VAN ENGEN, Winnie (Boom) 1915-2009

VAN ENGEN, BOOM, MIERSMA

Posted By: County Coordinator (email)
Date: 6/27/2009 at 08:15:13

Mrs. Winnie Van Engen, age 94, of Hull, Iowa, passed away on Friday, March 13, 2009, at the Dougherty Hospice House in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
A funeral service was held on Tuesday, March 17, at the First Christian Reformed Church in Hull. Interment followed at the Hope Cemetery in Hull. Visitation with the family will be after 9:30am on Tuesday and during the lunch over the noon hour at the church. Arrangements are with the Oolman Funeral Home in Hull.

Winnie was born on January 30, 1915, on a farm near Ash Creek, Minnesota, the oldest child of Christian and Sarah (Miersma) Boom. Later, her family moved to a farm at Hills, Minnesota, and then to a farm north of Inwood, Iowa (a mile or two east of the present West Lyon School). She received her formal education in the Logan Township No. 5 country school in Lyon County. She walked or was taken by pony cart the mile and a half from her farm. In 1933, the family moved to a farm just outside of Lester, Iowa, where her nephew, Chris, still lives.

At age 21, she left the farm to find work and explore the world. In the late 1930s, she first worked in southern California, then in Holland, Michigan, and then she returned to California. During World War II, she worked in war factories in Holland and Long Beach, California. Upon being laid off at the close of the war, she returned to Iowa.

On September 3, 1946, in Lester, Winnie married John Van Engen, of Doon, Iowa, who had just returned from four years of military service, stationed at a hospital in Hawaii. Together, with relatives Fred and Margaret Van Engen, they owned and operated a butcher shop in Hull and as young couples, also fished and played cards together. In four years, she gave birth to three children, and then on November 18, 1950, her beloved husband died of a brain tumor in Rochester, Minnesota.

Staying in their home and determined to raise her children herself, she found work where she could, eventually becoming the postal clerk in Hull for 24 years. Her adventurous spirit never left her, and beginning in 1959, she took her three children on summer vacations, driving to nearly all of the 48 states. In the 1960s, she had intended to drive to Alaska, and in the last weeks of her life expressed regret that she had not done so.
Though Mrs. Van Engen considered herself poorly educated and was hesitant about writing outside of family letters, she retained the Dutch language of her parents, avidly read newspapers, always kept up on the news, and loved to learn about history. Not surprisingly, all of her children became teachers. She maintained her own home and garden, with the relish of a farm girl, until almost age 90.

She then lived at the Village Inn in Inwood for three years, full of early memories. For the past year and a half, she resided at Stoney Brook Assisted Living in Sioux Falls.
A devout person, quite able to speak her own mind, Winnie stressed to her children that all people should be treated alike, that judging should be left to the Lord, and that church people of whatever group should learn to get along with each other.

She is mourned by her son, John (Kathryn Kerby-Fulton) Van Engen, of South Bend, Indiana, and his four sons, Hans (Pam) Van Engen, and their daughter, Emily, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Stefan (Sharon) Van Engen, and their children, Kiernan and Maeve, and Lucas Van Engen, all of New York City, New York, and Abram (Kristen) Van Engen, of Chicago, Illinois; her daughter, Shirley (Jerry) Vander Tuig, of Jefferson City, Missouri, and their two sons, Marc (Wendy) Vander Tuig, and their four children, Hannah, Grace, Thomas, and Katherine, all of St. Louis, Missouri, and Matthew (Amanda) Vander Tuig, and their two children, Cameron and EllaWyn, all of Columbia, Missouri; and her daughter, Darlene Van Engen, of Sioux Falls.

She is also survived by one brother, Louis (Ann) Boom, of Rock Rapids, Iowa; one sister, LuBertha Boom, of Lester; and four sisters-in-law and one brother-in-law, Sue Van Engen, of Coopersville, Michigan; Gert Van Engen, of Luverne, Minnesota; Gerrit Oldenkamp, of Hull; Alice Goldhorn, of Rock Rapids, Iowa; and Geraldine Vanden Brink, of Coopersville.

In addition to her husband and parents, she was preceded in death by two brothers, Chris and Paul Boom, and two sisters, Sarah Bouwman and Jeanette Boom, in infancy.

(Oolman Funeral Home obituary)