In Dutch, Kuiken means “chick.” It is a diminutive term, roughly equivalent to “little chicken” in English (although the last syllable in the English word “chicken” mimics the Germanic diminutive suffix, “-chen”). With such humble connotations, it is not obvious that the name Kuiken has aristocratic origins. At the risk of creating yet another “noble” historical resurrection from a peasant family’s “exile,” the historical fragments are as follows. Kuik is a village name; there is a Kuik (Cuijk) southeast of Nijmegen and a Nieu Kuik near Dordrecht, either of which may have played a role in the emergence of this family name[1]. The village name, Kuik, was borrowed as a family name in the late 15th Century, when children of the Hapsburg Lord Wassenaar’s three marriages disputed his inheritance.[2] The children of one branch of the family were denied lands in the officially assigned and defended region (the region that includes Wassenaar, Leiden, and Sassenheim), motivating them (Steven Willems [born in 1475], Bartholt Willems [born in 1480], Cornelius Willems [born in 1485] and Claas Willems [born in 1490]) to set out for what was then the frontier, the polder in Friesland, and settle in St. Jacob Parochie (Sint Jacobparochi), near the villages of St. Anna Parochie (Sint Annaparochie) and Vrouwenparochie.[3] The polder, the land behind the then regularly expanding system of dikes, was provincially owned, and tax breaks were given to settlers there for a number of years. Claas Willems adopted the name “Kuiken” to differentiate this “exiled” family from the other Wassenaar disputants.[4]

 

Although the family geneology is continuous and more-or-less identifiable,[5] the Kuiken name initially was used only as necessary. It had no official standing until the French, who dominated the Lowlands at that time, required the adoption of a last name that remained the same across generations.[6] In compliance, in 1811 Marten Arjens (born in 1777) officially became Marten Arjens Kuiken. Marten’s son, Folkert Arjens Kuiken (born in 1802), was, in turn, father of Douwe Folkerts Kuiken, who is Marilyn’s, Janice’s, and Don’s great-grandfather.

 

So, Douwe Folkerts Kuiken (left) was born (March 10, 1849) in St. Anna Parochie (St. Anna's Parish), Friesland, Netherlands, to Folkert Arjens Kuiken (occupation: farmhand) and Pietje Joukes (Schat) Kuiken. Pietje married Pieters Haarsma after Folkert died and when Douwe was eight years old, beginning a tradition of Kuiken fathers who died young and required their sons to make early life adjustments. At age 14, Douwe went to work as a farmhand, and later he became a gardenier, i.e., a farmer who either rented or owned a few hectares. Army records, diligently kept in the style established by the conquering French, indicate that Douwe was Nederlandische Reformed and that he joined the militia at 19 years of age (1869-1874)—although his older brother also had met this requirement of another French “innovation” in the area: conscription.[7]

 

Douwe was brother to five siblings:

  1. Arjen Kuiken, son born 23 August 1838
  2. Jouke Kuiken, son born 15 November 1840
  3. Marten Kuiken, son born 13 September 1843
  4. Rinze Kuiken, son born 23 July 1846
  5. Renske Kuiken, daughter born 22 May 1852

Only Jouke, Marten, and Douwe survived beyond childhood.

 

Gepke Porte was also born (April 2, 1861) in St. Anna Parochie (St. Anna's Parish), Friesland, Netherlands. Her father was Jacob Jans Porte (occupation unknown) and her mother was Grietje Berends Snijder (who worked as a maid); both were born and died in unidentified locations in The Netherlands.

 

Gepke Porte and Douwe Kuiken were married on May 8, 1884.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the time of immigration, this couple already had three children:

1.      (Nellie) Pietje Kuiken, daughter, born June 26, 1885, in St. Anna Parochie;

2.      Jake (Jacob) Kuiken, son, born March 5, 1887, in St. Anna Parochie; and

3.      Frank (Folkert) Kuiken son, born March 9, 1888, in St. Anna Parochie.

Jacob (Jake) was Clarence Kuiken’s father, i.e., Marilyn’s, Janice’s, and Don’s grandfather.

 

 

This is the Veendam, the ship that carried Douwe and Gepke Kuiken, with their family, from Rotterdam to New York, arriving May 2, 1889. The circumstances surrounding immigration are largely unknown, although they are probably primarily economic: the preceding decade was marked by a depressed economy in Europe. Douwe was probably among the many tenant farmers or small land owners who lost the source of their livelihood in the preceding decade. Although these economic circumstances coincided with the split of the Christian Reformed Church from the Nederlandische Reformed Church in the 1870’s, Douwe, who remained officially Nederlandische Reformed, probably immigrated for economic reasons at least as much as religious ones.[8]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the ship’s log for the Veendam, clearly confused about names and ages, although correct about the size of the family and the father of the family.

