Chapter 6

OPA’S CHILDHOOD AND OPA & OMA’S WEDDING

We know very little about Opa’s youth.  He was born on February 7, 1887 on the family farm in Lathum where he lived for 67 years until May 1954 when he emigrated to Canada.  When he was born, there were already 3 children in the family– Jan Willem was 7 years old, Jantjen was 3 years old and Hendrik was 1 ½ years old.  When Opa was 2 years old, his sister Jantjen died on February 10, 1889.   A month after her death, on March 19, 1889, a brother, Jan, was born.  When Opa was 4 years old, his brother Derk was born.  A week before his 6th birthday, his sister Maria Berendina (called Marie) was born.  When he was 10 years old his brother Frits was born.  Opa’s father had asthma and was later often sick  The farm was too small to make a living from and the children had to go to work at the brick yard at a very young age already.  Opa began work at the age of 11.  They were very long days.  They walked to work and had to leave very early in the morning.  Opa walked between his two brothers, Jan Willem and Hendrik.  They each held him by the hand so he could walk with his eyes closed and so get in a little extra sleep while walking to work.  Another indicator of their poverty was that each child received only one slice of bread for breakfast.  The first one out of bed got the thickest slice.

Soon after Opa’s 13th birthday, his father died, leaving his wife with seven children.  They were Jan Willem, 19 years old; Hendrik, 15 years; Albert (Opa), 13 years; Jan aged 11; Derk aged 9; Maria aged 7; and Frits.aged 3.  When Opa was 29 years old his mother also died.  His brothers, Hendrik and Jan, had already married.  Opa still lived on the farm with his brothers Jan Willem, Derk, Frits, and their sister Marie.  Later Derk also married and Frits worked on a farm where he was boarding.  So Opa lived for several years on the farm with his brother Jan Willem and sister Marie.

Jan Willem had some mental health problems.  At times he became very restless, agitated and depressed.  On several occasions he went to an institution, called Wolfheezen, for treatment.  He looked normal, except that his nose had only one nostril.  Opa had a local girl friend, but they broke up after she and her whole family broke with the local church and started a more conservative, but somewhat legalistic group.  Things went quite alright on the farm until Marie got married.  Then the two brothers lost their housekeeper.  The loss of Marie upset Jan Willem so much that he was admitted to the Wolfheezen institution again for six weeks. 

Opa’s brother Frits was a farmhand for the family Ten Bosch in Elst.  A young woman named Mina Overeem worked there several days per week.  Frits advised Opa to go and visit her and he arranged a meeting between them.  This took place at the end of summer.  Since it took Opa 1½ hours to bike there and the road where Oma lived with her parents was almost impassable in winter, Opa wanted to marry as quickly as possible before winter set in.  So Albert Brouwer and Wilhelmina Adriana Overeem were married on October 29, 1925 in Lathum, six weeks after they first met.  The wedding took place in Lathum, first in the town hall in Angerlo, and later in the church in Lathum.  The party was at Opa’s house. 

Oma was born on October 18, 1899.  Opa had turned 38 in February and Oma had just turned 26.  They were more than 12½ years apart in age.  Oma wasn’t ready to marry so quickly, since she didn’t have her trousseau ready.  It was the custom that a bride had to have a certain number of sheets, pillow cases, etc., ready before she married.  Opa said she would have lots of time to prepare it all in the winter after they were married. 

They were not only different in age, but also in upbringing.  Oma came from a much more orthodox background than Opa.   Opa came from a village where tradition and customs weighed heavily.  Oma was not used to that, nor was she comfortable with many of these village customs.  She had also lived quite independently since her parent’s farm was far away from the neighbouring farms.  In Lathum, the houses were very close together with shared driveways between them.  The neighbours saw everything, heard everything, knew everything. 

