52W Mark IV – Week 10: Card V10 Jan Pater

Jan Pater was born on May 20, 1826 in Sint Maarten, Noord Holland, the eldest of five children born to Jacob Janz Pater and Antje “Anna” Lievendag. Sometime between the time Jan was three and seven, the family moved a few kilometers south to the adjacent gemeente (municipality) of Harenkarspel. According to his registration of marriage, Jan lived in Harenkarspel and was working there as a labourer until shortly before he got married.

Jan was 26 when he married Teetje de Groot on June 11, 1852 in Oude Niedorp. After they married, Jan and Teetje moved in with Teetje’s parents, Jan de Groot and Sijtje Sijbecarspel. They lived in Zijdewind, which at the time was part of gemeente Oude Niedorp.

According to an article in Toendertoid: Stichting Waarland van Toen, “Many tragic events took place in this family between 1850 and 1880.” It then went on to describe the house they lived in, without providing any details about what happened.

Jan was a labourer almost his entire life, except for a brief period in 1872 when he was a “veldwachter”; literally, “field guard,” a kind of rural police or constabulary. The veldwachters originated as the “garde champêtre” during the Napoleonic era. They were very poorly paid, if at all, and largely relied upon other sources of income. There were few prerequisites to become a veldwachter and at Jan’s time it was much less than a professional police officer. What authority they had was limited to the municipality in which they served.

Jan was 46 when he was a veldwachter and he did not serve very long. It is not clear what qualification Jan had for the role. He was still described as a labourer when his daughter Maartje was born in March 1871. It was only the April 1872 death registration of his son, Jacob, that showed Jan as a veldwachter. Maartje died later that same year, in December, and her death registration recorded that Jan was a labourer at the time. Jan was still a labourer when he died in Zijdewind at age 52.