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S2B1 · Renee Dirkmaat (Gerrit's Mom)
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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Bonus 1 · 49:56

Renee Dirkmaat (Gerrit's Mom)

As secretary of BYU's Young Democrats, Gerrit's mom mailed a speaking invitation to Hubert Humphrey on a whim, and the 1968 Democratic nominee said yes.

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The question ·
So Renee, where did Gerrit get his love for history?
Richard

For their first Presidents Day bonus episode, Richard hosts while Gerrit's mother, Renee Dirkmaat, a very good sport, finally comes into the studio. Renee tells how Gerrit, the fifth of seven children and born on Halloween, got his love of history from his Dutch immigrant father's stories of the war and an Axis and Allies board game. Gerrit keeps steering the conversation back to Renee's own life, including the time she invited Hubert Humphrey to speak at BYU and angered President Ernest L. Wilkinson, the day John F. Kennedy was shot, and a blind date in Shelley, Idaho that ended in a Valentine's Day wedding. Along the way she traces Gerrit's path from Utah State and the University of Colorado to the Joseph Smith Papers, and the episode closes with Gerrit's memory of a Wisconsin family who loved the gospel and Richard's thanks to Renee.

Who comes upHubert HumphreyErnest L. WilkinsonLyndon B. JohnsonJohn F. KennedyRichard NixonHugh B. Brown
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Our first annual bonus

Richard opens the first Presidents Day bonus episode with Renee, who drove down so Gerrit could show her how to download the podcast.

