Stones That Speak: Mountains, Boulders, and Pebbles: I Never Saw Them Coming

By Dr. Ray Vander Weele

Dr. Ray Vander Weele embarks on a voyage of discovery and celebrates life’s joys, challenges, and unexpected turns in this memoir.

He shares the grief of losing a child and the anguish of saying goodbye to a wife claimed by Alzheimer’s—as well as the thrill of opening himself up to a new love and a new beginning later in life.

He writes about the awkwardness of adolescence, living through the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam; and surviving scarlet fever, heart surgery and cancer—and how avoiding polio and covid-19 helped create a new appreciation for life.

Some of what he recalls were mountains: obstacles that, in retrospect, it is hard to believe he overcame. Other challenges were boulders or even pebbles—although it was not always clear at the time which was which.

Join the author as he takes stock of the past and prompts you to examine how you’ve lived your life … and what you might do to enhance the time you have left.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664204577

Dr. Ray Vander Weele

Dr. Ray Vander Weele is a retired professor of accounting and finance. He has served as a consultant, author, and financial adviser. In all his capacities, including those of father, grandfather, and friend, he has shared his brand of wisdom without preachiness or prescience. His memoir will help you envision the ways in which we all matter and are all connected.

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Dedication

To my first wife, Phyllis Ten Pas Vander Weele, with whom I

shared a wonderful marriage and life for nearly sixty years.

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To our children, Jeff and Patty; their spouses, Dawn

and Doug; and our grandchildren, Marissa, Colby,

Colin, Andrew, Dylan, Allison, Scott, and Karsyn.

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To my new wife, Phyllis Palazzolo, and her

family, which is now mine too.

Acknowledgments

In truth this memoir has been several years in the making. And it wasn’t just penned by me. Its coauthors include all the people on whose shoulders I stood as I made my way through life.

Though you won’t find them listed here by individual name, you’ll discover them in the pages of this work, their words and actions as much a part of me as my own flesh and blood.

They include my parents, my siblings, friends and relatives, the men and women who gave me jobs, students I taught, and untold numbers of people who mentored me. No man is an island, and I am so grateful for them all in playing a part in my existence.

I want to single out a few. They include my first wife, Phyllis, with whom I banked the better part of sixty years’ worth of memories. She supported me at every juncture, believing in me and the ways in which I tried to make a difference.

I also want to acknowledge my second wife, Phyllis, who helped me to realize and appreciate new beginnings. She has been a blessing to me, and so has her entire extended family.

That would include her son, Gregg Palazzolo, the reason this memoir is so beautifully wrapped and arranged. He brought his talents as a designer to the pages and enhanced what I had put down in words.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to Tom Rademacher, a former reporter and columnist with the Grand Rapids Press, who served as my editor and cheerleader. He convinced me my story had merit, that our stories count for something.

Indeed, all our stories matter. We all matter, for we are made in the image and likeness of God.

Table of Contents

Chapters

1 Where Did I Come from?

2 Mom, Dad, and My Immediate Family

3 Coming of Age in Sheboygan, Wisconsin

4 Playtime

5 Brown Bags and Bent Nails

6 Staying Warm

7 My First Spreadsheet: Hours, Raspberries, and Eggs

8 Facebook and Twitter—Seventy-Five Years Ago

9 Luella Ellingson in Room 318

10 Falling in Love for the First Time

11 A Wonderful Wife … A Wonderful Life

12 Embarking on a Career

13 Making Decisions

14 Randy Is Dead!

15 Next Phases of Mourning

16 The Russian Collusion

17 Quail Crest Sign Conundrum

18 The Art of Listening

19 Managing the Master’s Money

20 The Isolation Alzheimer’s Brings

21 Surprised by Love, Again!

22 You’ve Got Cancer and COVID-19 Too?

Appendix

A Where I Lived

B Postretirement Activities

C Leadership Opportunities

D Opportunities for Consulting

Foreword

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering exactly why I’m even writing my memoir, and over time I decided on five reasons.

One, the two passages of scripture cited below, favorites of mine, remind us of who we are and what we’re about. Joshua reminded the Israelites, crossing the Jordan, to never forget the good things God had done for them. He provided food, water, and a safe exit from slavery. He spared them from the plagues. their eldest sons from slaughter by the Egyptians, and opened the Red Sea so they could cross through safely. People forget. I’d like my family to remember the many blessings we have been given, and this memoir is a metaphor of stones that speak—intended to help us remember God’s goodness. Despite all the mountains, boulders, or small pebbles we face, including the coronavirus scare of 2020 (during which I penned some of this memoir), God has been faithful through the generations, and I’m commending His goodness and faithfulness to future ones.

When the whole nation of Israel had crossed the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, "Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood, and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight."

So, Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘what do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."

So, the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the Lord had told Joshua, and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down. Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day! (Joshua 4:1–9 NIV, emphasis added).

