.  Since Friday we had not had a warm meal.  We really received a very warm welcome here.  It couldn’t have been better.
And now I will record the experiences ahead of us in the other journal.  Thus I have reached the end of my story.  The handwriting wasn’t always the best, but the boat and the train share the blame for that.

Readers, I hope you’ve enjoyed this,  then the effort of the writer is rewarded.  So this is then the conclusion of this diary.
“End of this little daybook.”

 

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