Every Senior has a story: Johanna Vander Hart

Born to Elizabeth Oliver and Bart Vander Voort on April 2, 1922 in the home at 1013 Franklin, Johanna Vander Hart is the only surviving member of her original family. She was educated in the Pella Public Schools through the eighth grade, where she learned to play the violin. She continued with the high school orchestra, even though she was no longer enrolled in school.

When she was about 15, she worked in the Scholte House for Nora Scholte, who was at that time writing Stranger in a Strange Land. She later worked at the Rolscreen Company, puttying wooden slats, until she married.

In 1940 she married Gordon Vander Hart, whom she met at a baseball game in Peoria. She then stayed home to raise her children, Pastor Ron Vander Hart, now at Runnells, and Susan Vander Hart Frederick, now in Loman, Missouri. Gordon ran a construction company, and was gone during the week, working all over Iowa.

After 25 years in the construction business, he came home one day and declared he'd had enough. When he was fifty the couple started Midwest Sanitation. They started with one truck and just 16 customers, and built the business to service Pella and six other surrounding communities. Johanna did all the book work, manned the telephone, and ran errands for 15 years, until they sold the business to Kathy and Lyle Vander Meiden, who have been running it for 30 years now.

Johanna kept a clean house for her family, so clean, in fact, that they never had pets. "Didn't want 'em in my house," she stated emphatically.

Embarrassed about her father's occupation, her daughter starting dating a man who later became a doctor, and when the young man asked her what her father did for a living, she told him he was a "collector." He persisted: what did he collect? "Oh, just different things," she said, trying to throw him off. He finally figured out her dad was a garbage collector, and declared he would not hold that against her. He didn't; he eventually married her.

Gordon and Johanna were married for 61 years. They were able to travel to various places in the U.S. including wherever their children lived, Holland, and the Holy Land. In her spare time she did all kinds of embroidery and handwork, and often played the piano or organ at the Berean Baptist Church.

Johanna has been living in the Long Term Care Unit of Pella Regional Health Center for eight years.

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