 

The Kuiken family moved directly to Maurice, Iowa, settling in a Dutch-American community in Sioux County that included some who had left Pella, Iowa, and some who were new, but also primarily Dutch, immigrants.

 

Douwe Kuiken died in Maurice on November 21, 1914, at the age of 65 years. He was buried in the Sherman Township cemetery near Maurice.

 

 

This is a four-generation photograph of Gepke (Porte) Kuiken, with her daughter Nellie (Kuiken) vander Meulen, her grandson Raymond vander Meulen, and her great grand-daughter Nelbia vander Meulen. (After the death of Douwe, she remarried twice, first to John Reekers and second to Jacob Borgman.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gepke, died on August 9, 1954, in Maurice, Iowa, at the age of 93. She outlived her three husbands and all of her brothers and sisters.

 

 

 

 

 


[1] Given its proximity to the feudal trade routes defended by the Wassenaar family (i.e., to the present cities of Wassenaar, Leiden, and Sassenheim), Dordrecht is the more likely immediate source.

[2] The inheritance was probably considerable. In establishing their nobility, the Wassenaar family collected taxes and defended trade routes in the established feudal manner.

[3] There are few Catholics remaining in the area, although the saintly names of the three villages in the area (including St. Jacob Parochie and St. Anna Parochie) reflect the Catholic origins of those who built the dikes, rather than the religion of those who settled in the region. Also, although located in Freisland, Dutch is the primary language of St. Anna Parochie, not the fiercely defended “Fries” tradition (and language) of the area immediately to the east. However, note the cultural slur that lingers: in the immigrant community in Northwest Iowa, you were “Fries” if you were surly, stubborn, and closed-minded.

[4] Kuiken is now the primary family name in the St Jacob and St. Anna Parochie area, although intermarriage has obscured this somewhat. There also remain a few Portes in the area.

[5] The follow unabashedly patriarchal genealogy is partly based on notes from Kir and Don Kuiken’s conversations with Edward Kuiken (from St. Anna Parochie), a person who has documented the Kuiken genealogy and its related history very thoroughly. Some aspects of it have been confirmed and elaborated in materials gathered (and placed on Ancestry.com) by Chuck Hendrikson, husband of Pat Kuiken, of Madison, Wisconsin. The patriarchal “begats” in this geneology can be summarized as follows:

·        Steven Huygens, Wassenaar sheriff (?), born in 1420 in Sassenheim, North of Leiden

·        Willem Stevens, Wassenaar sheriff (?), born in 1450b in Sassenheim

·        Claas Willems (Kuiken), first Wassenaar disputant, born in 1490 in Sassenheim but moved to St. Jacob Parochie

·        Steven Claas (Kuiken), born in 1523 in St. Jacob Parochie

·        Jacob Stevens (Kuiken), born in 1555 in St. Jacob Parochie

·        Jan Jacobs (Kuiken), born in 1580 in St. Jacob Parochie

·        Arjen Jan Jacobs (Kuiken), born in 1630 in St. Jacob Parochie

·        Willem Arjen Jans (Kuiken), born in 1675 in St. Jacob Parochie

·        Arjen Willem Arjens (Kuiken), born in 1715 in St. Jacob Parochie

·        Marten Arjen Willems (Kuiken), born in 1740 in St. Jacob Parochie, died in St. Anna Parochie

·        Arjen Martens Kuiken, born in 1775 in St. Anna Parochie

·        Folkert Arjens Kuiken, born in 1803 in St. Anna Parochie

·        Douwe Folkerts Kuiken, born in 1849 in St. Anna Parochie

·        Jacob Douwe Kuiken, born in 1887 in St. Anna Parochie

·        Clarence Donald Kuiken, born in 1913 in Maurice, Iowa.

[6] Previously, naming practices did not include a “last name”; they regularly combined the names of husband and wife. For example, Arjen Willem Arjens married Sara Martens and gave birth to Marten Arjen Willems. Supplementing this hybrid form of name transmission with a constant concluding patriarchal family name had obvious bureaucratic advantages (see also Note 5). It also allowed eventual abandonment of the original hybrid form.

[7] Anyone interested in the records on which this history is based can check Central Bureau of Geneologie and the Hague #58558 for more information).

[8] There is an important Anabaptist background to St. Anna Parochie: Menno Simos, leader of the Dutch Anabaptists, was vicar in a village several kilometres to the south, Witmarsum (where he was also born). The political implications of this background are significant. For example, Jan Jacobs (Kuiken), born a Mennonite in 1580, resisted Spanish occupation of The Netherlands. Also, Mennonite communalism in St. Anna Parochie contributed to the socialist leanings of the Kuiken families in the late 19th Century. In the Netherlands in the 1870’s, there was an agricultural strike, led by the communist and anarchists in Friesland, to protest high rents. The strike was broken but it consolidated the socialist leanings of those in St. Anna Parochie and may have contributed to Douwe’s departure for the United States.