THE INSTI TUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WI TH: Albert Rienstra
INTERVIEWERS:
DATE:
PLACE:
Walt and Janie Sargeant
November 1 , 1986
Nederland, Texas
JS : This is November 1 , 1986 and Walt er and Janie Sargeant
at Nederland , Texas and we ' re interviewing Albert Rienstra.
Albert, when and where were you born?
AR: I was born in Nederl and, Texas on March 12 , 1912.
JS: Who was your father - what was his name?
AR:
WS:
My father was Dan Rienstra .
How do you spell that?
In Dutch , it was Douwe.
AR: D-0-U- W-E. And he Americanized it by calling it Dan .
And now some of his grandchildren have reverted back to the
name of Douwe (laughter) . They pronounce it Dow, but they
use the Dutch name now.
JS: Giving the children the first name of Douwe , but
calling it Dow?
AR: Urn-hum.
JS: That ' s i nteresting . Had your father been in this area
long when you were born?
AR: Had he been here long?
JS: Were you born here in Texas?
RIENSTRA 2
AR: I was born right here in Nederland, Texas.
JS: Had your father and mother been here long when you were
born?
AR: My father came to this country at about the age of 19
and it was about in 1898, I believe, and my mother had come
here with her parents when she was about 7 years of age and
they first settled in Colorado. And they finally ended up
in Nederland and that's where my father met my mother. And
they were married here in Nederland in - I forget exactly
the year.
WS: What enticed them to go to Colorado? Did they have a
community there, or something? Do you know?
AR: Well, they went to Alamosa, Colorado and I don ' t know­my
grandfather was a rather wandering-type of fellow. And I
don ' t know what ever possessed him to go to Colorado.
WS: I forget the years of the Gold Rush, but I just
wondered •••
AR: I don ' t think it was that. My grandfather was a
cabinet maker and a kind of a lay preacher. And I never did
understand completely why they went to Colorado. They had
also lived in Arkansas. He had traveled around quite a
bit.
JS: Well, I know that your Uncle Dan was the one who lived
in the first purchased land site in Nederland
AR: No, that was my Uncle George. The Dutch name being
Gatze, I believe was the way they spelled it. And this is
the original home site.
RIENSTRA
JS: That you ' re living on.
AR: That I 'm living on.
3
JS : Wel l, where did your fa ther Dan Live? Right next to
him o r •••
AR: No. My father Dan lived several different places . He
rice farmed on a location which is about a mile west of
Nederla nd and then he lived down this street here awhile,
but our home place where I was born and where t he family was
really brought up, is over on the other side of town , on the
north part of Nederland.
WS: One question I've been wondering about. If I have this
correct, this land initially was a Spanish grant from Mexico
to somebody and then the settlers or immigrants bought this
l and from Port Art hur Land Company. Am I correct that far?
AR : Well, of course , Texas having been or i g inally Me x i can
territory , I am s ure that when Texas wanted its
independence , that it of course naturally became a part of
the Republic of Texas. And then, l ate r on , i n about 18 -
early 1890 ' s , is when the Port Arthur Land Company , I guess ,
pu rchased all t his land around here.
WS: I just wondered who they purchased it from •• .
AR : I would imagine that i t probably come maybe from the
Republ i c of Texas . I couldn ' t be sure.
WS : Probably history books g i ve that i nformation.
AR: Yes . Probably have it and also , of course , what
brought the Dutch i n here , I guess yo u a lready have that on
tape from somebody e l se - why the Dutch came t o Nederland .
RIENSTRA 4
WS: Let's it have it again j ust briefly. I mean, I 'm not
AR: Well, in about 1891 there was a money panic in the
United States. And Arthur Stillwell had this dream of
building a railroad from the midwest - Kansas City to Port
Arthur. So, he could not get financing in this country at
that time and he had established a connection with a
Dutchman by the name of deGoeijen, which translated we have
had a street named after him and they call it DeQueen. I
guess deGoeijen means DeQueen in Dutch.
WS: How do you spell it?
AR: I could find out, I don ' t know right off.
So, he went to Holland and secured Dutch financing to
help build the railroad and t hat is the reason why you will
find a number of Dutch names up and down the Kansas City
Railroad. In other words , Nederland, Texas, Zwolle ,
Louisiana, Zwolle which is a Dutch town in Holland is on
that. Then DeQueen, Arkansas named after deGoeijen and
Mena, Arkansas after Queen Wilhelmina . So you will find the
Dutch influence up and down the K.C. Railroad.
Well, the townsite of Nederland was laid out before
there was anybody here , you know, they put up a l and
company, had a surveyor and platted the town out. And my
uncle, having come to this country earlier , at first settled
at Iowa. Then he came down to Alvin, Texas and when in
Alvin , Texas he discovered that there was going to be a
Nederland, Texas. Which Nederland has the exact spelling of
the Netherlands - the way they spell it.
RIENSTRA 5
AR : So, he hooked up his team and wagon and, I think at
that time probably had two children, I would think; two
boys. And they came overland to Alvin , Texas to Nederland
and he selected this site right here because it was higher
than most of the things around, this being a lowlands, t oo .
(George Rienstra was single when he came to Nederland -
married in 1901.)
So he selected this site and he went to , I believe
Beaumont, and got him a load of lumber and hauled his lumber
down here and built the first house in Nederland which was
located exactly in the middle of 12th Street right in front
of the house here. And then later on he built another house
and he moved from the original house into that house and we
bought that house from my old Aunt a few years before she
passed away. Then, of course, we built this house and moved
the old house off. So that ' s the reason we ' re on this
location. We had wanted it because all the trees - she had
p lanted numerous trees here dating back to about 1900. We
had a ••.
WS : I wondered. They look old and are beaut iful trees.
AR: Yeah , We have 27 full grown trees and I had thinned
out a lot of things. When I first moved in , it was
virtually a jungle here when I moved in.
JS : Well , I understand the original house i s s till here in
Nederland?
AR: No. The second house is. The original house was
moved. It was a two story house, very simple , framed house,
RIENSTRA 6
AR: but it was two story and he moved it down the street on
some land he had down the street when he built his second
house. And it burned.
JS: Were your father and George connected in business? Or
- you said your father was in rice farming once .
AR: No. They farmed separately. My father farmed one time
- was in partnership with a Dutchman name of Gerbens who
later moved his family to Port Arthur and worked for the
Texas Company. But they were never connected, of course,
good brothers together they just never connected in a
business sort of way. My father was a p e rson who had , I
guess, a limited education - most of the Dutch that came to
Nederland in the early days were farmers. They had been
recruited in the northern part of Holland and, of course,
they had - it had been pictured to them as a land of milk
and honey and orange trees . They had pictures - they had
pictures of orange trees and e verything.
