Dutch and German Immigrants The Prins Family - Pier 21

The Prins Familyby J. PrinsDutch and GermanImmigrantsMaasdamIntroductionDue to a journal, writing a course at the University, interest shown byRobert and my grandson Terence, and with encouragement from Dini, Ihave decided to write down some of my memories. This journal will coversome of the more interesting events in my life and I divided them up intime periods that were significant to me. I have included a description ofthe families involved and also some stories that Aunts and Uncles havetold to me over the years.1929- 1936The Sohl FamilyJohannes Sohl was born in Germany in 1796. His parents wereCatherine Elizabeth Sohl and Johan Weber. He came to Holland to thetown of Mydrecht and married Cornelia Rynsburg in 1825. Eightchildren were born to them, four daughters and four sons. Several ofthese children died at an early age.The youngest one, a boy named Hartman, was born the fourth of May1838. He had a butcher shop in Mydrecht and was married to JannetjeWestmaas. This marriage was blessed with nine children, six sons andthree daughters. The youngest one, a girl was born after Hartman whopassed away. They told me that he died from an injury he sustained inthe butcher shop that got infected. This left his expecting widow withseven children and a butcher shop to run.My grandfather Sohl was the sixth child and fourth son. I met some ofhis siblings at the farm in Aalsmeer, where Aunt Aal lived. Aunt Kee,married to the dairy farmer Reinier Treur; Uncle Koenraad, who had abutcher shop in Haarlem; and Aunt Ka, the youngest one who lived inIjmuiden.With eight children and a butcher shop, she took on help to run theshop. She eventually married him, Dirk van Smirren, and out of thismarriage five children were born, four daughters and one son. Theoldest one Johanna died at a young age in childbirth of medical

complications. She was Rineke Knorren’s grandmother from her dad’sside. I knew Aunt Anna {drapery store in Ijmuiden}, Aunt Jannie {nursein Friesland}, Aunt Sien and Uncle Gerrit, who inherited the butchershop in Mydrecht.The Boon FamilyThe Boon family, living in De Hoorn, actually should have been namedKrynen. The Boon name likely originated because the patriarch JanAryenz Krynen married a women Jacobs Boon in 1693, a daughter ofJacob Willemz Boon living in Oosterend. Their son, according to oldTexel tradition was named after his grandfather of his mother’s sideJacob Boon. However, he died at a young age.A son born out of the second marriage of Jan Aryenz Krynen was namedafter his late half-brother Jacob Janz Boon. After him, the fourthgeneration brought Pieter Jacobz Boon, married Gysje Klaas Kind.In the 1800’s one of these families moved to Den Helder to make a livingas a harbour pilot. Pieter Jacobz Boon, being a grocer, came back toTexel to the town of Den Burg, the island of his forefathers. This musthave happened in the last half of 1800; Oma was born upon the island in1878. The family moved to the new growing town of Ijmuiden with manyother folks from Vlaardingen, Katwijk, Egmond and many other places,probably in the late 1800s or 1900s.Our of the marriage of Pieter Jacobz Boon and Gysje Klaas Kind wereborn eleven children, four daughters and seven sons. As a young boy Ihave seen my great-grandmother, then beside my grandmother of course.I have also met Uncle Klaas, who was known as Uncle Nick when he livedin the United States.Then Uncle Jan Boon, who ran the grocery store in the Oranjestraat andafter the war a store in the Kennemerlaan, as the other store and most ofthe Oranjestraat was torn down during the latter part of the war. After anumber of years he retired and the grocery store was closed.Memories of Jennie and Annie SohlWhen Pieter Boon moved with his family from the island of Texel toIjmuiden, it was only a small town. He started a grocery store in one, atthat time, of the main streets, named after the man who named thetown, the Visseringstraat. It was a narrow and, for that day and age, abig store. Pretty soon, because of the fish storage warehouses there werea lot of rats around. These pests spread out to other storage spaces, theone from Boon included. There was only one solution to this problem

and Willem the youngest son provided it. At night he looked fro acomfortable place where he could observe the entrance door. As soon asthe rat shoved its head between the door and the doorsill, a well-placedgunshot took care of it. Many shots were heard during the night andPieter made sure everything was cleared and cleaned up before the firstcustomer arrived.The customers were many and they came early, small town Ijmuiden wasa early riser. The customer was king the whole family Boon was ready toserve them. When somebody came for two pennies worth of bleach, thensomebody had to go to the storage room in the Prins Hendrikstraat. Eventheir son Jan, when he took the place of his retired parents, thought itwas quite normal, that he had to make a trip for two pennies worth ofmerchandise.One of the daughters of Pieter, Geertruida, was always looking forward tothe arrival of the baker’s helper to deliver fresh-baked bread. It didn’ttake too long too develop a liking for each other and they got married.Opa Sohl first had a store in the President Krugerstraat named 'TheFuture', close to a dairy store, run by De Bie, the fattest man in town.When Sohl bought the store, owned by Mr. Sohl, the business was movedto the corner of the Bloemstraat and the Keizer Wilhelmstraat.He attracted customers from all over for his pastries and cookies. Hehad special recipes, which he kept a close secret; when he and otherbakers started the Central 'Baker' he transferred his recipes to them.He moved his store to the Oranjestraat, where he sold Central Bakeryproducts. After a while he closed the store and the family moved to aprivate house in the Kennemelaan. This house was close to the tavernThe Kennemerhof where the soccer club Stormvogels congregated aftereach soccer match. This house had a garden in the back, in the chickencoop a rooster and a flock of chickens. Later they moved again, this timeto the Bloemstraat, where they lived until 1942. They were evacuatedand never lived in Ijmuiden again. Both are buried in the town ofUtercht.The children came, the playroom for them was provided in empty eggboxes. Healthy children, physician Rommeling said, one of Ijmuiden’sfirst physicians; he didn’t care about the remarks the common folksmade about the spats he was wearing. He was seen as a distinguishedperson and he liked it to stay that way in the rough and tumble town ofIjmuiden. But he was nice for children when he held his consultationhour in the Kanaalstraat beside the bakery of Bais.

Jenny went to school with a teacher named Mr. Klap. He was alwaysdressed in black, and when he was outside, wore a slouch hat. Longafter he left his school, it was still named the Klap School. Later, sheattended the evening school at the Willemsplein where she was, taughtby a teacher named Attema (the man with the beard).During this time, the meeting ritual of Ijmuiden’s youth started tointerest her. This consisted of walking a specific route from the HotelAugusta, through the Oranjestraat to Hotel No.1, and then to thebookstore of Snooy in the Kanaalstraat, and from there back again. Theboys went one direction while the girls went the opposite direction soeverybody met everybody and many a match were made that way. "Youdon’t dare to go", Opa Sohl said to Jennie, but she went anyway, togetherwith her younger sister Truus. Quite often if the partners were of adifferent religion, and I am thinking of Anglican and Reformed it wasmore or less the custom that the sons followed the fathers religion andthe daughters their mothers; Roman Catholic usually stuck with theirown.It was always exciting in town, a harbour town with about one tavern forevery ten houses. After an evening of drinking, there was usually a fightsomewhere. The Oranjestraat developed into one of the main shoppingstreets and here in the vicinity was the clothing store of Bottger whereJennie was working. It was here where she was 'discovered' by my dad(her words).Memories of Aunt Bliek-SohlAunt Annie (sister of my mother) told me that Opa Sohl’s first wife wasGreitje Dekker; and they had a son, but mother and child died duringchildbirth. This was never discussed within the family.Later, Opa married Truus Boon (my grandmother). They had fivedaughters and the story goes that my grandfather must have said whenthe fifth child was due to be born at home in the upstairs bedroom - If itis a girl again, they both can stay upstairs”. Of course he wasn’t serious.Opa kepy hoping through that he would get a son.Opa had a bakery and a special secret recipe for baking 'speculaas'cookies. No one, however, knows where this recipe ended up, so it willbe a secret forever.There was no Universal Healthcare Insurance during the 1920’s andwhen Oma needed stomach surgery they had to pay for all the coststhemselves. This was a heavy burden and one of the reasons why Opa

got together with other bakers in the area and they established 'TheCentrale Bakkerij' in Ijmuiden.Aunt Anna, Opa’s stepsister, was not in favour of Opa’s second marriage.She thought Oma was too “uppity”, and she didn’t belong to a church.My aunt Annie stayed at her place when she had scarlet fever.My first mother, Jennie Sohl was aunt Annie’s oldest sister. Aunt Annieremembers that once, when Jennie was interested in a boy who Opa Sohldidn’t think was suitable, he sent her away to stay with his brother inthe country for a while.My dad met my mother in Ijmuiden and in order to talk to her he went toOpa Sohl’s Bakery to buy some cookies because he knew that she washelping in the store.Years later when my parents went through their divorce proceedings, thisof course caused a big upheaval. To Opa divorce was a 'no-no'. Whenmy mother left to live in The Hague, he must have said, 'Her cat she tookalong, her child she left behind'.Some other memories of her I came across which took place in the earlierdays of Ijmuiden. In the summer time going to the beach, you went withJake Across. His real name was Jake Visser, a very popular man as heferried us across the harbour. Mother gave us two pennies, one to goand one to come back. I lost many shovels on the crossings, because Ihelped to row the sloop.Another memory was the local cinema owned by Mr. List. It was situatedabove the tavern 'The Cycloop', accessible by a narrow and steepstairway. The tickets for the silent movie were twenty-five pennies. Themovie story was told by Mr. List and embellished with the appropriatesounds. For years the theatre company Varia existed in Ijmuiden; theplays were performed in the Thalia, with a dance after the play in the hallbeside the theatre.Before the move to their second location in the Kennemerlaan close tothe Koster tavern, they lived close to the Prins family in theKennemerlaan. Aunt Annie, together with her other sisters and my dad,was in a car accident. This happened on a foggy evening in Velsen whenthey returned home after an evening on the town. Aunt Truus had aconcussion and stayed in the hospital for a while. My mother had to stayfor a few days; as soon as she woke up the first thing she asked for was ahand mirror and a comb! She was then 25 years old so the accidentmust have happened between February 1933 and March 1934.

Aunt Annie went with Aunt Jo to Amsterdam to celebrate QueenWilhelmina’s birthday on August 31. Here she met her future husband,Uncle Jacques. Slowly a relationship developed with weekend visits, oneweekend un Ijmuiden, the other weekend in Amsterdam (knowing Oma,she must have things checked out before she gave her permission forthose visits). When saying goodnight to each other upstairs, you couldn’ttake too long, otherwise Opa would be standing at the bottom of stairswarning you that that was enough smooching for one night!Memories of Uncle Klass de WitThese are some of the memories of Uncle Klaas, as told to me at a visitwe had with him on Thursday November 2, 2000, printed with hispermission.As I noticed when looking at his family papers, first names were kept andgiven to the next generation. Klaas being the name of his grandfatherfathers side; Grietje being the name of the grandmother mothers side.His parents lived in Sliedrecht, a town in the vicinity of Rotterdam wherehis dad had a wallpapering and painting business. He was born there,the third one of four children. However, the first child, his oldest sister,Grietje, died at the young age of ten years, when Uncle Klaas was sevenyears old. The second child, a boy named Klaas lived for a few weeksonly. His youngest sister, the fourth child, Griejte Janna, was born whenhe was ten years old.His oldest sister then, suffering from cancer, was treated and cared for inthe Anthony van Leeuwenhoek hospital in Amsterdam, known for itstreatment of cancer patients. Without Medicare, this hospitalizationplaced a heavy burden upon his parents; beside the financial costs it wasat that day and age very time-consuming for his dad to visit hisdaughter, but often he went there. His dad’s brother lived in Ijmuidenand he, as it was easier for him to go to Amsterdam, went to visit as well.In the end his dad was forced to give-up his business in Sliedrecht andhe and his family moved to Ijmuidenm where his brother, being themanager of the gas and water department, had a job for him. They livedin the Lagerstraat, Velserduinweg and in their later years in theVissershuis in the Rijnstraat.The elementary school he attended was school D. This is the oneadjacent to the sports field of the high school he later attended. The highschool days came from 1928 til 1933, in the middle of the depressionyears. Money was scarce so Uncle Klaas had to make sure his averagegrades were a seven or better to obtain assistance in the purchase of

school supplies. Even so, some supplies were not covered and he is stillgrateful that his parents were able to support him.In later years Klaar and Leni and still later I myself attended the samehigh school. We also had some of the same teachers! Especially theteachers with a nickname come to mind:- The Dutch language teacher Mr. Duinker (Buikie)- The physics teacher Mr. Groosmuller (de pyp)- The gymnastic teacher Mr. Duverge (de aap)- The principal Dr. Spruyt- The arts teacher Mr. Calkoen- The biology teacher Mr. Broekens- The chemistry teacher Mr. De Lange- The physics teacher Mr. Groosmuller. During one of his lectureshe said, “I don’t mind if you go to sleep, next year I will teach exactly thesame’!- The gymnastic teacher Mr. Duverge. He used his tambourine toconduct the rhythmic gymnastics for his pupils. If the weather cooperatedfield hockey was played instead of the favoured game of soccer.A special figure was Dr. Haje, who was teaching in high school, whenUncle Klaas and Klaar and Leni attended. He was a rather small personwith the remainder of his breakfast or lunch in his mustachio or uponhis jacket. When he gave a written test, he used to look through a holein the newspaper he was reading, to spot if anybody was cheating! Whencoming back to school after a sickness, everybody noticed his washedand clean appearance; his wife had made sure that he had taken a bath,apparently not a daily occurrence!The funeral of a jewish teacher in the Muiderberg cemetery was attendedby a delegation of the high school students, Uncle Klaas being one ofthem. One of the students could use his dad’s car and so they went toMuiderberg. None of the students had a head cover with them, requiredat a Jewish funeral. Instead, each of them knotted the four corners oftheir handkerchief and used them that way as a head cover!Dr. Haje attended as well, singing loudly with the music and when theceremonial amount of earth was deposited upon the coffin, he wasmoving shovels, full as if he wanted to fill the grave himself.Other memories of the high school:During a field hockey practice, one of the players missed a shot, but hedidn’t miss Uncle Klaas’ jaw. Off to the hospital to have it looked at. Theattending physician introduced himself as Dr. Kuier (de K van koe en de

est wat er onder aan hangt (Dutch joke)). He attended to him but forgotto look for a lost tooth, one that had lodged inside his cheek under hiseye. Next day back to have that removed.Once during a hands-on chemistry lesson he lent a retort to a fellowstudent. He got the retort back “clean”. When he went to the storeroomto get a volume of nitric acid an explosion followed! No wonder, the socalled“clean” retort contained a film of alcohol! Of to the hospital againfor a treatment with a weak lime solution.It was toward the end of his high school days in 1932 that he took dancelessons and “discovered” Aunt Jo. A he told me attracted to her by herattractive lips and her pert nose. The acquaintance developed into a tenyearengagement and a long lasting marriage. There were long walks tothe harbours and the beach; Aunt Jo meeting him half way when UncleKlaas came back from his job at the steelworks. Aunt Jo worked as asales person in a fancy handwork shop and later on at the V D store inHaarlem, at that time one of the biggest stores in town. Quite often whengoing home either on the bike or by train, depending upon the weather,she had dinner at Uncle Klaas his home, before proceeding home.But most of the time Uncle Klaas would be at the Sohl family, where themood was a bit freer with more people around the house. Oma beingbusy with providing the food, often soup and sandwiches, while Opa satin his chair, listening to the radio and smoking his pipe. As another sonin-lawcharacterized him as a rather quite person in the household. Hereis where Uncle Klaas met my dad the odd time, when he came there topick me up. According to the Sohl family’s impression, my dad was aconservative and jealous man (looks like to me for a good reason) and notan easy man to live with.Jennie met Hr. Gritters during a personnel evening of the CentralBakery, where he was employed as a bookkeeper. A relationshipdeveloped between them: if the little window to the entrance door to thehouse in the Fazantenstraat was open, he was welcome to come insidebut if the window was closed there was no visiting. To the oldergeneration a divorce was frowned upon, so she didn’t get much supportfrom her sisters Annie and Truus either.When Jennie took up residence in the Hague, Oma went to visit her andinsisted upon a decision of her, one man or the other but not two of themat the same time! Residing in the Hague, she took up dressmaking, gotseveral design jobs with the Masonic Lodge and other private contracts.Hr. Gritters was a nice man, but not one to take strong action and thatprobably suited her better.

After Uncle Klaas finished his five-year stint at the high school, he wentlooking for a job, as a further study in the technical direction was toocostly. He obtained a job to start as a volunteer at the Steelworks, ashimself paying five guilders a month to cover his social insurance etc. Atthe start of his employment, the air quality at the site proved to be thesource of severe headaches. His supervisor told him to get over it,otherwise there was no job for him. Walks in the fresh air during lunchhour, away from the plant, brought the needed relief.As the physics side of the plant control department was to his liking andagreed with his capabilities, there is where he worked. He worked therewith some German engineers to start, but when Dutch engineers weresufficiently trained, they took over when there was a position open.IN 1938 he changed jobs and started working for the B P M inAmsterdam; BPM being a part of the Shell Company. This job lasted tillsometime in 1942, when forced transfers to the oil refineries in Romaniawere a strong possibility. To avoid this situation he changed jobs andworked for the gas department in Amsterdam, which job lasted till hisretirement as a supervisor of the southern gas plant.Towards the end of 1942, the western part of Ijmuiden was evacuatedand Opa and Oma Sohl left Ijmuiden, never to live there again. AuntTruus, who was the only one living at home at the time, didn’t move withthem but for her own reason took a room in the town of Purmerend.Opa and Oma moved to stay with Opa’s oldest sister Kee, who lived upona farm near Waverveen. After a while they moved to Amsterdam to staywith Aunt Jo and Uncle Klaas, who were married by that time. After thewar Opa and Oma moved to the city of Utrecht and they stayed at theOude Gracht 305.After Uncle Klaas took the job in Amsterdam and being married, theyneeded a place to stay. A third floor apartment was found at the DaCosta Kade right above a tavern. The former occupants, two Jewishladies had been deported to Germany and the apartment cleaned out.Uncle Klaas and Aunt Jo were not comfortable with that fact. But notoccupying it wouldn’t change facts either. Apparently it was not a verybig apartment because when their daughter Maryke was born, she hadher crib upon the landing.His job was measuring and controlling the gas production, organized asshift work. So many statutory holiday, was spent working on the toptanks. When promoted to supervisor they moved to the south side plant,where they lived in the official plant residence till retirement.

During the war Uncle Klaas had two unpleasant “meetings” with theGerman occupying forces.The first one came when commuting by train between Ijmuidenand Amsterdam.One day coming home, during rush hour, the train was quite crowded,when he was pushed from behind; he reacted, but to his chagrin it was aGerman officer who had done the pushing. The officer then proceeded toremove him from the train. As he didn’t want to miss his train, he movedfurther down the platform and entered the train again. At his enddestination he stepped off. When he looked at the departing train, hesaw the officer glaring at him. This caused him to wave a friendlygoodbye. Needless to say he followed a different timetable to go home thenext few weeks.The second encounter came while living in Amsterdam. When he wasbiking to somewhere, two German Policeman stopped him and demandedto see his ID card. Now every Dutch person over the age of 15 years hadto have an ID card; the Jews had an ID card also, but they had theadditional letter J stamped in it. Beside that they were required to wear,visibly, the yellow star, of David. Now there were two reasons why hewas nervous about an ID control.When they moved in their apartment upon the Da Costa Kade he foundinside a closet a small container with some knick-knacks and a yellowstar, of David! He put the star, not thinking very clearly, in hispocketbook.As his ID card was a bit smudged, it looked like if it had had a J in there,but had been removed. Not true of course, but it made for anuncomfortable, a sweaty situation.After the war was over, circumstances improved and holidays withJennie and her husband were organized to the eastern part of Hollandand later on when he had his own car and some longer holidays, tripswere organized to Italy. One week to travel to Italy by car and the two ofthem, two weeks together with The Hague, and one week to travel backhome. And every year a different city was visited. This arrangementlasted for quite a few years, but later Aunt Jo and Uncle Klaas went theirown way.My Earliest Memories

My earliest memories go back prior to Grade 1. My father, first motherand I lived in the Houtmanstraat across from the water tower. My dad,being a mate in the merchant marine, was away for two months at a timeand then stayed home for two or three days, and gone again. The fewdays he was home were always special for me. In his earlier sailing dayshe quite often went to Africa and brought back some unique souvenirs.One is a hand hammered copper wallboard (destined for Philipeventually). Aunt Annie in Holland has one also. We also have a woodenbench carved in the shape of an elephant, here now in our house.During the depression in the 1930s many ships were taken out of serviceand many men lost their job or were demoted in their ranking. My dadwent from first mate to third mate again.Two things stand out in my memories of living in the Houtmanstraat,first a neighbour girl and I watching my mother washing her stockings inthe kitchen sink. The second one is the family Krab, who were livingright beside us. I sure didn’t like her because she always mentioned tomy mother that there was something wrong with my tonsils and she feltthey should come out. (As a matter of fact I still have them!)Our next home was in the Fazantenlaan, the railway tracks across fromour house. Someone there gave me a couple of pigeons; they didn’t staytoo long because my mother objected. I can still see how a sunbeamshone through the half-closed curtains and how amazed I was seeing somany dust particles floating in the beam.There was in the living room a closet, where I like to play; I had a light,table and little chair in there. I don’t remember what I did there as itwas prior to being in grade one and I don’t think I could either read orwrite at that time.Memories of Parents’ DivorceWhen I was five or six years old, my parents were going through divorceproceedings, but I wasn’t aware of it at that time. It probably explains,however, why I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ Sohl place. As ismentioned already, Opa Sohl was a baker. In one of the books I have ofIjmuiden “Van gat tot stad” by J V Baarsel, are some pictures relating tohis business (page 100 & 129). He always left home early; when finishedhad a shave at the barbershop of Mus and than came home to eat hishot lunch. I often sat beside him and he always shared some tid-bitswith me, much to Oma’s chagrin. He was a gentle man, didn’t say allthat much (wife and five daughters) but when he said something it wasright to the point.

