Family History section written in 1986

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Of my father’s relatives I know very little. I have never seen a picture of my grandparents, likely because one was never taken. I know nothing of how my grandfather looked except that he was crippled from birth with one leg slightly shorter than the other. The only other thing I know is that he died early in the morning when my father was 17 years old and while they were out in the field milking the cows.

In those days in Holland the cows were not brought inside for milking. It was done outside twice a day, regardless of the weather and only a severe thunderstorm would be sufficient cause to delay the starting time. I do not remember my dad telling me much else. Most of the information I have now came from Mr. Cornelis Valk, a fourth or fifth cousin who also tried to obtain information about his family and discovered we came from the same family roots.

In Holland surnames were not common before 1800. When Holland was ruled by France from 1795-1813, Napoleon made surnames mandatory. Only a few families had surnames before then, most referring to where they came from. The common people usually didn’t have surnames but the father’s name was added to the child’s name. For example, a man named Maarten, named his first son Jan (John), so his name became Jan Maartensze, which means son of Maarten. When the second, Cornelis, was born he became Cornelis Maartense, etc. The surname de Jong was already in use in the 1600s. De Jong is one of the most common names in Holland but the fact that this surname was in use before many others by almost 400 years makes it hard to trace where it originated. There are De Jongs living in all parts of Holland but it is not known if they come from the same roots. In 1600 there are De Jongs living in Lekkerkerk, Krimpen aan de Ijssel, Krimpen aan de Lek, OuderKerk aan den Ijssel, Gouderak, Bergambacht and Stolwijk.

I was told that our family came from Lekkerkerk and some from Krimpen aan de Lek, all villages in the Krimpenerwaard, the area between the rivers Lek and Ijssel. Part of this area now belongs to Rotterdam.

An Adam de Jong was living in Stolwijk already in the 1700s. He was a farmer, baptized in Bergambacht and married in 1727 but we do not know if he was related to us. The oldest relative we could find was Jan Maartenszoon de Jong from Lekkerkerk who married on December 7, 1731 with Geertje Michelse Horst. He was likely born in 1667, a son of Marten Leendertse de Jong and Lysbeth Endles. Those are not common names and I have only heard those names in my own family. My sister’s name is Bertha Chiela who was named after my aunt Bertha Chiela. Now we found out that the name originated from Michiel and came into our family through the Horst family. I have never heard of this family either. The names Alberts and De Koning were in our area but not very common.

 Opa De Jong’s Brothers And Sisters

My knowledge of the De Jong family is quite limited. My grandfather, Adam de Jong, was born December 16, 1836 and died November 7, 1911, so he was almost 75 years old and died two weeks before dad’s 17^th birthday. I remember that dad told us that they had been milking in the field early in the morning on a cold, wet day and when he got home, they told them that his dad had died during the night. This is the only thing I remember that dad told me about his father. I know that Opa was slightly crippled. His one leg was slightly shorter than the other and he walked with a cane all his life. He was 163.5 cm tall which is about 5 feet, 5 inches, so quite short. He had blond hair, brown eyes, a long face, big nose, small mouth and a round chin. There were several cases of slight and a few more severe hip problems in the De Jong family. 

I have seen only a few pictures of the De Jong family and only remember two pictures during World War I when dad’s brothers were in the army. In one picture dad’s five brothers were all in uniform, all serving in the same company in the army. At least four of them were married then

Adam (Opa) married April 24, 1868 at age 31 with Geertje Boelaard (sometimes spelled Boellaard). She came from the Haarlemmermeer polder. Today that is where Schiphol, the main Dutch airport is. I wonder how they met. In my opinion it was at least 3 hours driving by horse and buggy. Geertje Boerlaard was born April 28, 1836. When Adam and Geertje married they moved to Stolwijk to the farm where Geertje’s grandfather had lived. The earlier de Jong’s all lived around Lekkerkerk. He was the first to move to Stolwijk, the place where I was born and where several of my siblings still live.

