I typically consider myself as a descendant of many, many farmers. However, I am always surprised to remember that I am also descended from many individuals for whom education was important. There are also several educators in my extended family, including a high school principal. One of my sisters was a school teacher before becoming a medical doctor. As well, my maternal grandmother, Helen Lerner, originally intended to become a school teacher until a nun steered her in another direction.
In particular, several of my direct ancestors were school board trustees. The earliest were my Gx3 grandfathers, William Burgess (1822-1904) and Preston Thomas (1814-1877). They served together on the first school board for the Lehi, Utah school district. The school district was created by the city of Lehi by resolution dated February 17, 1854. An election was held three days later, on February 20, 1854. Three school trustees were elected: William, Preston, and Daniel Collett.
My Grandpa Burgess also had several other school trustees on his maternal line, the Nelson family. According to the 1880 US Census, his great grandfather (another of my Gx3 grandfathers), Robert Nelson (1818-1902) was a school trustee in Smithfield, Utah. Twenty-seven years later Robert’s son, John Alexander Nelson (my Gx2 grandfather) held the same office in Woolford, Alberta. John was one of the founders of the Woolford school board and was one of its first board members.
John’s son (my grandfather’s uncle), Seth Henry Nelson Q.C. (1891-1975), also served as a school board trustee in Cardston, Alberta. Seth was a school trustee for 15 years, from 1924 to 1939. Seth served as the Board’s Secretary for the last 10 years of his time in office. Following his last term as a school trustee, Seth made an unsuccessful run for a seat in the Alberta provincial legislature during the 1940 general election. Seth ran as an independent against the incumbent Social Credit candidate, Nathan Tanner. Tanner was a former Speaker of the legislature who was appointed to Cabinet in 1937. Despite running as an independent, it was a close race. Tanner defeated Seth in a two-way race, 2,160 votes to 1,808 (54.4% of the vote).
Education was also a facet of my wife’s side of the family, one of whom also served as a school trustee. Frank Eden (1839-1907), our children’s Gx3 grandfather, was a prominent Halifax, Nova Scotia merchant whose primary business was shoe manufacturing and sales. Frank served two non-consecutive terms as an alderman on the Halifax city council (1892-1893 and 1895-1896). Concurrent with both terms of office on city council, Frank served on the Halifax Board of School Commissioners.
In 1902, there was an attempt to persuade Frank, who was still in the shoe industry, to run for Mayor of Halifax. As stated on page nine of the Halifax Herald, on January 1, 1902: “There is a movement on foot…to get ex-Alderman Frank Eden to consent to run for mayor.” As far as I’m concerned, all puns are intended.
The topic of food is one of the prompts that shows up in the 52 Ancestors Challenge every year. This makes it a difficult topic to write about, since I covered it broadly in the first and second year I participated in the challenge. However, as Amy often reminds participants, the prompts are merely suggestions and we can interpret them as broadly as we want. Which I’ve done, writing about pets when the prompt was flowers, and vice versa!
With this week’s prompt, I’ve not stretched the topic as far as pets to flowers. Rather, I am looking at the favourite treats of my ancestors.
I’ll start with my mother’s maternal line. As I’ve often written about here, that branch of the family are Germans from Russia. One of their favourite treats is halva. It’s a confection that originated in Persia (now Iran) that spread throughout the Middle East and, later, throughout the Ottoman Empire. While halva was originally made with a variety of different ingredients, such as flour and dates, the traditional Turkish version is usually made with sesame seeds and most often sweetened with honey or sugar. You can find halva in many varieties. Halva with pistachios, chocolate, or vanilla is quite common.
