12 - Teaching
Jonathan: OK.
Mom, it’s November 15, 2025, and you are three sneezes into a six sneeze sequence, I think.
Is it true?
Laura: I’ve done five, but there’s more coming.
Jonathan: OK. Well. Glad to be talking to you again. It’s been a number of months. The last time we talked was July 4 of the summer. And we’ve both been kind of very busy and but glad to be back into the cycle of of interviewing you.
Laura: So I, you, you’ve got to pick something and then you’ll call me.
Jonathan: Uh, no, we’re we’re rolling.
Laura: Oh, it’s working now.
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah.
Laura: I don’t see you at all.
Jonathan: Yeah, there’s something. I’m not sure if it’s on the, because you’re using that new tablet that we may need to get Bob or somebody there to troubleshoot this, but we’ll deal with that another day. How about that?
Laura: Good. Okay.
Jonathan: So I was hoping to talk to you today and if there was a theme today, it might be about two things, transitions, turning points.
Laura: The turning places in my life. Okay.
Jonathan: I’m ready to go. Okay. Well, and we, I would just kind of preface this by saying in earlier conversations, we’ve talked about a really major turning point in your life, and that was relationship with, with Bob. And I think we’re going to, there’ve been other turning points in your life though, and we’re going to focus on those other ones in today’s conversation. Does that sound okay?
Laura: I’m going to start out early in my life and then I’ll try to make it sequential.
So are you, are you recording? Okay. Well, I was born in Baltimore and lived in Philadelphia. My only memory of Philadelphia was I was going to a preschool that was a Quaker organization. And so when we moved to New Jersey.
First of all, my parents could not afford child care in that situation. So I did not have any meetings or things that I went to for the first year. Then when my dad began to teach at Eastern Academy, that was very close to Fourth Street Christian School. And so I began kindergarten. Now my memories of kindergarten were walking down a big hill that must have been eight blocks and running dead into my dad’s church, which was six reformed. And the school was exactly behind the church. Now, I must have had to walk with somebody. I don’t remember who it was at all.
But I do remember that there was a transition from kindergarten to first grade that was very scary for me.
I think I’ve talked about it before. Miss Bordoon had a wooden arm. And as she walked, it sort of would rock with her as she walked. It must have been hanging loose from some kind of a joint in the sleeve of her blouse. But at any rate, that moving arm always was a threat. I thought that there was a chance she’s going to hit me with it. Years later when I talked to my very best friend during those days, Nancy Rose, she said she had the same fear. that she didn’t dare to be friendly to this teacher, that she was always at arm’s length. And I felt the same way. I felt that she was a big threat. Now, the transition there also included an order of how you went into the school. Everybody had to line up with their teacher at the basement and then the principal would release you going up the steps. Now, my transition there was that I had to always be in a line. I wasn’t free to move. I was part of a system. And that line, I didn’t feel like I was with friends. Part of that was that nobody walked to school with me. And so I don’t think that I got to school with a lot of time to play with kids. And I don’t remember play at recess time. I do remember that there was a parent conference where they included me, where my parents went with me to the conference. And that, that was when I felt safe with that teacher.
Jonathan: That’s amazing.
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: So mom, I want to pause just a second. Like that’s amazing that you have that vivid memory of, of a time that was a while ago, right? That’s, that’s really, that’s really neat. Like to counter your statement about you, you have a vivid memory of that.
Laura: But you know what’s interesting is that vivid memory was awakened again when I talked with Nancy Rose because she reiterated all of my feelings and I discovered that she had them too and that brought it all back.
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s neat. So now we have indeed talked about that. I remember you, once you get that image of a teacher with a wooden arm in your head, it sticks with you, even for me. So I want to turn the conversation slightly and say, in Turning Point, think about challenges or crises you’ve faced as an adult. And in that sort of Turning Point, are there?
Laura: I’m going to go through the years and the transitions.
