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“Are You White Or Dutch?”: Hendrina Hospers And Living Among Apaches, Douglas Firth Anderson

Northwestern Review

Hendrina Hospers (1880-1968) was a home missionary of the Women’s Board of Domestic Missions of the Reformed Church in America (RCA). She grew up in a Dutch-American Protestant colony led by her father, Henry Hospers. The colony, centered in Orange City, Iowa, was built around church and school, and Hendrina participated in both. She graduated from the Northwestern Classical Academy (affiliated with the RCA) in 1897. She taught in public schools until both her parents were dead. From 1907 to 1946, she worked as an RCA home missionary, first with the Chiricahua Apaches around Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and briefly around …