From the memoirs of Pake and Beppe

Saying goodbye is always a sad thing for me to do.  Even when the places I am going are promising to be great.  It was not that I didn’t love Holland.  The places and ways were familiar and dear to my heart.  I loved the people, the land, the language, the food, our way of life.  Here was where I was born and raised.  Here I met the woman I call wife, here the five children were born to our home.  The thing is life here is hard.

 I am the only barber in the village.  But it isn’t much that I can make in the barbershop.  Fifteen cents will get a man a shave.  A quarter for a haircut and kids pay me a nickel and dime to get their hair trimmed.  Hard to make ends meet on a quarter a haircut.

My wife, she’s a real character, she did good on what I brought home, but she couldn’t work miracles.  Sometimes she had to come and clean out the cash till just to get the groceries.  We never had any extra.  There was no saving up for special things like tobacco or new barber supplies.  Things were tight.  I even had to borrow money from the neighbours to pay the rent.  They were good people and willingly helped us … but it does something to a man’s pride to ask for money. 

That was when we decided.  We were going to go to Canada. 

We had family in Canada, Uncle and Tante.  Word was always good about how things were there.  Sounded like if a man was willing to work, he could make a go of it.  There was nothing I could offer to my kids here.  Hard times.  We wrote to Uncle and they seemed really pleased that we would come to them. 

We made plans to leave.  There was a lot to do.  The travel agent who came in for shaves repeatedly told me to take a plane.  Travel by boat took too long.  We would be separated in the boat … women and children in one area, men in the other.  Once my wife heard she’d be keeping all five children with her she made up her mind in a hurry.  She wasn’t much interested in dealing with five sick kids on her own, I guess. 

We went to Den Hague for our health inspections.  That was something.  We thought we were healthy enough but one never really could know.  Then we had to go to the doctor for the smallpox needle.  All the time in the back of my mind there was the thought:  What if this is all a big mistake? 

Finally, everything was settled.  We were allowed 30kg of luggage per person on the plane.  We had to pay for the crate our furniture was packed in and for the packing.  Everything else was paid for by the government.  A benefit of having an income on the poverty line.  It was so hard to say how things would be in Canada.  We knew who we were, what we thought on things, what we would never change no matter where we lived, but we didn’t know what we would face when we landed in a new country.  We bought the kids all a new pair of shoes.  We didn’t know how it would be in Canada, but we knew there would be no klompen.   

We had a good life here.  There were good people in the church, and we were busy with church things.  I was on the building committee for the new church.  My wife, she was busy with the Ladies group and was a girl’s club leader.  We were there faithfully every Sunday, twice.  We loved the singing.  The hymns of our fathers spoke the language of our souls.  We loved our church family … it was hard to leave them. 

The farewell evening they gave us was nice.  They gave us a Bible Encyclopedia and the children a small English Bible.  We used the tablecloth they gave us for a long, long time. 

It was hard saying goodbye to family, knowing it might be the last time we would see them this side of eternity.  It was hard to leave those who had walked beside us all those years, who had been there when we grew up, who had celebrated with us and wept with us.  It was hard to leave … but we were certain, it was now impossible to stay. 

One thing I was sure of.  There was no way I would ever be a barber again.  I was done with that.  It would be carpentry for me.  Maybe I would try my hand at an electrician’s job.  I packed all my tools in an old suitcase.  Ripped the handle right off it when I tried to pick it up.  No matter, we got a new one to put it all in.  It was time for a change. 

The day we left, June 30, 1954, was cold.  We had stayed at my parent’s house for the days before hand.  We took a taxi to the train.  Then went from the train to the bus to the airport in Amsterdam.  One of the girls was sick before we even got on the train.  Truth be told, I was feeling rather poorly myself.  I just kept thinking:  What are we doing?  Mother, she was the strong one.  We boarded the plane, all seven of us.  There was no turning back now.  Behind us was all that was familiar and comfortable.  Ahead of us was the exciting unknown.  I counted the five heads of my children and looked long into the smiling face of my wife.  I bowed my head in prayer.  I didn’t know what the future would hold, but I knew who held the future.