So we moved to Grand Rapids. And the first transition was that my mother was very uncomfortable as the pastor’s wife. And so I remember clearly that we sat in a certain row, three rows from the back, and that we all walked out during the last hymn so my mother would not react with other people. The only time that I started to become a participant in that congregation was when I started studying Oregon. Oh dear, hold on, I’ve got to get this.
So scam call, I get seven or eight a day.
Jonathan: Gotcha.
Laura: So once I started to study Oregon, first of all when I’d be practicing, people in the congregation would come and talk to me. That was the only way I got to know people and got to talk with people because Outside of that, when we attended church, we left quickly. We never mixed with people. And I had to stay with my mom. So the transition happened along with my studying organ. And of course, after a year of study, I started playing in the service. And then within another year, I was accompanying the choirs. So that gave me Whole community to interact with and that changed my life a lot So then there’s some after a number of years of playing the organ and my dad wasn’t Then my dad accepted a call to New Jersey this was a huge transition for me because By then I was dating Bob seriously What’s curious is I remember that Bob was a leader. He was president of his class. He was also president of a big Midwest organization called Christian.
Oh, come on.
At any rate, he was the president of that, and I was the secretary.
Jonathan: Christian Endeavor, I think, is the organization.
Laura: Yeah, that’s it. And I was the secretary, so that brought us together in meetings and that began everything. However, that transition also included for the first time in my life, I was making money.
Now, I don’t remember allowances. I remember that once in a while I’d get a nickel when we lived on Halden Avenue and I could go one block away to the store and get either a popsicle that was two parts and I’d share with a sibling or some other five one cent candies. That was my handling money before I began playing in church and getting checks. Now, immediately my parents insisted that all of that go into a savings account. I don’t remember spending it. And there was never a time in New Jersey when I bought presents for my parents for Christmas. I just did not spend money, but that was the first time in my life that I was earning money. My parents were very, very frugal and that’s how I was raised and I think that’s how I’ve become.
Then when they moved, I had a big dilemma because by then I was seriously dating Dad and Agnes offered that I stay there. That was a huge transition.
Forgive me, I’ve got a cough.
At any rate, at that point, I became very aware, first of all, of what kind of man Grandpa was. He looked after me. when I was living with mom and dad to the point where one day he came in the house with $300 and slapped it on the kitchen table and told my mother that was my share of their car and that they should let me drive. So when I lived with him, he was also looking for opportunities for me. So one of the opportunities, he had I think three rental properties And he had to deal with these people and pick up their checks. In those days, they didn’t mail their rent checks. He would get them every month.
So he would take me riding and send me to the door to pick up the checks.
Also during that transition, it was the first time in my life that I got to work in a kitchen. When I lived with my mom and dad, my dad did almost all the cooking. My mother would clean up the table.
Dad and we girls would do the dishes. He would wash and we would dry. But cooking or even knowing where tools or bowls or anything was in my parents’ kitchen, I was not part of that at all. Well, when I went to Anagnosis, every meal she made a point to try to teach me how she cooked things. And that was very valuable.
It became especially valuable at a point where an Agnes was put in the hospital with pneumonia. So suddenly I was the cook because grandpa didn’t cook at all.
But I found out that in that period of change, he reported my cooking to Ann Agnes in the hospital. He would say that the potatoes weren’t cooked soft enough or he just made comments about my cooking. I really felt that I learned a lot about the kitchen and about cooking living there that I would never have learned at my own parents house. I am sorry.
Jonathan: You’re fine.
Laura: So then came the big transition getting married.
During the time that we lived apart, dad was going to Hope College, and I was living with Ann Agnes. And I had had one year of college where I had failed French.
So rather than go back because my wedding was.
Jonathan: Mom, I’m going to just pause a second because we have talked about this part in length before. So it might be.
Laura: I’ll just make it quick so that you know that there’s transitions here. Um, so while I was hired unbelievably with only one year of college, dad switched supposedly to Calvin. Now our best friend was Norm Meyer and Norm was actually the best man at our wedding because dad didn’t have any guys that he wanted for that position. And so Norm would report to me that Dad was not going to class at Calvin, and eventually he dropped out. So then I became pregnant, and that was a huge transition. And it was not only a transition to our living in a trailer, but this is the time in our life when Uncle Dick came to help us.
