News and History from Heritage Hall
The Fall 2021 issue of Origins: Historical Magazine of the Heritage Hall Archives is in print and has been mailed to subscribers! The issue does not have a central theme. It explores a variety of topics related to Dutch North American and Reformed history. This …
In 1957 the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) celebrated its 100th anniversary. The central themes in the centennial celebration were theological unity and the faithfulness of the CRC and its members. The Centennial programs would acknowledge Dutch origins and immigrant history but downplay them in a …
When most people think of missions, they don’t think of Canada. In the 1920s, Rev. Henry Beets did. Beets was the director of missions for the Christian Reformed Church (CRC). He “traveled the globe several times to inspect missions and advice missionaries in Africa, China, …
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. …
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 …
What shapes an identity? What makes a community? I grew up in Dutch Reformed immigrant communities in towns and rural areas in Ontario, Canada, in the 1970s and early 1980s. My father was the “dominee” in a series of congregations from the Ottawa region to …
“Immigration is taking place under greatly changed situations, and in a different land. So in that very real sense, history is not repeating itself.” If you read this quotation with current headlines in mind, you might have wondered whether it is about debates over immigration …
This blog post will resonate with anyone familiar with the Little House on the Prairie novels and TV series. The “little House” stories were based on the real history of the Ingalls and Wilder families but altered by Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose …
The stories of churches and families are intertwined. My grandfather, Frank Visscher, and his family emigrated from the Netherlands in March 1949, arriving in Canada on the RMS Aquitania in early April. He had been a prosperous farmer in the Netherlands. But he wanted land …