Isabel Neill (1896–1978) was a newspaper writer, from Yakima, Washington. This is one of her stories.
Henry Wayenberg's Dream Fulfilled in Yakima Valley 2
by Isabel Neill (193x)
Cornelia Gerritsen says she doesn't know how her mother stood the dust and heat of those early years, although their family was much more fortunate than others living in tents which offered little shelter from summer heat and winter cold.
When irrigation became available about 1902, the homesteaders made lathe spout boxes and puddled them
into the head ditches to turn water into the row ditches. Sometimes the water ran into sage rat or gopher holes and made its way underground for a considerable distance.
Often, John Wayenberg came in, muddy to his knees, after stepping into a well-soaked gopher run. Wayenberg's ranch would now be called diversified.
He planted potatoes, for his family and to sell, vegetables for the table, and he set out fruit trees. Later on, he concentrated on pears, apples, and hay.
Both Cornelia Gerritsen and Charles Van Wechel recall the years they went to Central School where they studied alongside French youngsters.
Both the Hollanders and the French were clannish and tended to be intolerant of each other. In school and in the hop fields, where most Moxee families worked picking and training hops,
the two nationalities kept mostly to themselves.
The Dutch kids called the French kids "pea soups" and the French called the Hollanders "block heads" and laughed at their wooden shoes.
It must have been a difficult time for mothers.
The Dutch cemetery record lists so many babies and small childrens' burials in those early years. Two Kniepstra babies died in 1901, two De Haan children in November, 1903. A Schowstra child died that same year. Abraham Verstrate's adopted daughter also died in 1901.
The Schuts and the Siebouts (Sybouts) each buried children in 1904. But hard work and jolly get togethers of friends and neighbors were interspersed with these times of sorrow.
Albert Jongewaard was thirty-six years old when he came to Moxee in 1901. He bought twenty acres of sage-covered land, one acre of which he afterward sold for the Holland school site.
After clearing his land, Albert put in four acres of apples and pears, with the rest used for raising corn, potatoes, hay and sugar beets, the latter being a new crop for the area.
Peter Wayenberg furnished the following information:
He told the story of the early sorghum growers.
Mr. Simon had a press and told a Dutchman to bring a barrel. He brought an old lime barrel from his hops, illustrating that he did not understand the operator very well. Henry Wayenberg, an uncle of Peter Wayenberg, came in 1896. He was an instigator of the Hollanders coming out West, the Holland emigration from Iowa. He was a representative of a ditch company and went back East to obtain emigrants. He thus obtained the nickname of Moses, bringing them to the promised land.
This emigration was in 1900 and 1901.
In 1901 the Selah-Moxee Canal was finished.
The first Holland people belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, and the first services were in a church on the Moxee Land Company's ranch.
When the Dutch Reformed Church was built, it had morning services in the English language and afternoon or evening services in the Holland language.
Peter Wayenberg recalled the early schools of the Moxee Valley and his attendance at several of the early schools.
He recalled nature study expeditions in school and how the children scattered in the hills.
The present high school is back where it originally started-in the
Central district. It was first at the Central grounds, then moved to Terrace Heights and in 1936 to Moxee City. He was a member of the first basketball
team of Moxee High School.
Walter J. Purdin told a humerous (sic) story of Mr. Simon, who treated illnesses, diagnosing a case of measles. Edgar Haynes attended the old Riverside School. Henry B. Scudder had donated big geographical books to the school.
John Denton Beck, who passed away shortly after
the meeting, referred to the part that Moxee Land Company played in the development of the Moxee Valley.
Alexander Graham Bell was the largest stockholder.
George Ker was the manager or superintendent of the company, and Balfour Ker, a noted artist, was his cousin.
Moxee Land Company owned at one time 1500 acres in the
Moxee Valley and experimented with the growing of tobacco.
Dan Lesh was a manager of Moxee Land Company.
It was brought out that Albert Bateman's father came with the Moxee Land Company and followed Dan Lesh. Albert Bateman promised a paper on Moxee Land Company.
Mrs. Edward Mieras said that she and her husband are still living on a corner of land which her husband purchased from Moxee Land Company.
by Jacqueline Burns
Three little words, "The Thrifty Dutch, " is the way Mrs. Frank Gerritsen of Yakima described the pioneer Hollanders who settled in the Moxee valley more than a half century ago. And she should know. For her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Wayenberg, were among the first to enter the valley in March, 1901, and settle down to the business of developing the area. To Mrs. Gerritsen it was only yesterday when she walked three miles to school through the sagebrush wasteland in Moxee. She recalled many changes that have taken place during the past 50 years. Changes in the cost of living, farmland prices and changes that have affected the housewife. Land Price Jumped For example she said her father paid $50 an acre for his land in 1901. Almost 50 years later Mr. and Mrs. Gerritsen sold their ranch for $750 an acre and it was located only one-fourth mile from her father's original homestead. When Wayenberg started to develop the land he planted everything to see just what crop would be the most profitable. He later concentrated on pears, apples and hay. However, since the French moved in to the valley they have turned to hop producing and Moxee valley is now one of the major producers in the country. Housewife Fortunate As for housework, Mrs. Gerritsen thinks that the housewife of today has it all over her pioneer predecessors.
She remembered when telephones came to the valley in 1910 and electricity in 1920. She recalled when one of the first automobiles nicknamed "Doc Yak, " chugged down one of the narrow Moxee trails and frightened everyone for miles around. She recalled how the older Dutch women wore wooden shoes around the house during chore time because they were so much more comfortable than the "storemade" variety. Mrs. Gerritsen compared the older generation of Dutch settlers with the present and commented on the passing of the very strict influence of the earlier days. The Reformed church still stands in Moxee but the sermons are now preached only in English. Names Still Listed Mrs. Gerritsen has heard many stories about the pioneer families who contributed so much in the development of the Moxee vally (sic). Family names like Jongejan, VanWechel, Jongewaard and Boorsma. And Ludens, Huitbregtse, Zuetenhorst and Meyers…still are listed in the Moxee telephone director (sic). These are the names of the people who belong to the pioneer honor roll of the Moxee valley. Along with Mieras, Postma, Huysman, Schut, Swier, Verstrate, Assink and Wayenberg. And these are the people whom Mrs. Gerritsen referred to as "The Thrifty Dutch, " and their personal records help tell the story of the growth of Moxee valley.