In the Kitchen – Mary Ola Vierstra Dykstra

This recipe for Olikoken is from my Beppe (grandmother in Friesian) Mary (Vierstra) Dykstra. Mary Ola Vierstra was born on September 4, 1908, in North Strabane, Pennsylvania, to Antje (Anna) B. Boersma and Meinte Gerben Vierstra, recent immigrants from the Netherlands. She was the last born of 6 children and the only one born in the United States.

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North Strabane is outside the limits of Cannonsburg, PA where the singer Perry Como was from. According to my great uncle Martin (Marty) Vierstra, Mary’s older brother, Perry Como worked in the barber shop he frequented and would often be in the shop sweeping and eventually became a barber himself.

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The family moved from Strabane to Peters when Mary was 2 years old. At the age of 7, Mary’s half sister, Jikke (Margaret) died in Pittsburg. She had been taken to the hospital and underwent an operation to no avail.

Around the age of 15 (abt 1925) her family moved to Northbridge, MA. As a young woman Mary polished rolls at the Whitin Machine Works company. She worked before and for some time after being married. Klaas Dykstra used to walk Mary home from church. One night he said to her “I’m going to marry you, Mary.” “Oh really, are you now?” was her response. “Let’s go in and tell your father”, Klaas continued. At church the next Sunday, Mary’s father made the announcement that his daughter was going to be married and invited the entire congregation to his house after the ceremony.

Klaas and Mary lived on Sutton Street in Whitinsville, MA shortly after they  were married.  There Joe and Milt were born.  Joe, who is the eldest son, was born in the hospital in Whitinsville on 1 April 1932.  After giving birth, Mary developed “milk breast”, the toxins infected her body and she became seriously ill.  So serious in fact that the doctor went to Klaas and advised him to begin to make funeral arrangements.  Mary’s sister-in-law, Clara, was nursing Mary to health when an old time doctor came by to visit Mary.  He applied a polstice on her, drawing out the toxins, but not before she passed some of them on to her newborn baby.  Joe became ill with rheumatic fever and he almost died as well.  That was not to be Joe’s only bout with rheumatic fever.  Joe was sick often in the early years of his life, his best friend and cousin, Marge Vierstra, was a constant playmate.

Klaas and Mary loved to travel.  Klaas would call up Mary and ask “Mem is clair”? or “Mother are you ready?”    Mary would respond, “mem is altyd klear” meaning ‘Mom is always ready’.  In a photo album chronicling their adventures one can find photographs of: Echo Lake, Old Man of the Mountain, Mt. Tom, Sudbury, Washington DC., Concord, the Franklin Zoo in Boston, the Concord Reformatory, Old Orchard Beach Maine, the Clinton Dam, Cooperstown, Los Angeles, Florida, Nebraska, and more.  They traveled in their old Model “A” convertible where Klaas had painted on the tire cover their nicknames: Kooch and Eck.