We gathered around that dining table three times every day, and the meal did not start until we had all bowed our heads and our father had asked the blessing. After the morning meal there was also a devotional time during which a passage of Scripture was read. Each member of the family old enough to read had a Bible (King James Version) and verses were read in sequence around the family circle. This was frequently followed by prayers, each one kneeling by his or her chair and praying in turn.
In establishing this piety in his home my father was true to his Dutch heritage. He was the third son and the fifth child of eight born to Hendrik and Johanna Holt Brinks*. Jacobus was the name with which my father was baptized, a name which he later Americanized to James. While Hendrik had been born in America, his father Roelof had emigrated from Emmen in the province of Drenthe, Netherlands some twenty-five years earlier.
Roelof was one of thousands of Dutch emigres who came here during the 19th century. While their motivations were both economic and religious, it was their religious faith which kept them together as communities and gave them the courage and stability to establish themselves in the new world.
Their faith was of supreme importance. Frequently it was an entire congregation led by their pastor which left Holland and settled as a colony in America. Churches were erected almost simultaneously with homes, with the life of colony centering around the church. Letters written back to family members in Holland make frequent reference to ways in which the Lord had protected and guided them, or in adversity had disciplined them.
The colony and congregation with which Roelof emigrated settled in western Michigan. There he married, raised a family and worked for thirty-three years. Industrious and hard-working as he was however, he was unable to fulfill his desire to leave his children a legacy of land. Land symbolized wealth and security, and would.provide a livelihood for progeny. But as more and more settlers arrived land became more expensive, and he was unable to acquire enough wealth to purchase it.
When the Dutch settlers heard that less expensive land was available in central Iowa** some of them decided to migrate there. Roelof was one of them. He was 59 when he took his wife Jantje, his son Hendrik, Hendrik's wife Johanna and their two young sons and settled in Iowa. Hendrik and Johanna would repeat this action some four years later, moving from Iowa to South Dakota in a continuing quest for affordable land.
My father was born in Harrison County, South Dakota. Because of drought and grasshopper plagues, the dream of land soon faded there also. The family was forced to move again, this time trekking eastward by covered wagon to a Dutch settlement in Minnesota named Pease. This was in 1895, when James was ten years old. He remembered the trip well.
As they passed through the small towns and settlements in western Minnesota the family would be accosted by boys and young men who would taunt them and want to know who they were, where they were from and where they were going. Luke, the second oldest son and seventeen at the time, was resourceful. He made a sign giving all the necessary information which he would hold up as they entered a settlement, hoping to avert trouble. James, however, being of a more fiery temperment would pick up stones to throw at the tormentors until he was restrained by his parents.
Pease, Minnesota, then became the family home. It was where James would grow to manhood, working side by side with his father and older brothers on the farm. Education was an important family value, so in due time first Ralph, the oldest, then Luke left the farm to attend high school - called then Academy - and on to college. When it came his turn, James followed and graduated from Macalester College in st. Paul, Minn. in 1913 when he was twenty-eight years old.
From that time until he married at the age of thirty-nine he tried his hand at a number of things - although farming was not one of them. He taught school, ran a farm implement business, worked in the fruit orchards in the state of Washington and enlisted in the service during World War I. Finally, together with Luke, he tried to find his fortune in the oil wells of Kansas, but that bubble burst in a market crash in 1920. One could say my father was repeating his grandfather's and father's peripatetic search for that which would provide fortune and financial security.
James, however, did find his heart's treasure in Kansas, a beautiful, dark-eyed young woman named Florence Conboy, whom he would marry in 1924, and who would in the coming fifteen years bear him ten children, three boys and seven girls.
With marriage, the necessity of finding his metier was urgent and unavoidable. Luke had entered a Bible School and seminary in Chicago in preparation for the ministry in the Presbyerian Church. While all the factors which entered into James' decision are unknown, he did decide to follow his brother and become a Presbyerian minister. He and Florence moved to Chicago where he studied to qualify himself for his life's work.
