2024 #52Ancestors #Week7 Immigrant Toddlers

The immigrants that interest me so much are my great grandparents. They were both born in the northern Netherlands, Peter was his parents’ first child to survive infancy as well as their firstborn son, and Elsje (pronounced EL-sha) was her parents’ last child born in their homeland. Both children learned to speak Dutch, learned to walk in cobbled streets and may have worn small wooden shoes. Elsje may have even enjoyed the comfort of her grandmother’s lap.

That all changed abruptly when each of them were about three years old. The TenKleys journeyed from Apeldoorn to Amsterdam and the Winkels from Hattem to Rotterdam, journeys of 55 miles and 90 miles, respectively. I can only surmise that both journeys were likely by train. Both families boarded ships and traveled in steerage, which in most cases was at best unclean. Margjen “Maggie” TenKley had 8 children, but her two oldest girls were surely a huge help throughout the ordeal. Dirkje Winkel, on the other hand, appears to have traveled with only her husband to lend a hand with their three sons, ages 3, 2, and 3 months. I can imagine both little Elsje and little Peter, thumb or fingers in mouth, probably tied to apron strings (very common as a method for safety) so that they didn’t disappear into the crowds or get into mischief. 

If either child saw the ocean at all, it may have been their first and only time, and I expect there would have been questions. How very sad that neither of them would have had opportunity to see it at an age where they might have remembered it better. 

As far as research has shown, the TenKleys settled briefly in Baltic, Connecticut (not at all coastal) but only stayed there 18 months at perhaps the longest. Dirk and the older children worked in a factory, and instead of a Dutch houseboat, likely lived in a factory related house or even tenement. The Winkels on the other hand appear to have journeyed directly all the way to northwest Iowa to join Dirkje’s brother, a blacksmith in a largely Dutch community.

With the exception of the stop in Connecticut, both families stayed near to a larger Dutch community, retaining their heritage and their language. Both Peter and Elsje spoke Dutch fluently as adults, and while certainly they didn’t remember their journeys to their new home, surely heard tales of both the adventures of travel and of nostalgia for their parents’ homeland.

Dutch children at Ellis Island, Google image