My Reformed Roots: Honoring Oma

It’s October 4, 2023. My Oma, my father’s mother and one of the greatest matriarchal figures I’ve ever known (or even heard of), went Home to be with her Jesus this morning. I had a long talk with my dad on the phone tonight, and I learned that one small gesture from my Oma to him was responsible for me finding my way to the Reformed tradition I hold close today. (She was responsible as far as secondary causes go; of course, my Father is ultimately responsible for that). That being the case, I wanted to reflect and process using this space, and I wanted to share with you this testimony to God’s work in my family. Here’s a bit of our (his)story. 

I was born into an old farmhouse, on a property that my family still refers to as “The Nursery.” The house, and the stereotypical American red barn behind it, sat on 27 acres of land in LaSalle Township, in Monroe County, Michigan (so close to the Ohio border that you could see the lights of Toledo in the distance). My dad was born into that same house 29 years earlier. 

His parents, my Oma and Opa, immigrated to the United States from the Netherlands back in the 1950s, having found a sponsor to come to the country and start a new life here after the Second World War. That sponsor was a man named Ilgenfritz, a nurseryman, and he had hired Opa to oversee plant propagation. The Ilgenfritz family had found success in the nursery business over several generations: The first patriarch, I.E. (Israel Epley) Ilgenfritz, started his own business back in 1849, and it had grown into the largest nursery business east of the Mississippi River, thanks to a successful mail-order system for selling primarily fruit trees. (Back in those days, my dad explained, there were no refrigerated rail cars, so it was hard to transport fruit over long distances. Everyone wanted to own their own fruit trees, and Ilgenfritz found a way to capitalize on that, while it lasted.) 

By the time Opa joined the business, the grandson of the founder (nicknamed “the colonel” for his military experience) was running the business, and–with all due respect–my father said, “He ran the thing into the ground.” He continued, speaking of my Opa, “He had a team of about 20 women who made hundreds of thousands of cuttings and what-not, but the owner didn’t know what to do with them, how to grow them on or sell them how they were. Opa propagated a bunch of stuff that was just thrown away.” 

But Opa wasn’t there to be a part of someone else’s business, anyway. “His dream was to start up his own nursery,” my dad said, and he started making a series of moves in that direction. “Opa worked [with Ilgenfritz] until about 1963. In 1962 he had saved up enough money that they bought a house on Cemetery Road. He started up a little nursery there.” Before long, though, “His sister, Tante Nell, and Uncle Harry talked him into California. So they sold the house on Cemetery and moved.” That didn’t last long either: “Opa hated it. They were only there for about a year, and then they moved back to Michigan in 1965.” Oma was pregnant with my dad when they moved back to Michigan, and they bought the Nursery that year. “They bought the house and 5 acres for $20,000. Opa started the nursery there and also worked for Continental Aviation, which is now part of Teledyne. It was a factory on Laskey Road in Toledo.” He worked there until my dad was about 4. “He hated that, but he did it because he had to.” 

Opa worked with Continental Aviation for about 5 years, until he went full time into the nursery. I asked, “What made him go from feeling like he had to have that second job, to feeling confident enough to go full time with his own budding business?” 

“Yeah,” my dad said, “It was a bold move. I gotta respect his courage.” 

At this point, I was making some big-picture connections between Oma and Opa: They were bold, embracing a call that reminds me of God’s call to Abram: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you” (Genesis 12:1-2). They left the Netherlands and their family to come to this land, grounded in God’s blessing. 

It wasn’t easy for either of them, though, really by any means. “Dirt poor” is a phrase my dad has often used retrospectively. Dad had just used the word “hate” to describe how Opa felt about California and about the factory job, and that moved me to ask what Oma thought about where they were when Dad was born. “Oma never liked the Nursery,” he said. “Opa always felt stressed, and she always had to support him, and that was always a burden upon her. She never liked–and I didn’t know that until much later, until relatively recently–that Opa pressured me to take it over. She always thought I could do something bigger and better. She never liked the house itself. Always wanted something newer and easier. I mean, it was an old farmhouse that took a lot of work, and I always kind of liked that, but she definitely did not.” 

