I'd like to introduce you to...

Wiebrand Stuive - He is the father to my husband David, the Opa to my kids and my Father-in-law.  Dad Stuive was born 95 years ago today, September 13th 1925, in The Netherlands.  Bill, as he was known by passed away into the arms of Jesus in August of 2012.  Shortly after the above photo was taken in the Netherlands, he suffered a stroke which left him unable to do much.  Bill has quite a history though and that's what I want to share with you all today.

 Years ago we were blessed with this book.  Inside it was a remarkable memory that Bill had shared.  I thought that today would be just the most appropriate time to share this memory with you all.  What I am writing below was written by my FIL (Father in law) so here I am giving him the credit for what he has written.  Sit back and be amazed like I was when I first read it.

A NARROW ESCAPE by Bill Stuive

 In the fall of 1944 I was delivering letters for people in hiding.  The Germans would censor the mail, so I collected the duikers' letters to their families, hid then in my bike frame and went to post them in a village across the border.  This way the letters would be coming from German, and they would not be censored.  In general I didn't know anything about the letter writers, some of them may even not have been living at the addresses I went to.  The less you knew the better, in case you were arrested.  However, there was one exception: an older cousin of mine was hiding together with a Jewish boy at my uncle's house, but the situation had become so tense that they had to spend their nights in the pulpit of a church.  You never knew when the soldiers would come and close off the street, and then go from house to house, from hiding place to hiding place.

In February of 1945 a plane was shot down close to my uncle's home, bringing and increased amount of German soldiers to the area.  A new hiding address had to be found, first and for all the Jewish boy.  It took several days, but finally it was arranged that my cousin and I would bring the boy to an address in my hometown Musselkanaal, and that my cousin would come and stay with my parents.  Everything seemed to be running smoothly.  We had dropped the boy off and were on our way back, and things would have been fine had we not run into a roadblock, where a collaborator recognized my cousin and knew he should be working in Germany.  I guess Germans wanted to be sure that dodging the Arbeitseinsatz was my cousins only offence, and we were both transported to SD headquarters in Groningenstad for further questioning.  My cousin knew he was in big trouble and calculated he'd better try to get rid of his false ID card, for he feared that it would not stand anymore careful inspection at the SD offices.  He somehow managed to tear the card up and let it fly in the wind piece by piece from the back of the open army truck.

 I'm still convinced we have been bloody lucky.  At our arrival at the feared "SD Hell" the Dutch collaborator who had taken is there as a German officer what he needed to do with us. "Shoot them!" was the answer.  Since that afternoon I know how it feels to have your heart pounding in your throat and to see the room turning and turning.

It was not to be; we might now have been important enough.  I just do not know.  We were jailed and later put to work on the defense systems the increasingly nervous Germans were putting up during those last months of the war.  In April 1945 we were liberated by the Canadians.

This is a British leaflet "De Wervelwind" for occupied Netherlands.  A range of about 22 of these booklets was airdropped.  For the Dutch these were one of the very few ways to get information about the war.  Many of the articles in the "Whirlwind" were reproduced in illegal newspapers and spread by the resistance. 

So there you have it!  The excerpt from the book that my FIL contributed to.  I have known my FIL now for just over 24 years.  That first meeting at the airport was a memorable one.  I had traveled to Ontario with what was then my fiance, David.  I was to meet his parents for the first time before our wedding that following winter.  We grabbed out suitcases off the carousel and were off on that hour long drive to Winona where they lived.  It was when we were unloading the suitcases that I discovered we had taken the wrong suitcase for me and I had someone else's stuff.  Mr. Stuive, as I called him at the time, called to the airport and found out that my suitcase was still there and that I needed to come and exchange suitcases right away.  On our way back to the airport his van broke down on the freeway leaving us stranded.  A kind stranger stopped and took David and I back to the airport where we could exchange the suitcase, but we had to now wait to come all the way to pick us up.  I never lived that mistake down and each time I would come to visit, he always made sure I had the right suitcase before we left the airport.

Bill was knows as "The friendliest man in Winona."  That was the small town he lived in in Ontario. Everywhere he went everyone knew him. He was involved in the Winona Men's club and each year in August he could be found at the Winona Peach festival in the WMC booth serving up peach sundaes.  When Dad would say he was just running to the bank a minute to "visit his money" he would be gone for at least an hour as he was a very sociable man and would talk with anyone and everyone.  I remember when we lived up in Houston BC, Mom and Dad Stuive came to visit us.  We would take a walk to our little local mall to get the mail.  It never failed that we would end up leaving Dad behind talking with this one or that one, meeting up again with him on our way back home.  

Dad Stuive was a very hard working man.  Now I know where David (my hubby) got his work ethics from.  Dad worked at Stelco in Hamilton Ontario.  He also owned a carpet cleaning business with his sons; he did janitorial work at the local Christian School, and at a few of the neighbouring churches as well as at the church he attended.  

Each Remembrance Day, Dad took part in ceremonies as well as took the opportunity to share his stories of being in the war to the students at local schools.  On Sinterklaas Day you could find him at the local Dutch store in Grimsby being the Sinterklaas that kids could come get their photo with.  He would also visit Shalom Manner to visit the seniors there all dressed up.  

Dad loved taking photos and would often put together slide shows for groups of people, mainly in the old age homes.  He was often invited by the Winona Horticultural club to come share slides of the flower pictures he took.  He loved taking trips to his homeland and visiting the Keukenhof in the spring time, taking beautiful photos.  He was never without his camera. 

We feel very fortunate that our kids were able to get to know Opa Stuive.  We would try to visit as often as finances would allow and they made sure they would come visit us as well.  

Happy 95th birthday in heaven Dad Stuive!  Also today would have been Mom and Dad Stuive's 71st anniversary.  Now they are celebrating together in Heaven!