Renee Harris | Entrepreneurship Across Generations

Episode 62 - Stories in Our Roots

ReneeHarris | Entrepreneurship Across Generations

[00:00:00] Heather: Hi, Renee. Thanks for joining me on my podcast today. Would you start and just give an introduction about who you are?

[00:00:10] Renee: Yes, I am a mom of nine, actually I have nine children and my husband and I live in Northern California and I'm also the daughter of Dutch immigrants. So my parents have I, although I don't speak Dutch, unfortunately, I feel strongly connected to Holland, but they came over to the States after they got married. And then a couple years later, my sister was born and then I was born. And then, um, they pretty much raised us here in California.

[00:00:36] Heather: And why did they come to the United States?

[00:00:40] Renee: Um, well, my mom actually, she was born in 1945, so she was born really pretty much at the end of the war, and my grandfather who kind of that's my whole genealogy is his story, he lost his wife when my mom was two and they stayed in Holland up until she was around 12 and then they came to the United States and I don't even think they knew where they would land in the US.

They ended up going, and it basically had a sponsorship to go to Indiana. So they started out in Indiana. Then my mom went to high school in Southern California. Then she went back to Holland to go to nursing school where she met my dad. And my mom's very strong willed. She was like, not gonna get married unless they could come back to the States. She really wanted to live in the States. So he agreed to that. And they ended up in the Bay area and then pretty much stayed there and, and raised us. And they do, they still to this day, in fact, my parents are in Holland right now on a vacation, but they still go back and forth. so they have, they maintain those relationships with the relatives, but they really wanted to be in the US.

[00:01:42] Heather: Oh, that's great. Um, in our talking before you shared about your grandparents and their time during World War II and their lives, could you share that story and their experiences?

[00:01:54] Renee: Yeah. In fact, one thing about that was that I didn't even know really about my past until... I just remember... Either it didn't make an impact on me, like I was too young to really understand it all, or my grandfather didn't really talk about it until later, but I think it's a combination of both.

So when I was in sixth grade, uh, I had to write a paper about somebody I was proud of and it had to be interesting and kind of like a hero in your life. So I chose, I knew that, um, during the war, my grandparents hid, um, actually I, I looked it up, it was actually 37 Jews in their home, throughout the duration of the war. So my grandfather who had some woodworking skills built like a false wall between their, they, they lived in a upstairs, downstairs. Downstairs, my grandmother was actually a pharmacist, so she had a pharmacy downstairs and there was a little store there and then they lived above it. And between their house and the house next to them, which is, are all connected, my grandfather built a false wall in between those two. So, basically that was just something that started with a friend coming and needing a place to hide because you know, Germany was starting to occupy Holland. And, um, in this case this friend had, he was pretty outspoken about Germans and I don't even think he was Jewish, but he was helping out with, preparing soap.

Actually, the, the story with this one is that he had a, uh, a whole bunch of Lin oil as part of his company. And so the Germans were pretty much taking all that they could from the different businesses in Holland. And he was one of them. So he hid the linseed, he had several thousand liters of linseed oil, he hit it in his backyard. And then during the war, which it was, it was looking closer and closer. Like there's gonna be, you know, occupation going on there. He asked my grandfather whose wife, the pharmacist, see, they owned a drug, a drug store if he could make soap for my grandfather. And that would help them basically make money during the war.

So he turned all this linseed oil into soap, and then he was able to supply my grandfather with soap, to sell in the store. and, uh, at some point that was the first indicator that something bad was gonna go down and they needed to be prepared. So, from then it was a, another friend of theirs who needed a place to hide out. This guy, the guy with the oil was actually taken by the Germans when the Germans found out that he was hiding things. And he was never seen again. it became a serious situation.

So then later on it was a, a woman who was a friend of my grandmother's who was Jewish and they had known each other in the past, but she needed a place to hide. So she was the first of over the course of the war, 37 people who they hid. I didn't know about that when I was in sixth grade. I mean, I knew, I knew a little bit of the story, but not really everything . And so I, I wrote up a little paper about my grandfather and probably just had basic information.

