Topics

Features

News Articles by Topic

Features

Details of 1927 BC train robbery and murder of Dutch immigrant revisited

Victim Otto Bosch died in Vancouver hospital


Tags: Immigration Features History

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Back in 1992, almost 65 years after the July 23, 1927 murder of his then young bachelor uncle Otto Bosch, nephew Julius Bosch and his wife Beatrix (Ensel), stood at the Mountain View Cemetery graveside where the remains of his father Jan’s older brother had been buried. Puzzled why there was no sign of the headstone the family had paid for so long ago, he asked the attending cemetery employee where the grave marker could have gone. The man then poked around for it in the soil, and eventually hit something solid underneath. Soon, an overgrown vertical grave marker was uncovered from underneath a foot of dirt.

Read Full Article

Windmill Archives launches Facebook group

Focus on Dutch immigration and settlement


Tags: Dutch Exploration Immigration Features World War II Genealogy History

The story of Dutch immigration to Canada and the United States and the settlement of these pioneers in both countries is wide-ranging and extremely fascinating. Since its start in 1970, The Windmill Archives has collected much material on these subjects.

Read Full Article

New owners re-open Dutch specialty store to the sounds of rare street organ

Dutch treats popular with visitors


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration Features History Dutch import groceries, delicatessen and household articles have been readily available in Chilliwack since the late 1950s. With the re-opening by new owners of an existing store as Holland Shopping Centre, the variety and product range increases s...

Read Full Article

Chilliwack's topography honours pioneer farmer Volkert Vedder

Attracted from California by Cariboo goldrush


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration Features HistoryThe most-widely known Dutch-descended people in Chilliwack were its earliest pioneers Volkert Vedder and his son Adam Swart Vedder who lent their surname to several geographical points: Vedder Mountain, Vedder Peak, Vedder Crossing, Vedder River and ...

Read Full Article

Chilliwack, BC Dutch Count replaced by numerous immigrating countrymen

Gentleman farmer Van Rechteren returned 'home' in 1947


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill Immigration Features World War II History

The fertile Upper Fraser Valley with Chilliwack as its hub, for many decades has been a destination for Dutch immigrants. It only was in the late 1940s that their numbers had grown into a small nucleus ready to receive and help settle a steady stream of newcomers. Its most prominent member, ‘the Count,' however just had retired to the Netherlands. The area attracted the biggest group during the first half of the 1950s when emigration from the Netherlands was at its strongest. Unlike most other areas in Canada, locally new Dutch arrivals kept coming in noticeable numbers into the 1990s (and beyond). By the late 1950s, the migration of Dutch immigrants from other areas in B.C., Alberta and beyond also helped swell the community's numbers.

Read Full Article

The Van Echtens' expansion of local power-base took many generations

Founding of Hoogeveen-colony required fortune


Tags: Features

Contents of this Article

  1. Introduction
  2. Privileges gained
  3. Building churches
  4. Devastated by see-saw invasions
  5. No place in States-General
  6. Piet Hein's feat
  7. Squire Roelof
  8. Observer at Synod
  9. Drost
  10. Capital projects
  11. End of truce damaging
  12. Claiming and surrendering rights
  13. Show-down with merchants
  14. Acknowledgement from participants
  15. Tension among the participants
  16. Board of directors
  17. Interference and vandalism
  18. New participants
  19. Site of town
  20. Change of guard
  21. End of an era
  22. Politics and business

Read Full Article

Six Municipalities Dealt with a Major Population Drain, Chain Effect Lasted for Decades

'Bouwhoek' Frisians Major Group in U.S.-bound Dutch Emigration


Tags: Features

DETROIT, Michigan - The Frisian 'Bouwhoek' - the Northern region behind the dikes of the Frisian Sea is known for its fertile clay and crop farming - has been a major contributor to the flow of Dutch emigrants to the United States. Thousands of Northern Frisians left in the latter part of the 19th century, when a depression hit the local economy. They opted for a better future in the New World. The emigration process was an ongoing phenomenon which lasted several decades and resulted in stagnating population figures, a recent study concludes. Emigrated Frisians from 'Bouwhoek' villages and municipalities often joined people from the same background and thus groups from particular townships settled together in specific New World localities. Numerous are the seasonal labourers from Frisian crop farms who became prosperous farmers in the New World, Annemieke Galema reports in her new book 'Frisians to America, 1880-1914.'

