Dewey D. Westra Collection, 1551-1981 | Heritage Hall, Hekman Library

Scope and Contents: Dewey Westra was a teacher and administrator in Christian Day Schools for forty-five years in Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin. (See his biography elsewhere in this collection). He is probably better known, however, for his avocational pursuits as an amateur poet, translator of Friesian and Dutch poems, and versifier of all 150 of the Psalms. His works appear in both the 1934 and the Centennial Christian Reformed Church Psalter Hymnals. He also did extensive work in a hymnal for the Canadian Reformed Church, and in hymnals of two smaller church groups in the Midwest. Most of his correspondence was carried on with Church hymnal committee members. They include, among others, professors K. Schoolland, Wm. Heyns, J.G. Vanden Bosch, H. Van Andel, and S. Swets as well as The Banner editor, H.J. Kuiper. He communicated freely with a dozen or more Dutch and Friesian poets in Europe. Occasionally he expressed his personal views to prominent political, press, and religious figures. His poems cover a rather wide range of religious and secular subjects from bells to humor, from Christmas to heaven. Besides the boxes of Psalm versifications, his most voluminous work reflects his great love for nature, particularly apart of God’s marvelous creation. Westra’s papers also indicate an interest and amateur ability in music. He wrote many arrangements for his school singing groups, as well as four-part sacred numbers for church choirs. There is proof, too, in his papers that he was not easily satisfied with the quality of his work. He worked constantly to improve it. As was stated in the closing paragraphs of his biography, Westra was not greatly concerned with receiving recognition for his lifetime of poetical endeavor initially inspired by his mother at an early age. He only desired that his first love, the Psalm-versification’s would help in a small way to make Psalm–singing in this country as vital an element in worship as it was to Dutch Psalm-singers.