Like his brother, Ben, Dirk Blikan Kikkert (DBK) Van Raalte was a patriot and businessman. He was also a politician. Dirk was born in 1844 in Ommen, The Netherlands. He was the third son and fourth child of Albertus and Christina Van Raalte.

Fighting in the Civil War, Dirk was injured in July 1864 during the Battle of Atlanta under the command of William T. Sherman. While riding a black horse through the woods to deliver a message, Dirk was ambushed by a group of Confederate soldiers.

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Initially he pretended to surrender. Then, at the last possible moment, he “gave his horse the spurs.” Dirk got away, but took a bullet to his arm, which had to be amputated.

While in the hospital, with the help of his brother, Ben, Dirk wrote home. Being moved by the letter, Albertus tried to retrieve his son. He got as far as Nashville before federal troops made him go back. At the end of the war in 1865, Dirk was discharged. The locals claimed that Dirk came back with a fear of black horses and Ben with a new vocabulary of cuss words.

After the war, when his parents travelled to Europe for six months, Dirk was given legal authority over his father’s affairs. Concurrently, he attended Hope College, graduating in 1867.

In 1872, Dirk became part-owner of John Bakker’s boot and shoe store on E. Eighth Street and helped expand it into a small factory. In 1873, he joined E.J. Harrington’s Citizen’s Association to recruit immigrants and businesses to Holland. In 1874, he was elected to the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners.

In 1876, three months before his father died, Dirk purchased the Van Raalte family homestead on Fairbanks Avenue, where Hope College’s athletic fields are today.

A strong orator with a special gift for sarcasm and irony, Dirk was elected to the Michigan State Legislature in 1875 and 1877. There he served on the Ways and Means, Education, Military, Liquor Traffic, and Mines and Minerals committees.

In 1880, Dirk married Kate Ledeboer, a teacher at Holland Public Schools. Kate was born in 1851 in New York and migrated to Holland with her parents, Dr. Bernardus and Allida Ledeboer.

Bernardus practiced medicine in Holland and served as mayor in 1871. Kate was in the first class that graduated from Holland High School in 1873. Together, Dirk and Kate had two children — Albertus Christiaan in 1889 and DKB Jr. in 1891.

In 1897, upon the death of Jacob Van Putten, Dirk became president of the Holland City State Bank. He also presided over the Scott-Lugers Lumber Company, the largest wholesale lumber company in the region. It had two locations: Fifth Street and River Avenue and Tenth Street and River Avenue, properties once owned by Reindert Werkman.

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In 1910, Scott-Lugers sold its Tenth Street and River Avenue location to the federal government for a post office and built a new facility at River Avenue and Black Lake.

In 1909, Dirk returned to the state legislature. He died of pneumonia in 1910. Kate died in 1926.

Their son, Albertus, attended Hope College and then Olivet College, graduating in 1911. In 1914, Albertus graduated from New Brunswick Theological Seminary, became a pastor in the Reformed Church of America and married Edna Dean Pillsbury of Detroit. He died in 1944.

In 1916, son DBK Jr. became one of five salespeople for the Charles B. Limbert Company, a Holland-based maker of Dutch Arts and Crafts Furniture once based in Grand Rapids.

In 1922, just before Limberts’ death, DBK Jr. and August Landwehr of the Holland Furnace Company — and two others — bought out Limbert. From that point on, DBK Jr. served as treasurer and Landwehr as president.

In the 1920s, DBK Jr. redesigned the Limbert Company’s bedroom furniture line and undertook a national magazine advertising campaign in House and Garden and the Saturday Evening Post, emphasizing his connection to Albertus Van Raalte and the company’s Dutch heritage. Approximately 20 years later, in 1942, the company went bankrupt.

The home of Albertus and Christina Van Raalte was given to Hope College in 1947. The college razed it in 1961. DBK died in 1964. In 1987, the Limbert building was razed to make room for Freedom Village.

Information for this article comes from Robert Swierenga’s "Holland,Michigan," Elton Bruins’ "Albertus and Christina: The Van Raalte Family, Home and Roots," Calvin College Heritage Hall Archives, furniturecityhistory.org, Wikipedia and findagrave.com.

— Steve VanderVeen is a resident of Holland. You can reach him and see his stories at start-upacademeinc.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Steve VanderVeen: The perseverance of Dirk Van Raalte