Anna Maria VAN DER POL

1927 - BEF 2018

• BIRTH: 1927, Haarlem, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
• DEATH: BEF 2018, St Joseoh County, IN

• MARRIAGE: 6 MAY 1950, St. Columbanus Church, Chicago, IL

INDEX

[N18497] Anna (age 91) in South Bend, Indiana 46614 that's realated to Linda Jeanne Cunrod, Bastiaan Dits, and David J Dits.

Anna Marie Dits
St. Bavo Catholic Church, 502 W. 7th St., Mishawaka. So far, it still appears to be so - that this is the only church of its name in North America. Bavo was a Belgian saint, a man who, after the death of his wife, gave his wealth to the poor and became a monk. The first St. Bavo Church was dedicated in Ghent. The Mishawaka church was an outgrowth of ministries that started with importing a priest from Belgium, the Rev. Charles Steur, in 1902 to serve the city's growing Flemish population, according to a St. Bavo parish directory from about 1970. The church was built in 1904, and a school was opened a year later. In its early decades, the church boasted an adult drama club and athletic club. The church also hosted a relief society that paid a benefit of 50 cents a day, except for Sundays and holidays, to members after the third day of unemployment because of illness, according to the parish directory. Dues were 25 cents per month. My mother, Anna Maria Dits, who taught kindergarten at the school in the 1970s and 1980s, grew up in the Dutch city of Haarlem, which has two St. Bavo churches - the big one that the Protestants took over in the Reformation and the cathedral that the Catholics built to replace it.
JOSEPH DITS South Bend Tribune jdits@sbtinfo.com Jul 22, 2013