It was a hard life. They worked, hard. Their kids worked hard, too, to help out and keep the business afloat. 

This is where the really powerful work of God shines through. “That’s interesting,” I said, “Because when I think of Oma, what stands out to me is how content she could be with so little. So in the midst of her having these big-picture things that she really didn’t like, she chose daily contentment?” 

“That’s exactly right,” my dad said, “She definitely willed that to happen–her contentment.” This exchange reminded me of a classic devotional work I’d read in seminary, Jeremiah Burroughs’ The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. Burroughs writes, “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.” It means accepting the good from God, but also the trouble (as in Job 2:10). “If I become content by having my desire satisfied,” Burroughs explains, “that is only self-love; but when I am contented with the hand of God and am willing to be at His disposal, that comes from my love of God.” Oma starved through but survived the Nazi occupation of Holland when she was a child. She remained poor and hardworking all her days. She suffered the nearly unbearable loss of her own child. Yet, when I think of someone I know whose life was marked by the virtue of contentment, Oma is the first one who comes to mind. 

She and Opa both persistently made effort to foster a loving, comfortable environment for their children and their children’s children, even through the hardships. My dad recalled that when his sister, my Aunt Lucy, was about 19, she asked him, “Paul, do you think we’re poor?” This week, while family gathered at the Monroe Lutheran Home to visit with Oma one last time, we spent time reflecting on memories of Oma. Aunt Lucy remarked again, “I never felt like we were poor.” Why was that? Oma’s children and grandchildren agree, “She had a way of making everything feel special.” Aunt Lucy and Tante Melodie (my dad’s two surviving older sisters; Tante is Dutch for “aunt,” and we’ve always used English/Dutch names and phrases somewhat interchangeably) both recalled fondly the Dutch books Oma would read to them. “She always did all the voices,” they recalled. My sister Rachel and I remembered that, too, and quickly agreed. 

When I shared that with my dad, who couldn’t be there with us on Tuesday, he agreed, “My mom always put in the effort to make the most of every little thing.” He remembered “the little stuff, like every breakfast, my mom had a bowl of Captain Crunch and two eggs on toast for me, and she always had something for me to read. It was, you know, little things, but they required effort. And she read me to sleep every night.” He’s always spoken with love and deep gratitude for how much Oma prioritized reading, especially reading to him from the Bible. 

I remembered similarly special little moments from my childhood. I recalled how she taught me to knit, and she’d let me do what I could to knit a scarf for my dad or a checkers board for my sister, but then she’d go back and fix it up after and make it presentable. She let me feel like I was an important part of it, and that it was really my work, even though she did all the heavy-lifting. I recalled how she’d send Rachel and me out to pick mulberries or blackberries in the yard, saying she was going to make something out of them, but surely knowing full well Rachel and I were going to eat most of what we went out to pick. We all recalled her homemade chocolate cake, and the way she’d present it on a tray with tea for us. She was great at taking what little she had and curating an experience for those she loved. We truly felt loved by her, and we truly loved her. 

Of course, Oma was human, and sometimes there was a shadowy side to these loving moments. “She was incredibly appreciative of everything she received,” my dad said. “Although, a lot of times, she’d privately say to me later, ‘That was stupid.’ So yeah, I could throw a negative spin on it, too, as far as that goes.” She could be blunt, to a fault, both toward and concerning people outside her inner circle; and in true introverted fashion, sometimes she was privately annoyed by the presence (and presents) of people. “But she was always committed,” Dad said, “like ‘I’m gonna be strong for everybody around me, and that’s just how it’s gonna be.’” 

She was so known for that strong, special, providing character, that it hit hard when it wasn’t there. Dad recalled, “When Maria [his older sister, Oma’s firstborn] died [of cancer in 1994], my mom was not capable of being strong because she was really hurting. That was a really profound moment for me. It was beyond her ability to just power through.” That hurt never completely went away, but Oma did power through, carried on God’s grace. 

