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Contributors' home towns
29 September 2006
The Netherlands

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As indicated on this map of the Netherlands immigrants to Canada came from all regions of the country. A great many of the families who settled in Prince Edward County came from Friesland and Gelderland and especially the town of Aalten. The home towns of the contributors are indicated in the numbered box and can be located on the map.

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Gathering at the Alexander farm
1948
Hillier, Ontario

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Jean Alexander

Jean Alexander was 21 or 22 and had been married about a year, when the family they applied to sponsor arrived. As she recalled it was "like a bolt out of the blue." They knew a family was coming, but had no idea how many. "I don't know if these people coming in were any more frightened than I was. Because it was quite something to have that many people coming and not having any great length of time to be ready for them. And then trying to help them get into a place of their own. We couldn't offer them a place with any plumbing, we didn't have it ourselves, at that point."
Anna (Andy) and Lucy Banga arrived with a 15 year old daughter, Griet (Greta), an 8 year old son Allard and "the biggest surprise" a six month old girl. "I had no idea what was in the basket and it turned out to be a baby." The family was rounded out by John Koning, the 17 or 18 year old son of a friend. "They were anxious for him to come to Canada and this was an opportunity for him." Griet knew some English. Jean commented: "I don't know what we would have done without her. She could translate a little."
The Hillier Ladies Aid and the Hillier Women's Institute hosted an evening at the Hillier Hall to welcome the Dutch families and provide them with some useful things to help them get established in their new homes. The Banga family stayed on the Alexander's dairy farm a little less than two years. Jean remarked that Andy Banga knew about fruit trees, "He really was not a dairy man." After they left, the family went to work for an orchard on the Rednersville Road. They must have picked up some useful skills while at the Alexander's, because eventually they bought a dairy farm of their own on Smoke's Point Road in Carrying Place.
Jean remembered them as very nice people. She marveled at their courage to leave their home and come to a strange country. "To us they never complained. But I think they must have had a harrowing experience. And they didn't live to a very great age. The years on rations when the country was occupied and everything else they had been through must have had some effect on their health." Allard contacted her to let her know when each of his parents died. His older sister Griet has also passed away. Jean's final thought was that it really wasn't so different from when her Grandparents had immigrated from Scotland with five children and a 6 month old baby in 1910.

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Bakkers decision to immigrate
2005
Wellington, Prince Edward County, Ontario

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Abe & Tryn Bakker

Abe and Tryn Bakker lived in Friesland. They were married in 1947. Tryn's parents immigrated to Canada and Abe decided that they should go too. When they came in 1949 their son was 10 months old. They sailed on the Tabinta and landed at Quebec City. Abe described the train from Quebec as rough and dirty. When they got to Belleville they took a taxi to Cherry Valley to the house of Tryn's parents. Tryn stayed a few days with her parents, but Abe started work that very first day working for a farmer on Battle Street.

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Abe Bakker on the lumber camp
11 October 2006
Cochran, Ontario

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They worked there from July to mid-January, when the farmer told them he had no more work. Tryn and the baby went to stay with her parents and Abe went with her 2 brothers to work in a lumber camp north of Cochran. He returned in April and found work right away with a farmer on Big Island. They left after a dispute, because he was not paying regularly. As Tryn explained this was unplanned. "When you got up at breakfast you didn't know you were going to move." They called the "Dutch fieldman" [John Vander Vliet] who worked with "the missionary" [Rev. Andre] and they found Abe work on the farm and in the canning factory for Sunjoy Foods. He stayed there for 10 years and they lived in a house which is now part of the Black Prince Winery, on the outskirts of Picton. They were then able to buy a farm in Hillier and lived there for 28 years. Their grandchildren represent the fourth generation of the family in Canada.

