It’s Tulip Time in Pella, the yearly tradition of celebrating our Dutch heritage that’s been kept since the 1930’s. Watching the parades and seeing the costumes inspires me to think about our local history. I appreciate what Eugene Heideman has to say in his book about Hendrik P. Scholte:
“The city of Pella annually celebrates his (Schotle’s) decision to separate from the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk in 1834 and to lead his followers to found their city in Iowa in 1847. The story of their journey and heroic struggle to found Pella to be a “city of refuge” and to build their church with its motto up front, ‘In God is our Hope and Refuge,’ is recounted to the children and tourists each year at its May Tulip Time festival.” 1
The story is recounted, told over and over again to the children and to the tourists.
Participating in this retelling as I read the scripts to announce each entry in the parade makes me think of my own family’s story. An assignment I was given as part of my chaplaincy training was to share my family tree with the rest of the class, going back to the third and fourth generation.
Quite by coincidence, photos of some of my ancestors drifted my direction from distant relatives recently, allowing me to put the final pieces in place. The narrative of my Van Zante family is both fascinating and heartbreaking. Inspiring and heroic. Like any of the Dutch immigrants to the Iowa prairies, they faced struggles. Their piety and reverent Christian faith shines as the lasting legacy that has shaped me and made me who I am as a Dutch girl, a leader, a wife and a mother.
I’ve been handed many generations’ worth of rich heritage that I can share with my own children, adding to the recounted story of so many who came here to the American Midwest to find “freedom to worship God according to His word.” 2
I’m proud of them, and I’m honored to descend from people who knew how to trust God even when it meant leaving everything they knew and loved behind in order to venture into a fearsome, irreversible unknown.
Dielis Van Zante Sr. and his wife Pietertje emigrated to America in 1854 with their four-year-old son, also named Dielis, and a small daughter who died while they were still at sea, on their way to America from Holland. Traveling with Dielis Sr. was his brother Gerrit, Gerrit’s wife, and their children. Dielis Sr. and Pietertje settled on farmland south of Pella and went on to have more children.
Dielis Jr. grew up and married. then he settled on a farm in the Leighton area. He and his wife had seven children, one of which was my great-grandfather Henry Van Zante. In August of 1888, Dielis Jr. died an untimely death at the age of 38. If the reason was sickness or a farming accident, I haven’t been able to discover. All I know is that this sudden death must have been devastating to his wife and children.
Two of Dielis Jr.’s brothers were in business together as owners of a hardware store in Pella. They also owned land in the Eddyville area, so when the sons Dielis Jr. left behind were old enough, they were provided with farm ground.
One of these farms went to my great-grandfather Henry. He married Adrianna Grandia in March of 1910, and then moved to Eddyville to start farming. Henry and Anna had ten children. One of them was my grandfather, Elmer Van Zante. He married Elizabeth Van Heukelom, and then settled on that same farm. My dad, along with his brother and sister, were raised there.
In 2011, my Van Zante family received a Century Farm Award from the State of Iowa for retaining the same farm ground within the family for 100 years.
Ever since 1998, when I got married, Pella is where I live with my husband Tom De Bruin, and our sons Mark and John. They are both in college right now, but I find meaning in remembering, in finding more pieces to the story, and in recounting it to the children and to the visitors. Not necessarily because it’s entertaining, but because it’s real.
It’s ours as a family, and ours as a community. The story of seeking freedom to worship and of overcoming the struggles to claim land and make it produce has made us who we are. It’s our heritage, it’s our legacy, and it’s definitely worth celebrating.
Happy Tulip Time!
If my readers live close enough to take in a parade (or two), then I hope you make the trip to Pella. Notice the costumes. Listen to the history. Cherish the story.
Both quotes are taken from the book, Hendrik P. Scholte, His Legacy in the Netherlands and in America, by Eugene P. Heideman, published by Van Raalte Press, Holland, Michigan, 2015, pages xxviii and xxix in the introduction.
(Scenery photos taken by Michelle De Bruin in Pella, 2023. The photo of Michelle and her two sons, former members of the Marching Dutch, was taken in Scholte Gardens, Pella, in 2019).