Geesje’s Story
Holland, Michigan
50 years earlier
I still remember the early fall afternoon when I received my final letter from Hendrik. One of the other settlers had made a trip into Allegan and had returned with it. The pages were filled with good news, and I could feel Hendrik’s excitement in every sentence. Weeks had passed since he’d mailed it in the Netherlands, and by now he was on his way to America. I probably wouldn’t hear from him again until he walked out of the woods and into my arms.
My darling Geesje,
I have been discharged from the army and have finished all my preparations to come to America. I will be traveling with a group of Dutch emigrants who plan to settle in the state of Wisconsin. We will set sail from Rotterdam tomorrow. I feel like one of my ancestors must have felt as he prepared to sail the seas. I could leap and dance with joy and anticipation.
I will travel with them across the ocean to New York City, then sail up the Hudson River and go by way of the Erie Canal to Buffalo, like you did. It will be early enough in November that the American shipping lakes should still be navigable, and we will be able to board a steamer to cross Lake Erie and into Lake Huron, then down to Sheboygan, Wisconsin on the western coast of Lake Michigan. From there, I will take another steamer across the lake to the port of Grand Haven, which I’m told is some twenty miles north of you. They will give me directions to your settlement from there. If I have no delays, you and I will be together at last by the end of November.
I have saved enough money to buy several acres of land in America. If you agree and if your parents allow it, we will be married right away. I would build a palace for you if I could, grander than the king’s palace in Den Hague. Geesje, I’m filled with hope for our future together. Soon! Soon I will be able to hold you in my arms. Soon we will be together for the rest of our lives.
I love you so much,
Hendrik
He was coming to be with me at last! He was already on his way and would arrive in just a few more weeks. We would be married as soon as we could. The anticipation helped ease the terrible grief I felt at the loss of my parents. Hendrik didn’t know they were dead. He didn’t know the challenges he would face in this wilderness. But at least we would face them together.
Every day I mentally charted his progress, counting the weeks he would spend crossing the ocean, checking off the days in my mind, praying that God would keep him safe from storms. I pictured him arriving at Castle Garden in New York City like I did, traveling up the beautiful Hudson River to Albany. The plodding mule trip along the Erie Canal would seem endless to him, and I imagined him walking along the towpath with the mules to hurry them on their way.
The days and weeks of waiting seemed interminable to me. I took care of Arie and Gerrit and worked beside Widow Van den Bosch to store up what little food we had managed to harvest for the coming months. We prepared our cabin and mended our clothing and knit warm socks for winter. Every day, from the middle of November onward, I watched for Hendrik to step out of the woods into the clearing that surrounded our cabin and into my waiting arms. Every day brought disappointment.
“He should be here by now,” I said as I stoked the fire to make pea soup. Widow Van den Bosch was kneading dough for bread. “Today is the first day of December already. I can’t imagine why he isn’t here.” It wasn’t true. I could easily imagine all sorts of disasters. My stomach ached so badly from fear and worry that I could barely eat. “I hope he isn’t lost in the woods.”
“You said he was a soldier, didn’t you? I’m sure he can take care of himself.” The widow gave the dough another thump with the heel of her hand. I didn’t say so, but her bread was always tough and dry, not at all like Mama’s. “What are your plans after he does arrive?” she asked. “Will you continue living here once you’re married?” I knew she was trying to distract me from my fear by helping me think about our future together.
“I feel like this is Maarten’s cabin, since he worked so hard to build it and clear the land. But I hope he’ll let Hendrik and me live here until spring. Hendrik will probably want to buy land farther out of town. He plans to clear several acres for farmland.”
“Maarten may take a bride of his own one of these days,” the widow said, lowering her voice and giving me a sly wink. “Have you noticed that young Johanna Van Eyck seems smitten with him?”
I hadn’t noticed. I’d focused solely on myself these past months. “Is that right?” I said, feigning interest. “Is he smitten with her, too?”
“He seems to be. Haven’t you seen them talking after church?”
