The band of seven Berghuis siblings. Four girls including my grandma who died a few days after giving birth to my mom and her twin brother in December of 1926. Adding the 3 boys Abraham, William and Floyd all born during the years 1897-1910 (including one set of boy/girl twins). The first born was Alida, born in 1897. She married Andrew in 1920 and started raising her own family on a farm near Sioux Center. Alida and Andrew had 7 children between the years of 1921-1937. Vera was born a few months before mom and Floyd, Norma arrived a couple days before the twin’s first birthday. It’s no wonder the motherless twins spent so much time at Alida’s house. She invited them over frequently to play with their cousins. It was aunt Alida who explained puberty and the facts of life to mom right along with her own daughters.

My grandma Coba’s youngest sister, also named Florence-with a twin brother named Floyd. My mom and Floyd were named after their aunt and uncle-it’s so confusing with 2 sets of twins with the same names-16 years apart. Aunt Florence got married in 1935 and moved to Sioux City (40 miles away). Mom and Floyd were allowed to take the train when they were about 10 and stay with aunt Florence and her husband Frank, including spending the night. Aunt Florence took the kids shopping and bought Big Little books for a dime each to read on the train on their way back to Sioux Center.

Mom’s aunt Lena was born in Sioux Center, Iowa in 1903. She was the 4th child born to the Pieter & Aafje Berghuis family and 3 years older than my grandmother. Both Pieter Berghuis and Aafje Beukelman (Americanized Peter and Effie) were immigrants from the Netherlands. Pieter was born in 1862 and immigrated when he was 19. Aafje was born in 1877 and was brought over before her first birthday.

There was a big age difference between Peter & Effie. They also differed a lot in their physical appearance. Peter was 15 years older and quite a bit smaller than his beloved wife. Mom said her grandpa Peter used to sit on Effie’s lap-hahaha. The reason mom was privy to so much information about her grandparents is she lived with them part time (the paternal grands had the twins the majority of the time-but they all had a hand in raising their grands). My grandma Coba was born in 1906, (the 5th child of their union) married in 1924 and died when she was 20 in 1926.

The aunt my mom remained very close to as a child and an adult was Lena. Lena was 23 when the twins were born and still lived at home. She was one of the reasons Peter and Effie Berghuis felt they should be in charge of raising the twins for the most part. They were both younger than the paternal grandparents, Guert & Jantje but the Wanningen’s had a bigger, newer house and agreed to hire a nanny for the first 2 years. But the twins spent a lot of time with both sets of grands.

Lena worked at the Dime store and cleaned a piano/music store in Sioux Center while living at home. She got married in 1941 when she was 38 (mom was a waitress at her wedding). Lena’s husband Steve owned a 2,800 acre ranch in Wyoming and only went to town for supplies every 3 months. He sold the ranch after they had been married a couple of years and he and Lena moved to Ireton where he did carpenter work. He was building a house when a gust of wind pushed him in between 2 rafters and he was paralyzed from the waist down. They moved back to Sioux Center where Steve started a business sharpening knives and saw blades. In 1959 after 18 years of marriage Steve passed away at age 64. They had no children.

Lena continued to live in Sioux Center in a small house close to downtown. I remember she had a beautiful antique oak kitchen cabinet filled to the brim with brightly colored Fiesta Ware, and a very fancy china closet. She died when she was 93 in 1997.

The only paternal aunt of mom’s was my grandpa Lakey’s sister. Jantje (Americanized Jenny) was 7 years older than her brother, born in 1889. She married Paul and was very ill (cancer) during her first pregnancy. She had a stillborn son, then she died the next day. Jenny and the baby were buried together. This was in 1918 so 8 years before mom and Floyd were even born.

When studying our family’s history you realize how fragile life is and how many times tragedy struck…

Mom was brought up in the church. She was raised by 2 sets of grandparents who were very religious. (One of her grandma’s peeled potatoes on Saturday for Sunday’s dinner) Dad went to the Methodist church sporadically when he was young. Kinda surprised for the first 10 years of their marriage my folks didn’t attend church-period. They joined Calvin Christian Reformed church when I was very young. My 2 sibs and I were baptized in that church in 1953 when I was 2-1/2, Larry was 7 and Mona was 10.

We were one of the few families from the congregation who didn’t attend Christian school in Rock Valley. I never asked mom why we went to public school. It might have been out of their budget to pay tuition for us. By the time I’d been in elementary school for a couple years, I had my own set of friends and would have balked at changing schools. Actually I did balk and begged my parents to switch churches when I was about 10. They did. I think the move was good for all of us. Dad was in the consistory several times, taught Sunday school and spoke at different prisons with a church group. He was very involved.

Both congregations offered similar studies for their children/youth, Sunday school, catechism classes, choir and when I was in junior high and high school, First Reformed had a huge youth group that met on Sunday nights. I wasn’t missing much, I got plenty of religion with summer camps, vacation Bible school and the rest of the Bible classes. It was during this period (I was 10) when all this churchy stuff filled my head and I was tempted to believe some things written in the Bible might have been exaggerated or embellished.

Really some of it is pretty far fetched. Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt, Moses parts the Red Sea, Jesus walks on water, 5 loaves and 2 fish feed a crowd of five thousand, Jonah lives inside a whale and is released whole and unharmed, Moses’ rod turned into a snake, manna falls from heaven to feed the masses, Jesus’ conception and Sarah gets pregnant at age 90, (not the miracle I’m looking for God).