Read Full Article

December 5th national birthday for everyone’s friend from Spain

The Netherlands helps Sint Nicolaas celebrate


Tags: Features

AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands - For centuries in the Netherlands, the 6th of December - and for the grown-ups especially the evening of the 5th - has been a day when nearly everyone is at home, celebrating the birthday of Sint Nicolaas, the kind Spanish bishop. Every year, Sint Nicolaas (also known as Sinterklaas) makes the trip to Holland to celebrate his birthday. He has been doing this for ages, not to receive presents, but to give them, especially to the children.

Read Full Article

Frisian town welcomes ‘Sinterklaas’ in February

Local tradition kept away from limelight


Tags: Features

GROU, the Netherlands - While North Americans get a visit from Saint Nick in the weeks ending with Christmas, the figure on whom Santa Claus is based - St. Nicolaas - visits the Low Lands on December 5th and 6th. Except in the small Frisian village of Grou, where Saint Nicholas’ ‘cousin’ Saint Peter makes his annual visit on February 21. Confused? Here is the story about ’Sint Piter’.

Read Full Article

Toponymy in the Netherlands (2)

Dutch territory extends itself from Babylonia to California, a fascinating case of adopting identities for communities


Tags: Features

Over the centuries, the Dutch have used foreign names and situations to give new frontier settlements a unique identity, often one with a specific connotation. There are names suggesting a biblical origin or indicating the geographical roots of its founders or settlers. Others just refer to some foreign city, region or country. The New World - the Americas - is rife with such Old Country references, beginning with Nieuw Netherland and New England, names still used today. More surprising is that the 'old country' has a number of villages named after American geographical names. While European names prevail in the list of 'foreign names' used in the Netherlands, some clearly have connections with the U.S.A.

Read Full Article

Toponymy in the Netherlands (1)

Communities adopted names from Nil to No End, a case of numericals in Dutch place names


Tags: Features

Where do place names originate from? Many people will wonder about it, but few will bother to find out for themselves. It takes dedicated historians and genealogists to research the matter. What about such place names as Heerlen, Doetinchem, Zwolle and Groningen? While, many towns and villages in the country have identities that are linked to nearby geographical features, a few hundred places have an origin tied to a number. So named perhaps from the way a particular settlement - mostly because of its number of huizen (houses) - was known to folks down the 'road.'

Read Full Article

New biography about Holland's founder

Dutch Emigrants Built 'City' in Dense Michigan Forest


Tags: Features

One hundred and fifty years ago, Dutch emigrants without any experience descended on Michigan's frontiers and literally carved a living out of its dense forests. Among the logs and huge tree trunks they planted the roots of what was to become a city. The initial party of a few hundred people which set to clear Holland's town site, hardly knew how to swing an axe, fall a tree or clear land. Neither could they build basic log cabins fast enough to accommodate themselves or the stream of new arrivals. Life in the 'kolonie' Holland was extremely hard, while food, medicine and money was very scarce and disease at times rampant in the isolated community near Black Lake, just off the eastern shore of Lake Michigan.

Read Full Article

The marriages of seven Dutch monarchs

A review of House of Orange history since 1791


Tags: Features

Crown Prince Willem-Alexander as successor to the Dutch throne is the seventh monarch to enter marriage since his ancestor Prince Willem of Orange Nassau (1772-1843) tied the knot with Princess Frederika Louise Wilhelmina of Prussia in 1791. The son of Stadtholder Prince Willem V, he and his family lived in exile for nearly twenty years while the French under Napoleon occupied the country. Upon the return of Prince Willem VI at the beaches of Scheveningen in 1814, the Dutch led by statesman Gijsbert Karel Van Hogendorp instituted a constitutional monarchy headed by the House of Orange Nassau. Willem assumed the throne as King Willem I. From 1559 to 1795, the House gave - much of the country - an appointed leader who served as Stadtholder (Commander-in Chief and Governor) although two lengthy hiatus occurred during that period.

Read Full Article