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Richard Welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm not your host, Richard LeDuc. Now we are here on this special President's Day bonus episode. Every President's Day, we have a bonus episode.
Gerrit Every President's Day that we've had a podcast.
Richard We've had a bonus episode. That's right, this is our first President's Day. We're joined today by Gerrit's mother, Renee Dirkmaat. And we are very excited to have her here with us. She drove down so that Gerrit could show her how to properly download the podcast. He makes a lot of jokes at her expense.
Gerrit She is as much against her will in this room as probably, I mean, it's luckily she's older now. So we were able to trick her into getting her up here into the room where we're recording this.
Richard Yes, she is being a very good sport and does not want to do this.
Gerrit Yeah, but she also said something about me no longer being her son.
Richard He's out of the will. So we'll start with the first question. Renee, what was Gerrit like as a wee little child?
Gerrit And be kind, remember people are listening.
Renee Dirkmaat I think the question that I get asked most often by people who listen to Gerrit's podcast is is he the oldest in the family? And no, Gerrit is number five. He has five brothers and one sister. Gerrit was born on Halloween and I was so upset about that.
Gerrit Well, I mean, because you couldn't go trick or treating? Or what?
Renee Dirkmaat I thought it was awful that the doctors and everybody teased me about having a Frankenstein.
Gerrit Well, and, you know, as time has borne out, I find that, first of all, that's very cruel. They could have just said, boy, your baby's fat and ugly, but no, he's literally pieced together from dead other people.
Renee Dirkmaat He was a cute little fat baby anyway.
Gerrit That's a funny story. But, so I think actually being born in Halloween was helpful to my development, because until I was like three or four years old, I thought everyone got candy because it was my birthday. It seemed like my birthday was a national holiday, which, you know, that was, it was very ego boosting, you know, at the time.
Renee Dirkmaat I think Halloween was always a special time for Gerrit. And the thing that I think about the most is the costumes that he would pick out, he'd create for Halloween. They all had to do with some historical figure, even when he was little.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah. Well, and you know, I mean, I was a pirate one year, but I was, you know.
Richard But you were like, like some famous pirate.
Gerrit Yeah, well, I would have to, I was a real, I was Caesar once.
Renee Dirkmaat And he was a-
Gerrit And friends, Roman, countrymen.
Renee Dirkmaat Yeah.
Richard And some of these historic costumes. So Renee, where did Gerrit get his love for history? Obviously it starts in Halloween costumes, but where does he really get his love?
Gerrit It starts and ends.
Renee Dirkmaat Gerrit's father is an immigrant from the Netherlands. And so he grew up listening to stories of the war. He was born during the Second World War, during the German occupation of the Netherlands. And so that history was very important to his dad, and he talked about it quite frequently. And Gerrit learned to love history from listening to his father. His father was a very intelligent man, and they just really had a close bond, and he enjoyed all kinds of history. He started with, he had an older brother who also was very fascinated by all of this. And they found an Axis and Allies board game.
Gerrit We bought it. We didn't steal it. We were down by the docks.
Richard We found it at my neighbor's house in his closet.
Gerrit We found it in a Kmart, and then we ran out with it. We bought it actually on a trip. We went to San Diego. We went to San Diego, and Dallin and I had our pipe moving money, is what we were using. We went down to a game store there, found Axis and Allies, took it back to the hotel room, and then proceeded to play it.
Renee Dirkmaat The rest of your lives.
Gerrit Yeah. Yes. We continued to play it over and over and over again.
Renee Dirkmaat But that really started his interest in world history and history altogether. He was just really fascinated by it. His brother always said he was going to be the next J. Willard Merritt. Gerrit would tell us, even when he was a little kid, that he was going to teach history to adults.
Gerrit That's pretty close. I loved history from a young age, but I also think that I gained a lot of verbal and written communication skills from you because you were an English teacher. To this day, if you want to upset my mother, you can use something in the improper participle. I believe earlier today, my daughter said something like, yeah, we brung that blanket, and my mom's eyes, they fell. The countenance fell, and she realized that grandma is going to have to be here a lot more often to prevent the poor English skills that are being used. So why don't you tell us why you decided to become an English teacher?
Renee Dirkmaat I just always wanted to teach. I never thought of doing anything else. From the time I was a little kid, I always thought that would be neat to be a teacher, and I never even considered anything else, except I was really into the politics of the 60s.
Gerrit This is going to be the best part of this podcast.
Renee Dirkmaat And so I decided to major in political science with an English minor, English teaching minor, just in case I had to...
Gerrit In case you weren't able to bring down the man through the protest? I mean, in case of what? What was your plan of majoring in that?
Renee Dirkmaat I don't know what I was really thinking of, but I really wanted to major in political science, and mainly because I was raised in a very Republican family, and I just thought John F. Kennedy was the greatest...
Gerrit Please don't stop listening to us. Please, everyone.
Renee Dirkmaat Anyway...
Gerrit I apologize to Utah County, to Davis County.
Renee Dirkmaat But anyway, I just really... So I majored in political science, did some internships in Washington, DC and while I was at BYU, I was the secretary of the Young Democrats.
Gerrit The college Democrats?
Renee Dirkmaat The college Young Democrats. And needless to say, it wasn't a popular thing because Ernest Wilkinson was the president at this time. And he was very conservative. And I really made a big boner. I was told to make up a list of people to come and talk to our club meetings each month. Well, I made this list, and I had worked with a couple of congressmen, and I thought, well, what if they'd come? So I invited them. And so I just went down this list of people I could invite. And I had an inspiration, I guess, I don't know, to invite Hubert Humphrey, who was running against Richard Nixon for president.
Gerrit Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic nominee for the presidency.
Renee Dirkmaat And I did it mostly on a whim. I didn't even think about it. I honestly put it in the envelope, addressed it, and I didn't even think about it. Well, he offered to come.