And, of course, when they got here, you know, a lot of
them came in steerage in the boat. You know that ' s about
the lowest form of transportation on a boat . And when they
got here, they were disappointed to find that this was a
rather mosquito- ridden territory. And most of them didn ' t
have money to go back. A l ot of them, see ••• and some of
them did go back after they made enough money to go back.
But most of them were forced to stick it out and most of
them were younger in those days. My Daddy being onl y 19
years of age. And so he stuck it out and went into farming.
RIENSTRA 7
AR: And then later on after the railroad - well the
railroad - he worked on the railroad, I think for a dollar a
day when they were building the railroad.
And , then of course , in 1901 when Spindle Top blew in,
just north of here, you know, just south of Beaumont . Course
that changed the complexion of the country - this part of
the country. It brought in the refineries and things of
that nature. And, so, the territory began to really improve.
And , of course , most of the Dutch - a l o t of people gave
them credit for being smart because most of them did fairly
well financ ially, but it wasn ' t that as much as it was that
they saw opportunity where local natives didn 't, you see.
And , so - but my fa t her was one who , while he had a limited
education,he believed in education. And we were taught to
speak English and, unfortunately in some way, I guess, there
are very few of the Dutch offspring t hat has mastered t he
Dutch language at all. I know some key words , and when we
went t o Holland, I knew enough to get by . And my mother and
father,in the first generation of Dutch, spoke quite a bi t
of Dutch in the house to each other. But t hey didn 't want
us to speak it. This was a difference from some races that
come here. Some races want to perpetutate their language
and e verything. Of course, my only regret is that I didn ' t
learn to at least master, the tongue but I get by with it.
I can get by over in Holland and get something to eat.
JS: Well , then you - what about your schooling here in
Nederland? You did all your schooling here in Nederland?
RIENSTRA 8
AR: Myself?
JS: Yes.
AR: I attended the school - the first school I attended, of
course, was already a brick building. Of course , there had
been several schools prior to that that were frame
buildings. The fi rst official school was held in the Dutch
Reformed Church in Nederland. But when I started school, I
went to a two story brick building that contained the whole
student body. And there were about six teachers, including
the superintendent. And I attended schoo l here and later
on, of course, as time went on, they built more schools and
I finished in a three story building. It was pretty well a
complete school system that had basically, I guess, what
you ' d call the junior high and high school in it. And they
had the grade school.
MRS . AR: The early ones went to school - they finished
school in Beaumont, didn ' t they?
AR : Well, yes, some of the earliest -
MRS. AR: Your sist e r, for instance. She graduated there,
didn't she?
AR: No. She graduated here.
WS: I heard something about you had to go up there for your
last year.
MRS. AR : South Park.
AR: Yeah. South Park School District. And Beaumont High
School. And then , of course , I went two years t o Lamar
College which then was called South Park Junior Coll ege and
RIENSTRA 9
AR: then transferred to the University of Texas. And I was
graduated from the University of Texas, Bachelor of Business
Administration.
JS: And what - did you come back to Nederland when you
graduated from college?
AR : Yes Mam. Came back to Nederland and went into business
right in the middle of the big Depression. And, I had an
offer to go to work for Grant Chain Stores. I had to go to
New York to train and then I was going to have a suitcase
and travel all over the country and the idea was, that I was
to work in different stores and hope to progress and I would
be a store manager.
But I didn't like the idea of traveling all over the
country, so I decided I 'd come back to Nederland. Times were
hard and I was offered several jobs, one of which r equired,
of course, keep books and everything and drive a truck in a
pinch, this was a freight line. And for this I had to work
six days a week, from about seven to seven and I was going
to make seventy-five dollars a month . In my interview my
manager let me know that he didn ' t want me to have too many
outside activities. In fact, practically none, see. So
t hat's were I come from . With a college education. So then
I had an opportunity - I worked for Kress for about two or
three weeks, then I had an opportunity to go into business
for myself in a Texaco Service Station. And from that, I -
when World War II came along , I saw the opportunity through
gasoline rationing, I figured it was going to hurt my
RIENSTRA 10
AR: business. So I decided, they had already rationed
gasoline on the East coast, so I had decided that I would
put in a drygoods store here because at that time we didn 1 t
have a drygoods store here in Nederland. And I figured,
"Well, if they can •t get gasoline, they can•t go to
Beaumont, Port Arthur to buy clothes." So, I put in a dry
goods business and from then r •ve branched out into
everything. I 1ve been into- we •ve developed a
sub-division, my brother and myself and a man from Beaumont.
And I have been connected with the bank - helped organize
the bank here, helped organize the hospital, things of that
kind.
But that•s about al l the good I can say about myself.
MRS. AR: You helped get the town incorporated.
AR: Oh yeah. I led the town to incorporate the town.
MRS. AR: He •s been a public servant.
AR: Well, my father was too. My father never did really do
too well financially because he was so interested in
community things . And while other people, you know, were
get ting ahead, he had served on the school board here. He
had at one time been President of the County School Board.
And all of that, you know, with a rather limited e ducation.
But he was a very Americanized Dutchman, so to speak . One
of the advantages, I think, we children had over so many
people is that growing up, with my father •s interest, we
always knew who the United State Senators - our Senators
were, our congressmen , our legislators - we knew all about
RIENSTRA 11
AR: government from him because he was so interested in it.
And event today , I am amazed at how many native-born
American people are as ignorant as they are. Some of them
can ' t even tell who the vice-president of the United States
is , and things of that kind, you know .
WS : Well , I would imagine that over in Holland they didn ' t
have that opportunity to participate in government to that
extent. Maybe that •• •
AR: Well, of course , that was a different culture and they
were - we we r e told that in Holland you had a tendency to be
whatever your father was. For instance, if he was a baker,
in most cases you ' d end up being a baker. And if he was a
farmer, you pretty well stayed on the farm.
But one reason he came to this country was to get out
of being drafted . See, the European countries were far
ahead of the United States, you know, when it comes to
compulsory training, and so he was at the age he was going
to have to serve in the army and I guess his brother already
having come to this country , he just decided he ' d just come
on to this country. My mother ' s folks •.. one reason my
grandfather left Holland was that I guess the freedom of
this country was an enticement . He didn ' t believe in bowing
to the queen and anything. He didn ' t like the idea of the
royalty.
WS: One thing that sort of amazes me.
your grandfather was 19?
AR: No, my father was 19.
I think you said
RIENSTRA 12
WS : Oh. Well, what was approximately the age of your
grandfather when he fini shed hi s schooling? He must have
gone through an apprenticeship of cab i net making or
something, because he was pret ty handy with it.
AR: I 'm not too familiar with his life back in Holland.
All I know he was a combination cab ine t maker and a lay
preacher , I guess, mostly .
MRS. AR : That was on your mother ' s s i de.
