William and Tryntje's home in the Netherlands
We had to say goodbye to our dear grandparents—in those days when you left for America, that was that! They would never see you again. So we all remember the terrible sadness of our going away...but also eagerly looking ahead to the future. We were either ten or eleven days on the boat. Our dear little Mother was so very sick, we remember that we wondered if she would ever make the trip. But as children we didn't know that a little daughter was on the way, and that was why Mother was so sick. This was the year 1914. The beginning of this little daughter was in Holland, but Mother made the trip and we arrived safe in Chicago. Our sister Jennie was living there, so that was to be our home.
Leaving Rotterdam, Holland on the Ryndam, William and Tryntje (passengers #20 & #21) arrived at Ellis Island, New York, on June 16, 1914.
But things soon didn't look too good—Henrietta was the first to come down with diphtheria. She was very low and not expected to live, but the Lord spared her life. She was nine years old then. But then one after the other came down with diphtheria and brother Teddy died of it at the age of seven. In all this time Mother was very depressed. She thought that the Lord was punishing them for leaving Holland, until a minister asker her if she had prayed about it. "Oh yes, I struggled much with it and William, too," she told him. "Well," he said, "then you may not feel that way." She she trusted the Lord—she was very much a praying mother. Well, then in February, though the beginning had been in Holland, the time had come for their last child to be born. It was a very beautiful little girl—a head full of curls. When the older children looked through the keyhole we thought it was a beautiful doll. They named this little girl Josie; she was born on February 12, 1915.