slow going because sometimes the horses had difficulty walking through the deep snow drifts. Once in a while there would be a straight stretch with not much snow depth and the horses were brought to a trot. We kids quite often held on to the back of the sleigh as we walked and half slid behind. This helped to keep us warm. Once we arrived at church, Bill would have to unhitch the horses and tie them up in a horse barn behind the church. All country churches in those days had horse barns. Then when the services were ended, Bill would hitch up the horses again, everyone would crawl in, and off we went for home. Can you imagine anyone going through all that trouble to get to church and then sleeping through the entire service? It happened. 

The desire to attend God's House had to be very strong and in the case of our mother, it was. In those days Ottawa had no minister of its own. The congregation was too small and too poor to support one. We had classical appointments, retirees, and sometimes a minister from one of the Holland or Zeeland churches. One of the ministers heard quite frequently was a retiree, Rev. Tysse. He wasn't all the great as a preacher, but he was a kind elderly man. We learned to imitate his speech mannerisms, one of which was the constant use of "uh". Our favorite imitation was, "and uh, so uh, we uh." One minister we always enjoyed was a Rev. Stoppels from Holland. One of his sermons is still remembered, based on Ps. 16:6, "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage." During the summer months we were served by a seminarian who sometimes lived in the area during those months. The names of Rev. Prins and Rev. Goulooze come to mind as outstanding seminarians and later on, Rev. Teusink. Our catechetical instruction will be covered later.

Ottawa Reformed Church, in our early days, was a small, simple, unadorned structure far different from the properties seen today. There were three rows of seats. The side pews were small, holding maybe four people each. The center pews were larger. Total seating capacity may have been 100 or so. The rear center pew was always occupied by young men who had graduated from family supervision. An amusing thing is the fact that this seat was set against the back wall, and everyone sitting there rested his head against the wall. Spots on the wall from greasy (Brilliantine) hair corresponded to positions taken in the pew. This also became known as the spot where the unruly sat. The pulpit area was simple. A piano stood in front on the right and a table in the center. One large register in front of the lectern served to heat the entire building. The heat was not very evenly distributed. For years, there was only a partial basement and even that was not finished. Mention was made of seating capacity. The church was seldom filled. Generally, there were four or five pews occupied on each side and the middle. 

A few members stand out in my memory of those earlier days. There was Harm Hassevoort and his third wife, Winnie. His first wife died, his second - a real flapper - left him, and his third wife was a bit slow mentally. Old Harm had physical problems which seemed to affect his voice. Prior to services, he and others engaged in conversations which could be heard all over church. Then soon after services began, he would fall asleep and awaken in time to leave. Another character was Harm Shoemaker. He was what is called in dutch, unvaschulets (now if I only knew how to spell it). His reasoning process didn't always function properly and he was known to "fly off the handle" (become angry) quite easily and frequently. He had a nice wife. They lived (how they survived no one knows) in the sand hills west of 112th on Stanton. Oppy Geertman is another who should be mentioned. He always came to church chewing tobacco and traces of tobacco juice could always be seen in the corners of his mouth and in the crease in his lower jaw.

Mention has been made of our friends, Jim and Elmer Driesenga. Incidentally, Elmer was one of the early casualties in W.W.II. We played together often, but there were occasions when we were not welcome. They had a cousin by the name of Marv Maatman who came to visit maybe once a year. Whenever he came they would try to hide from us. But we weren't to be shunned that easily. One day we came and they ran to a willow patch some distance behind the barn to get away from us. We followed, but as soon as they saw us coming, they ran for the drain ditch. We kept following at somewhat of a distance and found them hiding along the ditch bank. They started to throw things at us, called us names, and told us to leave. We finally did leave. After all, there comes a time when it suddenly dawns on you that you are not wanted. We went home, no doubt felt hurt for a day or so, but before long we were back together again.

One of our favorite pastimes (Driesengas, John, Jay, and myself) was a game we played in the dining room of our home. It was always at our house. This was played at night. The doors to the kitchen and living room had to be closed so that there was no possibility of light coming in. In preparation for this game, we cut up can rubbers in pieces maybe 1/2 inch long. Each one saw to it he had a good supply. Then armed with a few rubber bands, the battle began in the dark room. The pieces of can rubber were doubled over the rubber band, and then by stretching the rubber band, the can rubber was sent sailing at a pretty good speed. The object was to hit someone. Positions had to be changed continually because someone was bound to hit his target and then a yell went out which of course revealed to everyone else where that person was located. He then became the center of attack by the rest of us. And oh, the poor sucker who without thinking passed by a window, he was immediately spotted and the can rubbers went zinging in that direction. This went on and on and must have created a lot of noise for the rest of the family, but you know, never did we hear anything from Mom or Dad to quit. They sure took a lot. We must have made a mess too with can rubbers all over the room and furniture out of place. One of Mom and Dad's favorite expressions in Dutch was that "boys had to play" or "let them be as long as they are quiet." This last one didn't really make sense, because we were far from quiet.

