POTTER United Families

Again, in the middle of the winter, Roeland went to Rhoon to talk
about a few works of art. It was about some ornaments that would
be made for the church. It was bad weather at night: During the day
it had snowed and frozen, and in the afternoon it had thawed. When
Roeland left, it was so bad that he did not know how to get over the
Maas in Schiedam. It became so dark that he was in danger of having
an accident before we had reached the bridge.
Once in Schiedam, he did not know how to get to Overschie in
darkness. It had frozen again that night. Roeland hired a barge to
Overschie. Between Schiedam and Overschie the barge creaked
through the ice, it seemed as if it would run to the ground. When he
arrived in Overschie, he was wet and stiff with cold; this is how he
waited for the last barge of Rotterdam. That's how he arrived in Delft
at nine o'clock in the evening.
These conditions and dangers were his everyday life…! In the middle
of the winter, Roeland was taken to a sick person in the country of
Den Briel, endangering his own life. The Brielse Gat was frozen and
he did not know if the ice would hold. But the venerable man went
there alone across it to his folks.
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