SIXTY-SIX YEARS AGO TODAY....

Sixty-six years ago today, my Mom and Dad were married.

Jaap VanRiel and Flora Berkman

Daniel Weeda and Adriana Berkman

On their wedding day

August 16, 1944

My parents had a double wedding. They were married the same day as my mom's sister, Tante Flora (the aunt I am named after) and Oom Jaap. My mom and Tante Flora were very close as sisters. They met their sweethearts at the same time, dated together, made profession of faith together, and got married together. My mom wrote down some of her memories in a booklet that was prepared when she celebrated her eightieth birthday in 1998.

"In 1944 we were going to get married, Flora and Jaap and Daan and I. But the war was still on. The stores were empty. The Germans had stolen everything. We did not have a wedding dress. What to do: Flora could use Tante Cor's [my mom's oldest sister] dress, she had married in 1940. Daan and I went to Rotterdam with a loaf of bread and a bag of kidney beans to a yardage store. It used to be the best yardage store around. We went by bike. The trains were no longer running. When we arrived the door of the store was open, but it was completely empty. A man was sitting behind a desk and we asked him if he had white material for a wedding dress.

'Absolutely not,' he said.

'But we have bread and beans with us,' we said. The man went in the back and after a long time he came back with a roll of white material to trade for our food. The people in the cities were so hungry. It was pitiful. So I had my material and he had his bread and beans. I sewed my dress and on August 16, 1944 Flora and I got married at the same time.

We were talking about whether to work for a baby or wait a while. We decided we would wait six months and then if everything went smoothly we would try to get pregnant about the same time. Then we would both hope for a boy. The boys would both be named Jacob because Jaap's father's name was Jacob and Dad's father's name was Jacob. Then we could have our babies baptized at the same time.

After three months of marriage Flora and Jaap stopped at our place and said, 'Hurry up, Flora is pregnant. Start working on it right away.'

But it took five months after that before I became pregnant. We both had a boy. They were both named Jacob. But the baptisms were five months apart . Well, you connot win them all."