Friesland and Friends You’ve Never Met Before

Part of our adventures in the Netherlands is to visit the places where our family history has roots. A couple of these are in Friesland, one of the two northern provinces in the Netherlands.

Wjelsryp (Friesian spelling) or Welsrijp (Dutch spelling) is the little village where Rose Dykstra Buss hailed from. This is Linda’s great-grandmother. It’s a tiny place, and so typical of this part of the country – flat, green, and a small collection of houses and farms. No wonder Michigan and Iowa looked good to the folks who emigrated to the U.S.

After Wjelsryp, we ventured southeast to the corner where Friesland, Drenthe and Groningen provinces come together. Oostewolde is the town where a “friend” from Ravelry resides. Gjeani is a weaver and Louet loom dealer. Her family runs a dairy farm in this town. We had a wonderful afternoon visit. It’s great to make new friends from people that you only know from the internet. Here’s a photo of Gjeani and I in her studio, as well as a couple of other photos of the farm.

I also received this wonderful book that is only available in the Netherlands. I’ve been drooling over the wonderful projects and photographs!

Next in our day was a stop at Ezinge, where my great-great-grandfather was born. We really don’t know anymore about Hendrik Reinekes de Vries other than this. The town is a terp village that is apparently quite significant for the knowledge which it has provided to historians. In the 1920s the peat diggers started discovering interesting items, which led to a large archeological dig which revealed lots of interesting things about the history of people in this area. Terp villages were built upon the raised earth mounds (terps) which were created to provide dry land above the level of the marshes and tidal flows. You can see the mound in the photos of the church and tower.

Wiegers is a name in my family tree, so likely a distant relative.

I don’t know why this chicken was hanging around the church, but I found the coloring to be fascinating.

The day ended with a hot air balloon almost landing on top of us as we neared the farm.