Gerrit So he thinking, I've got to get that all-important Utah vote. The BYU college Democrats, which I'm sure were legion then, as now. So how did you find out he was going to come speak?
Renee Dirkmaat We got a letter. Our letter was returned and he said, I will be there if I can. And he said, can I come such and such date? His administrative assistant is the one who did all the paperwork. It wasn't his.
Gerrit Now, he gave a very famous speech in Utah as part of his presidential campaign, where he talked about halting the bombing in North Vietnam.
Renee Dirkmaat Right.
Gerrit Was this the same trip when he came?
Renee Dirkmaat Yes.
Gerrit So literally, at the peak of his popularity and probably at the peak of his not making Ernest Wilkinson happy, it was this trip because, okay, all right.
Renee Dirkmaat Edwin Firmage was his administrative assistant and he did all the background. And just for your information, Edwin Firmage was Hubie Brown, who was one of the counselors of the First Presidency, his son-in-law. What?
Gerrit So I always knew that Hubie Brown was a Democrat. I knew that because I've even seen some documents where the other brethren might have been giving him a little bit of a ribbing for his political... I'm sure he loved James E.
Renee Dirkmaat Faust. I'm sure that... He got a lot of rid of being fraud. But anyway, and so Edwin Firmage did all the background planning to get him out here to BYU because he'd been invited. Well, President Wilkinson heard through the grapevine that Hubert Humphrey was coming to BYU to speak. I am lucky I got to graduate from BYU. He was furious.
Gerrit What did he say?
Renee Dirkmaat Who?
Gerrit President Wilkinson. What did he say? Did he say you needed to cancel it?
Renee Dirkmaat Oh, no, no. Well, he wanted to, but he said, you can't, don't have the authority to invite people to come to BYU that I haven't approved. It never occurred to me.
Gerrit That's what all criminals say. This is illegal? We can't just take crap home from work? I thought, oh.
Renee Dirkmaat Well, see, I had been inviting people to club meetings, and then that's what this was supposed to be, is to a club meeting. Well, Hubert Humphrey was coming. They had to open up the whole center, and so...
Gerrit Let me just give a little bit of a background here for those of you who are still listening, which is probably only Rachel's mom. I know that my mom's listening because she didn't have to download this because she's here in studio. But so in the 1968 election for president, Lyndon Johnson was the president, and Lyndon Johnson, you know, he walked tall and carried a big stick and a big mouth. I mean, he was a big person in politics. And in a pretty big surprise, actually, to most people at the time, he announced that he wasn't going to run for reelection. Now, he'd already filled more than one term because he took over for John F. Kennedy when Kennedy was assassinated. But then had won election. He had won the first actual election when he'd run against Barry Goldwater. And in fact, it was that that's actually the last election that Utah voted for the Democratic nominee for president.
Gerrit That's the high water mark actually of Democrats in Utah in the 20th century. Lyndon Johnson won Utah. So it was not a completely far-fetched idea that Utah had enough Democrat support. I mean, on the electoral map, the last election, Lyndon Johnson had carried Utah. And the main issue, the reason why Johnson, I mean, I'm sure Johnson says something different in his memoirs, but the reason why Johnson decided to not run again was the Vietnam War had become incredibly unpopular by 1968. Maybe I should ask, while we're talking about politics, because that way we can offend everybody, what were your thoughts about Lyndon Johnson before he said he wasn't going to run again? What did you think about him as a young Democrat?
Renee Dirkmaat We were very frustrated. At the time, when you want, everybody had to, all young men had to sign up for the draft, and you were called the Vietnam according to your draft number. We had classmates and people in the club whose numbers were from one to five who automatically knew they had to leave as soon as the semester was over, had to leave to go to Vietnam. And it was very hard to support someone who...
Gerrit So you felt like you were opposed to the draft and the war, but the president that represented your party was the one sending, I mean, he was the one sending hundreds of thousands of people. I mean, eventually over half a million American service members at one time in Vietnam and then, of course, a million serve altogether. So were you excited when he said he wasn't going to run for re-election?
Renee Dirkmaat I don't know that I thought much about one way or the other. I was just hoping that next election things would be a little better.
Gerrit So were you someone who wanted the Vietnam War to end then?
Renee Dirkmaat Oh, yes.
Gerrit Did you march in rallies?
Renee Dirkmaat No, we didn't do things like that at BYU.
Gerrit Then as now.
Renee Dirkmaat Let's see, I spent my summers, and I was going to BYU, I spent my summers in Washington, DC working for congressmen. And so my protesting and things like that happened in the summer, not long ago.
Gerrit I see. So in DC where? Yeah.
Renee Dirkmaat Well, I lived on 16th Street when 14th Street was burned and this type of thing. Oh, wow. So I had plenty of it when I was in Washington, DC. I didn't need to do it at BYU.
Gerrit So when...
Richard She's really good. Her podcast would be so much better than your podcast.
Gerrit Yeah, actually, I think we probably need to start a spinoff podcast, the Renee Dirkmaat podcast.
Renee Dirkmaat No, let's talk about Gerrit.
Gerrit But if you were the only person who could figure out how to download it, I mean, the numbers would just... It would be hard. I mean, if we lose you, we lose not only our matriarch, we also lose at least 85% of our downloads. You're not nice. So when Hubert Humphrey... Well, we'll just stick to Hubert Humphrey. That's what all the kids want to know about? Everybody listening is like, Hubert Humphrey, I'd love to be like him.
Richard No, I love that, by the way, so she's telling a beautiful story and it's very interesting. And then you're like, you know what? Let's history this up a little bit. Let's talk about it.
Gerrit Yeah, that's the reason why the podcast doesn't work very well. Because like, hey, this is really interesting. Let's talk about townships. What have we talked about?
Richard So you made Wilkinson Med. Now, let me set the table here with the political climate at the time.
Gerrit I had no idea. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know that we're helping, but Humphrey on that trip to Utah, he announced that if he was elected, he was going to halt the bombing of North Vietnam, which was seen as a major de-escalation. I mean, that was one of the things that was, you know, the only way you can win the war in Vietnam, the only way you can bring the Vietnamese to the negotiating table is by massive bombing. And he essentially held out this olive branch to North Vietnam, saying, if I'm elected, we're not going to bomb anymore. So that must have made you think, well, there's actually a chance the war is going to end, right?