That my Oma wasn’t Opa’s first wife I only learned later on the farm inAalsmeer where his full sister Aal lived. When I was old enough to gothere by myself, I spent many summers on that farm! Oma didn’t belongto any church and had some “uppity” notions that didn’t sit too well withOpa’s family. All of his family were, staunch church- goers.She loved to read a certain series of Harlequin romances, describing thelives and adventures of the so-called upper class. She used to taketheses stories quite seriously and said “These people live in a swamp ofimmortality”. Oma also had some particular sayings. For example, onSundays she arranged a brunch style buffet and called this a walkingsandwich or a sandwich out of the hand. Oma wasn’t one of myfavourite persons but Opa I really liked. I might as well because I seemto look a bit like him and share some of his sense of quick wit.On Sunday s in the late afternoon Opa used to listen to a radio-playcalled “Oom Keessie” (Uncle Casey). One time, Opa thought that the oldguy was pretty smart when he attached a full can of paint with a smallhole in the bottom to a car he wanted to follow.Oma Boon, Oma’s mother, used to live upstairs in the front room of theirhouse. I was scared of her because she was always dressed in black andnever smiled. I stayed out of her way whenever possible.Of course my parents divorce affected me greatly, consciously andunconsciously I imagine. A few things stand out in my mind I see mydad and my mother talking in the living room. He is sitting on a chairand she is cleaning the floor. He is crying and asks her if she wants tostay together, but she says she doesn’t want to (she was already involvedwither her future 2nd husband). Another time my dad and Opa JacobPrins (after who I am named) were in the living room discussingsomething. I suppose it was the upcoming divorce. This was the firsttime I ever saw Opa Prins at our house. A pile of, clean dishes were onthe living room table and my dad used the top plate as an ashtray.Before the divorce, my parents and I visited the farm in Aalsmeer whereAunt Aal and Uncle Willem lived. Aunt Aal was Opa Sohl’s sister andconsequently my mother’s Aunt, but after the divorce she, Aunt Aal,never talked to my mother again! This first visit to the farm was followedby many more over the years and the “polder” has had an importantinfluence upon my life.1936-1941Family Prins

Memories of my Aunt Nel Traa-PrinsAunt Nel remembers visits of her grandparents to the house they lived inthen at the Wilhelmina Kade. When this house was built, a first stonewas cemented in with my dad’s name Philip engraved on it. This househowever was torn down during the last part of the war and the stone wasnever found again. She told me that my great-grandfather was a rathersmall man (see later Uncle Phil’s remarks) and his wife, my greatgrandmothera tall slim women who dressed in black and always broughta chocolate bar along. My great-grandfather on Oma’s side was a smallstocky man who lived in the Prins Hendrik institution in Egmond.She mentioned that Oma’s only brother Klaar, who never got married,courted a widow named Ditje for a while. She owned a small store, butthe relationship did not last evidently.The day my dad passed away, someone came to the “Rommel house” inBeverwijk. Where Opa, Oma & family had to move to during theevacuation of Ijmuiden, to bring the bad news. Aunt Nel was the onewho had to tell my grandparents what had happened to my dad.The Prins Hendrik institution was a home where people came to live oncetheir spouse had died and they were not able to care for themselves anymore (an old age home). Either that or the financial situation was suchthat they couldn’t afford to be independent and stay in their own house.When they were living in the house at the Wilhelmina Kade, she knewOpa’s parents as well as Oma’s parents. Not much recollection anymoreof Oma’s parents as the mother died at a relatively young age, but sheremembers her grandfather as a stocky man, black curly hair and blueeyes.They moved to Kennemerlaan 7 in 1916, when Uncle Jack was a baby ofsix weeks old. Later on, Aunt Greet and Klaar were born. When goingfor a walk, Aunt Greet was in a cane baby carriage and Klaar after thatin a blue coloured one.The so-called office was originally planned and used as such, but it soonbecame a room to play in and dry the wash in the wintertime.The general custom those days were that the boys were to study, the girlsstayed home and got married. (Aunt Greet, as the youngest one, was theexception as she went beyond elementary school).

Aunt Nel stayed home to do all the sewing for the family. Her workspacewas the landing, with a skylight providing the light. Reading books orplaying the piano was done for relaxation but no games were played.Once she made a costume for one of her sisters. While that work wasnot done for a wage, the sister gave her a gift of a small cup and saucerwith the explanation that too much coffee wasn’t good for her healthanyway; that’s why the small cup. The cup and saucer disappeared onthe wastebasket. When she did sewing for her sisters or herself, Omathought that the clothing she made for herself was always fancier andhad nicer finishing touches. When my dad, after his divorce, came homefrom a two- month voyage, she looked after all the clothing what had tobe mended.To get away from it all, she and her girlfriend had arranged as a pair togo to England to see some more of the world. However, Oma refused togive her consent and Aunt Nel had to stay home. According to Aunt Nel,Oma was fairly strict and didn’t leave very much to decide for the girlswho were living at home. But Opa did his best and took her out toGerzon to buy clothes and finished with a meal at Krasnapolsky, therestaurant in Amsterdam.The arrangements of bedrooms was ususual and actually impractical asthe bedroom of Aunt Nel & Aunt Lena could be reached only through thebalcony bedroom, where my dad and I slept, or if my dad was at sea,Uncle Jack. One time when my dad was grumbling to Oma about thetraffic through the room, she said “ Well, you better get married again”,to which he answered, “I don’t want to sell myself for a small room”!When I came to stay, she thought I was a nice boy and not much trouble(still till this day)!After the yearly spring, house cleaning, the stove in the living room wasremoved till fall came. It didn’t matter how miserable the weatherbecame after the cleaning session. The house cleaning didn’t do muchfor the dog Limmie, as he crawled under the kitchen stove anyway! Themystery of his name was explained as follows: my dad, on one hisvoyages upon the freighter “Limburgia”, brought him home as a gift andhe got the shortened name of the Limburgia.She met Uncle Theo, serving in the army, at the house of her girlfriendJo Prins, where he visited once in a while. The first time I saw him wasright after the five war days in May 1940, when he came at the front doorto talk to Aunt Nel. He had small red eyes as he didn’t sleep for threedays and he didn’t come any father than the front hall. Most visitorsdidn’t either!

He came to stay with the Prins household during the War Aunt Nelthought that was rather bold of him. She was in no hurry to marry him,but he was a good and nice guy. That is why she decided to marry himin 1945, after the war.The sheep story is mentioned in Klaar’s memoirs. The share for thefamily was a bowl of headcheese, devoured by one or other cat.After Oma passed away in February 1949, someone was needed to runthe household. Aunt Ali and Uncle Cor decided that Aunt Lena shouldgive up her nursing career and come back home. That is whathappened.My own observations of my grandparents are as follows:Looking back at my grandparents after the interviews with AuntNel and Klaar, IThink they were a bit different then I saw them. Oma comesacross as the domineering one and Opa the one softer at heart.Opa Prins never told me what to do when you needed advice for aproblem. He always admonished you to weigh the pros and cons andyou yourself made the decision on what to do. Not that he didn’t have anopinion about it, but I have in my case, never had a decision imposedupon me.Memories of Uncle Jack PrinsUncle Jack was sick quite often when he was young and they thought hewouldn’t live very long. Those days there was still a lot of traffic by horseand buggy (milkman, grocer, baker etc.) and it was the custom that thetown would spread sand on the road in the vicinity of the house where aseverely ill person was cared for. (In those days a hospital stay wasusually reserved for medical operations or terminal cases). This sandspreading would dampen the noise the wagon wheels made rolling overthe brick road. According to Uncle Jack this also happened once whenhe was very ill and he still remembered that they asked him what heliked best to eat to which he answered “whipping cream” and then fellasleep. When he woke up, there was only an empty dish; the whippingcream was gone! Uncle Jack always figured that his brother Antoon wasthe culprit. Uncle Jack did live, started a very successful businessbuilding cranes etc., married, had three daughters and died at the age of73.Memories of Klaar Prins

In the early days, fishing was done with flat-bottomed boats they wereable to beach. Short trips were made of about a week in duration.Caught fish were kept alive in so called “buns” or salted and preserved inthat way. When they arrived at the beach, the fish were sold to thebuyers who took them from there to the outlying towns for distributionand re-sale. Later on when IJmuiden came into being, botters were usedand after that trawlers.Sometimes competition came from the catches of English fisherman whobrought their harvest in by freighter. This of course was not much to theliking of the local fishermen, as it tended to lower the prices. TheEgmonder people took matters into their own hands by throwing the'English' fish back into the sea. This act brought in the federal policeforce, the Marechaussee, trying to prevent this unlawful deed. Fightserupted and one of my great-grandfathers, Teunis Zwart, bashed one ofhis wooden shoes on the head of one of the policemen. He was convictedand spent three months in jail in the town of Breda.The first fish auction market was a private one, located close to theoriginal locks. Later on after the fishing harbour was dug, thegovernment run auction market was established there, and all thefishing boats moved into that harbour.Opa Prins, when he was an active fisherman, was master upon one of thetrawlers, owned by the grandfather of Uncle Dirk de Groot.Fishing with the dragnets was usually done from one side of the trawler.The other side was kept as a spare, in case there were repairs to be madeto the used net. After a fishing period of approximately four hours, thehaul was dumped into compartments on the ship’s deck, processed andsorted. The mate handled the steam winch to pull in the net. It was hisjob as well to insure a proper storing and icing of the catch.The warehouse at the Haringstraat was purchased when the Praxis hadplans to expand into the fishery with herring nets, but those plans werenever realized.Klaar still remembers the day my dad and mother came to theKennemerlaan to ask for permission to get married, as was the customthose days. This took place in the stateroom, my mother crying. Omawasn’t impressed but she did the answering. Apparently the answer wasyes and they got married.From his early childhood, Klaar spent time at Aunt Antje’s place having afull cousin Jack v d Kuil, as a playmate. One time, the v d Kuil familywas sitting around the kitchen table while Klaar hid under the table.

Two sons, Joe and Kippie, were arguing in a rather forceful way. WhenAunt Antje got tired of it, she warned them that she would tell theirguardian about it, their guardian being Uncle Jaap, Klaar’s dad. Theanswer to that warning was "he can go and fly a kite", to which Klaarappeared like a jack out of a box from under the table to yell at them thatthey couldn’t talk about his dad like that.During the depression years, canned hamburger was supplied for aminimal charge of twenty-five pennies a can. When heated in thescullery without removing the top, it had predictable results. The canexploded, all the hamburger pasted to walls and ceiling and a pitifulamount of metal left of what used to be the can. Later when in highschool, many an evening was spent with friends (Jack vd Kuil, JanWoudenberg and others) in front of Aunt Antje’s house, to discussmatters important to them and watch the traffic go by.Contact with Leni was kept and many a beach meeting (half way?) wasarranged. Later on when the beach became a restricted area, they met ather home, and after the big razzia in Velsen-Noord, the visits went viceversa.Uncle Klaar originally had room and board with the shore-skipper of thePraxis fleet, but Oma re-arranged that and her brother came to stay withthem. One of the benefits of having him live there was that when UncleJack was looking for a job and needed to dress up, he could borrowUncle Klaar’s nice shiny shoes. Apparently this happened quite often.Aunt Albertje, one of Oma’s other sisters, was lining in Egmond as awidow and ran a clothes store to make a living (no government supportthose days!) Apparently she was quite a business women. One day theempty freighter 'Kerkplein' left Ijmuiden to sail to Rotterdam during aheavy SW storm. The ship ended up at the beach near Egmond, with thecrew high and dry.A distress signal went out to Ijmuiden where the older tugboat 'Drente'was stationed, to attempt to pull the 'Kerkplein' off the beach. UncleAntoon went on his bike with his brother Klaar on the luggage carrier, towatch the departure of the 'Drente' which was moored near the southerncanal locks. The tugboat crew asked Uncle Antoon if he wanted to comealong but he declined because he had his 'little' (ten year old) brotherwith him! Klaar thought it just an excuse and the matter was that hedidn’t dare to go. The 'Drente' departed but ran into trouble close toEgmond when the pulling cable became snatched in the screw and theydrifted onto the beach where the crew was rescued, wet and cold.Blankets were supplied by guess who? It was Aunt Albertje, who made atidy profit! The next day Uncle Jack and Klaar went by bike to Egmond

to have a look at the two beached ships. Apparently they weren’t theonly ones who had that idea! Eventually the 'Kerkplein' was floatedagain, but the tugboat was cut up for scrap at her last resting place.When the war started, one of Opa’s trawlers was at sea and was orderedto go to England, where she went fishing for the duration of the war.Among the trawlers directed to England was the IJM 26 Caroline withSkipper Albert 'Stokkie' de Graaf. He was Aunt Arendje’s dad. Histrawler was one of a number of trawlers that was, after modifications,used as a minesweeper on the west coast of England. On the 21st ofApril 1941 a mine exploded under his hip killing the complete crew. Heand his men are buried in Milford Haven, England.Sometime during the war a sloop was purchased and rebuilt as a fishingvessel. A cabin was installed as well as a Chevrolet gasoline motorcomplete with wooden enclosure and exhaust. And of course thenecessary fishing gear. Uncle Theo, being the mechanic, was working onthe motor, cigarette in his mouth, when the gasoline fumes ignited. Thefollowing explosion blew the engine enclosure in the water. Uncle Theo’sface was blackened but the cigarette was still in his mouth. The onlything he said was "god-monde ju".The partners to provide the purchase money were Dirk de Groot, CorPrins, Uncle Klaar and Phil Prins. After a while however Uncle Klaartook his money out. The crew consisted of a hired skipper, K Gouda,Uncle Theo as machinist and Klaar as deckhand.The first fishing forays were for shrimp. They sailed the vessel throughthe canals in North Holland to Den Helder. Once, with Uncle Dirk at thehelm (an experienced captain!), they were following another vessel (theydidn’t know it was a flat-bottomed one) and the boat was grounded upona shoal. Klaar went down to his underwear and walked a line andanchor out to deep water, after which the boat winched itself across theshoal. The locked harbour of Den Oever had to be warned that they werecoming in late, so the chain could be lowered for them to enter.Later on they finished out of Ijmuiden under the coast as far asCallantsoog and back; plenty of fish out no chance to escape to Englandas they and other boats were closely guarded by German patrol boats.When in harbour, the boat was moored in the eastern part of theharbour where all the spilled oil accumulated on the water surface.During one air raid, this oil started to burn and the fire destroyed theboat along with others. Even the copper bell that Klaar wanted salvagelater was melted to a clump of metal.

Klaar came along with my dad to assist him in the compass setting of thedifferent ships. Once during such an occasion, there was an air raid andsome uncomfortable moments on board; one of the German sailorswanted to start shooting when the captain said "No. No. Don’t draw anyattention to our boat!" After that occasion, my dad didn’t want Klaaralong any more and this was the last time he assisted my dad.Sometime during the was my dad arranged with a higher-up of theschnellboot bunker, Mende, to buy a sheep. Uncle Theo and Klaar werethe ones to catch that animal and butcher it. When they arrived at thebunker and asked were it was, they were told to look around in thedunes, it was somewhere around. This of course was a risky business asthe coast area was restricted and strictly forbidden for civilians. Butthey went, looking everywhere till all of a sudden, looking over the top ofa dune, they came upon an antiaircraft position. They were quicklyapprehended by two armed soldiers who thought they were spies. Theywere marched to the commando post in the former Salvation Armybuilding in the Edisonstraat where they were held for a while. The off tothe police station in the Briniostraat, accompanied by two Grune polizei.When asked what they were in for, Klaar said "I am not guilty". "Yes.Yes." Was the answer, "They all say that". In the meantime, my dad gotinformed of what had happened and he straightened things out with helpof Mende. Apparently they were two hours away of being transported tothe Euterpestraat in Amsterdam, the Gestapo headquarters.But they went for the sheep again and this time was successful. It was aram and if you knew the Dutch saying "As lean as a ram", this onequalified. Feet bound together, in the pushcart to Opa’s complex at thefishing harbour where it was butchered in a unique way; head upon theanvil. Everyone thought they would get a kitchen full of meat, but beinga lean ram, you can imagine! But they had a fleece, giving need to havea spinning wheel. Some lumber was 'organized' from the neighbouringcarpenter shop, a small lathe was put together from old bicycle parts anda spinning wheel was born, thanks to Uncle Theo’s efforts.Klaar was twice 'involved' with a razzia. The first time was in theGeelvinkstraat when police lieutenant Ritman was assassinated by theDutch underground. The other time was in Haarlem, when he was inhiding at Leni’s home. There was a big razzia for labourers to be sent toGermany to work there in the factories. The Grune polizei came tosearch the house. Klaar was hiding in the attic, but as there were notmany supporting beams in the ceiling of the room underneath, each timehe moved plaster came falling down upon the bedcovers. His futurefather-in-law, a plumber by trade, had a water closet, complete withfittings, installed in front of the attic entrance. One soldier stayeddownstairs, the other one went upstairs to look, but he was so crowded

y Leni’s mother, that he didn’t have much chance for a serious search.They left empty-handed.In that house they had in the living room a round table with storagespace underneath the main surface; that is where they hid the leaflets,secretly printed and distributed by the underground movement. Klaarwas living there when Aunt Greet came to tell him that my father wasmissing and presumably killed.Another of the brothers, Uncle Antoon, went into hiding when there wasa certain possibility of being sent to Germany. He went into hiding in thetown of Koedyk, somewhere north of the town of Alkmaar. He lived therewith a Roman-Catholic family, until one day the pastor came for a visitand wanted to know of which faith he was. As it was not Roman-Catholic, the pastor felt it was better if he moved on. Later on, withanother family, he was captured and put on transport to Amsterdam,final destination Germany. When walking in the column with the otherapprehended men, he saw a chance to escape. When the accompanyingguards were not watching too closely, he jumped out of the column towalk arm in arm with a complete strange girl who was passing by! Thecolumn went one way and they went the other way.Sometimes family members have different loyalties during a conflict likethis was. Uncle Jo Neervoort, married to Aunt Lies, was a goodbusinessman, but a member of the NSB and later in the was, a memberof a paramilitary organization. He started to work for Job Gouda andlater started his own preserving business with v d Vaart. After the wasand confinement years, he started again with Jan de Beurs in a buildingsituated behind the Hotel Augusta. His son Joop worked for him for awhile, but that arrangement didn’t last. In his later years afterretirement, when living at the Santpoortse Dreef, he took up th epaintinghobby and sold several of them.Another story about Uncle Klaar:After Oma passed away and Aunt Lena had married Uncle Phil, he wasasked if he wanted a boiled egg. No, I don’t want one. Ah, come on man,take an egg. No, I don’t want one, as far as I am concerned, all chickenscan drop dead!Memories of Uncle Phil PrinsHe remembers my great-grandfather Prins who was nicknamed 'HazegePhillesie' (Philip). He was a small and quick-tempered man. Hazegeprobably comes from the word Haas meaning hare.

