Person:Klaas Fridsma (1)

Klaas Fridsma had the unique timeline of having lived in three centuries. Born in 1899 in Scharnegoutum, Friesland, Klaas remembers getting let out of elementary school to watch a truck come through town. During the fair weather months, he lived on a houseboat barge, and the family sold bricks of peat to villagers who used them to heat their homes. The children went to school in Scharnegoutum where the family would overwinter. When coal replaced peat as the primary means of heating homes, they moved to America via the SS Ryndham and landed at Ellis Island on March 4, 1911. They moved to Passaic and settled in Clifton, NJ. Note: the Manifest shows them as from Joure; however, this is because Jouke's father, Meindert Fridsma, moved to an almshouse in Joure when his son and his family moved to the USA. Klaas had an 8th grade education; still he was a clerk for an oilcloth factory and he corresponded by mail with British author C.S. Lewis. He and wife Bertha (Boukje Rozema) raised 6 children at 4 Hadley Ave, then 170 Hadley Ave, in Clifton NJ. They were active at Northside Christian Reformed Church in Clifton, NJ. I am told he was once voted off the church council for voting for Franklin Delano Roosevelt for president. In 1984, the Young Calvinist Federation held a competition to find who had been at the earliest annual convention, and Klaas won by over a decade; he had been at the very first one and had outlived any other participants by over 10 years. He and wife Boukje (Bertha Rozema) travelled to Ames, IA, where he was recognized and gave a speech. On the way back to NJ, Klaas suffered a stroke, after which he lost most of his ability to speak English. Thankfully Bertha still retained some Frisian. The doctor told his family that his body was similar to a typical man in his 50's. Klaas never learned to drive; Bertha did all the driving, in a 1971 sky blue Dodge Dart Swinger. Bertha died in 1987, after which he moved into his daughter Carol Beatrice Zuidema's house in Sussex, NJ. He survived there for 14 more years, living into the 21st century, and died June 14, 2001. - grandson, Steven Paul Fridsma

1. ↑ Geboorte, in Wymbritseradeel, Friesland, Netherlands. Burgerlijke Stand
   Aktenummer: A 120, 21 APR 1899.

   Geboorteakte Wymbritseradeel, 1899
   Aangiftedatum 21 april 1899, akte nr. 120
   Klaas Fridsma, zoon, geboren 20 april 1899 te Scharnegoutum
   Vader: Jouke Fridsma, 40
   Moeder: Wiltje Bakker

2. ↑ SSN: 153-03-5919, in Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index: Death Master File, database. (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service).

   Nicholas Fridsma

3. ↑ Passaic, New Jersey, United States. 1930 U.S. Census Population Schedule
   1930.

   Jacob Fridsma, 71
   Hilda Fridsma, 66
   Nicholas Fridsma, 30

4. ↑ Passaic, New Jersey, United States. 1940 U.S. Census Population Schedule
   1940.

   Nicholas Fridsma, 40
   Bertha Fridsma, 30