Tag: family
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Arnhem, Bach, Bible, church, Easter, family, God, Groningen, Hommes, marriage, organ, school, ship, Winschoten
World War II
Read More: World War IIThe family and its circumstances during WWII Birth How should I begin? Perhaps with my birth in Blyham (NL) on 3 October 1936, as my Mom told me many years later. Could a time be darker, a place be humbler? Hitler tightening his grip on Germany’s people, raucously goading them towards catastrophic war. A small…
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Preface
Read More: PrefaceAutobiographies are a risky genre, they are about the authors as they perceive their life, partial, biased, subjective, egocentric, selective … All true, inevitable, so? This booklet is not the result of any research, of any consultation of others’ documents, not even of my own. It was written in about ten days spread over three…
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Marriage
Read More: MarriageWe were married on March 21st, 1934. All was ready, the beautiful new house for mother and the girls in the village. I had cleaned our house with Tiet’s help — put everything in place. It was a large house, the largest in the row of farms. The windows were very high and it took…
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Pa van der Laan’s Death
Read More: Pa van der Laan’s DeathOn a Wednesday in 1916, Pa van der Laan died suddenly. He had pneumonia and his heart failed. I came from school with Grietje [same age as Dina] — Jan had stayed home because his dad was sick. He met Grietje on her way back from school. Grietje cried so, and thus I came home…
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The van der Laan Family
Read More: The van der Laan FamilyI’ll write a little about Harm and his family. I was ten when the van der Laans moved from Zuidlaren to Vlagtwedde. Pa van der Laan was not healthy anymore. He often had pneumonia. They had a small vegetable farm in Zuidlaren and led busy lives. They grew all kinds of vegetables but especially beans…
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Family Life
Read More: Family LifeGenerally speaking, we were all healthy children. Sometimes we were in each other’s hair but we never had big fights. We never went out much. Martje often came to our house when I was home for a weekend. Later she said: I really loved that. She stayed with the school principal, so she lived close…
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Leaving Home
Read More: Leaving HomeBeekhuis Family ~ 1923 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…
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Family Dynamics
Read More: Family DynamicsTrijn had finished school and thus we were both home with mother. Trijn was small and finely built and was close to mother, while I was much closer to my father. That’s why I loved going to the field with him. In the evening Trijn and I sometimes went to the village where we played…
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The Work Begins
Read More: The Work BeginsWhen I was eleven [1916 – now the oldest daughter], my mother suddenly became ill. Her lungs had torn because of lifting things which were too heavy. Mother needed complete bed rest, and I had to leave school to care for her, to cook meals and take care of the youngest children, Meindert and Tiet.…
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1912-01 Jan Stuit to H. Beekhuis
Read More: 1912-01 Jan Stuit to H. BeekhuisJanuary 1912. from Jan Stuit to H. Beekhuis. [writing from Kalamazoo, Michigan at age 17, less than a year after emigrating] Beloved brother and sister, We received the sad tiding of the death of your dear little daughter and our niece, Tietje Beekhuis. I was very shocked by this tiding, because I remembered the wonderful…