AR: Yes. That was on my mother' s s ide .
WS: I am just curious the age he might have been when he
got through with the apprenticeship.
AR: I wouldn't know that. But judg ing from the European
system of their educat ion , most of the time when you finish
basic schooling sys tem over there , you either went into
trade school or something. or if you were fortunate enough
to be among the peopl e who were in the upper class , so t o
speak , you 'd probably have a different
WS : Gone on to a university or ..•
AR: Yes.
JS: Well . This compulsory training - do you know how l ong
they had to- how many years they had to be •••
AR : In Hol land?
JS: Uh-huh .
AR. No. I real l y don ' t know. I don ' t think it was
probably too long. I would probab l y - a couple of years or
something like t hat. ( Two Years.)
JS : That was what I was thinking .
RIENSTRA 13
WS: Switzerland still has it, don ' t they?
AR : Yes. Their system is a little bit different . We ' ve
been to Switzerland , too. They, I thi nk , have to go every
year for some tra i ning and they take their guns home with
them.
JS: I didn ' t rea lize that. I understand that you peddled
milk for your father when you were ••
AR : Yes. After h i s rice farming days, and one thing and
anothe r we had a farm north of town here, some hundred and -
I think it was a hundred and forty a cres I would guess . And
we raised at that time he was more into truck farming and
dairying. We raised a lot of sweet potatoes and Irish
potatoes and we ran a small dairy. We milked ,I ' d say o n the
average o f about 15 to 20 cows . Twice a day . Three hundred
and sixty- five days - Christmas, New Year ' s , Fourth of July
- never go in the dairy business (laughter). And, of
course , we mi lked by hand, you know . we delivered milk all
over town and this was, of course, in t he days before there
was much refr i geration. We cooled the milk over a - sort of
like cooler that had ice and water in the middle of the
thing. And - you s tand the milk - the cont ainer - up t o the
top and it went in a thin fi lm down this column shaped
thing. And you had a little trough around. And we 'd bottle
the milk - that was back in those days when milk was
delivered in quart bottles and you put on that wax cap . I
don ' t know i f you go back that fa r.
WS : Oh , yes .
RIENSTRA 14
AR: But anyhow, we delivered milk, and we delivered twice a
day because of the refrigeration, you see. We delivered
milk morning and evening. And, so it was - we were still in
the dairy business about the time that I finished high
school which was in 1930.
WS: You got out ahead of me about 5 years.
' 35.
I got out in
AR: Well, I finished the University of Texas in ' 35.
JS: Do you remember how many customers you had - about how
many customers you had?
AR: I remember that when we first started in the dairy
business, we delivered by horse and buggy. I never did . My
older brother ran a route with a horse and buggy and •. One
of my brothers, the second to the o ldest brother, was rather
more interested in books and things of that nature. He was
quite a student more than he was in farming. He never did
adapt to farm life very well. And my oldest brother said
that about all he ever amounted to on the farm was that they
made him the water boy . (laughter)
But when he was on the milk route in t he horse and
buggy, he would - one of the popular places to stop in
Nederland, was the Nederland Pharmacy. It was the main
thing in Nederland, on the corner of Boston - what is now
Boston Avenue and Twin City Highway. And it was a
drugstore. They bought quite a bit of milk from us. He
would go to the magazine rack and read magazines sometimes
when he was ? delivering milk. So one day, the horse and
RIENSTRA 15
AR: buggy took off. The horse got tired of waiting on him.
And the horse took off. And from that point in the route,
' til the time the horse and buggy got home , they said that
the horse stopped at every customer. (laughter) He finally
ended up at the house without the rider. (laughter)
WS: When I was going to high school, we had two brothers
who were delivering milk, or at least one, and the horse
knew the route better than they did.
AR: I don ' t know. You asked about the number of customers.
we had quite a few. I never have given that a big thought.
JS: Do you remember when he had - when he started with an
automobile or truck? Left off with the horse and buggy?
AR: I remember the first car we bought was a Model-T . And I
think it was about a 19 ••• I'd say about a 1921 or ' 22
model. We delivered milk in that and then later on I drove
a Chrevrolet Coupe and we delivered milk in that. And
but that was the first time, I guess , we had a car.
WS: Running a dairy farm, of course, you could pasture the
year round here.
AR: Yeah. You know we were interested when we went to
Holland. They keep- it ' s real interestig in north Holland
- where they have these immense barns where the people live
in the barns . But you know what I mean, it's- a part of
them. And, of course , the cows are brought in during the
winter, you know, into the barn. And they 're kept in the
barn all winter long. Course, there ' s a little of that, I
think in the northern part of the United States.
RIENSTRA 16
WS : Pennsylvan i a , I think, a little bit, once in awhile.
AR : but that ' s the way they do it over there. No. We
never did have that parti cular •. • the biggest problem we
had in the dairy business in this part of the country was
the mosquitoes. And cockle burrs are --- • Since we milked
by hand , the old cow, you know what a cockle burr is?
WS : Yeah.
AR: She ' d get her tail full of those things and you ' re
s itting there milking and she ' d swat around and hit your
col d face , you know. (laughter)
But I remember when mosqu i toes were real , real bad i n
this part of the country. Mosquitoes are not a problem
around here too much any more. Now we have some r i ght in
this part , but of course they have mosquito control , you
know .
WS: Was there much malaria back in the early days from the
mosquitoes?
AR: I don ' t think there was much malaria .
WS : Just the nuisance, t hen .
AR: Just a nuisance - a pest. In fact, they were so bad a
lot of people would take a newspaper and roll it around
their legs under the i r clothes , you know.
One of the firs t reasons , I think, mosquitoes ceased to
be less troublesome was the fact the oil companies came in
here and there began to be this little film of oil floating
around . Now this would be
WS: Pollution.
RIENSTRA 17
AR: Pollution, see? But there was, you know, you could see
this rainbow color on a lot of the ditches and things. And
that, of course, hurt the breeding of mosquitoes. Of
course, now that ' s pollution.
WS: How about wrecks? Did you have any wrecks with your
peddling?
AR: Yeah. One time I had a wreck. That was about - you
see , back in those days you didn ' t have to have a driver's
license , you know. But, you know, you didn't have to pass a
test. I learned to drive in a canal - a dry bed canal. I
took the old Model T out there, you know, and I drove it
forward and then I would back up and learned how to drive
this Model T. Did you ever drive a Model T?
JW: No.
AR: It's a different breed altogether. I drove one here a
few years back, and it comes back to you like riding a
bicycle, you know. But anyhow , I was delivereing milk one
day and we had stopped at the Nederland Pharmacy. And
delivered milk there and as I started across the highway,
which was this highway here , I l ooked both ways and there
was a great big Hudson Super-Six. You remember the old
Hudson - big as a box car. And it was coming from the
direction of Beaumont, going toward Port Arthur. And as it
passed the intersection, I looked toward Port Arthur, but
this thing had another car blocked out that I could not see ,
coming from Port Arthur, so I started across the highway.
