“Fancy Meeting You Here”

When: Saturday, November 11, 2017

Where: Zeeland Historical Museum - Research Room 

Karen Shoemaker had an appointment to meet with our Archivist, Suzy Frederick, to follow up on Karen’s family research project.  

Brian Shoemaker happened by to continue working on his family history. After he and Karen met for the first time, she telephoned her father-in-law, Jason Shoemaker, and he joined them in the Research Room at the museum.

Jason and Brian are connected through Lawrence, son of Klaas Schoenmakers. As the story goes the last name has changed many times, with the "n" the "s" and the "c" dropped over the years.

The Shoemaker family spent a lot of time looking over our digitized photo collection, with Jason recognizing many of the older generation.

Brian and Karen were very interested in stories written about the old homestead.

Karen even found an entire family tree written in her mother-in-law's handwriting. No one knew the family tree even existed! A genealogist’s dream come true!

After the fact, one of our volunteers recalled a framed lithograph, memorializing Klaas and Jantje  "Schoemakers." The lithograph is on display in the Church Room - second floor of the museum.    

Written by Wendy Combs (curator), Suzy Frederick (archivist) and Susan Norder (webmaster)