Daniel Boerman
Daniel Boerman grew up in a Dutch, Christian Reformed family and church. His dad was a farmer in a small, isolated community in southwest Michigan. Growing up on a farm meant having to help with feeding animals and harvesting crops. That included learning how to drive a tractor and enduring several summers of picking pickles. Daniel attended a two room country school through the 6th grade. His life was confined almost exclusively to family, school and church activities. Occasional excursions such as a trip to the livestock auction, the county fair or eating at a drive-in restaurant were exciting adventures.
Daniel attended Holland Christian High School and later went on to Calvin College and Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI. After searching for different job possibilities, he settled into a hardware career, working for different retail and builders hardware stores in West Michigan. He and his wife Linda have lived for many years in a rural community not far from where both of them grew up.
Currently Linda works as a Registered Nurse in a nearby children's hospital and Daniel is retired. In 2012 he published his boyhood memoir The Flying Farm Boy: A Michigan Memoir. The Boermans have 2 adult children and 3 grandchildren.
“The sleds accelerated quickly as they glided effortlessly over the smooth ice. We had never before experienced such a quick, easy slide. usually we wished we could push ourselves to make our sleds go faster. But not this time. The crystals of ice started flying past at an incredible rate of speed. No longer aware of where my sister and her sled were, all I could see was raw ice whizzing by ten inches under my chin at a rate of speed I never imagined I would experience on a sled. I felt like I was flying!”