Hendrika Walters

The sky exploded with color in the most beautiful sunset we’d ever seen on Tuesday, July 10, 2018 when Henny was reunited with her mother, father, 7 brothers, her sister and two of the great loves of her life, her husband Bob and her first born son Gary. She had missed them all so much.
Mom was born March 7, 1925 in Heerlen Holland to Johanna Van der Heiden and Albertus Wolf. She was just 15 when the Germans marched into Holland and changed her life forever. While on his way to work her father was taken by the Nazis. They had no idea what had happened to him and they didn’t see him again for 2 years. Henny worked hard as a young girl to help support her family. She would travel hours into the countryside with her mother to beg for food. They searched for anything they could find to feed her brothers before going to work in the mines.
She wasn’t making enough money working as a maid in a wealthy woman’s home so she defied her mother and went to work in a German factory, riding her bike 20 miles each way. One night, as she pedaled back home she was caught in an incendiary bombing raid. As fire rained around her she hid, and with both tires popped from the heat, she pushed it home.
She wasn’t scared of anything and her brothers called her “Spitfire” for never backing down.
This was the woman that Bob Walters, a soldier in the US Army, met and fell in love with while stationed in Holland. They were married on September 1, 1945 and she left the only home she’d ever known to follow Bob back to Utah. As the ship left the harbor in La Havre, France she started to cry. A sailor saw her, gave her a big hug and told her not to cry. He said she would like America, and she did, though she never stopped missing Holland and her family. It would be 12 years before she was able to return.
Bob and Henny made their home in Kearns, Utah where they raised their 3 children, Gary, Kathy and Jeff. She was a homemaker in every sense of the word, her home and her family were her life.
Nobody could cook like Mom, she could make anything from nothing. She was 7 years old when she learned to cook on a coal stove standing on an orange crate, while her mother recovered from a miscarriage that almost killed her. At Catholic school the nuns had taught her how to knit and crochet and the dollies and tablecloths she crocheted are unimaginably intricate and beautiful. Everyone loves the slippers and hats she knitted non-stop, until arthritis made it impossible to continue.
Mom loved nature, flowers, animals and especially birds. She could call them to her and feed them the rice she had cooked just for them. She was just as kind and loving to people; everyone was her friend.
Thank you Mom, for teaching us what it means to love unconditionally with your whole heart and soul.
She will be sorely missed by her large extended family; daughter, Kathy (John) Savage, son, Jeff (Pam) Walters, niece Johanna Semon and nephew Bert Van der Heiden, 16 grandchildren, 35 great grandchildren, 5 great, great grandchildren and her many life-long friends.
Henny’s service will be held at Memorial Redwood Mortuary, 6500 S Redwood Road, on Tuesday, July 17, 2018 at 2pm. Viewing from 1-1:45pm. She’ll be buried next to her loving husband, Bob, in the Provo City Cemetery. Join us for a wake and to share your memories of Mom, at Jeff and Pam’s home, 9372 S Fire Lily Lane, West Jordan, Utah. From 6-9pm later that day.
Service Information
Viewing July 17, 2018 at 1:00 PM - 1:45 PM
Memorial Redwood Mortuary and Cemetery 6500 South Redwood Road, West Jordan, Utah 84123





Funeral Service
July 17, 2018 at 2:00 PM
Memorial Redwood Mortuary and Cemetery 6500 South Redwood Road, West Jordan, Utah 84123