Renee Dirkmaat Right.
Gerrit And of course, spoiler alert, Hubert Humphrey does not win, but it's a fairly close popular vote. Richard Nixon does win. And in fact, Richard Nixon does actually de-escalate the war. I mean, so he certainly does things that upset people who are opposed to the war for sure, you know, expanding the war into Cambodia and Laos. But eventually, the war is going to end. And, you know, that's why you all know who Henry Kissinger is essentially. But, okay, so no one. Richard just looked at me as if there's not a single person listening who knows who Henry Kissinger is.
Richard All right, look, I'm not saying that no one knows, but you said, so that's why all of you know. And also, I just like to say, first of all, this is a lot of fun. Renee, you've got to be, you need to replace me obviously. It's way more fun when you're here, but you said his famous speech and you're using the word famous again in kind of a historical context.
Gerrit In air quotes?
Richard Well, I mean, like again, and that's why all of us know Henry Kissinger.
Gerrit Well, we try to stay away from more modern history because I don't know it very well. And clearly there's politics involved. It's a lot easier when you're talking about wigs.
Richard I will say, we just lean right into the, so you had an opportunity to meet him then, was he very nice and lovely, man?
Renee Dirkmaat You got to meet him. Oh, yes.
Gerrit How was his speech?
Renee Dirkmaat I thought, I was so nervous that I don't remember what he said. But it went over really well. He got a big ovation and everything at the end. And a huge crowd. So it went well.
Gerrit Did you have any contact with the BYU administration after?
Renee Dirkmaat Well, I'm just glad I graduated.
Gerrit Okay, well, that's how you know. So hopefully no one who works as my boss at BYU knows the incendiary past of my mother as she was.
Renee Dirkmaat It was the 60s.
Gerrit So it was fine. That's what we've always said.
Renee Dirkmaat It was just one of those things in the 60s.
Richard So then what are some of the things that kind of give a little bit of a life sketch for your son? You talked a little bit about those things. I know we keep trying to get to, like, find more stories from you, and you just keep wanting to talk more about your son, which is very sweet. But so, Gerrit doesn't want any of that.
Gerrit Yeah, there's a reason why I'm pushing the...
Richard Yeah, the Hubert Humphrey.
Gerrit Hubert Humphrey. In fact, we'll call this episode Hubert Humphrey. So... Hubert Humphrey and the White Horse Prophecy.
Richard So a little bit, then, a life sketch about your son.
Renee Dirkmaat One thing about Gerrit...
Gerrit This is after the doctors made fun of me when I was born.
Renee Dirkmaat Oh. Gerrit was raised on a 40-acre farm, and his dad was a nuclear engineer, so he didn't farm the farm. But Gerrit and his brothers all grew up moving sprinkler pipes, working on the. Farm. But Gerrit always had the goal that he wanted, like I said before, he wanted to teach history to adults. His brother wanted to be the next Jay Willard Marriott, and he kind of worried about Gerrit's low expectations.
Gerrit He wanted to be an expansive hotel magnate, and I wanted to be a history teacher. Thank you for setting the bar so high.
Renee Dirkmaat The problem was at the time Gerrit grew up, there were so many people graduating from history with a history major, more than there were jobs in the United States. And so we were kind of worried about it.
Gerrit So right now then, that's the same thing as now, but go ahead.
Renee Dirkmaat We were afraid, but we felt like it's important that he do what he's capable of doing and what he was very qualified to do. And Gerrit always had this dream of going to BYU and then graduating BYU and then going to Stanford to get his master's like his dad did. And he went to BYU for the summer.
Gerrit And then they found out that my mom invited Hubert Humphrey to, and I was asked to leave. They said, you will go to the Gulag Archipelago of Utah State for your crimes.
Renee Dirkmaat Anyway, he went one summer to BYU, to live with his brother who was also going to BYU.
Gerrit The successful one, yep.
Renee Dirkmaat But Utah State gave him a better offer and free is always better than money, so he had to go to Utah State.
Gerrit I loved Utah State. It was not the death sentence.
Renee Dirkmaat Oh, but you thought it was at first.
Gerrit Oh, well, I wanted to go to BYU. I apologized to all the UV listeners, to all the UV listeners.
Renee Dirkmaat But he ended up at Utah State, and it was such a blessing because he met his beautiful wife there, who was also attending Utah State.
Gerrit If you want to hear from her, we have a previous bonus episode that you've also probably not listened to, and she's in that.
Renee Dirkmaat And when he graduated from Utah State with his degree in history, he had to go to graduate school if he was going to teach adults history, and he applied several places, but his goal was to go to Stanford. Well, he didn't get where he wanted to go, and it just seemed like...
Gerrit I'm a failure.
Renee Dirkmaat No. He didn't get to go there, but University of Colorado Boulder offered him what he needed to be able to get his graduate degree monetarily. And at the time, and probably still is, it's considered the most liberal school in the United States.
Gerrit I mean, it's obviously not worse than Berkeley.
Renee Dirkmaat Well, that's what I said. That's what I said, besides Berkeley. And they were having a lot of criticism at the time, a lot of backlash because of their liberalism, and so Gerrit became their token conservative and the only Latter-day Saint in the program.
Gerrit And to be fair, I am a political independent. I don't actually belong to a party, but literally anyone who believes in God, who attends the University of Colorado, is considered a conservative.
Richard Yeah, you're a member of the John Birch Society.
Gerrit Exactly. I was legitimately in a class one time where we were discussing, it was about European religion, and I was in this class, and people were actually making fun of the fact that some people were still, were still, I mean, essentially dumb enough to believe in God, and that how religion has done nothing but suppress people, and they're kind of going around the room. And I said, well, I still believe in God. And I remember, still remember, that there was a very nice girl in one of these classes, and she looked at me in this very confused way and said, Gerrit, you seem so smart. How could you possibly believe in God? So there's that.
Renee Dirkmaat Anyway, it turned out to be a real blessing for him because he was able to live next door to his brother who was an entrepreneur and going to law school at University of Colorado, Denver. And their wives were friends, and so this was a good thing for him, and they were able to help each other. Then he got it, and he finally... When it came time to write his doctoral dissertation, he had a lot of trepidation about what to do because he wanted to write it on the treatment the United States government gave the Mormons or how they handled the Mormon situation from the time the church was organized till they got to Utah. And he didn't know whether or not he should do this in a school like Boulder, but he did it. And he wrote it, and he was... They were not very happy about it, but they gave him his...
