Businessman, family man, local history buff. Those are some of the ways that loved ones and friends described Arie de Jong, who died April 6 at age 84, and whose family founded and still runs the Hollandia Dairy in San Marcos.
“He was successful in life, in business and with family,” said his son, Eric de Jong.
The elder de Jong emigrated to the U.S. with his parents and nine siblings when he was 10 years old. De Jong and his siblings competed in everything, said Eric de Jong, including the family’s startup dairy business. De Jong attended school until he was 16, when he went to work full time.
“They were doers, hard-core, they had to get it done,” said Eric of his father and his six brothers and three sisters.
Duty called, and de Jong, along with his brother, Karel, enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving two years as medics in post-war . Coming back to North County, de Jong married a Dutch girl named Anneke and began driving a milk truck route for the dairy.
As a milk truck driver, de Jong’s job was part deliveryman and part salesman, and he took to the latter role with relish and skill, said his son.
“He had no problem talking to anyone about anything. That’s the nature of a salesman,” said Eric de Jong.
When he was out in the community he often encountered people he had met on his milk route, and he could rattle off the names of businesses that had come and gone as he drove down the street.
“He was a walking Escondido-San Marcos encyclopedia when it came to businesses,” said Silva de Jong, Arie de Jong’s daughter-in-law.
Arie de Jong would say that his biggest challenge as a milk truck driver came during the holidays.
“His worst day was the day after Thanksgiving because he had to fight with the turkey to get space for the milk in the fridge,” Eric de Jong said.
In the mid-70s, de Jong decided to leave the family business and strike out on his own, buying a defunct trash-hauling business based in Carlsbad in an auction. De Jong learned the new business on the job. Although he did suffer stress that aggravated his asthma, he turned the business around, and sold Coast Waste Management in 1997.
Later, he bought and sold real estate, said his son.
One of his favorite businesses, said Eric de Jong, was a Chino hog farm. He was initially approached by the military, which wanted to use the facility to dispose of unwanted food waste.
“He loved the hog ranch, he got paid to pick up the food and got paid to sell the hogs. To him that was a win-win,” Eric de Jong said.
At family gatherings, often held at Eric de Jong’s grandparents’ home in Escondido, Arie de Jong might think of a song he liked from church and begin to belt it out.
“He didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘shy,’” said Silva de Jong.
One cause close to Arie de Jong’s heart was Green Oak Ranch, which runs a residential rehabilitation program for drug and alcohol abs, said Eric de Jong. Arie de Jong helped revitalize the ranch and turn it around when it had fallen on hard times.
De Jong also got involved with a variety of projects aimed at preserving local history, whether it was moving a building, ing a mural project or just serving as a repository of information about the North County, said Tanis Brown, president of the San Marcos Historical Society.
“As much as Arie was very forward thinking, he cherished his earlier years in San Marcos, wanted to preserve memories of that,” Brown said.
The family’s reputation traveled far and wide. Brown recalled meeting a couple from Michigan while traveling in England, and somehow the de Jong family came up. The couple said they were grateful for the de Jong family’s for a seminary they worked with.
“It was sweet to know (Arie de Jong’s) generosity went far beyond San Marcos,” said Brown.
But de Jong’s legacy may be felt most powerfully in his hometown, through the family he leaves behind, as well as friends and business associates.
“Arie was one of those people who makes a community what it is, makes it a community and not just a place to live,” Brown said.
De Jong is survived by his wife of 58 years, Anneke, his children Eric (Silva) de Jong, Johnnie (Anneke) de Jong, Dorinda de Jong, Serena (Mike) Carlson, 14 grandchildren and 1 great granddaughter; as well as his brother Teun (Hinke) de Jong, his sisters Ellie Griffioen, Jet Gailey and Mary (Richard) Westra and sisters-in-law Helia de Jong, Dita de Jong, Shirley de Jong, and Willy de Jong.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Green Oak Ranch Ministries,1237 Green Oak Road, Vista, CA 92081 or the Kiwanis Club of Escondido-Hidden Valley Foundation, P.O. Box 461471, Escondido, CA 92046.
A Celebration of Life service will be held at 11 a.m. April 21 at Green Oak Ranch, 1237 Green Oak Rd, Vista, CA 92081.
