Father's Side

My father’s family came from Holland, however, my grandfather’s family had a bit of French Huguenot woven into it somewhere and a bit of German as well. I believe my father had an exceptional amount of the French ingredients. Even though he was blonde as he could be while a young child, his hair darkened to a very dark black during his adult years. My grandfather, William Recker, was a very adventuresome man. His adventurous spirit rubbed off on my dad and eventually to my siblings and me. He came to America at the age of five and grew up in Highland, Indiana. He was a truck farmer and taxidermist. After a failed attempt to homestead in Montana during the nineteen twenties, he returned to Highland and worked for Pullman Standard as a supervisor of their finishing crew. The crew varnished wood and put a finishing touch on their train cars. He told his family he felt God tell him to move to De Motte, Indiana to get his family into the country. The day they arrived in De Motte, the banks failed and the great depression began. His move to the country was a safe place for the Recker family as they raised their own food. They struggled through the depression like everyone else, but God brought them to the other side. In De Motte, he practiced his taxidermy and truck farmed his small acreage. Eventually, he set up a small sale stand on the highway in front of his home each summer to sell his wares. His peers often came to the stand to “chew the fat”, meaning to talk together and solve the world’s problems.

My great grandpa on my dad’s side was Ahlrich Recker. He was a very tall man. He made wagon wheels in Holland and became a carpenter when he arrived in America. My father recalls him remodeling the barn on my grandfather’s home place in De Motte. He remembers his grandfather tearing the existing barn up to do the remodeling and hearing him say, “The Vurst ist yet to come”. He meant that before the barn would be put back to gether, more had to be torn apart. Dad told me that when something would go wrong for his grandpa that Grandpa would say, “defal” which meant a pan lid. My father chuckled at recalling his grandfather’s curse word, which was not a curse word. Great Grandpa Recker played the pump organ like a whiz according to his grandson, Jim Recker, (my father). His grandfather would walk to the organ and invite those present to come around to sing together. They would belt out the words of the Psalms in song and encourage each other in that way.

My father’s mother’s family was from Freisland in the Netherlands and immigrated to the states with three children in l892. They lived in the Roseland area of Chicago.
Grandma was one of fourteen children. Her name was Jesse (Tjitche) Staal. While in Holland, her father, Anne Sipkes Staal was a barge captain on a canal. He was born while Benjamin Harrison was President on Febuary 5th, l865. Grandma Recker’s mother was Sijske Dirks Kalma born March 1866 in Wanswerd, Friesland and died on May 5 l941 in Montana. Once in the states he worked for Pullman Standard as a Car builder until 1894 when there was a huge labor strike. He relocated to Lansing, Illinois, then to Griffith, Indiana and then to Montana.. He also tried his hand at homesteading. He died at the age of 79 on September 2, l944 when I was two years old. Anne and Sijske had fourteen children and 71 grandchildren. The Staal family was one of a kind. There was nothing they were fearful of and seemed to have been blessed with an excessive amount of confidence. That confidence has also made its way into the lives of the descendents. Obviously, not all in the family tree have these traits but they become recognizable in some from time to time.

Both my paternal grandparents’ families swallowed the urging of land sales agents during the twenties and moved west to homestead in the grasses of Montana. The agents were full up of promises and spoke word visions of grandeur and lives of ease. Like all other sales pitches, most were spoken only to make a dollar. The work was difficult and the weather was not conducive to growing field crops that needed time to mature before harvest. Hail got it nearly every time.

Both my paternal grandparents died at the young age of fifty-nine. I was ten and eleven at the times of their death. I feel cheated that I lost them so young. I was their eldest grandchild of whom they were proud. I remember doing more with my grandfather than my grandmother. My grandfather was a pipe and cigar smoker and paid the price. He was born on February 14 1894 and died on May 24, l953. Grandma was born on October 16, 1892 and died May 9, l952. My remembrances are small things. I recall the smell of bacon and eggs as my father and I walked in the door each morning during the summers. Grandpa would offer me a Smith Brothers cough drop. It was candy in those days. Grandma loved moss roses. There were heads of mounted animals all over the living and dining room. I recall wonderful Thanksgiving Day dinners with the warmth of uncles and aunts and cousins. I wish I could have gotten to know them better. Much of what I know of them, I learned through the stories of my dad and his siblings. I think I have mentioned before that my dad and his siblings are such an example of how siblings should love one another. I NEVER hear my father’s family talk negatively about one of the others. Even though miles and circumstances have put distance between some of them over the years, they always found a way to stay connected. When my uncle was in Africa for fifteen years, my father got out his Remington typewriter every Sunday afternoon as soon as dinner was done. He slipped one of those blue aerograms in and typed away. He would fill every inch of that paper even turning the paper on its side and writing in long hand on the spaces he couldn’t reach with the typewriter. There is a significant amount of loyalty among those dear folks, all of whom are getting up in their eighties at this point. One of my uncles, Ahlrich, died in l989 but the rest, including his wife are all alive and functioning. It is a tremendous blessing to see them and be able to share life with them.

I could write for days about my grandparents and great grandparents. Both sets had significant influence on my life. Both sets were dedicated and godly people. Both had good marriages and good families. I owe God a great big thank you for those dear people in my life.