If in 1945 I were to walk north from Koop's Grocery along 96th to my home, I would only pass four residences on the west side of the road: Peter Walters, Luke Luurtsma, Johannes Schout, and Gradus Geurink. On the East side of the road were Lou Vollink, Simon Vollink, the church parsonage, Gerrit Steigenga, Ed Gruppen, and Henry Weaver. If I were to continue North from our house to Blair Street, I would only pass John Essenburg on the West and Albert Bosch on the East. Remember I am talking about the 1940's and I was born in 1940, so I was very young. In that decade there were still a huge number of English Sparrows or House Sparrows . In 1887 the state of Michigan started a bounty program where they would pay one cent for the head of every English Sparrow brought to the county clerk's office. The first year they paid a bounty on just over 31,000 sparrows. Most boys had a BB gun before they were ten, and I was one of them. It was great sport for us to shoot sparrows as we tried to do our part in eradicating this invasive species. After dark many sparrows would retreat to barns and sleep on the beams. We would go in with flashlights to find and shoot them. Today that sounds pretty crass, but at that time the numbers were so great they could eat al lot of grain. I developed pretty good accuracy with a gun. I was the second best shooter in my company in basic Army training.
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One late evening around 1945, it was already dark, my parents left the house with pots, pans, and big spoons, joined other neighbors, and walked the 1o0 yards to Albert Bosch's house. They sheepishly explained they were going to “shiveree”. Simon Koop and Lena Bosch had gotten married in that house earlier that day, and now the neighbors were going to shiveree. I was only 5 years old and what they were doing was completely new and weird to me and completely out of character for my parents. We lived close enough to Albert Bosch that I could hear the racket going on for perhaps 10 minutes.
I never heard of another case of shivereeing being done until about ten years later on the wedding night of Benji Blauwkamp, so I don't think it was a common thing, but to me it sure was a curious thing, perhaps done only in Borculo. However I have learned it is practiced in Europe and all of North America. The Wikipedia says, “All in fun – it was just a shiveree, you know, and nobody got mad about it. At least not very mad “ The Borculo website has existed several years, and for awhile it gave people opportunity to comment. I had to discontinue that feature because it was being frequently spammed with vile content. I did save some of the comments and would like to share two today. By the way, the comment feature is again available on this page. "Full Name: Brenda Overweg Groters Home Page: None. Date and Time: 7/7/03, 10:20 AM Comments: Was surprised when sister Paula called and said Borculo has a website. What fond memories. The pickles station, Koops store, (all the penny candy, Popsicle brand popsicles, & the pop machine). I can still visualize where everything is in the store. Can everyone remember the hamburg gravy with mashed potatoes, pea soup/vegetable soup & bologna sandwiches (every Wed.)the peanut butter/butter sandwiches, the cold milk in the glass pint bottles. Or how about the candy sales on Fridays. We really had it good. God really blessed us with healthy morals. Remember when on that Monday night at 9:00 that man lost his life after driving between two cars full of my friends from church, crashed into the house? I still remember exactly where I was, the stones' and gravel flying in the house. How about the ice pond that Mr. Vanden Berg made for us. What a great community to grow up in. So many fond memories. Never had to lock your doors. Wish my children had what I had back then." My note: The house to which Brenda refers no longer exists. Before the changes were made to the intersection of Port Sheldon and 96th Ave., a car coming from the West on Port Sheldon had to stop at 96th, make a jog to the left and an immediate right turn to get back on Port Sheldon. If that car failed to make the turn, it would hit the Overweg house....which it did in this case. AND "Full Name: Paula Overweg Gallas Home Page: None. Date and Time: 7/1/03, 2:53 PM Comments: I have great memories of growing up in a large family at the corner of Port Sheldon and 96th ave. We learned to make our own fun, worked in the blueberry fields or on other produce farms to make money and grew up in a safe community. The big night out was Sat. evening when we would travel into Holland to go to Meijer-Thrifty Acres and then stop at Russ' drive in. I wish I could have graduated 8th grade from Borculo Public with the last class to finish there in 1966, I believe, but our family moved to Spring Lake after I completed 6th grade." Sometime between 1945 and 1949, between my 5th and 9th year, a plan was developed in the Borculo community to bring in some much needed cash to local families still suffering the effects of the Great Depression and WWII. H.J. Heinz had a pickle receiving station in Borculo where pickles raised by local farmers were collected and then trucked to the Heinz processing plant in Holland, MI.