I asked Dad a bit about Oma (and Opa)’s faith background: “They were both raised Dutch Reformed, right? Back in the Netherlands? And I know Oma as a really strong Christian, but she didn’t really live as Dutch Reformed. You’ve talked before about all the time y’all spent church hopping when you were younger…How did you end up Reformed?” 

“It’s because I was, you know, 14 years old when my mom gave me a copy of the Synods of Dort.” 

“Was that one of the pieces of reading she had for you at breakfast?” 

“Haha, something like that. So I read it and kind of forgot about it, but then I was at a Free Methodist church when I was 18, 19, 20–I don’t know. I was listening and thinking, ‘Something’s not quite right. It’s just not.’ I went to a new members’ class, and the pastor explained the Five Points of Calvinism and the Five Points of Arminianism. And that’s where I realized, ‘Oh, he’s wrong.’ When it was put so plainly, I realized why the Five Points of Calvinism had to be written at the Synod of Dort in the first place. They were responding to heresy. So, that’s when I became Reformed.” 

Dad also remembered Oma and Opa having a copy of M.R. de Haan’s Portraits of Christ in Genesis. “It changed my life,” he said. “It introduced me to typology. Not that his presentation of it was perfect, but I was like ‘Wow, now I get it. Now I understand the Old Testament.’ So she gave me that and the Synods of Dort.” 

“How did she get those texts, though?” 

“Well, Synods she would have had since she was a child. But de Haan, he was the founder of Radio Bible Class in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Elisabeth Elliot was in that ministry as well, if you know her. The book was published posthumously. When I was born, my parents gave a gift way beyond their means to Radio Bible Class. I think it was the residue of the sales of the house on Cemetery Road; I think they tithed it or something. They received a personalized note and a free copy of the book” as a thank-you.  

“Pretty amazing,” I said, “that God would put it in their hearts to give beyond what they reasonably should have, and that’s what brought that book into the house and into your life.” 

“Yes! Yes, it’s amazing.” 

“So how did they end up going on their church-hopping journey?” 

“Well, in roughly 1972, the Charismatic movement swept through America. There were two different prongs to what happened. One prong was contemporary worship, which started with an event called Explo ’72. A bus from First Baptist Church in Temperance, Michigan, went down there with a group of their youth. Thousands of teens went down–people who would be the Woodstock group a few years later–and went to that, and then went back to their churches around America and introduced contemporary worship into America. That event essentially started the contemporary worship movement. And then the parallel thing, the second prong, was the Charismatic movement, which came out of Roman Catholicism. It was a Neo-Pentecostal movement. It came, and there was a division in the church in Temperance. Opa was a deacon, at what was essentially like an Arminian Baptist church. There was a group there involved in these Charismatic meetings, and some of them were Sunday School teachers. Opa was sent there to investigate and to tell the people they were wrong, and he went to one of the meetings and was convinced that they were right, and so my dad [Opa] ended up becoming part of the Charismatic movement.” 

What did my dad make of that movement? Well, “A bunch of good things happened, so I would be loathe to condemn anything thereof, but there were excesses there that were simply counterproductive. Too much focus on the self, on prosperity, drifting away from God being sovereign and more toward ‘name it and claim it.’ Too much of the idea that God wants everyone to be healed all the time and you just gotta pray on that. Too much of those types of things that had them [Oma and Opa] drift away from their core of being Dutch Reformed. But,” he countered, “they had largely grown stale in the Dutch Reformed tradition, and there was a lack of fervor. So there was plenty wrong there. I had a professor in seminary who once said, ‘Dead Reformed theology is still dead.’ And yeah, that’s absolutely true.” 

Having been swept up into the Charismatic movement, Oma and Opa were commuting weekly up to a church in Bloomfield Hills, nearly 60 miles away from home. “It was a church founded by a couple of brothers who eventually died in a plane crash. Bloomfield Hills Christian Church, on Telegraph Road.” Dad went with them there when he was a junior and senior in high school, he said. “I had just gotten my driver’s license and drove them there every Sunday. Then they got sick of it. They got tired of it, wanted something closer and something they could be more involved with. They were sick of church hopping and thought, ‘We’re gonna do the best that we can. We’re gonna go somewhere and make it work.’” That’s what brought them to First Presbyterian Church in Monroe, Michigan–the church I was born and baptized into. 

