dinsdag 27 oktober 2009
The harsh and bitter life of my great-grandfather WILLEM VAN DER GROEF - a tragic and dramatic Dutch life that ended all the way in Argentina ....
# Certificate of Burial of GUILLERMO / WILLEM VAN DER GROEF , from the year 1893 - my great-grandfather was born in Sommelsdijk in Holland in the year 1842 and he , very tragically , passed away on 18 October 1893 in Rosario de Santa Fé in Argentina - this document is evidence that he was buried in a protestatnt cemetary in Rosario that same day .
## Life was harsh , bitter and ofter cruel in those days - and so life must have been for my great-great-grandparents JACOB VAN DER GROEF and PIETERNELLA DONKERSLOOT , who lived in the 19th century on the island of Goeree-Overflakke in the Netherlands .Jacob and Pieternella had eight children , but just three of their children would live long enough to reach adulthood - one of these children was my great-grandfather WILLEM VAN DER GROEF .
## Life was harsh , bitter and ofter cruel in those days - and so life must have been for my great-great-grandparents JACOB VAN DER GROEF and PIETERNELLA DONKERSLOOT , who lived in the 19th century on the island of Goeree-Overflakke in the Netherlands .Jacob and Pieternella had eight children , but just three of their children would live long enough to reach adulthood - one of these children was my great-grandfather WILLEM VAN DER GROEF .
### The course of life of WILLEM VAN DER GROEF , born february 11th 1842 in Sommelsdijk on the island of Goeree-Overflakkee in the Netherlands , would turn out to be both remarkable and astonishing , bút regrettably far from easy , pleasant and comfortable ...
Working man by profession , protestant by religion , Willem van der Groef would become the husband of three wives and the father of all together eleven children .Willem would outlive áll of his wives and he would also have the atrocious task to bury five of his eleven children during his lifetime .
Most of his life Willem lived in Nieuwe-Tonge , a small village where ten of his eleven children were born .From time to time Willem moved to an other place on the island , Melissant , in order to find proper and suitable work to sustain himself and his growing family , but he didn't succeed in doing so ....
In the year in which my grandfather was born , 1888 , Willem and his third wife IDA VAN MAASTRIGT were still so very poor that they couldn't even afford to buy milk for their just born baby , and so they started feeding my grandfather with the only 'alternative substance' they could afford : coffee ! [ but my grandfather would still reach the age of 86 finally , so it can't have ruined his early health all too much ..... ]
This may very well have been one of the depressing circumstances of life in those days that caused my great-grandparents to decide to seek a better life and a possible brighter future for themselves and for all of their children far , fár away outside the Netherlands , all the way in ....... Argentina ...
It is certainly not difficult to imagine whý these people emigrated , but it still remained a small mystery , for some time anyhow , why Willem and Ida chose to emigrate to Argentina in South America instead of to the USA in North America as so many other poor and occasionally desperate people did , úntil we found out that from 1888 to 1890 the Argentinian authorities must have actively encouraged people abroad to emigrate to Argentina .
And so did , in and around the year 1889 , more than 5000 Dutch men and women , but as a result of poor guidance , lack of money and lack of required professional skills , a lot of those emigrants would turn back to the Netherlands , utterly disillusioned .
And in some cases they wouldn't be able to come back at all ......Willem van der Groef as well as his spouse Ida van Maastrigt sadly belonged to that last pitiable group of people .........
E M I G R A T I O N
On september 24 , 1889 , father Willem , his (third) wife Ida , together with Daniel , Jacob and Pieternella Anna (three children from Willem's second marriage to Elisabeth Tijl) ánd together with Cornelia , Anna , Willem jr. and Leendert (the four children from his last marriage) left Goeree-Overflakkee - "for good" - on board of a steamer that would take these nine people to their new and unfamiliar homeland Argentina , on a very uncertain and highly hazardous enterprise .........
After a , hopefully good , journey of some weeks they arrived in Argentina and settled in the big city of ROSARIO , the third place in size of the country .
What can we tell , with certainty and probability , about the living of these people in this completely new environment ??
Well , we know for sure that one of the children , Willem jr. , must have died in Rosario sometime between 1889 and 1893 , ánd we know for sure that the demise of Willem jr. wasn't the very last disaster that would take place within this family here in Rosario .........
Notably the memories of Willem's daughter Anna of her Rosario-years are a strong indication that Wiilem , Ida and the children must have had a miserable time in Argentina .The overall impression is that the four years in Argentina were very unhappy and even tragic years .... Later in her life Anna told her family that she and her sisiters would scour the boxcars , where the sugar was carried in , for bits of sugar , and also that the girls had been searching through the trash cans ....... so the very sad ascertainment is that the children really must have been desperately hungry in those days ......
