Tulip Festival: May 19-21
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

I can’t remember the last time that we had three beautiful days of Tulip Festival with no rain. Wednesday night, when the rides open for the kids, was almost perfect weather, without even any wind. Some of the tulips hung on enough to be pretty so that people could take pictures of them. All-in-all Tulip Festival was a great success this year and we are grateful for the wonderful weather. I would like to thank all of our help, i.e. Margaret, Sharon, Louise, Arlys, Idelle and Fran for their hard work during the Festival. We couldn’t have served the people without you.

Dan Hurt, the Shoes Salesman
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

One of the additions to our store during this years Tulip Festival, was someone devoted to doing nothing but helping people find the right fit for their wooden shoes, slippers and/or garden clogs. Dan Hurt spent about 15 hours this weekend helping people find the right shoes. Dan dressed in a very nice authentic Dutch costume along with wooden shoes himself and was a great addition to our staff for the festival. In fact, Dan looked so authentic that we had customers ask if they could take pictures of him or with him. I’m not sure Dan was so crazy about that, but he was a good sport and let them. This greatly freed up our clerking staff who went a little crazy last year trying to check people out and helping with shoes on top of that. We already have him reserved to come back next year. Dan did take time off to participate in Thursday’s parade. He had his big Labrador dog pull a cart with his granddaughter in it. He refurbished the cart from one that was used by a local veterinarian to pull his children in the parade in the 1940s.

Author's Corner
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

On Saturday morning I took a little time to participate in an Author’s corner on the court house lawn to promote our book "Letters from Ralph". Our daughter, Juliana, had taught me how to use the Square on my telephone so that I could take payments from credit cards. I had to use it a couple of times. I had some very patient customers because technology does not come as easily to me as the next generation, but we got the job done and I think we sold a few extra books because of it. I don’t think I’ll take the time away from the store next year to do this again, so we will keep reminding people through our newsletter that you can purchase the book by clicking on our web site at the left side of this newsletter.

Art Burst and the Author’s Corner were very successful this year. There were 32 artists who set up tents to sell their wares and there were some beautiful products displayed. Last year there were only 20 vendors so you can see how successful it was this year. There were five authors who set up including Renae B. Vander Schaaf who has her second book out entitled "A Place of New Beginnings". This is a sequel to her first book "A Place of Refuge". Both books are based on historical facts. I just finished reading her second book and enjoyed it completely. It takes place in 1870 and tells about the wagon train of people who travelled from Pella to Northwest Iowa and established the town of Orange City. It also describes how people homesteaded and built sod houses so that they could spend time on the land and eventually become owners of it. They would have to travel to LeMars to get supplies, which was a pretty involved process. We carry both her books at the store. Another author was James C. Schaap who has written several books, which we also carry at the store.

Painting Class
By Owner: Bonnie Meier

In an earlier newsletter you heard about how we met Jake Van Wyk when we saw the rider-less horse while driving home one day. We now feature many of Jake’s works at our store including etchings, prints and pottery. My daughter, Juliana, and I had the privilege of touring Jake’s private studio a couple of weeks ago and were very impressed. We even saw a new sculpture on which he is working. He is a very accomplished artist and has taught for many years. We now have the honor of offering one of his classes to the first 15 people who sign up for it. He will teach a Plein Aire style class on July 20 from 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. in the back room of our store. Plein Aire means painting "out in the open" and it will cover gesture sketching, basic design, distance techniques and color palette layout. You need to bring your own supplies that will include two small canvasses, paints and brushes. – More about that in the June newsletter. We may try to carry a few of those here or let you know where you can purchase them, if you don’t have them. My assignment is to get the back room cleaned up enough to make it an art studio for a day. It is a very large room that has just been used for storage up to this point. It will be good to make that usable space. We already have two people signed up for the class and we haven’t even advertised it yet. The class is for beginner and intermediate painters. If you would like to sign up, please call 712-737-8920 or e-mail me at jubonjuweelen@gmail.com I think it will be an educational afternoon of fun and I’m hoping that this is the beginning of more learning opportunities at Jubon Juweelen. There is a $35 charge for the class.

Perusing our Guest Book and the guest book podium
By Co-Owner: Bonnie Meier

Our guest book got such a workout this month, that I didn't notice we had run out of pages and someone had just inserted a plain piece of paper to list all the names. They didn't realize that I had extra pages underneath the podium where we keep the guest book. I don't believe I've ever told the story of where the podium came from. When you first enter the store we have an attractive wood podium right to your left with our guest book on it. My Grandfather, Gerrit Vis, worked in the court house in the early 1900s. When he was 29 years old he came down with a serious disease called pernicious anemia. He got very sick and he was put on a train to go to Rochester, Minnesota to try to find a cure. While he was there, he died – at the age of 29. My Grandmother was left a widow with a three-year-old boy (my father) and a new house with no income. By the way, they found a cure for pernicious anemia a few years later. Anyway, my Grandmother gave this wood podium to Trinity Church in memory of Grandpa Vis. There is a brass plaque on the front of it saying that it was given in his memory in 1919. It was used at the church for many years and when Trinity built a new church a few years ago I happily acquired it. To go on with the story of Grandma who no longer had income from my Grandpa, she rented out rooms in their big new house to borders in order to make a living. One of her first renters was my husband’s father who was a new young dentist who moved to Orange City in 1919 to establish a dental practice. Who would have guessed that almost 80 years later Dr. Meier’s son and grandma’s granddaughter would be married?

Anyway, getting on to our guests, this month we had visitors from California, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and all over Iowa. People also visited from several countries including Alberta, Canada; Ontario, Canada; Stavanger, Norway; Saitama, Japan and Columbia, South America. And those were just the ones who signed our guest book.