FAM6,19-22, 55P P1 album page, p2-5 Spring 1970 next to our house on Eastern Ave in Grand Rapids where we moved after Iowa City (a few years later we moved a few blocks away to a house on a less busy street, Griswold) p6 The “Buzans & Peters” this is at grandpa’s house (750 Plymouth, Grand Rapids) and I am not familiar with the Buzans, don’t recall meeting them… the big mansion, of course, is familiar. We had some good, fun times there for a few years, including Christmas parties, before the big breakup, & even a little bit after the partial make-up ; p7 album page; p8-10 The original Peters Sisters (minus Brenda) from youngest to oldest (L to R): Sandra, Barb, Diana, Linda, Martha (these are the girls from Grandpa Leo Peters first marriage, who helped him start Butterball) ; p11-15 I love this pic ! It has all the nice colorful (almost like “Plein Air” ) Lake Michigan feelings to it that I remember from the early days at Grandpa’s cottage in Holland. I can almost smell the smells & hear the sounds of the beautiful Lake Michigan shoreline …we spent a few weeks here every summer for many years along with Aunt Diana who traveled from Minneapolis with her two kids, Kaitlyn & Matt . And this is Diana standing by the canoe with some of the kids…could be any of the wide number of kids from the Kok family or Kamminga or the Peters 2 family… we all played together at that age & there was no animosity or friction (yet) ;p16-20 these pics are not all in chronological order…now this is going back to Iowa City, before we moved to Grand Rapids, & probably before we started going to grandpa’s cottage…I was born in Iowa City in ’67, one of our neighbors & friends of the family were the Aldingers, and we took some trips with them including this one to Lake Okaboji in 1968…this is another colorful pic that I adore, with sister Julie in the foreground (pink) next to who (lime green)? and the rest of the Koks & Aldingers by the picnic table (Stan bald across from his wife, Jim next to Stan) p.21-22 a bunch of kids, not sure who they all are, that is probably me in the front with the brown overalls, probably being held by bro Andy, with Julie next to me …although I am not sure in fact..the more I think about it, that probably is NOT andy..he looks to big..he is only 2 years older than me …& Julie being 4 years older than me looks too small to be the gal next to me ..looking down the row I see a boy with jeans & barefeet..which could possibly be me as well (JD white, for that matter, had similar features to me); p23-24 definitely sister Julie ; p25 you liu & hwaiug liu (?) getting married in iowa city.. probably some of Jim’s CPE students p26-32 here is linda-mom with bro-Andy & sis-Julie visiting Linda’s developmentally disabled sister, Brenda, in 1968 .. she was at a group home..maybe Chicago area (she has recently passed away (post-2000)) ; p33 album page; p34-41 the 5 original Peters sisters with Grandpa Leo visiting Granda Mills (Helen’s family) in Franklin, Indiana (this was after Helen had gone to be with the Lord) ; p42 album page; p43-46 May 1968: The whole Kok family (before Steve) …that’s Jim-Dad holding baby Phil-John, & Linda-Mom next to him, with Grandpa & Grandma Kok (Ada) holding bro-Andy & sister-Julie. I see the big speakers we have had for so long & mom’s cello ; p47-55 … beautiful pics of the “original three” Kok kids (before Steve was born) in Iowa City;
FAM6 23-24 45p: p1 original album page; p2-6 This is a beautiful nostalgia-evoking pic of us Kok kids with Jim-dad in Iowa City at a wide-open field-park playing on the teeter-totter, p7-10 sis-Julie , me, bro-Andy in Iowa City looking happy; p11-13 Painting the basement of the Iowa parsonage (church) including Don Swierenga (a name I’ve heard before), & the familiar green-&-white canteen in the foreground (I think they still have & use that canteen 40+ years later) ; p14-17 some of Jim’s “international students”; he continued to do CPE supervision with international students as a chaplain at Pine Rest Hospital in Grand Rapids after Iowa City (from 1970-84) ;