In Egmond where they both lived, people still had outhouses and theycovered the contents of their biffies with dead 'bent grass' (grass plantedin the dunes to stop the sand from blowing away). One day when HazegePhillesie was doing this job he cut some green grass, also cut himself andto top it off he got a ticket for cutting the green stuff, because this wasnot allowed. Uncle Phil saw all this and stood there grinning whichwasn’t appreciated by his grandfather and he received a slap around hishead.Grandfather Hazege Phillesie was a fisherman; as a sailor and as amaster he went fishing upon a born (flat-bottomed fishing boat). A threeto four hour walk along the beach was required to get home, arefreshment was needed at arrival in Egmond. This refreshment wasprovided in a small establishment run by a brother-in-law Willem.Entrance through the front door, a few quick drinks of Dutch gin (fivepennies a drink) and out through the back door, homeward bound,where trouble was waiting for him.The house they were living in must have been a small one; it containedtwo cupboard beds. He kissed his wife; she, smelling the liquor on hisbreath, started berating him. Being quick-tempered, he threw his walletwith the remaining money upon the table with the words: "I will nevertouch the stuff again" and exited through the same door he had enteredthe house. According to Uncle Phil this promise was never kept.After his wife died, his youngest daughter, Aunt Henkie, came to live withhim to run the household. When Aunt Henkie and her family moved toIjmuiden, he then took his meals with Uncle Phil’s mother Cornelia, shebeing another daughter. And her kids had better behave, becauseHazege Phillesie’s hands were ready to correct any rowdy behaviour.Uncle Phil’s was experiences were overseas. As he was at sea when thewar started, his ship was directed not to go back to the Netherlands, butto stay under Allied control. He was sailing on a boat of the KNSM in theWest Indies from Suriname and Curacao to New York. Later in the warhe sailed to England unaccompanied but the later voyages were inconvoy. However bad weather or other circumstances could play havocwith the convoy and each ship had to set its own course. After the warthe first oppoutunity he got to come back to Holland was not until 1946,almost a full year after, when he sailed from England to Rotterdam on aboat of the Batavier line. In the 1950’s he was mate upon a whalehunting ship in the South pole seas. This was a six-month trip huntingwhales for the factory ship where the caught whales were processed.When he and Aunt Lena got married, this work phase came to an endand he went back to weekly fishing trips with a small fishing boat.

Memories of Kennemerlaan 7 / Living with Oma & Opa PrinsAfter the divorce of my parents in 1936 I moved with my dad to mygrandparents house at Kennemerlaan 7. This house had the shape of atriangle which gave some of the rooms a most interesting shape. In myeyes the stairway was majestic, painted once a year by Aunt Nel. A signmarked 'we paint' was hung, actually quite unnecessary because of thepaint smell!I don’t remember if I had been at the house before but I surely remembermy first entrée at that time through the front door with my dad. Later Ialways came in through the backdoor and the kitchen.I lived with my grandparents until my dad remarried in August 1941.The first few years he was still in the merchant marine and sailed toSouth America. When I hear the names of Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiroor Buenos Aires, I am reminded of those days. Once in a while he wenton a short trip to Germany (Hamburg or Bremen). A trip to SouthAmerica took approximately 2 months and then only a few days home. Iremember well the welcoming home at the North Sea Canal lock andthen the walk to the railway station to accompany him home. His trunkwas full of clothes, a bushel of green bananas and a boxes with cornedbeef. The bananas disappeared into the basement, never had a chanceto ripen and were never seen again!There was a dog named Limmie (where did they find a name like that?), arather small, white long-haired dog. Sometimes she was put into the tubto be washed. After the bath, she promptly disappeared under the coalfurnace in the kitchen with predictable results.When my dad was home we always went one day to Amsterdam to theCineac (movie theatre) and dinner at Heck’s Restaurant, where we atekale with sausages or pea soup.Early in 1940 my dad got a permanent job in the harbour, adjustingcompasses on fishing boats. On his last trip back from South Americaon either the Eemland or the Zaanland, his ship had to dock in Londonfor inspection of the load, to make sure no strategic materials for theGermans were on board.It was such a sure thing for me to be cared for by my dad’s family, that Inever realized what it must have been like for my grandparents,especially my grandmother, or Oma as I called her, to take care of a sixyearold boy and that for five years.

When I was sick, a few times I had bronchitis, during the daytime I wastransferred to Oma an dOpa’s bedroom because it had the most windowswith a view of the Kennemerlaan and Jacob van Heemskerkstraat.There were lots of people in the household and you never knew who waswhere. I will name them all. First my grandparents, Oma and OpaPrins.Then there was Klaar, the only brother of my grandmother and a dyedthrough the wool bachelor. He was a big help for my Oma as he peeledpotatoes, cleaned and fried fish. When he was thirsty, he drank waterwith a little bit of vinegar. In his younger years, he was Master on one ofOpa’s trawlers (if I am not mistaken he also made a few trips with thePerseus after the war) and he lived off his money earned during thoseyears. He always gave me pocket money (Zondagcent) when I needed itand the Zaanse clock here in Canada (upstairs in the hall) is a gift fromhim.There was a rigid seating arrangement in the kitchen when the noonmeal was served. The table was located, with its short side, against thekitchen window. On the one side in the corner Oma and beside her,when he was home, my father. On the other side in the corner was Opaand beside him the second son, my Uncle Cor. Seated at the short sidewas Klaar. But breakfast and lunch were on a first come, first servebasis. Uncle Cor was an electrical engineer at the Hoogovens and hebecame my guardian after my dad was killed.In the living room during the noon meal were my Aunts Nel, Lena andGreta and the younger Uncles Antoon, Jack and Klaar and I. UncleAntoon got married before the war started to Aunt Aredje. She wasspirited lady and I liked her. She told me that when she was engaged tohim she used to climb upon the roof of her house to wave to Antoonwhen he walked to work. She also had a habit of jumping over thegarden gate which Antoon didn’t quite approve of! She passed away afterthe war of a blood disorder and left him with two young children; theoldest one of my sister’s age.There were two married Aunts, Aunt Ali, married to Dirk de Groot andAunt Lies married to Joe Neervoort; he is the gherkin man as well as afull cousin to my mother.Uncle Cor and Uncle Jack owned a sailboat (The Bestevaer). Often onthe weekends we went sailing on a lake close to Haarlem, 'The Mooie Nel'or on the canal that runs between Ijmuiden and Amsterdam. One timewhen the boat went through the locks I had to push it away from thewall. I was on the boat and Uncle Jack stood on the wall. I pushed too

hard and there I hung suspended between boat and wall. A loud andscared yell alerted Uncle Jack, he grabbed me and pulled me up ontosolid ground. I often went for an overnight stay on the boat with him.In a big family like the Prins’ there are always some people you feel morein tune with than others and I had the most rapport with Uncle Jack.Especially after my dad was killed I relied quite a bit on him when I hadproblems and he really became a second dad to me. He alwaysencouraged me to do things and especially when I thought aboutemigrating to Canada he told me not to be scared. If I didn’t like it orcouldn’t get used to it, I always could come back, there was no dishonourin that!To avoid confusion when one of the Jack’s were wanted I became smallJace (kleine Jack) and Uncle Jack became big Jack (grote Jack). Thisdistinction lasted through the years and finally ended when Uncle Jackpassed away in 1989. I never minded to be called by that name but Kininever liked it.Once, (I don’t know exactly when anymore), Oma and Opa Prins andKlaar (Oma’s only brother) had an argument in the kitchen. To keep itfrom the rest of us, the door from the hallway to the kitchen was closed,but everyone who was home was listening in the hallway, because it wassuch a rare occasion for that to happen. Oma was heard saying to Opa(her husband!) to stay out of it as he was only allied to the family bymarriage!With Opa Prins, I was always intrigued by the way his little right handfinger was bent as a shepherd’s crook. He told me this was the result ofhis fishnet knitting days. An expression, I still use myself once in awhile, comes from Oma Prins; she used to serve custard with blackberryjuice or in her way of pronouncing it in the Egmond dialect 'braamtenat'.Like every child in Holland you were taught to ride the bike at a youngage. The task to teach me fell on Klaar and here we went to theHavenkade in front of the local cemetery. Mounting and dismounting,going fast, going slow, till I mastered the art of riding a bike. Until thisday I still ask myself why he chose to teach me in front of the cemetery!A bit of cemetery history follows.The use of houses to pull the hearse was an old tradition and was basedupon regional customs. These traditions differed from region to regionand depended on the prevailing religion in that region. But one thingwas the same; black horses were used to pull the hearse.

If there were no black horses available, other horses were used, eitherbrown or white ones. But a coloured horse with a black one was notappropriate, people called that 'half-mourning'. In the early days ofIjmuiden, a draycart was used to carry the departed to the cemetery inVelsen. Later a new cemetery was used - the Westerbegraafplaats at theHavenkade. But the approach to the Westerbegraafplaats wasparticularly difficult, as the procession had to go through a deep valley.When the climb to the end-destination started, the accompanyingclergyman was asked to go ahead and stay out of earshot so the drivercould encourage his horses, using language not heard in church, tobring the departed up the hill and to his last resting place.When the roads were built and improved, the valley was spanned by abridge (Julianabrug) and carriages were used.On our free afternoons or holidays, it was exciting to roam around theharbour where all the trawlers and other fishing boats were moored.Uncle Joe (Aunt Lies’ husband) had a business there, preserving herringand gherkins. He was always good for a pickled gherkin. There were lotsof buildings where the herring and mackerel were smoked producing asmell I liked. We used to go to where the small lighthouse was andcollect snails between the basalt blocks left dry by the low tide. Iremember doing this with Sally Whnschenk, a Jewish schoolmate. Heand his family left for England during the 1940 May war days; theyreturned after the liberation.Every Monday morning after school, it was a hurry home to watch theunloading of the pigs and other cattle at the local butcher shop, situatedin the Jacob van Heemskerkastraat, as the practice at that time was tobutcher the needed animals at the butcher-shop itself. The unloading ofthe pigs happened under close supervision of the neighbourhood kids (asa safe distance) and the biggest thrill was to see one escape and theensuing round-up.My attempt at gardening was in a space of 2 by 6 feet in the courtyard,but it never did very well. I suspect Klaar spit too many times in it.The potato-peelings and other leftover edibles were collected weekely bySneekes, who came by with horse and wagon. Once in a while I wasallowed to come along on his travels through town and then to thedunes, where he had his barn which was built into the dunes. The feedwas sorted and fed to his cows, tied in their stalls. I liked to be therewith the light coming through a few small windows and the smell of thecows in the barn. There is nother left of it anymore, as Ijmuidenexpanded and that palce is now a busy through way.

Every year, in the late part of the summer, the greengrocer came by withcrates filled with green and slicing beans. Everyone in sight was enlistedto snip off bean-ends, breaking or slicking beans, after which they weresalted away in wooden barrels and stored in the basement for later use.I also remember the “kant” (quay) and the harbour where the trawlersreturned from their fishing trips. After unloading their catch of fish, theywere pulled to the other side of the harbour, refitted again with ice, coaland victuals (and a few bottles of liquor I suppose), and made readyagain for another fishing trip lasting 10-12 days.Opa Prins, in his earlier days, owned more than then trawlers, butduring and after the depression quite a few were sold for scrap. I stillremember that he had six or seven, but that number had been reducedto two when the war started. His office was located on the quay with awarehouse and a machine shop. Anotehr warehouse close to the otherharbour (The Haringhaven) was destroyed in the war during an Allied airaid.Opa had two employees working in the warehouse fixing fishing nets anddoing other jobs. In the corner of the yard was a liquid tar pit used tosoak the fishing nets. I never found out how deep that pit was but I wasalways scared to fall in and kept my distance. Thinkin gof it now, it stillscares me. When it was quitting time I made sure to be out of thebuilding so I wouldn’t be locked in. There were wonderful objects storedin the warehouse, from lanterns to cork balls and wooden loadingchutes. Uncle Jack once used a chute to make a beach sailing boat, itsure went fast.The two trawlers Opa still owned when the war started were the Perseusand the Penelope. The Penelope was built by Hellyer’s Bros. In 1895 inHull England and was bought by Opa’s company the Praxis in 1911.During the war she stayed in Ijmuiden and started fishing again July 17,1941, under strict control of the German occupying forces. These shipsoften came under attack from the RAF and accidents did happen. ThePenelope left Ijmuiden for the last time on January 31 1942. The nextday she was attacked and sunk. According to the book description,Master Frans van der Kuil (husband of Aunt Antje) perished with hisship but according to Klaar, he survived that attack with a hand wound.The Perseus, built by Welton & Gemmell & Cook in 1897, was bought bythe Praxis in 1911. This ship left Ijmuiden’s harbour on May 8, 1940,with the oldest Master Teun Groen in command. Two days later theGermans invaded Holland and ship and crew fled to England andremained there during the five war years. They continued fishing duringthose years with Fleetwood England becoming their home harbour. After

the war, the Perseus sailed back home to Ijmuiden and was kept fishingfor a few more years. In June of 1951, she was sold for scrap.I have a copy of a painting of two of Opa’s ships, the IJM 44 Plejaden andanother one, easy to recognize by their blue-white flag marking on thesmokestack. Beside the Holland series of ships, the Praxis had shipsnamed after the Greek gods and all started with the name P. A fewnames come to mind like Plejaden, Pan, Pluto, Pollux and then of coursePenelope and Perseus. I have a small wooden model of the Perseus,made by Klaar Prins. He is my Uncle really, but we were so close in agethat I never got around to it to calling him Uncle, I don’t think he minds.In the family video he is the guy you see so bravely trampling throughthe snow.Aunt Antje lived a few houses down the street from Oma, and I went tovisit her quite often to roam upstairs where they had a closet full ofchildren books; names like Kik Trom and Pietje Bell come to mind. Withher son Jan, I practiced my skill with the air rifle, aiming at a target thatwas nailed to the fence.Uncle Antoon played soccer for the 'Stormvogels', at that time a firstdivision club. He was a good player once chosen as a reserve player forthe national Dutch soccer team. Soccer was played every Sundayafternoon except for the summer months. Once a week a game away,next week a home game. When they played at home, he always let mecarry his equipment bag so I would get in for free. After the gameeveryone congregated at home to chew over the game more than once. Apicture of him and the 'Stormvogels' can be found in the book'Nostalgisch Gezicht op Velsen Zuid & Ijmuiden' by Piet de Greef. Acrossfrom Kennemerlaan 7 was a smoke shop where people met whenStormvogels played in another town. As soon as the game was finished,they crowded in front of the shop window and craned their necks to readthe scores which the store proprietor wrote on a blackboard.Often in the evening if the weather was good, kids out of theenighbourhood played in the Jacob van Heemskerkstraat, but when itwas eight o’clock, Oma called me home, gave me a bowl of custard andthen off to bed. Once in bed I could read for a while until she cameupstairs to turn off the light in the bedroom. On Tuesday night therewas a comic entertainment program on the radio from eight till nineo’clock. I liked to listen to that program, but it was off to bed for me. Iused to sneak out of bed, sit on the stairway steps to listen ‘til caughtand then back to bed. Sometimes she gorgot to turn off the light andthen I kept reading until I fell asleep. The light in the hallway alwaysstayed on because I was afraid of fire. The reason for that was probably

that for a long time on my way to school I had to pass by a burned-outgreengrocer’s store and that place smelled awful.Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, if I didn’t play soccer, I wentswimming. I rode my bike to the Velserbad with a dime in my pocket,five cents to park my bike and give cents to buy a ship discuit and washappy as a lark. On the old black & white movie we have you can see meplaying soccer on the old Stormvogels field; it must have been acompetition between the local schools.Once coming back from the beach, I think, Klaar and I tangled up thehandlebars of our bikes with me hitting the pavement and banging upmy head, bleeding like mad and I needed stitches; the scar is there stilltoday. Klaar looked understandably unhappy but he couldn’t help iteither.The farm in Aslsmeer has always played a big part in my life. As Imentioned already, my first visits there were with my parents, but theycontinued once I was living with my grandparents. The first time UncleArie Kramp picked me up at home. He was married to a sister of OpaSohl with another sister of them being Rineke’s grandmother. They livedin IJmuiden in the Keizer Whilhelmstraat and had a furniture an draperystore there. This store was constructed out of two adjoining housesmade into one by opening up the inside wall. In the back of thecourtyard was his workshop where he repaired all kinds of furniture.Most people didn’t have cars yet and everything was delivered bypushcart or on the bike with a huge baggage carrier in the front. UncleArie put me in this carrier and off we went for the two or three hour tripfrom IJmuiden, through Haarlem and the Haarlemmermeer, to Aalsmeerand the Zuiderlegmeer, where the farm was situated. The first time Istayed for one week, later on longer and always during the summerholidays. I always tried to get there when it was harvest time; old stylesheaves were piled high upon the horse-drawn wagon and then the ridehomeards with Wim Biemond and I on top! Wim Biemond was agrandson of Aunt Aal, had a twin sister Ina and they lived kitty cornerfrom the Van Doorns on another farm. They were about the same age asI and made perfect playmates. Wim and I played a lot together dammingoff ditches, building shaky bridges across them, constructing shelterswith straw bales in the hay shed. Looking back upon that time with allour activities, they put up with a lot. Later Klaar brought me and when Iwas old enough I rode my bike there by myself.I want to quote a saying that Uncle Arie often used:Het is zo gelegenDe een kwam de ander tegen

En zo hebben ze elkaar gekregen.Translated freely:This is the caseThe one met the otherAnd that is how they got each other.I also remember that in their store closets, the top shelves were piledhigh with bill-copies of ages ago and I wondered why they kept all these!(Dini wonders the same, why I keep all my old farm bills from day one).Aunt Anna Kramp, Opa Sohl’s sister, had a conservative outlook on life.In their furniture store they also sold carpets. Carpets had to be cleanedwith a brush and once week they were rolled up and dragged outside tobe hung over a wooden railing and beaten to remove the dirt. Whenvacuum cleaners came onto the market, Aunt Anna was dead set againstthem until she noticed that the carpets cleaned by vacuum wore out wayfaster than the ones cleaned the old fashioned way. How she changedher mind about vacuum cleaners.I’m not finished with the farm yet. Besides bringing in the grain crop,there were many other things to do like feeding the yard animals andgathering the eggs. One time I went out with the egg pail to the chickenhouse and other stops where they were hiding their eggs. One hen wasstill on the nest; when I approached her she flew up towards me and Istepped back, fell right into the pail with eggs, I must have yelledbecause Alie came running out of the house to see what was the matter.They were rather nice about it, but there were many broken eggs thatday.Willem, one of the sons, had a subtle way of putting you in your place.When I was boasting of how far I could jump in gymnastics, he took meto the widest part of a waterfilled ditch (sloot) and told me to show himhow far I really could jump. I always made it across, but a few times hehad to reach out to catch me.In the evening we often walked to the back of the farm to the 'ringvaart'(canal) for a refreshing swim. The only problem was that the bottomalong the edges was very muddy and you had to wade through that muckbefore it was keep enough to swim.Until the war started my first mother used to come to IJmuiden to visither parents once a month and also wanted to see me. (At that time shelived in The Hague and was a dressmaker). She remarried in 1941 or1942. Her sisiter Aunt Truus then used to come to my grandparents

(Prins) house to ask if I could come over to see my mother. It was alwaysallowed, however without enthusiasm. When the war started, our townpretty soon became a restricted area because it was situated on thecoast. Only people who lived there and had a valid reason were allowedto be there. My mother’s visits stopped then. When I think abouteverything now, I am sorry athat I didn’t visit my grandpareants Sohlmore often, I practically went by their house every day when I went toelementary school; this must have hurt them. The first time I met myfirst mother again was after the war in 1947.Before the Germans occupied IJmuiden the Dutch army was stationed inour town. Aunt Nel Prins met her future husband at that time as he wasin the army, stationed in IJmuiden; after the war was over they did getmarried.I want to add a bit more about my grandfather and mother Prins. OpaPrins was born in Egmond and left school after finishing grade six.Egmond is a coastal town and fishing was the main source of income. Asa boy of twelve years old, he got a job on a fishing boat and became asuccessful Master of a trawler before he was twenty-three. There was noharbour in Egmond, the trawlers used the harbour in IJmuiden andpeople from Egmond walked the distance between the two towns alongthe beach and this would take them 3 – 4 hours carrying their pack andsome fish. Later he became a partner in the deep-sea fishing companyHolland - Praxis. When he marrie dGrietje Zwart they settled inIJmuiden where my father was born on March 31, 1900. 11 morechildren were born to them (two died in infancy) and Oma was alwaysbusy to keep the household going. I can still remember how she slicedbread for the whole family, holding the loaf vertically against her chestand the knife horizontally, producing neat slices.Monday was washing day and a big wash it was for a family of more thanten people! No automatic washing machine or dryer yet. When theweather co-operated the clothes were hung to dry on clothes-lines strungup in the narrow lane (poort) beside the house and coming home withyour bike you had to find your way to the court-yard through the dryingwash. In the winter, the wash had to be dried indoors and the 'office'was used for that purpose; coal stove burning and the window open. Atother times I often played in this room and I especially remember ajigsaw-puzzle that I must have made a hundred times. Four separateunits made up the complete puzzle which had as subject the firstairplane flight delivering mail from Amsterdam to Batavia (now Djakarta,Indonesia). This room was also used by me to set up and play with myelectric Trix train which my dad brought along on one of his trips toGermany.

