My Grandma Was Once a Little Girl


The image above is a scan from the heritage album I originally put together to show my sister's grand-kids that their grandmother was once a little girl. For it is true that our grandmas were once little girls. I was lucky to have copies of photographs showing pictures not only of my sister and mother but also my grandmother as a little girl.

This is the only photograph of my grandmother's grandfather (who died about five years after the photo was taken) known to me which makes it even more special. I am excited to note that I will soon have the opportunity to travel to the land of my forefathers' birth for a visit next month.

Martin was born in Niawier in the Friesland province of the Netherlands in 1851. He was married to Tjeerdtje Terpstra in 1872 and together they had eight children, losing four of them in early infancy and childhood. After also losing his wife, Martin took his remaining family to America and settled in Grand Rapids, Kent County, Michigan in 1891. He signed a declaration of intent to become a naturalized citizen on 26 September 1894. He married twice more while here, in May of 1894 to Berdena Ligtenberg Heuwelhos and to Botje (Bessie) Boersma in December of 1901. By 1910, Martin lived in Grant (Newaygo County), Michigan.

I included stories from two of his granddaughters on my Friesland Dutch Heritage page which I originally put together in a booklet about the Katsma family (third draft in 1999). I repeat them here as they connect those little girls with their grandfather all those years ago:

Granddaughter Jessie (Jolman) Potter stated that Martin lived at one time in Grand Rapids above a store on Eastern Avenue and Sherman Street and that he was an elder in the Dennis Avenue Christian Reformed Church. She also remembered Martin's last wife "was not very good to him." Jessie refused to take a cookie from her when she was young. She got scolded by her mother for telling Martin's wife that she did not want the cookie because she was not nice to her grandpa. Jessie said he moved to Grant because of his third wife.

Granddaughter Theresa (Katsma) Timmer told me she remembered visiting him in Grant. She and her siblings loved to take the trip to see him but were bored while there. They always had soup and brie to eat. After his wife Bessie died in November of 1925, Martin went to live with his son Will on a dairy farm in Grandville, Michigan until his own death in April of 1926. Theresa remembered him being there while her oldest sister Gertrude was dating. He slept in the dining room and Gertrude would be in the living room with her date. 

Everyone is gone now; only the family stories remain.


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