And I hit him broadside. That was in a Model T Ford and
RIENSTRA 18
AR: the only thing it did to the Ford, was that both front
wheels started looking at each other. It just barely hit
the front of me. Well, that car went, I guess, 50 yards and
flipped over and the man got his hand cut rather
severely. They took him to the hospital. And I don ' t know
where all those people came from ' cause there weren ' t many
people near at that time. (laughter)
But I got out of that real easy. I was j ust , see, the
legal driving age at that time was supposed to have been 16
and I was about 15, so I was worried about that, you know,
about my daddy being sued , and everything. But it so
happened that this fellow was out wi th another fellow ' s
wife. One of the by-standers knew that, so we never did
hear from him. (laughter)
JS : Well , what does the word " corners " mean, I was told to
ask you about that in relationship to peddling milk.
"Comers". That doesn't mean anything to you?
AR: I don ' t know who told you that , I •• .
JS: I probably got that wrong -
Another question that someone want ed me to ak you about
is the Ku Klux Klan in the Methodist Church - about that
incident.
AR: When I was just a boy , of course, the Ku Klux was in
their glory in the ---
MRS. AR: In the 20 's, cause we were in Beaumont then.
AR: Yes. In the 20 's. Well , they were in the late 20 ' s ,
too, because I remember I caught a ride with one of the
RIENSTRA 19
AR: judges in the county when I was coming from South Park
Junior College one day. I suspected, after I talked to him,
he belonged to the Klan.
But anyhow, the group that went into the Methodist
Church - and I have to believe that the Methodist minister
was a Klansman. I hate to say it, but he must have been.
And - so it was at a night service and unannounced here they
come parading in, you know, in their robes and everything.
And they went up to the pulpit and gave a contribution to
the church. I forgot how much it was. But anyhow they gave
a contribution to the church. Of course, being in my teens,
of course, I thought that was something great, you know.
But later on I had my opinion about something like that.
But anyhow - the Klan was real strong in this area. Of
course, I remember, they used to have meetings on Friday
nights a lot of times. At - we call Port Neches Park, over
here in the neighboring town about three miles from here on
the banks of the Neches River.
And I'm sure there was as many as ten thousand Klansmen
there at the time. And when they broke up at night, it
reminds me now of a big football game - with the traffic,
you know. Man, there would be bumper-to-bumper traffic from
here to Beaumont and Port Arthur a nd that a r ea now.
And the funny thing about it, is I almost knew who most
of the Klansmen in Nederland were because I knew how a lot
of people walked and, of c ourse , I knew cars they drove.
And they would be in their robes and somet imes they would
RIENSTRA 20
AR: meet down there in the Nederland Pharmacy which I've
referred to a number of times, which was the meeting place.
And, one of the main Klansman in Nederland drove a very big
old Hudson. Well , you knew that there wasn ' t many of those
around. And I knew how a lot of them walked when they
walked. So even though they were r obed, I knew who they
were, see?
JS: Well, why were there so many of them here , because I
thought they were more involved in blacks and slavery? Of
course, there wouldn 't be slavery that late , but •..
AR: Well , I think part of it- I think it ' s uh- ' course
there were blacks in the area. There never was any - I
don ' t know of any violence that ever came out of it.
But I tell you all these movements e nd up pol itically,
you know. I think this is one reason why people start
joining the Klan. For instance, at that particular time, I
have reason to believe that almost every one of our county
office-ho lders were Klansmen because- you know, that's who
put them in office, you see. They were strong. Just like
now, we have gone through a period of strong unionism in
this part of the country.
Of course, you have that in most industrial areas. But
this has been strong union territory down here because, for
instance, we have about seven large refineries in this
county - Texaco, Gulf and now Chevron and Fina and Union Oil
Company and ..•
Voice : Dupont up here.
RIENSTRA 21
AR: Mobil up here- but it ' s all- so unionism has been
awful strong in this part of the country. Of course , since
this so-called recession in Texas now, you know , they have
laid off a lot of people and the union is not as strong as
it was. But it's still pretty powerful in this area, you
know. It ' s kind of hard for anybody to get elected to- for
awhile it was awful hard for anybody to get elected t o a
county office around here unless they had a union
connection.
MRS AR: Albert was trying to create an image. They also
came to my father. My father was a Methodist minister in
Beaumont during the 20's. And he had a small suburban
church and we had the very same thing happen too - I think,
it was the morning service. These Klansmen walked down the
aisle and made a contribution to the church . And we - my
impression of that was to create an image of beneficial - of
benefitting people, you know - taking - doing something
charitable or beneficial to a group - to a particular
group.
WS: I was wondering, too, if it wasn ' t a r esult of some of
the carpetbagging, if I 'm using the correct- but the
northerners came down and -
AR: No, that was earlier. Now there was a man came to
Nederland from Michigan. Fellow by the name of Bradley w.
Bell. He was one of the pioneer merchants in Nederland .
And he built a large building on the side of the railroad.
And he put in - he handled everythig. He handled groceries,
RIENSTRA 22
AR: hardware, caskets , mule collars, you know back i n the
early days it wasn 't unusual to have everything in one
store. And my father worked for him a year or two . And -
but he was hated because, now we're talking about right
after the turn of the century, you know, which is rather
recent from the Civil War days. And the people did not like
him and they burned him out about two or three times. He
just finally just gave up and went back up north and later
manufacured the automobile pumps . . . .
WS : Oh , is that right? The hand pump?
AR: For the Ford Motor Company.
WS: Oh, is that right?
AR: And he came back a number of times to visit my Daddy.
They were always friendly to our family but he was literally
run out of town because he - somebody had it in for him.
But that was prior to Ku Klux days- that was just •••
JS: I ' d like to back up and ask when you, Albert, and your
wife married- and your wife's name and if she was Dutch.
AR: Well , we married on Labor Day, September 6, 1937. And
she is not Dutch.
what you call it?
She's, I think, Scotch-Irish, is that
MRS. AR: Well, my father was Welsh a nd my Mother was Scotch
and I suppose some Irish mixed in. My Dad always said we
were Scotch-Irish . But I think he was really Welsh , from
what we 've been able to find in going back into family
records. He was born in Nacogdoches County and was a lawyer
turned preacher, feeling that that was what he was called
RIENSTRA 23
MRS. AR: to do. And then I was in his second family so I
go back a long way as far as my heritage is concerned. I go
back to really what the grandfather age would have been
because I was in the second family. But he carne here as a
Methodist minister and I was in the parsonage fam ily. Then
I began to teach school here. And met Albert and then I
took root here as his wife.
