15 - Friendships
Jonathan: All right. It is December 6th, 2025. Good to be talking with you again, Mom. How are you this morning?
Laura: Oh, I’m alive. That’s all I can say. I’m happy. I live in my house. My kids at this end have been wonderful about keeping me here. And the view is beautiful because the world is white out there. You can see the river clearly because Ted cleared so much brush. between in the backyard and between the house and the river. So it’s a beautiful, and the birds, oh my goodness. I can have four or five birds at a time at that feeder. And when there’s snow on the ground and they can’t find seeds, that’s where they come.
Jonathan: That’s a lovely part of that yard. I know this for sure. That’s good. Well, today we’ve got a couple different topics we could cover. I think we talked about this a little bit earlier. Maybe about friends is an overarching topic. And then we’re going to talk a little bit about religion.
Laura: So OK, well, let’s start with friends. The only friend that I really can remember in New Jersey was Nancy Rose and I kept in touch with her for a couple years after we moved to Michigan, and then I lost track of her.
But the first year that we lived in Michigan and I went to Southwest Christian, I only went there one year. And during that year, my father was trying to promote Christian education, but his church was not taking collections for them. He was charged the full tuition with no help. And that was for four kids. And so he was pretty angry with Southwest Christian School. And I was very busy looking after a Dutch family and walking their children to that school from Burton Street to Granville Avenue every morning because they had called my dad. My dad was preaching a Dutch service in the Sunday afternoons, and that’s how he met this family. So my one year at Southwest Christian amounted to helping a Dutch family and really not making any firm connections. But then I was transferred to Seymour.
Jonathan: What grade would that be, mom?
Laura: Eighth grade.
Well, at Seymour, I made friends that I still, I email, I still see regularly. And Dave Hollimans was one, Lois Hollimans, Rosemary Braun, and Mary Vandenberg. They became really close friends and they all still are now. But Mary particularly, one of the things that we do every year on her birthday and my birthday, we treat each other to lunch. So I keep track of her birthdays, but she’s always in touch with me to see how I am doing. And she has moved to Raybrook with her husband, Phil, who is failing.
It’s amazing, in the last year, in fact, in the last week, there were notices at the grave of classmates of ours who have died. Now, the grave has lost 40 members in this year, in the years and over yet, but two of them this month were classmates of mine, not friends, they were boys. It’s amazing that group of girls that were my friends are still alive and doing well. Now they’re all 88. I’m 87, almost 88. I was the youngest in the group.
That group of girls used to have slumber parties and a slumber party meant you stayed overnight. My mom would never ever have one at our house so I never was host to one. but both Mary and Rosemary were regularly. And we have crazy funny memories of those sleepovers and their parents, their mothers were always hospitable and in some ways even participating in the fun that we were having. So that’s my earliest memories of those friends. And it went through high school. Some of them went on to college. I did for just one year, but Lois went to nursing school. Rosemary and Mary both went to Calvin. And Dave Hollomans started his own business and he ended up painting my house more than once, helping me move heavy things with his truck. He was just a very dear helper and he married Lois and now he is in the assistant living section at Raybrook and has been there for more than two years. So their bill every month would be around seven or $8,000 depending on the services he gets. And Lois said that they had paid $400,000 And after that, they didn’t have to pay anymore. Medicare covered the rest. So that’s how I keep in track with Lois because she doesn’t go many places. She’s living at Raybrooke in an apartment while her husband is in assisted living. But both of them I count as dear friends. Rosemary lives in Holland and her husband died and she was a nurse. And I rarely see her anymore, but I do get emails once in a while. And then Mary and I are in touch all the time by email. Her daughter was one of my student teachers. And over the years, I have been in touch with her kids, too, not as much. But I think of all of my friends She’s the strongest one. But I have friends as a result of my teaching. And what’s particularly interesting is the friends that have come up on Facebook because they remembered me teaching their children. And there are, oh, I would think maybe seven or eight of them. who I hear from once in a while, they report what their children are doing or where they’ve moved to or whether they had a new baby. At any rate, one of those particularly that became a good friend is Mary Spier. Mary was a Vandenberg, John Vandenberg’s daughter. John was the one, he and his wife, who helped me again and again They were members at Fuller, and he was the one that got me scholarships to go to Calvin because he was vice president of that college before it became a university, which it is now.