Jonathan: Aunt Pauline loved Bob. Hey, Mom, Mom, I’m going to just pause because we did. We have talked about this too. You may not recall, but I’ll do it quickly. I’ll do it quick. Yep.
Laura: So at any rate, Dick built us a house and that ended up being a disaster because after living there a little while, Dad wasn’t working and we had to sell it. So the transition then became living on Kalamazoo Avenue behind that little shoe store. Now, what’s amazing about that transition was I was teaching, I was having babies, and Dad was just starting with his Just-A-Writer machines. And the machine, all it did was type set. It looked like a typewriter to me except it had a screen. And it was at this time that there was a huge transition because dad became a really good salesman and so his business boomed and I stopped teaching to have more babies. Now the next big transition was to live down the street from my old grandma and grandpa Jansma. Now you need to understand that up until that time, I hardly knew them. The Janssen siblings never got together. And if my dad went there to visit, it would always be very short and they’d never talk to me. They would just talk with dad and sometimes in Dutch. The only thing I remembered about those visits was grandpa and his peppermints. Well, after that,
Jonathan: I’m going to pause for just a second. Help me understand who those people would be, and talk a little bit about geography too. Is that the Dunham vicinity?
Laura: Yes, that was Dunham Street, and they were two houses away. And it was during that time that Betsy… And who were the people?
Jonathan: Again, tell me, these were your dad’s parents?
Laura: Yes, my grandparents, my grandma and grandpa Jansma.
Jonathan: Their names were?
Laura: Her name was Mika.
Now they own their house, but we rented the one where we live.
Jonathan: If I can, because you have not talked about them at all, like you so far in our conversations anyway. Are there other things that that’s kind of fascinating to hear about them?
Laura: Well, the one time when I really got to be closer to them was when I was at Calvin for some reason, I needed a place to stay the last part of that year. I think that’s when my parents moved. And so Grandma Jansma offered me to stay there. Now, I don’t remember conversations with Grandpa at all. And I think part of it was because English wasn’t comfortable for him. By then he was retired, he was very old. He sat in the same chair. I don’t remember him going outside even. But his children would come once a week on Sundays and then they would have a kind of a group conversation. No food or anything. And my dad didn’t always do that because he was preaching and those were his busiest day of the week. So my understanding of those two, Both of them lived, well, grandpa lived to be honored too.
I felt much warmer a relationship with grandma than with grandpa.
Well, then came a wedding, of course. And that was a huge transition.
But I was still teaching at Walker.
And they loved me there.
And the principal wanted me to show off how I played the piano. And I was very uncomfortable about that. If one time when there was a junior high meeting of those students, he asked, he didn’t tell me ahead of time we were in an assembly. And he stood up and said, Mrs. Bartelson, could you play something on the piano for our students? And I didn’t have music. I had to just wing it. But that was a very affirming place to teach.
And in fact, after I’d had three babies, and after we were living on Poinsettia, they hired me back again. And I remember their coming to visit at the house that Dick was building. We moved in there when there was still some work to be done. And that is the place where Teddy fell on his nose. Did I ever tell you that story? The house was in the process. So some of it was livable and some of it was pretty rough. And Teddy was walking fast and stumbled and landed on an open crossboard and really cut his nose. We rushed him to see the doctor and the doctor said to just tape it because if he stitched it, it would make a personal, it would make a scar for life. So just let it heal by itself. But that was my memory of Poinsettia.
Jonathan: Then- Just a quick question. I’m pulling it up on the map here. Poinsettia, do you happen to remember the street number?
Laura: Well, it would have, it would have been after 44th street. So it would have probably been in the 4,600 block. Yeah. But by then there were many houses on that street.
Jonathan: It was really developing quickly. Cardinal direction question for you, extra credit. Do you know if it was on the East side or the West side of Poinsettia?
Laura: East side, on the East side.
