Henry Kempenaar will be a valley centenarian on Oct. 31, 2024.
Henry and his girlfriend, Betty Koldyk resided in the Netherlands.
Henry had met a lot of Smithers men while based in the army in Holland during the war. Betty wanted to go to her brother John who was already here and Henry had heard how beautiful Smithers was and that it had farmland.
They got married on Jan. 2, 1952 and boarded a ship for Halifax, the Zuider Cross, on March 10,1952. Her sister Richt, who was married to Bonne Koopmans, joined them on the journey.
The ship of 1,200 passengers was to make a nine-day crossing and just three days before their arrival in Halifax, it got hit by a storm. A storm that was so severe that the third wave to hit them was large enough and hard enough to toss items and make a crack in the ship. She took on a foot of water.
Boats and helicopters were all around them rescuing the manifest of passengers and crew and transporting them into Halifax. A large hall was set up to feed them as they hadn’t eaten for two days. There wasn’t room enough to lodge them so they were taken back at night to the ship to sleep.
Once on solid ground, and each with a bench to sleep on, they continued their final seven-day-journey by rail from Halifax through Montreal and then from Edmonton to Jasper with a final change of train at Jasper and on to Smithers.
It was -27F when Henry and Betty arrived in Smithers and were picked up by John Koldyk in a pickup truck. He and the sisters with the two boys sat in the front and Henry and Bonne rode in the back with a blanket on their lap. At the small house, Betty slept on the floor.
The men followed John up an outside ladder to a loft full of hay above a chicken coop. They spent the next three nights with the wind blowing in one side and out of the other.