4. 1941-1945Family NeervoortStyn de Boer & Alexander (Sander) Neervoort = Oma & Opa NeervoortFive daughters & two sons1. Bart·marrie to Gerrit van de Outenaar2. Sander·married to Pollon Harrelaar3. Jannie·was marrie to Dalmeyer4. Mary·married to Jan Tol5. Anna·married to Philip Prins6. Meindert·married to Corrie Dekker7. Styn·married to Cor Visser*Jan Tol is another Stormvogels player seen in the picture with UncleAntoon.**Cor Visser was a captain in the merchant marine. Peter Knorren’sfather sailed with him as a machinist. (Peter Knorren is Rineke’s Kalfhusband.)Family van Doorn (Farm in Aalsmeer)Alida Hermina Sohl & Willem van Doorn = Aunt Aal and Uncle WillemFive daughters & four sons1. Jannie·married to Jan Biemond (Teunis, Ali, Wim and Ina)2. Dina·not married3. Klaas·not married4. Neel·marriend to Jacob van Zyverden5. Kee·married to Jan Buys6. Hannes·not married7. Ali

·not married8. Willem·married to Sara Jongstra (Ali, Wim, Siep, Dirk, Saartje and Klaas)9. Harry·married to Nel van der MeerMemories of Aunt Styn Visser-NeervoortShe lived in the President Krugerstraat 78 as long as she can remembertill she got married to Uncle Cor Visser. As far as she knows,everydaughter married out of that house, the only time the front doorwas used! However, the second daughter Jannie separated from herhusband and came with her daughter Jeanne back to live at home.Uncle Cor was studying fo rhis fourth rank mate rating, commutingbetween IJmuiden and Amsterdam when he met Aunt Styn at a dance inthe Willem Barendz, a popular entertainment place in those days. At theend of the evening he asked her if he could walk her home to which shesaid yes. From that point on it eventually progressed to a happymarriage. The first part of their marriage they lived in the VanSpilbergenstraat with her mother-in-law. From there they moved toAmsterdam, Amstelveen, Schoorl, Bergen and finally to the island ofSchiermonnikoog.This island is one of the Wadden Zee islands on the north coast ofHolland. Uncle Cor’s parents were born there, but moved later on toIJmuiden. His dad was one of the Spanish flue eqidemic victims in 1919.After their daughter Hennie was born, their only regret was that theydidn’t get anymore children. And she told me it was not that didn’t try!Being the wife of a merchant marine captain meant being long periods oftime separated from him; but visits to the family in IJmuiden and theother way around were often made. And she joined him for a fewvoyages, enjoyed by both of them.Dad’s 2nd Marriage and Sister AnnekeAunt Styn, the youngest sister of my second mother, told me that Annaand my father met after a Stormvogels soccer game. Uncle Antoon, and(later) Uncel Jan Tol who was married to Mary, sister of Anna and Styn,were team mates and after the game they often enjoyed a drink of Dutchgin at Willem Koster’s establishment. Friends and supporters camealong too and it was there where my dad was introduced to Anna.Sometimes after that, I met her and the rest of the Neervoort family whowere living in the President Krugerstraat 78. On a Sunday morning we

hair with a cute face, even then already! I was happy and never thoughtof her as a half sister, she was my sister till the end of her life.The War YearsWW 2 started for the Netherlands on May 10, 1940; the fighting lastedonly five days as the Dutch capitulated after the Luftwaffe bombed thecentre part of Rotterdam with a loss of more than a thousand civilianlives. We were occupied by the Germans for five years.The Dutch garrison in IJmuiden had the necessary firepower to downGerman aircraft and this did happen. One bomb came down on theJuliana bridge, close to where we lived. This made a lot of noise butthere was not much damage done to the surrounding area and thehouses in that neighbourhood. After the capitulation, when theGermans arrived to occupy IJmuiden, they marched through the JulianaKade, but not many people came out to watch. There were numerousstreets and quays named after the Royal House of Orange, but afterawhile they were renamed; names now less offensive to the Germans andtheir sympathizers. The original name-plates, so I heard, were carefullykept and hidden in a safe place till after the war was over when the nonameplates were removed and the original plates mounted in theirrightful places.During the actual five days of fighting in May 1940, there were manyJewish people fleeing to England. They crowed the fishing harbour,trying and succeeding to buy passage upon some of the trawlers leavingfor England. There were lots of big cars left at the Kennemerplein. Onewho did not go was Mr. Van der Zyl. He and his wife ran a camera andportrait store a few houses down from where we were living in theKennemerlaan. It must have been in 1943 when they were deported. Iwas visiting in the house across from their store when 2 German policeofficers came and took them along. I don’t know if they came back afterthe war.When the Germans declared war upon Russia in June 1941, it was abeautiful Sunday morning and they hung lots of banners with the V signin the street. One of our high school math teachers, Mr. Kleefstra, wastaken into custody as a hostage and was interned at the Vught camp; hewas released with a shaved head and he was quite skinny.During the war, the occupying Germans established a garrison inIJmuiden and laid claim to the fort and several schools including ourschool, the Cort van der Linden school. We had to move and share aschool with mentally handicapped children. When it came to playingsoccer in the schoolyard they certainly were not handicapped; you better

watched your shin bones. We always played before school started andduring recess. Later, this school became the post office and some timeafter I left for Canada it was demolished. Presently there is now a newhome for retired people where Uncle Phil and Aunt Lena now live. This isthe same street where I used to live; the Houtmanstraat.The German army was building trenches quite close to where we wereliving and they had a huge barn there where thy stalled their horses(never mind the 'mechanization' of the Wehrmacht!). Most of thesehorses were requisitioned from the Dutch farmers.In the beginning of the war live mainly went on as usual, but more andmore changes and restrictions were imposed upon us as the warprogressed. Of course this is all seen through the eyes of a twelve-yearold boy. In the movies about the war, you quite often see rifle-totingsoldiers at every corner of the street. This, I definitely don’t remember.Later on when the underground resistance came into being, they hadmore to fear from the Gestapo, Sicherheidsdienst and Dutch informers.(A German you usually would recognize him by his accent; a Dutchinformer you wouldn’t). The underground resistance groups aided Jewswho faced deportation to the concentration camps and other personswho refused to go and work in the German factories with hiding placesand rationing cards. As he war progressed more and more food rationingcame into effect.All the news on the Dutch radio stations was censored of course by theGerman authorities, but people tried to listen to the BBC stations fromEngland but this was illegal and the stations were 'jammed' and it wasimpossible to get a clear sound. Later on, all the radios were to behanded in but not everybody did, so the underground press had stillaccess to radio Oranje in England.By the end of 1942 half of the town of IJmuiden was being evacuatedbecause the Germans needed room to build their 'Atlantic Wall. Nonessentialand older people were moved to Friesland in the northern partof Holland and considering what followed in the 1944 'hunger winter'those people were relatively well off. Opa and Oma Prins moved acrossthe North Sea canal to the Geelvinkstraat because Uncle Cor, who wasstill living at home, worked at the Hoogovens Steel Works. They livedthere for year and a half and then they had to move again.During this time the underground resistance assassinated a policemanwho collaborated with the Germans; he lived in the same neighbourhoodas my grandparents. The Germans retaliated by conducting a 'razzia'(door to door roundup of people). Young men found would be deported toGermany. They were just having breakfast at Oma’s house and Uncle

Jack and Klaar disappeared into the crawlspace under the house. Theseating at the breakfast table was rearranged to 'cover-up' for the twomissing man and the German soldiers left without suspecting that twomen hiding right below their feet!From the Geelvinkstraat in Velsen-North Oma and Opa moved to theGerritse house on the Zeeweg in Beverwijk. In the backyard of thathouse were horse stables, an interesting place for me to roam around.The next house was called the 'Rommel' house (the family Rommel usedto live there). The English word for rommel is messy. They lived in thishouse ‘til the war was over. After the war, when the house in theKennemerlaan was made liveable again they moved back there.My dad, mom, Anneke and I also had to move more inland but stayed inIJmuiden because my dad’s job was essential, re-aligning compasses forthe fishing boats but later he also had to do this same job on Germantorpedo boats. First we lived for awhile on the Zeeweb, a house close tomy former home on the Fazantenlaan. We lived there together withUncle Antoon and Aunt Aredje; that arrangement didn’t work out toowell, the use of the kitchen being the main bone of contention. Wemoved to Rembrandlaan 67, where we stayed till the last months of1944.Our high school building was occupied by the German army and we hadto share a building with another school. This meant shorter class timeand only school in the afternoon. In our free time we played soccerwherever we could find a place to play. Once somebody stepped hard onmy instep with his feel which caused a deep cut and needed stitches. Iwalked to Dr. Rutte’s house and had it taken care of. It was a hot dayand when walking home, when about half way, I had to sit down on thesidewalk to clear my head. But once closer to home I fainted. (I was toldthis later on.) They must have called my dad. He came, picked me upand carried me home. He was not such a physically strong man and Inever forgot this; he really was there when I needed him.Gradually during the war, the Allied forces started bombing runs intoGermany and other parts of occupied Europe; some of it directed atstrategic targets like railway emplacements, the steelworks and theharbour, but most of the flights were high in the sky on their way toGermany. During the spring of 1943 and 1944, still under Germanoccupation, the war for them in Russia took a heavy toll upon theirarmy. When German troops were relieved for a while, they came toHolland in their white painted war equipment and were very glad to bealive and to be in the west.

As the war progressed, provisions became scarcer and I made more tripsto the farm in Aalsmeer to supplement our shrinking supplies. I camehome with wheat, milk, cheese etc. Aunt Aal made a remark about thisafter the war which I still remember. She said: "We always have hadfamily visiting us (before the war), but during the war the family tripledin size!"During the final year of the war (we didn’t know that at the time ofcourse) everything deteriorated in a hurry. We knew the invasion wasimminent but in the newspapers we were still reading that Germany waswinning upon all fronts. In the third week of September 1944 we saw theglider fleet from England fly over land to land near Arnhem. We figuredthe war for us would be over in no time, but it was not to be.It must have been October or November that year when we had to moveagain; this time to the Kennemerlaan 142. The Germans had their gunspositioned on the Moerberg, the highest dune at the south side of thetown. To have an unobstructed view on the canal locks and the railwaybridge across the canal they moved in the wrecking crews and tore downall the houses in their way, including the house we lived in. In a way,this was not that disastrous for us for we had lots of doors, windowframes and beams to burn to keep us warm and to cook the food. And Istill have my mangled thumbnail to show for it.There were, beside the army, the sea forces (Kriegsmarine) stationed inIJmuiden. There main force consisted out of torpedo boats and I haveseen some one or two man U-boats in the harbour. Of the later ones, Idon’t know if they ever employed them; they looked more like suicideboats to me.During the last year of the war, as mentioned before, provisions werebecoming very scarce. Bread was baked at home from wheat obtainedfrom the farm. This wheat was milled at home in a hand-cranked coffeegrinder.To increase the volume squashed tulip bulbs were added to thedough. It gave the bread a sweet taste, but at least it was edible. Syrupwas made by boiling a mixture of shredded sugar beets and water, thanseparating the pulp from the liquid.There was no school during those last months. The railway workers wereon strike and all essential services ground to a halt. Electricity and gaswere cut off and we had only the bare minimum of food. Once a month Iwent to the farm and they helped us through that 'hunger' winter. I alsowent with Aunt Lena on the bike to the eastern part of Holland (Overyseland Drente) to buy food, mainly rye. My bike had one 'good ' tire and onenon-inflatable and the trip took us six days. You always had to watchout for checkpoints on the road; they would confiscate your stuff if you

were too heavy loaded. An ideal checkpoint for them was the bridgeacross the river Ijssel, everybody coming out of the east had to use thatbridge and indeed, there they were. We teamed up with two ladies, threegoing across the first time, each with a part-load. Than two of us backand then across again with another part of the obtained supplies. Wemoved everything we had without loss.The trip to Aalsmeer took me two to three hours, depending on the winddirection which always seemed against me, coming or going. Thehousehold on the farm had grown to double its normal size. There werea few guys who had gone 'under ground' because they didn’t want to goto Germany to work in the factories. Then there was the Dirk Kalf familywho are related to my Opa Sohl and Aunt Aal. Dirk Kalf had butcheredanimals without a permit and was going to be locked up, something hedidn’t appreciate very much. They, the Kalf family, came to farm andstayed till the war was over. The family consisted of the parents Nel andDirk and the children Hans, Rineke and Adri. I met them for the firsttime there on the farm. During the fifties, the family emigrated toEdmonton in Canada and in 1968 I moved with my family from TerraceBC to Fort Saskatchewan; we met again and our families have been closefriends since that time.15 December 1944It is not easy to write about what happened that day. It was a disasterthat affected the whole family, each in his or her own way. The daystarted normal enough with my dad leaving home to go to the harbour todo his work on the boats; once on his way he came back to get a paperbag so he could bring us some sugar. This caused a ten-minutes delaywith a life-long impact.We had had some air attacks before, mainly aimed at the harbour andthe steelworks and some misdirected bombs which had left a lot of hotshrapnel in the streets. This particular day the air attack came at tenminutes after three in the afternoon. My mother was grocery shopping atMr. Ott’s store. And at that same time she had a premonition thatsomething had happened to my dad. She came running home, veryupset and crying. I went to the harbour to see if I find anything outabout my dad but the police had blocked the road to the harbour andthey didn’t let me go through. I never go to the place where the bombhad hit.I went to see Obersteuerman Lange whom we knew and he confirmedthat my dad was on the boat that was returning to the bunker and hadbeen only 20 - 30 years away from safety. Apparently the bomb hadfallen beside the boat amidships. A few days later when Opa Prins,

Uncle Jack and I went to the harbour, we saw the aft and the front bowof the boat sticking straight out of the water. They had brought in afloating crane and first lifted the front end out of the water. There wereno bodies in there. Then they lifted the aft part and found nine bodies,but not my dad. He was never found, the only thing they recovered washis jacket. The nine men were originally buried in the cemetery on theHavenkade. Aunt Annie Zwart told me that the remains were lifted in theseventies and reburied in Germany.According to Aunt Nel the pastor of our church, pastor Moleman, at firstrefused to have a memorial service for my dad because he never attendedchurch services. Opa Prins must have written to the bishop to request aservice and this service was held in the Good Shepherd church where theAnglicans were temporarily worshipping. After the initial refusal OpaPrins must have said, "If there is no service for my son you will never seeme or my family in this church again".Because my dad was missing and his remains were never found, he wasofficially declared deceased five years later. Even now, when I am inIJmuiden and walk by the Haringhaven, I am still reminded of whathappened during those December days in 1944.It must have been March or April of 1945, when, by prior agreementbetween the occuping German forces and the Allies, planes came overand dropped supplies for us at pre-designated fields, food as flour anddried eggs. This food was supplied by the Swedish Red Cross. The prioragreement was necessary, so that the planes would not be fired on by theGermans. It must have been one of these flights, when they flew at lowaltitude over my hometown. Being an agile boy of fifteen years I wassitting on top of our roof, watching them fly over, the planes being lowenough to see some of the personnel in their Plexiglas enclosures, wavingat him and he waving back at me.(Photo) The Quay, where we watched5. 1945 - 1955Years After the WarAfter the war, life slowly returned to normal. We were liberated by theCanadians. When they entered the town with their jeeps and other warmaterial there was no comparison between the reception they receivedand the Germans in 1940. The Canadians of course were quite popularwith the Dutch citizens, especially their evening parade, jeeps, cigarettesand chocolate. When my sister Anneke tasted chocolate for the first timeshe asked me what it was!

The streets were crowded with excited people who were so glad the warfinally for them was over and done with. There was a lot of partying anddancing in the streets. Of course it was a different matter for the Nazicollaborators, one of them was Uncle Joe, the gherkin man. He was anactive member of the Dutch National Socialist Party (NSB) and a memberand spent a few years in an internment camp. Aunt Lies and their sonstayed that time with Oma and Opa Prins. When he was released, theymoved into their own house again.The Canadians disarmed the German forces; piles of small arms werecollected upon the field behind the high school building. The disarmedsoldiers were used to clean up the landmine fields in front of the tankwall. After a days work they were required to walk side by side acrossthe cleaned field. I suppose they did a thorough job of finding andremoving all the landmines. They were housed in the empty part of townuntil they could return to their homeland. Canadian sentries wereposted around this area to keep the Dutch and the Germans separate.After a while, they were released and had to march back to Germany.They left a lot of clothing behind and some remarkable drawing upon thewalls of the houses where they had stayed. At the kennemerlaan 7 therain-collecting cistern was full of clothing.School started right away after the liberation, first in a school building inSantpoort, but it took a year yet before we were back into our originalhigh school building. The grade ten year was lost so straight from gradenine to grade eleven; to ease the hiatus the following exams were madeeasier for us. It was the first time for me to enter this building.Quite often when I had some free time in the morning, I went on the biketo the harbour to watch the arrivals and departures of the fishingvessels, always finishing the trip with a visit to Opa’s office. A big officewith two persons in it, Opa smoking his pipe and Mr. Verschoor, thebookkeeper, with a cigarette burning away in the ashtray. As Mr.Verschoor was quite deaf, you automatically raised your voice when youwere talking there, a habit carried over when you came home, so Maalways knew where I had been.During the war, any display of patriotism was strictly forbidden. Wecouldn’t fly the Dutch flag or sing the national anthem. After the warpeople were proud to fly the flag again and the singing of the anthem,'Het Wilhelmus' was often an emotional occasion.In the spring of 1946 I was confirmed as a full member of our churchand joined the youth group DGS. In 1947, I wrote my high school examwith good results (not a brilliant student, but I made it).

In the meantime my mother, Anneke and I had moved to the ReinierClaessenstraat 31, as the former inhabitants of the house in theKennemerlaan wanted to come back to their original home. Financially itwas better for my mother to move to a smaller house because of thecheaper rent, but I never felt at home in the Reinier Claessenstraat. Itwas also a very small house. The second floor was kind of an attic withtwo bedrooms. Ma had an unused overhead light hanging in the atticright in the path to the rooms, so low that you had to duck your head.Long after the light was removed, I still ducked.I still was an avid soccer player, but my aspirations to play soccer anyhigher than at the junior level were dashed when I wrecked my rightknee during an exhibition match. I would have liked to pursue aseafaring career; I tried for the Royal Navy and later on for the merchantmarine but found out that my eyesight was not good enough for thoseprofessions. After discussions with my guardian (pretty hard to avoidthat), we made the decision to study veterinary medicine in the town ofUtrecht. I actually had preferred to study agriculture in Wageningen, butfinancial restrictions made Utrecht preferable because my grandparentsSohl lived there at that time and I was able to live with them. Living withfamily also made it easier to get used to living away from my home-town.Oma and Opa Sohl lived in the centre part of the town on the OudeGracht, above a shop selling flutes. Opa had heart and prostate troublesbut couldn’t, because of his heart, be operated on anymore. He wasbedridden most of the time and passed away in the apring of 1948. Hewas buried in Utrecht; there is a picture of his grave in our picturebooks. Oma Sohl is buried there as well. The time I stayed with them Ialways had to clean his pipe and fill it with tobacco; you would knowwhen he didn’t want to smoke his pipe that he really felt bad.The second year I was in Utrecht I stayed in a rooming house full ofstudents, I passed my exams and called it quits.In the spring of 1948, I met Atie. I was studying in Utrecht already andwas home for Easter. Part of our church youth group was putting on aplay with a dance to follow and I decided to stay one day longer so I couldattend. I don’t remember anything about the play anymore, except thatit was held in the Thalia theatre and the dance in the hall beside it. Wesat at a table with our regular group under the steel stairway. A cousinof Agatha Plug, another Agatha Plug, joined us and I think it was love atfirst sight for me. She had raven-black hair and blue eyes. When shewas nervous she showed a bit of a harelip and I thought it was cute. Ittook her a bit longer. We had a good time together for a year and a halfhad then we went each our own way again.