Jonathan: And there’s Edsel, I’m looking at a map, 44th, between 44th and 46th. It doesn’t go that long, it loops in the Eastern. Edsel runs perpendicular to it, doesn’t it? Say it again?
Laura: Edsel runs perpendicular to.
Jonathan: Exactly, yeah. Yeah. So was it past Edsel? No. OK, so it was between 44th and Edsel.
Laura: Yes.
Jonathan: On the east side.
Laura: And there’s a church on that corner there, yeah.
Jonathan: Unity Reformed Church, I’ve seen it right here. Oh. Yeah. Do you think that, have you ridden by that house on Poinsettia? Not in a long time. But do you think it’s still, it hasn’t been cleared?
Laura: Oh no, I’m sure it’s still there, I’m sure. Yeah.
Jonathan: Okay.
Laura: And the fact that we discovered Bob was leaving every day as though he was going to work and he wasn’t and we weren’t able to pay any of our bills. Dick and Pauline were so good to us through it all and so he helped us move and then we lived on Kalamazoo.
Jonathan: Okay.
Laura: Yeah. Well, at any rate, the next big transition was
Of course, the divorce. But then after three years of dragging my feet, Gelm Van Oord and Dutch Walkers, who were my dad’s best friends, sat me down and said, Laura, it’s time for you to make a new beginning. You’ve got to make a life for yourself. So part of it included
Buying the house on Underwood.
No, no, no. I just stayed there. We had bought that when Dad was still with us. No, I stayed there. But I started wanting to work again and was fortunate. When I look back now, I was hired to teach at four different schools in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Walker Christian, West Side Christian, Oakdale Christian, and Seymour Christian. But Seymour is where I spent the most time, and Oakdale is the only one my children went to. So the transition from West Side to Oakdale to, no, let’s see,
A Calvin professor urged me and arranged for me to take a course at Michigan State with the professor who had written all of the lessons for the Right to Read program, which was going on and was government-sponsored at the time.
Jonathan: Mom, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but we did talk about this at length earlier too, so just a heads up.
Laura: I’ll just go through this all quickly. But at any rate, so that was the transition, because then I didn’t want to do what she wanted me to. And I had to find another job. And that’s when I went to West Side. Now, Dan Day was at West Side. And when he went to Seymour, he took me with him. And that was a happy connection. And I stayed there for the rest of my teaching year.
Now, during that time came the huge transition of drawing the plans for this house and building.
And I think I’ve told you this, because I had used the teacher’s money to buy all of dad’s equipment, his jester writers, he did not want me to be part of his business and I didn’t want to be either. So he relinquished the property and I don’t even remember He bought, let’s see, I can’t remember. It was a large number of acres. It was two lots that were 125 feet on the river each lot and deep down from the river to the road. So that was farmed. There were no houses. I used to drive the kids there and we would drive right over the field down to the river and have the picnics. So that was where I ended up building the house. Now, building that house was a huge project. And God was part of it for sure because the builders I found, and I don’t know how I found them, but I could not have found a better building. And that was proved in years to come in the way the house held up and also that my brother Ted used him too. So that transition changed our daily lives.
One of the things I remember about that was because it was hard sometimes to make a hot meal after teaching all day, waiting for kids who had things that going after school and not getting home till six o’clock. We had a project on Saturdays where we made mass pizzas.
And Connie told me, she remembered that she was the one who put all the red sauce on. And then each kid added something, and then we froze them. And that was my answer to busy days when I couldn’t make a meal when I got home. So that transition was a happy one when we moved here.
But then there were many transitions in my children. And they were significant, had significant effects on me. Ted moved in with Dad. Later on, so did Bob.
And I found out years later that those were pretty rough years of drinking and tickets for driving too fast or whatever. But both boys had a couple of rough years then. And I was unaware of it all because they weren’t living here.
However,
The children, because of all of the busing, we decided to try Dutton. Now that was a huge transition for my kids. And it meant that the bus picked them up every day. They started using the school buses.
And it was an ultra conservative community where a divorcee was scandalous.
And I felt that and so did my kids more than once.