And I remember my mom getting a phone call from my teacher saying, he was all excited. He's like, can I, can I have your grandfather who was still alive at the time, come and speak to the sixth grade class? And all of a sudden I realized, oh, is, is Opa important? About... Is what he did important or something? So I didn't really register. And then as I was, you know, getting older and hearing more stories about it and, and things were starting to, um, come to light. And my mom really got interested in interviewing my grandfather to get all of, get him to talk more. He didn't really talk about it very much so, um, and then she turned it into a book.

So, yeah, it's, it's been, it's been neat to see the whole story unravel. And now that I'm older to see that I got to meet him and know my grandfather and, to even see that there's that connection to World War II is neat. I like to see that.

[00:05:39] Heather: You mentioned a lot of things in there that I like to talk about. The first thing was you mentioned that they helped them make soap and sell it, and that doesn't seem very significant. Can you tell us a little bit maybe about why selling soap was actually helpful for their family?

[00:05:59] Renee: I think cuz everything was rationed off and because they didn't, you know, they, they basically had this little drug store, but if you don't have access to supplies to be able to sell, then it gets, you know, you, your business is not gonna run. And for them to have, so I guess it made a lot of soap, so it made a lot.

And thankfully he was able to get all of the soap made and cured and to my grandfather before he got taken away and it was able to fund the business. So, from when I read it was very concentrated and then my grandfather was able to, um, soften it. And in Holland, the, the Dutch are very clean. Like they love to have their houses super duper clean.

So it was important that even if with a war going on, these ladies had to have their soap. And, uh, one of those stories I read was that they would have as many as 60 people come through the drug store just to buy soap. So now they, they have money. So I, I just felt like that was such a resourceful thing to do that seemed so, like you said, minor. But now there's an income from my grandparents to then they needed to be able to feed these people that they were hiding in their house. And they can't, you know obviously they can't, they don't, it's not like they're gonna have money unless they can do something like this where they can sell soap. So they were able to fund to be able to keep people fed and hidden in their home during the, the war. And that was all just because of the soap.

[00:07:22] Heather: Do you know of any other ancestors in your family who were also kind of had that entrepreneur let's do something for ourselves and, and use it to support our family?

[00:07:35] Renee: Um, in my ancestor, well, actually my other grandfather, so this grandfather's my mom's side. And my dad's, his father, I don't know that he did it to support the family, but he was very much into beekeeping. And so I think, and I think from my cousins that are still in Holland, Dutch people tend to be very entrepreneurial.

And, even for myself and my husband, that wasn't the road that we were planning on going, but we have become entrepreneurial as a result. It's kind of in a mindset. And when I talk to Dutch people who are running their own businesses, it just seems to be that that's what they do. So my, on my, dad's side, his father was a beekeeper, but not that wasn't where he made his money, but definitely very resourceful.

In fact, I remember visiting him once when I was 12. He actually worked for Heineken. So he was a big, he worked for the beer company for years and years. And so he had basically all the beer bottles, you know, they were always supplies of them, of Heineken beer at his house. And because in Holland, the, the ground kind of sinks a little bit, it's all basically built on water, uh, at least where they live. They, he had to actually in the garage area physically take the tiles out of the floor. This is, this happened one year I remember when I was there when I was a little girl. And he would line it with the beer bottles and then he would put the tiles back on.

And they had, I don't know how often he had to do that, like maybe it was only like once every 20 years, but it's like, okay, you're using, you're using your beer bottles basically that you're getting from your job and then you're creating this out of it. So, um, yeah, other than that, he, he was a beekeeper and, a funny connection with that cuz we now have a business where the products we make are made, we sell soap, for one, and then we also make a product that is all beeswax based.

And I remember just like kind of not thinking, except that I thought, oh, that's, that's kind of me that here. He was a beekeeper. He, when we would visit, he would talk about the bees and it's such an important part of our product now that there's that little connection that I never would've thought of.

[00:09:34] Heather: Well, and you mentioned also that your grandmother was a pharmacist, do you know any stories about, or how she became a pharmacist or, or along the lines? Cause that's that entrepreneurial as well?

