VOORHEES is a big name in Dutch American history. Not only because towns, schools, churches and shopping centers carry that name, but also because over time it has been a surname that has produced countless politicians, judges, business folks and other big shots. The largest Dutch family in the United States – according to the family themselves. They’re not (Amsterdam’s Rapaljes in America produced more than a million descendants), but still: Steven Van Voorhees alone, the first family member to cross the ocean, sired 15 children.
It shows: there are currently more than 8,000 Voorhees families in America, and also more than 1,200 with the name Voorhis, more than 1,800 who are called Van Voorhis or Vanvoorhis, and also another 300 people who spell it Van Voorhees or Vanvoorhees. And then there are another thousands of Messrs and Mmes Vorhis, Vorhees or Vorhiss. All related.
For each of them things started in Ruinen, in the Dutch province of Drenthe. Or rather, just outside town in the hamlet of Hees. There used to be three farms there: Achterhees, Middelhees, Voorhees. Peatland farmers: Koert, Hilbert, Albert, Wessel. Bogland girls such as Aaltje, Marritje, Jannetje, Hendrikje. And there was Steven, the son of Koert. He went to America. He came from the Voorhees farm, and he was the guy who fathered those fifteen Van Voorhees kids.
Via Jan, Lucas, Bram, Jaap, Sarah, each one representing another generation down the family tree, we finally end up in the Smith family, and from there it is only one grandmother to Paul. Paul Giamatti. The last thing you’d think about him is that he hails in a straight line from the Netherlands. But you wouldn’t think that about Robert de Niro (Schoorl) or Steve Buscemi (Schouwen Duiveland) either. You assume Italy, yes, but only through Dad, because don’t count the mamas out. All too often the straight line to the Dutch runs through her.
YOU RECOGNIZE Paul’s face right away, and that’s because he has such a regular head. Mr. Potato Face, some people say. Paul himself is okay with that. “Plenty of people look just like me, and someone has to play them.” Can’t argue with that. Saving Private Ryan, the John Adams TV series, Planet of the Apes, Cinderella Man, and seven years starring in Billions. Emmys, Golden Globes, Oscar nominations, but still no wax statue at Madame Tussaud’s.
Fans have been campaigning for him for a few years now, but at Tussaud’s they say: he’s too regular. Unless folks can get half a million signatures together, then they’ll carry his image. Too tall an order, so far. Giamatti is not surprised. He preferably doesn’t even watch his own movies, “I can’t stand myself on the screen.” Not for lack of upbringing or education. Mom was an actress, Dad adored him, and Paul graduated from Yale. And his successes can’t be faulted either – he’s a downright Hollywood celebrity.
They probably wouldn’t have seen this coming, the folks from between the towns of Meppel and Hoogeveen. But now that we know that his origins are from Drenthe, you see his face, and you go, yes, Bartje! You can just picture him struggling with that bowl of brown beans.*
And not praying. Paul Giamatti is an avowed atheist.
(*Of Dutch lore: farmer’s son Bartje is a fictional character who has bigger dreams than following in his dad’s footsteps. To boot, he hates brown beans, and refuses to pray for them.)