In the mean time, several marriages had taken place in the Prins family;Aunt Nel and Uncle Theo Traa; Aunt Greet and Uncle jan Dykstra; Klaarand Leni van der Wolde; Uncle Cor and Aunt Doortje Rykeboer; andUncle Jack married Aunt Maartje Smit.In February 1949, Oma Prins passed away. She was ill already for quitea while with diabetes and was on a diet prescribed by Dr. Rutte. Shewas buried at the Driehuis-Westerveld cemetery. Opa had a small benchinstalled at the graveside and it the weather was good twice a week hetook the train to Driehuis-Westerveld, sat at the grave of Oma andsmoked his pipe. Opa Prins used his birthday cigars as pipe tobacco; hehad once a cancerous growth removed from the inside of his mouth,probably caused by his pipe.When Klaar married Leni, I thought there were three obstructions ontheir path, but more about that later. They met in high school; whenLeni had some difficulties with chemistry, Klaar came to the rescue, butapparently not to teach her chemistry because at her final exam she triedto burn H+ ions! But she was pretty good in the language departmentand gave me a hand with learning proper Dutch. According to me, thegovernment went to the races; no she said, the government went onrecess.Back to the obstacles on their path. First, she came from Zandvoort.Second, 'she isn’t one of the tallest ones'. Oma Prins must have said,"She is kind of small. She doesn’t show". Third, once when she stayedovernight at Oma’s and was going to her bedroom, she had to go throughthe men’s bedroom where she managed to squeeze Uncle Cor’s big toeinstead of Klaar’s. Wish I could have been there to hear that commotion!In the summer of 1949 Dick van Iren, a friend of mine, and I made abicycle trip through Holland which took us about four weeks to complete.We went across the 'Afsluitdyk', through Friesland, dropped down southto Limburg, then westwards and northwards back home again; and thatall for the cost of one guilder a day a person. We kept a journal of thistrip and I have that account now here in Canada.Other summer holidays I either worked for Opa at the Perseus, or laterGenius, Uncle Jack’s company. Uncle jack had started this businesswith two partners at Opa’s premises but a growing workload made itnecessary to expand and set up a new and bigger building. Thewindows, high up in the work hall, were all second hand and I did all theremoving of the old putty, cleaning and priming.

When the Perseus was in the harbour it always was a hectic time to gether ready for sea again. Sometimes, she went with her first catch toEngland to the auction market in Hull, if I am not mistaken. Then,fishing again bringing her catch this time to Kjmuiden. I made sure tobe there when she came into the harbour; most of times I cam away witha package of English cigarettes. I never had a chance to go along on afishing trip; with six bunks in the front and six bunks in the aft, and acrew of twelve men, there was no room for an extra sailor. Once, when itwas close to departure time and I was still aboard doing the odd job, theyopened a bottle of gin and passed it around. I had to take my turn. Idon’t remember if I liked it or not but it sure hasn’t been my last drink.Another time, when the boat was ready to sail, one man was still missingbut a little later we saw him coming, staggering towards the boat; youmight say he was drunk. With one foot balancing upon the jetty, he wasyelling that he wasn’t ready to go to sea yet. The mate though pulled himaboard and off they went to go fishing.I also like to mention another story of the farm in Aalsmeer. I oftenhelped in the field when I was there and on day after lunch when Klaasand I walked back to the field and funny thing happened. At the end ofthe yard was a dam, with a gate, across a water-filled ditch. The gatewas there to keep the cattle out of the yard. You never opened this gateor went over it but you would swing around the end post. An extra boardwas placed against this post and in the ditch, but apparently this boardwas not secured. When Klaas grabbed it to swing around the gate (heprobably wasn’t quite awake yet after his nap) he ended up in the waterfilledditch, fully submerged, his cap floating upon the duckweed. Ididn’t dare to laugh out loud, not knowing how he would react. Hecrawled out of the ditch, went back in the house to change clothes andoff we went again to the field, this time without a mishap.After I left Utrecht, I studied for a year at a chemistry school in the centreof Amsterdam, close to the 'Muiderpoort' railway station. The thing Ilearned there was a methodical approach to chemical problems; and notmuch else. It was quite a neighbourhood; you only heard undilutedAmsterdam’s dialect spoken there. The café, where we ate our lunch,was frequented by the market merchants. They treated you as if youwere one of their own; lots of salted comments when we played ournumerous games of pool.In the fall of 1950 I went to work at the MEKOG, a sister company of theSteelworks as an apprentice lab technician; they wanted to promote meto a first class technician when I left. You started working shift, directplants, all variations on the several processes of binding nitrogen.However, after a year or so, it became very routine work and when theyasked me to come and work in a pilot plant extracting potash out of

seawater, I didn’t hesitate too long. To explore this project, the MEKOGand a Norwegian company NORSK HYDRO formed a partnership underthe name of NORDUCO, to which company I now transferred. The ideawas to precipitate potash on a small scale by using 3 cubic meter/hourof seawater per hour. I worked in this set-up for over a year; interestingenough with constant process changes being made to determine severaldifferent ways of how to succeed. The next stage of 30,000 cubicmeter/hour plant never became a reality; the numbers showed that theprecipitation material losses were too high, so it wasn’t economicallyviable. Even then, they were concerned with the effect of the effluent; Iremember taking a lot of effluent samples and sitting in on meetingswhere results of the testing were discussed. As far as I experienced itthere, it was a pretty open atmosphere; all the technical problems wereon the table.When the pilot plant run came close to its end, a place became open inthe service department of the MEKOG lab. At that time, there wereapproximately 100 analysts working, divided over several departmentsincluding plant control, fertilizer, metals, gas, water and some research.The service department was an interesting lab to work; any unusualsamples that came in and didn’t fit into one of the regular labs came tothe service lab. Quite often it would be a mysterious substance broughtin by one or other engineer and he really wanted to know its consistency.Sometimes you had to construct some fancy contraptions to do youranalysis, but you could always depend upon the three glassblowers tocome up with something what would do the job for you. I liked to go tothe glassblowers place and watch them work; I never stayed too longthough. Here I met Ger Hofman who has been my friend ever since. Thelast year that I worked at the lab, I rented a room in the boarding housewere Ger and Pieter Meyer also stayed; Saturday nights were the 'talknights'with a bottle of wine and a package of cigarettes. (I quit!)During this time, Uncle Antoon got remarried to Ger Prins (a far relationin the Egmond family tree). Aunt Lena was the last of the brothers andsisters to get married. She married Uncle Phil Prins, who is the son of asister of Opa Prins, who herself had also married a distantly relatedPrins, so she was a Prins-Prins and so is Aunt Lena.Texel and Meeting Dini HaskenBy this time, I already had ideas about seeing something of the rest ofthe world. First, I wanted to go to New Zealand (Australia, South Africaor the United States never attracted me), but being a lab technicianthough prevented me from being accepted as an immigrant to thatcountry.

A while after that, the Dutch government put a program in place to reschoolprospective emigrants. Farmers were always wanted and this iswhat we were taught to become. By that time I had decided that Iwanted to go to Canada, a bit closer to Europe and a more industrializedcountry. Peter Knorren went through the same experience as I, learninghow to become a farmer, except when he arrived in Canada, he never leftthe city of Edmonton anymore!Goodbye MEKOG and here I come Texel. In March 1954, I arrived on theisland accessible only by ferry. We stayed in a bunkhouse close to ayouth summer camp in the vicinity of The Cocksdorp and almost rightunder the northern lighthouse. We were with some thirty to thirty-fivebike ride; then ten hours of work and a half-hour ride back. It took me awhile to get used to the work and the long hours and then in the eveningwe still had courses to follow in agriculture and English.Every fourth week we had along weekend and could leave Friday evening,but had to be back with the first ferry or train from home on Mondaymorning.The farmer I worked for invited me to eat my lunch with the family in thekitchen, gave me coffee with my sandwiches; not everyone was so lucky.I got along fine with the two hired men, Clemens and his son Joe.Making long days in the field, they had a lot of stories to tell about theisland. Most memorable were the ones about the end of the war uprisingdidn’t succeed and the Russians suffered a lot of casualties. The farmwas situated behind the small local airport; this airport used only by themilitary. The airplanes used it to pick-up and drop decoys there used forfiring practices. The returning of dropped decoys in our field gave themen free plane rides, so they told me.In July, I was off work for two weeks because of an infection under mythumbnail caused by a non-removed sliver. I went to see the doctor inThe Cocksdorp to get it removed, which he did without freezing. Ipromptly fainted; the only thing he said "Nobody will every know whathappened here". Small comfort!Dini arrived at the came when I was laid-up and how lucky she was tomeet me there right off the boat. We spent a lot of time together andlater, during my long weekends, I went to Amersfoort to visit her andmeet the Hasken family. The first time I went there, I wanted to make agood impression so I bought flowers for her mother. I liked her motherright away, but the other members of the family took some getting usedto. I had a 'discussion' with her dad about Texel and he proceeded bytelling me how much better he knew Texel than I did while I didn’t thinkhe had ever been there. Herman, her oldest brother came in, saw the

flowers and looked at them as if they were stinging nettles. I don’t thinkI met Johan at that time. There were also the three younger siblingsBen, Loes and Jaap.Dini came twice to Texel between the long weekends to visit me; greattimes. Picking her up in Oude Schild from the ferry; seven people pilinginto a small Renault passenger car to go to Den Burg to a dance. Seemsto be safer than traveling the local bus when it was reported in theweekly paper "Prospective emigrant hurt, hit by falling suitcase". Back tothe dance, around a table full of prospective emigrants; buying oneround of drinks to get glasses and a full bottle under the table for refills!When the camp closed around Christmas time I went to a camp in theBeemster polder for a few months to work for another farmer and thiswas quite a change again; heavy clay up to your ankles and eat yourlunch in the horse stable.Then the medical and inoculation against smallpox. This took me out ofcirculation for a few days and I stayed in the Verloren van Themaatlaanwith Aunt Maartje and Uncle Jack taking care of me.Early in March 1955, I was ready for Canada, or so I thought. UncleJack brought me to Rotterdam and I sailed from there on the Maasdam 4for Canada.(Photo-Uncle Jack, S Wedding)(Photo-Anneke Catherina)6. 1955 - 1959Emigrating to CanadaThe first part of the journey went pretty smooth. The 'Maasdam' dockedin Le Havre (France) then in Southampton (England), Cobb (Ireland) andfinally across the Atlantic Ocean to Halifax. The weather gotprogressively worse and I spent the last two days of the trip in my cabinin bed, not even able to eat and keep an orange down. It was a relief tofeel solid ground under my feet again when I stepped off the boat inHalifax.My destination was Calgary; it took four days and three nights on thetrain to get there. I came through Montreal, Winnipeg, Saskatoon andarrived in Calgary on March 20, 1955. My first impression was one ofsnow and rocks. How could anyone make a living here?I found a job on a dairy farm owned by Fred Anderson, a bachelorfarmer, who lived close to Balzac. Starting at five in the morning till

seven at night; one day off in the month and that only between themilkings. It was a primitive set-up with an old barn, no manure gutters,hauling out the manure with the wheelbarrow, etc.. Two months wasenough for me and I felt for Edmonton to stay a few days with the Kalffamily. I then took the train to Vancouver where I landed a job on adairy farm near Cloverdale, close to White Rock and just a few milesnorth from the US border.This job was a lot better. Bill Hartman was a decent guy to work for, thefarm a bit more modern, and the hours of work a little more humane.Bill Hartman had a nice way of getting things across to you by saying "Itell you a story" and then it came. I stayed there till the New Year,opened a bank account and bought my first vehicle, a 1952 Chevroletpick-up. I left the farm when Dave, Bills son-in-law, came to work on thefarm.The purchase of the truck cost me most of my money. They wereadvertising for jobs in Kitimat to work in the newly started aluminiumsmelter; they were opening up new lines and needed personnel. I appliedand had my medical in New Westminster; but now I needed money to getthere. I gug peat for two weeks to earn money to buy a plane ticket to flyto Terrace, the closest airport to Kitimat. It was my first plane flight ever!I worked there for the aluminium company, Alcan, and stayed there forover ten years.While digging peat I lived in New Westminster with the Berquist family.This was only for two weeks, but we stayed in contact for many yearsafter and visited with them a number of times. I left my truck with themand had it shipped to Kitimat later in the year.Bachelor Life in KitimatAfter I arrived in Terrace, I took the train to Kitimat as this was the onlyland connection between the two towns. My arrival in Kitimat was anevent I will never forget. Coming from a green world (Vancouver) andstepping into a town in the middle of nowhere with snow banks five to sixfeet high (it was early February). I saw a line-up of men 'snaking' aroundthe hotel adjacent to the railway station trying to get into the beerparlour. Primarily a population of single men, living in bunkhouses, withthe beer parlour as the only entertainment, although there also was arestaurant and coffee bar close by and the waitresses there were verypopular. The next day we went to the smelter to join the workforce; busservice to and from the camp to the smelter site was free.My lodging was in Riverside camp; each bunkhouse provided shelter foreight men. There were eight beds and eight chairs and an oil-heater; talk

about living out of a suitcase! The camp was still under constructionwith piles of plywood around; another guy and I organised a few sheetsand built ourselves some shelves to stack our belongings. With eightmen to one dwelling, it was not any ideal arrangement as they weredivided to work over different shifts. Try to sleep when there are guystalking, coming and going. The bunkhouses were keph clean by a bullcook; he was usually half drunk and by the time he reached ourbunkhouse, his last one for that day, it was time to take a nap upon oneof our beds!Kitimat is located at the head of the Douglas Channel on the West Coastof British Columbia. It lies across they bay from Kitimat village, wherethe Haisla people, a branch of the Kwakiutl Indian Nation are living. Inthe Haisla language, Kitimat means 'people of the snow'.The Aluminium Company of Canada chose this location in 1950 forseveral reasons. By damming off the Nechako River further inland, awater reservoir was created. Water from this reservoir was divertedthrough tunnels dug through the mountain to kemano, whtere turbinesgenerate the necessary power for the smelters in Kitimat. Aluminiumproduction depends on a cheap hydro-electric power source as was thecase here. Lots of money was made during the construction of thetunnels and how this money was spent with reckless abandon was thetalk of the town. The power line had its ups and downs; the fifty milelong transmission line between Kemano and Kitimat was wiped out twiceby snow slides. After the second time, a by-pass was build around theslide area.Another reason to choose this location was the natural, deep sea harbourof the Douglas Channel which could accommodate the ships bringing inthe aluminium ore and shipping out the aluminium ingots.When the first construction crews to build the plant moved in during theearly fifties, an original paddle wheeler riverboat The Delta Queen wastowed in and moored close to the ocnstructiojn site. It was used toaccommodate the workers setting up the plant and later also the peoplewho worked in the production once the plant was running. The storywen tthat people there spent more time gambling than sleeping.The terrain around Kitimat was very rugged and inhospitable. In 1954an airplane disappeared with several people aboard and wasn’t founduntil two years later on top of a mountain. Due to an extremely hotsummer snow had melted at a higher level than usual and it was onlythen the remains of the plane were spotted.

The plant started up in 1954 with two pot lines; number 1 and number2. In that year the first shutdown occurred due to a snow slide whichdamaged the power line. The same thing happened again in 1957.A pot line consists of three buildings with two rows of pots each. Thereare two sections in a building with approximately 27 pots per section,each section operated by three people: a crust-breaker operator, atrimmer and a section chief. Each crew worked an eight-hour shift.A pot consisted of a carbon anode and a carbon cathode (the inside wallof the pot) and contained a molten bath of Na3A1F6 (cryolite or“Greenland spar”) serving as the electrolyte and A1203 (aluminium ore).In the process, the molten aluminium ends up in the bottom of the potand this liquid metal will be tapped once a day. A 100 000 amp DCcurrent flows through the pots with a voltage difference of five volts ineach pot. The bath reaches a temperature of about 900 degrees Celsius.Extreme care had to be taken not to short-circuit a pot across the line ora part of the enclosing building, and to use only warm and dryequipment when checking a pot. A power failure lasting longer thaneight hour would cause the pots to “freeze” and the contects would haveto be broken up with a jackhammer and dug out.In the summer time it was extremely hot in the line, especially theafternoon shift from four o’clock till midnight. Tools were too hot tohandle without gloves, simples upon your bum from the crust breakerseat and I was guaranteed to lose twenty pounds every summer! The salttablet container was a well-used dispenser.The wintertime, temperature wise, was a lot easier to handle and theweight came back on. If I was on shift during the Christmas days, the 25men who worked in the line on our shift chipped in for a few turkeys plustrimmings. Among the Italians we had on shift, there usually was a cookand he prepared the turkey, wrapped in foil, up on one of the pots. Weate in two groups as the sections couldn’t be left unattended. The fruitbasket (about one apple a person), our Christmas bonus from Alcan, wasdonated to the local hospital.Cooling air was provided by big fans, blowing air directly through gratesin the floor between the rows of pots. When I arrived in Kitimat lines 3, 4and 5 were under construction, differently designed then the originallines one and two. When they were ready I worked there for a while butwas glad to go back to line 2. In the new lines the cooling air was blownin to cool the pots first!In any case, the working conditions were not exactly for the faint ofheart, the smell, the dust, the smoke and the heat you had to endure

them all. I got hired on with approximately 35 men all at the same timebut after two weeks there were not more than ten to fifteen men left ofthat group.The camp caterer, Crawley McCracken, looked after us very well; goodfood and plenty of it. I refused a few overtime Sunday afternoon shiftswhen I didn’t want to skip my strawberry ice cream serving.Alcan built a more permanent camp, named Riverlodge, where two menshared one room. My roommate was an Italian named Joe; he was a niceguy but constantly broke, too many card games I suppose. Charges forroom and board were $1 a day, which amount was deducted from yourpaycheque. It was good deal if you figure that the hourly wage for asection chief was around the three dollars. My truck was shipped toKitimat from Vancouver by barge, paid for by Alcan oce I had worked forthe company for six months.In 1956 they started building a road from Kitimat to Terrace; at first agravel road with a Bailey bridge across the Kitimat River and you had todrive through two creeks where they were building permanent bridges.The last fifteen miles of the road between Lakelse hot springs andTerrace was an old logging trail winding in and out of the trees andalong creeks. Sometimes in the early sixties a big chunk of this roadslid in the lakelse lake after a heavy rainfall. When that happened I wasliving in Terrace and I had a friend ferry my across the lake when I hadto go to work. It is now replaced by a newly constructed highway,reducing the travel time between the two towns by a fair margin, butsafety wise you were more careful with the old road. Once on our way towork for a Saturday night shift, we witnessed the aftermath of a head-oncollision on the new part of the highway, in which eight people werekilled; it sure slowed us down for quite a while.It was an improvement of course to be able to get out of town by car, butyou had better have a saw in the trunk because there often would be afallen tree across the road. It is tall timber country growing spruce,hemlock, fir and cedar trees in abundance. Once they logged a cedartree eleven feet in diameter. The sun didn’t penetrate too far in theseforests and there was still now on the ground in the month of June.Over the years I have seen my share of wildlife: moose, black bears, somewolves, lynx, a mountain lion and not to forget the bald eagles.During the first few years in Kitimat I befriended several families. It wasa treat for us camp inhabitants to sit in an easy chair and /or have ameal at the table. Mike and Ann Nykolaishen became good friends; they

came from Kenora in Saskatchewan and Mike and I worked the sameshift in the plant. Mike and Ann have passed away but we still havecontact with their daughter Barbara who has a family of her own andstill lives in Kitimat. A while later I met Henry and Bethel Papenbrock,originally from Osnabruck Germany. Henry and I also worked togetherand after work we washed each other’s back. Henry was a carpenter bytrade and he later helped me build my first house on the Graham road(this was after I had married). One of his sons, Andrew, lives not too farfrom us and keeps us posted about the rest of the Papenbrocks.Then there was 'Bies and his wife Jopie Bisenberger, a Dutch couplefrom Zandvoort. Small world as he was a cousin of Klaar’s wife Leni.Jopie and Bies moved to Smithers BC a couple of years later. At thattime I lived in Terrace and once in a while we drove to Smithers to visitthem; more about them later in the journal.The road between Terrace and Smithers was built during the war by thearmy. Running mostly along the Skeena River there are several rockbluffs, which had to be blasted to facilitate the road building. The armyblasted just enough for a narrow two car passage with not much room tospare. Beside the rock bluffs the rest of the road was gravel, mostly'washboard' gravel after a rainy day. After we left Terrace for Alberta theywidened and straightened the road to a modern highway; some of thepassages through the rock costing more than a million dollars a mile.Once lines 3, 4 and 5 were on stream, we were able to make a lot ofovertime. For three weeks in a row I worked my regular 8 hour shift andright after that shift 8 hours overtime, then 8 hours of sleep and myregular shift followed by 16 hours off and repeat this work pattern. Theextra money earned over these three weeks paid for a big part of myholiday in Mexico.I first flew to Vancouver and renewed acquaintances in the lowermainland. I stayed with the family Berquist in New Westminster, and inthe mean time, obtained my visa to enter Mexico. I boarded theGreyhound bus for San Francisco and Los Angeles to stay a day in eachcity to visit the tourist spots and then via Arizona and New Mexico to ElPaso in Texas. When you travel through this part of the United Statesyou do not exactly see the 'American dream', at least that how it seemedto me in 1957. In El Paso I switched busses and it was another 36 hoursto Mexico City.To travel through that country was quite an experience. The only greenareas you see are the irrigated areas. Whenever the bus encountered adetour on the road you just travel on through the fields beside it andwhen the road was alright again up we went and on the road again. On

