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Our Dutch Heritage Crowed conditions in their native Holland caused area Dutch immigrants
to seek a new life in a new country. On Feb. 15, 1915, a group of friends
came to the home of John (Jan) Hellemons of Steenbergern, Holland, to
convince him to join them to go to America. In less than six weeks he
had arranged for his papers and left his home, wife, and children to seek
a better life for all of them. Plans were for the family to join him in
less than a years, but the outbreak of World War I soon changed those
plans and it wasn’t until the summer of 1918 that the family was
able to go to America. The trip wasn’t easy. No one spoke English and when they arrived in Dickinson there was no
one to greet them, Hellemons (the father of Jennie Blood of Dickinson)
hadn’t received the letter saying they were arriving. Luckily a Dickenson
woman recognized the Dutch language spoken by the bewildered family, bought
them an ice cream cone, and helped them find their way back to the depot
and continue on to South Heart. Within a few weeks, Jennie and her brother and sisters began school in
South heart despite the language barrier. Jennie recalls the other children
in school making fun of their different dress and her mother saying we
should have stayed in Holland. In 1927 Jennie Hellemoms married John Blood, who came to the South Heart area in March 1920. He traveled by ship to New York and by train three days to North Dakota. Being used to neat Holland, he was not favorably impressed with North Dakota. Most homes were just shacks and a lot were empty due to a three-year drought. Blood started working for Herman Breve at his farm just west of South heart. He recalls learning to drive a binder and working with teams of horses. Later he was employed by G. J. Perdaems. In 1927, after his marriage, he rented a farm from the Holland Dakota Company about six miles southwest of South Heart. He purchased it later.
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