It was through hard times that my grandfather came to own his first dog.
My grandfather, Adrianus “Arie” van der Fluit (1923 – 2002), loved dogs. When he was a teen in the Netherlands, he supplemented his income training dogs. After moving to Canada, in the 1950s and 1960s, he even trained dogs for the police. As long as I can remember, my grandfather always had at least one dog, usually a German shepherd. My favourite was Sheba, the first dog of his that I’m able to remember. He had dogs until the day he died at age 79, still training them even after he lost his foot due to complications associated with diabetes.
While I would have thought he had a dog ever since he was little, he told me that he did not have one until he was fifteen. It came to be during, and because of, hard times – the Great Depression. However, based on the story he told me, my grandfather could have gotten his first dog anytime after he was eight to when he was in his late teens.
Arie’s father, Johannis Albertus van der Fluit (1894 – 1932) died when my grandfather was eight years old. His mother, Theresia “Teetje” Pater was left a widow. Sometime after Johannis died, Teetje’s younger brother Johannes “Jan” Pater (1900 – 1948) moved in with the family. I always understood it was soon after Johannis died, which would make sense. Teetje was left a widow at age 37, with eight children. I am sure it would have been of great help if Jan moved in with his sister as soon as her need arose.
Jan had a dog, but Arie’s mother detested dogs. She insisted the dog go. However, because of the depression, it was difficult to even give a pet away as it was too expensive to keep one fed. Jan decided to drown the dog. Arie witnessed this. He swore to himself that no dog would suffer with him around, so he even got himself one.
This, of course, caused a conflict with Arie’s mother. She refused to allow a dog in her household, so Arie moved out. As his two older brothers were out of the house, and the other children were too young, Arie was the primary breadwinner for the household. Faced with the loss of the family’s main income, after a few weeks Arie’s mother relented and allowed the dog in the house.
Needless to say, the timeline is a bit problematic. If Jan moved in with his sister’s family shortly after Johannis died, my grandfather’s story would have taken place before he was ten years old. The most apparent way to reconcile the chronology is if Jan moved in with his sister when Arie was 15, around 1938. I don’t know much about Jan and I don’t know of any life events that would have caused him to move in with Teetje other than the death of her husband. Jan never married, so I can rule out him becoming widowed as a catalyst for change. The depression was still causing hard times – with harder times shortly over the horizon – so that part of the story still works.
A Deck of Ancestors 