Find

valentine card

Catalog Number
2013.42.13
Description
Valentine card depicting a bear on a sail boat.  The caption reads "HOPE IT'S CLEAR SAILING WITH YOU--MY VALENTINE".  Nelva received this valentine card from a classmate named Marcia Meengs.

Noordeloos School was located on the south side of Quincy Street, about a half mile west of 104th Avenue.  The school closed in 1959.
History
Donation 2013.42 focuses on Holland Charter Township in the area of Quincy Street and 104th Avenue, the current site of Helder Park and the First Protestant Reformed Church. The documents in collection 2013.42 are from about 1948 to 1953, when Noordeloos School and the Bos/Helder Farm still stood on this land. Both are now gone.

The area resident spotlighted in this collection is Nelva Helder Dykema (1940-2013), daughter of Henry Helder (1915-1996) and Irene Bos.(1916-2002). Helder farm once belonged to Irene's parents, Teunis Bos (1877-1953) and Nellie Van Dyk (1878-1926). Nelva attended Noordeloos School (grades 1-8), which closed in 1959.

Obit
Nelva H. Dykema passed away peacefully on March 15, 2013, under the care of St. Joseph's Hospice.
She was born June 9, 1940, in Zeeland, the eldest child and only daughter of Henry and Irene Helder. She grew up on the family farm in Holland Township and attended the two-room Noordeloos School. Nelva graduated from Zeeland High School and earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from the University of Michigan.
She married Harold J. Dykema on August 11, 1962, and they were married for nearly 50 years. Nelva taught nursing at St. Anthony's Hospital in the Quad Cities, Iowa, and at UW-Eau Claire. They moved to Eau Claire in 1967, and raised their three children on a beautiful hobby farm south of Eau Claire. There, Nelva enjoyed creating flower gardens and canning and freezing the produce from her two large vegetable gardens. They later moved to a condo in Altoona and together enjoyed camping trips, gardening, and traveling in the United States and Europe.
Gift of
Seymour, Janet