AT 1 NASA Road in Webster, Texas they did something special this past Sunday. Just like on every other last Sunday before July 20. They, that’s the Webster Presbyterian Church, and the cup they use for the Holy Communion comes from the moon. Compliments of Buzz Aldrin, the Dutch-blooded Apollo 11 astronaut from Maastricht.
In 1969, Aldrin was an elder in Webster, and his pastor had given him a Communion set, including a biscuit and a bag of grape juice. Plus that cup. After Neil Armstrong announced, “The Eagle has landed” on July 20 after an improbably risky descent, Aldrin asked for radio silence.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way.” With that, he prepared and took the Holy Communion. Carefully, because of the low gravity on the moon. And silently, because an atheist activist had a lawsuit pending against the use of God’s name on government missions.
Two hours later, Aldrin stood on the moon, 55 years ago this week. He brought the chalice back to Texas.
Of Swedish lineage, the Aldrins, people say. Not exactly true: they actually hailed from the Maastricht area. Known as the Southern Netherlands at that time, and the data sometimes contradict each other: Maastricht, Sittard, Vaals, or closer to Liege. But it is certain that blacksmith Andries Gevert had a thriving business, that his wife Margreet pronounced the surname with a Limburg accent as Kiefwert, and that together they gave birth to five boys: Jaap, Henk, Joost, Dries and Klaas.
After the blacksmith’s death, Margreet remarried and the family left for Sweden where a grandmother decided that her own name Aldrin sounded better for the new step kids than Gevert. Klaas’ descendants settled in Massachusetts.
Edwin Eugene Aldrin, “Buzz” because his little half-sister mispronounced the word “brother,” is 94. Not hard to imagine how he pronounces his ancestral name Gevert with the soft G that Limburgers typically use.