They did get involved, Dad recalled. “My dad taught Sunday school, and he always drew a crowd. He did really well there.” 

“Would you say people found him to be…charismatic?”

“Ha! I see what you did there…I mean, he loved Jesus, and he loved the Bible, and that just came through. Very simple. Very straightforward. As I got older, I became critical: too simple; too straightforward. But no, God used him.” 

So, Oma and Opa spent many years of trying out different contexts and faith backgrounds, trying to find somewhere they could worship and serve sincerely. They never really went back to their Reformed roots for themselves, but my Oma prioritized giving my dad stuff to read, and the stuff she knew was solid Reformed stuff. That led me to ask, “So, Oma never really articulated Reformed beliefs. But could you sort of see, by the way she lived out her life, that she was raised Reformed? That she had that heart? Does that make sense?” 

“Yeah, I see exactly what you mean. That’s a great question, wow.” He paused, and then continued, “Part of it was her confidence in Psalm 91. The difference between Calvinism and Arminianism is the extent to which you are committed to the sovereignty of God in all things. That played out in her continuous, complete trust. It played out in all that Nursery stuff, too. When you’re convinced of Calvinism and the sovereignty of God, you just are sold on the fact that absolutely everything is in His hands. I think she was raised with that. I don’t know if this is a Calvinist thing, but her being raised in a Dutch Reformed background, you know about their commitment to the psalms. She truly lived in the psalter. That’s a great place to hang out. Shame on me, you know, I wish I knew the psalter better.” 

Both Oma and Opa, and through their faithfulness many of their descendants, too, trust in our perfectly loving, perfectly just, all wise and all powerful God. They prayed fervently, and they trusted completely, and God truly blessed them for it. 

I asked Dad about that–about “all that Nursery stuff”–thinking back on the story of Oma and Opa first buying the Nursery. “So, they bought the house and 5 acres originally. But we had 27 acres when I was growing up. So, he was successful enough to grow it to that point?” 

“By God’s grace, yes, it worked. He got 22 more acres…I’ll tell ya, Bears, when I’m asleep at night and I dream I’m back at the nursery, I wake up with anxiety and I’ve always got to go back to God and ask for forgiveness for being anxious because it made no sense that we did OK. I remember Ken Hoffman [Dad’s lifelong best friend], when we were probably 17, we were standing together on the barn roof,”

“Hey! I’ve stood up on that barn roof many times! Which side were you on?”

“Um, it was, it was the north side.”

“Ah, yes…”

“Yeah, and he said, ‘Man, I don’t get how this works. I just don’t get how your dad makes money. I don’t get it.’ And he was 17, you know? In retrospect, it made no sense.” 

“It’s like with [King] David [in the Bible],” Dad continued. “Archeologists were skeptical, because logically it could never have possibly worked. But later it was proven it did, and it’s like, yeah, because God just made it work. And honestly, at the Nursery, it was the same! We sold a low-grade product. It was crap. And people bought it. And honestly, they bought it because they liked my dad. We had the most loyal customer base in the Detroit area. He was the one guy who gave people nursery stock on credit and trusted them to pay it later. People recommended Opa word-of-mouth because of his character. It was God’s provision, completely. I think about that all the time. I pretty much started running things when I was 16, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I was a stupid 16-year-old kid, and God just made it work in spite of everything. I wake up thinking, no, logically this isn’t going to work. It’s only through God’s blessing that it did.” Praise the Lord. 

