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Online journal of writer Loretta Willems

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Author: lorettawillems

Bk. 3. 8: Northwest Journal Granite Falls, May 1960

August 21, 2020September 4, 2020 / lorettawillems / 2 Comments

Phoenix was not our first choice for a home, but we built a good life for ourselves there. We had good friends and neighbors we liked very much. We enjoyed working on our house and fixing it up; we enjoyed taking drives out into the desert and up to Flagstaff to visit Ben’s folks. And … Continue reading Bk. 3. 8: Northwest Journal Granite Falls, May 1960

Bk 3. 7: Northwest Journal May 1960

August 4, 2020September 4, 2020 / lorettawillems / 2 Comments

I began keeping a journal back in my late twenties. At first it was an occasional entry, a writer’s journal started as an assignment for a writing class at Arizona State University. Gradually it evolved to become an all-purpose means of working through problems as well as recording observations and ideas. It was a way … Continue reading Bk 3. 7: Northwest Journal May 1960

Bk 3. 6: Northwest Journal February 1957

July 20, 2020September 4, 2020 / lorettawillems / Leave a comment

The ship in whose depths I have lived for the last two weeks entered the Straights of Juan de Fuca, the deep strip of water that separates Washington’s Olympic Peninsula from Canada’s Vancouver Island. It was a troop ship on its way to Seattle, and I was one of the military dependents who boarded the … Continue reading Bk 3. 6: Northwest Journal February 1957

Bk 3. 5: The House on Melvin, Phoenix 1954-55

July 4, 2020September 4, 2020 / lorettawillems / 1 Comment

This another piece  about my senior year, the year of my engagement. There is a different quality to my memories of the house on Melvin than those of times before then. I feel more aware, more myself. I was on the cusp of adult life, and I was eager for it. The long years of … Continue reading Bk 3. 5: The House on Melvin, Phoenix 1954-55

Bk 3. 4: The Wedding

May 24, 2020September 4, 2020 / lorettawillems / 6 Comments

My father insisted that Ben and I get married the day I arrived in Tokyo.  The wedding was to take place in the chapel at Yakota Air Force Base where Ben was stationed.  Even though the base chaplain and his wife wrote to my parents extending an invitation for me to stay with them the … Continue reading Bk 3. 4: The Wedding

Bk 3. 3: Tokyo Wedding Backstory Part 2

May 9, 2020September 4, 2020 / lorettawillems / 2 Comments

Note: On September 7, 1955, I flew from Phoenix, Arizona to Tokyo Japan. I went there to marry a young airman I had met in the summer of 1954, just before his departure for the Far East. We were both very young. Ben was nineteen at the time of our marriage; I was seventeen.The following … Continue reading Bk 3. 3: Tokyo Wedding Backstory Part 2

Bk 3. 2: Tokyo Wedding Backstory, Part I

April 23, 2020September 4, 2020 / lorettawillems / 7 Comments

When I was sixteen, a junior in high school, my family moved from our home in Stockton, California to Phoenix, Arizona. We were going there because my father had answered a call by the California branch of the International Union of Gospel Missions to start a Rescue Mission in that city. After several trips to … Continue reading Bk 3. 2: Tokyo Wedding Backstory, Part I

Bk 3. 1: Japan 1955

December 14, 2019September 4, 2020 / lorettawillems / 4 Comments

On September 7, 1955, I flew from Phoenix, Arizona to Tokyo Japan. I went there to marry a young airman I had met in the summer of 1954, just before his departure for the Far East. We were both very young. Ben was nineteen at the time of our marriage; I was seventeen. Memories of … Continue reading Bk 3. 1: Japan 1955

Epilogue: The House on Coronado Avenue

November 9, 2019November 18, 2019 / lorettawillems / 2 Comments

The house in the photo above is where I lived a major part of my childhood. My family moved there the fall of 1942; we moved away in June 1949. I was four when we moved in, eleven when we moved out. I had finished 6th grade at Woodrow Wilson Elementary and would have entered … Continue reading Epilogue: The House on Coronado Avenue

Old Photos: 1930s

October 14, 2019October 14, 2019 / lorettawillems / 2 Comments

Child Bride, my second book, begins each chapter with an old photo, or in one case a painting. I wanted it to be an album of memories, stories and photos that together tell the story of my parents' marriage that focuses on the early years, the 1930s and 1940s. I grew up hearing stories of … Continue reading Old Photos: 1930s

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The Gift of Laughter; The Story of a California Mennonite Family

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“In The Gift of Laughter, you will find one family’s story of deep trauma—and the resilience born out of an ability to laugh together. . . . Laughter was their gift to each other, their story a gift to others.”

