George Plantenga was my grandfather, my mother’s father. He was the oldest of 11. His family never celebrated his birthday, I think because he was conceived nearly 4 mos. before his father married his mother. He had nothing to do with that, but his father was a mean, old Dutchman. That’s the truth. My grandpa hated his father. Once my grandpa was grown and left home, he would come back and visit his mother but not his father. He once came home and found his mother, my great-grandmother, crying in the kitchen. School was ready to begin, and she didn’t have enough money to buy the children shoes. So my grandpa went out and bought all his younger siblings a pair of shoes to start school in.
I have many stories about my grandpa which I will not tell tonight, but he joined the Army when he & his buddies thought they would get a better deal than waiting to be drafted, was sent to France and then sent behind German lines on a mission, partly because he could understand Dutch, which was close enough to German. He & 2 buddies went behind German lines. George, my grandpa, was the only one who made it back out alive. For this, he earned the nickname, “Lucky”. I have his hand written story he wrote many years later, “Twenty-one Days Behind German Lines.” Just 1 story in it is about stealing an ambulance, wrapping his head in bandages to act like he couldn’t speak, and going into a German food bar where they gave him some whiskey and bread for free.
He came back to the States, as it happened, on his brother’s wedding day and couldn’t find any of his family members at home. Someone finally told him they were all at the church for his brother’s wedding! My grandma, Cena, who was waiting for his return to marry him, heard someone say, “Here comes George!” and she didn’t believe them. It was her fiance. She said more people surrounded him at the reception than they did the wedding couple.
Boo!
Doctor Grandma 