Dutch Christmas Song: SinterKlaas Kapoentje

When we were kids Dad often had little songs and sayings that he would share with us. One of these was a little Dutch Christmas Song called "SinterKlaas Kapoentje." I asked Dad to share the lyrics of this song (with the correct spelling) and he sent me this information:

Here is the little song they sing in Holland on Zinterklaas Dag, which is on the 5th of December.  

This is how it is spelled in Dutch (Nederlands).

SinterKlaas Kapoentje

Gooij wat in mijn schoentje

Gooij wat in mijn larsje

Dank ja SinterKlarsje 

Here is how we might pronounce it in some kind of phonetic way. 

SinterKlaas Kapoontcha

Go-ee vat in mine schoontcha

Go-ee vat in mine larssha

Dank ya SinterKlarsha

Here is a translation in English.  

SinterKlaas You little elf

Throw something in my little shoe                  

Throw something in my little boot

Thank you little SinterKlaas

Gooij = throw

Wat = something

Schoentje = little shoe

Larsje = little boot

Rick recently did a podcast of both Mom and Dad and Dad actually sang THIS SONG in his podcast! Dad starts to explain the background of this song around (9 minutes and 40 seconds into the podcast and then sings it! ) I think most of the Westra kids have this song memorized!  

My Dad has some wooden shoes from his mission that we would often use for Show and Tell at school. Jeni is wearing them in this picture at our Girl Scout Cultural Night:

 I think this picture was taken on Dad's mission. It shows the Dutch people wearing wooden shoes.  

Perhaps we were celebrating Netherland traditions with my primary class in 1975 when we placed all of our shoes outside the classroom and then later found them filled with treats!

1975: Wendy's Primary Class in the Cottonwood 11th Ward (Teacher DeLora Gould)

(Back Row) 

Tally Lloyd, Robbie Lindsey, KirkWahlen, Tanji Anderson, Julie Monson, Michael Richards 

(Front Row)

 Joey Orvin, Wendy Westra, Anna Marie Tims, Wendy Woodbury

Memories of Mom for Mother's Day!!

For Mother's Day (May 11, 2003) I decided to send mom a list of memories! Here is the letter (from Wendy):  

Dear Mom, I thought I would share some more memories I have of you for Mother’s Day!!

I remember…

…when I was a small child overhearing you telling someone how obedient I was.  It really made me want to live up to that!

…how you didn’t want to share your testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting for fear you would get emotional.

….there was a particular Religion Instructor that you really liked. Some of the things he taught were things that none of us heard anywhere else and so if we heard some unusual doctrine we always figured that is where you must have heard it!  Kind of like the boys asking me, “where did you hear that – from your girl scout teacher?” 

….learning in family home evening that if we ever got visited by an angel all we had to do was give him or her the “handshake” test!

…us all goofing around singing “Jr. Bird Man” and using our upside-down fingers for glasses.  (You probably don’t remember this, but I don’t think I had ever seen you laugh so hard!)

….you telling us the joke about the “Wide Mouthed Frog” and the “The Army joke of  “We have good news and bad news (the good news was that they could have a change of underwear that day – the bad news was…John, you change with Bob, Bob you change with Jim….!”

…our multivitamin and little pink fluoride tablet by each of our plates.

…there were some big brown vitamins that we couldn’t stand to eat and so I would pretend to eat them but really threw them away! 

….watching home movies on the living room wall with the movie projector.  We loved to watch them backwards and would laugh and laugh when we slid up the slide backwards and zoomed backwards up the tubing hill!

…you would strategically place certain newspaper articles and clippings on the kitchen table for us to “happen to read” as we were eating.

….giving us bowls of apple slices as we were watching TV so as to get some fruit down us (I do this with my kids too – it works!)

…you told us that if we were ever in a bad situation where we didn’t want to do whatever it was our friends were doing we could always blame our parents “I can’t because my parents won’t let me!”  Or pretend to be sick and call you to come get me.  Or call to check in and give a “secret code word”  like “Geronomo,”  to let you know we were in trouble and needed you to “demand that we come home right now”.  Or call to tell you that we’d forgotten to feed the neighbor’s pet or whatever, so we could say that you were angry and demanding that we come right home!

