Scholten pictures from the archives

My mother, Henrietta Scholten Dykstra, at the switchboard in Hull, Iowa. She also worked the switchboard in Sheldon. She once assisted with a call from Henry Fonda!

My beautiful and funny Aunt Betty at her marriage to Uncle Ed in 1968. Aunt Betty didn't marry until her mid 30's so for many years she was the cool unmarried aunt for the Scholten cousins.
Along with my mother, she was also a telephone operator.

A photograph with three Jan Diekevers in Emlichheim, Bentheim, Germany.  About 1895.
Old Jan was born Jan Lubbers, but took his wife's name when they married since she was a landowner. He is my mother's great grandfather. Middle Jan is my mother's grandfather Gerrit's brother. (Gerrit emigrated to America.) Middle Jan also emigrated to America, but was called home to Germany to care for the farm and his siblings when his father needed him.
I knew Young Jan as a very old man when I visited the farm in 1981. He said his father loved being in America.

Scholten family at the funeral of my mother's Uncle Gerrit Scholten. July 1943.

My mother's family about 1946, Boyden, Iowa:
Front: Ella (Hillegen) Diekevers Scholten, George, Jan Scholten
Back: Betty, Grada, Johnny, Jeanette, Henrietta

Two of the sisters married Johns. As nieces and nephew's married, we told them to call the 6 uncles "Uncle John" and they would be correct 50% of the time.

Within the family, many names were used several times over the generations, within a generation, and even within a single family--when a child died, the name would be used for s subsequent child.