the bus I met three other Canadians and we pretty well stayed togetherfor the rest of the trip. Mexico City was a busy city with many peoplebegging for hand-outs; but there were nice parks where you could sitdown and soak up the sunshine, beer parlours with betting games andsinging, a boat ride in the floating gardens, bullfights and lots ofbeautiful churches and of course lots of beautiful and friendly girls.One of the things I didn’t like when they took us along to the cockfights.There is a lot of betting going on at those fights but I thought it wascruel. Then for a week off to Acapulco to the beaches and to drink beerat the marketplace. They had warned us not to drink the tap water andonly once I forgot with dire consequences! Travel in Mexico City is anadventure in it self. Taxi is the mode of transportation, it was fairlycheap and the drivers brought you were you wanted to go and sometimeswhere you didn’t want to go. Cab drivers used to stop in the middle of anintersection, have their windows turned down and conduct livelyarguments with each other accompanied by gesturing and yelling, nevermind the traffic. When my holidays were over, I flew back from the cityto Vancouver. My last night in Mexico City was a night to remember andI didn’t sleep at all so when I boarded the plane at six thirty in themorning the flight attendant thoughtfully handed me a balnket andpillow; I woke up once an dremember seeing the Grand Canyon from wayup high.Back in the pot lines again, I started saving money for a trip back toHolland and I also invested some money in a rental house in Terrace onthe Keith road. Henry and Bethel had moved to Terrace and I visitedthem quite often on my days off.In Kitimat, I went into partnership with Bies and Jopie to run the coffeeshop in the YMCA building. This building was situated in the Riversidecamp complex, adjacent to the mess hall and the post office. There wereapproximately 1000 men living in Riverlodge, but even with so manysingle men around, the coffee bar wasn’t very profitable. I put up themoney to get it going and it gave me something to do in my spare time.We had to work long hours, first to come and last to leave; I ended upwith $200 profit for a year of work. The camp slowly but surely wasclosing down, they didn’t fill any empty rooms anymore. I wanted outand Bies wanted to stay so he and Jopie ran the coffee shop after theybought me out. They closed shop within a year; no more business.Life in Kitimat ahd its moments! The average snowfall over the winter is20-33 feet and it happened more than once that you had to dig yourvehicle out of the snow bank. The town was prepared for it though withplenty of graders and snow blowers available to keep the roads passable.There are several hills in the town and once on a bus during a heavy

snowfall all male passengers had to get off the bus and push it up thehill and then we jumped back on again.Bears a plenty. Behind the plant property was a dump site; when I wason afternoon shift in the summertime, we often saw eight or more blackbears scavenging for food.During the spring and summer, the Kitimat River was a favourite placeto relax and many people (Mike nykolaishen) liked to cast a line. Therewas a bulldozed path from Riverlodge camp to the river and one daywhen I walked to the river I met a black bear scrounging away. I don’tknow who was more surprised, the bear or I; at least the bear took off ina hurry and so did I. My picture-taking try wasn’t too successful either.In the summer, we looked eagerly towards our days off to escape the heatof the pot line. Often we bought a few pounds of scrap meat to catchcrabs off the wharf; we boiled them on an open fire and with a case ofbeer it was a good way to end a summer’s day.In the summer time after day shift we usually stopped to have two beersin the beer parlour, at least you kept your appetite and in any case thebeer tasted better than the lukewarm milk they served with supper.Once in one or other summer I went with a few guys on a trip to a lakeclose to Mount Elizabeth; we build a shelter and stayed there over night.Another time, I went exploring by myself towards the bay and came upona deserted Indian village; later on I heard that it was the earlier livingplace of the Indians across the channel. Across the bay we could seeKitimat village, only accessible by boat. Some of the natives worked atthe plant.(Photo-Newspaper Clipping)8. 1959 - 1968Family Hasken (future in-laws)Lummigje Niessink & Herman German Gerhard Hasken = Oma & OpaHaskenTwo daughters & four sons1. Dini·married to Jacob Prins·children: Philip, Robert, Caroline2. Herman·married to Marja van Voorst·children: Mary-Lou, Ellen, Herman, Scott

·living in Wisconsin, USA3. Johan·married to Ellen Dykshoorn·children: Anoesjka, Merlyn·living in the Netherlands4. Ben·married to Juliana Duyser·children: Maarten, Hugo, Steven·living in the Netherlands5. Loes·was married to Sicco Hoekstra·children: Miranda, Marcel·living in Fort Saskatchewan6. Jaap·was married to Genevieve van Hal·children: Melanie·living in Josephburg(Photo-No comment-Balcony lange nieuwstraat)Marriage to Dini HaskenDuring my Kitimat years, I did keep contact with Dini. Ourcorrespondence had its high and its low points, and when I went onholidays to Holland in December 1958, I certainly planned to surpriseher with a visit! I had saved my holidays for 1958, took some from 1959,and got a four-week leave of absence. The itinerary was to fly fromTerrace to Vancouver, stay over a day, then to Seattle and Chicago, staya day, then in New York for a day and fly from there to Amsterdam. Butinclement weather changed all that. Terrace was fogged in and I stayedat Bethel and Henry’s place. Next day we were bussed to Smithers onlyto find out that Vancouver was fogged in. Finally the next day I arrivedin Vancouver, two days late and my flight bookings in disarray. Thatclose to Christmas it was very difficult to find a seat on a flight toAmsterdam, but after a day I was lucky to get a seat on a turbo prop toAmsterdam (the ticket price in cluded a flight to Paris). A sixteen hourflight with a short stop in Edmonton then to Goose Bay Larbrador whereI could see the blue lights along the landing strip for miles beforetouching down. We walked from the plane to the terminal to stretch ourlegs; unbelievably cold.

No one knew my exact arrival date and as it developed neither did I. Wecame in low over IJmuiden to land at 'Schiphol' the Dutch nationalairport, only a half-hour drive away. When I looked down upon the town,with cars and bikes going here and there, I felt a certain kind ofdetachment; it’s my howetown but I was not really a part of it anymore. Itook the train from the central railway station to IJmuiden and walked toUncle Jack’s house. There was nobody home, so I left my luggage at theneighbours and went to Ma and Anneke’s house in the LangeNieuwstraat 590 for an emotional reunion with my mother and sister.After a while Uncle Jack and Aunt Maartje came, their neighbours hadtold them I had arrived. I went back with them to the Verloren vanThemaatlann. That same evening we went to see my grandfather Prinsstill living in the Kennemerlaan 7. In general, the people I had seen thatday and later on the rest of the family hadn’t changed very much, butOpa Prins had aged quite a bit.Next day I took the train do Delft to see Dini, living at Oude Delft 47. Irang the bell and introduced my self to the landlady as the sender of theairmail letters out of Canada. I waited for a while upstairs in her room. Ileft and tried again after a few hours and had more luck this time. Sheopened her door, toothbrush in hand and a mouth full of toothpaste; wasshe surprised!!! After an evening of getting acquainted again she walkedme back to the railway station and showed me she still knew how to kiss.Dini went home for Christmas and she invited me to come over for a fewdays. Since it was my intention to spend as much time as possible withher, I didn’t hesitate to accept. Her parents hadn’t changed very much.Her dad still loved ot argue, but I came to see Dini. Dini’s mother was alittle surprised that we had kept in touch over the four years I had beenin Canada. I noticed that Dini had her mother’s ankles!We explored Amersfoort, walked through 'Klein (little) Switzerland' a parton the outskirts of the city not far from there Dini lived an dvisited withher Aunt Adri, where I stayed overnight during my stay in Amersfoort.On Boxing Day every one came together at “Huize De Roek”, Dini’s homeand in the evening we all danced in the front room. I danced with thegirl who was destined to become my wife. Herman, her oldest brother,who had emigrated to the United States in 1957 was there with hisgirlfriend Marja.Herman was drafted into the US army and stationed in Germany, but onleave during the Christmas holidays. Marja and he had met during thesummer when he was visiting Amersfoort from Germany throuhg amutual friend; she certainly softened his behaviour quite a bit.

Once back I IJmuiden, I visited with most of the Prins and Neervoortfamilies again and it was good to see them all. Dini was now working ina hospital in The Hague as a medical laboratory technician and wasstudying for her last exam. I went quite often to Delft to visit her, helpher with her studies and at the same time to woo her. The curfew timein the boarding house was at eleven o’clock at night; everybody who wasvisiting had to leav by that time. Here I, as a 29 year old guy, andanother male visitor who was late, had to sneak down the stairs at eleventhirty to catch the train; we couldn’t keep from laughing. And what doyou know, after a month I asked her to mary me and she said “yes”.Next day back in the Verloren van Themaatlaan I had to buy 'taartjes'(pastries) for the whole family to celebrate. It must have been anassurance for them to know that I would go back to Canada with a wifeand companion. However nice the visit was, Holland was not for meanymore.Our marriage took palce in Amersfoort on February 26 1959. I travelledon the morning of the 26th with Uncle Jack, Aunt Maartje and my sisterAnneke to Amersfoort and arrived at the Utrechtseweg 88 with bridalbouquet in hand. Lilies of the valley with orchids and freesias. I wentupstairs to get the bride, lovely with a shy smile on her face she waswaiting for me. I feel so funny is what she said to me. Together we camedown to the living room where everybody was waiting except Opa Prinsand Aunt Nel who stayed home with him. My best friend Ger Hofmanand his wife Lies were also there; the previous weekend we had been inAntwerp in Belgium with them to visit his parents. We had a civilwedding ceremony at the City Hall of Amersfoort and a reception later atDini’s home. It was, that nearly in the year, a beautiful spring weddingwith crocuses in full bloom on the lawn in the back yard.Things were a little complicated with my two mothers. My first motherstill had to put her signature on the marriage certificate because I wasn’tthirty years old. She came with her three sisters. My mother fromIJmuiden came later with one of her sisters (Aunt Jannie) because shedidn’t want to meet my first mother.In the evening we left by plane for our honeymoon in Paris. In Paris westayed in a hotel close to Gard du Nord and spend a week visiting theplaces you have to see when in Paris, among other things. The Versaillespalace, the Lido, the book market along the river Seine and an exhibitionof works by Toulouse Lautrec were admired.Back in Amersfoort I said goodbye to the Hasken family. We left forIJmuiden, by that time I had developed a bad cold and felt quite sick.My flight to Vancouver was cancelled when we arrived at the airport, butthe next trip to Schiphol better luck and I was off to Vancouver, Terrace

and straight into bed for a week. This was in early March and Diniwould arrive in May; that gave me time to arrange things. I didn’t wantto spend time in the coffee bar anymore and was rather relieved thatJopie and Bies agreed to buy me out of the enterprise. My marriage wasone reason, but I also realised that the Riverlodge camp was going toclose. No new lodgers were admitted and the coffee bar would close mostof its customers.I didn’t want to live in the house I owned on the Keith road in Terrace;Henry and I agreed to swap properties. He owned 7 acres with an oldhouse on it on th eGraham road, this became ours with a bit of extramoney to come from Henry. Instead of paying he would help me to startbuilding a new house. The location of this 7 acres property was more tomy liking, but the house lacked a proper foundation, had no insulation,no running water an dno sewer system.In January 1960 I heard from someone outside the family that mygrnadfather Jacob Prins had passed away in December. When Dini and Ivisited him before I left again for Canada, he was bedridden and he aswell as I know that we wouldn’t see each other again in this world. Butto be so out of the minds of the family did hurt. I wrote a rather harshletter to IJmuiden. Uncle Antoon who was apparently in charge of all thearrangements wrote me to apologise.Birth of PhillipWe built the basement for the new house into the hill right behind theoriginal house. It was poured in one day with the help of a few of my coworkersfrom Kitimat. Dini was pregnant at the time an dthe baby wasexpected towards the end of May 1960. No sickness of any kind and onthe morning of May 27 she went in the hospital. At that time you werenot encouraged to attend the birth and I really didn’t mind. I phoned afew times during the day; at eight o’clock that evening, when I was up onthe scaffolding nailing the gable end boards on the new house, the phonerang. I came down in a hurry and heard the tired voice of Dini tell methat we had a son. As it seems to be the tradition in the Prins familythat the first child of the oldest son is a son, this tradition was upheldagain and our son couldn’t escape the same Philip which was my fathersname who was the oldest son of Jacob Prins my grandfather.A real fast drive to the (old army) hospital in Terrace to see them. In thecorridor in front of Dini’s room stood a crib with Philip in it; a child, partof us both and for us to take care of. Dini was lying in bed, her hairspread out upon the pillow and I felt very honoured to have her as mywife and mother of our son. They stayed in the hospital for five yearsand then we brought Philip home.

In the summer of 1960 I had been a 'landed immigrant' for five years inCanada and became a Canadian citizen. My witnesses were MikeNykolaishen and Harry Paine, my line foreman at Alcan. During theswearing in ceremony the Reverend George Keenleyside, minister of theUnited Church in Terrace spoke a few words of welcome to the newcitizens. His speech sounded honestly and eloquently. Philip was laterbaptised in this church and we also became members of the UnitedChurch of Canada.Work on the new house progressed steadily and in 1961 we moved intoour new home. There was still lots to be done to finish it off an dthis wasdone when time and money became available.Commuting to Kitimat was time consuming, but with carpooling, I had touse my own car only twice a week, the other days someone else droveand I could sleep. During that period it happened only once or twice thatI missed a shift because of the road conditions. Especially afternightshift was it sometimes difficult for the driver to stay awake on thetrip back to Terrace when the passengers were all sound asleep. Often Ihad to stop half way and freshen up with some creek water or osme snowat the side of the road.In the spring of 1962 we went on a holiday to southern British Columbiaand Seattle where the World fair was held that year. Philip was just twoyears old that time, and not used to all the noises and crowds at the fair.Visiting a small wildlife park in Osooyos seemed a more enjoyable way ofspending a holiday to him! We renewed acquaintances with theBerquist’s and stayed over night at the farm in Cloverdale, where Daveand Teresa (Bill Hartman’s daughter) now lived in the main house. Davewas a friendly fellow and we talked quite a bit with him; Teresa, spittingimage of her mother, disappeared after supper, claiming a headache,what was to be expected of her. After having worked there pretty hardand being underpaid I didn’t feel quilty at all to claim one night oflodging.In November of 1963 Dini went with Philip for a trip to Holland to visither parents and friends. First by train to Montreal and then on the“Ryndam” to Rotterdam. I am sure Oma and Opa Hasken enjoyed thevisit of their oldest daughter and first grandson. Dini also visited otherrelatives and friends and sometimes Philip stayed behind in the care ofOma and Aunt Loes.New Years day I had made an arrangement for a phone call to Holland; inthe sixties you had to do this and for sure on New Years eve. From theoperator in Terrace via Montreal and London then to Amsterdam and

Amersfoort it felt like taking giant steps and landing in Holland. Iphoned at four o’clock in the night and talked with Dini at twelve noonDutch time.A few months after Dini arrived in 1959 we bought our first new car, aVauxhall. In early 1964 when Dini and Philip were in Holland I lost thecar in an accident which wasn’t my fault. Driving home after dayshift Iwanted to make a right hand turn off the highway to drop off one of mypassengers (Casey van den Brook). At the same time a logging truckloaded with power poles with an overhang of approximately 30 feet hadstopped at the side road and then proceeded to make a right hand turnonto the highway. In doing so the power poles managed to crush the roofof my car. Everyone ducked, got showered with glass but no one wasinjured. Cool and collected driver I thought I was, but I shook like a lieafwhen half an hour later I had to show my drivers license to theinvestigating RCMP officer.When Dini and Philip came back in early March 1964 they had to stayone night in Prince George to get on the train to terrace. But I arrangedfor a day off from work and drove to Prince George in my newly acquiredVolkswagen beetle, the day before their arrival. I met them at the stationearly next morning which was a big surprise! Philip was shy the firstday, probably didn’t recognise me, but this didn’t last long. I kept thatbeetle car only for a while, it was a disaster on icy roads; any time thecare went into a skid it ended up in the snow bank. In a heavy snowfallarea, the only benefit you have is snow banks at the side of the road andyou do not go into the ditch. Ater a short while I got rid of that car! Ourlife returned to normal and we were expecting our second child inDecember.Birth of RobertOver the summer months we moved to Dutch Valley, just outside thetown to live for awhile with the Kennedy’s, Bill and his son Jackie. Billwas going through a divorce and needed someone to take care of his sonso he would be able to gain custody. We rented out our house on theGraham road to a ticket agent for a national airline at first, but when hewas transferred we sold it to Roman and Johanna (second daughter ofBethel and Henry) Weissner. Financially it was a good move for usbecause we saved money, living without expenses. Dini took care ofJackie who was a little older than Philip. Bill was a logger and truckdriver and away a lot in the bush and on the road. I bought a fifteenacre property adjacent to the Kennedy place from Chester Stade. Therewere two cabins on this property which I started fixing up; I foundbetween the walls old newspapers dated from the World War 2.