….the aroma of yummy homemade bread and eating big slices of it right out of the oven with melting butter and home-made strawberry jam! (Now I am in the habit and make home-made bread for our family every other week!)

…delicious home-made fruit leather sitting out to dry on our back deck.

…dipping apple slices in sugar and cinnamon on one side to put on the dryer to make dried fruit (although we ate half of them before they ever made it on the tray!” And loading apricot halves for drying.

…boxes and boxes of coupons!!  You would go to the store and save hundreds of dollars by double couponing.  I said when I got married I would never go to all that trouble – it’s a good thing my husband does the shopping!!

…asking “when are you going to buy more wheat thins?”  You would say “When they are on sale!”  Now I ask my husband to get this or that and he says, “When it’s on sale!”

…practicing the piano every morning at 6:30 (Jeni and I  would trade off so that sometimes we were first and sometimes second – we loved to be second so we could sleep in an extra half hour – Now I am having Janika practice at 6:30 a.m. – it’s the only time it gets done!)

…whenever we were speaking or singing in church you would tell us to pick different people out of the congregation to look at who were smiling at us, so we would be less nervous and to pick out different people and give them a big smile (because we had such a beautiful smile, and then it would be natural).

….when you drove to Logan to bring me my mission call.  I remember I went off alone to the door of my apartment to open it, and then came over to share it with you. Later that night  I signed “In this Very Room”  at my New Horizons concert and they made the announcement of my ASL mission.

…you pretending to do laundry at 6:00 a.m. when you were really seeing why my current   boyfriend (who was sleeping over) was sneaking downstairs to my bedroom (you had made him sleep upstairs)!

…Rick and I talking in sign language on the couch in our living room so that you and Dad couldn’t overhear our conversations!

…you always telling us how lucky you were to have a good marriage and to be married to such a good man who helped so much around the house.

…you telling us how lucky you were that you were blessed with such wonderful children!!  (Although I’m sure there were many times you didn’t feel that way when we were acting up!)

…instilling the desire for further education within all of us.  It was never a question of whether or not we would go to college, but only a question of where we would go.  That’s probably why all of us graduated from college!

…giving me a date book to write down every guy I went out with.  I think I ended up with about 100 names by the time I got married!

…bawling when I read an apology letter from you that you had left on my pillow after we had gotten in an argument. 

…Easter baskets, New Years surprises, and Christmas stocking lined up on our white couch – with our favorite sugar cereal!

…making new year’s banners for each new baby and taking their picture (we do that too now!)

…spraying the white couch with furniture polish (which made it very slippery) and then running and sliding across it.

…piling up pillows in the hallway and running and jumping over them!

….playing “muddy mess” in the sand-box! (My kids love to play that too!)

…working hard to earn stars on our star chart (no wonder several of us kids have made  chart just like it for our own our families!)

….coming home from dates and coming into your room to tell you all about them.  I always knew you would be there asking me if I had kept the rules!

…playing games like Boggle, Progressive Rummy, Master Mind, and Pit.

…reading books to us (I particularly liked the one called “Marrow of the World”)  I think you really instilled within us a love for reading!

…Jeni and I talking in English Accents after we were in bed, “Sista, sista, is that you?  I think we are in a witch's castle!!”  (I don’t know if you ever heard us doing this or not!)

…mixing milk half and half with water and powdered milk to make it go further – yuck!  No wonder I’ve never really liked milk!

…loading me up with a car load of food whenever I was heading back to college after a weekend at home.

…receiving little rebate checks while I was away at college!

….going out to Pizza Hut as a family and getting an extra large pepperoni pan pizza and a pitcher of rootbeer!

Mom – thank you so much for all of the wonderful memories and for all I’ve learned from you.  I think it is neat that we children have passed down many of the things we have learned from you and I know there will be much more as our children continue to grow older.   Thank you.  again for everything!!  I love you!!  Wendy

What was Popular in the 1980's? Here you go!!