By the time he took his first pastorate in Wisconsin in 1927, there were already two children, a son and a daugher in the family. For the next twenty-seven years until his death in 1954, James would serve churches throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska and finally in Oregon. The churches were always small, always rural or in small towns; they were always "linked", - two and sometimes three parishes, and the salaries were always minimal.
Even though the salaries were low, the churches did provide housing important for this rapidly expanding family. During those years James kept a cow to provide milk and butter for the family. Every spring he planted a large garden which put potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, corn and other produce on the table for the summer and much of the fall and winter. And his profession did permit enough flexibility for him to help a good deal with household chores, a necessity with his wife either recovering from childbirth or involved with infant care much of the time.
The growing children had their share of serious illnesses: rheumatic fever, meningitis, measles, chicken pox, etc. before the age of antibiotics and vaccines. One child, a little boy, was lost to pneumonia at the age of nine months. Yet the nine remaining children would grow to be strong healthy adults, who would all marry and raise families of their own.
All either graduated from college or took professional training for a chosen career. Three of them hold Master's Degrees and one has a Doctorate. This despite the fact that each child had to earn his or her own way through their schooling. The Dutch forbearers gave the impetus for higher education, even though they were unsuccessful in establishing a firm financial foundation to provide it. The family's young people received scholarships, took out loans, and worked, often taking a whole year off to earn money for the following year.
Each child had the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument. As poor as the family was, money would always be found to purchase a piano, violins, trumpets, etc., and to provide music lessons. Since I was the oldest daughter, I was the first to receive piano lessons. By the time I was able to play hymns - about age nine - I was recruited to play for church services, and for several years accompanied my father as he made, his Sunday rounds. The gift of music is one most cherished by the children of James and Florence, and it has born fruit in their grandchildren, among whom are several professional musicians.
As the adult children examine their memories and recall images from childhood, widely divergent views of their father emerge. He was a loving father but his love often took the form of harsh discipline. particularly toward his sons he could be stern and punitive, demanding a standard of behavior inimical to a growing boy's need to explore and experiment. At times he took too literally the proverb "spare the rod and spoil the child" while overlooking another admonition, "fathers provoke not your children to wrath".
His oldest son Jim says "I lived the first seventeen years of my life in constant fear of a beating - beatings which took place quite often ...they diminished somewhat in high school but were replaced with threats of removing me from high school if I didn't behave myself, and placing me on a road crew with my checks being sent home ...somehow I didn't misbehave quite badly enough for that to happen, but I never applied myself to learning very much either, a fact which I've had to live with the balance of my life."
Son David felt such strong pressure to enter the ministry that he had enrolled in seminary and completed one year at the time of James' death. Only after his father had died did David, then age nineteen, feel free to make his own career decisions.
James' physical presence alone could be intimidating to children. He was over 6'2" tall, big-boned, with large, strong hands extremely effective in meting out punishment when he was displeased. with his daughters he was also a firm disciplinarian although he did not, punish them as severely as his sons. Daughter Flo writes "When he gave a command it was not questioned..he did not hesitate to punish...also quite legalistic...he associated things such as wearing makeup, going to movies or dances as unchristian or immoral. Even being given a goodnight kiss by a high school boyfriend, when discovered was forbidden."
James had worked hard all his life and he taught his children to be hard workers. Daughter Anna writes, "I learned to enjoy work by working with him in the gardens, chopping wood, milking cows, washing woodwork, building fires, cleaning chickens, washing the car and drying dishes. The satisfaction he seemed to feel from a job well done gave me reason to believe in hard work." Flo corroborates this, "..he believed in work. I was pushed at an early age to work hard at home, then to seek part time work outside home as a teenager ...many vacations were spent schucking hay, picking beans, etc."
But there was another whole side to James which ameliorates his severity and strictness. Anna says, "He also knew how to stop working and to play..there was the need to go fishing, go on a picnic, go to the beach and watch the sunset or a storm...If the whole family could not go for a break he would ask me to go fishing with him. It seemed a time for him to be alone but yet have companionship." Flo also writes "he liked to fish to relax, and I loved to go with him. In Oregon he liked to drive to the beach in the early evening, especially after a storm while the breakers were still high."
