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Otto Schaap died in the month of February 1857 at the home of his son Arie in the city of Winkel, Province of North Holland, Netherlands. His wife Lysje De Jong died, and is buried, on 14 MAR 1855 in Holland, Ottawa, Michigan. Cornelius, the tenth child of Otto and Lysje wrote a letter to his children, in which he described the voyage to America. We are indeed grateful to him for giving us this insight into their early life in the new land. Mary Schaap Pas translated the letter into English. [Editor note:] This particular translation in not the one by Mary Schaap Pas but, instead, is one sent to me by Cousin Dave Postma, who is fluent in Dutch and told me had seen the original.]
Issac said to his son, Esau "Behold, I am grown old and know not the day of my death, and have something to tell you from the Lord before I die."
So thought I, your grandfather who sits here lonesome, many hours in an upstairs room in the villeage of Zeeland. I thought it would be pleasant, yes profitable, that our children should have a sort of Record of the life history of the parents and from whence they came. I will begin by mentioning my grandparents. They were John Schaap and his wife Wilmina Dekker. Grandfather met a tragic death by drowning, falling from a board used as a bridge over a deep ditch. His age was seventy-five years, while grandmother survived until she was ninty-two. They lived in the Province of South Holland, near Dortreght. Here too my grandfather was born October 1792. My grandmother Lysje De Jong was born in Zyndreght in August 1797. Being married when they twenty-two and eighteen respectively. The lived fifteen years in Wieldreght where eleven children were born to them named as follows: Wilmina (Boot), Cornelia (Doesburg), Arie, Jan, Otillia (Van Schelven), Jacob, Gerrit, Maaike (Pauels), Heiltjle (Plugger), Kornelis, and Teuntje. Kornelis, your grandfather, was two years old on April 2nd when we had moved with the entire family on the 16th of May 1830, to an island called Teingemeet. During the eighteen years we lived there, four more children were added to the family, but they did not survive, and four others of the previous born, Ottilia, Elizabetta, Gerrit, and Teuntje died there. My brother John went to North America in 1846 during the migratory movement under the leadership of A. C. Van Raalte and Scholten. In consequence of which our whole family left Tienemeet shipping from there in a large three master on May 20, 1848. The ship named the Louvre had as captain an American named Wicks; first mate, Widdlezee; second mate, Owen. Early morn of the 21st of May anchor was upheaved and with a favorable wind we entered the North Sea. "And soon a parting glance I cast on native shore, alas, the last." After a pleasant voyage of forty-four days we arrived in good health on the 3rd of July. We celebrated our first 4th in New York. At 8 o'clock we embarked for Albany on a Hudson river steamboat. On the Eve of the 5th we entered a Page 3
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