The drain ditch adjoining our property holds many memories. A bridge crossing this drain was made of steel with loose boards forming the road bed. Very few cars traveled our road, but when they did, they could be heard at our house as they rumbled over that bridge. Even the speed of the cars could be judged fairly well by the time sequence of the rumble. With so few cars passing by, we naturally looked down the road as soon as we heard the rumble to determine if the car was going to stop at our house. Usually, when the sound was heard, our dog prepared himself by taking a position near the road and giving chase if the car passed, or following it into the driveway.

The drain also had a few fishing holes, wherever the drain turned in its natural course, a deep hole was formed where fish could often be found. There weren't many varieties of fish, mostly bullheads which were an eerie looking thing and not much good for eating. Many of the fish were so small that all they did was eat our bait and seldom got caught on the hook. One day Jay and John found an automatic hook advertised in a catalog. This was to be the answer to our problems. They sent for it. It was a two pronged, sharp ended device something like a set of tongs. It had a spring mechanism and when the prongs were opened up and set, a fish hook stood out in the middle. The principle of the thing was that as soon as a fish touched the hook to get the bait, the prongs would release and catch the fish. We had a lot of fun with it, but it never worked too well.

The drain ditch also served another purpose in the summertime. This is where we went "skinny dipping." We never owned a bathing suit or swimming trunks, although there were times we jumped in with our shorts on, but most of the time it was in the nude. We didn't have to worry about anyone else because that little woods road was hardly ever traveled. In early summer, the ditch usually had several inches of water in it, but as summer moved on, the depth decreased. We would then build a dam, with an arm full of burlap bags and a couple shovels, we began filling the sacks with sand dug from the bank of the ditch. These filled bags were laid end to end across the ditch and then others piled on top until we had a dam maybe three feet high. This stopped the flow of water and resulted in a build up behind the dam. Not much water flowed , but over a period of time, it got deeper and deeper until finally it would flow over the dam. This gave us a great place to go swimming. In the middle of the summer the water was always warm. One inconvenience we had to put up with was the blood suckers. Every time we came out of the water we would check each other over for any possible blood suckers stuck to us. It was a weird thing. When attached to the body, it appeared as a spot, but when you took hold of it and pulled it, it stretched what seemed an inch or so before it finally let go. Mention was made of not having to worry about anyone seeing us, but one day as we were swimming, we heard some snickering come from over the bank of the drain. We watched and soon there appeared the heads of three of Simon Ten Brink's girls. They took off running when they learned they had been discovered, but by then they no doubt had seen all they had wanted to see.

Before leaving the drain ditch, a couple things should be reported. One day George and Marv set out to dig out what they thought was a rabbit in a hole along side of the bridge. They had been digging awhile when Marv decided to reach in,to feel for the rabbit and pull it out. In so doing he also stuck his head partway into the hole. All of a sudden he pulled back, rubbing his eyes, and shouting to George to spit in his eyes. The rabbit turned out to be a skunk and when disturbed, he "let fly." Marv ran around in circles until finally he went down to the drain and washed his eyes with water from the ditch. That must have been painful.

We always had one or more dogs on the farm. One of our dogs was named "pup". She had been around for a long time and with advancing age, she slowed up considerably. One day she could not be found. We searched everywhere and finally found her dead body along the bank of the ditch. She had simply laid down and died. We ran home and told Dad. He said he would go with us after supper and bury her. It just so happened that the Rev. Oostendorp (a Calvin classmate of Dad) and his family from Zeeland stopped to visit that night around the time we were to bury the dog. Rev. Oostendorp went along and still remembered is his joking remark that it was fortunate a minister was present for such an occasion. We didn't feel like joking. It was serious business. Old Pup was buried and the exact spot is still remembered. We had buried an old faithful friend.

Once during each summer, we visited the Ed Hassevoort boys at their place, and they once each summer came to our place. They lived where the Bill-Mar Turkey Plant is now located. All of us attended the Owens School together. They were always on a rigid schedule, but ours was quite flexible. When we were there, we always played with miniature farm animals, wagons, horses, or tractors. They all had chores to do and at a given time they dropped everything and it was time to go home. When they came to our house too, they always had to be home by a stated time.