(Wendy) Since I have a little more time on my hands during this quarantine, I have been working on some family history projects. I am starting to digitize some of my childhood journals (or at least highlights from the journals) and making a timeline of these events to put into our shared family Dropbox. I found this entry pretty interesting: 

October 18, 1982: My Grandma and Grandpa Norman were on a trip to Mexico. I was disappointed because I had to ask them some Genealogy questions for an English assignment. When my parents got home they helped me answer the questions, but my parents or grandparents couldn’t remember things like what foods they liked as a kid etc. So I am going to write down some things in case my kids need to use it…

The popular foods now are pizza, fries, coke… I love pizza and sprite (I hate coke and Pepperoni and hot spices and stuff) but I do love pizza – yum! Popular clothes are Levi Strauss – Izod shirts, those kind of church shoes with the bows on them, knickers, bermudas, and vuarnet sunglasses. Also Jan Brady (white tennis) shoes – I love those and wear them a lot. Popular hairstyles are hair curled (flipped) up or permed. My favorite T.V. shoes are Fame, Different Strokes, Facts of Life – but I don’t really have enough time for T.V. these days – hope this info will be helpful!!

So when I was 14 years old I was thinking about my future children and how I could help them with their Genealogy assignments in their English class! Aren't I considerate, ha ha!! (First picture is at my Great Grandma Bohne's 90th Birthday Party in February). I just cringe when I look back at these pictures with at my big, permed hair! Jeni looks so cute in her childhood pictures because she kept her hair long and straight!)

Twirly Girls

The Wonderful Westra Sisters! Wendy and Jenny were marching in parades in 1978 and 1979, dressed in these tiny, sparkly red costumes, and twirling a baton. Really, it was all in the wrist, we never even attempted a spin with fingers. It was more about the marching. A red bow on the back of the head, or a sparkly headband with a feather ... in the "winter" costume, note the white earmuffs and the red pom-pom on the shoes too.

The leader of this incredible group was our neighbor across the street from our Hermitage House. You can see the group really varied in age (and height).  We marched in several parades and participated in competitions and I'm sure Scott, Chris and Shane just loved coming to watch!

Here's some of Wendy's memories from her journal ...

• December 1978: My name is Wendy Westra. I am 10 years old. I take piano lessons and baton lessons... My sister, Jenny is 8 years old. Me and my sister made up a routine in baton lessons, We did it to "It's a Small World." Our teachers thought it was cute!
• February 1979: For baton I did a routine to "Music Machine." It was my favorite record but the record melted and I was really worried because we needed to listen to it to do the routine because it was my best one and there would be trophies and prizes! Now I will have to borrow our neighbors. 
• July 3, 1979: We went to swimming lessons and to primary and then we took a shower and ate lunch and started getting ready for the Children’s Parade in Provo. We ate there and saw Cannonball and Harvey and we won second place out of the teams like drill, baton, pom poms, etc. (Last year we won first). We goofed up but the judges thought we were cute both years, but everything turned out pretty good.
• July 4, 1979: It’s the 4th of July. We were in a parade at Murray in the morning. Mom and Dad, Chris, Scott, and Shane came and watched us. There were lots of horses and I’m glad we weren’t after them because they went to the bathroom all over! There were people dressed up like Spiderman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.
• July 18, 1979: We had a slumber party at Shauneen’s house for baton. We slept outside and everyone brought a treat. We played games and had a lot of fun. They have a trampoline that we played on. I didn’t fall asleep till 12:30.

**FLASH FORWARD TO THE FUTURE

In 2012, Mom/Margie uncovered the little red baton outfits in storage. 

She passed them on to Wendy, and the Jensen girls tried them on and had a little photoshoot. 

Janelle, Jaiden and Jenna

Wendy wrote "One thing I remember (probably a few days before the parade) is Shauneen Hadley telling all of us to wash our hair really well the night before the parade so that it would shine! Then she told us that after we washed it -- wash it again! I thought that was funny that we had to wash our hair not only once -- but twice -- to make it shine!"

That reminded Mom/Margie of a memory ... "Talking about washing your hair twice brought back memories of how my mother always shampooed us once, and rinsed, then shampooed a second time, then rinsed. Then she rinsed our hair either with lemon water or vinegar water. The way she would curl our hair when we were little is with little strips of rags. She would roll a strip of hair up with the small strip of rag, then tie the rag to hold the curl in place. She would do this overnight and take the rags out in the morning----and voila, curly hair." 

