Intercontinental life leads from Holland to Scotts Valley

“Whatever was learned in childhood will never be forgotten,” says first time author Mary Van Diepen. At the urging of her children, the now 90-year old Scotts Valley resident wrote about her early years growing up in Warmenhuizen, north Holland during World War II.
“Caught in the Fuik — Tales from my Past” is the title of the book. The word fuik is Dutch for a trap or a net to catch fish. When a dike was built in the 1800’s on Warmenhuizen to close off the North Sea and drain the swamps, an alluvial strip of land became visible. The fishermen named it the fuik.
Maria Anna de Nys, known as Mieke, was born on June 22, 1926 on an island in Warmenhuizen. She, her sister, two brothers and parents led a pretty idyllic life on the farm. The community of about 2,000 people lived the calm, traditional rural life until the 10th of May, 1940 when the Germans invaded Holland. Her book tells how life changed drastically as everything, especially food, became scarce during the German occupation until 1945.
Mieke and Jacob Van Diepen were married in 1950. In 1952, they applied to emigrate to the U.S. They needed a sponsor who would offer them work, a place to live and ensure their safety. They and their two sons had to pass medical examinations. They even had to obtain a certificate from the town mayor that they were morally and financially responsible people. In September, 1952 they paid their fare and the family boarded a U.S. Navy ship in Rotterdam to New York.
Upon arriving in the U.S., the couple, now Mary and Jack, and their two boys found their way to their sponsor, a farmer in the Everett, Washington area. They lived there for some time before ultimately moving to the San Jose/Saratoga area where Jack worked as a landscape designer.
Before Highway 17 was built, people had to travel on Scotts Valley Drive to get to Santa Cruz. That’s how Jack and Mary discovered this area. The children all went to Scotts Valley schools. To find out more about Mary’s life in Scotts Valley, we will have to wait for her second book.
Jack died in 2001. Mary said Jack was a take-charge kind of man who never saw a situation he couldn’t handle. If there was ever a problem, Jack’s favorite saying was “Make it work.” They had nine children, seven of whom are living. The grandchildren count is 20 and there are ten great-grandchildren. All live in California except for one who is in Idaho.
Mary loves to garden and likes to read Jan Nelson’s column. She is now in the process of writing Volume 2 of her life story. Her motto is “May the magical moments of your childhood imagination stay with your always.”