We worked too, but Dad always said, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," so in our case pleasure often came before work. We even "worked out." One place was at the Ed Hirdes farm. The first job remembered was helping Mr. Hirdes shingle a shed lean-to to the barn. My job was to lay out the shingles and he nailed them down. He always called me "his boy." We also worked on his farm in the onions. A son, John, was in charge in the field, but he didn't seem to regard me as "his son." They had long rows of onions which we straddled as we moved along weeding on our hands and knees. On a hot day it was miserable and to make things worse, the grains of muck soil always worked up our pant legs under our knees, grinding away like sand paper. John Hirdes was always a taskmaster, always trying to get us to work faster, checking all the time if we missed any weeds. The pay received was not much, possibly two or three cents a row.

Another place where we "worked out" was on the Mart Elenbaas farm. He had one daughter, Pearl, so he always needed help with haying. She drove the horses on the hay wagon and we leveled off the hay as it come on the wagon from the hay loader. For a full day of hard work we received one dollar. One of the benefits was to eat dinner there at noon. Mrs. Elenbaas always prepared a big, delicious meal for us "workers."

Besides outside work, we always had plenty to do on our own farm. Besides the normal chores of milking the cows morning and evening, feeding them, cleaning stables, feeding chickens and pigs, there were the summer jobs of picking pickles, weeding carrots, and mangoes. Our farm had a small low land area where the soil was black. It wasn't really muck, but it was good for garden type crops. Below the black surface soil was a layer of peat. Sometimes in late fall we would burn off the weeds and grasses, but on a couple occasions the peat below the surface also became ignited and was known to smolder through most of the winter until the spring rains came, flooded the field and put out the fire. It was quite hazardous to walk over that area while the peat was burning because the burning was below the surface and sometimes we could step in such a spot, drop down a few inches, and come out with a hot foot. This is where we raised carrots, etc. These required almost constant weeding and it was this type of work that always "delighted" John and Jay. It wasn't my favorite either, but quite often when the carrots needed weeding or the pickles had to be picked, John and Jay conveniently found other interests like listening to the car radio in the garage.

Haying time was a busy time. When the weather was suitable, it had to be mowed, and after drying, raked into wind rows. We then went to the field with horses and wagon hitched to a hay loader. By straddling the wind rows, the hay loader picked up the hay, carried it up a conveyor system, and dumped it at the rear of the wagon. From there it had to be distributed evenly across the entire rack and build up to a height which was regarded as safe to transport to the barn. Sometimes the load became unevenly distributed, resulting in losing part of it or having the wagon tip over. For many years Dad cut hay for a Mr. Timmirman, a short distance away, on shares. For every three loads, he got two and we one.

Shortly after the haying season came time to harvest the grain. There were no combines in those days. Everything was cut with a binder which tied the cut grain into bundles and kicked out these bundles on a carrier. When the carrier was full, it was tripped leaving the bundles in a heap on the ground. This heap was then set up in shocks and stood until time for threshing. That was quite an event. Bill Zienstra owned a threshing rig. He and Gerrit Groenhof covered the area, going from one farm to another. Neighboring farmers helped each other, some came with horses and wagons to haul the grain from the field, and others provided muscle power to carry the grain to the granary. Many farmers stacked their grain in stacks near the barn, making hauling from the field unnecessary. Compared with today's method, what a lot of work was involved and what a lot of grain must have been lost during all those separate handlings. A thing of pride was to be able to build a stack beautifully proportioned. Generally, they barely survived the time of threshing. They bulged in all directions and leaned rather precipitously at times. Once the day for threshing came, there was a lot of activity getting everything ready. The kitchen was busy with the preparing of food. This was the highlight of the day. Some places went all out preparing meals for all the men. However, there were certain places at which we didn't look forward to eating. In earlier years, before we were old enough or strong enough to carry a bag of grain or pitch bundles of grain into the threshing machine, we took delight in managing the blower. This was a dirty job, but the dirtier we got, the better we liked it, because then everyone could look upon us as one who had really worked. Now, the blower was at the rear end of the threshing machine where the chopped straw came out. The machine was usually inside the barn and the straw was distributed in mows inside the barn. The cutting of the straw, along with a variety of weeds produced an awful lot of dust. In fact, sometimes it was impossible to see where the blower was pointed. Being able to wear goggles was also a mark of distinction. Anyway, it was a dirty job, but we loved it.