Chapter 3 - CALIFORNIA, HERE WE COME!
In the later part of 1911 we left North Dakota and moved to Corcoran, California. There my father began doing farm work for a man by the name of Dougherty. Mr. Dougherty had been a carpenter in the city and decided to leave that and try his hand at farming. I guess that's why he didn't seem to know much about running a farm. In those days if you had a horse and a plow you could prosper. My father had to milk twenty cows in the morning and work all day long for eighteen dollars a month, a free house, and a gallon of milk a day. But Dad enjoyed working for Mr. Dougherty because he was a wonderful man. He did his best to help my father learn English while Dad tried to teach him Dutch. Mr. Dougherty would oftern invite my father home for lunch so they could practice their language phrases while they ate.
Life in California seemed a lot brighter than in North Dakota and I think we all thought it felt like home. Here the weather was milder and I had neighbor children to play with. There was even a Free Methodist Church close by where my sisters and I would attend Sunday School and young people's meetings. The Dutch Reform Church was eight miles away in Hanford so we couldn't go there all the time.
My sister Lena was able to play an old fashioned pump organ and my three sisters would sing in a trio together at the Methodist Church. Then one time Lena, Tilly, and Betsy were kneeling at the front of the church by the altar, and some of the workers were gathered around them and they were all silently praying together. My sister Marie and I didn't go up and I was too young to understand what was going on, but I knew something serious was happening. It was only after I had my own encounter with the Lord that I really understood they were praying for Christ to take over their lives.
After I began to preach the gospel, that picture flashed before me one time when I was talking with Tilly about the Lord and I said to her, "Oh, Tilly, you know what I'm talking about. You remember that day in the little Free Methodist Church in Corcoran when you and Lena and Betsy were up front kneeling. That's when Jesus was coming into you heart and life."
She said, "Oh, Dora, you don't remember that."
I said, "Yes, I do. I remember that; I can see it so clearly. And whatever was happening to you then is still real now, because God never changes! Praise His wonderful name. All the glory belongs to Him because He is ever faithful."
MY WONDERFUL CHRISTIAN FAMILY
One of the reasons I believe God has been so faithful to all of us children is that we have come from faithful parents who raised us up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
I appreciate that my father and mother were good, stauch Christian people, member of the Dutch Reform Church. They were faithful to the revelation that God gave then and taught us the real, true standards of life. I believe that a child's life is formed in those early years, and things they are taught when they are young have a tendency to direct them later in life. I am very grateful for those early years of my life and my father and mother being that example to me.
My father had had a wonderful conversion experience when he was twenty-seven years old. He was driving a wagon and suddenly lost the reigns. The horses went wild! He had no control. The team and the wagon were headed for a deep canal and my father couldn't swim. So, Dad got down on his knees in that runaway wagon and cried out to God to save his life and, in turn, he promised to serve Him with his whole heart. That experience changed his life.
My mother always stood by my father and she was the one who taught him how to read. He would read the Bible at night while she would be knitting socks for us children, and when there would be a word that he couldn't pronounce she would take one of her knitting needles and spell it out and pronounce it for him. So, my father learned to read and even to write by reading the Bible.
When all of us would be around the the table, before we ate, my father would ask the Lord to bless the food and to strengthen our boodies and give us the necessary nourishment. And, after we ate we would pray again and thank the Lord and praise Him for what he had given us. First we asked Him to bless it; then we thanked Him for it. And after every meal my father would read a portion out of the Bible. In the morning we would read from the Psalms; in the afternoon he would read a short chapter in the New Testament; and then in the evening he would read a chapter out of the Old Testament. My Dad was very smart. He knew that children would often not pay attention, so he would stop at any time and call on one of us and ask, "What was the last word?"
Of course, he read from the Dutch Bible, and that's how I retained my use of the Dutch language. I can still speak and read Dutch because of that constant teaching.
MY FATHER'S FAITH
My father was a man of strong faith. He believed that God would give him his boyhood dream of coming to America and he proudly became an American citizen in 1917. That faith carried over to all things in my father's life - especially to his family during the wars. He had three sons in WW1; my brother Pete was in France for seven months and my father believed God to bring all three of my brothers home safely. The only child lost during that war was my sister, Lena, who died during the flu epidemic. During the Second World War my father had several grandsons, one son-in-law and one son in the war. He had all their names written in a book and he wrote to every one of them and prayed for each of them to return safely. Nick, Tilly, and Tom Hendrik's oldest son, was in the service in Hawaii when it was bombed. Then was in Ansio Beach during the invasion of Italy. Later he was sent to England and in the invasion of Europe on "D" Day; the Battle of the Bulge. After that, he met the Russian Army at the Elba River in Germany. When peace was declared he came home without a scratch! All of the men in our family returned except one grandson, Evert Coy, a Marine, who was killed in the battle of Iwo Jima. He was the only son of my brother Pete and his wife Minnie. No one else from the family was even hurt.
