Arizona Senator with Orange City roots

As Arizona news outlets were quick to point out, their own Democratic Senator, Kyrston Sinema, was the only Democrat to stand and applaud President Trump at last week’s State of the Union—the only one.

Sinema is not difficult to recognize. The Senate’s boldest dresser loves to deck herself out in her own stunning wardrobe.

But some Orange City-ans may have noticed her for her name: Sinema seems, well, sort of Dutch.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who does triathalons, claims to be bi-sexual, is a graduate of Brigham Young University, and calls herself an atheist, has pioneer roots right here. You might even say her family is from Orange City.

Okay, it’s a stretch, but stay with me.

In 1867, Kyrsten’s great-great-great grandparents, Jacob and Trijntje Sinnema, along with three children, emigrated from Friesland to Pella, along with three children. Just three years later, the Sinnemas were among the original Dutch settlers who left Pella for the new Dutch settlement at Orange City, part of the second group to arrive by wagon under the leadership of Jelle Pelmulder.

The Sinnema family erected a sod house on an 80-acre homestead in Nassau Township, five miles south of OC and a mile-and-a-half west of Carnes, expanding the farm eventually to 240 acres. In May of 1871, Jacob became a charter member of the OC First Reformed Church.

In 1875, Jacob Sinnema lost his whole harvest to a summer hailstorm, and he was granted tax relief by Sioux County. The Sinnemas eventually had six children who survived childhood. Their second son, Lieuwe (Levi) Sinnema, is Kyrsten’s great-great grandfather. He was born in 1863 and worked a 160-acre farm southeast of Carnes.

When Trijntje Sinnema died in 1882, Jacob remarried to Grietje van Klompenburg, a widow who immigrated to Orange City with four children in 1881. In 1890, out there by Carnes, Jacob built a new windmill and rigged it up to provide water in the house for his wife.

Jacob and Grietje moved to town in 1892, where Jacob died in 1903. He and both his wives are buried in West Lawn. Jacob’s obituary claims he was a godly man, respected by all.

In 1889 Levi Sinnema married his stepsister, Dirkje van Klompenburg. They had three children, the oldest son, Jacob Sinnema, born in 1892, being Kyrsten’s great-grandfather.

In 1896, Levi Sinnema pulled up stakes from the Carnes area and moved to a new Dutch settlement in Oak Harbor, WA. Three years later, the Sinnemas moved to North Yakima, WA, where he operated a grocery store, before moving yet again, in 1906, to Twin Falls, Idaho, where her grandfather became a storekeeper in the new Dutch settlement there.

While there, Levi Sinema dropped an n from his name and became a Mormon, as did his family. Their son Jacob married Irene Visser at Twin Falls in 1922, and the couple had two children, one of whom was Gerald, born in 1929. Gerald is Kyrsten’s grandfather.

Gerald Sinema is the father of Dan Sinema, Kyrsten’s father. In 1959, Gerald, tired of the cold, moved his family from Idaho to Arizona, where son Dan went to law school, married, and had a daughter, Kyrsten, born in 1976, in Tucson.

Sadly, things fell apart for the Arizona Sinemas when Kyrsten was eight years old. The marriage broke up and her father lost his job and home. When Kyrsten’s mother remarried, the family moved to the Florida Panhandle and became homeless when her stepfather failed to get a job. They lived in an abandoned gas station outside a place named DeFuniak Springs—no electricity, bathroom, or running water.

They lived on welfare, relying on food stamps and the help of relatives, as well as the food pantry of their local Mormon church.

Still, Kyrsten excelled in school and received scholarships to Brigham Young, where she married, then divorced and declared herself bi-sexual. When she graduated—in just two years at the age of 18--she left the Mormon faith and, as she claimed, all others.

She returned to Arizona, did social work, then took several degrees from Arizona State University, practiced criminal defense law, and joined the Arizona Green Party, protesting American involvement in the Middle East while wearing a pink tutu.

The Tucson Democrat was elected to the Arizona State House in 2004, where she successfully worked across party lines to forge bipartisan coalitions. In 2012, she went to Washington as a State Rep, and has served three terms.

As her standing, last week, to applaud some of the President’s accomplishments illustrated, Kyrsten has been devotedly independent, emphasizing both the need for hard work and a government safety net when needed. If you’re wondering, Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), voted in favor of the President’s impeachment.

One way or another, you can’t miss her, even you try. She’s the flamboyant dresser.

Compiled by a distant cousin, Don Sinnema, who is married to an Orange City native, Karla Mulder.