Bierma, Watse 1867-1940 and Geertje Sybesma Family
BIERMA, SYBESMA, JENSMA, KROESE
Posted By: Wilma J. Vande Berg - volunteer (email)
Date: 9/22/2021 at 05:49:12
Bierma, Watse and Geertje Sybesma Family
This story was taken from the Sioux Center Centennial book of 1991 pages 235-237, and was submitted to the book by Syne Bierma. The story was transcribed for this BIOS by Beth De Leeuw and some research notes were added by Wilma J. Vande Berg, both of the Greater Sioux County Genealogical Society.
For the sake of objective narrative and consistency, the parents Watse and Geertje Bierma will be known as Watse and Geertje throughout the history.
Watse came to America from Holland, Friesland, in 1890. He immigrated with two buddies who were also 23 years old — Unema and Dykema. Their first stop was in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Watse stayed there for less than a year, long enough to despise the stifling factory work; so he went on to Lebanon, Iowa, in 1891 and hired out to Remko Kooi, a land-rich maxi-farmer with more than a dozen hands to help work his sections of land.
Remko had advanced his passage money so he worked for him until that was paid. Watse then went to work at Rock Valley and hired out to Evert Hulshof. Evert was also a big-time farmer, and judging by the number of times Hulshof’s name came up in later years, Watse was impressed by him. After working there for a few years, Watse rented five acres from him to raise potatoes, a job he knew well since that was the Biermas’ main crop in Friesland.
Just why Watse came to America remains vague. He was tightlipped about his motives, and the children never dared to ask him. He did remark that the economic stress and a desire to start anew in a new country were pushes. Of course there were guesses why he really came, (1) he was disappointed in love; (2) he was preparing a place for his secret bride; (3) he had a quarrel with his father; but that did not jibe with the fact that Watse’s mother always spoke of the Bierma family as very closely bonded, and they pleaded for him to stay in Friesland.
Whatever the reason, Watse did return to the Netherlands in 1895 to see his family. He was there only briefly and felt out of place. He longed for the wide open spaces, the freedom and the opportunities America offered. After he got back, he worked for Hulshof again and also once more rented land to raise potatoes. During the span of 1895-1899, Watse went through a period of spiritual turmoil. He was never a total atheist, as were his buddies back in the old country, but Watse proclaimed himself an agnostic, uninterested in church or its related activities. There remained many unsettling doubts. He attended the old Sioux Center Reformed Church for a year or two. He then went to the Christian Reformed Church where Reverend Henry Beets, first and always an evangelist, was serving as pastor. He confronted Watse about the matter of salvation. That was finally the answer to his restlessness.
From that time on, he was on fire for his Lord and Master. For the rest of his life he served as a church and Christian school leader. He served as the first president of the Sioux Center Christian school and became a strong advocate for Christian education from grade school through university. He lived the dedicated life with a passion. There was not a phony bone in his body. All of this is reflected in Sietze Buning’s “Style and Class” in the chapter on the “consistorial conference.” He breathed Christianity. He was also active in community affairs, especially absorbed in the cooperatives; the creamery, elevator and lumberyard, and the funeral home. He served in various capacities as an officer and was secretary of both the creamery and funeral boards at the time of his death. In fact, he died of a heart attack on the day (Saturday) January 13, 1940. Manager Jensen and he completed taking inventory of all the creamery stock.
Watse wore a semi-walrus mustache, rust and gray sprinkled throughout. On his Friesan brow was a patrician dignity that folks respected. And he had a sense of humor; there were times he could be seized by fits of laughter that would ring tears from his eyes. He also had a microwave temper. Nothing could light him up quicker than to watch one of the milk cows jump the fence and pirate the corn.
Watse also was accused of practicing medicine without a license. He had a formidable row of patent medicine bottles lined up on the shelf in the pantry. Most of this consisted of bottles of evil-tasting mixtures. Most of them, like Dr. Pieters’ Zokoro, were self-inflicted but castor oil was reserved for children who could not defend themselves. Castor oil (for the uninitiated) was a slimy, slippery, nauseating glop that guaranteed the recall of one’s dinner. To forestall that occasion, Watse would gently hold their noses shut on the theory that you cannot taste that what you cannot smell. However remembered taste is a powerful thing.