One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts. They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works. They will tell of the power of your awesome works, and I will proclaim your great deeds. They will celebrate your abundant goodness, and joyfully sing of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love; The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. (Psalm 145:4–9 NIV)

Two, I recently married a Catholic, and when we celebrate the Eucharist together, we’re reminded of the word consubstantiation, a word with roots in Latin, which means together with. The body and blood of Christ, which we celebrate, are intended to speak to us as though Christ Himself is with us. It’s like we’re thinking of our parents and wondering what they would say to us during this time of national coronavirus crisis. Can’t you almost hear them speaking to you at times? I can hear my mother say, This too shall pass. This book should help us remember how we’ve coped with different impediments in our lives.

Three, Phyllis and I regularly attend Shawnee Park Christian Reformed Church. Our interim pastor, Henry Admiraal, is a retired, well-known, and beloved pastor. He recently preached a series of sermons on the topic Stones That Speak, and this is where I got the title of the book. He illustrated through pictures, stories, and remembrances the many times stones are spoken of in the Bible, and they all demonstrate a story. This series of sermons was so popular that people in the congregation began asking for a CD of all these sermons, because they were so well done—educational and spiritual, and brimming with meaning.

Four, life is like a series of mountains, boulders, and pebbles. Each has a place in your life and in mine. We’ve seen them all, have we? Mountains for me were the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, scarlet fever, and polio. I also had to contend with the death of a son, a wife who succumbed to Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease that came my way, and coronavirus, to name a few. When you’re climbing a mountain, it may seem insurmountable. Yet from a distance and after some time, while looking back, you wonder how you got over it. Boulders are life’s bumps along the road. Crashing a car into one is dangerous; in the Middle East boulders provide a good shade in the absence of trees on a hot day. Pebbles can wreck a runner’s gait if one is in the shoe, or they can break a windshield; on the other hand, they can be easily removed from a shoe, or a car can be fixed.

Life isn’t all mountains and big problems. I hope the stories in this book help you, the reader, to understand how one humble man coped with life’s many challenges.

Five, I think I owe it to my family by laying down some stones that speak as living reminders of God’s goodness in our lives.

A lot of people talk about how they have a book inside them. Or they quote others who have told them you ought to write a book. But guess what? Virtually none of us, who have stories inside us, ever write it. We end up doing other things, and while some of those other things can be important and significant, what’s more profound than leaving a written legacy of the person you were? Especially if it can move in a way that affects even one person in your wake?

So here it is, my life contained in words and images. It’s never going to be a best seller. But then that’s not the point. Maybe the point is that over the course of a lifetime, I’ve done an awful lot of listening. And the product of that listening is having acquired a little bit of wisdom. And I hope I’ve been careful enough and intentional enough to include some of those nuggets here.

You’ll learn what a coal chute is, how to pick beans, how to detassel corn. And that I never considered myself college material. I talk about contracting scarlet fever, about how my dad and I wore respirators to protect our lungs while at work, and about the premature loss of a son. You’ll learn about where I lived and why I never had to apply for a job. You’ll also learn about the significance of a brown paper bag and about Alzheimer’s, a new love, dealing with cancer, and much more.

You can read a lot about the past in history books, but those wouldn’t be my personal history. For that—to know more about your father or grandfather or friend, other than that he just kept getting older—you need to sneak some peeks between the covers of this book.

If you’re so inclined, I’ll be glad you took the time to explore who I was long before you were born or even a consideration. And I hope, as I’ve expressed above, that you will get something out of it. Maybe an appreciation for what I endured and how I both suffered and soared.

Here’s lookin’ at you, kids … of all ages. And when you see a stone, pretend it’s living and wants to speak to you of all your past experiences and blessings.

Dr. Ray Vander Weele

CHAPTER 1

Where Did I

Come from?

Whatever prompted the parents of my mother and father to come to America and become US citizens in the late 1800s? I often wondered what life would have been like had we been born and raised in any one of a multitude of other countries. But we ended up here in the United States of America—a blessed land indeed! Let me explain how this happened, and you’ll learn a bit of history along the way.

Early History

Would I have the guts to come to a strange country, about which I had heard only stories, and then start anew, grow, find a job, and maybe start a family? How about you? Would you do such a crazy thing? Maybe all you heard from relatives over there were promises of milk and honey. Where would you start? How would you do it? Would it be frightening? Interesting? Exciting? Today we’d have done our research, visited websites, and contacted people via FaceTime or Skype who were already there.

Our ancestors came, I’m sure, with mixed emotions and little knowledge of what lay ahead, and that’s why we’re living here. People from many nations of the world migrated to America, hoping to become citizens of this new land of opportunity. They arrived in small groups. In time, colonies dotted the land from Maine to California, from shore to shore. Individual cultures were maintained for several generations until the melting pot percolated and we, at least theoretically, became one nation.

Dutch-American, one of these cultures, is my heritage. Accordingly, I will concentrate on those who emigrated from the Netherlands—or more particularly, those who came from the Dutch province of Zeeland.