Maybe Wendy and Jen should resume a routine and perform it at a family function! *Ü*

Little White Dress

The little white dress ... it was old, passed down through generations. Of course the Westra girls don't remember trying on the dress, but they were familiar with the pictures and some of the story behind it. It was over a hundred years old... 116 years old when Wendy wore it, 118 when Jenny tried it on.

Both of the pictures above were taken at Grandma Lucille's home (Wendy in the back yard, Jenny on the driveway). The dress was originally Lucille's grandmother Laura's when she was a little girl. Born in 1853, Laura likely wore the dress in 1854 when she was a toddler. I checked out family search to see if there were any pictures of Laura,  Olive (Lucille's mother) or Lucille in the dress, but couldn't see any. 

But there is a picture of Dad/Lamar's sister Sharon in it when she was a year old.

... and a picture of Sharon's daughter Alyson when she was a year old.

Fun to see a little piece of history worn by different family members!

Welcome Wendy!

When Wendy was at Snow College, age 18, she took a class that required the students to write up an autobiography. Here's what Wendy wrote (based on her baby book and interviews with Mom) ...

It was 8:15 on a Monday morning when a miraculous event took place on earth. I, Wendy Westra, was born on April 29, 1968. My parents were excited to have a girl after having two boys and had had my name picked out for five years simply waiting for me to arrive. At eight pounds I outweighed both my older brothers. The nurses fussed over my long dark hair and formed little curls on the top of my head. The first night home I very considerately slept the whole night through. I have loved sleeping from the day I was born! At six months I was a very active baby. I turned over and over, got around in my walker, and started crawling. At ten months I stood up for the first time. My first words were “Mama” and “Dada.” I became very attached to a pink thermal blanket and wouldn’t sleep unless I was holding on to it tightly. By the time I was 19 months old, I had been on five round trips by airplane. I haven’t been on one since, and have always wanted to. At age 1 ½ to 2 I began to take all my stuffed animals to bed with me. Luckily now I only take one stuffed animal to bed!

Mom added some memories ...  Since Chris's labor and birth was so long, I stayed home too long with Wendy and was only at the hospital a half-hour! She was my quickest birth and weighed 8 lbs. I remember being out in the sunshine planting a flower bed at our new St. Street home the day before she was born, outside the sliding glass window area of our family room. Born on a Monday. Never missed a week of church.  Regarding Wendy sleeping through that first night home ...when I woke up the next morning and realized that she had not woke me up in the night, I panicked, thinking crib death, and rushed to her room, so relieved to find her alive and peacefully sleeping! Regarding the plane trips; in 1969 we were flying to California (my first time in a plane) for the 2-3 month assignment for Dad's work, a flight to visit Nelva's family in California, and our flight home from California back to Richland. I hadn't even remembered that we flew to Nelva's and back, while we were stationed in Calif. until you girls were working on this project (it was written in Dad's history of that year). Must have been quicker and cheaper to fly and allowed us to have more time with them.

Originally - I hadn't found this "on this day" report for Wendy, so I Googled to see if I could find something similar. Then I located this file, but thought I'd include some of the other interesting facts I'd found from the year.

• 1968 was the year that the first episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood aired, providing a stable, warm cultural icon for generations of children. This was also the year that Planet of the Apes, starring Charlton Heston, was released in theatres. And one of the great bands of the 20th century, Led Zeppelin, performed live for the first time in October of this year. In another more mild development, Yale University announced this year that women would be admitted to the university, making it a coeducational institution.
• This year was also an important one for space exploration. 1968 saw the United States launch Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission and an important step toward the Moon landing. Apollo 8 followed not long after, when Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William A. Anders orbited the Moon. These men were the first human beings to see the far side of the Moon.
• 1968 will be mostly remembered, though, for the death of two major political figures in the United States: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Martin Luther King, a major civil rights leader in the United States, was murdered at The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4th. In addition to mourning across America, King’s murder sparked a great deal of civil unrest in an already tense environment. Robert F. Kennedy, brother of assassinated president John F. Kennedy, was a U.S. Senator from New York and was a presidential candidate in the Democrat Party. While campaigning for his party’s nomination in Los Angeles, California, Kennedy was shot on the evening of June 5th. He succumbed to his wounds on June 6th.