Robert was born December 20th 1964, on a Sunday. I had to work theafternoon shift, drive to Terrace and left my car in a trailer park to ridewith an co-worker to work in Kitimat. I knew the baby was on its wayand in the plant I didn’t stay too far away from the phone, located in theforeman’s office. But there were no phone calls for me that evening.Arriving back in Terrace that night Bill Kennedy was waiting for me atthe trailer park and told me I had another son. He drove me to the newhospital were Dini and new son were, she had only been in labour for onehour. A tremendous feeling to see a new life added to the family. Wenamed him Robert Gerhard, Herhard being the second name of myfather-in-law.Life in TerraceIn the mean time, I kept working to fix up the cabins on the newlyacquired property. The cabins were beside each other but of differentheights. I built one new continuous roof over them, put a properfoundation under it and at a right angel added a living room and porch.It was an interesting building project and we were quite happy with theend result; but when you work upon a slippery icy roof make sure thereare snow banks around the house for a soft landing, I did.One day when driving to town to run a few errands, down the hill onKalum street in Bill Kennedy’s old truck, I lost control, probably becausethe brakes locked and we swerved off the road rolling two or three timesdown the hill (who had the itme to count the exact number). Philip waswith me and he yelled "I don’t like it, I don’t like it!" - and of courseneither did I. Lucky enough we weren’t hurt, but the truck was a writeoff.To reimburse Bill for the loss of the truck I built a double insulatedcool room and covered entrance, joining his house, for him.In 1966, Anneke was getting married to Simon Kistemaker. I was notable to go to Holland to celebrate with them but we talked over the phoneand sent presents. We enjoyed the pictures they sent us of the ceremonyand the reception. To recognise some of the people in the pictures tooksome time though.Around that time I was ready to look for other work. Travelling back andforth to Kitimat for six and a half years and all the heat and dust wasenough for me. In the spring of 1966, I quit Alcan and started workingfor Cor Bruggeman, a Dutch farmer from Zeeland who came to Canadaafter the flood in the western parts of the Netherlands in 1953. Inhindsight it was a good move health wise; some guys ended up withbladder cancer, presumably as a result of inhaling fluorospar fumes. Corand his wife had a farm in the Remo district, a ten minute drive from

Terrace, grew a lot of potatoes and vegetables. We lived rent free on theirfarm, but financially I didn’t gain anything.We sold the house and property in Dutch Valley in record time at marketvalue but asked a low down payment; they buyers were Frank and TinaDoell. I wasn’t too keen to rent the house and property, because thevalley was prone to flooding during sprintime when the snow melts onthe mountains or with a heavy rainfall. A few years later though whenwe were living in Alberta already the house burnt down due to amalfunctioning furnace and Tina Doell died in that fire. She went backinto the burning house under the mistaken assumption that there stillwere children inside.I worked on the Bruggeman farm for year and a half and although themonetary benefits weren’t that great, I honed my tractor driving skillsand learned several cropping techniques. In order to obtain more arableland we had to clear a five acre parcel of stumps; the trees had beenlogged off already. Some of the stumps were huge from five to eight feetin dismeter. We used dynamite, blowing up two or three stumps at atime. First on estick of dynamite in each stump to make a holeunderneath and then filling that hole with up to twenty sticks and athree foot long fuse, waiting expectantly for all two or three stumps toblow up! It never completely removed the stump, but split it upsufficiently to allow the small bulldozer to push the pieces apart andbuild a big pile to burn them. You wouldn’t think so, but people in theknow told me that the blasting cap, the piece clamped to the fuse, ismore dangerous then the dynamite itself.Usually I worked together with their son Len; we got along quite well,although he had a temper. Once when he was fixing the bulldozer, therepairs didn’t go too well; his face got all red and he said with clenchedteeth "I am going to blow off some steam". "All right with me", I said, "I’llgo for a walk". Once outside I heard the tools bouncing around insdiethe machine shop.In the summer of 1967 Dini became a Canadian citizen; she had madethat her centennial project. During our holiday that summer we went toAlberta, the four of us in the International truck we now possessed,visited with the Kalf family and toured around the province to have alook at several farms. Later on in the same year Dini went to apresbytery meeting of the United Church in north-west British Columbiaand met the Rev. MacNeill, who was the minister in Kitimat. He ownedland close to Fort Saskatchewan. When Dini mentioned that we hadvisited Alberta that summer and liked the area around Edmonton, hesaid that if we ever decided to move there, he had two properties therewith 'housing accommodation' and we would be welcome to move in if we

so desired. In February 1968 I boarded the train to Edmonton whereDick and Nel picked me up. The next day, it was Dick’s day off, we wentto Fort Saskatchewan to look for the housing accommodation and after abit of searching we found the cabin on the correction line close to theBethany Lutheran church.(Photo-Kennermerlaan 7 with Margriet, Ton and Maryke-As Opa’s officelooks now)8. 1968 - todayMove to AlbertaSoon after my arrival in Fort Saskatchewan I went for a job interviewwith Dow Chemicals, but wasn’t hired on. I also put in job applicationsat Sherritt Gordon and Inland Chemicals. Both companies wanted tointerview me on the same day but I preferred Inland Chemicals becauseit was a smaller company. I had been just a number in a large companylong enough! I stayed with Rineke and Peter and found employment atInland Chemicals within two weeks. My first impression of Steve Sumka,who hired me on, was correct: difficulty of coming to a point. On March11 1968, I started working at inland Chemicals and stayed with thecompany, through two name changes, for 26 years. I retired inDecember 1994 at age 65.After the first three weeks on the job I had a lont weekend off, rented apick-up truck and Peter Knorren and I left the Fort on Friday eveningand arrived in Terrace on Saturday afternoon. Dini had loaded our owntruck already with help of the boys and after a night’s rest we filled therented truck and were ready for the trip to Fort Saskatchewan. We leftSunday afternoon but not before Cor had me sign a note stating that weowed him rental money for the house; so much for putting trust in yourfellow countryman! We lost our bed and mattress before we reachedPrince George (who tied it down?) and we had to backtrack thirty miles tofind it. When crossing the BC - Alberta border our spayed cat jumpedout of the truck when we had stopped for breakfast and a stretch yourlegs break, and disappeared, not to be found again. I drove all the wayback hopping from truck to truck. Whenever I saw the trailing truckzigzagging across the road I knew it was time to relieve the driver toprevent the furniture from disappearing into one or the other ditch.Once in Edmonton we stopped at 149th street and had supper there atNel and Dick’s and could plug our deep freezer in, full of food.Life in Fort Saskatchewan

Our 'house' wasn’t ready yet, so we moved in with Rineke and Peter whohad moved to their acreage in the fall of 1967, just eight miles from theplace we were going to live. They were still working on their house andwe 'camped' in their family room. Our cabin was a very primitive affair;power was provided by a generator and the existing driveway across theditch was a few hundred yards to the east. Try to get to the housethrough the field with the truck after a rainfall! The county ofStrathcona put in an approach close to the cabin, we had gravel broughtin for a driveway and made an agreement with the Rev. MacNeill to bringin power from the provincial net. We paid the monthly installationcharges during the time we lived there. In time I installed a septicsystem, put the cabin upon a foundation, built a skirting around it andbuilt a small porch in front of the backdoor.There was a well but it had to be cleaned out which we had done.However after a few weeks though we started pumping quicksand andgave up on it. I put two barrels in the back of the truck and broughtwater in from the plant. The parcel of land that came with the housewas hilly and rocky but we farmed several small pieces of it afterscouring several auctions to buy suitable and affordable basic pieces ofmachinery. We seeded and harvested barley and made hay.Our next-door neighbours, Alfred and Rose Naundorf, were always veryhelpful and made us feel welcome. In my first years of farming he didthe combining for me. When he built a new garage, he left me have theold garage; we put it on skids and pulled it over the road to our place.With a lean-to built against it, we had shelter for the equipment.From Knox United Church, we transferred to Partridge Hill UnitedChurch, a church in the middle of the prairie, part of the pastoral chargewith Fort Saskatchewan. I served a number of years as a member of thesession. Its long-time minister at that time was Peter Ream; he is retirednow, but still a grateful receiver of the stamps I collect for him.In September 1968 Jake, Dini’s youngest brother came over to stay andthe next spring her parents came over for a six month visit untilSeptember 1969. To add sleeping accommodation we built an extra freestandingbedroom. When we moved later on to Range Road 205, wherewe still are now, we dismantled this room, extended it and this is nowour garage beside the house.We heard about this house through Jake; he was working Don Fluker,custom straw and hay baling for farmers around here. He heard thatEarl Schneider was selling his old house, as he had built a new one forhim and his wife. It looked to me that the new one was not very muchsmaller than the one he was leaving. We were able to purchase a 2-acre

piece of land from Carl Schneider for $1000, kitty-corner from whereEarl’s house was located. All this action took place in October -November 1969. In February 1970 the house, bought for $500, wasmoved to its new location and left sitting on blocks, as there was nopossibility to build a basement so late in the winter. The house movesdidn’t want to move it any earlier, the ground had to be frozen deepenough, so the trailer & house could be moved across the road (thepower line had to be cut) and through the field and deposited on our 2acres. It was quite a job and very interesting to see how they managed toraise the house off its foundation. The brick chimney was removed first,then the house was pulled onto the trailer, which was parked beside thefoundation. The mover told me that he figured the house weighedapproximately 60 tons. It took the movers four and half days to get thehouse onto the trailer and three hours to bring it where it is now.We now had the house upon our property, but no basement ready yet.Pouring a basement beside it and then moving the house again was toocostly. The purchase of the house, property, bringing the power in etc.cost me a (pretty) penny!That summer we poured a footing and foundation under the house. Irented a number of jacks and with help of the Knorren and Kalf familieswe lowered it down, perfect fit! As the supporting beams were extendedbeyond the walls of the house, openings were left in the foundation andthat is where the basement windows are now. Sears designed thefurnace and piping-layout; in the meantime Jake and I built the chimneyand poured a septic tank. In November 1970 we moved into our newhome, the lone house on that side of the road. A crawlspace under thehouse was unsatisfactory – it took me two winters to dig the basementout by hand. It’s amazing how much more dirt you take out than youthink there is. It took six filled pails to one tractor bucket and I dumpedthat in the shallow spot in the back (of the property).Now 31 years later, in the year 2000 we have two new neighbours to thesouth of us. The closest to us is Debra, Earl’s granddaughter, andfurther south is Morley Gabert, grandson of one of the early settlers ofthis area.In September 1971 Dini went to Holland to attend the 40th weddinganniversary of her parents in her hometown of Amersfoort. It was toodifficult for both of us to attend as Philip and Robert were too small to beleft on their own.Birth of Caroline (1972)

We always wanted a daughter to complete our family and so we madesure; we adopted Caroline Maria, named after Dini’s mother (Lien). InFebruary 1972 our girl arrived, a cute face and a “wipneus” (pert nose!).After picking Caroline up that very day we went with her to the old Searsstore at Princess Elizabeth Avenue to buy some more baby supplies. Iwas walking around iwht her and there she awoke, the clearest eyes Ihave ever seen. Philip, at first, wasn’t to enthusiastic about theadoption, but he was the one, in what he thought was an unobservedmoment, making funny faces at her! She sure had to laugh about it.To feed some rained upon hay we couldn’t sell, we started to buyHolstein bull calves from the dairy farms to feed them milk powder, thenhay wise, are low on the totem pole, we switched to a Hereford cow-calfoperation, having accumulated some money with the Holsteins.(Photo-)(Photo-The farm in wintertime)Working at Inland ChemicalsThe job at Inland chemicals was a hands-on experience, the operatorsshowed you what was to be done and how it was to be done. Quite somedifference between one and the other operator. Four real good ones comein mind: Heinz Heiring, Jerry Schacher and later on Ed Lamoureux andPaul Zeniuk. You took the best of each one and made it your own.There were several operators I won’t mention. There were no writtenprocedures available, when you wanted to know something, you asked(but not the foreman). You always could ask Steve Sumka, Mr. Inland,as he was know; it took him awhile but eventually you got the answer.He used to tour the plant and come to Plant 1 where the control panelswere situated and the operator and other personnel used to gather.When we saw him come (Plant 1 used to have windows at that time)everybody scattered; out through the north, west or east door, only theoperator on shift was not so lucky and had to stay. Usually a literarypiece in the logbook followed with phrases to urge for more cleanliness:'bent down to the pickings' or when caught relaxing 'starting into spaceis not operating'. But his technical knowledge I respected.As soon as I started at Inland I studied to obtain my 4th class steamticket. With an interim exam from SAIT, supervised by Rev. HallSambell, I got my ticket within a year. A year after I did the exam for the3rd class ticket, a two-day affair and that went all right. After two yearsworking as a helper I got promoted to operator. Sure a different feeling tobe in charge, no direct shoulder to lean upon, but a good experience tosolve your problems. There were two acid plants running, number 1 an

approximately 120 ton/day plant and number 2 an approximately 450ton/day plant. The plants produced 93 % and 98 % sulphuric acid byburning liquid sulphurie, coverting the produced sulphuric dioxide intosulphuric troxide inside a coverter and then leading the gas through thecirculating acid in the absorber tower, adding water at the same time tomaintain the acid strength. Only on dayshift was there directsupervision in the plant; afternoon and night shift and the weekends wewere the only two persons in the plant. Till we installed stainless steelacid coolers, combined with some other modifications, plant number 2sure had some fun with the old acid collers! The produced acid wascooled by running cooling water over cast iron pipes. Those pipes wereconnected by 180 degrees cast iron return bends. And there were thetrouble originated; these return bends had steel plugs inserted instead ofcast-iron plugs. One plug after the other corroded away and there wasan acid leak. Fix it with a Teflon plug and away you went again, but youstill had to neutralise the acidic cooling water by adding bags of sodaash. One operator had no night shift to add 125 bags and got heck fromthe foreman next morning for not cleaning up the empty bags! This wasthe same guy who wrote the plant orders in the logbook (no computermessages then) as "Do not pump no acid to SGM" (it was underlined). Bythe way we didn’t follow that order. He also figured there was a supperheater in the plant, somewhere.In 1973 the Dutch club in Edmonton organised a charter flight toHolland for a four-week duration. I felt like going as it had been fourteenyears ago I had been there. Combining my 1972 and 1973 holidays,Philip and I went to visit Holland and family. We visited the family formboth sides and went for a trip to see the Delta works and the Evoluon inEndhoven. During our stay in Kjmuiden on a Sunday morning Philipand I went to visit Uncle Jan and Aunt Mary. They were living in thePresident Krugestraat in the same house my grandparents used to live.Old habits die hard and we came in the backdoor. The youngestdaughter, Maryke, not recognising me, said to her mother "There is astrange fellow (vreemade kerel) coming inside" but Aunt Mary knew meright away. These days whenever I phone maryke I introduce myself as'die vreemde kerel'.During our visit to Amersfoort we met Dini’s sister Louise, newly marriedto Sicco Hoekstra who was living upstairs at Utrechtseweg 88. He musthave been favourably impressed by our stories of Canada because theycame over, with their daughter Miranda, for a visit the year after - withtheir friends the Bysterveld family. A few months later they emigrated toCanada. They stayed at our place for a few weeks, until they found anapartment in the Fort. With a little bit of help from me they (Bob &Sicco) secured employment at Inland Chemicals, where they stayed for awhile. Inland Chemicals at that time was purchased by CIL and changes

were coming. Steve was transferred to the acid plant in Coppercliff andBill Bentley came in to take over. As the foreman had quit half a yearbefore that, they now needed a foreman. I wasn’t very keen on it; thefinancial rewards weren’t that impressive and I sure liked to run the acidplants, be my own boss and have more free time to run the farm. But asense of duty prevailed and so the foreman period started, not thehappiest time for me at CIL. One positive experience was the contacts Imade with personnel in the other plants. I went for seminars andmeetings to Prince George, Rochester, Cornwall, Calgary, Montreal,Toronto, Houston. When we had problems or needed information, theconversation went a lot easier when you had a name you could refer to.This was abnout the time my sister Anneke started the first signs ofcancer, a kind of virulent skin cancer. A year later she passed away. Aswell at the plant, Mr. George Grant, the plant manager, passed awayduring a cruise and Bill Bentley took his place. To have an experiencedacid engineer he asked Steve to come back to the plant. If I would’veknown this would happen, I wouldn’t have taken the foreman’s job,period! But now I was stuck with it. I continued to study for the lastthree papers of my ticket, wrote them one by one and became a fullfledgedsecond class steam engineer. This right away included being thechief steam engineer in the plant.Towards the end of 1975 I received my last letter of Anneke of which atranslation will be included. We phoned a few times to Kjmuiden untilwe got the call to come over as the end was near. We, Dini and I left forHolland in the beginning of June, arrived to stay at my Uncle Jack’splace.We went to see Anneke right away; she was cared for by her husbandSimon and my mother. She spent the last few months of her life at herhome at the Dennekoplaan, a newly built neighbourhood in the dunestowards the beach with a view of the harbours. Even though we wereinformed, it was quite a shock to see the condition she was in. We madea short trip to Kamperland, where Dini’s parents now resided, tocelebrate Didi’s mother’s birthday and then we went back to Kjmuiden inPa’s car. The car overheated on the way back (second day of Pentecostand endless car-queues). Bert and Carien had to rescue us at a gasstation in the Haarlemmermeer.With my sister you could see the end was near, there was hardlyanything left of my oce so beautiful sister; constantly treated withValium. She went into a coma and died in the evening of the 17th ofJune. She was cremated at the Driehuis-Westerveld crematorium withan attdendance of about 200 people. This passing away of so young alife, left me pretty down for a while, but life goes on if you want it to or

not. There was a pilot strike on and we had to wait another 2 weeksbefore we could leave for home again.On the evening of December 21, 1976, we got a phone call from Ben, oneof Dini’s brothers, who is a physician, that Ma was in the hospitalsuffering from a heart attack. One hour later another call (and then youknow it is serious indeed) that she had passed away at 68 years old.Right away we made arrangements for Dini and Louise to fly to Holland,to be picked up at Schiphol and driven to Kamperland, to attend thefuneral. All the children were there, except the youngest brother Jake.She was buried in Kamperland, now also the resting place of Dini’sfather.Life in the plant kept on going and after the upgrade of the number 2acid plant (this was necessary to meet emission standards) Bill Bentleywent off to Toronto and we got a new manager for our complex, BobDyck. In the mean time plant I was shut down and dis-mantled as it wastoo costly to upgrade.A new period of management was started by bringing in the teamconcept. The idea of the team concept is that the personnel of aparticular department in the plant, like acid, alum, alpak, office,maintenance, management form a team and make decisions to run theirdepartment by consensus, within the guidelines and rules set bymanagement. A lot of meetings and workshops were organised andattended to bring everybody up to par. In the end the teams were formedand started to function. This mad ethe foreman’s job obsolete. The jobof technical assistant was created; I really didn’t want to leave the plantas we still had to make mortgage payments to make on the 80 acres wehad bought.The job now was to conduct induction sessions for new employees andworkers coming in for the annual shutdown. Also attack tests, here andin Prince George, were done by me and I started and finished an acid andalum plant manual, containing technical information and jobdescriptions. This was an interesting and learning experience for me. Atthe end of that project I wanted to go back to operation the acid plantagain. Bob was doubtful that I would like it there, but he was told howreluctant I had accepted the foreman’s job. I don’t think he everregretted it that I went operating again, as I was, after Steve gotpensioned off, one of the few operators who could successfully start theplant in a cold start-up.There had been another benefit of the foreman’s job and that was thearranging of summer jobs for Philip and Robert when they had the age to

take a summer job in an industrial plant, and work there for decentwage.ChildrenPhilip graduated from high school in 1978, went for one year to NAIT andthen completed a university study in chemical engineering in four yearsto graduate in 1983. He then secured a job with Syncrude in FortMcMurray. During his study-years he met Judy Sanby and they decidedto get amrried the time Philip moved to Fort McMurray. Her introductionto the farm was in style. As we were installing a new septic system, therewas a 12 feet deep hole in front of the backdoor, brideged by a plank.But she didn’t hesitate, stepped upon the plank and passed with flyingcolours.And after a while the children came, Jacob Ian in 1986, Daniel Sean in1988, Terence Evan in 1989 and the twins Johanna Marie and KathrynAnneke. Philip and Judy knew how much I would appreciate it if theoldest one, a boy of course, would be named Jacob to maintain thetradition of sequence in names. And now in the year 2000, when I amwriting this, how they show their individuality, Jacob with a sense ofquick wit and very committed to excel in school, Daniel the ocmposerand artistic one, Terence the sportsman and the one having a sweettooth. Then the twins Johanna and Kathryn play, laugh and crytogether. I was very touched when they told us that the second name ofKathryn would be Annkek. As there were breathing problems when thegirls were born, they were flown to the University hospital where we werto look at them, baby girl A and baby girl B. How they have grown sincethen!Robert finished high school in 1981, took one semester in engineeringand saw that it was not for him. He then enrolled in forestry andgraduated after six years of study in 1988. A postgraduate studycommenced and was concluded with a master degree two years later. Hemet Danelle, another forestry student, during his university years; theywere married in 1990 in Vancouver, where Stan (Danelle’s dad) during aspeech at the reception almost figured us (Albertans) as coming out ofouter space!Caroline graduated from high school in 1989, couldn’t wait to leave thefarm and moved to Edmonton, where she took an arts course at VictoriaComp high school and then off to Calgary’s art school.After Dini’s mother died, Pa kept his house in kamperland for a while,but his heart was not in it anymore. He kept on travelling and after afew years finally settled down with us with grequent trips to his other

children, Herman and Marja in Strathfield, Wisconsin, Johan and Ellenin Ijzendoorn, Ben and Juke in Kamperland. He sold his house andshipped all his furniture in one big container to our address. Ben told us– be prepared, everything is ocming, even the garden path paving bricks!Most of the furniture stayed here. After he passed away in 1990 it gotdivided up between the children as well as Philip (the old writing deskamong other things) and Ellen and Steve (Herman’s second daughter) asthey liked antique furniture. To spend the time when he stayed at ourplace, he built the front porch for us and later, when we had acquiredthe adjacent 80 acres we crected a big garage, where he parked his carand had a workshop.In 1979 the 80 acres north of our 2 acres for sale as the owner, Mrs.Schneider, had passed away and her three daughters wanted to sell theproperty. As the yard of that property is straight north of our house andcontained quite a few bushes and trees, acting as a proper windbreak, wereally didn’t want to see that removed as might have happened with anew owner. Also I wanted to continue farming, the location was ideal forus; good soil and no sloughs. So we didn’t hav emuch of a bargainingposition and agreed to the asking price of $1000 an acre. We dealtmainly with the oldest daughter Elsie and her husband Pete (school busdriver for years). As we needed a down payment, Pa agreed to let us havethe money on which we paid a yearly interest. Where was the well to doPrins family? To make the payments Dini started to work for the homecare department in Fort Saskatchewan. At that time the bank didn’twant to touch any outlying properties for a mortgage, I obtained a closedmortgage for five years with First City Trust, fixed rate and no chance forextra payments. Five years of pay gave us a reduction of the principal byabout $5000 with interest payments of $35000. As we wanted betterrepayment conditions, half a year before the renewal date, we let themknow that we wanted a better kind of deal. No answer until two weeksbefore the renewal date and no better deal. During those five years, thebanks changed their policy about lending money for properties in therural areas. Since we didn’t expect much co-operation from First City,we had already made arrangements with the Bank of Commerce andobtained an open mortgage, which gave us the opportunity to increasepayments and make yearly payments of 10% on the outstandingprincipal. This we accomplished by our own efforts, a sum of moneyfrom my first mother, a sum of money from my mother in Kjmuiden anda loan from Robert. We paid the mortgage off in five years. There is nowa clear title of the property in our names, the same goes for the tow acreproperty + house.In the summer of 1979 we had visitors from Ijmuiden. My mother hadsufficiently recovered from the loss of Anneke and came with theKistemaker family (Anneke’s in-laws) for a four week visit. It was the

first time she saw Robert, age 14 and Caroline, age 7. We had planned atwo week long trip and my mother, the kistemakeers and I went by car toJasper, the Yellowhead route to Prince George with a side trip to the oldmining settlement of Barkerville, then up to Terrace - Kitimat to meetwith some old friends. With the ferry from Prince Rupert to Vancouverisland for a two-day stay in Victoria, where of course we visited thetourists spots. All in all a successful fourteen-day sightseeing trip ofAlberta and British Columbia, especially after they got used to Canadiandistances.Our 25th wedding anniversary came in February 1984; we didn’t paymuch attention to the previous once, but we celebrated this one. It wassuch nice weather that day, we took pictures of the family outside ourhouse on the lawn, however no crocuses as on the day we got married.We had a dinner at the Pots and Pans with all the Canadian familypresent, about 24 people.Visits to HollandIn 1986 my mother in Kjmuiden wanted us to come over for a visit whichwe did by the end of October. It was good to see Robert again in Holland,where he was staying for a number of months after a student exchangeprogram in Sweden. The three of us travelled a bit through Holland,visited Texel, and with Willem van Doorn JR. took in the sights of thenew polders in the former Southern sea. When we arrived in Holland mymother arranged a get-together for all the remaining family and it wasvery nice to see almost everybody there, it was a long time ago since thathad happened. It reminded me so much fo the New Year and birthdaycelebrations we had in the President Krugerstraat, when Uncle jan andAunt Mary were living there. My mother must have been afflicted withthe first signs of dementia, it runs in the family. Looking back that willexplain several seemingly strange remarks she made during our stay,only than we didn’t realise it for what it was.Sometime in 1987 or 1988 maryke Kunst-Tol informed us that it was notlonger possible to have her unattended in her own house; upon doctororders she was admitted to the Zeeweg hospital and from there, whenthere was room, she moved to Velserduin, a nursing home. In October1989 I went to Holland to visit her in the hospital. Maryke and I wentthere an dI was happy enough that she recognised me. There weremoments she didn’t make much sense; when you talked about earliertimes she was not too bad. With Maryke I went to the Lange Nieuwstraat590 to visit her house for the last time. An assortment of pictures, thepainting of the rural road, a handcrafted copper shield and some of herjewellery came to Canada. The rest of her belongings held no memoriesfor me as she must have bought it after I left for Canada.