[00:09:48] Renee: Yeah, I never thought of until , I don't even know what, um, brought her to that. I, I was reading this interview, that was a lot, that's how a lot of the stories about my grandfather came out was because, uh, he was being interviewed and this was in Southern California. So it was in the LA Times and so on. And hearing him talk about the personalities between he and his wife. They're very, very different. And he was very hands on. Actually a even after, uh, the war, when he was established in Southern California, he basically was a, an upholsterer and he was self-employed as an upholsterer. And that was the work that he did.

So he was kind of very practical hands on. And my grandmother was from what I'm reading, she was a lot more, especially as she saw the signs of the war happening and they were gonna, you know, basically they needed to do something. They had people hidden in their home, but they didn't have any kind of a safe place to hide them. So that's when she had to pretty much convince her husband, my grandfather, we need to have a place cuz if they come in and people are just hanging around talking, they're gonna take the, the Jews away and they're gonna take us away. So, she was the one that was seeing the handwriting on the wall, things were get bad and things were coming.

And I, I can just imagine that that's almost like, you know, someone who's who owns a pharmacy, they have, they have to follow the rules and see things and make decisions. Uh, whereas he was a lot more laid back and he, and apparently a lot more optimistic, like, oh, it's not gonna be bad. It can't be that bad. Until things do get bad.

Um, as far as how she got to become a pharmacist and what decisions were, I don't really know, but I'm, I feel so connected at because she's female and, and then just running a business. I just, I feel like that connection is really strong. If there's something I can say, I probably got that from her, even though I never got to meet her. There's there's just that, it's neat to see that, you know, when you read stories about your past grandparents and so on.

[00:11:41] Heather: Could you tell me more stories about your grandfather? You told me before we met that he did significant things with his life and was significant part of his community.

[00:11:53] Renee: I know that with him, he was a very, very quiet person and didn't even speak about the war and it wasn't until later. Like to, for him to even become a United States citizen. He put that off. I think his heart was in Holland. But his son was gonna study to become, he wanted to be a professor at a university, but he had to be a citizen. And the only thing that could speed that up was if my grandfather became a US citizen, which wasn't really on his agenda, he, he didn't see that as very important, but he did it anyway. So he was just a very quiet, humble man, super quiet and humble, but what he would do for other people and especially this like risk in your life was a big deal.

And so I, I really, um, resonated with that, the fact that he's willing to do those things. And I remember as a kid, even for him to be honored, he's such a humble person, like he would, it was hard to even understand and speak because it was half Dutch, half English. It was always mixed up. And he would be honored in front of like a big group of people. And this is in Southern California. So if they had someone like him come and speak, he's not gonna come and do a presentation, but they just wanna come and thank him. And he'd kind of shuffle up in his old, you know, clothes that were just just barely all hanging on him or not that fashionable or anything and not dressed up at all maybe, maybe you can get a tie on, but it was just so humble. So I feel like that was, that was who he was. And I don't think he even saw himself as a hero or that he even, I think he just did things out of, it's just the right thing to do, and I'm not even thinking about it.

The same thing with my grandmother, she actually, I, when I picture someone having to live throughout the war and always have your life, um, you know, basically you're you could be taken away and you are doing things that could get you killed. And throughout the entire war, she managed all of that. And then she died two years afterwards. It's almost like, how do you stay alive through all of that? And then after like two years afterwards is when you pass away as a young person, she wasn't that old. So it's just those stories of they just keep going. They just keep going.

[00:14:09] Heather: And how has knowing these stories and, and learning them, like you said, you saw the stories one way when you were a sixth grader, and then as you get older, those stories and those meanings change for you, what are the things that impact you the most in how you choose to live your life, knowing the stories of what your grandparents and your parents have done before you?

[00:14:32] Renee: I think a big one is that, what can I pass on to my kids? It was actually just a couple years ago that my mom had written a book. She actually read a, she wrote a book that's from the point of view of the house that they lived in. So she pretended like the walls were telling the story, cuz the walls see everything.

