HIS ROOTS actually reached deeper than Amsterdam, the town from where Douwe Fonda set sail for America – as the name suggests. The Fonda’s were Frisians, from Kollum and Eagum, near Leeuwarden.
They also had sturdy names like Jelles, Evert, Aagt, Wietske. And they married women from Zaltbommel and Vechten near Utrecht. But the last generation of Fonda who were still living in Holland before their emigration resided in Amsterdam.
On which boat they sailed in 1651, we do not know for sure: the Prins Willem or the Bonte Koe. What we do know for certain is that Douwe Fonda founded the village of Fonda in upstate New York, and that Henry, Jane, Peter and Bridget descended in a straight line from him.
The family eventually moved to Nebraska. That’s where Henry met Marlon Brando’s mother, Dorothy Pennebaker of Utrecht. Try acting, she suggested. Henry did. And so did Peter, Jane and Bridget.
Peter passed away five years ago this week.