p18-22 This is another one of those Norman Rockwell-style paintings that I love.. here’s Jim-dad using his “new electric knife” to cut the the Christmas turkey in 1967 … so this is December of ’67 … I was about 11 months old…one more month to my first birthday …you see sis-Julie next to dad, & Linda-mom, and of course Jim’s omnipresent CPE chaplain students ; p23-30 Another great pic… with the Iowa City Kok kids & dad refilling the sandbox ! Nice old car (not so old then), big backyards with no fences; p31 original album page ; p32-33 I managed to pull out a little better visibility in this pic of young Jim-dad with bro-Andy & sis-Julie --- date on the pic says August 1967 (although that’s the developing date) ;p34-36 this pics SAYS IT ALL in terms of the unification of two families. This is the Kok & Timmer families. Remember, My grandpa Rev. Gareth Kok remarried after his first wife died at a young age in Holland, Michigan. He married Ada Van Zee Timmer, also a widow with 5 children of her own (sounds like Brady Bunch, eh ? only bigger, both had 5 children from their first marriage). I will try to name the faces: back row from L to R: Sherwood Kok (with his wife, Ruth, in front of him), then Gary Kok (?) with wife Shirley (definitely) in front of him ? then Bruce Timmer (with wife or wife-to-be Anne next to him ? Bruce & Ann now live in Manhattan Beach, CA and work for Aerospace); in front of Bruce is Kay Kok (apparently not yet married to Barry Bosscher) , in the front row the kids are probably most of Sherwood & Ruth’s (my late Uncle Sherwood became a lieutenant colonel for the US Army; my dad & mom are not shown here, nor are any of the Kok kids; p37-38 Grandpa Gareth Kok & Grandma Ada; p39-41 an old album-tarnished page (some of the blue marker ink used to write captions on some of the pages rubbed off on to the pics)…this is grandpa & grandma with bro-andrew & sis-Julie; p42-45 The Kok Clan in Randolph, Wisconsin … Randolph has important history for the Kok side of the family. I remember visiting an “Uncle Seymour Kok” & great-uncle “Henry Kok” a few times. It’s also a very Dutch area (Christian Reformed) , and even has a “Kok Road” . The town or village attached to Randolph is named Friesland after the Dutch province in the Netherlands)
FAM6 25-27, 40p: p1, original album page; p2-6 four days in Colorado Springs with Lew, Carol & Davy Stegink,… here they are at the zoo…with Jim standing by a statue of a reindeer and bro-Andrew & sis-Julie riding them ; p7-8 Jim with some of his friends & associates (church people?); p9-10 rock outcropping ; p11-14 young jim-dad & lin-mom with the first two Kok kids, Andy & Julie, probably Iowa City..i recognize the big brown hassock & the omnipresent painting on the wall ; p15-18 classic old ministry pics..Jim with a few of his associates and/or cpe students, not all of them were “international” …& baby Julie with her doll; p19 maybe where they stayed in Colorado springs ?; p20-22 December of ’65 says the date on the photo, nice colorful old-school pic of Jim-dad & Linda-mom holding Julie & Andrew; p23-26 Christmas of ’65 ..nice old sled with Julie (& Andy) in her bright red winter jacket in our Iowa City neighborhood; p27-30 March of 1966 ? here is Jim-dad holding Julie & some senior citizens (not grandparents) …maybe parishioners from the Iowa City church ; p31-35 I tried to touch this pic up a little bit..it was so covered with blue ink…that’s Doug Timmer (“Uncle Doug”) (the youngest of the Timmer boys) in the foreground, and of course Linda-mom with Julie & her doll, and Doug’s sister, Karen (“Aunt Karen”) (today, Karen lives in Fort Bragg, California, & Doug moves around, not sure where he is now) P37-40 little bro-Andy …who is my older brother, but little here .