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Geert Bosma in his orchard
September, 2006
South Bay, Prince Edward County, Ontario

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Geert & Ena Bosma

Geert grew up on a small farm in Friesland. He was sent to Indonesia to do his military service. When he returned there was little work. He saw advertisements in the paper that if you were brought up on a farm you could go to Canada, that there were lots of places to work. So he said to his girlfriend, "What about it? I am thinking of going to Canada. Will you go along with me?" They were married in February and left for Canada about a year after Geert returned from Indonesia. They were scheduled to leave in March, but a flu epidemic in Holland delayed everyone's departure by a month. They sailed on an Italian ship the Castel Bianco and arrived May 10th, 1951.
They went first to Ameliasburgh. Their sponsor was a cattleman who bought and sold cattle. They only stayed there 3 months. Once the hay was in, he had no more work for them. The fieldman, [John Vander Vliet] found them another place and brought them to South Bay to an apple grower. When they arrived in August the grass was waist high on the front lawn of their house. During the winter they were "stunk out" of the house. It had no basement and nine skunks were living underneath it! They worked here for a year. When the farmer had no more work, a neighbour, Alva Coller, recruited them. He had just lost his hired man of 13 years and had observed that they were good workers. He and his wife had no children and after the four years they provided the Bosmas with the opportunity to buy the farm. They used to have dairy and apples. When their son took over the dairy farm they move to a smaller bungalow on the property and have stayed there ever since, even after their son sold the farm. They still have 75 fruit trees.
They got their Canadian Citizenship in 1958. They say: "In your heart you are always from Friesland, but Canada has been good to us. We really love the country� We have a lovely neighbourhood." Now there are two or three "old timers" in nursing homes and 5 or 6 others still living in the neighbourhood. Ena and Geert are among the long time residents, welcoming newcomers who have fixed up the old homes or built new ones. They have 4 children and 9 grandchildren. When the family gathers they still get out the wooden kitchen chairs that they bought for $3.50 each when they first came to Canada. They are small and help to get everyone around the table. The grandchildren and great grandchildren sit on them.

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Jake and Hennie Bulten
September, 2006
Big Island, Prince Edward County, Ontario

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Hennie Bulten (Hammers)

Hennie Bulten came to Canada as a 15 year old from Helendorn over Eisel. There were 12 in her family, her parents and 10 children. They sailed on the Tabinta . After 10 days they landed at Quebec and arrived in Bloomfield on August 4, 1949. John Fox was their sponsor. At first they lived with the Wiemikamp family and then rent a house from them. Hennie remembers riding to church in Bloomfield, sitting on the back of a truck, which wasn't so nice in the winter. Once she came to Canada, Hennie did not go to school, except occasional English classes at night school. Her first job was picking tomatoes. Then she went to work as a housekeeper for a family in Picton, but she was lonely and soon returned home to her parents. Next she got a job at the Bata shoe factory in Picton. She and three other Dutch girls boarded with Mrs. Norton. Her family moved to Harold, north of Stirling after 10 months in Prince Edward County, so after about a year she rejoined her family. In 1966, when she was married to Jake Bulten and had 4 children, they moved back to Prince Edward County, and settled on Big Island. Her youngest son was born there. She has been there ever since. Hennie liked it in Canada and was never homesick for Holland. Her children are very interested in their heritage and like to hear stories about Holland.

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Ruth Westerhoff with deVries family pictures
August, 2005
Hillier, Ontario

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The deVries and Tolkamp Families

Auke and Sietske deVries immigrated from Rinsumageest, Friesland in July 1948 with their 6 children: Ruth (18), Arnold and John(17) Allen (15), Jane (11) and Sid (9 months). Ruth's fianc� Henry Hoekstra accompanied them. Auke had been interested in immigrating to Canada as a young man, but his wife was unwilling to accompany him at that time. Auke worked as a farm labourer. With diminished economic prospects after the war Sietske reluctantly agreed to immigrate. Auke's parents lived next door and "Fought him tooth and nail" resisting their departure. They died in 1963 & 1966 without seeing the family again.

Ruth Westerhoff (deVries) with picures of her family at the time they immigrated.