Oma, Dad, and I have always been very sentimental–painfully so. I used to think about how I’d wished I could have inherited that property to keep it in the family. My parents, when they got married, bought out the land contract Oma and Opa had on the Nursery through the Yarger family (who were the first Europeans to settle on that property). Dad kept the Nursery until shortly after Opa died. Most of my dad’s life, Opa hoped he–as the only son–would take over the business eventually. But in one of their last cogent conversations, Opa said to my dad, “Paul, you’re too smart to throw your life away on my dream. Go do what you want to do.” Having received that fatherly blessing, when Opa passed in 2001, Dad went to seminary and eventually into ministry, and my parents sold the Nursery. Dad used to speak more often about his lowkey regret in selling what was such a sentimental spot for our family. “I’m so thankful that you have memories of playing up on that barn roof,” he said. “It’s a great place to be a kid…But I’m grateful that I’m not there now, because it wouldn’t make sense. I’m in a place that makes more sense.” 

When he said that, I thanked God for that gift of peace and contentment to my dad and me. Sometimes we want to hold onto things we’re sentimental about–places, things, moments, and even people we have fond or formative memories with. Sometimes what looks worthwhile and right in our eyes isn’t ultimately what’s best for us. Thankfully, we have a wise God who knows what is ultimately best–not just for us, but for all of created history and beyond. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9, ESV). 

I frequently assure my loved ones, those around me in Bible study, and myself, “No one is ever going to get to the end of time and look back and say, ‘God, you didn’t do that right. That wasn’t the best plan.’” God’s designs are ultimately perfect. But on a very human level, it’s hard to look at the last chapter of Oma’s life and think, “This was the best plan.” There was pain, and confusion with the growing loss of memory, and loneliness. I felt guilt during the years I was away in Japan for not being there to be more involved in her final life chapter, and that tugged at me until I returned. Those who tirelessly cared for her, especially my Aunt Lucy and cousin Bethany, saw and shared in so much of the hurting, and I’ll forever be amazed by the devotion of family. “I pray all the time,” my dad said, “God, please bless Lucy for what she’s done. Count everything in her storehouse, because she has been a saint much more than I have. I did have the privilege of having a season of being very good to my mom for a number of years. When I was in my twenties, there was a season when I was really good to her. I knew how to make it something she enjoyed, and I did that.” 

We’ve always been what we’ve called a big “fifth commandment family.” It is, after all, the first commandment with a promise: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you” (Exodus 29:12). Oma’s children have been devoted to her, as she was devoted to them. My dad has made major life decisions in light of this command, trusting Jesus’ words, “[S]eek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). Dad trusted that if he sought earnestly to honor his parents, even despite their shortcomings, God would honor that. 

When I moved back to Michigan in August of this year, I tried to make a point of honoring her, too, while my dad was down in Florida and unable to do so. I went and sat with her as often as I could. Sometimes, she would be sleeping or in a group activity with other patients, and I’d just stand there and silently pray for her. On days when I didn’t know what to do–when apartment searching wasn’t going well, and when a second source of income wasn’t falling into place–I just went and sat with her, trusting that that was an eternally valuable use of my time. 

I went and visited her last Friday. I hadn’t been in a few weeks, since finding an apartment and moving to downtown Detroit, an hour north. But I’d reached next-level frustration in my job hunt, and I’d somewhat impulsively driven down to Monroe to watch the Lions game with my brother and get dinner with my grandmother. I’d moved here, in no small part, to prioritize being around family again. I trusted that going and spending time with my family would be eternally valuable. So I did, and in the morning I went to see Oma. She said “Hi” to me when I walked in, and she smiled. She was watching TV–the Drew Barrymore show. Drew was interviewing P!nk and a local hero of a nurse, so I sat down on the floor next to Oma’s wheelchair and watched with her. At one point, a big family picture popped up on the screen, and Oma said, “Wow,” and started counting how many people there were on screen. That’s as deep as it got. 

Before too long, she looked at me and said, “You probably have to be going.”

