Forward by Henry de Jong (Henry van Herman van Hinne) (Het originele Nederlands is hier beschikbaar) I imagine a great number of memoirs are written by elderly people at the encouragement of their children, and that my two grandfathers are among them. My primary source for Hendrik de Jong’s memoirs is a hundred page, single […]

Forward by Henry de Jong (Henry van Herman) When Herman de Jong wrote this short memoir in 1991, it was as much for the sake of a good story as it had been for all the other stories he’d written. He loved being a character and didn’t take himself too seriously. Perhaps he even took […]

These detailed memoirs of Harm van der Laan served as the basis for a book about the family’s history till 1955.

Dina’s memoirs offer fascinating details into early twentieth century life, and the story of her courting, engagement and first year of marriage with Harm.

1908 – 1912 Elizabeth Stuit is my great-great-aunt — an aunt of my grandmother Dina van der Laan. Her untimely death at the age of 23, some 113 years ago, is in the distant past. That, and, being among so many in that generation of my ancestors, should relegate her to the fringes of who […]

Harry van der Laan’s memoirs cover the shared trajectory of the van der Laans, from Harry’s birth until a couple of years beyond immigration

1928 – 2025 Preface by Henry de Jong Cornelis de Jong was a quiet, unassuming man, not easily drawn into arguments, but always ready with a story or two from his life experiences. Like my own father, my father-in-law had a checkered career that made him more worldly wise than most and cultivated his observant […]