I didn’t want to admit that I barely paid attention to the people or the sermon or anything else at church—so totally consumed was I with my prayers for Hendrik. “I hope Maarten finds a good wife and that he’s happy,” I said. “He’s so good with the little boys. He’ll make a wonderful father.”
“Will you adopt them when your Hendrik comes or will Maarten?”
I stopped chopping carrots and looked down at Gerrit, napping in his little wooden bed by the fire. Maarten had made the bed for him so he would be off the damp dirt floor. Widow Van den Bosch’s question was one I had never considered. “I’m not sure who the boys will live with. I need to wait and ask Hendrik what he thinks.”
I had grown to love Arie and Gerrit as if they were my own children. They even called me Mama. I couldn’t imagine giving them up. But Maarten loved them, too. He and the other men in our settlement had sold the trees they’d felled to a lumbering company, and Maarten used some of his proceeds to buy more chickens, a pig, and a dairy cow so the boys would have milk to drink. I had no idea how Hendrik would feel about raising someone else’s children. We had never talked about such things. We had known each other for barely six months before Hendrik had been transferred to Utrecht. The vast distances our letters had to travel and the weeks it took for them to arrive limited what we’d been able to talk about. But once Hendrik and I were together again, we would have the rest of our lives to get to know each other. We would grow as close as my parents had been. Mama and Papa had known each other’s moods and thoughts without asking and could communicate with a simple look or gesture. It would be that way for Hendrik and me someday.
When the first snowflakes began to fall, I could no longer disguise my worry. I remembered watching the two burials at sea in the middle of the Atlantic and doubting God’s goodness. I had asked myself the question: If He could cruelly snatch the young bride from her husband for no reason, the child from his mother, might He snatch Hendrik from me, too? He had also taken my parents. Fear of God’s seeming capriciousness consumed me.
Hendrik was all I ever talked about. “He should have been here weeks ago,” I told Widow Van den Bosch as we trudged up the hill over the frozen ground one Sunday morning. The men had finished building the log church, and it felt warm inside when we arrived. I unbundled Arie and Gerrit and hung up my own coat.
“There are always unexpected delays,” she assured me. “We will pray for him this morning.” We settled beside each other, flanked by her son and the two young boys.
I could see that something was wrong the moment Dominie Van Raalte stepped behind the pulpit that Sunday. He had been our pastor for a long time, and I had seen him weather every crisis imaginable: suffering from seasickness on the Atlantic, from exhaustion after trudging through snow up to his waist, and sorrow after tirelessly nursing his congregation through malaria. I’d seen him weep as he buried men, women, and children who had followed him faithfully to this new land. But I’ll never forget the pallor on his face when he stepped behind the pulpit on that Sunday in December and read the news.
“There has been a shipwreck,” he said in a trembling voice.
My heart dropped like a dead weight in my chest. I wanted him to stop talking. I covered my mouth to keep from crying out and wished I could also cover my ears. I trembled as I waited, as if I had malarial fever all over again.
“A steamer called the Phoenix caught fire and sank in Lake Michigan nearly two weeks ago on November 21. The ship carried many of our countrymen from the Netherlands, some two hundred eighty men, women, and children who were immigrating to Wisconsin. There were many casualties.”
When he paused to swallow and regain his composure, Widow Van den Bosch grabbed my hand and held it tightly. As Dominie continued reading, every word he spoke felt like a blow to my heart.
“The Phoenix set sail from Buffalo, New York, crossing Lake Erie into Huron, then into Lake Michigan. Five miles from their destination of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the ship caught fire. Out of more than three hundred passengers, only forty-three survived. Seats in the two lifeboats were given to the first-class passengers, not the poor Dutch immigrants.” He folded the paper in half and looked up at us. “Entire families were lost with many small children. I know that some of you have family members coming. . . .”
I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I lifted Gerrit off my lap and thrust him into Widow Van den Bosch’s arms, then ran from the church into the cold morning air, not bothering to grab my coat. My stomach heaved. I thought I would be sick. I ran blindly down the hill on the frozen pathway, my heart screaming soundlessly.
