Zwemer Family. Papers, 1881-1970.

Adrian Zwemer was born February 12, 1823, in Oostkapelle, Netherlands. His parents were Jacob and Neeltje Janse Zwemer. He was the youngest of seven children. Early in 1849, he left the Netherlands and settled in Rochester, New York. There he married Catherine Boon (December 19, 1826-1886), who had traveled in the group with him on September 23, 1849. Their first four children were born there. In 1856, the family moved to Holland. He was ordained through the Classis of Holland, Reformed Church in America in 1858. His first church was at Vriesland, Michigan. He retired from his last church at Spring Lake in 1898. He died on March 17, 1910, in Holland. Adrian and Catherine had fifteen children, among them was Samuel.

Samuel Marinus Zwemer was born April 12, 1867, to Adrian and Catherine Zwemer in Vriesland, Michigan. He graduated from Hope College in 1887 and from New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1890. Within the same year, he traveled to Arabia to become a missionary for the RCA. Samuel married Amy Wilkes, a missionary nurse on May 18, 1896, in Baghdad. The couple had six children, two of whom died in Arabia. In 1929, the family returned to the United States when Samuel accepted a position Princeton Theological Seminary from 1929-1937; however, he was allowed to teach for another year. Amy died in 1937 and Samuel married a second time to Margaret Clarke, who died in 1950. Samuel died April 2, 1952, in New York City.

Raymund Lull Zwemer was born in 1902 to Amy Wilkes and Samuel Zwemer. He married Dorothy Bornn and they had four children. He was a professor at Harvard University Medical School and Columbia University, received a Guggenheim Fellowship to research in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1941, was a science advisor at the U.S. Department of State, and chief of the science division at the Library of Congress and U.S. State Department, and executive secretary of the National Academy of Science and the Federation of American Biological Studies. He also served abroad with UNESCO and the Pan American Health Organization. All four of his children—Raymund Wilkes, Suzanne Margaret, Theodore Lestrup, and Jane Karen—attended Hope College, but only the daughters graduated from there. Raymund Lull Zwemer died in 1981.