Interestingly, I had established a scholarship at Calvin because I really needed one in those days and appreciated getting it so I set up a fund and every year when it was RMD time I always submitted there. I can’t believe the interest rate that that fund has accumulated. Now I have 160,000 in there and the interest from that 160,000 has paid for three girls to get $2,200 in scholarships from me this year. So I don’t even contribute anymore, but I am making new friends because every time they get a notice and get my address, they write me a letter of thanks, and then I usually invite them for lunch. And a couple of them, one is now a pastor. and in Canada, I still get emails from them. So these are friends that I’ve made late in life just by my connection to Calvin and they’re receiving scholarships from me. The other place where I continue to get friends is through the grave. Their Bible study group has, I think, 11 gals, but it is such a choice group of women And in that group is Merle.
Merle, come on. Oh, I’m drawing blanks.
Jonathan: Mustard.
Laura: Yes. Betty is the one.
Jonathan: You have Mrs. Lantinga in there?
Laura: Yes. Yes, she is. And yeah, there’s just a couple of other choice women that are, they keep in touch with me to see how I am, offer to come out. And so in my old age, I have a new circle of friends through the church.
Jonathan: That’s really good. That’s great, Mom. Terrific dialogue about all that. You have maintained friendships with some of these people for decades.
Not very many people do that. What do you attribute that to?
Laura: Well, Mary and I were so close. And emails are a wonderful way. I mean, it didn’t start like that. It started with telephone calls and getting together. And at one point, it was getting together with four girls, Rosemary, Lois, Mary, and me. And now Lois is pretty well tied to Raybrooke with her husband, and Rosemary lives in Holland. But Mary has always lived in Grand Rapids and always been a telephone friend. However, email makes that friendship a whole lot easier because anything new or funny that happens we share by messages. So we don’t talk as much as we message and email is a wonderful gift. So email has been one way that I have continued to contribute with Mrs. Lendinga, with Betty Mustert too. I don’t see them, but I speak to them. Another one that I really have grown to love is Karen Henry. Her name is Karen Henry Stokes now, but both of her children who I had have been in touch with me. In fact, just yesterday I got a Christmas card from Megan who lives in Florida with a picture of all of her family. and a nice summary of where her kids are and what’s been happening in her life. So those are long-term friendships that are usually cultivated only once or twice a year, but they’re still really precious to me. And there have been a couple of other ones, the Bratt family.
Jonathan: Name some of them. Tell me the first names of that, of the Bratt family.
Laura: Scott, Mary. Well, there was one Bratt that taught at Oakdale, and I can’t think of what his name was, but these are relatives of his.
Jonathan: Mr. Bert Bratt taught at Oakdale.
Laura: I think that one of them is one of his daughters. And one of them is a grandson of his.
Jonathan: And how is it that you’re friends with them again? Is that through the grave or from your teaching?
Laura: It was it was they were their children were my students.
And so They’ll send me an email mentioning that their child had spoken of a memory long ago of when they were in my room.
That would be probably the biggest kinds of conversation that we would have would be memories from my classroom.
The other was, I started Oakdale mid-year when Mrs. Monsma had to quit. And the first day that I taught was President Nixon’s birthday.
Jonathan: And at the- No, I wanna just ask you, we talked about this last week about your sending a list of birthday greetings to the congressional record.
Laura: Yes, I have four copies of the congressional record. My first day of teaching at Oakdale is on record there. Well, that came up as a memory from one of the parents sometime during the last year. The other memory one of them had was of me and all my children dressing up for something.
I don’t, I, I think you had a huge wig on.
Jonathan: Well, this would have been Halloween where we dressed as characters from the Wizard of Oz.
Laura: Okay. Because our whole family, all the kids that were there and I, we all did it. And I know that it was one theme. So you’re right. I didn’t remember all of that, but someone mentioned that. So it’s it’s funny how sometimes A memory comes up that’s so old. I mean, that’s decades, you know? Well, between, I guess that I really listen to my source of friends.
