I left home when I was 16 [1921] to serve in a family with 6 children. It was good there. But I was happy when I could go home for a weekend. The people were nice, and I was like one of their own. But after 2 1/2 years I went home again and that whole winter I went on my bicycle to sewing classes. After that one year I worked in Groningen with very classy people. She was a baroness, but there was no end to the work there.

I went home again and then our village doctor asked for help. I served there for four years. On the one hand with pleasure — I got along well with the doctor’s wife and the doctor too was very satisfied with my work. But the two of them didn’t get along — there was another woman. I could write a book about the things I witnessed there. My nerves couldn’t stand it anymore. Both of them confided in me.

Then I went to Amsterdam to serve in a fine Christian family where I felt completely at home, and where I stayed for two very good years. But then the Young Men’s Society of Vlagtwedde visited Amsterdam for one day, and with them were my brother Meindert and Harm van der Laan. When I met them at the station, I thought to myself, what am I doing here with all these city boys. So, just before Christmas I went home again.

In February Harm asked to be my beau. I still know where and when, what he said, and the first kiss. We had known each other for many years but never felt attracted to each other. I was 26 then and Harm 30, thus already quite old, and yet, through circumstances, it would be another three years before we got married. I wanted to earn money and went to Scheemda, to the Boelens family. That was a pleasant family, and I loved it there. Harm came every 14 days and I went home every two weeks.

My sister Ge was born [1922] when I was 18 years old. I was with a family in Loppersum at the time — a family with six children again. They allowed me to go home right away when I got the message, and I was so happy with the little darling. Mother too, and all was well. Berend was then three years old. It was at that time that my parents discovered that he was completely deaf.