A Book of Generations

Because Nicolaas Dijkhoff and his wife, Maria Wilhelmina Van Stiphout, could not have children of their own, they asked Gerardus Dijkhoff, to "lend" them one of his children. Nicolaas was the first cousin of Gerardus, a son of Gerardus' uncle, Willem Dijkhoff. Nickolaas owned a lot of land and was considered to be quite wealthy

Gerardus (George) and Johanna (Ploegmakers) had immigrated to the United States in 1908 and settled in Butler, Minnesota. By this time they had already had 17 children, of which 13 were still living.

As my Gramma Sweere told me, her father lined up his three youngest daughters: herself, Gerarda Maria (Marie) and Jacoba Johanna (Julia) and had them draw straws to determine which would go to live with cousin Nicklaas. Marie drew the shortest straw.

In October of 1913, George took Marie back to the Netherlands to live with Nickolaas and his wife. The ship's passage of both father and daughter were payed for by the well-to-do Nicolaas Dijkhoff.

Marie Dijkhoff grew up in the Netherlands and married Michael Paulus van der Heijden. Her parents in America gave their written consent. She lived in Someren and eventually had six childen, after World War II, she visited her family in the U.S. often.

Marie wrote many letters to her sisters over the years, and Gramma often showed me the letters, which were written in Dutch. Sometimes she gave me the odd looking postage stamps from them.

Gramma had a comical sense of humor, and joked that it was by the "luck of the draw" that I lived in the United States, for had she drawn the shortest straw, she would'nt have met Grampa...and I would be Dutch!