52W Mark II – Week 39: Surprise!

Okay, I added the exclamation point to the theme of this week’s  52 Ancestors Challenge. However, the first thing that came to mind is what you’d yell for the guests of honour when they arrive for a party they weren’t expecting. So of course you need the exclamation point!

Adrianus Joseph “Arie” van der Fluit (1923 – 2002) and Christina Komen (1923 – 2000)

My paternal grandparents married on November 7, 1946, almost 77 years ago. For their fortieth anniversary, my aunts and uncles arranged a surprise party. All their children were in attendance, as were most of their grandchildren. I was attending second year university in Vancouver at the time, so I flew out for the event. As well, some of my father’s cousins (my grandparent’s nieces) came to Canada for the celebration.

This is cropped from the group photo taken during the celebration. I had neither the time not the interest in asking everyone’s permission to post the photo online.

While I grew up in the Canadian prairies and northern British Columbia, by my second year I had gotten used to the mild Vancouver weather and forgot to bring proper winter gear with me. Brrr!! Why on Earth did my grandparents marry in November? Why did they not marry in May? (For what it’s worth, their eldest child – my father – was born over a year after my grandparents married!)

52W Mark II – Week 38: Adversity

In which my grandparents unwittingly recreate the Four Yorkshiremen sketch

My paternal grandparents were 16 and 17 years old when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940. The occupation was a difficult one. My grandfather and his brothers were all rounded up to work as forced labourers in Germany; somehow my grandfather escaped. Only a few weeks ago I found records about one of my great uncle’s time as a forced labourer through the Arolsen Archives – International Center on Nazi Persecution. I was surprised to find that discovery, only because I was expecting to find records about one of the other brothers.

Needless to say, my grandparents rarely spoke about the war in my presence. In particular, the two times I ever heard my grandmother speak about it were astonishing because it was so rare it was for her to do so. My grandfather must have spoken about it more often, because I have heard several stories about the hardships he endured and the close scrapes he had with the Nazi occupiers. My father also tells the tale of when he was a boy, after his family had immigrated to Canada, about walking in a farm field with my grandfather. While they were walking, a small airplane flew overhead. My grandfather instinctively dove to the ground for cover. The war would have been over for at least ten years at the time, but clearly it had left its scars.

While the war was generally a proscribed topic, much to my amazement it came up during a visit I had with them in the late 90s, shortly before my grandmother passed away. I can’t remember how the topic came up, but I remember being absolutely gobsmacked that it did. It was particularly stunning that my grandmother participated in the discussion. Even more amazing was that the topic of conversation was the Hongerwinter (“Hunger Winter”), a famine the Nazis imposed on the Netherlands during the last winter of the war. However, what started off as a very somber recollection of their experience quickly spiraled into the famous Monty Python sketch.

The Allied strategy in the Netherlands was to get to Germany as quickly and directly as possible. This meant bypassing large parts of the northwest part of the country, including Amsterdam and the province of Noord-Holland. The Germans retained control of those areas until they surrendered on May 5, 1945. Over the winter of 1944-1945, which was particularly harsh, the Nazis deliberately blockaded the food and fuel supplies into the occupied portions of the Netherlands, resulting in the Hongerwinter. Malnutrition was rampant and about 22,000 people died of starvation.

My grandparents both lived in the central part of Noord-Holland and experienced full effects of the Hongerwinter. The famine occurred before they were married, so they experienced the hardship with their families.

When the topic came up, my grandparents began discussing how hard that winter had been and how they had each suffered. What caused the discussion to go sideways was when my grandmother said to my grandfather, “At least you lived on a farm!”

My grandfather countered by acknowledging the fact, but adding that my grandmother’s family was much better off economically. My grandmother reciprocated by pointing out some other advantage she believed my grandfather had that she did not. I am certain that my grandfather added that his mother was raising the family on her own, as his father had passed away in 1932.

They then began countering with what foodstuffs the other had access to, which they themselves did not. Finally, one of them said, “all we had to eat was the white beans!”, to which the other responded in a somewhat overdramatic voice, “oh, if only we had the white beans!”

I am certain that the competition to outdo the other’s hardship was black humor that served to ameliorate the trauma they had both experienced, even though it had been fifty years in the past.

I feel nothing but love and empathy for my grandparents when I think back on this. To this day, whenever I am in a Dutch store (my favourites are the Holland Shopping Centre in New Westminster and Coombs Wooden Shoe on Vancouver Island), I always make a point of buying a jar of white beans in their honour.

White Beans

52W Mark II – Week 37: Prosperity

This week’s theme for the 52 Ancestors Challenge is “Prosperity”. While for the most part my ancestors over the centuries were largely working class and labourers, I have some that might have been described as “comfortable”. Thinking about it, the only ancestors who I might describe as “prosperous” are largely on the maternal branch of my family tree.

Despite this, the couple that come to mind for this week’s challenge are my Gx3 Grandparents on my father’s side of the family, Jan Gerritsz Veldman and Trijntje Stoop. I think of them primarily because of the amount of time I spent translating a pair of newspaper items describing their estate. Not only was it somewhat difficult because the items were written in an older form of Dutch, but because there was more to interpret than just the foreign language. In particular, the values were reported in guilders, the Dutch currency prior to the introduction of the euro; as well, the land was measured in terms that were not immediately familiar.

Schager Courant, Schagen, Noord Holland, Netherlands, November 11, 1906, page 4.
“Openbare Verkooping” (“Public Sale”). This is an itemized list of the two pieces of property, consisting of 20 and 2 lots respectively, that went up for public auction after Trijntje died.