AR: She's lived longer here than anywhere, because
Methodist preachers moved around
MRS. AR: By far I ' ve lived here than anywhere else because
I was just a very young teacher. I started teaching when I
was as young as I was - I had to be that old to teach.
WS: What were the qualifications for teaching then?
MRS . AR: Well, we didn ' t have to have a college degree . I
did later get a degree, after I taught. I would teach and
go back in the summers to get my degree . But I did - I had
been certified and I had two years in college when I began
teaching here.
WS: Do you have any Normal Schools or such. We had those
up north.
MRS. AR: Well, my parents both attended Normal Schools in
east Texas and they both had - of course , my father was a
lawyer but he had read law. That was what they did in those
days to get their
AR: They studied in a law office .
MRS. AR : They studied in a law office and then passed the
bar. But my mother was a teacher always until she married
RIENSTRA 24
MRS. AR: my father. And so they went to the Normal
Schools. And for years we got literature addressed to my
Dad because he was on their mailing list while we were here
in Nederland I suppose. And from Huntsville, which is Sam
Houston now .
AR: Sam Houston State University. But that used to be ••
MRS. AR: Which he had attended in those days. And I think
that my Mother might have attended that same school because
there were not too many schools available and of course,
that was in east Texas where they both grew up . My Mother
was born near Palestine, Texas but grew up in Lufkin. And
Homer, little Homer. Homer is just a little wide place in
the road now but it was a little community when they lived
there.
JS: How many children do you all have?
MRS. AR: We have five children .
JS: Are they all in this area?
AR: Well just one . One is a doctor - a l ocal doctor here.
And- it ' s our oldest son , the second son is president of
the largest advertising public relations firm in Ft. Worth .
We have a daughter living in Dallas that was a school
teacher and teaches once in awhile now but her husband is a
CPA with the Southland Corp. You know, they own the 7-ll
Stores. Then we have another daughter who is the wife of a
college professor living in Chestertown, Maryland. Then we
have the youngest daughter,the only unmarried one, who is a
counselor in the Ft. Bend Independent School District which
RIENSTRA 25
AR: is right next to Houston.
But what I wanted to say awhile ago •..
MRS. AR: All of them from the University of Texas, except
me. I finished at SMU.
WS: You ' re the outlaw. (laughter)
AR: An interesting thing that you might not have picked up
that I thought was kind of interesting. Pretty near all of
the offspring of the Dutch have not married Dutch . You know
what I mean. The girl married out, you know, and almost all
of the boys who married, you know. not into the Dutch. So,
we - the Dutch influence and Dutch heritage is going to fast
disappear in this area except a lot of them, of course, have
some Dutch blood in 'em.
MRS. AR: It's going to be hard to let it die out, though.
Because the Dutch people are pretty much oriented or
motivated to heritage.
JS: Which is great. You were speaking earlier about the
residential development here in town in which you were
involved with. Can you tell us some more about that? Did
you buy up land
AR: Well, it's really not right in town. We had -my
brother and myself and a man from Beaumont - had bought
around a hundred acres north of town here. It's really
outside the city limits. It ' s in a water district just
north of town which probably we hope some day will become a
part of the town.
We divided that up and there is some 250 houses on
there now. We weren ' t in the building but we developed the
RIENSTRA
AR : l and , put in the water , s ewer, streets, and
everything.
26
WS: When you refer to a water district - i s this - do they
get most of the water from the canal , as I understand , or
did they drill some deep wells
AR: No. Mos t of the water distr icts around here are getting
their water from the Neches River Authority system, I mean,
the water comes out of the Neches River north of Beaumont.
They ' ve got a canal system that runs all the way to Port
Arthur.
WS : Then they run it through
AR : Filtering p l ants.
JS: We spoke earli e r abou t the refinery . I was wonder i ng
about t he worker-managment rel ations . Did you have many
problems with workers' strikes?
AR: Not until the unions came a l ong . (laughter)
JS: What year was that , do you remember?
AR : Well, I can kinda date that becaus e I happened t o be
working at t he Texas Company for a year . I lacked a year of
finishing the University of Texas , so I d e cided , you know ,
t hings were tough.
So I decided that I had a chance to go to work under
the Blue Eagl e , which was the NRA, if you remember that.
NRA , which was back in the Roosevelt days and so they - when
the NRA came in well, I got a job wi t h the Texas Company In
Augus t. And I was to go back to school in earl y September .
And of course , the backbreak ing work they gave me at first ,
I was inclined to want to go back t o school. About the time
RIENSTRA 27
AR: I had to make up my mind to go back to school , they
promoted me to the gauging department. Now, you might not
be familiar with gauging. But gauging is where you keep
track of the amount of oil in these tanks. And when you 're
pumping oil into ships, you know, you check all of that.
And so, I was promoted to the gauging department and made
the great sum of seventy-six cents an hour, which had a
raise from about fifty-some odd cents. And, so, of course I
was still s ingle and this was before I married and so I
remember I saved up thirteen hundred dollars that year. And
then I went for my final year at the University of Texas. I
lived like a king! (laughter) On thirteen hundred dollars
because I had •••
MRS. AR: He lived like a pauper the first years he was up
there.
AR: The first year I went up there, I lived on about four
hundred dollars. But anyhow, that was when the unions first
started coming in because I remember that the superintendent
of the plant called in everybody, one by one. And, of
course they , you know, management was pretty much against
unions, particularly in those days. They wanted to try to
kill it before it got started.
So, each employee was called in and interviewed by the
superintendent of the company. I remember when he called me
in, you know, he asked me about - of course, I had already
been to college, you know , for three years and I 'd studied
about Economics and I was familiar with strikes and all
RIENSTRA 28
AR : that sort of thing, the ebb and flow of the union
involvement. You know, we've had big unions before , you
know. And then had a tendency to die out. Well, anyhow, I
didn' t join the union because I knew I was just going to
see , they were putting the heat on everybody to join the
union. I didn ' t join because I knew I was just going to be
there a year anyway. And, so , when he interviewed me , I
told him, you know , there was good to the union movement,
but I did not owe any meals to the union, and I wasn ' t going
to join. So that's-that, of course, was in 193- about 1933
- when the union really started getting strong around here.
And then what happened is as time went on - when World War
II came on , there was such a development around here , for
instance t he heart of the rubber industry moved , you might
say, pretty much to thi s area in order to start over with ,
because the first big synthe tic rubber plant was bui l t right
out here, you know. And we had an influx of people from
Akron , Ohio, who were familiar with rubber . They - we had a
lot of peopl e move in here because local people did not know
anything about the rubber business .
So they built a big syntheti c plant, and I 'm sure they
had pilot plants to prove t hat it could be , but that was a
tremendous thing and tremendous boom to this part of the
country, when the synthetic business came in here .
