Lammert Veenema, born April 29, in the year of our Lord, 1925 of parents Michiel and Baukje Veenema in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands.
Father to us six children who shed many tears in this week of farewell but who also remember his many deeds of renown.
He ate his way through many large meals provided by his wife of almost 60 years and he loved her cooking. He was the provider of many roofs over our heads, of our educations, of the clothing we wore, and of the food we ate for decades without giving it a second thought.
He yodeled his way through the forests of Friesland and Nova Scotia, and through many construction sites in Ontario. His construction supervisors would ask him to yodel to announce coffee break and lunch time.
When Dad was just 13 he would walk and bike to a rowboat, row down a canal in Friesland, and then disembark to take the bike yet many more kilometers to his place of work. Also in his early years, Dad was an artist. We kids still keep copies of his beautiful ink sketches in our homes. Sketches of windmills, winter scenes, fields, and woodlands.
Dad was the famed Nickel Man of the landscaping industry in the 1970s for he received five cents for each roll of sod he planted. In one day he would lay down the equivalent of a football field of sod, and no doubt that grass continues to grow today in backyards from Ancaster to Windsor.
He was the constructor of the vast Century 21 Tower in the downtown core of Hamilton and of many lesser buildings throughout southern Ontario. People still walk, and cars still park, on the concrete he poured.
Dad sat us six kids on his knees, and if it were possible, he would have held us there all at the same time, and if it were possible he would have had six more. We kids, sitting on the top of his foot, would hang on to his leg as he would bestride the living room, the hall way, and the kitchen of the house.
He was the feller of trees. Even ancient, deeply rooted, 100 feet tall willow trees were no match for his axe.
Even though he downed trees, he was a lover of things that grew, and the planter of beans and potatoes, of onions and tomatoes. He was the grower of chickens and the collector of their eggs. He cared for horses and cattle. He planted flowers and cleared brush. If he had been in the Bible story of the first human when “no plant had yet grown for there was no one to till the ground,” Dad would have volunteered to plant the whole world with growing things and tame every jungle. He would have had to be restrained.
He and close friend Arend Smit planted many crops in the fields of Nova Scotia in the 1950s. While we lived there Dad stripped the bark off logs destined for pulp mills, loaded barrels of apples onto ocean going vessels and unloaded the fertilizer they brought to Port Williams.
He was the inventor of the Man Cave. Long before the expression was cool, Dad built a shed in the far reaches of his lands in Fenwick. He would invite the men of the neighbourhood into his cave and there they would discuss politics and the weather.
Dad was a lover of world history, of Lawrence Welk, of Jackie Gleason, the antics of professional wrestlers, and of opportunities that immigration to Canada offered him. He was the reader of World War II history and of tens of thousands of newspaper articles, and the watcher of as many news shows.
He was the fabled singer of the Friesian bushlands who, with his brothers was renowned in the region of Beesterzwaag for striding through the woods raising their voices together in song.
He was a member of many church choirs.
Along with Mom and several other families in Kentville, Nova Scotia, he was the founder of the Kentville Christian Reformed church. He was the financial supporter of many churches and many efforts to help the poor in Christ’s name nearby and around the world. He joined with others to found Christian Schools without government funding. Those schools thrive today.
He astounded the medical profession with his defiance. Losing his hair to malaria while in Indonesia, he grew it all back and never lost it again. He had little patience with doctors. This was probably because they once told him that after his rheumatic fever he would have to take a desk job or risk heart attack. He rose up and did hard physical work for another six decades. In truth a desk job would have killed him.
Dad was a walking telephone directory, a reader of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the keeper of many historical facts. He was a lover of jokes, and even to the very end could manage a little smile and a funny comment to John or one of the others who was at his bedside in his last hours. Even more, Dad was lover of his grand kids who often competed for the very coveted title of “favourite.”
Many years ago, Dad and Waltje fell in love. Dad was a handsome man with a great smile who, if he had lived in Southern California, could probably have had a career in film. And Mom was a beautiful young woman with dark hair and a great love for her family. Together they survived many difficult years, and some things that were heart breaking.
In earlier years, we did not hear from Dad’s lips the expression, “I love you.” But in later decades it was as if he was making up for lost opportunities. Every visit, every phone call, would end with him saying, “I love you,” and we treasure having heard those words many times.
Dad was a confessor of his sins – something I experienced from Dad when he was in despair. He would say that Jesus Christ was his Lord and Saviour.
Dad was a servant of the most renowned of all. The Lord of Lord, King of Kings, healer of the sick, rescuer of the downtrodden, Lion of Judah, Elohim, Yahweh, Judge of the Living and the Dead, Restorer of the World, Reconciler of all things, forgiver of
sins, Creator of the world, first born in the resurrection of the dead, the destroyer of war, the Good Shepherd, the discomforter of all the arrogant, the comforter of all who are troubled and reach for him, the visible image of very God, the one who empathizes and sympathizes with all our weaknesses, the Prince of Peace, and the giver of joy.
Dad is in the keeping of his Lord, Christ, till the day of resurrection when we will see him in the renewed earth. We will see him probably with an axe in one hand and a horse bridle in the other. We will see him perhaps with Mom nearby, still admiring the man she fell in love with, who provided for us all these many years.
But before we see him, we will probably hear him. Yodeling.