Already at their wedding some neighbourhood trouble arose.  Oma had a terrible toothache that day which made her rather cranky, and she was disappointed that her mother and most of her brothers and sisters were not present.  They thought it was too far away and traveling was difficult.  Only Oma’s father, two of her brothers, one with a girlfriend, and a few cousins were present.  Oma was quite hurt by this poor attendance from her own family.  When Oma tried to curtail drinking and didn’t allow dancing and some other village customs, the neighbours became angry.  As a result they collected less money for the neighbourhood present than usual.  They received a lamp, but one that wasn’t half as nice as the one Opa’s sister Marie received at her wedding.  Tante Marie didn’t like that so she went to town and bought exactly the same lamp as the one she had and gave it to them.  Now they had two lamps.  They hung the nice lamp up in the living room which everyone could see, and the one from the neighbours was hung in a room that was not often used.

Oma brought very little of her own belongings with her.  The house was already furnished with the furniture used by Opa which had been left by his parents.  The housekeeping continued more or less in the same way as it always had.

Chapter 7

THE EARLY YEARS IN HOLLAND

A year after Opa and Oma’s wedding, their first child was born on October 25, 1926.  She was called Jantje Geertruida, after both grandmothers.  They had a real celebration after she was born.  All the neighbours came for a visit, four neighbours to the left and four to the right, as was the custom in that area.  They all brought a large loaf of raisin bread, or spice cake if they were too poor for raisin bread.  Opa was so happy!  He would spend hours every evening watching her, hoping she would open her eyes.  Oma had always worked at other people’s farms, mostly doing field work, after leaving school.  She had never learned much about cooking, sewing and baby care.  She fed Jantje as much porridge, mixed with lots of sugar and butter, as possible and even potatoes when she was only a few months old.  Jantje became so fat she could hardly open her eyes.  Then the doctor came for a visit and he changed this diet drastically.

Jantje was born with a big sore on one of her buttocks.  It was on the same spot where Oma had been bitten by a sow a few months before Jantje’s birth.  It was assumed that this bite had caused the sore.  The doctor said that he could treat it by cutting it out, or giving Jantje a smallpox injection on the sore.  They decided to give her the smallpox injection, which unfortunately made her seriously ill for a long time.  In 1995 when an X-ray was taken, it was discovered that Aunt Jenny had only one working kidney, and it was surmised that her other kidney failed because of this injection.               

One and a half years later Hendrik was born.  Opa was thrilled, calling out excitedly, “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!”  Hendrik was completely different than Jantje.  She was a very healthy, robust little girl, and very quiet.  Hendrik was small and skinny, but he had a good set of lungs.  Rather than sit quietly like Jantje, Hendrik wanted to move!  By two months he tried to use his legs.  At half a year he rode through the room on his rocking horse.  Jantje never used the rocking horse.  She just sat down quietly and looked around.  Hendrik’s full name was Ludovicus Hendricus, named after Oma’s father.  He was born on May 5, 1928.

1928 was the year that the great depression started and farm produce became almost worthless.  It had always been difficult to make a living on those small farms and it now became much harder to make ends meet.  To compensate for this, they tried to produce as much as possible themselves to supply their own needs, such as potatoes, grain, vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, milk, butter, etc. so that very little had to be purchased.  Most of those small farms made it through the depression.  They hardly had any money, but also no debts, mortgages and interest payments.  In other parts of Holland where the farms were much larger, the mortgage and interest payments drove many into bankruptcy.

Soon they had a second daughter, named Geertruida Maria after Oma’s mother and Opa’s sister.  They called her Geertje.  She was born on February 3, 1930.  In late summer of 1930, when Geertje was half a year old, Oma’s parents came for a visit.  Oma had lived in Lathum now for five years and this was the first time they came for a visit.  Very little traveling was done at that time.  Oma’s father had been there twice before, once shortly before the wedding and again on the wedding day.  Still they were so unfamiliar with where Oma lived that they passed the house and had to turn around.  Oma herself went, whenever possible, to visit her parents on her bike about once every two weeks. 

A little less than a year later on January 25, 1931, they had a second son, whom they called Derk after Opa’s father.  Oma often said later that Geertje had missed a lot of love.  With two children so close together, she was often overlooked, and left with too many chores.  The children all had chores to do, beginning at an early age.  The boys helped Opa and the girls helped Oma.  They started knitting stockings at age 4.

Two years later, on March 11, 1933, a third son was born and named Jan Willem after Opa’s oldest brother, but they called him Wim.  So the family continued to grow.  There were now five children and it was still the middle of the depression. 