Many German settlements in the Russian Empire were in what is now the Ukraine, which the Russians had taken from the Ottoman Turks in a series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries. While the German population was originally introduced to the Turkish version of halva, they most likely learned of the sweet treat from the local Jewish population that had been in Ukraine for centuries, including the time of Ottoman rule. However, the Germans soon modified the recipe using sunflowers, which are abundant in Ukraine and that are a symbol of that country. I’ve heard that many German-Russians prefer the sunflower variety, but I’ve never seen it. My grandmother and mother always bought the traditional Turkish version. While not a traditional Christmas food, that is the time of year my mother would most often buy it. My mother often spread it on toast, which is quite delicious.
Turning to my father’s side of the family, I’ll admit that Dutch cuisine is not world-famous for many good reasons. That said, there are many delicious treats that make up for it. One of my favourites, bitterballen, is commonly found as a bar snack. They are somewhat similar to croquettes, but are smaller and rounder. They are made of a mixture of minced beef, roux, onions, and seasonings, breaded, and fried. They’re addictive little snacks. There is a chain of cafes and coffee shops in the Netherlands called The Bulldog. In the 1990s, they had a location in Vancouver. I often went there for lunch with a friend and we always started with bitterballen.
Bitterballen are traditionally served with mustard. Lekker!
The Dutch also have many sweet treats. Almond-based treats (including marzipan) and baked goods made with warm spices are quite popular. The one I can remember having ever since I was little is speculaas. They always contain ginger, along with spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, anise, allspice, and white pepper. With those flavours, they were a common Christmastime treat, but now it is common to enjoy them year-round. They are particularly good with coffee. While speculaas might have been obscure outside the Netherlands and its former colonies, they’ve always been relatively easy to find in Canada. I’ve also noticed them popping up on baking and cooking shows in recent years.
Another delicious treat that is also good with coffee are stroopwafels. They’re made up of thin waffle-like wafers with a thin layer of caramel sandwiched in the middle. (“Waffle”, by the way, is an English word of Dutch origin.) They originated in the city of Gouda as a means for bakers to repurpose crumbs and scraps. You can get them freshly made from street vendors in the Netherlands, as well as bakeries and cafes. The availability of stroopwafels in Canada seems to wax and wane, although they’re always available in Dutch specialty stores. They were also featured as the technical challenge during “Caramel Week” on Season Eight of The Great British Bake Off (airing as The Great British Baking Show in the United States and Canada). It’s common to place them on top of a hot cup of coffee, which warms and softens them. So delicious!
Finally, many people know that the Netherlands is famous for its chocolate. During Sinterklaas, a favourite treat is chocoladeletters (“chocolate letters”). Centuries ago they originated as baked goods, but are now almost exclusively made of chocolate. It is traditional to receive a chocolate letter of the initial of your first name. My great grandmother, Elizabeth Bakker, always included chocolate letters in the box of goodies she sent us every Christmas. When we were children, there was always an argument that some letters were bigger than others so they had more chocolate. The truth is, while the surface area of each letter might differ, they are manufactured in different thicknesses so that every letter contains the same amount. The other problem is finding letters that are uncommon initials for names in the Netherlands, although that is less of a problem than it used to be.
Chocolate letters are another item for which, outside the Netherlands, the availability seems to change over time. When I was a kid, they seemed to be available everywhere. Purdy’s made their own for a while, but I haven’t seen them there in a long time. In recent years, the only place I could find them were in Dutch stores. Even then, I could not find Droste letters – the absolute best ones, bar none – anywhere. You could only find the secondary brands. I once asked a vendor if Droste no longer shipped to Canada, and was told they were simply too expensive to carry. Luckily, a couple years ago I found Droste chocoladeletters in a Dutch store in Lethbridge.
Fortunately, chocolate letters seem to be getting easier to find again, as I saw them being sold in many mainstream supermarkets and shops last Christmas. I first noticed them showing up a couple years ago in a local independent grocery store that specializes in Asian foods and ingredients of all places. Plus, in our neighbourhood of Steveston, there is a chocolatier that makes them – in every letter!
During my first trip to the Netherlands, I discovered a Droste store directly across from the Amsterdam Centraal Station. I enjoyed being able to buy any letter I wanted, well out of season! Sadly, the last time I was in Amsterdam, the store was gone.