Gerrit I did have one of the members of my PhD committee make fun of the fact that I was a Mormon in my PhD defense, which is supposed to be the most... the highest level thing. He said, well, you're talking an awful lot about things in here, but why don't you tell me a little bit about things like Anheuser-Busch? Oh, you don't know anything about that, do you? Because you don't drink beer. And he was not kidding, actually. He was very serious about it.
Richard Why did he want to know about Anheuser-Busch?
Gerrit I think because he had been a long PhD defense and he wanted some Anheuser-Busch. I don't know.
Renee Dirkmaat Well, why not Coors?
Gerrit Well, I think because, you know, he had a... Yeah, well, I mean, you'd think that, but I think he was looking at maybe the rivals, trying to pin it on the Mormons.
Renee Dirkmaat As soon as he passed, you know, defended his dissertation, then he was hired by the BYU. I mean, by the Joseph Smith Papers in Salt Lake City.
Gerrit Yeah, that was a great experience. It's fun to get the chance to talk to you about these different things, but I think that it's actually far more interesting to listen to things from your life than mine. That's why I've been trying to direct this the whole way. Don't you think, Richard?
Richard Oh, it's not even close. Not even close, really.
Gerrit Yeah, I know.
Richard We're already getting texts in.
Gerrit Yeah, this hasn't dropped. This isn't live. And multiple people have emailed saying, put more Renee.
Richard More Renee.
Gerrit Yeah, I gotta have more Renee.
Richard It is funny. So these bonus episodes are a lot of fun for us. And we don't necessarily care if anyone else enjoys it because we're having a good time. But the thing is that they are the most polarizing of the podcasts. We receive very strong feedback in the positive or the negative anytime we talk about any of these things.
Gerrit Well, and we make them a bonus because we don't want anyone to feel like, oh, I tuned in to listen to my usual discussion of the white horse prophecy. I tuned in to learn more about township and land acquisition and-
Richard Craig Wilson.
Gerrit Yeah, Craig, you know, usually he's our other download. Rachel's mom, Craig Wilson, my mom, and then that's about it. I mean, you know, Jed Grow in North Dakota is the other download. Oh, Jed, thank you so much. Yeah, Jed was amazing. But apparently we have quite the listenership in the Tri-City areas where my brother lives. We asked my mom about that, about, oh, did Nathan share the podcast with people?
Richard Oh, you should have her tell the story. It's great.
Gerrit Why don't you tell the story?
Renee Dirkmaat I went up to visit Nathan and I got bombarded by- Well, Nathan had people come up to him. There's this Dirkmaat who does this podcast. Are you related to him? And Nathan says, yes, he's my brother. And there are many people up there who listen to his podcast. And they came up to me and talked to me while I was up there for church.
Gerrit There's a lot of people up there. I can only assume Rachel's mom lives in Pasco. I don't know.
Richard Well, so I will say, so that's a bit of a revisionist version of the story.
Gerrit Yeah, she was cleaning that up for the air.
Richard Yeah, so when she told the story originally, there was a woman in Nathan's war who came up to Nathan and asked about it. And Nathan had no idea what she was talking about.
Gerrit There's no Dirkmaat who has a podcast, which shows the kind of family support I get from my brother. What idiot would listen to my brother on the radio?
Renee Dirkmaat This lady had also read his book about the translation of the Book of Mormon.
Gerrit So she really is that rainbow unicorn, the one that has read the book and listened to the podcast.
Renee Dirkmaat Yeah.
Gerrit I wish we could give her a shout out.
Renee Dirkmaat Well, I'll ask Nathan.
Gerrit We'll figure out. Find out. Now, Nathan won't respond to you because he won't believe that you have a son that has a podcast, but he'll think that you're clearly trying to sell him something as a Russian hacker.
Richard We'll have to bring her in and have her as a guest for our special Arbor Day podcast. We'll do a bonus episode.
Gerrit And what about Secretary's Day?
Richard The unsung heroes.
Gerrit The unsung, yeah.
Richard So we had talked about before, the 60s was a tumultuous time, as you were talking about. You had no intention of talking more about it, but when you were talking to us privately, it was very interesting. So we're going to force everyone else to listen. So you talked about when you had first gone, you're an adult, you're going off to school, and JFK is assassinated. You said you were such a huge fan. That had to have been...
Renee Dirkmaat It was very, very hard. I was walking across BYU campus when somebody, there was all this commotion all at once, and this girl started crying, JFK's been shot, President Kennedy's been shot. And I walked into the library, and my friend from home was there, and I walked up to him and I said, did you hear? And he was not very nice about his response. And I went home so devastated because I couldn't imagine anybody being sad that the President of the United States, I mean, happy that the President of the United States had been shot.
Gerrit Or happy that anyone had been shot.
Renee Dirkmaat Anyone, especially at this time when there was so much, you know, I just couldn't believe that anybody would do that. But anyway, and so it was really hard for me to really concentrate for a while. It was, well, it was for anybody in the United States. That's all we thought about and that's all we talked about for weeks at a time after that.
Richard So then how did you meet, how did you meet Gerrit's dad? How did you end up back in Idaho?
Renee Dirkmaat Well, I decided after living in Washington, DC that maybe I didn't want to be a professional politician.
Gerrit Well, at this point, I mean.
Renee Dirkmaat Yeah.
Gerrit The track record is you nearly getting kicked out of BYU and JFK getting shot.
Renee Dirkmaat I just decided that maybe I had better use my English major and teach school for a while and see how I fell about things. And my mother was ill with cancer. And so it was important to me to be close to her. And so I got a job, a teaching job in Soda Springs, Idaho.
Gerrit And for those of you who don't know, I know it's not literally the coldest place in Idaho.
Renee Dirkmaat But it is too.
Gerrit But there are people who live in Star Valley who are like, I'm not going to Soda Springs because it's too cold there.
Renee Dirkmaat It's cold. Anyway, my mother died that spring and I just wanted to get away, so I went to California and taught in Utah and around. And my friends that I had started out teaching with in Soda Springs wanted, they had moved to come to Shelly, Idaho to teach. And they talked the principal into offering me a contract to teach English in Shelly. And so I came so I could be with my friends.
Gerrit Just like those Democrats getting this inside job.
