VanEizenga, Jacob Jan, 1864-1940

VANEIZENGA

Posted By: Lydia Lucas - Volunteer (email)
Date: 2/8/2020 at 10:40:08

From the Sioux County Capital, July 9, 1936:

AMONG OUR SUBSCRIBERS
By Chas. L. Dyke
J. J. Van Eizenga

Mr. Van Eizenga has packed a lot of experience in his seventy one years of life. He arrived here alone during the bad panic of the nineties in the Netherlands where he had lost almost all his belongings. He saved enough money by doing odd jobs to buy passage for his wife and when she met him at the depot she brought the disheartening information with her that the little they had left was also swept away. They rented a little home and grappled with fickle fortune to the best of their ability.

One day when he was out of a job and things were none too rosy, A. Van Der Meide told him that a local lumber firm wanted a man and referred him to Lambert Van Olst, who was this firm’s attorney. The attorney told him however “that there was little use to apply as there were twenty-seven after the job and he would be number twenty-eight.” However he applied and was hired with the understanding that they were free to fire him, if they decided that his services were unsatisfactory, but he stayed.

Soon after the people of the American Reformed church decided to build a parsonage and gave him a bill to figure on. As he was a new man and eager to land this business he took the bill to the home office to consult with the officials there. When he arrived, it was after six p.m. and the official in charge remarked that it would be an all night job and called the other members of the firm. But Mr. Van Eizenga told them that it need not take so long, for if one of them would call off the number of pieces and the dimensions he would tell them the number of feet, and if they told him the price per thousand feet he would tell the price of the articles figured. For example if he called 105-2x8-16 he would tell offhand that there were 2240 ft. of lumber and if they told him the price was $22.75 per thousand the price of the 2240 feet would be $50.90.

But, said the official, that has never been done. No man can do that. Try me and see, said J. J. They tried him, but the officials said let me test this by figures. That’s all right said J. J., but let us go on. They went on and when they arrived at the eighth number of the bill, the official was just through figuring the first and found it correct. And just as soon as the words had left the mouth of the official who was doing the calling off, with lightning rapidity the answers to the calculations shot back from Van and the bill was figured in a fraction of the time it was supposed to take, and to the amazement of all others present.

Mr. Van Eizenga never figures in the ordinary way. He simply sees the process with his mind’s eye and just states or writes the answer. In weighing a load he does no subtracting for the weight of the wagon but simply writes it down from left to right, hardly stopping an ordinary conversation, and a mistake is unthinkable. It is said it is a hereditary trait and that many of his forebears were so gifted.

He is popular with the people of Orange City and community and was always elected when he aspired to office, or rather was nominated. He was on the Orange City council for 23 years.

After serving his firm for several years, he was invited to go in partnership with Henry Van Pelt, forming the firm of Van Pelt and Van Eizenga, and bought out Van Pelt when that gentleman desired to retire and go to California. He has now also retired from active business and resides in San Diego, California where he has a beautiful home and is Vice Counsel of the Netherlands. His business in Orange City he has sold to his sons, John J. jr. and Hessel Van Eizenga. Hessel now runs the business assisted by Frank Pas and Edward Raak.

But he can not forget Orange City and every year he comes back and stays for a month or two to see how the boys are getting along and shake hands with his many friends and admirers. He is an enthusiastic Friesian and was the Friesian standard bearer at their last picnic at the fairgrounds.

(Family tree information on Ancestry.com gives his full name as Jacob Jans van Eizenga, birth date 24 Aug 1864, Netherlands, death date 11 July 1940, San Diego.)
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Alton Democrat
September 11, 1915

Pictorial Edition of Sioux County's Business & Professionals

J. J. Van Eizenga
Van Pelt & Van Eizenga
Orange City, Iowa

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