I particularly cherish memories of treasure hunts he would prepare for us on a Sunday afternoon, often after at least two and sometimes three morning services. And Flo recalls "he would entertain us by preparing a scavenger hunt, joining in candy-making, playing board games, etc." One strong memory for daughter Alice is a reply he made to a man who commented that the children's play was hard on the manse lawn. He said, "I am raising a family, not a lawn."
And just as he enjoyed recreation with his own family, so he thought it important for the young people in his churches. Alice remembers him "organizing early morning tennis matches, long hikes in the country. His ever young outlook made for...discovering places of interest, drives around Lake Mille Lac in Minnesota, exploring the mountains in Wyoming."
One of the most telling elements of memories of James are his children recalling their joy in being with him, in spending time with him. Flo writes that she recalls his warmth, "as a teenager coming up and putting his arm around my shoulder". And Anna writes, "1 often went with Dad as he called on the people in the church ...and learned how much he meant to the people he visited." She also remembers him teaching her ..."in Oregon the joy of eating fruit right from the tree, warm and ripe from the summer sun. Often we could get the late picking, free after the harvest was over. It always reminded me of the story of Ruth."
Another reminiscence from Anna is particularly poignant. "I seem to have such good memories of Dad and I never remember not loving him very, very much. One of my most common and vivid nightmares as a child was that he had died and I would often wake up from these nightmares, crying, and would sneak into their bedroom to make sure he was there. I think these sad dreams helped me prepare for his death when I was eighteen. Even so, I was stricken with grief at his death. Somehow I was able to grieve and did for months by reading and rereading the letters he had written to me the weeks before he died. I read them every day for three or four months and wept because I missed him so much. I still miss him (after over forty years) and would love to go fishing."
Several family members recollect the very special pride he took in his family. Anna again is most eloquent. Since she was one of the younger children, she would observe that there would be tears in his eyes as he saw one of the older ones off on the train or bus after a visit. She would note how he treasured letters from them and would hear his prayers for each one. And Alice remembers "I can visualize the look of pride and happiness when he had opportunity to talk of his family."
Daughter Grace's memories of our father are particularly tender, underscoring other siblings' statements of his hard work, his love for his family, and his commitment to the spiritual life and the ministry. Her memories are included as an addendum to this chapter. James' life came to a close in 1954 when he was sixty-nine. He was still active in the ministry at the time, indeed had preached and held Bible studies just a few days before his death. His widow, Florence, would live on for an entire generation, dying in 1986 at the age of eighty-eight. They are buried side by side in a veteran's cemetery in Portland, Oregon.
His grandson, Robb Reed, born the year James died, sums up James' life well, writing in 1996: " ...an interesting and complex man, very human. Perhaps the best understanding we can have of him is by looking at his children and their children .. Considering we're all his progeny ...his stamp is indelibly upon us. Look how complex, spirited and multifaceted we've turned out to be."
The heritage of land and livelihood which Roelof wanted to leave his children, and which Hendrik also sought throughout his life was. not realized. But they did leave a heritage much more valuable, passed on by James and his siblings to their children and to the following generations. This heritage includes a high value on education, an appreciation for the arts, particularly for music and literature, an emphasis on living a life of service to others, and most valuable of all a capacity for faith and a strong commitment to the spiritual dimension in one's life.
Written by Naomi Reed, oldest daughter
* Donald Brinks, son of James Brinks' brother Luke, noted that the wife of Hendrik Brinks should be Johanna Hultgeerts, not Holt, as recorded in Naomi's story.
** Donald Brinks also noted that the family went to northwest Iowa, Sioux County, and not to central Iowa before going to South Dakota and homesteading in Douglas County, SD.
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| Donald Brinks provided this photo of James and Luke Brinks with the Brinks Bros. Oil Exploration, Independence, KS. Jim is on the left and Luke is on the right. |
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| This photo of the 1910-1911 Macalester College (St. Paul, MN) basketball team shows James Brinks as team manager on the right next to the coach. Photo is from the Macalester College photo archive. |