Geertje Sybesma came to America while her family was immersed in sickness, death and poverty. (Seven of the children from three months to seventeen years died from pneumonia and consumption.) She was urged by her parents to follow her brother, Seine, 18, to America. She did. Arriving in Hull, Iowa, in 1903, Geertje got her bearings at the Martin Kooistra home.
A certain Klaas Meyer paid her ocean fare to America. Klaas had a vested interest in her; he was to marry her after a decent interval went by. While at the Kooistras, Mrs., a sharp-witted and determined woman, began questioning Geertje about her plans in America. She said she was going to get married and then was advised not to marry Klaas Meyer. That was final. Mrs. Kooistra became her proxy mother in America, while her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Klaas Sybesma, both sickly, weak and poor were back in Franeker, Friesland; they both died a few years later before their 50th birthdays. Geertje never saw her parents again after coming to America.
Klaas Meyer was upset about being jilted and demanded the return of his sponsor money. After Geertje married Watse some three years later, Watse put together the ocean fare and paid off the debt.
As a family, we never had a memory of Geertje ever running or walking rapidly. She never had the strength. Yet she worked early and late. No one could ever imagine Watse playing with the children, but Geertje would always play different games with the children including checkers and dominos while Watse read.
She always wore her hair in a chignon or Psyche knot. At night we were amazed how far her hair dangled down when she unpinned it.
Geertje was a background person who never dominated a group. But she quietly influenced relatives and friends by her strong common sense and practical wisdom. She could “read” people’s character more accurately than anyone I ever knew. Feminine intuition was highly developed in her. And she was never wrong about people and never fooled about motives. She probably talked less and said more than any other member.
Before Watse and Geertje were wed on March 20, 1906, Geertje kept house for a pair of brothers-in-law who were widowers, Pelskamp and Levenkamp. Hulshof had some egg customers in Sioux Center and the widowers were two of them. Watse volunteered to take the eggs into town and then met Geertje. The volunteering went on for a few years and ended up in marriage.
After the wedding they settled in town on the site of the present Kempers Floral House. They were there for a very brief period when tragedy struck the Rensink family. Tony, younger brother of Henry and Bill Rensink was building a basement barn on his intended farm. He was about to marry and was getting ready to settle in when while fetching a load of sand from the Rensink property (the present swimming pool and golf course), a massive cave-in came without notice and Tony was buried alive.
The tragedy left the farm vacant, and Watse was in the right place at the right time. Henry Rensink became the owner and Bierma rented the 160 acres on the site of the buildings and 40 acres across the road. Later Watse rented the Rensink sandpit acreage, a 20 acre plot.
This was also the birthplace of all seven Bierma children; namely: Brechtje, Bertha streamlined to Bert; Ida, Edward, known as Eddie; Klaas, Clarence became Casey; Gosse, George, sometimes known as the Judge; Seine, Syne dubbed Simply, probably because he was slow to catch on; Trinje, Katherine, which reverted to Trin; and William, the only one to be baptized with an American name. Bill was commonly known as Willie, and then it was changed to Woppy, Peanuts and Corky by turns. Most of the nicknaming was a product of Ed’s whimsical mind.
For 29 years the same kitchen table, sway-backed and rickety, served the family as it swelled and shrank in numbers. We never owned deep-bottomed breakfast dishes but ate our cereal out of flat dinner plates. That posed an engineering problem for those on each end of the table. I always sat at the end. In order to keep the milk from cascading downstream I had to stick a knife under the inclined plate as a shim to keep it on an even keel. With nine people around the table it called for some impromptu ingenuity.
The eating table doubled as a discussion table dominated by Watse, Eddie and Bertha, at times. The rest of us did a lot of listening. The names of Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge, Hoover, Abraham Kuyper, and Colyn came up frequently, the latter two were Calvinist Prime Ministers of Holland. Eddie sharpened his argumentative beak on the bark of those discussions.
When Bertha and Eddie were five and three years old respectively, in 1911, the family left the farm in the hands of Geertje’s sister Mattie and her husband John Feikema for one year while the Biermas sailed to the Netherlands for a final visit.
