Saturday, July 2, 2016
No, probably Helena changed her name to sound more American, Helen.
That was the whole family. The parents were born around 1880, got
married the normal time, in their early 20's and immediately started
having kids from 1903-1908. The 1920 census is the one that had all
their kids because the kids were still under 18. The kids weren't born
in the US, but since they were young when they came, would have acted
more American than Dutch, except for the things they learned from their
parents. And also, there being a lot of immigrants in the US at that
time, customs were a lot different back then. But, two of the girls had
been divorced and the guys had not married even into their 20's, which
is probably not what the Dutch do, but probably more common in the US in
the 20's and 30's. Because the normal for a lot of cultures back then
and even some places today is to marry and have 4 or 5 children or more
young, and stay married, just as Peter and Marie did. They were taught
to stay with their spouses even if they have problems. I just imagine
that Peter and Marie had problems by knowing the kids getting divorced,
and not getting married, and becoming alcoholics and getting sick, and
things like that. But, also medicine wasn't what it is today in the
case of some illnesses, and maybe dad's dad didn't become an alcoholic
because of what his dad did, or he could have started drinking after his
dad died, since we know he lived with his parents in his 20's, at least
up until his dad died. There is no real way to know these things, what
happened in their household. But we just have a general idea of
things, by the records we have. California was also a very liberal
place even back then, and that affects things people do and attitudes
people have about life.
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