This part of Holland is very new country and was probably not inhabited before the year 1100. Likely through sea streams a sandbar developed which later became dunes and then swamps. Eventually this land was reclaimed and with the use of windmills turned into fertile farmland.

Marrigje, their first daughter, was born May 21, 1869 and died 8 ½ months later on February 14, 1870.

Johannes Marinus, second, was born September 17, 1870. He was named Johannes after his grandfather and Marinus, after his little sister who died a few months before he was born. He became a blacksmith and started a business in Alblasserdam. I guess he was successful because when we were schoolboys it was more or less a factory with about 20 people working there. His sons, my cousins Hendrik and Johannes, were in charge at the time. Johannes married Helena (Lena) Cornelia van Drunen on March 17, 1896. She was the younger sister of his stepmother. Oom Johannes died in 1932 of a heart attack while at work. We had the most contact with this de Jong family. What made this unusual is that they were Christian Reformed, which in our circle, Netherlands Reformed, was frowned on. We liked to visit Tante Lena as she was a very friendly person.

At that time Tante Lena had two married sons, Adam and Hendrik. They both had their own business close by and both had children our age who we were good friends with, especially the children of Hendrik. The oldest, Rochus, was a year older than me and we went into the army at the same time, and he became an officer very soon.

Hendrik’s daughter Lena was slightly younger than me. I remember that she helped me learn how to ride a bike. That took quite a long time because I still had some problems keeping my balance as a result of the accident I had as a young boy. Later in life this was still a problem. When I learned to drive a car, I would react the wrong way and would automatically go right when I had to go left. For several years I had to be very careful with that.

Their third child was Johan. He later emigrated to Toronto and started a plumbing business. We visited Hans and Hillie in Toronto when their twin girls were born. Hillie was his second wife. His first wife walked out on him. Wendy was a baby then. Later we lost contact with them. Their fourth, Hendrik, became a minister. This family split from the Christian Reformed Church in 1944 and joined the Article 31 church, which in Canada is called Canadian Reformed.

When we visited Tante Lena, there were three older children still at home. All three married later in life, Johan at 35, Steina at 37 and Jan at 44. There had been 3 more girls who had died young in a very short time, Sijgje in 1912 at 6 years of age, Corrie in 1913 at 11 years of age, and Geertje in 1914 who was 17 years old. Twice in that time Tante Lena was in a mental institution for an extended period. What I remember of her is her friendliness and her wonderful memory. She knew all the birthdays in the whole family. Sometimes after church if she really liked a sermon she would write the whole sermon out exactly as she heard it during the following week. Another thing I remember about her was that we were peeling potatoes and she cut her finger. Tante Lena put a bandage around it and held it in place with an elastic but the elastic was so tight it cut off the blood stream and a few days later the top of her finger had to be amputated. Tante Lena died in 1948 I believe. I remember that I visited her in the hospital and that I was in uniform.

Sijgje was the third child (3^rd half-sister of my father). She was born May 29, 1872. As she was not very strong she always said that she wouldn’t marry but when she was 36 she married with Gijs Schouten, a farmer, who was 3 years younger. This family also became Netherlands Reformed. They had three children, Piet who married at 36 years of age, Adam who married at 48, and Geeritje who never married. We also maintained close contact with this family. I do not remember Oom Gijs. I believe he died in 1935. He was operated on his appendix, but it was too late already and he didn’t come through the operation. Tante Sijgje died around 1950 in her late 70s.

Marrigje, the fourth child, was born October 23, 1873. She married April 20, 1900 with Burger De Jong was who five years younger. They took over Opa’s farm in Bovenkerk, while Opa moved to the farm in Benedekerk, close to where we lived. Oom Burger died April 10, 1939 at the age of 61 and Tante Margje on June 11, 1944 at the age of 71 years. We lived quite close by but there was almost no contact with this family. When my aunt died at the end of the war when there was hardly any mail service anymore and no telephone, I remember that I had to go and bring the news to quite a few of the relatives and I took small country roads and avoided all the main roads as I was hiding from the Germans then. I had not answered the call to work in Germany and could be picked up any time. Later our family had more interaction with some of the children of this family.