Bertha, the oldest child, had in her memory catalog each family event, every anecdote about friends, and the personal history of half of Sioux County. She knew where every family lived and for how long. Bertha married James Geels, an outsider from Orange City, in February of 1932. I recall the ceremony because my graduation watch of two years stopped dead the minute they were married at 2:00 p.m.
Jim and Bertha first moved to a farm near Maurice which they rented on shares. Later they moved to a farm approximately one mile east of Ireton, Iowa. There seven children were born and raised with one child, Verlyn, dying in infancy. The oldest is Gertrude Boer married to Harold Boer whose history is contained elsewhere in this book.
Ed, while still a few years old contracted what was known as infantile paralysis (polio) and left him with one leg shorter and slightly misshapen. Walking for long periods of time fatigued him, so when Clare finished grade school, Ed decided to enter Western Academy in Hull, Iowa. Clare then became the farmer with Watse. Ed lost no time in getting on the debate squad, always, as I recall it, on the negative side of every issue. He loved to destroy his opponents’ logic with that irrebuttable logic of his own. No wonder he became a lawyer.
Whether Ed and Clare were pitching manure, playing horseshoes, milking cows, raking hay, or fixing fence, it was always argument upon argument. And because Ed was four years older than Clare he got to choose the subject and the side; so he always won, naturally.
Ed eventually married Grace Crowley in the late 30’s or early 40’s. she was the daughter of an Irish policemen in New York City. Ed and Grace settled in Ridgewood, New Jersey. There Ed practiced law on Wallstreet for a number of years and then became general counsel, secretary and treasurer of the Federal Pacific Electrical Corporation. They had one child, Eddie, Jr., who is now a lawyer in Washington, D.C., working at the Walter Reed Army Hospital. Ed, Sr., died suddenly of a heart attack in March of 1967, after landing in a plane at Charlotte, North Carolina from New York on a business trip.
Clare also bade farewell to the farm and went on to Western as soon as his younger brother finished grade school. He continued his high school training. He was always the weather prophet. Out in the field he would scan the sky, study the different cloud formations, their color and shape, and the direction of the wind. He would deliver a daily weather forecast. He cultivated his meteorological skills at the expense of cultivating corn. Once he missed planting two whole rows of corn. Ah yes, how Watse reminded him that he should remove his head from the clouds and tend to this earth.
Clare married Gertrude Vande Riet in June of 1937. He then attended law school at Ann Arbor upon graduating from Calvin College. For two years he studied law with increasing scruples. He felt that the legal profession had to work with bent truth, and that fact did not square with his conscience. He then switched to business administration. Clare’s first job was with IBM and then Royal-McBee setting up financial systems during the infancy of the computer age. His work took him with his family of four to Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, and back to Kalamazoo where after several years of retirement, Clare passed away from heart trouble and other internal complications in October of 1983. Clare and Trudy reared 4 children: Sharon, who lives in Denver; Brent, who lives in Three Rivers, Michigan; Ross, who lives in Kalamazoo; and Julie, who lives in Denver.
George was fourth in line and the first and only one of the clan who relished farm life. He remained dedicated to the soil to his dying day. George married Henrietta De Groot on August 15 of 1940. They had planned on marrying in February of 1940 but Watse died in January of 1940. They succeeded Watse and Geertje on the homestead.
Even before Watse died, George was in control of running the place. In his last few years, Watse limited his activities to caring for the chickens of which there had to be about one thousand. They frequently interfered with George’s idea of farming. George begrudged every inch that the chickens monopolized. George and Henrietta had eight children. Lloyd, who is now an attorney in Sioux Center, Merle, who is a minister in Colorado Springs, Milly Bos, who lives in Colorado Springs, Gretta Siebersma who lives in Gallup, New Mexico,; Carol Schaap, who lives in Gaylord Michigan; Roseanna Van Marion, who lives in Des Moines, Iowa; George Bierma, Jr., who lives on the family farm; and Mari Bierma, who lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. George was also active for many years in community activities, serving on the consistory for many years and also serving as the president of the Christian school board. He followed in his father’s footsteps. George Bierma passed away on June 5, 1989, from a heart attack while driving a tractor. Even though George and Henrietta retired to Sioux Center he virtually spent every day on the farm. George was a firm, quiet leader in the church and community and well respected. George, Jr., now follows in his father’s footsteps, also on the farm.
