THEIR name was actually Op de Dijk, the ancestors of writer John Updike, because that’s where they lived: on a dyke, a dam. Laurens and Stien op de Dijk emigrated from the Dutch town of Elburg. In Albany where Lau started a fur trade, their son Jan called himself OpDyck. Two Jans later, it morphed into Updike.
One of the greatest American writers of the last century, they say. Two Pulitzers and a string of other awards. It’s an open question whether that qualification will stand the test of time, because his sentences were awfully long. And he sprinkled adjectives like hagelslag on a slice of bread.
But admired or not, there’s been no shortage of offspring. The Op de Dijk couple from Elburg have produced 4000 Updikes, 1200 Updykes and 1100 Opdykes in America. Moreover, in Los Angeles runs an Elburg Street. Films like Rabbit, Run and The witches of Eastwick, each based on John Updike books, were shot there.