But since it was in the Bible I believed it as gospel truth. If Jesus performed all these miracles was it too much to ask for a miracle of my own when I was a kid? I thought not. If He expected me to accept the Bible as written, to love with Him all my heart, accept Him as my Savior, I felt it was ok to request tangible evidence of Him being all-knowing and holy.

I realized He was busy with chaos in the world/sickness/wars/unbelievers and had a lot on His plate. I didn’t need my ‘proof’ to be a big burden. I didn’t even ask for a miracle. Not that my brother Larry be brought back to life, no riches beyond my wildest dreams, just simple proof and God was real and listened to me when I prayed at night before I went to sleep. Proving to this 10 year old that He really existed and heard my prayers.

Because it obviously wasn’t enough that God sent His son to save this sinner or that Jesus died on the cross. Believing He was the real deal was not enough for this decade old skeptic. He performed miracles before, I was just asking for one teensy miracle for proof positive that He existed for ME.

For several weeks during my 10th year I prayed fervently every night, asking God for one minuscule sign. “Please, please move my sock on the dresser. I’ll make it easy by placing it close to the edge, just ready to fall off. All you have to do is give it a tiny shove. Won’t take you more than a second. When I wake up in the morning and see my sock on the floor I will be faithful and never doubt you again. I promise.”

I thought God would be moved by my innocent sincerity. Impressed that someone so young was bargaining with Him and offering to become a better Christian. If I just got that one little favor. After awhile though, I realized God didn’t have to prove anything to me. He had already sacrificed His son. He didn’t need to give me proof. It really was the other way around. I needed to prove to God I was worthy of his sacrifice.

God be merciful to me, a sinner…

The year was 1970, the exact date I can no longer remember, but it was close to our first anniversary (September) and the weather was still good. Hubs was working at Channel 4. He worked a combination of days and nights, sometimes 8-5, other days, 4-10:30. His day shift included the noon news and making commercials. During the night shifts he directed the local news at 6 & 10. He liked doing the 2 nightly news shows but that meant us never having supper together. Since I hadn’t learned to cook yet, he wasn’t missing much.

I was pregnant (but cute pregnant). My second trimester with an undersized basketball protruding but not puffy, just a little belly. We had moved to Hinton, about 15 miles from Channel 4 and 45 miles from our hometown.

We sold John’s 1965 Impala, a cool car we hated giving up but, not-so-responsible Hubs had gotten too many speeding and reckless driving tickets and lost his license before we eloped. Sigh. No reason to make 2 car payments when we couldn’t afford one, so we kept my 1968 Mustang with its 80 dollars a month payments.

Two (and a 1/2) people, 2 jobs, one car, 1 driver. What a freaking mess. John was so close to getting his license back and I was just as close to maternity leave but those few months in between took a lot of maneuvering. (He actually drove a few times through this fiasco and we were lucky he was never caught without a license). Unless it was impossible, I drove him back and forth, sometimes dropping him off to work before 7 when I had to be in Morningside.

Hubs was working the late shift and needed to be picked up after 10:30 when Johnny Carson started. The engineer on duty would sign Channel 4 off the air with the national Anthem at midnight. I had gotten off work at 3, rushed home, changed clothes, grabbed my gift and zipped to Rock Valley for my friend’s wedding shower.

I didn’t have time to stop and see my folks or my in-laws while I was in Rock Valley but had a great time at the shower and was heading back to Sioux City, using Highways 18 and 75. The roads were 2 lane until I got past Le Mars, then 4 lane but not interstate. Not positive but I think the 4-lane was 65 mph back then. I had to slow down 45 then 35 through Merrill and Hinton. I didn’t want to be late and was making good time.

My infatuation with driving has been my steady companion since I became a teenager. The Mustang was a 3-speed on the floor and I loved driving it (although it was the biggest LEMON). The Mustang refused to start if the temperature was between 28-40 above, if the air was damp or if snow/rain was predicted within a hundred miles. The passenger seat broke every other week. Since it had more than 12,000 miles, nothing was covered under the warranty or ever recalled. But it was cute and fun to drive when it started (and my last Ford).

I was listening to the radio and getting back up to speed after going through Le Mars. Got about a half hour to get to Channel 4. These little Iowa towns are just far enough apart that once you’re up to speed, it’s time to slow down for another burg, this one was Merrill. Didn’t want to take a page from Hubs playbook on acquiring tickets (I did get one 30 years ago) so I start slowing down, finally downshifting to second. Not a lot of traffic after 10, but I’m not alone on the road either. Highway 75 always had traffic. There’s 2 lanes each way through town and I’m in the inside lane. I see the railroad tracks crossing all 4 lanes which means it’s back up to 45. I shifted back to 3rd when the car just ahead of me in the next lane slowed way down. I thought, what’s wrong with this guy?

I don’t know what made me take my foot off the accelerator, instinct I guess. I absolutely didn’t spot anything wrong or dangerous, but I hesitated, down shifted as he slowed and braked right along with him beside me, then came to a complete stop. I glanced at the guy to my right a second before a train just in front of the Mustang’s bumper roared past, rattling the car. My knees started shaking so bad I couldn’t let the clutch out or remember how to shift. The Mustang stalled and I just sat there. Frozen.

Had that car been a few feet behind me I never would have slowed down or stopped. To this day that’s as close to an accidental death as I’ve ever come. Pretty sure I would have lost my life and Shannon’s. I still think about that night during the fall of 1970. How many lives would have been changed or not occurred at all. Mom and dad would have lost their two youngest kids in accidents. My three children wouldn’t have been born. John would have been a widower at the age of 22. There but by the grace of God, go I…