First visit outside Ijmuiden was to The Hague to see my first mother.Uncle Jack offered to go with me, I was glad for that as it was adepressing affair, with Ma and Mr. Gritters constantly bickering and sheshowing signs of depression and dementia. Later during the visit I wentto see Hennie Prins, an old girlfriend of Dini, whom I had met when shevisited us. Form Amersfoort to johan and Ellen, where there had been aphone call for me out of IJmuiden. I phoned back right away to hearthat Uncle Jack suddenly had passed away of an embolism. Lately hishealth hadn’t been too good, lots of smoking and a fairly steady drinker;it had caused blood and circulation problems. After saying goodbye toIjzendoorn I went for a shortened visit to the farm in Aalsmeer. Sundayafternoon I went back to IJmuiden.The funeral was that Monday afternoon at Driehuis-Westerveld, the samecemetery where Oma and Opa Prins are resting. There were a lot ofpeople attending, several cousins and other family members I hadn’tseen since I left for Canada. It seemed to be one of those occasions youare able to meet everybody. I didn’t see Ben and Juke that visit, but Italked to them by phone.It was on a Sunday dayshift, March 22, 1992 that Dini phoned me to saythat she had a phone call from Maryke. My mother had passed awaythat day. Luckily enough I knew the travel agent by name, so afterseveral phone calls I was able to fly to Vancouver Monday evening andthen late at night to Amsterdam, arriving at Tuesday noon. Thatafternoon to the bank to change money, order a wreath at the flowershop and after a short nap visited Bram and Maryke to hear about thelast days of my mother. The funeral was that Wednesday, it was a rathersimple occasion, no Minister present. I was the only one to speak,thanking the persons who took care of her during her last years shewasn’t well and mentioning the memorable episodes in her life. Thetranslation of this tribute is included with the memories. Upon her wishshe was creamted there, just like my sister Anneke.A 10-day stay was long enough and as my leave of absence wasn’t al thatlong I was rather glad to be home again. Bob Dyck must have left bythat time as I had to deal with his replacement Rick McInerny. He wasmore of an chemical engineer and wasn’t all that smooth with people.The time came they decided to close the acid plant down and purchaseacid from SGM. This caused a lay-off of many people; Dave Axford, mydirect supervisor left on his own accord to go to Canadian Oxy and as theadministration got downsized (Toronto head office taking over) officepersonnel were included as well. After the transition period wascompleted, they let even Rick go.

When it was offered to him, Norma Fulleylove took early retirement. Hewas the sales manager for Marsulex and negotiated all the acid and alumcontracts. He was on the road most of the time, but when he was in (andI had dayshift) we always had time for a talk. As I was the oldest andone of the most experienced operators when evaluation time camearound, I was in pretty good shape and so stayed on till retirement came,December 31st of the year 1994. And it was time to go, the challege wasgone after they shut the acid plant down and the job consisted ofreceiving and shipping acid.(Photo-Threesome-The fmaily)RetirementMy retirement party came as a complete surprise; that’s probably why itwas called a surprise party! Dini knew I didn’t like to go to plant parties.But for this one she had me completely fooled. She arranged, later withhelp from Dave and Eric, a retirement party for me under the pretence ofit being an appreciation party for Rusty Hull, the caretaker of the GoodHope Hall. As I know him quite well, he having worked for a contractorin the plant and he did some private jobs for me, I didn’t hesitate to gothere. And here were Philip and his family, Robert and Danelle out ofVancouver, Caroline just arrived out of Ireland and all the neighbours,Partridge Hill church members and fellow workers, it was a surpriseindeed. The cowboy boots and hat were appreciated! Later in the monthI got a phone call from Bob Dyck, the company presdient Ross Craigieand as a farewell present a set of book supports and a picture of theplant site. This is the picture hanging in the study of our house.After my retirement I promptly spent two more weeks in the plant, myown time, to dismatle the Quonset hut partition. Beside piles of lumberand plywood, I got isulation and electrical material. Most of this stuff isnow used tin the replacement cow barn we built beside the hay shed.That summer (1995) we took the Chrysler van and went for a trip toAlaska. Caroline looked after the farm with a bit of cattleman’s help fromEd Schoepp; one calf was born during that period. On the way in we sawmy former boss Bob Dyck, who had left Marsulex and was working inTaylor for Westcoast Energy. Dini kept a logbook of this trip I wasactually surprised to notice how far north the woodland reaches; wedidn’t reach the treeless surroundings until we left Dawson City to driveto Alaska and Fairbanks. There were several highlights, one being apicture we took in the early morning of a lake close to Skagway, the otherone a guided day tour we took to the Denhali park. I will never forget thehairpin turns on the gravel road we travelled. Not a barrier in sight anda drop-off of at least a 1000 feet, the driver, otherwiase a nice guy,

talking away and pointing out all the interesting sights and animals, onehand on the steering wheel. But we saw wildlife and we panned for gold.On our way back we took the Steward Cassiar highway leading us toTerrace where we visited with remaining friends. There aren’t too manyleft anymore but almost 30 years is a long time.As soon as we came back home Caroline travelled to ireland and fromthere to Scotland where she fell ill. In October, after she was well enoughto travel, Dini went to see her and accompany her to Holland, where shestayed at the Keizershove to recuperate.In January 1996 we both went to Holland to attend the 50th weddinganniversary of Klaar and Leni. There was a house full of people but noother cousins of mine than their children, one of them I met for the firsttime. That’s the result of the emigartion, as most of the brothers andsisters of my dad got married after the war, it follows that their childrenwere very young or had to be born yet, when I felt for Canada in 1955.And as a consequence I really never got to meet and know them.We saw my first mother again in the Hague and this time she didn’trecognise any of us. After the visit we had dinner with hr Gritters, Peterand his new wife Bernadette, and Caroline. We had a good realtionshipwith hr Gritters, you think there would be a degree of animosity becauseof the divorce. That might have been the case in the beginning butcertainly not in the later stages. He passed away in March 1997; shepassed away in the summer of 1997, she went fast down hill after hispassing. Peter said “Even in her condition, she msut have felt that hepassed away”.In the summer of 1997 Caroline started searching for her birthmotherand in relative short time she had success. She found her birthmotherliving in Kelowna with a full sisiter as well. What a surprise for her.Apparently the mother married her (Caroline’s) birthfather and they hada son and a daughter. The father as well as the brother died in separatecar accidents. If you see the pictures of Deana (sister) when she wasyoung, exactly the same and even now there is quite a resemblancebetween them. Deana stayed with us for a number of months andduring that time we got the opportunity to meet with her mother.Cruise time came in April 1998; it had always been a dream of mine to goon a cruise to the Caribbean islands and further down, worry free travel,no packing and unpacking of clothes and visiting lots of places. Safewith the Holland-America line, no Greek or Panama-flagged cruise shipfor me. Peter and Rineke went as well and there we flew to FortLauderdale in Florida; on the flight in we had a flight lay-over to repair a

oken – down air conditioning unit, re-assuring for Dini’s fear of flying!After a morning excursion to Butterfly world to see thousands ofbeautiful creatures, we were ready to crusie. The cab driver told us thatany water holding places could have unwanted visitors swimming in itlike alligators. From the motel to the MS Maasdam for a cruise of 20days through the Panama canal up to Vancouver. The MS Maasdamnumber 4 where I came over with to Canad awasn’t as half luxurious asthe MS Maasdam number 5. One of the amazing things of this one wasthat there weren’t any tugboats needed when entering or leaving theharbour. With the help of side thrusters they managed everythingthemselves, speed changes were done through a change of screw bladespitch by constant shaft rpm. From Fort Lauderdale we sailed to the HalfMoon Cay at the Bahamas. Depending on harbour facilities the shipeither moored in the harbour or anchored in the by itself. If it stayed inthe bay you were ferried by motorboat to the landing place. Anunbelievable white sand beach and clear water as far as you dared toswim. This part of the island is owned by the company, so everythingwas free including an excellent barbecue. On the way to Curcao wesailed by Cuba to arrive at our destination early in the morning with afull day to roam around in the town. The early Dutch influence wasclearly to see in the building style of the houses along the quay. It usedto be a colony of the Dutch, but the main language spoken is English.The canal took one day to cross, the locks bring you up an 100 feet thenan artificial late and through another set of locks you go down an 100feet and you are in the Pacific ocean sailing to Guatemala. Armedsoldiers watching the dis-embarkment when we took a day trip inland fora trip across a lake to a village where you were surrounded by thevillagers to buy their wares, the only thing I heard Rineke say constantlywas “Too much, too much”. After dis-embarkment off to a luxury hotelfor a noon meal, magnificent gardens around it where we took quite a fewpictures. What we saw, people don’t seem to be rich, primitive housingbut they seemed to enjoy life as a community; it helps that the climate isa moderate one, nother like what we have here in the winter time.Four stops in Mexico; in Acapulco the only place I recognised was themarket place, ther’s were I used to drink beer in my long-time ago visit.In Puerto Vallarta we took another bus-tour, visited a mountain village.If you think the cars away, it is if you step back in time a hundred years.And the people there didn’t accost you as much with their “artefacts” asthey did in Guatemala. The four of us had dinner downtown on the roofof a hotel, after we mastered the elevator operation. Magnificent view ofthe harbour and town, flowers, music, I thought it was terrific, even if themeal was not exceptional yet expensive enough. On the Maasdam thebreakfast and noon meal were buffet style, however you could go to thedining room too where you were served; this we did several times. The

dinner was more formal with always the same table guests, two couplesand one lady out of the Vancouver area, one lady out of Toronto and thenus four out of Alberta. We got along real well and according to the moreexperienced cruisers, this can make a big difference in the success of thetrip. Next stop was San Francisco where of course we rode the cabletram to the centre of the city; high, impressive buildings, homelesspeople sleeping on the street not a stone throw away. Seattle was thenext stop and then Vancouver where Danelle was waiting for us; westayed with Robert and Danelle for a day before going home, back to thereal world.In March 1999 we celebrated our 40th anniversary with our children,grandchildren, family, friends and neighbours in the Josephburgcommunity hall; it was very enjoyable. Everybody liked the entourage ofthe hall, white tablecloths and flowering plants, food supplied by acaterer and a wine and beer bar.During a regular medical check-up that month the doctor discovered agrwoth at my thyroid, lucky enough it was non-mailgnant. After severaltests it was decided to remove it, which happened in the Grey Nunshospital in July. Into the hospital in the morning, operation in the earlyafternoon and out the next morning; some nice nurces, who really caredfor you. Apparently they put a tube through your throat to assist in thebreathing during the operation; that bothered me later more than theoperation itself.I am practically caught up now with my story, there were lots of visitsfrom friends and relatives that will be mentioned when Dini writes herjournal.Attachment #1The following is a translation of the speech Fred, one of Aunt Mary’ssons, gave at the funeral of his mother. Most parts are specific to herlife, but some parts portray all the sister Sohl (typed in italic). Theinclusion of this speech is with permission of Aunt Mary’s husband JookHofman.14th of August 1996We went back along the beautiful road from Overveen to IJmuiden, theplace where our mother’s life started.Our mother was born the first of May 1921 and all her youth years werespent here. Many times she used the bike to take this road to go toOverveen and Haarlem. This is the region were our mother’s memories

come from. Here she roamed around with her girl friend Rie andtogether they spent the summer time in a cabin on the beach.And it was here that she met our father, a meeting upon the beach ofIJmuiden. He was drafted into the army during the mobilisation in1939. He carried responsibilities for the defence of the coast (FortIJmuiden).Our mother went along with him to the big city (The Hague) where theywere married in 1942.Our mother did show then already how well she adapted to changingsituations; she had a born-intuition into humand relationships.She followed our father to the province of Limburg, where they spent thelast part of the war. This move landed her in one of the most importantperiods of her life. After she encouraged our father to agree to a requestto join the staff of Prince Bernhard in London, she joined the Americanarmy. With her psychological perception and a natural feeling forlanguages she fulfilled the role of translator in the Allied army inGermany. She was in her mid-twenties and in this important period ofher youth she really developed her talents.I am glad that our father and our mother found each other again aftertheir war experiences and Wouter and I saw our existence realisted.Our mother was beautiful and charming and with all her qualitiesdeveloped into a very beloved woman. I remember very well, how manypeople surrounded her and how easy the social contacts were made andalso how well she could listen to people and advise many friends. Ourmother was a self-taught person, leaving many a psychologist behindher.Another peculiarity of our mother I would like to mention was her abilityto look very elegant by simple means; she had a feeling for colour andstyle and we, as children, were always very proud of how she looked.It worked out all right and our mother kept herself busy with thesematters. Our father was often intense, busy with his work and quiteoften our mother ran the household by herself. She never did let us feelthat this effort was sometimes very stressful.Another important part of her life was connected with the field hockeyclub HDM, our father’s favourite club. In her own way she created aspace for herself, giving our father the opportunity to participate withmore people and more commitment.

During a later period in her life she got another opportunity to realise hertalents. Together with some girlfriends she ran a coffee shop in a districtof The Hague. Pretty soon this developed into a social meeting point andit filled an enormous void for the exploiters as well for the guests. Formany years she was the hostess for the district and she enjoyed itimmensely.After this period it went somehow downwards. Our mother developedphysical complaints and her mobility decreased. This was the time shecould depend upon her friendships; in those years we saw many friendscome to visit her. However her health continued to deteriorate whenabout a year ago she had a setback she didn’t overcome.During this time we greatly admired our father, showing patience andcarefulness. In this period of his life it showed how important ourmothers influence has been. After her example, through all the years,our fathers introvert and surly character changed into an interested,open person, a formidable feat!We hope that when you think about our mother, you remember her as acharming, characteristic woman, using her talents to the limit.My remarks: Aunt Mary’s girlfriend was Rie Hoek, who lived in theKennemerlaan, across from Oma and Opa Prins. Aunt Mary went to theelementary school E; one ime I was allowed to come along, so I could sitbeside her in her school bench.Attachment #2Anneke’s last letterIJmuiden the 3rd of December 1975Dear Dini, Jack, Philip, Robert and Caroline:Congratulations, however I know that I didn’t send this letter in time, butlater a bit more about it, but the congratulations are just as sincere.It has been a while since you phoned out of Canada, I was flabbergastedbut really enjoyed it. How are the boys and Caroline doing? TheChristmas report cards are probably coming again.Here everyhting is going so-so, the radiation treatments are finished,gives me some peace; it was long enough.

Upon medical advice, I work only half time so I can rest in the afternoon,which is nice. In conjunction with the radiation, they startedchemotherapy of one week in a month for two years. Since the 1st ofDecember is it the third month.But since last week complications started and that is why this letter islate. I wished, that by waiting awhile longer with this letter, I could havegiven you some answers, but up until now, I myself am unsure of what ishappening. I noticed myself a lymph node lump an dbecause I had to gofor those injections last Monday anyway, I decided to wait. In themeantime eight more started to swell and all over my body; that MondayI let them know about it. The physician who saw me couldn’t sayanything about it and referred me today to his boss, he is a professorwho leads that medical team. But I didn’t get to know very much. Toknow if it is malignant, they have to do an autobiopsy and that only canhappen in fourteen days, because a certain surgeon is on holidays. Theonly thing what gives me a lift that it could be a reaction upon theinjections they are giving me. But I have to have a few weeks patience toknow what it is.Sorry that it is a hospital letter again, but I suppose that you wanted toknow. I will write you the result.Are you going to celebrate Christmas?It’s sure a pleasant time; if everything turns out alright, Simon and Iwant to go to London for a few days during the Christmas season. Itlooks so good to me to be in England and feel the Christmas spirit. Butof course it is not sur eand we wait and see; in the first place I hope upona favourable result for myslef and in the second place our car starts toshow deficiencies that we should have to buy a new one, so there goesyour profit.Well people, now you know how things are here and I certainly expect aletter from you fro my birthday. These letters will cross each other forsure and I will know something about you.Manay pleasant days and with love from me.AnnekeAttachment #3My talk at my mothers funeral.March 25th 1992.

I am sure that I speak for all of you when I thank Maryke, Bram, Stynand Engel for the caring of my mother, your sister and Aunt. I don’tthink she could have received more sincere care. Since about 1940, Iwas part of the Neervoort family, when my dad and I went to number 78of the President Kruger street on a Sunday morning for a cup of coffeeand for me to meet Aunt Anna. It has been the only time I enteredthrought the front door, later on always through the backdoor into thekitchen; in the kitchen don’t you dare to touch the countertop!Sometimes, when I talked with Ma about the period before she met mydad, she said: Mary (her older sister) and I went quite often dancing inthe Cycloops (Aunt Styn was not allowed to come along, too young), butonce I met your father, I didn’t feel like it anymore. My dad and AuntAnna got married in August of 1941 and it went from Aunt Anna tomother (she didn’t answer when I made a mistake) and called her AuntAnna. Anneke was born in December 1942.15th of December 1944, at three o’clock in the afternoon, Ma was at thegrocery store of Mr. Ott; she came home in a hurry, all upset and askedme to go and have a look in the harbour area, where my dad was atwork. The harbour entrance was barricaded and the guards wouldn’t letme through. Later on the circumstances improved and life was easier.It was not an easy time for her after the war, a very small allowance, soshe went to work to keep the household together. Later on thecircumstances improved and life was easier.She was never stuck for a word (as a matter of fact the whole Neervoortfamily isn’t either) and when the occasion arose, she let go. Once I camehome with a girlfriend, she wasn’t too fond of, she said to her: do youknow you are number 22? Later on she took me aside and said: youknow the saying: "Hay that follows the wagon isn’t much good." Imarried number 23, much to Ma’s liking.I will close with a talk I had with her during one of my last visits toHolland. We were talking about everything that had happened after shewas married. She said: Jack, I had much grief when your dad and lateron Anneke passed away, but the time has softened the sorrow. I hopethe same will happen now, we won’t forget her, but hope the sorrow willlessen with tiem. Her name will be carried by my twin granddaughters,her great-granddaughters Johanna Maria and Kathryn Anneke. I thankyou once again for your sympathy.