Author: Sean Vanderfluit

Johannis Albertus van der Fluit (1894-1932) and Theresia “Teetje” Pater (1894-1947) were my father’s paternal grandparents. Teetje was two months older than Johannis. She was born on February 15 and he was born on April 14. My father never met either of them as they both died before he was born.

Johannis was born in ‘t Veld, North Holland. He was an agricultural worker most of his short life. Teetje was born in Waarland, North Holland, the same village where my father was born. Johannis and Teetje were third cousins. They were both direct descendants of Cornelis Klaasz de Groot and Geertje Jans de Wit, their great great grandparents and my Gx5 grandparents. Teetje is descended from their eldest son, Jan, while Johannis is descended from their youngest daughter, Elisabeth. This makes me my own sixth cousin!

The Netherlands used to have mandatory military service, although in practice most conscripts never really served; rather, it was more like a reserve militia or national guard. Johannis was conscripted in January 1914, when he was 19 years old. Johannis was assigned to the 21st Infantry Regiment based out of Den Helder. On my understanding of the militia register, Johannis remained enlisted until he died in 1932, at age 37. The militia register also shows that Johannis was 171 cm (5’6″), which today seems rather short for a Dutch man. He would certainly have been dwarfed by my father, my brothers, and me!

Johannis and Teetje married in Harenkarspel, North Holland, on July 20, 1917. The witnesses were Jacob Smit, “brievengaarder” (an official charged with receiving or issuing mail at a location where there was no post office; their home served as an auxiliary post office), age 31, and Simon Brommer, [occupation illegible], age 61, both resident in Harenkarspel.

^{Marriage registration for Johannis and Teetje. The signatures on the left are Johannis, Teetje, Jan van der Fluit (Johannis’s father), and Jan Pater (Teetje’s mother). I’m uncertain about the one on the bottom, “T. Bleeker”, because Teetje’s mother was named Adriana. Adriana was still alive at the time and Teetje did not have any immediate family whose initial was “T”.}

The Oude Niedorp Bevolkingsregister (“population register”) for 1910-1930 shows that in 1917 Johannis was working there as a hired worker. Johannis and Teetje relocated to Harenkarspel on November 13, 1919. According to the Harenkarspel Bevolkingsregister for 1920-1939, Johannis was a labourer in the employ of others when he moved into the gemeentje (municipality), but later became a self-employed farmer.

Apparently, Johannis sustained some sort of head injury after an accidental blow to the head. My belief is that this occurred sometime in or after 1930, when Johannis and Teetje’s youngest child, Anny, was born. My records also show that Johannis was still working as of 1930. In fact, the Bevolkingsregister for Harenkarspel shows that Johannis had lived there until January 19, 1932, when he relocated to Heiloo, where he died eight days later, on January 27, 1932. This timeline suggests that Johannis’s head injury may have occurred shortly before he was placed in the sanitorium.

Since Johannis died so young, I do not know many people who knew him. He died when my grandfather, Adrianus “Arie” van der Fluit (1923-2002) was eight years old. I only heard passing mentions of Johannis a long time ago, most likely second-hand because I don’t recall my grandfather ever talking to me about his father.

After his injury, Johannis began to exhibit strange behavior and suffered from delusions, which were very unsettling to him. Most likely he had developed a mental disorder. One account I heard was that during a delusional episode it took my grandfather’s two older brothers and some neighbours to restrain Johannis.

At some point in time, Johannis was placed in a sanitorium, where he continued to suffer from delerium. It is most likely the sanitorium was in Heiloo, the town where Johannis died. I know that Heiloo had a sanitorium at the time.

Sometime shortly before his death, Johannis experienced a period of rational thought. Teetje was summoned to see him, which occurred close to the time Johannis died. Teetje was 37 when she was widowed and was left to raise eight children on her own, the youngest of whom was one year old at the time.

Sometime after Johannis died, Teetje’s younger brother Johannes “Jan” Pater (1900 – 1948) moved in with Teetje and her children. Jan, who had a hunched back, had never married. Presumably he moved in with Teetje to help her after Johannis died.

Teetje died on May 27, 1947, after a long illness. She was buried at St. Wulfram’s Roman Catholic Church in Waarland, which I believe is the same place where Johannis was buried. Anny, their youngest child, was 17 when Teetje passed away.

^{Bidprentjes (prayer cards) for Johannis and Teetje.}