News and History from Heritage Hall
In our last blog post, we looked at a general overview of Reverend Johannes Groens’s life and ministry. We saw that Groen was a dynamic speaker who was loved by many who knew him. We also saw that conflict characterized parts of his ministry. In …
Humble origins and deep piety marked the Dutch Reformed immigrants who came to Michigan in the mid-nineteenth century. So to did a love of learning, especially theology, and an inclination to apply Reformed theology and thought to all aspects of life. All these characteristics marked …
“Diphtheria in Paterson” the headline read. The article announced that School No. 12 in the city’s New Holland neighborhood was closed after twelve students had died from the infection. The building stood at 33-41 Bergen St., the center of an area city officials described as …
In our last blogpost, “Early Chinese Leaders in the Christian Reformed Church,” we looked at the Christian Reformed Church’s domestic mission among Chinese Americans. This time, we will treat some of the CRC’s mission work in China from 1925 to 1951. The CRC had multiple …
Dutch immigrants probably come to mind when people think of the ethnic history of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC). But that history is an ethnically diverse one, and not just in recent decades. Chinese communities in the CRC date to the 1950s …
The story of frontier families and settlements is one of triumph in American mythology, creating civilization out of wilderness. The actual history of frontier life includes a lot of failure, however. Failed homesteads, with families moving on to start over somewhere else. Communities beginning, then …
This post concludes a series of three blog posts on belonging and identity in the Dutch immigrant communities in Canada in the 1970s and 1980s. The first two posts– “Smells and Tastes” and “Dutch Bingo.” –explored how religious identities and ethnic identities easily get entangled. …
Perhaps one of the best-known enclaves of Dutch Americans and Reformed churches is Paterson, New Jersey. Many Dutch American families have ties to Paterson, including my own. But all places must have a beginning, and Paterson’s connections with immigrant Dutch American Reformed churches are by …
“What’s happening is unprecedented!” I keep hearing people say that about Covid-19 (a coronavirus). Some seem to mean that a pandemic like this is unprecedented. Others mean that the public health response—shutting down schools, sporting events, perhaps eventually churches, etc.—is unprecedented. Neither is unprecedented, really. …
What shapes an identity and makes a community? What did I experience in the Dutch Reformed immigrant communities that I grew up in during the 1970s and 1980s in southern Ontario, Canada? In last week’s blog post, I focused on the sounds, sights, tastes, and …