Adam, born January 25, 1875, married Jannigje Holl. He had a farm in Bonnepas, by the Vlist, about half and hour or so on the bike from our place. I have not known him. In my papers it said that he died June 9, 1936 but I thought that it was earlier. I have visited Tante Jannigje several times. She had Strauma (goiter?) very bad, the worst I have ever seen. It looked like she had a swan or goose egg under the skin on both sides of her neck. Strauma was more common when we were small. Later they discovered that it came from a lack of Iodine and magnesium in the soil. Then they added small amounts of these elements to kitchen salt and no new cases appeared anymore. She died November 29, 1945. They had seven children, but I have known only the two youngest, Johannes Marinus born November 19, 1928 and Jan Arie born December 6, 1929. When these city boys came to visit us they were quite excited to be on a farm and loved to chase chickens, pigs and other animals around and caused lots of mischief. Arie Jan was lightly built and quite daring. He also had a very strong craving for salt. We had to hide the salt pot and make sure he didn’t sneak into the basement where he could lick salt from the brine of the jars of salted pork, beans and cabbage.  I remember there was a big white horse beautifully painted on their garage doors. When I passed by there this summer (2003) the horse painting was still there. They told me later than when Dad had a hard time to keep his farm during the depression years, Oom Adam helped him. We never had that much contact with this family.

Bertha Chiela, a sixth child was born February 13, 1876. On one paper is said her name was Bertha and on another that her name was Chiela. Probably she had both names similar to my sister, Bep. She died March 28, 1876 at seven weeks of age and twelve days later the mother, Geertje Boelaard died on April 9, 1876. I don’t know anything about the circumstances. They were married almost eight years and had six children. She was my grandfather’s first wife. So Opa became a widower with four children, the oldest was 5 ½ years old and the youngest was not even 15 months old.

Thirteen months later Opa remarried on May 11, 1877 with Christina (Stijntje) Van Drunen who was born December 6, 1854. So my grandfather was 40 years old then and my grandmother was 21. When Christina was 19 she became pregnant but refused to reveal who the father was. The baby was named Hendrika, born July 30 and died August 27, 1874. The day after the baby’s death, Stijntje moved away to Reeuwijk where sometime later an aunt and uncle introduced her to Adam de Jong who needed a wife to help look after his four young children. (This was found in one of the other family history books.)

My grandfather was Reformed. Later I was told that he seldom went to church as the minister was too liberal for his liking, but he didn’t go along with the small Orthodox groups that had split off from the main church. He usually stayed home and read a sermon of one of the Puritans. My grandmother was Christian Reformed and once in a while he went to church with her. This likely was in Haastrecht since there has never been a Christian Reformed Church in Stolwijk.

Hendrik was the first child of this second marriage, born July 17, 1879.  He married on March 9, 1905 with Christina de Leeuw, who we called Tante Chrisje, born January 6, 1873. They had a farm in Gouderak. They had two daughters, Aaltje and Christina. Both married a farmer. When Aaltje married in April 1932 they took over the farm and Oom Hendrik retired at the age of 52. Later he realized that he had retired much too young. He came quite often for short visits on his bike, always by himself as my aunt never learned how to ride a bike. He was a very friendly man but he repeated himself often and that was for young boys not easy as we were not supposed to laugh. When he said only a few words we knew exactly what story was coming. He often made me jealous as my brother Henk, who was named after him, always got some money from him and I was ignored. Uncle Hendrik remained in the Reformed Church. I remember dad saying to him, Hendrik, how can you go to such a church?” and Hendrik answering, “when you go to church prayerfully, you always get a blessing.” Oom Hendrik died on October 26, 1952 at the age of 73. The last years he was in a hospital. He had symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s but caused by a stroke which he did not recover from. Tante Chrisje died half a year later. She was quite tiny and had only one good eye.