Since I was less than ten years old, I don't know all of the motivations for that effort. I assume they were altruistic. It was a simple plan which involved the young people of Borculo. Henry Weaver owned several acres of land behind his house on 96th Ave. He owned the Borculo Feed Mill and was not a farmer, so that land lay uncultivated. The idea was to use that land to raise pickles that would be harvested by the local children and sold to H.J. Heinz. The children would receive some of the profits. One adult was chosen to be in charge of the operation, and that adult was my grandpa, Peter VandenBosch. I know the land was tilled, the pickles were planted, and there was a harvest. After that my recollections fade quickly because I only picked pickles one day and was then told not to come back. It may have been they had mercy on this youngster, or it may have been because of my lack of productivity, in any case I never returned to the pickle field and the scheme fizzled after one year. It would be interesting to me if someone could contribute more details about this project. Just click on "Comments" above and share what you remember. I want to introduce you to Chummy, a dog we bought at a church auction as a puppy. I am on the right and it looks like Chummy is as old as me, but I do remember the auction sale. For a little more perspective, Harve and I are sitting on our lawn, drinking pop, with the Borculo Feed Mill in the background. I introduce Chummy because the first major trauma in my life was caused by him. Perhaps a year after this picture was taken, Chummy was severely injured while chasing a car. The assessment was made by the adults that this injury was too severe for recovery. I, fortunately, did not see but was told of the next events. Henry Weaver got his .22 rifle and as Chummy looked pleadingly at him, shot him to put him out of his misery. When I heard what had happened, I stood in the corner in our dining room and cried for hours. I can only imagine how that must have torn my parents hearts. One more detail from the picture. The window you see on the extreme right was the window through which coal was delivered by the ton into the coal room. It is also the window I poked at with a bat pretending to break it, but miscalculated. One of the early memories I have of being at the Koop's house was an evening when Harve and I were left there while our parents and Uncle Gerrit and Aunt Mae went to a meeting. The Koops had just bought a console record player. Having had little experience with such a thing, I was enthralled! That evening I must have listened to a Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians a dozen times. I just couldn't get enough of it. Being at their house was always intriguing to me because there was one door on the north side of the house which led directly to the attached grocery store. All those goodies were potentially immediately available, although I don't recall ever taking advantage of that availability. I do remember that at about the age of 5 on a hot summer day, my parents gave me a nickel to spend there. I walked up the steps into Koop's Grocery and in the corner to the right of the door was a red pop dispenser. I inserted my nickel, lifted the door of the dispenser, and pulled out of the ice cold water an ice cold bottle of Nehi Orange Crush pop. What an amazing treat that was. I still drink Orange Crush to this day. My Aunt Mae was such a dear kind and loving lady. She seemed to me to be always at peace, even though I know things were not always peaceful. Times were tough. WWII didn't end until I was 5. Uncle Gerrit must have been kind as well. My parents would worry about them because they would 'sell' groceries on credit to people who had nothing and I think they knew they would probably never see payment. What an important role they played in keeping the community going in those days. Besides Uncle Gerrit's role in the grocery store, he was the Sunday School superintendent for years and years. Every week he would begin the Sunday School session with all the kids together in the auditorium singing hymns requested by the children. It seems like every week we would sing, "I Love to Tell the Story". Another dear lady, Henrietta Koop, wife of Reynold Koop, was my Sunday School teacher. Just another kind and loving adult I was blessed to have experienced in my childhood. This is my Aunt Mae. She exudes sweetness. Her brother, Len VandenBosch, wrote memoirs which also appear on this website. My history as a nephew of Len and Mae overlaps the events recorded by Len. For example, for my first ten years I dealt with the same "Jons" described by Uncle Len. The original Borculo website was created in the late 90's because I was concerned the history of Borculo would be lost. Over the years the site has been moved several times and often neglected. The code was antique, making changes was difficult, and pretty soon it just didn't work anymore. Weebly.com seems to be a great way to preserve and enhance the site. It is free, very easy to update, and I can easily pass on the job of maintenance to someone new when I can no longer do it.
I was born in 1940, so I have lived about half of the total history since the town of Borculo was established. When I look at the Charter Member of Borculo CRC, I do not know those individuals, but when I see the picture of the council members in office at the 50th Anniversary, I say, "I knew all those guys!" In fact, if you look closely at the picture, you would notice that Herm Stremler has only one arm showing...because he only had one arm. And one of the deacons, Johannes Schout, was my grandfather. Many of the people in the photo of the congregation at the 75th Anniversary were people I observed from the pew twice every Sunday for 18 years and many are identifiable in the pictures even some near the rear of the church. My peer group friends were Bob Walters, Delores Weaver, Lucy Geurink, Rog Steigenga, Harve Meppelink, Dave Blauwkamp, Bill and Bob DeWys, and Bern Luurtsma, but cousins Warren, Jerry, Tom, Rick, Dave, and Nancy Koop, children of Gerrit and Mae Koop were like part of our family. I get teary now just remembering them and the good times we had. I often walk through the Borculo cemetery on the top of the Borculo hill. I have parents and grandparents, uncles, aunts, and friends buried there, and as I pass their markers the memories flow. On the north border of the cemetery, where there is now a convenience store, used to be a small house in which lived a mother with her two 'old maid' daughters. I don't recall ever seeing them at church, but I had learned a little about them because they were distant relatives. The unusual thing about this family was that one of the daughters broke her leg and she spent the rest of her life sitting in a wooden arm chair and hopping around the house in that chair. There was another elderly lady 1/2 mile north of the main intersection of Port Sheldon and 96th St. who was a bit scary to this young boy. Minnie was a recluse living in a dilapidated completely paint free and weathered black house. My mother felt sorry for her and would occasionally visit with some goodies. I was unwilling to accompany her. Minnie's picture can be seen on the "People" page and she looks normal albeit a bit stern. I had to walk past her place when I would visit what began as a big hole out of which the county took sand for building roads. It then filled with water and was a great place for a swim until people began throwing their junk in the hole. On one of my 1/2 mile bike trips to the "dump", my Cocker Spaniel Sandy came along. I had my ball glove on the handlebars of my bike, but when I got back home, unknown to me, the ball glove was no longer on my handlebars, but I did know Sandy was no longer with me. It was supper time but as soon as we were done eating I retraced my trip. On the gravel street that Blair Street was at the time, I saw my ball glove lying. As I approached the glove, a growling Sandy emerged from the overgrown ditch to protect my glove. What a great dog he was! |
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