In early December, the Joint Archives said farewell to one of its long-time volunteers. Rev. John Maassen and his wife, Harriet, who relocated to Florida to be closer to family and friends.
Rev. Maassen joined our volunteer staff approximately five years ago and played an important role assisting us with oral history transcriptions (essential to making these taped interviews available for research) and various processing tasks to assist the archivists. His work has been invaluable--including many hours listening to tapes that were a part of our Sesquicentennial Oral History Project. The Joint Archives completed over 170 interviews for that project.
Growing up in the Holland-Zeeland area, Rev. Maassen graduated from Hope College (1942) and Western Seminary (1949) before being ordained in the Reformed Church in America. Through his career be served churches in Palmyra, New York, Kalamazoo, Grandville, Hingham, Wisconsin, and Des Moines, Iowa. Before his move to Holland, he was a member of the staff of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.
We have been so fortunate as our volunteers come to be a part of the Archives and stay for years. All of them make a critical contribution to what we do and making historical materials available for research.
We will miss John here at the Archives, and wish the Maassens Godspeed in their new home!