Since Willem , Ida and the children were more or less foreigners in Argentina , probably unable to speak the Spanish language very well ánd were of an other religion , they could have formed some sort of mini-Dutch protestant enclave then in Rosario , which might have caused a few or even a lot of tensions ...........
Notably the memories of Willem's daughter Anna of her Rosario-years are a strong indication that Wiilem , Ida and the children must have had a miserable time in Argentina .The overall impression is that the four years in Argentina were very unhappy and even tragic years .... Later in her life Anna told her family that she and her sisiters would scour the boxcars , where the sugar was carried in , for bits of sugar , and also that the girls had been searching through the trash cans ....... so the very sad ascertainment is that the children really must have been desperately hungry in those days ......
Since Willem , Ida and the children were more or less foreigners in Argentina , probably unable to speak the Spanish language very well ánd were of an other religion , they could have formed some sort of mini-Dutch protestant enclave then in Rosario , which might have caused a few or even a lot of tensions ...........
>> One day , in or around the year 1892 , Ida van Maastrigt had become very sick and was taken into a hospital in Rosario .When her husband and the children came to visit her for the second time , they just found an empty bed .......The information they received then was terrible and shocking : their beloved wife and (step-)mother Ida had sadly passed away ánd had even been buried yet ......Neither Willem nor one of the children had been informed about this sudden death of Ida .The astonishment and shock were even enhanced when they came to know that , while Ida had been on her death-bed , attempts must been made to make her 'kiss the cross....' - for a woman like Ida , who had been a member of the Dutch protestant church all her life , completely and utterly unacceptable of course , to put it mildly .....
The unexpected death of Ida was the second disaster that took place in their new hometown Rosario , but the most shocking event was still to come ...........
The unexpected death of Ida was the second disaster that took place in their new hometown Rosario , but the most shocking event was still to come ...........
M U R D E R ????
Willem van der Groef worked in Argentina as stoker for the local sugar-refinery and (part of) his work must have been the maintenance of the huge kettles that were used in the sugar-industry .One atrocious day in the year 1893 , on the 18th of the month October , while Willem was standing inside such a giant kettle in order to clean it , there must have been some 'miscreant' who activated the steam-system , and thereby really scalding my great-grandfather Willem to death ...........
Willem van der Groef must have died a horrible , painful and tragic death on that miserable October day in Argentina .....
One of Willem's daughters , Anna , told her family later that she had seen some pieces of his clothing with evidence of the terrible tragedy that had taken place just a very short time before .....
Willem van der Groef died at the age of 51 .
And then there still remains that one most important question to be answered : WAS WILLEM VAN DER GROEF MURDERED ????
My grandfather Leendert , Willem's youngest child , throughout his long life - my grandfather reached the age of 86 - had always remained convinced that his father had been the victim of a planned or improvised succesful murder-attempt , due to possible religious tensions or other tensions and frictions that could have existed in those days in Rosario .
After the death of Willem , there really must have been a criminal lawsuit that should have resulted in a punishment for the perpetrator , bút the inflicted punishment can't have been that severe , whch makes us wonder whether the offender had been punished for murder ór for very gross carelesness ???
We may conclude now that the true reasons and circumstances around that terrible and horrifying event from the year 1893 , will probably stay an unsolvable mystery , fully covered by the sand of history , forever and ever .............
# Now all of Willem's children were faced with a very serious problem : from one day to another they were all orphans , with no single parent to support them any longer .....Therefore decision was made to return to their former homeland , back to Goeree-Overflakkee in the Netherlands , with the exception of ONE child : JACOB , just 17 years old by the end of 1893 , who decided to stay behind ... - and he would never ever see his brothers and sisters back again .......
The remaining children : Daniel (the 'pater familias' now) , Pietertje , Cornelia , Anna and Leendert van der Groef would arrive in Nieuwe -Tonge on Goeree-Overflakkee on december 10th 1893 , and here in Holland a 'new' and uncertain life was about to start for them all ........
maandag 26 oktober 2009
maandag 19 oktober 2009
The short , sad and pitiful life of WILHELMINA FRANCINA VEEN
# The life story of WILHELMINA (Mientje) FRANCINA VEEN , born on July 2nd 1899 in the Dutch place of Wormerveer , is a short , pitiful and depressing one .
Mientje was the only daughter of father Rijkman Veen and mother Jantje ten Wolde .
Mientje was the only daughter of father Rijkman Veen and mother Jantje ten Wolde .
