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Online journal of writer Loretta Willems

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Early marriages

Bk 3. 4: The Wedding

May 24, 2020September 4, 2020 / lorettawillems / 8 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

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

Young Mother

January 7, 2018January 7, 2018 / lorettawillems / 8 Comments

Paul Buxman painting: "Winter Vineyard" Winter is the rainy season in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Some years the rain is sparse; other years it rains and rains and rains. And when it isn’t raining, and the sun tries to come out, the dreaded tule fog rises from the wet ground and turns everything a uniform, … Continue reading Young Mother

Early Marriage

September 4, 2016September 4, 2016 / lorettawillems / 2 Comments

Sixty-one years ago this week I stepped on a Pan American plane at Los Angeles Internation Airport headed for Tokyo, Japan. There I would marry the boy who would become the father of my two daughters. I was seventeen years old. My groom was nineteen. We had not seen each other in over a year, … Continue reading Early Marriage

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

 

“Loretta Willems has a fascinating family history and writes of it with lovely detail, honest reflection and great beauty.”

–Dora Dueck, award-winning author of Return Stroke: Essays and Memoir, and four books of fiction

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

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  • How I got to the GTU
  • How I became a Mennonite
  • Agnes Young Willems: In Memorium
  • Phoenix, Arizona: March 1958-59
  • Japan: 1956

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
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  • 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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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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