They’re precious to me. I know that Mary once told me, when you die, be sure that you’re kids put it on Facebook because there are a lot of people who don’t know Le Grave, who don’t go to Le Grave and wouldn’t see it in the bulletin, but would surely want to know. For example, Bob Ipple, Chuck Ipple. Now Chuck has been a friend over the years by email. He now lives in
Holland or along the lakeshore somewhere. He is managing the repair of sand dunes because of the high water and So he has an interesting job and he’s been in touch with me particularly because When his two daughters were at Oakdale his wife left him and He was in the throes of moving and I offered to take his two girls, and they stayed at our house for a week, and then I made their lunches for another week or two, and that cemented my friendship with Chuck for years to come.
Jonathan: That’s neat. So let me ask you, thinking of your friends, past or present, who knows you best? Mary. You didn’t hesitate talking about answering that question.
Laura: Oh, Mary Vandenberg, yeah, because every step of the way my pains through the divorce fell, knew Bob. And I think that they’d had lunch together sometime. So she would be the first one to know when I was pregnant again, the first one to know when I was struggling with Bob. The first one to know when I filed for divorce. The first one to know every teaching job I got. There were four schools in the Grand Rapids area where I was hired as a teacher. Walker, Westside, Oakdale, and Seymour. And of course, Mary knew every one of those. And the interesting thing is now, Jane, who became my student teacher, is teaching in Grand Rapids Christian School system herself. But every, every step of my career, Mary was the first one to know besides my own children.
Jonathan: That’s really nice. What a, what a special friendship thinking of your friends. Is there, are there people that have served as role models for you? And if so, what did you particularly admire about them?
Laura: Well, Mary Spire to this day is she’s the daughter of John Vandenberg. And for example, she got in touch with me because a little boy in her neighborhood was struggling with English and could not read at all and was going into second grade. And so she offered to tutor him. So she came out here and I gave her all kinds of materials to help lead him into understanding phonics and the alphabet and learning how to sound out words. There is a wonderful paperback book called 500 Words to Grow On. And when Marty started teaching, I told him I found five copies for him. But in my teaching years, every student in my class had them. It’s a little paperback book. It first of all taught them to think of categories. Then it taught them to look at pictures and read the words. And it was the basic beginning of learning how to read. So I gave Mary one of those and she said, oh, it worked, it worked. So Mary has been a model of service in the community. She’s the leader of Aunt Connie’s book club and every month Connie tells me how marvelous she brings about the discussions with the other people, her questions, and also her choice of books. So even though she has been basically a mother her whole life and not had, she never taught, but she served as a Bible leader at Fuller Avenue Church and then in a broader way in the Ken County area. So her religious leadership, her literacy leadership, and her service example is outstanding. I admire Mary Spier a lot.
Jonathan: Now, she is daughter to Mr. Vandenberg.
Laura: Yes, he was vice president of Cal and an elder at Fuller.
Jonathan: I’m sorry to interrupt, but is Mary Spire about your age or is she younger than you?
Laura: She’s younger than me.
But I think I’ve told you the story that John and his wife came and they lived on Adams Street on a corner there, and they would come down to my house. and walk in and say, he would grab a hold of a baby, sit down on the rocking chair and say to his wife, Marion, take Laura for a walk. She’s got to get out of the house.
So they were always watching how I was struggling with so many children. And I had very few connections at Fuller Avenue Church, He was one and Daryl Vrezinkov was one. Daryl and his wife are still very close friends of mine.
Jonathan: Very good, very good. Are there other things like friendship related that you would like to talk about before we go to another topic?
Laura: Well, I really can’t think of any others.
Jonathan: Okay. Well, it’s been great to hear about this and the longevity of your friends, mom. That’s a testament to your discipline and your connection with people. So one of the next things that we could talk about would be topics of religion.
Laura: And is that OK, I’m going to start right from the beginning. OK, I recently found a little tiny catechism book and Remember, going to catechism was a weekly schedule and memorizing answers too. And finding this little book again, it just brought it all back.
It would be maybe about an hour long in the church after school one day. And of course, my dad, I was the teacher.
When we were in New Jersey, I was memorizing it as sort of historical, not personal.
So I went through the exercises because that was just something everybody did. My dad led the prayers in our family at every meal, but I never remember our having scripture study together with my siblings or my mom and dad. I never remember my mother even talking about religion.
I didn’t really think about it as seriously until Grand Rapids. However, during those years,
I do remember having doubts. I remember asking my dad questions. I remember him asking me if the Bible was true.