However, there were a couple of good teachers there and it was a time when the transition to Heidi playing basketball other kids were having music lessons. That became such a big part of our life that we ended up going back to Oakdale. Now, that was not traumatic for me. It had to have been for my kids. It came at a time when Mimi was graduating. And all of our friends were going to go to South Christian. And she was looking forward to a chance to make a new circle of friends. And you were in your senior year. And that’s when we decided to go to Sierra Leone. I don’t remember having a big, long, stale talk to get you kids to go to Sierra Leone. I think that Jodi was more hesitant about it than Mimi was.
But it turned out to be such an adventure. We got to see a little of Europe. We got to live in a really simple setting. And during that time, both Jodi and I got into a ham radio.
Now, I did not have an antenna yet, but when we got to Sierra Leone, Jody rigged up an antenna and we actually talked with somebody in South America who was a Calvin grad and people in Grand Rapids and that was amazing considering how isolated and away from any city we were. The transition there was that I started teaching as though it were home school.
And it was awkward. I did not really feel like a good teacher. And Aaron Kortenhoven didn’t want to learn. He wanted to be out in the field where he knew the name of every plant and every animal there was. He was such an environmental scientist in many ways. But he couldn’t read and he didn’t want his mother to help him. So that’s why we went. I had him in six months at Seymour and then Mary begged me to come.
Jonathan: I remember that. And I didn’t understand it was a challenge at the time. But I’d love to hear, as you’re thinking about that, were you successful helping Erin make that breakthrough?
Laura: Yes. Yes. But Erin’s sister was taking a school program out of Kansas State University. So everything was by mail. And so I didn’t really have to plan. I just sort of had to supervise those lessons. And I could tell she didn’t like it at all.
Jonathan: But Aaron, as a student, was closer in age and curriculum to what you taught for many years. So just out of curiosity, do you recall special tricks or breakthroughs that you had with him that tested your professional ability?
Laura: Well, it started when he was in my classroom. He was nine years old and the rest of the kids were seven and he couldn’t read at all. So I made him the teacher. He would sit in a corner and we had all the sight words on little cards and every kid would have to go and Aaron would show them the sight words each one at a time and they would read them to him and that’s how
And he finally learned the sight words.
Jonathan: You’ve been smoking again, mom?
Laura: I don’t know.
Jonathan: Are you OK? Are you talking too much? We need to cut this short? What’s your preference?
Laura: Well, I’ll go a little longer.
Jonathan: So at any rate, but I want to go back to something you said, sorry. You made him the teacher.
Laura: Yeah. So that he, he sat in one corner and the kids took turns coming to him and he’d have to hold up each site word card and they would read them to him. Well, after he did that 12 times, you know, I mean, it didn’t all happen at once, but for a couple of weeks, that would be his role. And that’s how. he started back into my classroom. But then I used that wonderful book, 500 Words to Grow On, and each kid every day had to write in the journal. Now, at this stage, their phonics was awful, but I praised them for anything they would write. And when I would say,
Find the word apple.
What does it start with?
Can you think of another word that starts like ah?
I was using that book to make him think of things, and then I would say to him every time, hey, you’re reading. Hey, you’re reading. And it worked. So when they got ready to go, they only missionaries only stayed in Grand Rapids for six months. That’s when Mary begged me to go to. At any rate, the next transition for me was as each child left, either to go to college or work for dad or get married. I think three of my children were married in my backyard. Mimi.
Heidi.
Maybe. Oh, I can’t remember. And Scott, that’s right. Yeah. So I think that the one thing that’s sort of significant about all of it was We started a new life when we moved out here, and I think that my children really did like living out here. For one thing, the animals, just the nature that was available, suddenly they were participating and looking and catching much more than they did when we were in the city.
I also think that sometimes that ride from school to house was the one time when I would ask questions about what they’re studying or they’d ask me for a way to, for example, I remember a number of times when Connie asked me to help write a book,
essay that would be part of some big project she had to do. I don’t remember other kids having me write for them, but I remember doing it for Connie.
As the kids grew up and grew out, then I had two more transitions.
