THE BALDWIN LETTERS (part 3)

by Theo Somsen [227]

The clog-maker Jan Hendrik Somsen (1850-1929) and his wife Janna Hendrika Rauwerdink (1856-1943) emigrated with their 3 children to Baldwin, WI. in 1881. In 1918 a curious 23-year-old nephew, Johannes Theodorus Somsen (1894-1967), started writing letters to his uncle and aunt in Baldwin. We do not know what he wrote, for up to now these letters have been lost. But the letters from Baldwin have been saved. From these letters I have made a selection of the most interesting passages, which will be published in the next few issues of Somsen Horizon.

In the land of the living

In the period 1918-1920 there was a fair deal of correspondence. Then there is a silence for a long time until 73-year-old Janna Somsen- Rauwerdink takes up the crown pen again on February 10, 1930 and writes a letter of no less than ten pages to her nephew.

Actually she thought that her nephew was no more in the land of the living. Let’s read along but remember that Janna only used one single comma and all the sentences just followed each other without any punctuation:

Dear Nephew

today I sit down to write

a short message to you

and I let you know that we are still sound and well thanks to

the goodness of the Lord

and we have read the same about you in your letter of December 1

which made us very happy

one Jan Bosman came here from

the Netherlands

he was a blacksmith by trade some three or four years ago and he said that he knew you well or had known you well

but that you were no longer in the land of the living and when we did

not receive any more letters we thought it was the truth

it was you who wrote to us most of all

and when your uncle had died I had addressed the letter to Berndt Somsen

we did not know what to think of it

but we were happy

that it was not true

I also join in the happiness of Janna, for if my father had not been in the land of the living at the time, then who might have been my father?!

But Janna has a few more things to say. She had already written that her husband had died quite recently in 1929. Since she did not know that her nephew Johan was still alive she had sent the message of her husband’s death to another nephew Bernard Johan Somsen [356], who also lived in Arnheim. Bernard had written to her before and besides Bernard’s father, Gerrit Willem (1856-1884), was a brother of her late husband, the emigrant Jan Hendrik Somsen.

Bernard J. Somsen (1883-1952),

Arnheim ca. 1935

Like a lamp without oil

Janna continues her letter with an extensive description of the long sick-bed preceding the death of 78-year-old Jan Hendrik:

you ask about your uncle’s death

he died in peace

believing in and trusting on the blood of atonement of Jesus

that was his hope

he had a very long sick-bed

first in the early summer he was paralysed in his joints

first in the hands

the doctor also mentioned the name of the disease

he said there was no cure

he had no more strength in his hands

in September we had to feed him like a child

after that it also affected the legs

first the ankles and then the knees

so he could no longer walk if two of us did not support him

mostly he was in bed

he also suffered from loss of strength

his heart had become so weak that it became the cause of his death

he was like a lamp without oil

he just did not want to live any longer

he has not left his bed for the past twelve days

he was not in pain but it was hard for him to lie for days on end

he could not move a finger

ha had to lie flat on his back

but he had so much patience

normally he would not speak much but now it had almost all gone the Minister came every week to visit your uncle

they understood each other well

eight of the children were around his dying-bed

Janna Rauwerdink at her husband’s grave together with some of her daughters,

Baldwin 1934

left to right: Jennie [335], Janna [309] and Ella

[339]

and the six younger ones carried him to the grave

your uncle has always been good to me

his last will was that I should keep everything for as long as I live

Two anecdotes about the emigrant Jan Hendrik Somsen (1850 – 1929) [308]

told by Russel Wernlund [3859] in Baldwin USA on August 7 1999

Jan Hendrik did not like bananas. Once his daughters made a dessert that he liked very much. When he asked them what it was they told him there were bananas in it. Then he went outside and

stuck his finger in his throat…

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While they were having coffee the nappy of one of Jan Hendrik’s children was changed. The boy took the opportunity to pee with a beautiful arch because of which some drops got into Jan Hendrik’s coffee. Then he said: ‘A little bit of pee won’t hurt the coffee’ and then he imperturbably drank his coffee.

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