Page 25 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

A VOCATION PROBLEI\{
youngest oI the Ryken boys, and she and her family
lived in Elshout.
At the tirne of the birth of his first-born son, Anthony
Ryken was in his fifty-first year. He was a native of
Dussen, a few miles to the northwest. In that parish
there are Rykens on the rolls as far back as 1685, and
more than likely there were in Dussen for a long time
before that enrollment.
Maria Anna, the mother of the new baby, had on the
preceding August fourth passed her thirtieth birthday.
Her family, the Beels, can be traced to November 12,
1664, the date of the marriage of Peter Beels and Ida
Mussenburch at Bree in the Belgian Limbourg. She
had an only brother, Rev. Theodore Arnold Beels, a
Premonstratensian, who at the time of the birth of his
first nephew was curate in the parish church at Elshout.l*
It is not too presumptuous to assume that he officiated
at the baptism of his nephew and that the child was
named "Theodore" in his honor. The "James" was
probably a make-peace ofrering to the paternal grand-
father.
That there may have been inter-family repercussions
resulting from this special honoring of Mrs. Ryken's
brother, could be inferred from the fact that the next
boy born to the Rykens was christened "James."
There was an in-between child, Cornelia, fifteen
months younger than Theodore James and almost three
years older than plain "James."
Anthony Ryken died in 1807, leaving Mrs. Ryken
with three small children. Readjustments had to be
made. Ten-year-old Theodore went to live with an
uncle, and it is not possible to say with definiteness
which uncle harbored the fatherless boy. It had to be a
--iTt"
notes referred to by numbers will be found at the
back of the book.