Dutch Treat: For All Those Who Left Their History Behind Them

By Theodora Biesheuvel

A land of peat and mists is in the authors heart, but not her eyes. She writes lovingly about various ancestors and the context in which they lived. These stories are the treats but as with any Dutch Treat the reader is also asked to reciprocate and view the disconnect of migration in a general sense. This anthology is for all those who have visited the Netherlands and wondered why people felt the need to migrate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Aug 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499003345

Theodora Biesheuvel

Thea Biesheuvel is a writer of short stories, a poet and editor. She is the co-author of a poetry anthology, Brisbane from a Balcony, (1999), and author of an anthology of short stories, So Far, (2012). These are short stories about her ancestors, set in the context of the country of her birth, The Netherlands.

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Copyright © 2014 by Theodora Biesheuvel.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 08/13/2014

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter   I

A Landing Place – Elooij – 1000AD

Chapter   II

Building the Land – Ooijenbosch – 1219AD

Chapter   III

Inheriting the Land – Luytgart and Anna – 1300AD

Chapter   IV

Family Branches – Dussen – Lodewijck – 1622AD

Chapter   V

Happy Days – Eloise – 1779AD

Chapter   VI

Changing times- Uitwijk – Cornelis – 1800AD

Chapter   VII

Collect and Protect – Friesland – Looij – 1900AD

Chapter   VIII

Protect and Preserve – South Africa – Dorothea – 1850 – 1900AD

Chapter   IX

Modern Times – Marie – Rotterdam – 1906AD

Chapter   X

Modern Times – Theodorus – Rotterdam – 1907AD

Chapter   XI

Finding a past – Louisa – Dussen – 1989AD

Chapter   XII

Memoirs – Theodora – Brisbane – 2000AD

Chapter   XIII

Memories fading – Marie – Sydney – 2007AD

Chapter   XIV

What is known – 2011AD

Chapter   XV

A tale of two modern babies – Jonathan and Isabella – 2012AD

Appendix   Family tree – Map

Personal Notes On World War II

End Notes

Acknowledgements

These stories would have been impossible to construct without the solid work carried out by two of my cousins, Mijnheer Jan Stijn Biesheuvel, born in Haarlem on 21st January, 1918 and Mijnheer Anton Biesheuvel born in Pernis on 4th August, 1931 and deceased in September 1997.

For context, history and background I am indebted to the primers I studied while in The Netherlands, Poezie en Proza, uit Noord en Zuid-Nederland, by W.L.M.E. van Leeuwen and P.G.A. Stemvers.

For the South African part of the story I am indebted to the various writers of the Voortrekkers stories, published in Afrikaans.

These stories would have been impossible to put in writing without the unstinting and loyal support of my partner and house-husband, Mr. Eric Jesson.

PROLOGUE

A Landing Place in North Brabant

The lands of Heusden and Altena

1000 A.D.

W hen the Master artist of Doesborch engraved his town on a woodcut at around this time, he showed eight large merchantmen ships unloading at the docks, some square-masted brigs crossing the harbour and some rowboats. Doesburg (as it is now) had grown from a landing place, a jetty, into an industrious town.

There were numerous warehouses and people engaged in their typical activity. One of those activities pictured is the unloading of a ship, where a man climbs like a rat in a wheel, a rope attached, hauling up packages by means of a pulley. The age of mechanisation had arrived on the jetty.

Some time later, Hans Holbein depicted a farmer behind a wheeled plough, drawn by four horses. On this woodcut we see a vast expanse of parallel furrows with some windbreaks in the middle distance and a church spire on the horizon. The age of monoculture had started.

Life was simple, but it was tough work to provide food. No one went to work elsewhere but people had a lifetime of hard manual labour in their town or in their fields. Most adults died by the age of fifty. A boy of six was able to work. A boy of twelve was considered old enough to swear an oath, as documents prove. Ailments meant loss of productivity for the whole family and often ended in death.

In a wet, cold climate breathing ailments were dangerous precursors to a disability or a short life. It was no wonder that the monasteries and nunneries concentrated on healing the sick, often growing the herbs needed for treatment.

This is the story of the members of one such ancestral family, where both the land and water had to be harnessed for the family to survive and prosper.

CHAPTER I

Elooij

Stepping stones are not for me

I’m unbalanced at best

focussed on tidal mud not glistening rock

E ven the streaky skies have been frozen in their tracks. They are pale and still. Just like us.

The ice crystals in the air are stabbing at my chest with every breath I take. I hold on to my mother’s hand through my thick woollen mittens as if she could save me from the cold, my nose buried deep into the scarf wound around my neck, partially covering my face and ears. I can smell the ice form despite the lanolin wool.

The world will slow down soon, said Mam.

The canals are moving too fast as yet, said my sister Tecla, but look, the little flags are frozen.

I’m wondering where my two older brothers have gone or why we would get up so early on a wintry day. It is not as if we have to harvest or turn the cows out to the fields. It is too cold for all that. I know that my father is busy. Mam had told me when she first woke me up.