Jonathan: I asked him that question.
Laura: And as I was reading the Bible, There were so many things that I could not explain to myself that doubts were very big.
However, when we got to Grand Rapids, first of all, I was the organist.
So on the Sundays where communion was given, It was very obvious that I didn’t receive it and I’m sitting right in the front where everybody can see me. So I was feeling pressure.
And yet I talked to my dad about not feeling God near.
I also asked him again about things from the Bible that I didn’t understand. Well, first of all, he pointed out to me that
Historians over the centuries have confirmed that history recorded in the Bible really did happen, was true.
And that the fact that the Bible has continued in the form it is for so long was an indication that it was God’s word and that he was speaking to me.
So I finally made profession of faith at a three-form church.
Jonathan: How old would you have been then?
Laura: Probably 16.
I went through the motions of reading the Bible, of prayer at the meals.
I once in a while, when we ate with all the children, we would talk about either a sermon, whether the topic was controversial, what it meant to me, but I don’t know
that I was faithful about witnessing about my own faith strongly to my own kids. I don’t think we talk about it a lot.
And the truth is, although I was taking communion, I was a believer, in many ways I wasn’t practicing that belief. I was so busy teaching and raising kids.
I didn’t give God enough of my time. And that’s why right now I’m realizing that God’s with me every minute of the day. I talk to him as though he were standing next to me. I’ll say, look at that bright red bird. Lord, you made so many birds or
Oh Lord, thank you that I didn’t hit that car in front of me or thank you God for helping me go down the steps without falling. I talked to him not as prayers, but as though he’s here.
And so my need for God and my feeling for him have gotten stronger as I’ve not had the competition of teaching and raising children that filled my days and my time. I’ve had time to think about it, God.
My Bible study at the grave has really teased my curiosity about questions that I’ve had.
And I am now, well, what’s interesting is Ted has a strong loyalty to the Moody program, and so every month he gets six Moody devotionals, monthly devotionals, which he gives his friends that he gives to me. And I find them very, I read every single day. But I also read the Bible now every day, which I couldn’t do for years.
And I always read something accompanying the Bible, like, oh, I’ve got something right here.
Talking with God is a step by step going through the Psalms every day. I’m doing two or three Psalms a day. It’s not long. Each Psalm is two pages long, the discussion. And I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t make enough time to learn about the Bible. to talk to God. When I was so busy with my career in raising kids, it had to take being alone and needing to feel him close to make me communicate with God more faithfully, more personally. Right now, I have made a list of eight verses from the Bible that I wrote down as I was reading, verses like, it is hard for a rich man to get into heaven, or give all that you have to the poor. Again and again, God is requiring that we use whatever he blesses us with to serve the community where we live.
So before January 1, I am reconstructing the list of beneficiaries in my trust fund.
Thanks to the fact that Ted needed a loan, I ended up every time I gave him a break, I gave each of my kids a break. I think the total in the last two or three years has been $51,000 to each one of my children. But what have I given to God? So I am reassessing my beneficiaries when I die. And I’m trying to obey the verses in Bible that talk about how we are to deal with our wealth. You know, what’s amazing to me, you know, I have always been thrifty, frugal, tight-fisted. I very rarely ever bought clothes for myself or for my kids. And always, always looking for bargains. And in many ways, God, I feel, recalls that what He gives us, He requires us to be careful with. But right now,
My income a year is $36,000. And it’s never been any more than that, usually a lot less. And yet, I’ve accumulated $1,700,000 in my investment fund
Now that’s got to be a blessing from God.
And it had to be not by my giving a whole lot out of my income every year. So it had to be a good investment broker that I have. But now I’m in a, I’m sorry, I’m coughing again.
cough syrup, do you think it’ll help?
Jonathan: You may need something stiffer than that, mom. I’m just speculating.
Laura: But anyway, more than anything in my life, I’m trying to live by God’s commands.
And a lot of my life, I didn’t even
Jonathan: consider all of God’s commands.
You know, you started off to you, but you talked about that this happened for you later in your life. But I think that’s fairly common for a lot of adults that their busyness of being young parents and that sort of thing, the more Uh, philosophical sorts of topics get kind of pushed aside until they’re older and have time and inclination to think about them more.