I believe this fits here as it ends with “So far the family from Uncle Hannes.”

Christina born March 10, 1908 (likely a daughter of Hendrik). I knew her quite well as she married late and was still living with my aunt when we visited her. Not all my memories of her are good though. She believed we should be exceptional children which we were not always and I remember getting a good scolding from her more than once. She visited us quite often probably because she was single and we belonged to the same church denomination. All the other children went to the Christian Reformed Church. In December 1945 when she was already 37 years old she married Herbert van Zielst of Nieuwe Tonge. During the war he was evacuated in Stolwijk and that is how they met. I haven’t met her since her wedding. I know that she did not have children. Last year (1988) my sister Jannie wrote me that she had visited them and they were both in poor health. They must have been 80 or 84 at that time.

Jan, born April 27, 1910. A very nice man, but not too smart. He lived with his older brother Hendrik who he also worked for. He visited us often. In 1954 he married. He was 44 at the time and they had 2 children. I haven’t heard from him since his wedding.

Johannes Marinus, born July 24, 1912. He lived with my aunt but I know very little of him. I have the impression that he was not home often. He worked for his brother Adam and I believe he was a foreman but it is possible that he was co-owner. He married in 1947 at the age of 35 and had 10 children.

So far the family from Uncle Hannes. I’m wondering why we had so much contact with this family, about the most of all the relatives, while the circumstances would suggest otherwise. They were much older than us and the ones we played with where really our second cousins. Our cousins were about our parents’ age. Uncle Hannis was a half-brother of dad, they lived very far away, and they were Christian Reformed, which was really frowned on by us who were Netherlands Reformed. After the split in 1944 they became Canadian Reformed and, in our opinion, quite fanatical.

Maarten Jan, the second child of the second marriage, was born July 24, 1881. He likely married in 1910 or 1911 with Neeltje Maria de Jong, not a relative. He died quite suddenly at the age of 50 in 1931 so I did not know him. Our farm was built for him and he lived there the first 11 years until my parents married and then he moved to the farm where Opa had lived.  We had very little contact with this family even though we lived less than a kilometer apart. The marriage did not go well. He tried to back out of it during the wedding ceremony and refused to sign the papers. His brothers who felt very embarrassed managed to change his mind and an hour later he signed them, but it would probably have been better if they had cancelled the wedding. They had five children and after his death most of them left the church, probably due to his extreme views and behavior. My aunt died in 1971 and was a widow for more than 40 years. The farm where I grew up was built for them in 1911. In 1921 he moved to the farm where my grandfather had farmed since 1900 and later Oom Teunis farmed as well.

Cornelis, third, was born December 31, 1883. Being born on December 31 happened three times in my family. First my uncle, then my sister, and then my daughter. He married Pauline Vermey. They had a farm in Bovenkerk, another road in Stolwijk. They had nine children, the youngest, Cor, was my age.

Geertje was their fourth child, born February 2, 1886. She married Arie Verduijn, likely in 1910 or 1911. They had twelve children but three died very young. The first farmed in Gouderak. Around 1916 they moved to Nieuwenkerk aan de Yssel, and likely went to the same church as Oom Cornelis Sujker. Oom Maarten worked often at Oom Cornelis farm and that is how he met the oldest daughter, Hillegonda Dina Verduyn and they later married. And this is how my cousin became my aunt. Later they moved to a large farm in Nieuwkoop. They had a different breed of cattle than we had, black cows with white heads. They also made a different kind of cheese. We made Gouda cheese from fresh milk. They made Leiden cheese which was made from milk where first half of the cream was removed for butter and then cumin seeds were added. One of my nephews suffered from severe seizures. Oom Arie died June 16, 1944 at the age of 60. Tante Geertje died February 15, 1946 also 60 years old.