Well, then , after the War , there was such a demand for
goods and things that everytime the union went on s trike, i t
didn 't last but just a few days because these companies-
RIENSTRA 29
AR: what it amounts to economically- they 'd give them
almost anything they wanted because they could pass it on,
you see. The ultimate consumer pays for everything.
(laughter) This is - politicians always talk about taxing
big industry but I don 't care what you tax big industry.
Ultimately the consumer has to pay it, you see.
Well, then for a long time, the union activity really
flourished because they kept getting rai ses , you know. And,
so, finally the phase we're in now the thing is going the
other way. And the companies cannot pass it on anymore
because of foreign competition, and because it's not just
there anymore. So, it ' s been hard, I guess, for unions to
realize it, but for the time being, the honeymoon seems to
be over . There ' s been so many lay-offs in this area, for
instance, the Texas Company in Port Arthur was working near
5,000 people and now they ' re down to 1,700 and something, I
understand, see.
JS: Are a l ot of people moving out because of that?
AR: Yes, quite a few people have moved. However, I think
in this immediate area, Nederland , you know, I'm sure we've
lost some. And our school enrollment this year is what?
MRS. AR: It's barely 5- A.
AR: Well I know, what I mean the number of people in
school. It was down very little from last year.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 1, 45 MINS.
RIENSTRA 30
TAPE I, SIDE 2
MRS. AR: I just said that we did feel the effects of
strikes when we were in business. When the big companies
would - when the employees would go on strike, it would
affect business all ove r, really And it affected us to some
degree. It never hurt us all that much, in a way, but we
did feel it. And we dreaded it when contracts were coming
up.
AR: Well, I guess one of the longest strikes that I
remember was the Texaco strike and it lasted, I think , 117
days, which was pretty long.
MRS. AR: You know that Pure Oil - old Pure Oil was out for
a long time , wasn ' t it?
AR: Not too long.
MRS. AR: Not that long?
WS: I was kinda wondering - going back to rice farming
days. Did they have much immigrant labor come in o r did
they have to have any- what do we call them now ••.
AR : Wet-backs?
WS: Well, yes , or any ••. day workers to come in to harvest
the crops , or did they have local ••••
AR : Well , most of the people here were day workers.
(laughter)
WS: I mean you took care of your own labor problems .
AR: Yes . Now, we didn ' t have , for instance , the Mexican
situation that we now have. That wasn't known in those
days.
RIENSTRA 31
MRS. AR: ' Course , the refineries brought the French in from
Louisiana.
AR: Well, yeah, a lot of French came in from Louisiana but
then there were also some French in this area.
MRS. AR: They came in to settle and to be citizens.
WS: Yeah. They didn ' t just come in to work a couple-three
months and then go back.
AR: No. No. No. We didn ' t have that. That ' s with us now ,
maybe, you know.
WS: What crops do they grow around here mainly? Do t hey
grow
AR: Well. Right in this immediate area since it became so
industrialized you might say, there's very little farming in
this immediate area . But right in the western part of this
County, is quite a bit of rice farming. Rice is strong yet
in this area. At one time there were numerous dairies in
Jefferson County and they ' re practically all gone now.
But I remember, I remember when t here was about 5-6
dairies right around Nederland. Now most of them didn ' t
sell their milk righ t in Nederland but they sold it maybe in
Beaumont or Port Arthur - wholesaled it, you know. But ,
dairying has had to leave here because of prices of land and
one thing and another. And also, just any and everybody
j ust can ' t get into t he dairying bus iness anymore because of
the laws are quite different, you know. When we sold milk
it was raw milk. That was pre-pasturized days. And , t he
only trouble we ever had with milk was if the cows got
RIENSTRA 32
AR: eating bitter weeds, that's something that goes right
on through the milk, you know.
WS: Flavored the milk?
AR: Yes. It flavored the milk. And about all you can do
is destroy it. But one of the things about when we delivered
our milk. At certain times of the year, you know , the cream
line was real deep. Where now everything we do is
standardized, you know. 4% butterfat. But, you know, we
sold it like it came out of the cows. (laughter) So - the
system we have now, if it doesn ' t measure 4%- what they
call the "D" grade - they put something in there to make it
come up to it. And if it ' s more than that they take it
away.
JS: I can remember when if we wanted cream, we would skim
off some of the top.
MRS. AR: I remember that, too. My Daddy had a cow, and we
could just skim the milk - the cream off the top of the milk
and we had good, rich cream on whatever we were eating.
AR: I still think it ' s the best milk.
JS: With these refineries - were ever any disasters?
AR: Disasters?
JS: Uh-huh.
AR: Oh, yes. We ' ve had - well I guess the worst one
closest to the Union Oil out here - used to be called Pure
Oil Company before it merged, and there were, I think 9
people killed at one time. You know, Jenkins, and that
group?
RIENSTRA 33
MRS . AR: Yeah.
AR: I think there were about 9 killed at one time.
There have been numerous explosions, you know, over a
long perod of time. There don't seem to be as many as there
once was, because I'm sure there, uh •••.
MRS . AR: Nothing to compare with Texas City, and that sort
of thing.
AR: Well, that was a very unusual thing in Texas City. And
then, there ' s been one or two boat explosions here when
loading these tankers. For instance, Venezuela Gulf -
Venezuela ship blew up and killed 37 people one time there
a t the gulf, I think, in Port Arthur.
Now, when you ' re filling these ships and this is the
only thing I was - when I worked on the docks in the gauging
department, I was always very aware of that. When you're
filling that thing, you know, you've got a lot of gas in
there. And when it got right to the top, I wasn ' t afra id of
it anymore. It might catch on fire, but it's not gas- gas
will cause an explosion. But you get a real empty hull on
thoses tankers filled with gas and something touches off,
man , it is a real explosion.
WS: You were shipping out refined gas at the time, mainly?
AR: Well, the plant in Port Neches, we were receiving -
actually, we didn ' t make gasol ine there. They made mostly
asphalt and kerosene and we pumped kerosene to the Port
Arthur plant . But we had two or three tanks there that was
leased to City Service Company and they were pumping
RIENSTRA 34
AR: gasoline from their refinery to Texas Company here and
had to lease tanks and we, you know, we had the
responsibility of loading their ships for 'em, you see.
And, of course, that was pure old gasoline.
WS: In other words, the ocean-going vessels did come right
in to port right here?
AR: Oh , yeah. That goes into Beaumont , even .
WS: Yeah, I see.
JS: I wanted to ask you about safety precautions. Did they
have strict safety precaut ions and rules earlier, or have
you seen much change in that?