So you've got that point of view of seeing things coming in and out and so on. So it's very, it's written easily for a, a young child to understand what's going on, which I really appreciated that because now it's easy to pass that on to my kids. So, um, one of the things that I feel like is to pass those, that information onto the kids. Like what, what are you doing that's courageous? Cuz I feel like, for me, I, I wouldn't say, oh, I'm such a courageous person and a risk taker. I, you know, and yet I see that in my grandparents and we have really raised our kids, for one, to be a little bit more courageous. And not take big risks, but with what they do with their lives, we are very much, we're not just gonna send you on this path to, this is what you're gonna do.

Go to college, get a degree and then figure out what you're gonna do with your life. We are very intentional. So we have, and this is, I credit my husband for coming up with this. But when our kids are around age 12, he starts to kind of help them develop something that they're really good at and passionate about and wanna learn more about.

So, and it's not, you know, for a lot of people it's like, okay, activities, activities, activities, we're gonna go do sports. So we're gonna spend the whole, you know, weekend at the ball field and so on. And instead we're, we're thinking, oh, we don't wanna stretch our family time either. So what we've done, and this is the entrepreneurial side of us is to have a goal that by the time they're 18, they have some thing that they do that brings value to other people.

And so if, if we say it's music, it's gonna have to actually be something to bring value to other people, not just grandma who will sit and listen and appreciate it. but someone, and sometimes the only way, you know, is if people come to you and say, will you do this for me, or I will pay you to do this for me, because then all of a sudden they have. So we have, with our kids, half of them are outta the house now, but, uh, we have a, a video drone. Well, he is a drone operator and he does a lot of video edits. And so he has his own business running that. And then I have a son who is a really good coder, computer coder, and he's self-employed as a computer coder.

And then he has a twin sister who is an artist, and they are super opposite, but she's an amazing artist and she can do a lot of graphic arts. And so she's self employed as a graphic artist. And then I have one that he went down the road to, to become bladesmith and then he works for a machine shop and he's also developing his own on the side.

And then another one who uniquely came up with his own business, but he actually helps other small businesses become, kind of like efficiency with their systems. And so he's very good at that. And he's doing that on his own and raising my, and they're all on their own. They live on their own, they support themselves.

And that became, I don't know if that's as a result of finding out about your, you know, your history, your family history, but at the same time, it's when I read the stories about my grandparents and the things that they do, they find those resources. And even just like the soap, again, making soap, you're serving your community and you're finding out what people need and you can use the money that you're making to continue to help other people. So that would be kind of the line. Of, um, con connectivity between them and what we hope we can accomplish with our kids.

[00:18:03] Heather: Yeah. And even if you didn't like learn the stories of your grandparents and then say, that's what we want for your kids, our experiences of our ancestors contribute to who we are, whether we realize it or not. And so you can be passing down this entrepreneurial spirit, this let's work for ourselves and use the talents that we have, even without knowing those stories, but then when you learn those stories and you can see that it connects back generations, it just gives you a greater sense of self and, and seeing an even bigger impact on the world.

[00:18:38] Renee: Yeah. It gives you the chills almost, you know, just to think. That you, you value your, your ancestor. I mean, you just value that more. You want to know more about, okay, what else, what else did anybody else do? is there something else that we can learn cuz it is, it's neat to see some of those different personalities and, and the things that they do come out.

[00:18:58] Heather: you learned about that have been meaningful to you in contributing to your sense of who you are?

[00:19:08] Renee: the one that with the, the Heineken beer, um, he was really into finding out the genealogy of, uh, of our past. And I think it goes all the way back to the time in Napoleon, because we do have a story of one of our relatives hiding out from deploying cuz there, he knew that he was gonna be taken in into the army and he didn't wanna go.

And so he hid in some kind of like a chimney structure in the house. And apparently the, the type of under they call underwear, but it wasn't, it was something that they were wearing was kind of hanging down. So they actually found him and I think they took him into the army for that reason. But it's just those, those little kind of stories that, I loved knowing, especially now that I'm older. It didn't matter as much when I was in sixth grade, but now that I'm older, knowing that my grand, my other grandfather there took the time to connect with people, to trace back our genealogy as far back as he could possibly go.