LIKE JACOB'S FAMILY
I have heard by Dad say many times that he was like Jacob who crossed the brook by himself, but when he returned and crossed that same brook, he had grown into seventy. My mother and father had two more children in America who were named Nellie and Johnny. So, they had twelve children in twenty-four years. There were twenty-four years between my oldest brother, Nick and my baby brother Johnny.
Well, my father prospered and all of his childrren prospered and we helped populate the United States! Every one of my brothers and sisters were healthy, hard-working, saving people who had good jobs and finally owned their own businesses and their own homes. My nephews and nieces have become doctors and lawyers and movie stars and nurses and business workers, active in the the affairs of the community and church.
My brother Johnny and wife Dot had the Baptist Women's Missionary Society meet in their home each week for over thirty-five years. In fact, about thirty women became missionaries through their ministry. There has even been a book published about this work.
My sister Marie and her husband Dean Smith were members of the Second United Presbyterian Church for over fifty years. Their whole family was very musically gifted and they all used their talents for God.
Elizabeth (my sister Betsy) Van Donk has a grandson, Richard John Van Donk who is the author of the book called Creating Your Own Life and is the founder/president of Uni-Dynamics.
My sisiter Nell Richardson loves people and is kept busy taking care of shut-ins and the handicapped. She bakes for them, picks up their mail, gives them rides, and helps in any way she can.
One nephew, Robert O'Neal and his wife Dine, have had a Christian group in their home for many years. Their daughter Linda Friedricks and her husband David were missionaries in South Africa. David Junior was born there. He is now grown and studying for the ministry.
My daughter Tillora Jackson loves the Lord and knows Him in a very personal way. She is a blessing to many and all who really know her love her.
Herman Floyd, my son, carried a New Testament in his shirt pocket the entirre twenty-six years he was in the Air Force. He and his wife Myrla had services in their home many times during those years.
My grandson, William (Billy) Van Assen and his wife Jean, both have a call to be missionaries to Algeria and are preparing to go when God opens the way.
So many times I heard my father quote the scripture from Acts 16:21, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house." And my Dad just simply believed that, and God confirmed that word.
I just wanted to honor my father and mother and all my sister and brothers for the great influence they had upon my life. And I just rejoice in the Lord at the wonderful family I came from.
Chapter 4 - GROWING AND CHANGING
MY GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY
God is so faithful, for the day came when my father's boyhood dream to be his own boss was finally fulfilled. He had leased some land as a share cropper and was able to save enough money to buy a farm of his own. At last he was going to be his own boss. However, owning our own land required us to move to Hanford, California. This move turned out to be a golden opportunity for me!
I was a different kind of child. Even my father told me that I had been unlike the others from the very beginning. I never felt as though I fit in. I seemed slow in comparison to the others and I lived in a dream world. I can remember my brothers and sisters saying, "Look at Dora standing there dreaming." To make matters worse, I had earned the nickname "Dumb Dora" because there was a popular card game by that name. I absolutely hated being called "Dumb Dora", and I longed for the time I could change my name.
Well, the perfect opportunity came when we moved to Hanford and I had to change schools. I had to go to shcool in a town called Hardwick and the first day I told the teacher that my name was Dorothy. Well, everyone began to call me Dot. Even my parents and brothers and sisters started calling me Dot. That change made me feel like a whole new person.
But now, after all these years, I have come to really like my name Dora, and I believe that name was ordained of God. Dora means 'gift of love'. I was the ninth child to be born into the family and biblically the numer nine is connected with gifts. (nine gifts of the Spirit, nine fruits of the Spirit) That's all I really want to be - God's gift of love to all creation.
God is love. He loves everyone equally. There is no difference in the love of God for His creation. In fact, he proved that at the cross when everyone of us became equal, because we were all bought with the same price, the precious blood of Jesus.
THE SPARK IS KINDLED
Hanford was where our Dutch Reform Church was located and our whole family atended services together. My father would lead the procession into the sanctuary, followed by all the children, then my mother. We children sat quietly through every meeting, three times on Sunday. Besides church, we went to Sunday School and in addition there was the catechism class.
That class stands out in my mind because there were a lot of questions and answers that were discussed. What's more, all of this went on in Dutch. At my age, I wasn't able to read the material, so I had to depend on one of my older sisters to help me.
The smaller children were taken to the catechism class on Saturday but at a certain age, you went in the evening rather than in the afternoon. When I was eleven I was still too young for the evening class, but my sister, Marie, was thirteen, and she was assigned to go at night. However, my father didn't want her to go by herself, so I went along with her.
Anyway, one evening on our way to the catechism class, we noticed a big tent pitched on the property of the Free Methodist Church. Well, we just had to know what was going on in that tent, so we talked it over and decided we would sneak into this tent and see what the people were doing and then go on to our class.