AR: Well , of course, I 'm not as familiar with latter days,
since it's been a long time since I ' ve worked out there, but
I , you know , I thought they were fairly safe. A lot of
these things that happen in these plants, you know,
sometimes they blame the equipment , but the re ' s people that
sneak off and smoke where they're not supposed to smoke.
And, you know, they would do things that •.. all accidents
are not caused mechanically. It' s just like t he automobile.
it ' s amazing how few accidents really are the result of the
faultiness of the car. It ' s the nut behind the wheel
(laughter) goes crazy .
WS: I was wondering back, too, in your fa ther ' s and maybe
in your earlier years, what were the social activities? I
know out in our area there are quite a bit of German and
they have rifle clubs. They seemed to go in for something
like that a lot. I 'm just wondering if they had anything
RIENSTRA 35
WS: here comparable to that.
AR : No. I think in the earlier days probably built more
around fami lies and church, and one thing and another.
There were some dances , of course , but mostly were the home
type danc ing, and one thing and another . And there was
probably more picnicking and things of that kind.
WS : Horse racing , or anyt hing like that wasn ' t much of ...
AR : Well , we didn ' t have horse racing. Texas never has had
much horse racing.
JS: Like at the fair - not for money, but just for sport .
WS: Do local fa irs have trotters and stuff? We do up north
and
AR: No. Uh-uh. We had a lot of cowboys - a lot of people
had horses and things of that kind . Well , some of the
French came in here and they ' re indoctrinating - you know
how the Fr ench are in Louisiana. They like to gamb le , you
know. On the sly, they 've had some horse races here, you
know , off the record , and they 'd run horses one against the
o ther and bet on ' em, and things like that. But , that wasn 't
the main thing .
WS : Did you have Old Home Days back then some, or not? I
mean up North we used to have an Old Home Day . They 'd have
- my father has told of having races , and , you know, regular
picnics and carnivals
AR: Well. I remember when they had sack races , and stuff
like that. I remember the 25th Anniversary of the town. I
was just a kid. You know we ' ve had a 25th,a 50th and a 75th.
RIENSTRA 36
AR : And I remember the 25th, and not many seem to remember
that. But that was at a private home and t he t hing I
remember was they had barrels of lemonade . Well, that was
something back in those days - a barrel of lemonade!
People's eyes ... and everything. But I think lemonade
doesn't taste as good as it did then. I remember t he first
bottle of soda water I ever had. It was Cream Soda, and we
were on our way to Galveston in a Model T Ford. We left
Nederland about 4:00 in the morning and had to go by the way
of Houston, across Buffalo Bayou this side of Houston,
called Lynchburg Ferry. And we got to Galveston about 3:00
that evening and now, you know you can drive to Galveston by
the ferry here, in a good car, practically a couple hours
easy.
But, anyhow, I remember we bought - I bought a Cream
Soda, and that was the best drink I ever had i n my life.
And I have Cream Soda in recent years and I have bought
several to try to re-coup that taste. And I ' ve never found
another Cream Soda that tasted good. I realize it's not the
••. it's the memory I had at ••••
MRS. AR: It ' d be a rarity to find a Cream Soda nowadays, I
imagine .
AR : And there's never been a watermelon as good as those
that we broke out in the fields in the early morning and the
dew was still on them. And we would break them open and
j ust eat the hearts of them. That ' s better t han any iced
watermelon or anything else. They just don ' t make them •••
RIENSTRA 37
WS: As far as you remember, you always had ice machines
around here, so you ••. refrigeration in homes, and all
this?
AR: Well , we bought ice , you know.
WS: Well , I mean, but they had ice machines?
AR: Oh, yes. They had ice plants. You know , that made
these big cakes of ice. They delivered ice door to door.
And we had the first refrigerators, of course, were these
box refrigerators and you put a cake, you know , of ice in
them. And either put a hole through the floor or you had a
pan under them that holds the water. And later on , of
course •••
MRS. AR. we had a f unnel down through the hole .
AR : Electric refrigeration. Now I can remember when we got
our first little old buzz fan. See , what you don ' t know,
doesn ' t hurt you . Well , we got the little buzz fan and that
was the latest thing out , and we just really enjoyed that
thing. And then came along the window fan in t his part of
the country. And , boy, that was living! Then the buzz fan,
you know , didn ' t satisfy you.
WS: What's a buzz fan? I guess we don' t .• •
AR : Just a little old space fan.
MRS. AR: But I remember during the 20's some homes that
could afford it, had ceiling fans . Because I remember one
AR : Well, yes. Ceiling fans
MRS . AR : I remember one home where I was there had a
ceiling fan.
RIENSTRA 38
AR: Well, yes. But generally around here we went to the
window fan , and then they had the att ic fan. And , of
course , it blowed in a lot of dust , grit , and stuff.
Then air-conditioning comes along. And now if the
air-conditioning goes out , she wants to get the guy out of
bed at nidnight to fix this thing, you know. (laughter)
WS: This makes me think of prior to electricity up in our
area, espec i ally the rural areas, they had carbon lights ,
and stuff. Some of the farmers .••
AR : They had kerosene lamps. Yeah. I remember we had
kerosene lamps. I remember my older sister would sit there
on the stairstep at night and study her lessons by kerosene
lamp.
No. I'm aware of carbon lights, but they - most of
them that I have seen were in the early autos , you know .
WS: Some of the homes up there would have carbon , or
batteries, too. Some of people even put wind chargers up to
charge batteries . They didn ' t run much only just lights.
Not much you could run.
JS: Well , Albert , our time is up. I hate to cut this
short. I think we could go on all morning.
it.
I 've enjoyed
WS : One thi ng , I just wondered. Would fertilizer be used
with growing rice , or did you have to import a lot of your
fertilizer- or did they rotate, or did you •••
AR: I don ' t remember. Of course, the land was , you know
RIENSTRA 39
MRS. AR: Celeste might be able- wasn't her father a rice
farmer?
WS: Oh , yes. She might be able to help me.
AR: She might be. I don't remember ..• I remember on our
truck farming, mostly rice - most fertilizer we used was cow
manure, you know.
WS: That's what I was wondering.
MRS. AR: They use it in Holland now, too, I guess. I told
Albert ••.
WS: Did you have to import grain to feed your stock or
cows, or Up north they buy grain and
AR: Well , yes. Yeah. I remember in our dairy we bought
quite a bit of sack feed. But way back in the very
beginning, of course , I date from 1912 you might say a
little bit later than that. My earliest memories go back to
the 1915 storm and the only thing I remember about the 1915
storm is that I lost my hobby horse. It was on the front
porch. And I got up the next morning- I wasn 't afraid of
the storm because I wasn ' t old enough to be afraid of the
storm. I got up the next morning and a big tree had blown
over on the front porch , and my hobby horse was gone. I
haven't found it to this day. (laughter) And that ' s the
earliest memory that I can pinpoint.