And then you capture that little story and then you find out that, uh, because of that, he had an, he had another person who was also helping him because they found out they were related in some way. that person who was younger than my grandfather, then he passed my grandfather passed away, but this guy was on Facebook and he was, he is, you know, he's probably in the seventies, but the fact that that can continue is pretty amazing, you know, especially nowadays with Facebook that, it doesn't seem like a lot of people are keeping track as much. It would be nice if they did. And, At the same time you have that accessibility to others through something like Facebook, so you can track back. But I don't have a lot of knowledge on all on other people in my past, but it, it would be fun to find out.

[00:20:50] Heather: Yeah. You never know how many more entrepreneurs you might find or how many other ancestors you might find that you have something different in common with and you can be connected in that way.

[00:21:06] Renee: Yeah. And not everybody is, does good things. You know, I'm sure that you may not wanna find out that you're related to somebody that was really evil, but at the same time, those are also stories to know and to pass on and to learn from.

[00:21:20] Heather: Yeah. And then you can get to decide how you're going to live forward. And that yes, that might be, have been a part of who you are, but you get to choose how you're going to influence the future generations.

[00:21:35] Renee: Right. Yeah. And and you know, that that's where it is a good connecting point with kids because when you know a story, especially when it's, um, an adventurous type of story that ha is in your line of genealogy, the kids kind of pick up and listen. So I feel like that's is a really good way to connect with your own kids by passing those stories on. And hopefully they'll remember and keep it going, but, um, yeah, it's a good way for kids to realize that they are connected. It's a whole family, that's connected by blood in one way or another.

[00:22:05] Heather: Yeah. And that it connects us with different experiences. Like the book that your mom wrote, that's going to be able to connect your kids and their children to this ancestor that is so much farther removed. I mean, you knew him, but your I'm assuming your children did your children know him.

[00:22:25] Renee: They never met him?

[00:22:26] Heather: And then future generations. And so your and your mother are this connecting point to those stories beforehand. And those stories that you're able to share about him are, is what's gonna be able to carry forward and no document is going to be able to share what you two have been able to know and preserve about him.

[00:22:48] Renee: Yeah. In fact, one little, um, I guess almost like a tip for people is that we, for me to even go back, I looked up, I was doing some Google searches because I know I know the certain websites, but I couldn't remember exactly the name of them that had my grandfather's story. So I went back to look. And in the search though, I did some keyword searches and it, it brought me to my son who was 13, but when he was nine, because we have him write blogs, we have that's part of their process is, uh, to do a lot of writing.

And he actually had written what, everything that, you know, that things that he knew about the story. He had written that in a blog post, and that was when he was nine. So from a nine year old's point of view. I was so grateful to like, okay, it's out there. Good. I'm glad . And he may not remember everything over time, but at least it's out there and he might see it again later as a 25 year old, looking back at his old blog post or something.

[00:23:40] Heather: Well, that's great. Thank you so much for sharing with me. I'll have links in the show notes, to the, one of the websites that you mentioned that has your ancestors' stories on it, and how can people connect with you if they'd like to?

[00:23:56] Renee: Yeah, actually, you know, one, one thing that, um, it's kind of a big vision, and I guess I would call it a legacy, is that my husband and I have taken what we have done with our own kids and created a website, showing other parents how to do that. And that's called parenttheirpassion.com. And so, um, I think it's really important for parents, especially this day and age to to start at a young age. And there's just so many reasons for that. But when, when they start around age 12, 13, when kids are really starting to wanna do something with their lives or be purposeful or useful, and parents want them to do something, that's gonna not just be all about them. but kind of using both of those to then turn it into a talent And a passion that you never know by the time they're 18, they may be so good at it that they can turn that into a business.

[00:24:42] Heather:

Well, that's great. And my son fits in that category and so I'll definitely go and look that up. And that just goes right along with what we've talked about today of, of using the talents and circumstances that you have to better your life and the lives of those around you.

[00:24:59] Renee: Yeah. Thank you.