Neeltje Smit, my Gx3 Grandmother born on June 10, 1816, is one of my longest-lived ancestors. Her life spanned nearly ninety years, from the end of the Napoleonic era into the 20th century. Her life began in Heerhugowaard, Noord Holland, where she was born. She was the third of nine children born to Jan Smit and Leentje van Dam.
I have little information about Neeltje’s childhood or early adulthood. She was still living in Heerhugowaard at age 26, when she married her first husband, Cornelis Woltering, on May 8, 1842. Cornelis, born in Akersloot in 1815, was then a carpenter’s apprentice, just starting his trade. After they were married, Neeltje and Cornelis settled in Zuid-Scharwoude, Noord Holland. Neeltje would spend almost the rest of her life living there.
The couple had six children. Their first child, Leentje, was born in 1843 and would marry and move to Den Helder, and then later to Nijmegen. Their second child, Jan, born in 1846, died in infancy. Another son, also named Jan, was born in 1848 and lived to age 71, working as a tailor. He never married. Willem (1850–1851) and Teetje (1855–1860) also died young. Their daughter Antje – my Gx2 Grandmother – was born in 1853 and would later marry Nicolaas Komen in 1878.
Cornelis Woltering passed away in Zuid-Scharwoude in December 1862, leaving Neeltje a widow at just 46 years old. Her youngest child, Antje, was only nine years old. In the population register for the year Neeltje was widowed, she was quaintly described as a “landsraamster”; literally, a “country widow”.
Two years after Cornelis died, on January 29, 1865, Neeltje remarried. Her second husband was Cornelis Oudhuis, a labourer born around 1817 in Zuid-Scharwoude. He himself was a widower. Cornelis had lived in Warmenhuizen prior to his marriage to Neeltje. The two spent over three decades together before Cornelis died in 1897 at age 80.
After her second husband’s death, Neeltje continued to live in Zuid-Scharwoude for several more years, remaining in the village where she had spent much of her life. In April 1903, in her late 80s, Neeltje moved a short distance to Noord-Scharwoude, another of the component parts of Langedijk. There she lived with her daughter Antje and son-in-law Klaas Komen.
Neeltje Smit died in Noord-Scharwoude on January 22, 1906, at the age of 89. She had outlived two husbands and several of her children, living the entirety of her long life within a few kilometers of where she had been born.
“Neeltje Smit, widow of Cornelis Oudhuis, previously widow of Cornelis Woltering, age 89.”
A Deck of Ancestors 