Laura: So I think it’s not that an ordinary as you read the Bible, there are lots of places that can plant doubt. Um, you wonder.
When it says that God loves all his people, is it right that some people in the world, in the Old Testament already, that he did not call his own people? And so there would be a doubt. Is that fair?
Jonathan: Even thinking God, you know, segue into a different line of questioning, but like when you were raised, how did your parents talk to you about other religions and how have. as you’re thinking about other religions shifted. You kind of along the same topic, you’ve traveled overseas, you’ve seen Hindu people, you’ve seen Muslim people. How does your faith reconcile those people and are they part of the umbrella?
Laura: Well, first of all,
There were a number of times when my mother would take me to a special service. Oh my goodness. There are hunters here. I know that there are a lot of deer running. Did you hear all the, did you hear all the shop?
Jonathan: I did.
Laura: Yeah. Um, at any rate, we went to Catholic musical services. Um, when, when we would go to New York city, she’s always take me into St. Patrick’s Cathedral because of the magnificence of the place. And I remember walking in and seeing all those little candles. And the attitude about denominations, Catholics, was always, well, they have the same savior. So how they practiced some of the way they worshipped isn’t as important. And so I think that was an attitude that my dad and mom both gave me long ago. Curiously, I have played weddings and funerals for Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Reformed, a lot of different churches. So the attitude that I got from my parents that particularly any religion that used to the Bible should be not criticized, that we should not consider ever that we have all the answers and that what we think is the only right way.
But going to Hindu, I don’t ever recall being exposed to it growing up or discussing it ever. I don’t remember knowing anybody who was Hindu.
I just think overall I got an attitude from my dad that we need to be tolerant and find an occasion to share the gospel, but not be judgmental in what we believe.
Jonathan: Very good. Well, how would you describe your concept of God and what you talk about today, feeling God’s presence around you at all times? Can you reflect further about that?
Laura: Well, there are times where I have to say, OK, for example, I struggle with food. I think about it way too much.
And I’ll ask the Holy Spirit to help me think about other things.
When I was in Bible study, there were a couple of women who were very critical, always bringing up examples that either were counter to what we were discussing or counter to what they thought. And then I would sit there and say, Lord, keep me from make me shut up, keep me from being judgmental because some of these women were annoying and spoke like they were the authority on everything.
There are other situations where I have to ask the Holy Spirit to control me in my thinking, in my opinions, and in my lifestyle.
My kids don’t want me to do the stairs, and I do the most every day. I’m doing them going backwards, where I hold on to the step going down because the chances of falling are much less. And every time I do that, when I get to the bottom, I say, thank you, Lord, for keeping me safe again.
There are little ways that I speak to God as though he’s accompanying me. He’s holding my hand, watching me.
Jonathan: You know, to think of your dad, I remember him being non-judgmental, like you say, and I’m not quite sure the right word to say, but the way that you’ve talked about is concentrating on the more of the things that we have in common than identifying how we’re different.
It resonates for me in my memory of him. But I’m wondering, you’ve over many years been in the church and seen whatever cultural flashpoints come and go, was there a time when you went to church where dancing was not allowed? And now maybe that’s relaxed. But you’ve seen that maybe the more or the norms of the church community change over time. And do you have any reflections about that? How do you make sense of that?
Laura: Well, I remember that when we lived at the college in the summer, in Grand Haven, Dad and I would drive back to go to church. We’d leave the rest of them there. And because there was morning and evening service, we would go to Howard Johnson’s for lunch after church.
And in those days, to go shopping or to go to a restaurant was considered sin. There are many, many ways that my parents kind of walked a line between controversies.
One thing that amazed me, for example, is how my dad through the nasty process of divorce that I went through never stopped being in touch with Bob. And I think there was primarily this reason, his salvation.
Now, my brother Paul married an atheist, but they loved Dottie.
And when Dottie died, that was a very awkward, difficult time because it wasn’t suitable to talk about where is she now.
Jonathan: Right. Yeah.
Well, so when you think of topics like that in the afterlife, talk to me a little bit about, I mean, how do you, how do you think the millions of Muslims and Hindu and, and non-believers what, I mean, do you, would you care to share your vision about what afterlife is and what, what it takes to get in?