Renee Dirkmaat My friend's father was the Democratic chairman of the party at the time.
Gerrit Oh, so actually that's exactly what happened. I was making a joke.
Renee Dirkmaat How many Democrats were in Shelly? No, they lived in Sugar City, but he was on the state Democratic committee. Anyway, well, anyway, let's forget.
Gerrit Do you remember Cecil Andrews?
Richard Cecil Andrews and Frank Goerner.
Renee Dirkmaat Yeah.
Gerrit The Frank Church wilderness exists.
Renee Dirkmaat Yeah, we really loved Frank Church. Anyway.
Gerrit We've now lost literally every listener we have in Idaho.
Renee Dirkmaat So I came.
Gerrit This podcast.
Richard So you envision someone's like, all right, I've been through all of this. If they mention Frank Church, I am out of here.
Gerrit No, every Idaho listener that's a conservative is like, Nope, and we're done. Thank you. And you can take your liberal politics.
Renee Dirkmaat Anyway, by the way, if somebody asks me now, I vote for a voters Republican.
Gerrit Oh, don't tell people that. Now we just lost all of our Democrats.
Renee Dirkmaat What?
Gerrit The download numbers on our podcasts are going backwards.
Renee Dirkmaat Anyway, you asked me how I met my husband. He was a nuclear engineer out to the site. And I was teaching school, lived in Shelly. And we, I don't know how we met. We just kind of met through... There was a teacher who was also the ward clerk. And he told my husband that he ought to meet me. And so we... I had never seen him, and he'd never seen me. And so he called me up right there while at the church house. The kids were playing basketball, and I could hear him in the background and asked for a date.
Gerrit So dad just called you without ever having even met you at all. Hey, my buddy's the ward clerk. Would you like to go out?
Richard This is the importance of a ward directory, by the way.
Renee Dirkmaat Well, his name was Wally Hamilton, and he had asked Pete for all his, for his ward, her personal information for the work. The ward clerk was Wally Hamilton. No, my husband was Peter Dirkmaat. Anyway.
Gerrit I cleared up a lot of things. I was questioning so much about my life.
Renee Dirkmaat Anyway, and we got married. This was in around Thanksgiving time, and we got married in February. We didn't waste any time.
Gerrit So you got married three, less than two months after you met. Now, I've always enjoyed the fact that dad deliberately married you on Valentine's Day.
Renee Dirkmaat Right.
Richard Now that is, that's the work of an engineer.
Gerrit That's what it is. It was absolutely an engineer. He's like, I knew I was going to have to buy an anniversary gift. And I knew I'd have to buy a Valentine's gift. Problem solved.
Renee Dirkmaat And that's about the way he thought.
Gerrit For a long time growing up, it was probably for about 10 years that I was cognizant, you know, outside of all the concussions. And that my dad bought my mom a frying pan as a joke present. Now, I don't want anyone to think like my dad was like, that's your place in the kitchen or whatever.
Renee Dirkmaat He bought me a piano.
Gerrit He would buy her nice gifts, but always as part of the joke, one of the gifts would be a frying pan.
Renee Dirkmaat I don't know.
Gerrit Every year. Well, he would buy, he would also buy an actual gift, but then also just a frying pan.
Renee Dirkmaat No, it was for Christmas. It was Christmas. I got it for Christmas. But my birthday was in December. Once in a while, I got it for my birthday rather than Christmas.
Richard Is part of the reason that he married you, that your birthday aligned to Christmas and he only had to buy one gift?
Renee Dirkmaat I think actually that's why he said, Wally, show me her birthday.
Gerrit I'll step out of the church basketball game right now and I'll call. So what did he say that made you think, I guess I'll go out on a date with him?
Renee Dirkmaat Well, he said that he was with Wally Hamilton and that he told me, told him to call me. And so he did. And I had, and it was really weird. I was supposed to meet, and I lived in a basement apartment and I had nightmares from the time we, the phone call ended until I saw him because...
Gerrit You have no picture of him.
Renee Dirkmaat Oh no, I had no...
Gerrit You are psyched. This is, so today we call things a blind date when we say, oh, I only saw their picture on Instagram.
Richard And followed five years of activity and followed their interests.
Gerrit Yeah, like, oh, looks like she used to work at, you know, Valley Fitness or something like that. No, I mean, in my mom's era...
Renee Dirkmaat Well, he knew I was a teacher.
Gerrit A blind date is a literal blind date. You have not seen them at all.
Renee Dirkmaat Anyway, the day that I was supposed to meet, I saw this pickup, this old blue pickup go up and down the street outside of where I was living.
Gerrit Casing the joint.
Renee Dirkmaat And I thought, that's him. It's gotta be him. And then when he came to the door, I thought, you know, is it really smart for me to be answering the door in a basement apartment when I can't escape?
Gerrit Well, he owns a pickup.
Richard You have no faith in Wally Hamilton, obviously.
Gerrit Yeah, well, first of all, Wally, what was he doing?
Renee Dirkmaat Anyway.
Gerrit Giving away church records information so people can date. He basically starts his own mutual, the Shelly Second Ward.
Renee Dirkmaat No, we just... Yeah, but your dad did. Anyway, we got married and I moved into Second Ward.
Gerrit So what impressed you about dad? What made you... Or was it a terrible first date?
Renee Dirkmaat It wasn't the best.
Gerrit I'm sure dad's happy to hear that.
Renee Dirkmaat But he knows.
Gerrit God rest his soul. He knows. He was there for it.
Richard So what made it not the best?
Renee Dirkmaat Just we got to talking about our past and things like that. It was just one of those things.
Gerrit Did he at that point find out you'd invited Hubert Humphrey to BYU? No, not until after we were married. Very smart. Some skeletons you keep in the closet for a while.
Renee Dirkmaat Yeah, just talking.
Gerrit What about the second date? What did you do on the second date?
Renee Dirkmaat I don't know.
Richard When did you know?
Renee Dirkmaat I think I knew at the end of the first date.
Gerrit Oh my, so it was a terrible date.
Renee Dirkmaat What was terrible is he had to go to Washington, DC for two weeks. So I stayed in his house while he was gone. Don't ask me why. It seems like the first date went very well.
Gerrit Yeah, so what you're saying is you moved in together.
Renee Dirkmaat No, I didn't. You heard it here first. I moved into the house. He wasn't there.
Gerrit That's not how it will be taken by any muckraking journalists. But my bishop said, Renee Hale moves into Dirkmaat Plantation.
Renee Dirkmaat He said, my bishop said, I don't think this looks very good. You guys better get married. So he married his son about time.
Gerrit So I'm not the only one who's throwing a 15-yard flag on that then. The bishop was like, yeah, you're not able to live in his house.
Renee Dirkmaat What was funny about it is he was also a school teacher. So we were all in the same boat. The bishop was.
