Tag: Immigration

Finding Family History in the Pages of the CRC Archive – Part II

Finding Family History in the Pages of the CRC Archive – Part II

See previous blog post for part I of this story. As assistant to the secretary of the Calvinist Resettlement Service, Agnes Flonk handled a good deal of the correspondence between potential sponsors and the necessary bureaucratic organizations. Many of the applicants she worked with were […]

Finding Family History in the Pages of the CRC Archive – Part I

Finding Family History in the Pages of the CRC Archive – Part I

On August 27, 1955, Pieter Duinkerken showed up at the offices of the Calvinist Resettlement Committee to speak with Miss Agnes Flonk, the assistant secretary. The committee was created by the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), whose headquarters were in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mr. Duinkerken himself […]

Dutch American Women and their Stories (Origins 40:2–Free Article)

Dutch American Women and their Stories (Origins 40:2–Free Article)

In a presentation at the 2021 meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Dutch American Studies, Mary Risseeuw made the case that women have been neglected in the writing of Dutch North American history. There are some important books and noteworthy articles. But she […]

Migrations, Celebrations & Relations (Origins 39:2–Free Article)

Migrations, Celebrations & Relations (Origins 39:2–Free Article)

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 […]

Tragedy and an Immigrant Voice — Willem de Lange

Tragedy and an Immigrant Voice — Willem de Lange

Boys racing homemade bobsleds down the Bridge Street Hill in Grand Rapids hit Willem Hendrik de Lange in January 1874. “On the evening of this accident,” De Lange’s father-in-law reported, “he left our house in good spirits.” Shortly after, six to eight big boys on […]

A Home for Dutch Sailors and Immigrants in Hoboken, NJ

A Home for Dutch Sailors and Immigrants in Hoboken, NJ

Last week, Calvin University got word that alumnus and long time librarian Conrad Bult had passed away. Conrad was a periodicals and reference librarian and a historian, and he was much loved in Hekman Library, Heritage Hall, and the history department. This morning I was […]

Churches and Migrations in Chicago

Churches and Migrations in Chicago

For the past half year, I’ve been doing re-photography posts on Heritage Hall’s Facebook site. Usually it is two pictures, one from the deeper past and a more recent image, sometimes a photograph I’ve taken. Some of the posts include a story about the congregation, […]

When Canada was  a CRC Mission Field

When Canada was a CRC Mission Field

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, […]

A Great Grandfather’s Memories of Immigrating – Part III

A Great Grandfather’s Memories of Immigrating – Part III

The previous two blog posts started a story told by Dan Poortenga about his great grandfather Peter Oudshoorn. Dan first wrote this story as a paper in a Calvin College history course in the early 1990s. He interviewed his great grandfather and set his story […]

A Great Grandfather’s Memories of Immigrating – Part II

A Great Grandfather’s Memories of Immigrating – Part II

Our previous blog post started the story of Peter Oudshoorn emigrating from the Netherlands to the United States in 1904, as told by his great grandson, Dan Poortenga. Dan first wrote about Oudshoorn in an assignment for a Calvin College history course in the early […]