One, because I already was on the list of teachers of missionary kids, the CRC asked if I would be willing to teach missionary children in Honduras for two weeks, that’s all, just two weeks, while their parents attended a seminar. Now these parents were all scattered around. Most of them did not, did not serve with each other. And so their kids were all homeschooled. And so those parents thought, oh boy, we’re going to have a real teacher, good. And the kids thought, oh boy, we’re going to have a vacation, good. So I was in a very awkward position of trying to meet the expectations that were so different. And I was only there for two weeks. The first two days I had to spend assessing them. Where were they at? Where did I start to teach? Some of them brought things that they were already into. Some didn’t bring anything. So that was a very unusual transition That was a summertime when I was still teaching at Seymour. The other one was also a temporary.
I taught from June until January in New Zealand.
The way that that happened was I was organist and I was doing choir accompaniments and somebody who attended that church was a teacher in New Zealand and she said their Christian school was going to be ten years old that summer and so they were going to have a big celebration and they never had any music teacher before, would I just come through six months? And so that’s another transition that I did.
I retired when I was 63 years old. And I insisted that they do not have a retirement party of any kind. I just wanted to leave quietly
And so that was another huge transition. But by then, my kids were all gone. Amy was still in college.
So I guess from there, just transition to retirement, I still wanted to be productive. And I had an opportunity to be a tutor to fourth grade girls at two inner city schools that were obviously free lunch at the time, very, very poor families. One of the schools was Madison right near Alger.
Jonathan: Mom, pardon me for interrupting you, but this is like the the transition from your being a school teacher to your involvement in community and volunteer activities. Is that a, would that be?
Laura: So I still want to teach, but I taught crafts. Yeah.
Laura: And I taught just fourth grade girls.
Jonathan: I’m wondering now at a certain point, I’m going to have to actually pause this recording because it’ll for technical reasons. I’ll have to restart it. I wonder if this might be a logical place for us to pause and pick up the next time we talk about Uh, community involvement, your volunteer activities in with the crafts program with that. Sure. And would you like to, if you’d like to do that yet this morning, if your voice is holding out, we can do it or or we can, we can start fresh a couple of days from now.
Laura: Well, I think Saturday mornings are good for me. How are they for you?
Jonathan: They worked well.
Laura: Well, let’s do it next Saturday.
Jonathan: OK, that’s good. So this has been really helpful that all the major major transitions in your life. Mom, you you at one point you were saying I taught in New Zealand from June to January. You have very clear recollections of all this, and it’s just great to hear these details.
Laura: Well, that experience was So unpredictable.
What’s curious was they knew whoever had talked me into going there must have told them a lot of things that were praise about me.
So I think I told you about playing the church service there.
Jonathan: You may have, but tell me again.
Laura: Well, The first week I was there, they connected me with a widow. I lived with her. But I was invited almost every single night to some family’s house in that Christian school community. Well, the first thing that was amazing was it was my summer, but it was their winter. And none of them had clothes dryers. So when they’d invite me for dinner, we would sit with their clothes hanging from the ceiling, getting dry, their laundry. Almost every house had their clothes hanging in the house somewhere. But as I walked into church the first week, this guy came up to me and says, I understand you play the organ. Would you mind playing for the service today? Well, I didn’t have any music, but I said, sure. What do I need to give me the bulletin?
So I went up to the organ and it was one of those old pump organs, you know? And I played the service. Apparently they didn’t have anyone that played usually. And then on the way out, a lot of people said thank you. And the guy that had asked me in first place came up to me and said, oh, we’re not used to singing that fast.
Jonathan: That’s funny. That’s fine. Hey, I’ve got a straight question for you. I’m going to have to stop this recording. I’m looking on Poinsettia, this map. And I wonder if I were to read the street address. I think I have it narrowed down. 4518 Poinsettia? I can’t tell you. 4526?
Laura: I can’t tell you.
Jonathan: OK. It’s just kind of fun to pull this up on Google Earth and see. OK, mom, I’m going to stop the recording. And let’s see here. Remember how to do this.