Richard What was Wally Hamilton doing?
Renee Dirkmaat He was teacher. What did he teach? He was a school librarian at that time.
Gerrit A classic Wally.
Renee Dirkmaat And the bishop was. He had taught for many years, but I think at this time he was the school counselor. So, but anyway, so it was.
Gerrit Apparently the school marriage counselor.
Renee Dirkmaat Relationship counselor. Anyway.
Gerrit Yeah, that's good for posterity. Anything else you'd like to share? Are you going to be a regular feature? A regular part?
Renee Dirkmaat No way.
Gerrit Richard's already willing to recuse himself.
Renee Dirkmaat No, no, no.
Richard Renee, you were very good at this.
Renee Dirkmaat This is it. I was just trying to think of something that we should talk about. Oh, Gerrit, when he was in high school, he, you know, along with the pipe moving net, he went to work at Mr. Pizza and loved it.
Gerrit In Shelly, Idaho, a local pizza shop run by the greatest... It's not sponsored by it at all, but Shannon Albright, the owner of that, he was like a second father to me. And we would sit and talk and laugh every day. We'd work like crazy. It's a million degrees in his store.
Renee Dirkmaat He never had air conditioning.
Gerrit You would go in there. The pizza ovens are right there, and you'd be standing right next to them all day, every day. Anyone who's worked in a mom-and-pop pizza shop knows. Actually, that's where I have my son working now.
Renee Dirkmaat But it has air conditioning.
Gerrit It doesn't seem to be as effective as it could be. But yeah, I worked at Mr. Pizza, delivering pizzas for years, actually.
Renee Dirkmaat Yes, it was many years. And then he went to... Oh, I was going to say one thing about... He went to BYU, and then he went on... After he went to Utah State one semester, then he went on a mission. All his brothers had received their calls to foreign countries. And Gerrit desperately wanted to go on a foreign mission.
Gerrit I grew up in southeast Idaho.
Renee Dirkmaat And he wanted to... And he even studied German, so he'd be prepared to go on a foreign mission. And he got sent to Wisconsin.
Gerrit Where there are Germanic people living, partially.
Renee Dirkmaat But he was devastated. He thought that was awful.
Gerrit And then I got to Wisconsin, and it was more devastated.
Renee Dirkmaat Anyway, it was where he needed to be. He was assisted the president for 13 months.
Gerrit Oh, that's... I don't know. Was it that long?
Renee Dirkmaat Yeah, it was 13 months.
Richard It's interesting. The way he tells it, he told me 15 months.
Gerrit I think I was assisted the president for somewhere around 27 months.
Renee Dirkmaat I'm sorry.
Gerrit From the womb. Well, right as I landed, I came off the plane. They put assistant to the president on my chest, and I walked around.
Renee Dirkmaat No, that's not true. But it might have been longer in 13 months.
Gerrit I'm sure it wasn't. I'm sure whatever number I gave you was inflated in any letter I wrote.
Renee Dirkmaat I know it was 13 months at least, but I don't know. It might have been longer.
Gerrit Well, I did get to see a lot of the state. I did have some cool experiences, some really special people there. And one of the things you learn, you go to a mission like that in the United States where there's very, very, very few members. One of the things that frankly you wish you could replicate in Utah or maybe in Southeast Idaho or Arizona where there's a lot of members is this desperate need that the members had for one another in Wisconsin. If you were a member of, first of all, when I went there, there was only three stakes in the state. There's five million people in Wisconsin and there are three stakes in the entire state. And one was in Milwaukee area, one was in Madison, and one took up all of the northern area of Wisconsin.
Gerrit Members desperately needed one another. You're driving 25 minutes to church and the saints you sit next to on those pews are the only Latter Day Saints that you saw all week. They're the only people who have any idea what your values are. And so that was actually something that was, it was frankly beautiful. I mean, and I met some of the most amazing people who had sacrificed everything. There was a family there that was just so poor. And the reason why they were poor wasn't because they weren't hard workers. Both of them worked. He worked and he was, I mean, he was probably in his early 60s, late 50s at best. And he was still working in the manufactured housing industry, roofing houses the whole time. And it was really hard work. His wife also worked.
Gerrit And the reason why they didn't have any money is their kids had just addictions to drugs and alcohol. And so they were raising all of their grandkids. And it was a considerable number from multiple different kids. And they had gotten legal custody of these kids because they've been treated badly and abused. Anyway, so they had nothing. And yet these people, they were in a legitimate fashion willing to give their shirt off of their back for anyone who was suffering or struggling. Actually, it made me feel bad to go to their house because I knew that they didn't have the money to pay for the food that they were trying to feed us that should have gone to the grandkids that they had, but they loved the gospel. And I remember having a conversation with them. I said, you know, brother, why are you are just, you're doing everything for everybody.
Gerrit You're always out. I mean, if there's snow, he's shoveling people's, he's taking the missionaries everywhere. And he said, this gospel, he said, this gospel changed my life. This gospel is the most important thing that's ever happened to me and my wife. This gospel. He's kept saying that. Remember, he just kept kind of repeating this gospel over and over. And I wanted to have the connection with the church desperately that this family had, where everything in their life they attributed to God, every happiness they had, they attributed to what God had blessed them with. And here they were suffering and struggling, and they couldn't have been more grateful to God. It was beautiful, a beautiful aspect of serving there. So I didn't mean to take too long to tell this. I feel like I always tell a bad Wisconsin story, but I think we need to end.
Gerrit That's probably the way we should end this then, is...
Richard Well, I mean, it's just been an absolute pleasure. And Renee, when you've been in the podcast business as long as Gerrit and I, you can really see talent, and you've got it.
Gerrit You've got talent, but we do need you to continually download the episode 30 to 40 times a week. That drove our early numbers, it drives our late numbers. I'm sure if we ever got some analytics going on this, it would show Idle Falls Idle, Idle Falls Idle, Idle Falls Idle.
Richard I will say in seriousness though, Renee, so I have been friends with your son for 20 plus years and the impact and influence and guidance and teaching that you and your husband provided for him has been a marvel to watch as he has grown into what it is. And just me personally, just love you so much and thank you so much.
Gerrit Thank you.
Renee Dirkmaat Love you. Love you too, Gerrit.