In the Netherlands, there has not been much of a tradition of preparing and publishing obituaries of deceased persons. Deaths were once noted in local newspapers in regular reports of recent entries of births, marriages, and deaths taken from the local civil registry (“burgerlijke stand”). What is more common to see in newspapers are “familieberichten” (“family notices”). These are all secular forms of announcing and commemorating the death of a person.
For Roman Catholics, another common form of remembrance is a “bidprentje” (“prayer card”). In Germany, they are known as a “totenzettel”. These are usually given out at funerals and commemorate a deceased person. They usually consist of a short prayer or biblical verse along with the name of the deceased. However, bidprentjes can be used to mark other religious milestones, such as baptisms, first communions, confirmations, marriages, and ordinations into the priesthood. While they originated as a Roman Catholic tradition, in recent decades the practice of making these cards has occurred within other religious traditions.
Bidprentjes are a fantastic source of genealogical information. In addition to the name of the deceased they usually include the dates and places of their birth and death and the name of the deceased’s spouse. They also often have details of the date and place of the funeral and interment. Older bidprentjes are quite beautiful as they were adorned with religious art and iconography. In more recent years, they are more likely to include the name of the deceased’s children. In that regard, they now appear quite similar to familieberichten.
Bidprentje for my great grandfather, Johannis Albertus van der Fluit (1894-1932)
Bidprentje for my great grandmother, Teresia (“Teetje”) Pater (1894-1947)
Bidprentje for my great great grandfather, Jan Dirksz van der Fluit (1846 – 1935). It notes that at the time he died he was the widower of Agatha Rood and that he had been previously married to Maria Veldman (my great great grandmother) and before Maria he was married to Brigetta Tak. Jan had outlived all three of his wives.
Neither bidprentjes nor familieberichten are government documents. They are private documents created, distributed, and published by the family. This means a primary source of bidprentjes would be the family of the deceased. There are also genealogical societies that have collections of bidprentjes. The Centrum Voor Familiegeschiedenis (“Centre for Family History” or “Central Bureau for Genealogy”) also has a collection of bidprentjes. While you can search the collection, you must be a member to view and download the document. Familieberichten can be found at Online Familieberichten and Mensenlinq.
In the early 1970s, my maternal grandparents, Leo Burgess and Helen Lerner, were more than happy to rely on what seemed me to be horribly outdated and obsolete technology. My grandmother still used a wringer-washer and my grandfather used a push mower that to me seemed to be older than Methuselah.
These were both very much like the implements my grandparents used. I remember they each let me have a try at using them. Needless to say, both were hard work. I’ll stick to our modern gizmos, thanks. [Images shared per Creative Commons licences 3.0 Unported and 2.0 Generic, respectively. Links: washer; lawn mower.]
My mother still has the scrub board my grandmother used. She used to keep it in a spare room, which is where I photographed it. A few years ago my folks built a new house, so it now sits in a place of pride.
As can be faintly seen on the washboard, it was manufactured by Fraser Western Broom and Woodenware Ltd. in Vancouver, B.C. I see that the Museum of Vancouver, which is less than a half hour drive from where I live, has one in its collection. Based on the information on the item on its website, this washboard could not have been manufactured any later than 1950. That means my grandmother’s washboard must have been at least 25 or 30 years old when I first saw it.
While it may seem my grandparents clung to the past, they did not eschew more modern technology. Ever since before I was in kindergarten, my grandfather always used an electric razor. We always loved it when he would hold it up to our cheeks so that we could have a shave, too. I have the last electric razor my grandfather owned before he passed away in 1995, a Philishave 765. Not only does it still work, but to my surprise I’m still able to buy replacement blades for it. I rarely use it, however, because I still prefer to use a manual razor; plus, several years ago my wife bought me a new one.
This razor must be at least 30 years old, if not older, but it still works!
A Deck of Ancestors 