Bertha Chiela born June 09, 1888. She married in 1908 with Pieter Molenaar who was born December 16, 1881. They had seven children but one died at the age of four. They had a grain farm in Waddinxveen. Oom Piet was very different than the rest of the family. He was small and spoke in a very authoritative voice and acted rather pompously. He also enjoyed pranks which could be very humourous but sometimes he went too far. He was a cash crop grower of wheat, potatoes, sugar beets, etc. We were always amazed at the sight of the six or seven large Belgian horses they had for farm work as it was a very big farm. Oom Piet died June 5, 1960 at the age of 79. Tante Berta died at age 74 on October 24, 1962.

Jan born August 25, 1890. He died at the age of five before my father was born.

Teunis was the seventh child, born October 31, 1892. He married with Jannigje Vermey a sister of Tante Pauline, on March 25, 1915. They farmed in Stolwijk where Opa had farmed after 1900. I believe that at first he worked for his mother and later rented the farm or farmed in part with his mother. In 1920 or 1921, the oldest son, Adam, played with matches in the haystack and the whole farm burned down. Then my grandmother found out that Oom Teunis had cancelled the insurance without her knowledge. He believed that insurance was counter to trusting God. Grandmother rebuilt the farm but wouldn’t rent it out to Oom Teunis anymore and instead rented it to Oom Maartjen Jan. Oom Teunis moved to Overijsel, Dalfsen, not too far from the German border, and started farming there, almost a day travelling for us. That made him quite a legendary figure in our eyes. Overijsel seemed like the end of the world. We didn’t see him too often but when he came, we were always very impressed. He stood straight, tall and had a stern personality, was friendly and had a heavy melodious voice which made a real impression on us. I believe that he was the first in the De Jong families to join the Netherlands Reformed Churches, which had been formed in 1907 out of several small independent churches and groups. Other families who followed him were dad, Uncle Arie, Uncle Piet Molenaar and Uncle Gijs Schouten. The family looked up to him as someone with a lot of authority.

I visited him once in the fall of 1945, shortly after the war. Travel was still difficult. I remember being so amazed that we couldn’t understand the people there when we asked for directions. It was my first far away trip and I had never realized how much difference there was in the various dialects in Holland. It sounded like a completely different language. The other thing I remember is that he was putting fertilizer on a field. He skipped one path and put double on another patch and told me that way you could see if the fertilizer was actually working. Farming was generally done by traditions that had been set for generations but he didn’t like to farm exactly as was customary and liked experimenting with new things or small changes. In the end the whole neighbourhood was changing to newer ideas. In this respect he was very much like my dad who also liked trying out new ideas.

Oom Teunis was Netherlands Reformed but as there was no church in that area he had a home church and tried to do some evangelizing in the area which as far as I know was not successful. I’m not sure what the main reason for that was, either a lack of in interest in faith in that area or the difference in language and understanding. They were seen as outsiders with a strange dialect, strange customs and a strange faith and I expect both sides never tried to really understand one another.

Later he believed he was called into the ministry. He tried several times to be accepted as a candidate by the Netherlands Reformed Church. When that failed he went to the Old Gereformeerde Kerk, a small group of more or less independent churches. His two oldest sons married and took over the farm, and he became a minister in Kralingse Veer, close to Rotterdam. I believe that was in the winter of 1945-46 and he was a minister there until his death, October 20, 1961.

 I visited them there a few times and was in the church a few times as well. In that denomination a minister was not allowed to write the sermon down. They believed they should completely depend on the Holy Spirit, and that human wisdom was seen as dangerous and not completely trusting the Lord. Oom Teunis never looked at the people while preaching but instead focused constantly on the back wall of the church because otherwise he couldn’t concentrate. I found it very hard to listen to a minister who didn’t look at the people. In Holland the Psalms were originally set to rhyme by Petrus Dateen and as far as I know they followed very close to the original psalms, but the spelling and the sentences were very poor. Because of that the Synod of Dordt in 1648 provided a newer translation. Several churches believed the Dateen Psalms were better and continued to use those. When we were young there were still churches that used those old translations. However, in Oom Teunis’ church about half of the congregation used the old version and the other half used the new translation, singing both at the same time. In my opinion this was very confusing (stubborn Dutch) and it didn’t seem very Christian. I don’t believe they used an organ, and they did not have services on the Christian holidays such as Christmas or Easter Monday as they believed there were no Biblical grounds for that.