Laura: I know, I, I know what it takes to get in. You have to believe Jesus is your savior. But what I struggle with is how God could condemn so many people, particularly people who never heard it, never had opportunity to hear about Jesus. Some are Muslim or anything. That is a question. I can ask my pastor, is it reasonable to assume that God condemns the millions of people who never had a chance to hear about him? That’s one of the questions that I can’t resolve in my mind.
Jonathan: What is your image of eternal life?
Laura: Well, I think that what gives joy in this life will have in heaven.
They claim there will be no sex, male, female, no marriages, that there will be a lot of singing, praising God, that there will be perhaps cultivating of creation, enjoying creation in new ways, that we will worship in not just singly, but in happy large groups.
I’d like to think that I can hold Jesus’ hand that I can thank him in person.
And the territory we live in, I can’t picture it.
Or what do we eat and drink?
Just the whole way of life is a mystery to me.
But all I know is one important thing
I need to believe in Jesus. He is my savior, and that’s spelled out so plainly in the Bible, which I have come to believe is a credible book that gives us words from God. He speaks to me there.
Jonathan: Very good.
Laura: Well, we’ve been going an hour.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Other things that you’d like to talk about? Are there big questions that you have? You talked about those that have never been spoken to about Jesus. Are there other big religious topics that you’d like to cover today or in another call?
Laura: Well, one of the big controversies in our denomination right now is gay people.
Um, in my own family right now, there’s two of them.
Um, it’s again, a place where, who are we to quickly condemn?
And so how Lindy. finds love and happiness with somebody. I can’t I can’t condemn it. I can’t.
But there are some of my church that does. In fact, there are some churches that are leaving the CRC because of
Jonathan: in our communities down here, too. That’s a big topic. Yep. Yeah.
Laura: Well. So now Tina was raised. Was she raised in a Baptist church?
Jonathan: Yes, she was.
Laura: So was she baptized?
Jonathan: She was.
Laura: Yeah. And so are you.
So well.
Jonathan: Go ahead. I was going to ask you a question. Do you take comfort that our currently elected Republican party leaders are advocating for 10 commandments in the school and a new world order based upon Protestant foundations?
Laura: That’s surprising to me, and I don’t think that
That is the voice of all Republicans.
I do think that the Ten Commandments are a good model to live by. There are so many things part of it that are just practical ways to live. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not, you know. The commitment to Jesus
is probably a controversy in the public schools that they’re going to have to deal with.
I thought I was Republican most of my life. I’m not either right now. I’m very alarmed with Trump.
And I think that it’s going to be curious the next election because there are a number of things that he has done that have alienated his Republican support. So time will tell. There are times when I don’t know whether it even matters whether I vote or not.
Jonathan: Any complicated times for sure with it’s just interesting to see the blurring of the, political and religious worlds that I thought had a clear distinction for for many years.
Laura: Yeah. But you know, what what this generation and what my children’s generation doesn’t ever think about is what the world felt like during Hitler.
And I remember, for example, that My folks could not buy groceries until my dad would go to the local office and get what it amounted to was coupons for so many bottles of milk and so many bags of sugar. And they were distributing the basics very frugally and very strictly. And there was very much grieving about lost soldiers and questions about power in European areas. And now we look at China or
The powers of the world seemed shaky. And it just reminds me of living in the time of World War II again. It really does.
Jonathan: Right. Right. Yeah. Quite a lot of uncertainty for sure.
Laura: Yeah. Sometimes I just don’t want to watch the news. Yeah. But I have never watched so much TV in my life. Basketball, football, soccer. I love watching it. And of course, Heidi and Jean and I always watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy together. And Heidi always calls me at 8 o’clock and say, who did you think should have won? Or what did you think about that question? I know that every night they’re looking at the same time I am.
Jonathan: That’s pretty special, Mom, for all three of you.
Laura: I know, I know. But, you know, when they come here to watch, I am amazed how many answers Gene gets right.
Jonathan: Okay.
Laura: He is very smart about geography, about vocabulary. It’s so much fun, but he gets many more answers right than I do.
Jonathan: It’s a neat thing you guys share.
Laura: Yeah. Well, Jody, you have a good week. And now do you have Leah home right now?
Jonathan: Yeah, I’m going to stop the recording for give me just a second.
Laura: OK.