LBCC Student Finds Memoir-Writing Class Life-Enhancing
Maryke Desjardins Marÿke Desjardins was eight years old when American troops from Camp Adair, Oregon liberated her small South Holland town from five years of German occupation at the end of World War II. “The Timberwolves liberated us October 30, 1944, and we were so happy! I handed out apples to the soldiers as they marched through our town. For so many years after I moved to America, I looked for a soldier who was there that day,” said Desjardins. Desjardins moved from Holland to New Zealand, then to Arizona, Minnesota, Montana and finally Oregon. “When I moved to Albany, a young man in one of my Bible classes said, ‘My dad was in the Timberwolves and he was in the Netherlands.’ I said, ‘Oh, I have to meet him, if he’s still alive.’ And he is; he still is today. The family took me to lunch and we talked. I brought them some tulips and Dutch chocolates. He showed me papers from the 104th Infantry Division, and there was my hometown that they had marched through. It was very excit...