Trijntje was born October 30, 1832 in Haringhuizen, Noord Holland, Netherlands. Jan was born November 27, 1835 in Nieuwe Niedorp, Noord Holland, Netherlands. The two villages are about five kilometers apart. They married in Nieuwe Niedorp on May 1, 1858. They were living in Nieuwe Niedorp as late as 1866, when their fifth child was born. However, by 1873, they were living in Barsingerhorn, Noord Holland, Netherlands, where their tenth and last child was born. Barsingerhorn and Haringhuizen are relatively close to each other, situated about a kilometer and a half apart.

Jan died on May 21, 1897 while Trijntje passed away on January 27, 1906. The couple owned two pieces of property which Trijntje still possessed at the time of her death. One was a house comprised of two lots in Oude Niedorp, Noord Holland, Netherlands, together measuring 15.7 ares (just under 0.4 acres). [“Are” = 100 square meters. 100 Ares = 1 hectare. 1 hectare is just under 2.5 acres.] The other was a farm consisting of 2o lots in Barsingerhorn, which included a farmhouse, pastures, farmland, and a boat, totalling 11.9 hectares (just under 3o acres).

Map of the Netherlands with the province of Noord-Holland in red. The inset shows where Jan and Trijntje lived and owned property. I’ve circled Waarland because that is where my father was born. He did not live far from where his great great grandparents lived.
Schager Courant, Schagen, Noord Holland, Netherlands, November 18, 1906, page 4.
“Bericht van Inzet” (“Notice of Commitment”).

According to both articles, the auction was scheduled to begin on November 13, 1906, although the second indicated that it was to have remained open until November 20, 1906. The second article set out the proposed value of each lot. Lots 1 to 20, the Barsingerhorn farm, had a total proposed value of ƒ17,152.66. Lots 21 and 22, the house in Oude Niedorp, were ƒ835.

By my calculations, these currently amount to €269,971.80 and €13,142.87 respectively, for a total of €283,114.67. (CDN$389,369.30 and CDN$18,955.42. Total: $408,324.72.) That might seem like a lot, but that’s barely enough to get a 500 square foot (0.01 acre) one bedroom condo apartment in Vancouver.

Approximate size of total land on offer: 24 American football fields (FYI, Canadian football fields are longer.)

52W Mark II – Week 36: Tradesperson

The vast majority of my ancestors on both sides of my family were farmers or labourers. Not all the labourers were agricultural workers, but it was still hard work and far from what might be considered a trade.

There are a few interesting exceptions. Cornelis Jan Bakker, my great great grandfather, was a cobbler. I also discovered that my Gx9 grandfather, Gregory Cooke, was a cordwainer. A cordwainer is a shoemaker who specializes in fine, soft, new leather shoes, in contrast to a cobbler, who works with old shoes. I’ve also written about my great great grandmother, Ella Elizabeth Thomas, who was a midwife in Cardston, Alberta, for more than 40 years.

What caught my eye in thinking about the topic for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, “Tradeperson”, was an interesting branch of my family on the Dutch side of my family tree.

Almost all of my Dutch ancestors who I have identified to date are from the provinces of Zuid-Holland and Noord-Holland, which prior to 1840 were one province, Holland. So I was quite surprised to learn early last year that I have a branch of my family that originates in the Achterhoek (literally, “back corner”), the easternmost part of the province of Gelderland that pokes into Germany.

My paternal grandmother was Christina Komen. Her paternal grandmother (my great great grandmother) was Antje (“Anna”) Woltering. Anna’s father, Cornelis, is one of my few ancestors who can be described as a tradesperson. As far as I have discovered, he was a carpenter almost all of his entire adult life. The earliest mention of his occupation was in the registration of his marriage to his wife Neeltje Smit, which occurred on May 8, 1842. It is most likely that Cornelis was a carpenter, or a carpenter’s apprentice, for many years before he married.

While it seems that Cornelis spent most of his life, including his years as a carpenter, in Zuid-Scharwoude, Noord-Holland, he was born about 15 kilometers to the south in the village of Akersloot. How this came to be I have no idea. His parents, Johannes “Jan” Woltering and Antje Boekel, had married in Noord-Scharwoude in 1814 and all of Cornelis’s younger siblings were born in Zuid-Scharwoude. However, it appears that Jan had been living in Akersloot prior to marrying Antje. It may be that the couple returned to Jan’s residence after they married and relocated to Antje’s home town of Zuid-Scharwoude shortly after Cornelis was born.

The bigger surprise to me was that Cornelis’s father, Jan, my Gx4 grandfather, was born in 1788 in what is now Vreden, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Vreden is about three kilometers from the Dutch border and the Achterhoek. Sometime before September 1814, when he married Antje, Jan literally moved across the Netherlands to Noord-Holland. I have no idea why he moved, which was incredible because it was unusual for people to move such distances at that time. Even now it’s about a three-hour drive, which to many of my Dutch relatives is an astounding distance. (For a Canadian, not so much!)

I have not yet determined where Jan’s parents, Gerard Woltering and Maria Francisca Wissing (Cornelis’s paternal grandparents), were born. Gerard and Maria married on April 26, 1787, in Vreden. However, prior to the marriage, Gerard had been living in Buurse, Overijssel, Netherlands. Buurse is three kilometers from the German border and twelve kilometers due north of Vreden. Meanwhile, Maria had been living in Enschede, Overijssel, which is a city about 20 kilometers north of Vreden.

What is more surprising is that Gerard’s occupation was boatbuilder. I am unsure where he carried out that trade, given that the closest large body of water to where he lived and married is at least 100 kilometers away.

Cornelis’s maternal grandfather, and Antje’s father, was Willem Crelisse Boekel, was also a boatmaker. However, unlike Gerard, Willem lived rather close to the water, as he spent his entire life in Noord-Holland.