We discovered that it was a revival meeting. I began to listen to what the minister was saying, and as he began to make his appeal for us to open our hearts to Jesus and live for Him, I began to feel a longing in my heart to answer that call. I wanted to go up to the front of the tent, as some other people were doing, to make a public stand, but I was afraid, because I didn't want anyone to see me and tell my folks that we were playing hookie from the catechism class. So I just sat there in misery and prayed in my heart that I wanted Jesus to forgive me and I made a silent promise that I would live for him.
Well, that promise only lasted a few days. It just faded away, because I didn't speak it out publicly - I didn't let anybody know it. I was trying to be a secret Christian. So the things of the world and the cares of life just caused it to fade away. But I know now that was the beginning of God letting me know that He is within me. Of course, He has been there all the time, but I thought that He had left.
CONFUSED BY THE DOCTINES OF MEN
Then, a few months later something else happened in my life that stands out. In the catechism class the question of infant baptism arose. I was being taught that should a little baby die without being baptized it would be lost, it wouldn't come under the blessings of the church. It wouldn't be able to inherit that protective covering.
Well, I began to question that in my heart - I just couldn't accept it. I just couldn't believe that. But I kept the matter to myself.
Eventually, the question of infant baptism came up again. and I raised my hand and asked the minister,
"Why would that little baby be punished for not being baptized? The little baby can't say to the mother or father, "I need to be baptized. Take me to church and baptize me so if anything should happen to me and I should die, I won't be lost." It would have to be the fault of the father and mother and if anybody should be punished, it should be the parents instead of the baby."
Well, the minister got quite upset about this and he took me by the hand and put me in another room. I didn't hear any more about it and I tried to accept it, but it was always grinding away at me deep down in my mind.
Then, something else occurred which brought the whole question of infant baptism to the forefront again. We had a little neighbor boy whose father and mother never went to church. They were not believers. It came about that this little boy had an accident with his bicycle and died. However, through the death of this little boy, his whole family began coming to church. When they became members of the church they all had to be baptized. So, one Sunday they all came in and sat on the front row and the minister and the elder came with the baptismal bowl and sprinkled all of them. So now, according to the teaching I had received they were saved and were all going to heaven when they died.
Subsequently, this baptism was discussed again in catechism class and I put my hand up and said to the minister, "I just want to ask you something. This whole family that was recently baptized; they are all saved and will go to heaven?
And the minster said, "Yes".
So, then, I said, "Well, what about their little brother? That little boy who died wasn't baptized, what about him?"
And the minster said, "He's lost; he's dying for Adam's sin."
Then something came over me and I said, "I don't believe that! I just don't accept that. I don't believe God would be that cruel."
So the minister had me put in another room and he notified my father in a letter.
The day that my father got the letter, he was waiting for me when I got home from school. My father told me that he had this letter, and it said that I had disobeyed and I had been very rude. And he told me that I was to apologize. He didn't give me any opportunity to explain he just said, "I want you to apologize."
"I won't apologize. I can't", I said.
Then my dad said, "Well then I'm going to have to give you a licking." So, he began to spank me.
Just then my mother stepped in and stopped him because I didn't really know what I had done. I was just saying, "No, no! I won't, I won't!"
After I was in bed my father came in and was kneeling by the bed and he was asking me to forgive him.
Of course I forgave my father. And I didn't even hold it against the minister. I just got mixed up some way and blamed God for it. Somehow I saw that the minister was teaching what he thought he had to teach, and my father was correcting me because I was his child and he thought I had done wrong and disobeyed. And so it all came back to God. From that point on, I decided that I could never love or serve such a cruel God. In fact, I tried to hate Him and I got to the point that I began to hate all Christians. That's the way I lived through my teenage years, blaming God for being cruel and hating those who believed in Him.
SWEET SIXTEEN
During those years some thing else significant occurred in my life. A young man by the name of Herman Van Assen came to work for my father. Herman and his mother, oldest sister, brother John, and younger sister Gertrude had come to California in 1921 to join Herman's two other brothers Gerald and Garret. Herman was the baby.
Herman had wonderful dark, wavy hair and deep, dark blue eyes and beautiful fair skin. I had always been painfully shy but his quick wit and open friendly manner drew me out in no time. It wasn't long befor we were sweet on one another. I was only sixteen at the time and our relationship went on until my father found out about it. Then he called Herman in and said, "Herman, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but since you're sweet on my daughter, and she is way too young, I'm going to have to fire you. It isn't good for both of you to be living in the same house together."
Well, Herman stormed in and packed his things. He said to me, "It's as though your father never kissed a girl when she was sixteen."
So, Herman left the area and disappeared from my life, but not altogether from my thoughts.
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