JS : Well, I know Jack ' s going to be waiting for us. It ' s
about ten o ' clock. And, again, thanks.
AR: Well, I don't know whether I been much
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 2 , ABOUT 45 MINS.
1895
1897
NEDERLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
DOCENT SCRIPT
History
Port Arthur Land Company made up of a group of Dutch
and local financeers acquired the title to 41,850 acres
of prairie land in South Jefferson County which had
been purchased by Arthur Stilwell from the Beaumont
Pasture Co. at $6.75 acre.
On December 24, 1897, Nederland was officially placed
on the map. On that date Robert Gilham filed a
certificate describing his finished survey of the
townsite and the name "Nederland" was given the plat
by its creator, the Port Arthur Townsite Company.
Arthur Stilwell, who constructed the new railroad from
Kansas City to Lake Sabine, had chosen many of the
names on the route of the railroad as a result of his
having received financial backing for his project in
Holland. He was hopeful of Nederland becoming a
transplanted Dutch settlement in Texas.
After purchasing the land, the Co. sent agents to
Holland to attract Dutch people to come to the area to
settle. Pictures showing the area as a veritable
paradise were distributed. (It is believed that some
of the pictures were made of lush vegetation in Florida) •
Mr. J. E. Kroes, former inspector, for Netherlands­American
Steamship Co., was employed to contact pros­pective
applicants for the new colony. Besides farmers,
he was to secure tradesmen, clerks, shopkeepers, teachers
and clergy. The year-round temperatures and fertile soil
that would grow anything were the selling points used by
Mr. Kroes and the agents.
The first Hollander to arrive was young George Rienstra
in late May of 1897 and chose what he considered the
richest farm land - a vast prairie without a tree nor a
house in sight. George had first come to the U.S. in
1895 landing in New York. From there he went to Iowa
where he learned the blacksmith trade and made some tools
that he later used to bukld his hoje, the first house in
Nederland. He stayed in Iowa one year and then came to
Alvin, Texas because he had learned that there were Dutch
families in that community. After arriving in Alvin,
he decided to leave his team, wagon and possessions with
a Dutch family and return to Holland to visit his mother
and the rest of his family. It was back in Holland that
2
he heard about the proposed community of Nederland and
he decided to cast his lot with the idea of a Dutch
settlement in Texas. A younger sister of his, Fannie,
shared his enthusiasm and decided to come and help
keep house and cook for him.
Fannie and George Rienstra landed in Galveston and
went on the Alvin. George then left her in Alvin to
go to Port Arthur to make arrangements to settle in
Nederland. He was very pleased with what he saw,
(good climate, rainfall, fruit and vegetables very
fresh and green) good soil in which to grow anything.
The warranty deed for the purchase of the first land
bought in Nederland was signed on July 17, 1897. The
purchase was for 80 acres at $800 cash by George
Rienstra. Since he made the first purchase, he was
given lot 1,2,3 and 4 in Block 15 in the area designated
for business (now Boston Avenue) •
After George finished his home, his sister Fannie came
by train (KCS) to join him.
In November of 1897 one of the largest groups of immi­grants
to come to Nederland arrived in Galveston aboard
the steamship "Olinda."
On March 1, 1898, the Maarten Koelemay family arrived
in Nederland from Galveston. Besides the mother and
father there were eight children most of whom were
adults or approaching adulthood. This was the largest
family group to make their home here. Mr. Koelemay was
a cheese maker and intended to continue his occupation
here, but the warm and humid climate forced him into
other channels of earning a living. (Dairy farmer,
outstanding) •
Many of the immigrants took temporary jobs when they
first arrived while they were in the process of choosing
land for farming and a site for a home. Some did not
have enough money for the down payment of one third of
the total purchase price and had to work other jobs
until they could branch out on their own.
Some men helped build the jetties at Sabine Pass, others
worked on the railroad. In 1900, Jake Doornbos and
G. Van der Weg raised their first crop of rice in the
area where the Y.M.C.A. is now located.
Many of the girls who came from Holland worked as nurse­maids
or household servants to families in Beaumont and
3
Port Arthur. Others worked as maids in the Sabine Hotel
and the Nash in Port Arthur.
The first baby born in Nederland was Nickolas Westerterp
on February 10, 1899. Two above zero and held baby in
an open oven to keep him warm. Cattle died by the
thousands. Dan Rienstra ice skated on Lake Sabine.
One of the worst storms in the history of Nederland
struck the town in 1900 at the same time of the Galveston
storm. The rain lasted for four days. Water stood six
to eight inches deep in many of the homes. A 100 mile
an hour wind flattened many of the homes and caused
plaster to fall from the ceilings of the Orange Hotel
and destroyed the shed behind the hotel which was being
used as a school. Some of the immigrants who could not
adjust to the climate, mosquitoes and lack of physical
and material conveniences moved on to other towns and
others returned to Holland. The people who remained
were engaged in rice farming, truck farming and dairy
farming.
In 1915 another storm brought people from Port Arthur
and Sabine Pass into Nederland and they remained to
become Nederlanders.
Between 1920-30, Nederland lost most of its resemblance
to a western town. Construction of Smith's Bluff Pure
Oil Refinery brought many new families in from Louisiana.
The main street was shelled about 1908 and other streets
about 1911. December 15, 1913, the Eastern Texas Electric
Co. ran its first interurban between Beaumont and Port
Arthur. The trolley cars ran once an hour and opened
up a new opportunity for many to have jobs in either
Beaumont or Port Arthur. Electric lights were made
available and telephones in 1924. Gas was available in
1926 and water in 1936. The interurban was discontinued
in 1932 when bus service began.
Churches - Dutch Reformed Congregation was established in April of
1898. Services were conducted each Sunday at the orange
Hotel. The Church dissolved about 1905. The little
church --building was constructed at the corner of lOth and
Boston, and also served as the school house. Later the
Methodists were given permission to hold their services
there and later the Baptists. The Dutch people realized
that in being successful in their new homeland, they
would not cling too closely to the old ways and most
joined "American" churches.!' Methodists organized in
4
1900, Baptists in 1907 and St. Charles Catholic Church
in 1923.
First Schools - was a shed at the rear of the Orange Hotel and
started with ten pupils. After the storm destroyed the
shed, the school was held in the Dutch Reform Church.
In 1902, due to increasing enrollment a new school was
erected with public funds. The children only went to
school at that time through the eighth grade and then
went to either Webster School in Port Arthur or to
Beaumont by the interurban.
In 1911 Nederland built its first brick school and was
named Langham School. In 1917, three students graduated
from Nederland Schools at the high school level. The
second graduation class was not until 1923.
In 1920, Nederland became an independent school district.
City of Nederland was incorporated on April 29, 1940.
Mayor and City Manager type of government.