Survival on the open prairie is something I've already written about however I have a few stories and lists of facts that sometimes cause my brain to spin a bit while taking in the sheer grit of my people.
When Dirk and Maggie TenKley arrived in America, they'd already spent 20 years of married life living primarily on a houseboat, travelling with their wares and loading and unloading at each stop. They had certainly seen factories and perhaps been inside several as they delivered goods. They certainly hadn't done factory work, typically a very long day in close and frequently unsafe conditions. Yet this was the work available to them on arrival in New England. They did not stay long in this situation.
Neither did the family have experience in farming, but they set out for Iowa, stayed briefly and then journeyed to North Dakota to build a life. They had some experience in transporting livestock but had arguably never worked in a field or managed an entire barn full of animals. What they did have was a close community of fellow Dutch both on neighboring farms and in church, and I would guess that in building community, they assisted one another in building their homesteads.
Cousin Peter TenKley wrote about their sod house, one end functioning as a barn. While the entire family was newly settled in the sod house, there was a vast prairie fire, and a scramble to secure the children and animals securely into the safety of their new home. I hope this was their only experience with a large fire!
Another experience that I don't like to think of as an achievement, but certainly fits the definition when applied to "effort" and 'courage" is the devastating loss in nearly every family of at least one small child. Aunt Minnie also lost her first husband when they were still very young. These great-aunts and uncles didn't have a choice. They survived, and many of them thrived.
Dirk and Maggie TenKley are described as well-to-do retired farmers in newspaper articles featuring the family, as are at least two of their sons. Quite the feat for a couple that began their farming career in early middle age. Maggie was in a newspaper write up as having knitted a spectacular number of stockings for soldiers during World War I. Two daughters hired out (as family history states incredibly talented) seamstresses. And Aunt Jennie, who lived in Michigan away from the rest of her family, divorced her husband in 1916 and raised several children on her own. She never remarried.
Peter Winkel and his brother Dick became managers of farming co-ops and elevators at young ages. Their youngest sister was a businesswoman in her own right, and older sister Mary was another single mother, having lost her husband to illness 2 short months after moving into their new home. Their father, for his own part, worked as a shoemaker well into his dotage, and took frequent solo walks of many miles across the county well into his 90s.
I don't think it's hyperbole to say the above information leads me to feel mightily privileged, and perhaps more than a bit lazy!
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