I have no need to do an Ancestry.com search for my heritage. Between stories and written commentary from relatives in the United States and the Netherlands, I can be quite sure I’m 100 percent Dutch, at least since the eighteenth century. That’s good enough for me.

In 1805 Napoleon stopped all trade, normal communications, and traffic between the European continent, England, and America. Agricultural prices were rather high, and those affected the Netherlands greatly. But the 1820s, and on into the 1930s, were also rather bad for a population supported by agriculture and where the production of the land didn’t change much either.

During the period from 1815 to 1855, religious freedom was also important for the immigrants. The state government was very influential in religious affairs, and the Reformed Church eventually seceded from the state-run church, the Dutch Reformed Church. The state church in the Netherlands was an integral part of the government, as has been the case throughout much of our Christian history.

In fact, the government at that time guaranteed the salaries of the clergy. Is it any wonder that certain groups insisted on organizing churches of their own? Being fiercely independent, the Dutch couldn’t tolerate being told what to believe and what theology was true. They were eager for religious freedom and wanted to organize churches of their own. The Protestant Reformation was, and still is, alive and well centuries after Martin Luther and John Calvin championed religious liberty.

In addition to this religious fervor, there was the economic depression, caused by low import prices of grain coming from America, plus increased taxation on those who could least afford it, a potato blight, and a cholera epidemic. Well, you can begin to understand how these tough times and forces wove themselves into what we call providence. Therefore, these forces on the push side and the American dream on the pull side came together and ultimately produced hundreds of offspring, from which I now claim my extended family.

Back in America

On this side of the Atlantic, Europeans had first inhabited New York in the early seventeenth century when a Dutch outpost, called New Amsterdam, was set up to collect beaver furs. The English took over New Amsterdam in 1664 and renamed it New York. Disputes between the colonies and the English government led to the American War of Independence of 1775–1783. New York was home to English soldiers throughout the war and was surrendered to American control only at the end. The city continued to grow all through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to become a world center for industry, commerce, and trade. The twentieth century also saw the emergence of Manhattan’s amazing skyscraper-filled skyline.

Throughout its history, New York’s shipping docks situated on the Upper Bay have been key to the city’s success; this arrangement was important not only for goods but also for passengers. Large numbers of immigrants, including John and Jennie Vander Weele and their sons, and Stephanus Gabrielse, came to the new world in search of a better life—and for all the reasons cited for leaving the Old World.

In 1855, to better control the influx of immigrants, Castle Garden opened as the first US immigration center and was replaced in 1892 by Ellis Island. Immigrants arrived at Chelsea Piers on Manhattan Island’s west bank and were then ferried back to Ellis Island for documenting. Immigrants were quarantined and inspected on the island for health reasons. The American government didn’t want immigrants coming who would infect current citizens. The Vander Weeles and Gabrielses were among the earliest waves of people to land at Ellis Island, which was well known as the first stop and processing center in the United States.

The waterfront area that is now the historical and enjoyable Liberty State Park was a busy transportation center. At the park’s northern side stands the Central Railroad of the New Jersey terminal, where immigrants, after being processed through Ellis Island, caught a train to their final destination; in the Vander Weeles’ and Gabrielses’ case, this was eastern Wisconsin. Today in New York, a two-mile waterfront path offers visitors a panoramic view of the Hudson River, the Statue of Liberty, and the Manhattan skyline.

Imagine the feelings of these poor Dutch immigrants, who had sailed for two to three weeks when they finally set their tired eyes on the dramatic Manhattan skyline. Crossing the Atlantic was awfully difficult in the nineteenth century. The cruel and unpredictable winds of the North Atlantic and usually bad weather in the early spring, plus using sailing ships heading directly west into the winds, were an experience most of us wouldn’t enjoy today. Sometimes the travelers could walk the decks if weather permitted.

Most of the immigrants had never traveled out of their country. They had no idea what a two- to three-week trip on the ocean would be like. There were poor hygiene, clogged toilets, and outbreaks of serious diseases, like scarlet fever, typhoid, and smallpox. Many children died. They were buried at sea.

Sometimes the ships had good weather, and most wouldn’t fare too badly. We don’t know how it was for my grandparents—probably in between, because we didn’t hear too many stories about their trip over here.

The greatest fear of immigrants was being turned away because they might not be healthy enough to pass the strict examinations. But both of our families made it through the voyage and customs examinations. And that’s why we’re here today.

The Vander Weeles

Before I wrote this chapter, I often wondered why a relatively poor and obscure Dutch couple with three children had left the port of Rotterdam, Netherlands, and sailed for the United States. I understand better now after having studied the records, writings, and stories my relatives and others shared over the years.

The Vander Weeles have a long history, whose roots we trace back to the 1650s. My great-grandfather was Jacobus Vander Weele, born in 1829 and died in 1875. My grandpa Johannes (Jan or John in English) was the youngest of five sons—Huibregt, Jacobus I, Quinten, Jacobus II, and Jan (John). Grandpa John was born on February