FAM6 28-31 P1 ORIGINAL album page; 2-7 that’s linda-mom & jim-dad with baby Andrew & sis-Jul, probably Iowa city, mid-60’s; p8-11 is this the Christian Reformed Church in Iowa City where dad worked ? his first church pastor job. ; p12-15 “kok tribes” iowa city.. looks like my late Uncle Sherwood & his wife Ruth & their young kids as well as Grandpa Kok, my linda-mom, & some of the Kok kids, mid 60’s; p16 original album page; p17-21 “our 1965 swimers’ ……I think this refers to a summer missions group which they called “swim” in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC)..not sure who all the people are..but definitely dad-Jim on the far right holding the baby…& it almost looks like a young Eugene & Darlene Rubingh on my dad’s right (picture left) , It also looks like Aunt Diana on the far left … but I’m just guessing, could be wrong; p21-24 “my class” refers to linda-mom’s classroom…maybe her Sunday school kids or did they teach kids during “swim”? She also was a regular teacher for a while around Ann Arbor…. P25-27 one of the other classes ? or still my mom’s class ? looks like a different teacher or adult in the background. P28-29 “snack time” speaks for itself; p30 “gerald’s class”; p31 original album page; p32-34 nice pic of linda-mom with Julie ? and one of mom’s friends with her kids in the snow., presumably iowa city; p35-37 linda mom with two friends; p38-39 “we had a Christmas open house for church people, 1964” says the caption … lots of people there… ha ha. ; p40-43 apparently this is our house on MEADOW street in Iowa City, where I was born; p44 original album page; p45-53 great pics of linda-mom & jim-dad by a lake with baby Julie .. is mom going to throw a naked baby Julie into the water ? just kidding (or can’t you joke about those things anymore these days?. There’s dad on the diving board. P54-56 Sept 2, 1963 Jim-dad & mom with baby Julie p57-59 a loving father with his first child; p60-63 mom & dad not newlyweds anymore but new parents now… having a fun time on the canoe ;
FAM6 32-34 78p P1 original album page; p2-10 this is my Uncle Gary (the youngest of the Kok boys and who I remember from growing up in Grand Rapids…we often socialized with Gary & his wife Shirley and their two kids, brian & audra… brian was my age ..we also took several summer vacations with them, camping out west, and we co-owned a cottage on lake Michigan for a few years) and Aunt Shirley at their wedding, probably in grand rapids. I think Shirley was from New Jersey, but the two of them met at Calvin College; p11-13 this is my dad, Jim, with baby Julie ? in Hanford, California in 1964 where my grandfather Rev Gareth Kok was a pastor later in life (after Bellflower, Holland, Edgerton, Hills, et.al) p14-18, sept 2, 1963 …day after Jim’s ordination into the CRC…with his dad, Gareth, also an ordained CRC pastor; p19 original album page; p20-47 mom’s 4th grade class (that she taught) in Livonia, Michigan (near Ann Arbor) while Jim was doing CPE at University of Michigan hospital (I went a little crazy on the pics of mom, experimenting with the different functions on my photo editor…kind of psychedelic) ; p38-39 this may be the hospital where dad worked in Ann Arbor, or is it their apartment building? ;p40-49 well, this is definitely the hospital, so the previous must be their apartment building; p50-52 “shower gifts from Jim’s hospital friends; p53 original album page; p54-71 this is the land in Newaygo, Michigan, that my dad bought with his friend Tony Diekema …they planned to plant Christmas Trees and sell them…and they actually did clear the land & plant the seeds or saplings, but apparently never followed up on harvesting them … Tony went on to become president of Calvin College, my dad went into ministry .. and they still own the land as of October 2011 .. I went there a few times with my dad and later with a few highschool friends even built a teepee there one time with dave dejong & rick byle and slept there overnight (the late rick byle, that is); … lots of trees, very wooded now..& lots of deer, the people next door even put out salt licks (illegally) on my dad’s land (which I told them to remove one time)…wonder what will become of this land, if anything, some day; p72-77Woody & Ruth family Christmas, 1962 … I’ve mentioned my Uncle Sherwood previously..and ther’s some pics of him as a child with my dad growing up in Bellflower. Sherwood went into the Army after a few years at Calvin College. He rose up thru the ranks to Lieutenant Colonel and served in Vietnam as well as Germany. I think it was hard on him & his family. Sherwood died at a young age, and his son, Gary, as well as daughter, Kathy, also have already passed away. They had a large family including sons Bob, Sherwood Jr., Bill, Gary, & David, as well as daughter, Kathy. We had a few social gatherings with them from time to time. Uncle Sherwood also worked as a Kent County Sheriff deputy for a few years as well as at the county jail after retiring from the army.