Not Hendrik. Please, God, not him. The Phoenix couldn’t be his ship. And even if it was, he would find a way to survive, I know he would. He would grab a seat in the lifeboat. Or he would swim. Hendrik was young enough and strong enough to endure the lake’s icy water until he was rescued. I refused to believe he was dead.
My tears blinded me, and I tripped over a tree root and fell to my knees on the path. I remained there, weeping and shivering and praying with all my heart, my breath fogging the air. “Please, God! Please let Hendrik be alive, please!” I wanted to bargain with God, to promise Him anything and everything, but I had nothing to offer in exchange for Hendrik’s life.
I heard footsteps behind me, but I didn’t turn. A moment later someone draped a warm coat over my trembling shoulders. I thought it might be Widow Van den Bosch, but it was Maarten who crouched beside me. He pulled me into his arms, rocking me, letting me cry. “Geesje, I’m so sorry. What can I say? What can I do?”
“He’s alive, I know he is. . . . Hendrik made it out alive. He’ll come for me. We’ll be married. . . .”
Maarten said nothing.
I don’t know how long we sat there before Maarten finally helped me to my feet and walked with me back to our cabin. He stoked the fire and wrapped me in a blanket. “I’m going back to get the boys,” he said. “Will you be all right?”
I stared into the flames, rocking back and forth, shivering. Hendrik would come. He would.
But he didn’t.
Nearly three months after the shipwreck I awoke to a blizzard outside our cabin. The forest was frozen in sorrow along with my heart, dead and white and featureless. I went outside to fetch more wood for the fire, and as I watched snow piling on top of snow all around me, I understood the truth: Hendrik wasn’t coming. He was dead. As dead as the frozen world that stretched as far as I could see. A drift had buried the block Maarten used to split firewood. More snow buried all traces of the path to our neighbors’ cabins. I wished it would bury me. My despair felt as deep and cold as the winter snowdrifts, my grief as wide and vast and bottomless as the lake that had swallowed the man I loved. I had reached the end of all my hopes and dreams, my parents’ hopes and dreams. Mama and Papa were gone, and now Hendrik was gone, as well. I was miles and miles from home, trapped in this wilderness, living in a shack. All hope was buried. I saw no reason to continue living. I wanted to die and join everyone else I had ever loved in heaven.
I heard the cabin door open and close behind me. A moment later Maarten rested his hand on my shoulder and gently turned me around. “Come inside, Geesje. I’ll get the firewood. The children need you. They are clamoring for breakfast.” I did what he said. Taking care of Arie and Gerrit was the only thing that kept me going.
Late that afternoon when the blizzard finally stopped, I bundled up the boys so they could go outside and play in the snow with Maarten. I watched from the window and listened to their laughter. They adored Maarten, and he adored them. Six months had passed since their parents died, and the children’s grief was ebbing. Would mine, as well?
Their cheeks were red with cold when they finally tumbled inside. I dried them off and fed them soup and got them ready for bed. Maarten told them stories in front of the fire, stories from back home in the Netherlands and from the Bible. I held baby Gerrit and rocked him to sleep, then tucked him in his little bed. When Maarten went out to the lean-to to take care of our cow, I followed him.
“I want to go home,” I told him.
He stopped chipping the ice in the watering trough. “To the Netherlands?”
“Yes. I don’t care how far I’ve traveled or how long it takes me to get there, or how much it costs, I want to go home. Will you help me make all the arrangements?”
Maarten stared at me. “By yourself?” I nodded. In truth, I was terrified of traveling by myself, let alone boarding another steamship after the Phoenix disaster. Hadn’t our sailing ship the Southerner caught fire, too, on the way here? Fortunately for us, we had been in port and not five miles out to sea. But I wouldn’t let fear stop me.
“I want to go home to Leiden. I’ll live with one of my sisters.”
“Things will get better here—”
“How?” I shouted. “How will things get better? Can you really promise me that?” I lowered my voice, not wanting Widow Van den Bosch or the children to hear me. “And when? In a year? Two years? Will we have everything we left behind in Leiden by then? I’ve lost everyone I ever cared about!”
Maarten looked away. I could see I had hurt him. “What about Arie and Gerrit?” he asked. “Will you take them back to Leiden with you?”