When Syne graduated from grade school he was given the choice of farm or school. He disdainfully turned down what he thought was an undignified, unmasculine life and he chose farming which was much more masculine.
However, the choice meant peonage on the farm for the next six years. The body was there but the head was elsewhere. Finally, Bill graduated from the 8th grade and he traded books for callouses. Syne escaped to Western but that still entailed doing chores and working on the farm. During his six years on the farm, Noah Webster’s dark maroon dictionary was his main education.
This was also the period of the Great Depression, a time when clothes had to last a year, a time of dust and drought — there was just as much real estate in the air as on the ground. Depending on which way the wind blew that day, one could see South Dakota go by one day and Minnesota fly by the next. So much of Dakota flitted by that they were in danger of losing their statehood. In 1936, there was a total crop failure, an experience that Sioux County never had before. Even the grasshoppers died of starvation.
After graduating from Western in 1939, and enrolling in Calvin in the fall, Syne hoped to launch a career in journalism. On February 18, 1942, Syne was hustled into the service, courtesy of Uncle Sam in response to the Japanese destruction. Syne remained convinced that the Army never quite knew what it was doing from the time of the draft to the time of discharge.
He went from Melbourne, Australia to Townsville, up north in Australia and then joined the 8th Fighter Group and went to Milne Bay, New Guinea. After 90% of the group contracted malaria, he went back to Mareeba, Australia. They then went to Port Moresby, New Guinea and on to Moratai, Dutch East Indies. From there he joined with the invasion of the Philippines where his boat was hit by a kamikaze pilot, sinking after several hours. He then was picked up in a life boat by a PT boat. He then went on to Okinawa in the summer of 1945 when the news of the Japanese surrender came.
He returned to Northwest Iowa and stayed with his mother and Katherine for a few months and then went on to Calvin College. He married Esther Vande Riet, the younger sister of Clare’s wife. From Calvin he went to Ann Arbor and obtained a master’s degree in English and ended up teaching English at Unity Christian High in Hudsonville, Michigan. They had four children: Royce, who lives in Hudsonville, Michigan; Garth, who lives in Canada; Heather, a daughter, who lives in Holland, Michigan; and Violet Nan who died at the age of three months of SDS. Esther passed away in December of 1985.
Katherine was the first and only one of the seven who never learned to milk a cow. She did her share of housework but was committed to not living on the farm. When Gerrit Visser returned home from the South Pacific after the war, Gerrit and Katherine were married in January of 1946. They lived on the Bill Rensink place across the farm from the Rensink homestead, two miles east and three-quarters of a mile north of Sioux Center. They then bought a farm near Hospers and they raised a boy and three girls. Dennis now lives in Iowa City; Gaylene Bouma lives in Hull, Iowa; Bernita lives in Whitinsville, Massachusetts; and Phyllis Blankespoor lives in Inwood, Iowa.
William Bierma was always remembered as the quickest learner of the last five Biermas. He had the uncanny (to us) ability to memorize texts and verses after one or two readings. It frustrated Watse to no end to send Willie into the living room to master two verses from the Psalter Hymnal and one rather long text from the Bible. Scarcely three minutes later Willie would hand the Sunday school paper to Watse and reel off the lessons without a hitch or a stumble. We all envied him. In school he effortlessly got good grades, but waved off the opportunity to go to high school at that point. Peer pressure forced him to sneer at an education.
But several years later, after working for brother George and then for various other farmers west of Sioux Center, he moved to Grand Rapids and worked in a factory. He started high school at age 24 and finished his high school requirements at Grand Rapids Christian High. From there he went to Calvin College working part time at Pine Rest with an aim to become a doctor. While at Wayne University Medical School in Detroit, he contracted mono and had a severe illness and was forced to abandon medicine. He then took education courses and taught at Seymour and Allendale Christian schools before going to Nigeria and working as a missionary at Jos. He contracted malaria and returned to the United States.
He married Frieda Miedema from Sioux Center, in August of 1948. They have four children: Lyle of Grand Rapids, Michigan; Mark of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Sue and Emilie who live in Grand Rapids.