Quote board

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They could have just said, boy, your baby's fat and ugly, but no, he's literally pieced together from dead other people.

GerritBanter

So I think actually being born in Halloween was helpful to my development, because until I was like three or four years old, I thought everyone got candy because it was my birthday.

GerritBanter

Her podcast would be so much better than your podcast.

RichardBanter

And then you're like, you know what? Let's history this up a little bit.

RichardBanter

They said, you will go to the Gulag Archipelago of Utah State for your crimes.

GerritBanter

Now that is, that's the work of an engineer.

RichardBanter

I knew I was going to have to buy an anniversary gift. And I knew I'd have to buy a Valentine's gift. Problem solved.

GerritBanter

Well, right as I landed, I came off the plane. They put assistant to the president on my chest, and I walked around.

GerritBanter

You're driving 25 minutes to church and the saints you sit next to on those pews are the only Latter Day Saints that you saw all week.

GerritInsight

And I wanted to have the connection with the church desperately that this family had, where everything in their life they attributed to God, every happiness they had, they attributed to what God had blessed them with.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Gerrit must be the oldest child in his family.
Gerrit was assistant to the mission president for most of his mission.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

A love of history can start at home: Gerrit's came from his father's stories of growing up during the German occupation of the Netherlands.

The detours Renee worried about, like Utah State instead of BYU and Boulder instead of Stanford, turned out to be blessings for Gerrit and his family.

In places with few members, Saints desperately need one another, and that kind of closeness is worth building anywhere.

A struggling Wisconsin family who credited every happiness to God showed Gerrit what it looks like when the gospel changes a life.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
The audience: Gerrit's mom (and Rachel's mom)Renee drove down so Gerrit could show her how to download the podcast, she accounts for 85% of downloads, and the analytics would read "Idaho Falls" (0:16, 15:08, 48:55).
Every Presidents DayA bonus episode every Presidents Day, which so far is this one; next up, Arbor Day and Secretary's Day bonuses (0:01, 0:13, 29:46, 29:51).
Hubert Humphrey and the White Horse ProphecyGerrit keeps steering back to Humphrey and proposes it as the episode title (15:08, 19:17).
TownshipsInteresting story, so let's talk about townships, and listeners who tuned in for township and land acquisition (15:44, 27:26).
We just lost all our listenersApologies to Utah and Davis Counties for JFK, to Idaho for Frank Church, and then to the Democrats too (7:00, 33:34, 34:05).
The listener listRachel's mom, Craig Wilson, Gerrit's mom and Jed Grow in North Dakota, plus a surprise following in the Tri-Cities (27:40).
Doctor inflation, mission editionAssistant to the president for 13 months, or 15, or 27, "from the womb" (43:51, 44:02, 44:07).
The frying panGerrit's dad gave a real gift plus a joke frying pan every Christmas, or for Renee's December birthday (36:24, 37:06).
Mr. Pizza in ShelleyNo air conditioning, the pizza ovens right there, and owner Shannon Albright like a second father (42:18, 42:37).
Richard's hosting career"I'm not your host," and Renee should replace him; when you've been in the business this long, you can spot talent (0:01, 17:22, 48:44).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Hubert Humphrey's 1968 campaign stop in Utah and his promise to halt the bombing of North Vietnam (9:05).
The 1964 election, the last time Utah voted for a Democratic presidential nominee (11:08).
The Dutch experience of the German occupation in World War II, the stories behind Gerrit's love of history (3:18).
Gerrit's dissertation topic: how the U.S. government handled the Saints from 1830 to their arrival in Utah (24:30).
The previous bonus episode with Gerrit's wife (22:07).
SOT Litner · S2B1.