“I don’t know. . . . Please help me figure out a way to go home, Maarten. I’m afraid I’ll go insane if I can’t hang on to the hope of going home.”
He exhaled, creating a cloud of icy steam with his breath. He started chipping at the frozen water again. “I’ll talk to Dominie Van Raalte—”
“No! Don’t do that. He’ll ask me why I’ve lost hope, and I don’t want to talk about God or faith or any of those things right now.” I hadn’t attended church since the morning Dominie had told us the news about the Phoenix. I had nothing to say to God, and I didn’t want to hear what He might have to say to me. “There’s no explanation he could possibly give for why God took my parents. Or those two innocent children’s parents. Why are we suffering in this place when all we wanted to do was obey God and follow where He led us?” Maarten didn’t try to reply, too beaten down by my doubts. “Can you or Dominie Van Raalte or anyone else tell me why God took Hendrik,” I asked, “when he was coming here to learn more about Him and try to serve Him? Or why God took an entire boatload of families with little children, people who loved Him and trusted Him?”
My questions hung in the frozen air. The cow shifted positions, stomping her feet and bumping against me. I pushed her away. When Maarten finally replied, his words surprised me. “I’ll try to figure out how to get us home, Geesje. Can you wait for a few more months, though? The lakes won’t thaw until spring. And I’ll need to earn some money for our passage back across the country to New York, then across the ocean.” He stroked the cow’s muzzle as he continued talking, almost to himself. “I can sell your father’s land and this cabin. And I can probably find farmwork in the spring to earn a little more money for our fares.”
“I’m not asking you to come with me, Maarten. Just help me figure out how to get home.”
He shook his head. “I promised your father I would take care of you. I can’t let you travel all that way by yourself.”
“I’m not afraid. If I can survive this terrible place . . .” I couldn’t finish, my throat choking at the memory of how these violent woods and lakes had taken the people I loved. Yet I knew Maarten was right. A pretty young woman like me had no business traveling alone. I didn’t speak English. Strangers had leered at me at Castle Garden when I was with an entire group of people. I would be much safer if Maarten went with me.
“We’ll go together,” he said. “We’ll take Arie and Gerrit with us.”
“Do you want to go back home, too?” I asked. He hesitated. “Tell me the truth, Maarten.”
“I want you to be happy. I feel so sorry for all that you’ve gone through. . . . I’ll talk to Dominie Van Raalte in the morning about selling this land. We’ll see what he says.”
Maarten left home to walk to the dominie’s cabin as soon as morning chores were finished. I had no idea how he would find his way there and back through the snow with the trails all buried. I was half afraid the dominie would march back here with Maarten and try to talk me out of it, but Maarten returned alone. “What did he say?” I asked before Maarten had a chance to stomp the snow off his wooden shoes and come inside the cabin. “Can he sell this land for me?”
“Yes . . . selling the land isn’t going to be the problem.”
“Well, what is?”
He came inside and closed the door behind him, taking a moment to ruffle Arie’s thick blond hair. The boy had run to Maarten and was clinging to his leg, making it hard for him to move. Maarten kept his voice low. “He said it wouldn’t be right for us to travel alone together since we aren’t related to each other. And we can’t adopt the boys or take them with us for the same reason. He said we should take more time to pray about our decision, and he would pray about it, too.”
“But what other choice do we have? I want to go home!”
Widow Van den Bosch looked up from where she sat sewing beside the fire, letting down the hem of her son’s outgrown trousers. “What do you mean, home?” she asked. “Not to the Netherlands?”
“Yes. As soon as the snow melts I’m going home. I hate this place!”
“But don’t you remember the famine? And how there were no jobs for any of the men?”
“I’d rather die back home in Leiden than in this uncivilized place.”
Neither she nor Maarten said another word as we all returned to our chores. But I pondered what to do throughout the day. It would be very unwise for me to travel all that way alone. I wanted to accept Maarten’s offer to come with me but traveling together wasn’t proper. And I was devastated to learn that I couldn’t take Arie and Gerrit with me. I’d grown to love them and couldn’t imagine leaving them behind in this godforsaken land. They needed to stay with Maarten and me.