When he lived in Dalfsen, Oom Teunis usually came for a visit once or twice each year, always by himself. Tante Jans never went out. For us it was very special to have an uncle who lived so far away.  Because they lived far away we seldom saw any of the cousins. When he became a minister about half of the children were married. They had 10 children and several had some physical problems, crippled, poor eyesight, especially the younger children. I believe quite a few of these could have been surgically corrected but that was against his belief. He believed that you had to accept the child God gave you and any attempt to change or make things better was interference and rebellion against God. After the war gradually some of them moved back to South Holland. Even after moving to Kralingse Veer, Tante Jans almost never left home. The occasion on which this picture was taken is the only time that I remember that Tante Jans came. She died September 25, 1972. Oom Teunis died at age 69. I don’t know Tante Jans date of birth. They had ten children of which five had some physical deformities.

After finishing this story about Oom Teunis, I started wondering why I wrote so much about him, the most of all the relatives. I guess it is to show the spiritual sphere we were brought up in. It was deeply impressed on us that God was Holy and Sovereign and that we were very sinful, and that God had predestinated everything and nothing could be changed. So every change in your situation was seen as a rebellion against the Lord. Some were more extreme than others. Dad didn’t think it was wrong to go to the doctor when there was a need, but some, like Oom Teunis, saw this as sin. We were very familiar with texts such as “Jacob, have I loved, but Esau, have I hated,” and others such as ‘doesn’t the potter have the power to make from the same clay….” Much more attention was placed on God’s holiness and sovereignty than on his mercifulness and loving kindness. We had the feeling that the Lord punished us more than he saved us. We condemned everyone who thought differently and found ourselves quite able to judge who was right and who was wrong. We saw nothing wrong with condemning some ministers and elders in other churches. That we were not saved ourselves was seen as normal and there was nothing we could do about this. To be saved was only by God’s grace, but doing wrong was terrible. In general, we were taught that even though we were unsaved we still could love the Lord and could fight for his honour.

Jan. My dad was born November 19, 1894. He was named after my Opa’s brother and his little brother who died shortly before dad was born. When they told Oom Jan that dad was named after him, he requested that his wife’s name, Cornelia, be added to the name. They had only one daughter who had died and for this reason he wanted his wife’s name included too. So dad became Jan Cornelis. This name was not in the family before. When dad was born his father was 58 years old and his mother was 40 years old. He had two stepbrothers who were then 24 and 19 years old, two stepsisters who were 22 and 21 years old, and five brothers and sisters, the oldest being 15 years old. I know very little of Dad’s youth as he never told me anything about it.

One of my uncles told me later that Dad was a loner, always worrying about his sin, but he changed a lot when he came in contact with mother. We were always told to look up to God’s people. The verse, “who touches his children, touches the apple of God’s eye,” was interpreted that we should never go against anything a child of God says. Dad had been under the influence of one such special child of God who in later life was found to be a deceiver. That was initially a huge shock to him but helped him in later life, teaching him not to swallow everything that was preached but to check first if it lined up with scripture. Near the end of his life, dad wrote a letter to all his children. He expressed his regret that, although he would often discuss church policies and doctrine with others, and often said the walls of a church should not be too high, he was not open about his personal faith in Christ. It grieved him that he had not done this.

In 1911 when dad was 17 years old his father died at age 75. It must have been quite sudden because when they came home from milking in the morning they were told that he had died.

