Martha Jane from Mansfield

If you have ever heard me tell the story about the Dutch cousin who contacted me in 2006 about genealogy ... in 2008 his wife, a linguist, wrote to invite us to Nederlands to "to take me 'back to the roots'" ... in 2011, he called one Sunday to urge us to come ... in 2012, we went! Dr. Hendrik Jan Dijkstra was the kindest person & his wife Kirsti opened her home to strangers for 9 days. Henk took us all on a grand tour, to tromp cemeteries in the spring drizzle, tour a castle built in the year 900, climb inside "molen" to see how windmills work, walk to the top of the dike holding back the North Sea. It was soul-building to stand on a corner where ancestors had lived, to walk brick streets they had walked. I found the "lost" uncle that Henk had begun genealogy to find - Wiebren was the grandfather of my mother's father. If you've ever heard me tell this story, you'll know how heavy my heart is ... having learned today that Henk died last week. He gave me as a gift my roots. Dear Henk. Rest in peace.

On the Occasion of Salome's Birthday

Nov. 15th is the birthday of Salome Skinner of Mansfield, Mass. This g-g-g-grandmother was born in 1808, the youngest of 3 daughters of Zebediah Skinner and Hannah Hodges. 

Zebediah was a member of the Smithfield Friends. His father, David Skinner, was a lieutenant in the Revolutionary War. His militia unit responded to the Lexington Alarm in April 1775. He was called out again in summer of 1778 to Rhode Island.

Hannah was the daughter of Nathaniel Hodges, also a militia member who served in the Revolution from December 1776. He is buried in the Town Cemetery, in the center of Mansfield. A DAR Revolutionary Soldier marker will be installed at Nathaniel's grave & a dedication ceremony will be held in April 2024. Hannah & her father descended from 1633 immigrant William Hodges, an original stockholder of Taunton Iron Works in Plymouth Colony.

Salome and her husband, Daniel Martin, Jr., had three children who survived childhood. One was Martha Jane, the name given my grandmother in 1912. Salome and Daniel, along with her parents and his parents, were Founding members of the Mansfield Anti-Slavery Society in 1836.

They had a farm. The 1850 census shows they owned a horse, 3 milk cows, 1 other cattle, 2 swine. They produced 40 bushels of “Indian corn” and 20 bushels of oats. The farm was valued at $1,200 (or $47,334 in 2023 dollars). Around that time, they also had boarders: a new local mine manager, his wife & 5 children.

Salome was the granddaughter of a Rev War Patriot; the mother of a Civil War soldier; and the grandmother of the town Fire Chief. She outlived her husband by 9 years, and is buried, with Daniel, at Spring Brook Cemetery, Mansfield.

World Poetry Day today ... Is anything more secure in your mind than that bit of verse you heard when the world was new & opening its arms to you? In my rocker in the Alzheimer's unit, I will hear Robert Frost speak of a yellow wood, swinging birches, and miles to go before I sleep.

On 22 Jan. 1876, a daughter, Martje, was born to Syste Pieters Luurtsema and Elisabeth Balsters. They lived in the farm town of Winsum, Groningen. This northernmost province of Netherlands was and is primarily agricultural. It is 17 miles from the North Sea.

In her teens, Martje married Wiebren Dijkstra, a “daglooner” (day laborer or farmhand). “Wiebie” had moved to Winsum, at an early age, from from Friesland province, to the west.

In 1913, Martje and Wiebren immigrated to America with their daughters - Elisabeth, 12, & Nieske, 23 years old - on the ship Rijndam from Rotterdam to Ellis Island, New York.  Their son Siebrand (Sidney) had immigrated the previous year & settled in Akron, Ohio.  The Dijkstra family were heading for Walpole, Massachusetts, where Martje’s older brother John was established after immigrating in 1888. John had a farm and was building a business as a milk dealer.

Wiebren worked first as a farm hand, later in a paper mill. In 1915, daughter Nieske married Jelte Bolt, another immigrant from Groningen. At the time of their marriage, Jelte was a farm hand in Randolph, Massachusetts; his bride worked in a mill. In 1920, Nieske, with Jelte & their son Corne, lived down the block from her parents, on Norton Ave. in Walpole. In 1930, the little Bolt family moved to Foxboro, where Jelte was proprietor of a gas station.

Martje’s youngest child, Elisabeth, married about 1925. She and her husband lived in Medfield, nearby, and had four daughters. Three died young. Eunice married a son of Canadian immigrants in 1950. She continued to live in Medfield until her death in 2018.

In 1930 the Dijkstras lived at 166 Kendall St., in Walpole. Martje was known as “Martha” to her neighbors. The census recorded the couple as William & Martha Dexter - can you hear a Dutch accent as the housewife answers the census-taker’s questions? That is how they are recorded on their shared gravestone at Maple Grove Cemetery, Walpole. Martje died in 1938, her “Wiebie” nine months later.

In memory. Vrolijke verjaardag, oma.

And the destruction did not end with slavery ... In 2010, the Justice Dept filed a discrimination suit against Wells Fargo alleging the bank shunted blacks into predatory loans regardless of their credit-worthiness ... In 2011, Bank of America agreed to pay $355 million (for) discrimination in its Countrywide unit.”