Rijkman and Jantje had five children , four sons and one daughter : Mientje .
Their four sons would all grow up safe and well , all four of them would later enter into matrimony and have one or more children themselves , very much únlike Mientje .....
When Mientje was ten years young , she was diagnosed with scarlet fever ánd with appendicitis developing into peritonitis .......
When Mientje was ten years young , she was diagnosed with scarlet fever ánd with appendicitis developing into peritonitis .......
There still must have been an operation , not in a hospital but at home , but her entire fysical condition at the time must have been beyond human help ......
Mientje Veen passed away in the little Dutch town of Wijk bij Duurstede on April 16th 1910 , at the very young age of just ten years ....
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Painted history of the beautiful city of 's-Gravenhage (Den Haag / The Hague) , in Holland / The Netherlands
# 's-Gravenhage , Gezicht op 's-Gravenhage vanuit het Zuid-Oosten , 1650 (JAN VAN GOYEN)
Painted history of the beautiful city of 's-Gravenhage (Den Haag/The Hague) , in Holland/The Netherlands
# 's-Gravenhage , De Nieuwe Kerk aan het Spui , gezien vanuit het oosten , 1650 (BARTHOLOMEUS VAN BASSEN)
Painted history of the beautiful city of 's-Gravenhage (The Hague/Den Haag) in the Netherlands/Holland
# 's-Gravenhage , Gezicht op het Oude Vrouwen- en Kinderhuis aan het Zieken , ca. 1830 ( BARTHOLOMEUS JOHANNES VAN HOVE)
My dear , late grandparents , PIETERNELLA VAN DEN TOL and LEENDERT VAN DER GROEF , at about 70 years of age
# Picture of my grandparents , my late grandfather LEENDERT VAN DER GROEF and my late grandmother PIETERNELLA VAN DEN TOL , here in their (early) seventies - this picture must have been taken somewhere around the year 1960 , in all likelihood in their hometown Middelharnis on the (former) island of Goeree-Overflakkee in the Netherlands .
My grandmother was the daughter of LEENDERT VAN DEN TOL and of FRANCINA OSSEWEIJER and my grandfather was the son of WILLEM VAN DER GROEF and IDA VAN MAASTRIGT .
My grandmother was born in 1891 in the small place of Nieuwe-Tonge on the island of Goeree-Overflakkee in the Netherlands , and my grandfather was born in the year 1888 in that same small place , on that same large island , in that same small country ...
My grandma was born in a family of eight children , and she was the youngest child , and my grandpa was born in a larger family even : he was the eleventh and the last born child of his father Willem ; so like his later wife Pieternella , my grandpa also was the Benjamin within the family - and there was still another thing they had in common : they were both born in poor families , under poor , very poor life conditions alas .....
My grandmother was born in 1891 in the small place of Nieuwe-Tonge on the island of Goeree-Overflakkee in the Netherlands , and my grandfather was born in the year 1888 in that same small place , on that same large island , in that same small country ...
My grandma was born in a family of eight children , and she was the youngest child , and my grandpa was born in a larger family even : he was the eleventh and the last born child of his father Willem ; so like his later wife Pieternella , my grandpa also was the Benjamin within the family - and there was still another thing they had in common : they were both born in poor families , under poor , very poor life conditions alas .....
But they succeeded in growing up , by dog perseverence now and then ..., found one another in their common hometown Nieuwe-Tonge , fell in love and got married , and then immediately moved to an other , bigger place on the island , Middelharnis , where Leendert found regular work and where , in the years to come , all of their six children were born .
All of their children managed to reach adulthood , but the sheer fact that they all six could do so , can certainly be called a small miracle in hindsight : their daughter Ida , in her younger years , survived tuberculosis , their son Wim (my father) , when he was a little child , became so terribly sick one day that the doctor , very much mistakenly (as I am the living proof of that ...) got convinced that my father wouldn't live yet another day .... and then there was son Leendert : he almost drowned when he was just three years of age ..... and finally their daughter Sien : when her mother Pieternella , in the year 1918, was in joyful anticipation of Sien's coming , the health situation of Pieternella rapidly deteriorated and she was diagnosed with .... Spanish flu .....bút , how incredibly (!) , mother and yet unborn daughter both , one way or the other , survived ánd for both of them fortunately , like for my grandfather Leendert , long lifes turned out to be in store .......
ZEG HET MET BLOEMEN ...
# This picture was probably taken at the occasion of the wedding of HENK WOLTERMAN and ....... NOORDIJK (both sitting in the centre of the picture) in the Dutch city of Den Haag/The Hague , Holland , late 1930's
zaterdag 17 oktober 2009
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