Bill continued his work at Pine Rest working with troubled teenagers who were deemed unmanageable in a regular school set-up and he effectively trained hundreds of disturbed youngsters which was often a thankless job. Bill retired in 1988 and now worked as a volunteer tutor teaching Asians and other immigrants.
Despite the 17 years that separated Watse and Geertje in age, there was a love and understanding present, and all the children felt a deep sense of belonging and feeling of worth that had nothing to do with money or personal success. They left us with a pervasive sense of right that steered the family through all circumstances. It is our prayer that this continues on through the following generations.
by Syne Bierma
RESEARCH NOTES: added by Wilma J. Vande Berg
Netherland birth records found on www.wiewaswie.nl
BIRTH record of Watze Bierma born 1 Nov 1867 parents living in Holwerd, his father was Ids Watzes Bierma and his mother was Trijntje Gosses Jensma, Birth registered in Westdongeradeel, Friesland.
OBITUARY of Watse Bierma 1867-1940
orn: November 1, 1867 Holwerd, Netherlands
Died: January 13, 1940 Sioux Center, Iowa
Friends and relatives were shocked to hear of the sudden death of Mr. Watse Bierma Saturday evening, January 13, 1940. Last summer he had a heart attack but was in good health after that. At the time of his death he was 72 years old.
Mr. Bierma was born in Holwerd, Netherlands, Providence Friiesland, Nov. 1, 1867. He came to America 43 years ago. On March 26, 1906 at Sioux Center he married Gertrude Sybesma and to this union seven children were born.
Surviving are his wife and children, Bertha, (Mrs. James Geels) of Ireton, Edward of New York City, Clarence of Ann Arbor, Mich, George, Syne, Katherine and William all at home. He also leaves two brothers, Dick and Hessel and four sisters, Mrs. Reitje Hoffman, Mrs. Anna Heitema, Mrs. Sulke De Groot, Mrs. Eitje Vander Velter all living in the Netherlands, and 5 grandchildren.
One brother, Mr. George Bierma at the age of 67 years, and a sister, Mrs. Jauke Heeringa at the age of 62 years preceded him in death.
Funeral services were held Wednesday, January 17, 1940 at 1:15 p.m. from the home and at 2:00 p.m. from the First Christian Reformed Church. The Rev. Mr. M. Arnoys officiated. Burial was in the Sioux Center Cemetery.
Mr. Bierma attended the creamery board meeting here Saturday afternoon and was apparently in good health. It was while eating supper that he suffered a heart attack and he passed away in a very short time.
Mr. Bierma was one of the prominent citizens of this community. Engaged in farming, he was a member of the Creamery Board, Co-op Burial Ass'n. Board, Western Christian High Board, treasurer of the Western Alliance of Christian Schools, and Elder of the First Christian Reformed Church.
Source: Sioux Center News January 18, 1940B”IRTH record of Geertje Sybesma born 17 March 1884 to Klaas Sybesma and Bregtje Kroese, she was born, registered at Barradeel, Leeuwarden, Friesland
OBITUARY of Gertrude Mrs. Watse Bierma 1884-1951
Mrs. Watse Bierma, nee Gertrude Siebesma, died Tuesday morning at 2 a.m. at the home of her daughter, Mrs. James Geels near Ireton. She had been staying with her daughter since early January, and had been ill for 10 weeks. She celebrated her 67th birthday last Saturday.
Mrs. Bierma was born in Franaker, Friesland Holland, and came to America and Sioux Center at the age of 20. She was married to Watse Bierma in 1906, and to this union 7 children were born, all of whom are living today. They are Bertha (Mrs. James Geels, Ireton; Edward, Ridgewood, New Jersey; Clarence, Grand Rapids, Mich.; George, Sioux Center; Syne, Grand Rapids, Mich.; Katherine (Mrs. Gerrit Visser), Sioux Center; and William of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Mr. Bierma preceded his wife in death on January 1940. Mrs. Bierma then retired to Sioux Center where she had lived since that time.
Funeral services will be held Friday, at 1 o'clock at the home, and 1:30 in the First Christian Reformed Church. Rev. B.J. Haan will officiate. Interment will take place in the local cemetery.
Source: Sioux Center News March 22, 1951
Sioux Biographies maintained by Linda Ziemann.
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