More problems arose with Oom Jan Willem.  When he became restless, he would often go on very long walks, sometime for a few hours and sometimes for a whole day.  He often took the children with him which quite often really worried Oma.  One time he took Hendrik all the way to Doesburg and back.  Later he taught Hendrik how to smoke.  He talked loudly to himself so they always found out where he had been or what he was thinking.   He didn’t like Oma much since she was too religious for his liking,  and he was always afraid that Opa would go bankrupt because of the depression.  He became sick with worrying again and at last had to go to Wolfheezen again.  

So Opa lost his helper.  Oom Jan Willem was a strong man and a hard worker.  The farm was too much work for Opa on his own.  The children helped with some chores, but were too young to help with the heavy work.  Unfortunately there was no money to pay a good hired hand.  At first they bought a horse which helped somewhat.  Then a young boy was hired for little more than room and board.  Although he agreed to work for just room and board they paid him one guilder per week and sometimes gave him a little extra money for traveling home.  He was very handy and a good carpenter, and did a lot of repair work around the farm.  Still one guilder per week was almost more than they could afford.  They sold eggs for 2½¢ each and a litre of milk for 2-3¢, so they had very little disposable income, and their hired hand soon left for a better paying job.

The second boy didn’t stay long.  He was sent away after being caught emptying all the children’s piggy banks.  Then an older man was taken in.  His name was Hendrik Jan Heinen.  He had been a farmer but had lost everything he had because of the depression and his wife had died.  He was 60 years old already when he came and he stayed with Opa for many years.

Jantje often went out to the field with coffee for Opa around 10:00 in the morning and then stayed there the rest of the morning to help pick up potatoes.  Derk who was then about two years old often went along with his little toy wheelbarrow.  After coffee he would walk back home by himself.  One time he lost his way and went in the wrong direction.  He came to a large ditch with a board lying across it.  Derk wanted to cross it, but didn’t dare because there were two large sheep on the other side.  This was probably just as well, since he could easily have lost his balance with the wheelbarrow and fallen into the ditch.  So he stayed at the edge of the turnip field and fell asleep.  When Opa came home at lunch time without Derk and told them that he had left the field right after bringing the coffee, they realized that he had gotten lost.  Nobody had seen him and soon the whole neighbour-hood went out searching for him.  He was found hours later sound asleep in a field of turnips.

The children had to help in the field at a very early age, especially at the time of planting, haying and harvesting.  One time when they were all in the field helping with the hay and Oma was home alone, a salesman came around with ice cream.  Ice cream was very new at that time.  Oma thought that since it was so hot and the children were working so hard they all deserved a treat and bought an ice cream for each one and put them on the cellar floor.  When they came home she told them about the special treat she had ready, but when the children rushed into the cellar to find the ice cream, everything had melted!

Life in those days on a farm village,  was very simple.  There were no cars, radios, televisions, city water or plumbing.  Money was very scarce and people very seldom had new clothes.  The clothes people had were worn till they were much too small and often had three or four patches.  The children walked to school, which took them about 20 minutes.  Usually they only had wooden shoes to wear.  The school had two classrooms, with about 30 children in each room.   The principal’s birthday was always a highlight in the school year.

Opa had a good sense of humour and was a very good story teller.  He used lots of facial expressions, waved his hands and arms a lot and put lots of emotion into his voice, using almost his whole body to tell the story.  He was very popular at birthday parties and other occasions for his story-telling abilities.  Often people would start laughing as soon as he stood up because they knew they were in for a good story.

When Wim was 5 years old, a fourth son was born and named Gerard Louis after Oma’s two sisters.  He was born on April 10, 1938 and called Gerard.  The depression was in its 10th year already and it was not easy, but they managed to get by.  They grew many potatoes and Opa went with a wagon to Arnhem selling them from house to house.  Later they sold only to regular customers.  Opa hated this work, but they needed the money.  Often there were complaints and he had a hard time dealing with that.  The potatoes they grew were called Bevelander.  These potatoes had good taste and quality and were good for production, but they were very irregular in size and form and city people didn’t like that too much.  In that year a slight improvement in the economy took place.