-Hope Nisly, Acquisitions Librarian for Fresno Pacific University

Child Bride; Remembering a Young Mother

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Agnes Young was fourteen in 1936 when she eloped with twenty-one year old Jacob Willems and joined him on his vagabond life, traveling California’s country roads, picking up work wherever they could find it. Two years later she gave birth to her first child. Agnes was only sixteen when she became a mother; yet she managed to create a stable home for family, a home that felt secure and safe.

Former Website

A Mennonite Story: The Willems/Zimmermann Family

Recent Posts

  • Ukraine, pt. 2: The Steppe
  • Ukraine
  • Christmas 1960: Monroe, Washington
  • The House on South Blakeley
  • How I got to the GTU
  • How I became a Mennonite
  • Agnes Young Willems: In Memorium
  • Phoenix, Arizona: March 1958-59
  • Japan: 1956
  • Bk 3. 9: The Log House in Monroe 1960-1961
  • Bk. 3. 8: Northwest Journal Granite Falls, May 1960
  • Bk 3. 7: Northwest Journal May 1960
  • Bk 3. 6: Northwest Journal February 1957
  • Bk 3. 5: The House on Melvin, Phoenix 1954-55
  • Bk 3. 4: The Wedding

Categories

  • 1920s California
  • 1930s California
  • 1940s California
  • 1950s
  • 1950s California
  • Agnes Young Willems
  • Book 3
  • CA
  • Canada
  • Early marriages
  • Jacob "Jack" Willems
  • Japan
  • Loretta Willems
  • Mennonite History
  • Old photos
  • Paul Buxman paintings
  • Phoenix, Arizona
  • Reedley
  • Reflections
  • Richardson family
  • The Adam & Margaret Young family
  • Theology
  • Uncategorized
  • Western Washington 1957-1961
  • Willems Family History
  • WW II
  • Zimmerman Family History

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Memoir Chapters


Ch. 1: "California Mennonite"

Ch. 2: "WWII"

Ch. 3: "Going to Dinuba"

Ch. 4: "Grandma & Grandpa Willems"

Ch. 5: "How We Got to Russia"

Ch. 6: "Mountain Lake, Minnesota"

Ch. 7: "Saskatchewan"

Ch. 8: "Russia: 1866-1903"

Ch. 9: "The Zimmermans 1903-1905"

Ch. 10: "Waldheim"

Ch. 10 (cont.): "The Zimmerman Clock"

Ch.11: "Lena & Jacob 1909-1919"

Ch. 12: "Reedley"

Ch. 13: "California 1919-1922"

Ch. 14: "Madera County: 1922-1929"

Jacob C. & Helena Zimmerman Willems

Waldheim, Saskatchewan 1909

My grandparents, Jacob and Helena, were step-brother and step-sister in a marriage the family said was arranged by the Mennonite Brethren Church.

The marriage between my grandmother’s father, Heinrich H. Zimmermann—a widower with five children, and my grandmother’s mother, Elisabeth Boldt Willems—a widow with nine children, resulted in two more Willems-Zimmerman marriages: in 1909, the marriage between Jacob and Helena; and in 1912, the marriage between my grandfather’s brother George and my grandmother’s sister Anna.

Research and documents about the Willems and Zimmerman families can be accessed by clicking on the following link:

lwillemsmennostory.blogspot.com

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Gallery of Images

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Categories

  • 1920s California
  • 1930s California
  • 1940s California
  • 1950s
  • 1950s California
  • Agnes Young Willems
  • Book 3
  • CA
  • Canada
  • Early marriages
  • Jacob "Jack" Willems
  • Japan
  • Loretta Willems
  • Mennonite History
  • Old photos
  • Paul Buxman paintings
  • Phoenix, Arizona
  • Reedley
  • Reflections
  • Richardson family
  • The Adam & Margaret Young family
  • Theology
  • Uncategorized
  • Western Washington 1957-1961
  • Willems Family History
  • WW II
  • Zimmerman Family History
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