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Van Hoogmoed's adult children call him a lover of hard work and fun, a man who indulged both passions working on dairy farms and his vineyard as he and his wife raised 10 daughters and sons in Madera.

Mr. Van Hoogmoed died Thursday. He was 82.

A funeral service will be at 9a.m. today in St. Joachim's Catholic Church, and many attending likely will recall seeing the Van Hoogmoeds' 1966 Dodge van with some of the family's 24 arms and legs hanging out the windows.

"My dad was a person who loved fun, jokes, play, ponies, goats, rabbits, chickens, his garden and fruit trees," says Sister Lucille Van Hoogmoed, an older daughter and nun. "He was a farmer all his life. He loved growing things and taking care of things. And he liked to share."

Ask to pick oranges off his trees, and he would say, "Sure." Pick them without asking, and he would order you away.

Mr. Van Hoogmoed was born and raised in Holland. As World War II raged, Nazi soldiers took him to a prison work camp.

Forced labor did not extinguish his love of life.

"He got in trouble for laughing," says son Albert Van Hoogmoed. "No matter how bad it got, he was laughing."

Mr. Van Hoogmoed had a job waiting for him when he immigrated to the United States in 1956 with his wife, Wilma, and their running total of three children.

He had a plan: to work hard and improve his family's standard of living. He worked for a dairy, delivered milk, bought his own dairy and bought a vineyard.

"If he determined to do something," Albert Van Hoogmoed says, "he would get it done and smile and laugh doing it."

Years later, Mr. Van Hoogmoed badly cut his hand, nearly severing fingers. As nurses worked to save them, he was laughing again, Albert says:

"It was his optimism. I don't know where it came from. It seemed to be inside him."

Mr. Van Hoogmoed visited relatives in Holland but never talked about returning to live there.

"He loved it here," Sister Lucille says. "He loved the freedom, all the room, space for the animals. He liked the people here. He put down his roots."

Albert Van Hoogmoed recalls his father's amusement some mornings at meeting inebriated customers returning from nights of celebration just as he was delivering their milk.

"He was the happiest guy you ever saw," Albert says.