01 April 2004

Dutch names in a non-Dutch church

I was baptized and grew up in a small Presbyterian denomination with a strong Reformed confessional identity. Although Presbyterians tend to have Scottish or English roots, there were a lot of Dutch and Frisian names in my childhood church congregation. Just a few of these: Auwerda, Dykema, Bosgraf (or possibly Bosgraaf), and Brinks. The Brinks family was especially prominent. There were two adult brothers and their families, and their mother, the elderly Mrs. Brinks. Many years later, long after our family had left that congregation, I heard from a member, who had joined in the meantime, that there was a connection between this family and the great Abraham Kuyper. It seems that Mrs. Brinks' long deceased father used to deliver groceries to Kuyper and his family in the old country.

Perhaps these Dutch connections explain why I was so easily able to fit into the Christian Reformed Church and Redeemer University College. That and my wife's apparent lineal descent from William the Silent and Frederick III of the Palatinate.

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