In 1914 when Dad was 19 years old the first world war broke out. Holland stayed out of the war but the army was sent to the borders for protection and all five of dad’s brothers were called into the army. Dad himself was excused for medical reasons, probably poor health. Four of his brothers were married and had their own farms. Dad looked after all four farms, checking up on the farm hands, etc. and he overworked himself, and never fully recovered. In 1921, at age 27 he married. If it was his first love and when and how they met I have no idea. I assume they went to the same church as Berkenwoude had a Netherlands Reformed Congregation since 1912 and was only an hour walking from their place. Likely they went by horse and buggy or by bicycle as I know both mom and dad biked before they married.

This text comes from another section of handwritten notes. The first four pages are missing, and I am not sure where it fits in the genealogy since the names do not line up.

After Aunt Cornelia died, Oom Jan married for the second time with Klaartje van Ossamen. They had one daughter, Marrigje. Aunt Klaartje must have been much younger than her husband or became very old because she was still living during the war. She lived in Alblasserdam and I remember that Dad visited her quite often. He had to go to Alblasserdam at least once each year as the owner of the farm he rented lived there and he had to pay the mortgage. This was usually done in person.

Arie Jan, their ninth child was born August 15, 1897. He married Martijntje van der Spek who was born April 11, 1897. She was a sister of Oom Tinis van der Spek who had married one of my mother’s sisters. They likely married in 1921 or 1922. So Oom Arie was the youngest and also the smallest, shorter than Dad while all his brothers were heavier and he was very different than the rest. He was a loud, impatient man who was always in a hurry, strongly opinionated and blunt. Oom Maarten Jan, who I never knew, apparently had a similar character according to stories I heard. Dad was always very reluctant to judge and much milder in his opinion about other churches and groups, etc.

Oom Arie started farming in Stolwijk just a few farms away from us. When the depression began he ran into financial trouble quite soon. When he went to his relatives for aid they promised to help but told him that he also needed to try help himself by living more frugally. That made him angry, and he left in a huff and immediately put the farm, cattle and equipment, up for sale and declared bankruptcy. I vaguely remember this and believe it was before I started school. Then he bought a grocery store in Gouda which didn’t work out too well. Tactless, impatient, blunt and opinionated were not the right qualities for a shopkeeper. I don’t know what he did then but a few years after the war he suddenly started farming again. He bought or rented a very large farm in Sliedrecht. Nobody could understand how he managed that, but Oom Arie was never short of energy, daring or lack of self-confidence. The farm went very well and is still in the family. About all the children are well to do farmers. They had nine children. The oldest died when she was six years old. The oldest son, Adam, was about 2 ½ years older than me and is the only one I have known well. He was quite different than the rest of the family, quiet, friendly and shy. He died of leukemia at the age of 22, and one baby died at three months of age. Oom Arie died May 7, 1986. At almost 89 years he was the oldest by far. Tante died a few years earlier.

My grandmother later lived in a small house in Stolwijkersluys. I remember that I was there once with my mother and likely I was 5 or 6 years old. Soon after she died, likely at age 79.

When Oom Arie left the farm in the depression years the owner of the farm rented the farm out to his youngest son, Kees van Wijngaarden. The Van Wijngaardens were not Christians, although his youngest son was. He married Lena Gelderblom, a sister of Jan Anker’s mother and Gerrit van der Klocht’s mother. We were almost neighbours. The oldest daughter Corrie was as old as my sister Bep and they were friends. Later Henk van Oom Arie became engaged to her and they later married and took over his father-in-law’s farm and is still farming there. Thus he is now farming at the same place his dad was and which they left when he was a baby. My brother, Henk de Jong, lives a little further down the road. He is also married with a Corrie van Wijngaarden (not related) and he has also taken over his father-in-law’s farm. Then on the farm where Oom Maarten Jan lived, and his son Jan farmed, when we were young, Jan’s son Henk became the farmer so there were three farmers very close together named Henk de Jong, two of them having a wife named Corrie van Wijngaarden. That must have been very confusing for people.