As I was changing Gerrit’s diaper that afternoon, a solution to all of these problems suddenly occurred to me. If Maarten and I were married, he could take me home. And we could keep the children. But could I go through with it?
Married. To Maarten. Not Hendrik. Unthinkable.
And yet I knew I needed him. I had been dependent on Maarten to do all the work a husband did ever since my parents died last summer. He had shown me endless kindness and patience. I knew he had once loved me. He probably still did. And I did care for him as one might love a brother or an old friend. I would be helpless without him. We had endured everything together since the persecution first began back in Leiden, when that first brick had been hurled through our window. He had always been faithful to God and to me and to my family, never complaining, watching out for me.
I heard him outside chopping firewood, the powerful thunk and thwack penetrating the silence. I put on my coat and an extra pair of socks.
“I come, too?” Arie asked when he saw me dressing.
“No, I’m coming right back, lieveling. You stay inside where it’s warm.” I closed the door behind me and crossed the snow-covered yard.
Maarten stopped working when he saw me. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you still want to marry me? . . . We could travel home together, and we could take the boys if we were husband and wife.”
His gaze met mine in the meek winter sunlight. Minutes seemed to pass before he replied. “I love you, Geesje. I always have. I would do anything for you.”
I had to look away. “And you’re my very best friend. . . . But before you decide if you want to marry me, I need to be honest with you. I don’t think I will ever love anyone the way I loved Hendrik.”
“I know. I know.” He looked down at his large, square hands, gripping the axe handle.
“Maarten, look at me.” I waited until he lifted his head. “You deserve so much more than me. You deserve a wife who loves you with all her heart. A wife who has as much faith in God as you do. My faith has withered away to nothing. Don’t say yes unless you truly want to marry me.”
“I wouldn’t be marrying you with false hopes,” he said. “I know you loved Hendrik. I know I could never take his place in your heart. . . . But still, I would be happy to take care of you for the rest of my life. And little Arie and Gerrit, too.”
Sweet Maarten. He had been with me for as long as I could remember, a comforting shoulder to lean on in my grief. He’d protected me from danger, cheered me when I was sad, encouraged me when I was afraid, helped me when I was sick. He’d walked into town for food when he must have been starving and exhausted himself from the hard work of building this cabin and clearing the land. Now he would make another sacrifice for me, leaving everything he’d labored so hard for here in America in order to take me home to Leiden. He was willing to marry me, knowing I didn’t love him, knowing he would always live in Hendrik’s shadow. He would sacrifice his own happiness for mine. The least I could do for this gentle, loving man was to try to be a good wife to him in return.
The only man I would ever love was dead, and I would have to spend the rest of my life without him. I was not quite nineteen years old, and as I gazed into the future at all the years that stretched ahead of me, I knew I didn’t want to feel this aching loneliness forever. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted the contentment and security of a husband and family. If I could never be with Hendrik, then why not spend my life with Maarten, who I had known since I was ten years old? He was all I had left from my old life. I couldn’t imagine finding a better husband than him. And he had promised to take me home. I took his hand, red and chapped with cold, and held it between mine.
“I’ll do my very best to be a good wife to you. Let’s ask Dominie Van Raalte to announce the banns in church.”
“Are you sure, Geesje?” I saw naked hope in his eyes.
“Yes. Are you sure, Maarten?”
“I am.” He smiled, and his hope changed to joy. I could tell he wanted to hold me in his arms, but he just squeezed my hand in return, then released it. “Well, then. It’s decided?”
“It’s decided.”
We told Dominie Van Raalte our decision, and when one of the elders read the banns in church that first Sunday, I saw Johanna Van Eyck rise from her seat and quietly leave through the back door. I remembered that she had hoped to marry Maarten. Now I had destroyed her hope.
Three weeks later, Maarten de Jonge and I were married in a quiet ceremony in the log church on the hill. We returned to our cabin with our adopted sons, Arie and Gerrit, to begin our new life together as a family. And to plan our trip back home to the Netherlands.