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While growing up, Ruth and her siblings often visited their grandparents who had immgrated from The Netherlands in 1922.  One of the traditional foods that Grandma Folkers liked to prepare and share was "Roode Kool".  Here is her traditional recipe to pass on to her posterity. Ingredients: 1 medium sized heart...

Ruth's grandmother, Hilje Mulder Folkers, had a favorite recipe of hers that Ruth loved with kale and potatoes, rather than sauerkraut (zuurkool).  This is a quick and easy recipe for cold winter months. Instructions:  Use equal parts of sauerkraut and potatoes boiled separately.  Drain potatoes and mash.  Drain sauerkraut and combine...

This recipe was contributed by Gloria Schneider (Ruth's youngest daughter) for THE THIESSENS FAMILY REUNION COOKBOOK - 2000.  She writes "This recipe is one that my mother - Ruth Meacham - often made for Thanksgiving and Christmas when we were growing up.  I can't help but think of the good memories...

I was just turning sixteen when Ralph Green and Golden Adams, two good-looking Airmen, spent a couple of hours flirting with me in the Union Pacific elevator (I was the elevator operator) and Golden asked me for a date that very night. Golden had a car, so we drove around the...

When I was fourteen, I was out looking for work.  My Dad wasn't able to work and mother was cleaning houses.  It seemed like, as a family, we had sturggles to make ends meet and food on the table and clothes on our backs.  So I thought if I could go...

(Continued from Part 1) CLICK HERE The family moved to Bryan Avenue in 1937.  That Christmas, Joseph pumped Ruth on bicycle to town and they went Christmas shopping.  She carried the packages while he pumped them home again. When the family moved, Joseph was set back one year in school.  He...

(As told to Golden Virgil Adams Jr. by Mrs. H. Thiessens & Ruth T. Adams about 1962) It was a nice clear winter day in January.  The snow that was lying on the ground glistened as if it were manna from heaven.  This was the day a blessing from heaven was...

Ruth reminices about how her oldest brother, Ted, would get old clunkers with a rumble seat to fix up, and when they were in the backyard on Seventh East and later on Bryan Avenue in Salt Lake City how they would "stargaze" at night (and in the summer daytimes she and...

Ruth tells of her mother bottling fruits and vegetables and storing them in the cellar on Seventh East in Salt Lake City, Utah and how she caught the family member that was "snitching" the food since it was disappearing.

Ruth remembers, as a young girl, how she and her brother, Joseph, loved to climb apples trees and eat green apples but after one such experience, Joseph became very ill and almost lost his life.

Ruth tells of activities of her brothers Ted and Hank who were in their teens when she was in her early childhood, and how she worried about their involvement with the streetcars that ran in front of their home on Seventh East in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ruth tells childhood memories of cold winter nights in unheated bedrooms and keeping warm when sick as a child.

As a child and growing up, because we lived in the busy city and times were difficult through the Great Depression, I never had a pet of my own.  But my brother, Hank, was very fond of cats.  In fact, Hank was in to cats.  He had one that had a...

Ruth remembers how she and her older brother, Joseph, would walk to Nibley Park, Salt Lake City Utah and fish in the lake at the golf course when she was about eight years old.  Joseph was three years older.  

 It cut her head wide open and she went screaming to her house. When I saw all that blood, I ran into my house to hide

Streetcar: I can remember that as a young girl, we had the streetcars that went along in front of our house on Seventh East in Salt Lake City, Utah.   There was one streetcar driver whose name was Bill.  He was a friend of my father, and Daddy made arrangements for him...

This week's story prompt:  Do you believe in miracles and if so, have you ever witnessed one?  Describe-- brought to mind two different situations that I consider to be miracles. Miracle # 1:  When I was a little girl we were  living on Seventh East in Salt Lake City, Utah, and...

My second son, Lloyd was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and the doctor recommended that we move to a warmer, dryer  climate for the winter.  In November 1951, our family of four children (Goldie, Lloyd, Steve, and Janice) moved to Mesa, Arizona.  One day, Lloyd came home from kidergarten crying his eyes...

As a young girl, I loved to visit my grandparents.  I would ride my bicycle to their house.  We lived on 7th East in Salt Lake City, Utah and they lived on Leland Avenue, about three or four blocks away. I remember that my grandfather [Folkert T. Folkers] often sat in...

Grandpa Folkers would sit hunched over in his rocking chair.  He was quite a heavy man.  He stood a head taller than grandma Folkers who was quite short.  It was wintertime, and he was sitting in the chair.  There was no heat in the bedroom, and the kitchen had the cookstove,...