“I don’t have anywhere more important to be than here with you,” I said. “I’m in no hurry.” But I knew how my Oma always was with company. My dad remembered fondly, too, “I was very conscious of having you spend time together in doses. She loved you, and she loved being with you, she did. But then I also knew when she would hit her limit, and so, ‘Here’s Rachel’s raisins and Sarah’s chocolate chips, and now Daag! Tot Ziens!’” I didn’t want to go, but I knew that when I was young, to those not in Oma’s inner circle, “You probably have to be going” was code for “Please leave my introverted self alone now.” I used to be in the inner circle, and I’d never heard her say that to me, so it made me a little sad. Maybe she had grown and meant that phrase differently when she said it now, but out of respect for the Oma I knew and loved, I stood up and walked over to kiss her. “I love you so much, mijn lieve Oma.” She smiled and said, “I love you, too,” even though she didn’t know who I was. That’s OK. Oma lived a life that demonstrated her love. She made it so clear. I left, in peace. 

Oma also made clear her life’s prayers. She spent her life praying fervently for the salvation of all her children, and her children’s children. For as long as I can remember, my dad has prayed the same: “for your children, and your children’s children, and for every generation until Jesus comes back.” 

When I sat by her bedside on her last night with us, I held her hand and told her I knew. “I know what you’ve been praying for all your days, Oma. You’re tired now, and you can rest. I won’t let your prayers die. We won’t. We’ll keep praying. You can rest, Oma. It’s OK.” 

Oma couldn’t speak anymore. She spent most of the day not really conscious, as the nursing home staff made every thoughtful effort to make her as comfortable as possible (in large part to honor my aunt Lucy, who was a dedicated staff member there for so many years). For a few brief windows, Oma opened her eyes and seemed to try to focus and process her surroundings. I was in the room with my cousin Bethany, who assured her, “You’re not alone, Oma. We love you. So many people have come to see you today.” She listed them all off to Oma. I chimed in, “Paul says hi!” and Oma opened her eyes wider than she had all day. Soon, she seemed to have some troubles breathing, and pain returned as the time approached for another round of medicine. Though she struggled, I heard her painfully utter one word that I’d heard her cry out so many times on my visits to the nursing home: “Heere.” In Dutch, that means “Lord.” As far as I know, that’s the last word she ever spoke. 

As it grew late and our visit as a family drew to a close, we looked at Psalm 91 one last time. Sitting there at her bedside again, I took her hand and quietly sang her a verse and the chorus to “This Ole House,” the song she and I would so often sing together in her car. It was a song that always felt special, because she’d dramatically imitate the deep bass voice of the singer to make me laugh. (Typical Oma, doing all the voices.) I sang, 

This ole house is getting shaky. This ole house is getting old. 

This ole house lets in the rain, and this ole house lets in the cold. 

Oh my knees are getting chilly, but I feel no fear or pain,

’cause I see an angel peaking through a broken window pane.

Ain’t a-gonna need this house no longer. Ain’t a-gonna need this house no more. 

Ain’t got time to fix the shingles. Ain’t got time to fix the floor. 

Ain’t got time to oil the hinges, nor to mend no window panes. 

Ain’t a-gonna need this house no longer. I’m a-gettin’ ready to meet the saints.

“You probably have to be going, Oma. You can go meet the saints. It’s OK… Ik hou van jou. Mijn lieve Oma. Daag. Tot ziens.” 

Not needing this ole house anymore, she went Home less than twelve hours later, to meet Opa and Tante Maria, and so many other loved ones who have gone before her. I imagine she’s already making a joyful noise before the Throne, no doubt doing all the voices. 

All my days, I hope to honor Oma by intentionally practicing daily contentment, by loving on people and curating special experiences for them out of the littlest things, and by holding onto the Lord even when all my other memories fade away. 

Sources:

1. Burroughs, Jeremiah. Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. (SBN 1-877611-03-4)
2. Adamich, Tom. “Ilgenfritz Nursery Once a Grower of International Acclaim.” Monroe News. May 19, 2020. Accessed October 5, 2023. https://www.monroenews.com/story/news/2020/05/19/ilgenfritz-nursery-once-grower-international/1179819007/
3. You can read the document from the Synod of Dort (AKA, Canons of Dort) here: https://prts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Canons-of-Dort-with-Intro.pdf