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Online journal of writer Loretta Willems

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Paul Buxman paintings

Chapter 2: The Christmas Tree House

March 5, 2018 / lorettawillems / 2 Comments

My parents lost the little farm in Navelencia, the place where memory began for me. Dad got the place by buying out another man’s interest in the farm and assuming the mortgage, a deal done without the original owner’s permission. When Dad couldn’t make the mortgage payment at the end of the grape harvest, the … Continue reading Chapter 2: The Christmas Tree House

Chapter 1: Memory

February 4, 2018February 4, 2018 / lorettawillems / 12 Comments

“The only observations worth making are those that sink in upon you in childhood.  We don’t know we’re observing, but we see everything.  Our minds are relatively blank, our memories are not crammed full of all sorts of names, so that the impressions we gather in the first 12 years are enormous and vivid and … Continue reading Chapter 1: Memory

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

Harvest Festival: Sweet Home Ranch

November 4, 2017 / lorettawillems / 3 Comments

  "Pomegranate Jelly," 14"x16" oil on canvas "Our early foothill pomegranate tree yields more than enough fruit to make at least a hundred half pints of Jelly. Well, it would if we didn't eat so many of them fresh."       Paul Buxman November 1, Dinuba, California The trees and vines are tired and dusty now, … Continue reading Harvest Festival: Sweet Home Ranch

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

Recent Posts

  • Afterglow: The Book Event
  • Photos for Abbotsford Book Event
  • Abbotsford, BC Book Event
  • Bill Haney meets Frank Lloyd Wright
  • Bill Haney
  • Ukraine, pt 3: Gerhard & Katharina Rempel Willems
  • 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

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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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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