Ytsje at age 12 is placed
with a farmer. Farmers show no mercy; life
is hard, but young Ytsje is spunky.
She meets her friend Meindert
Birdie again briefly and learns that he takes no guff from anyone, including
mean, miserly farmers.The excerpt traces Ytsje’s journey to adulthood and motherhood.
… When after the bitter cold February of 1863 the last snow
has finally disappeared, the mail brings three letters especially addressed to
Ytsje.
The first one is from an uncle who proves to be the writer
for her Dad Sibbele Wytsma:
“Due to the last stage of consumption your
Father’s weakness has already called him to be bedridden, thence it appears
advisable not to come home, however dearly your father would have you with him
once more.”
The second saved message is one with a black border around
it: Dad’s death notice. The third letter
comes from the village Rommerskirchen right beneath Cologne where the young
Meindert “Birdie” is earning a good monthly wage as milker.
“Nevertheless the year passes too slowly, I
desire more and more intensely to return to my Fatherland, where the first
lapwing egg will well-nigh have been found. […] In view that I am a free man
here, I do wish that I, accompanied by lapwing and godwit, could return to Hichtum,
where I should also very much like to see you, worthy wool-seeker friend, to
ascertain your present condition.”
Ytsje, with her religious inclinations, sometimes comes out
with the strangest stuff. One day she
informs the farmer’s wife that a divine mission is awaiting her. “I received the prophecy that I will travel
to the New World. America, that is for
me the Promised Land; my stay here is but temporary.”
The farmer’s wife
pays little attention, for where would such a half-grown girl get the money to
pay for a trip to America. …
On the first of
November 1870 a new farmhand appears in Sieswerd. It is a tall young man, not a run-of-the-
mill kind of appearance, especially not in Ytsje’s eyes. And then the man’s name: Hizkia
Namminga. This man bears the name of the
biblical king Hezekiah. Ytsje thinks:
there must be a higher purpose behind this, she’s destined to marry this
Hizkia, and with him she will find the way to the New World. The intensity of Ytsje’s faith is rivaled by
her flaming passion for this handsome fellow. There is no stopping it now. …
When the farmer and his wife discover in the spring of 1871
that Ytsje is pregnant by the new farmhand, both are fired that same
evening. … All of Ytsje’s worldly
possessions as live-in farm maid fit inside a wheelbarrow, and there’s still
room for Hizkia’s bundle as well. …
On May 13,
1871 – a civil marriage. … “We were married in dry spring weather,” it
says in Ytsje’s diary which she begins on May 1.
[They land a job with another
farmer. Hizkia dreams of becoming a
farmer himself, while Ytsje talks night and day about America.]
… thus Ytsje Namminga-Wytsma gives birth to a healthy boy on
the shortest day of the year 1871. It is
not likely that the procreator was present at the birth, because giving birth
was exclusively for female attendance.
Contrary to tradition, the boy is not named after the late Grandpa
Nammen Namminga, but after Ytsje’s early deceased father Sibbele Wytsma to whom
she had such a loving attachment. Hizkia
approves all of it; as far as he’s concerned, this will not be their only
child. Ytsje is of the same mind: after
all, the biblical king Hezekiah had a whole bunch of sons.
At Pigskin on the
5th of January, a memorandum appears in the margin of Dr. Staring’s almanac
from great-great grandma Ijbeltsje. By
then Ytsje no longer has the services of the midwife; she’s very much back to
milking.
“Now that the winter weather is tempering
and it is thawing hard and foggy the ice is not to be trusted so that Hizkia’s
Ytsje can walk again through the fields, Jan together with Sjoerd has laid boards for her across the Klooster Canal so
that she can be here on time.”
Though Hizkia may be the accommodating kind, each time he
manages to postpone Ytsje’s emigration plans.
Ijbeltje Mensonides-Faber:
“Ietje
is full of emigrating to America while her husband seems more sensible, Hizkia
is very fond of Hichtum.”
No comments:
Post a Comment