We all look up to the poles at the end of the jetty where a high-prowed boat tugs at the sluggish water. There is a special sheen on the boat, as if many hands have rubbed it. Not a bit like our small, splintery curricles that float amongst reeds on the tide. There is a smell of smoke far away on the still air and the bright orange flags are a painful contrast with the washed blue sky. They do look like they’re frozen stiff.

No, they just shiver every now and then, I think and give a small cough. Mam immediately adjusts my scarf.

If it wasn’t for your father I’d have kept you in bed, she says.

Aw, Mam, I say but secretly I am pleased. I like watching and thinking about what I see.

My bed is built into the kitchen wall and has many secret knots and patterns in the wood. Time in bed gives me the excuse to do nothing but to imagine shapes and have them figure in my stories, as well as watching my Mam at work and thinking.

Almost everyone in the village has now come out just before the pale sun is about to provide better light. In the dim distance we can see some people walking towards the jetty without seeing who they are. Everyone carries some kind of parcel, wrapped in coloured ribbons. The boat tied to the wooden stakes also has ribbons.

It’s not even a feast day, says my sister, and look at all the people.

There’s no boatman, I said. It will never carry anyone down to the river.

The boatman is probably there with Da, says Tecla and points to the group of men making their way towards us. They are carrying a long parcel on a willow mat between them. Ribbons and sewn decorations are at the edges of the mat, on men’s heads, tied to their stout poles, around their calves, above their ankles and waists.

I can see Da, I say.

Let them pass, says mother and takes us by the hand.

Steady now, we hear father say. It should all fit without a gap. Let the fiddler begin.

Oh, good, I said, music.

Elooij, said Mam, this is not a celebration.

It is strange, deep music and the men’s voices rumble along the song lines as they walk and work to fit their parcel and many other smaller parcels into the boat. The women and children stand in silence.

It’s the Bard, I say and start wheezing. Why is he lying there? He’ll get really cold. I am now getting worried.

Looi, be a big boy now. The Bard has gone from us. See, he sleeps forever. You know we went to the big Hall to feast last night.

Yes, silly, says Tecla, what did you think that was all about?

I look at them with wide eyes.

So you knew?

Yes, and today will take him from his place amongst us to the place of his ancestors.

No one told me. No one ever tells me anything. It was only yesterday that I herded his cows into the stalls under his house so they wouldn’t freeze and… Suddenly I knew why I’d been given that job. I’d been too busy thinking about what made the earth get colder and the sun only come out for a little time during the day. I’d made up a story about the cows and the village. It made me feel like crying. They had all wanted me out of the way while they dressed the Bard for this journey.

That’s what happens when you’re the smallest child in the family, I thought. Just as if I’m responsible for the death of my other sister and that other boy who had been called Lodewijck too, after my father. They keep me out of everything. It made me feel angry.

No one ever tells me anything, I say again and kick the frozen mud.

You take more notice of the ducks on the pond than the people around you, says Mam and she sounds angry too.

The towpath along the canal is busy with more people carrying small decorated parcels. The fiddler and singer are walking amongst them. The tide has woken up the water around the jetty and is rocking reeds backwards and forwards carrying them into the main stream.

‘I wonder where they all end up,’ I thought and look around for someone I knew but I’d spent so much of the autumn in my bed that I couldn’t remember the faces of all my friends.

Ah, there’s Minus, I say.

Come along, says Mam, we’ll join the procession and sing him on his way.

I wanted him to stay by the fire in the big Hall forever, I whine.

That time will not come again, says mother with a small sniff.

One of the men starts a chant, a song the Bard has sung before. It is about time and fulfilment, I know. Everyone joins him.

‘May time pass away slowly

on tides float, under banks your boat shelter

On her bows mounted

the splendid deeds of your life, brave man.

In her bosom pile food for the voyage.

May you voyage gladly

valiantly timbered, wind pursued like a flying bird.

Foam throated vessel

curving prow, behold the shimmering cliffs.

Thank the gods this passage will be safe.’

The men wade into the water next to the boat and slowly push it out from the landing with their poles, until it catches the flow of the main canal and slowly travels out to the river and beyond.

There’s Cornelius and Maart, I say. No wonder I couldn’t find my brothers before this. They are amongst the men pushing out the boat. No one takes notice of me. Everyone wails. The tide catches the boat and it floats beyond the bend in our canal. People are starting to leave.

It is not quite time for the midday meal but men start their slow trek over the frozen ground towards the big Hall. The chimney is sending up its smoke in a straight line. There will be time for warmth and food. Clothes need drying. My friend Minus will be there with his mother. This will make for a good afternoon of swapping stories beside the warm hearth. I might even make one up about the Bard and his journey. That might keep the memory alive a little longer.

Stories are the only things I can swap with my friends. Even though my two brothers, Cornelius and Maart, help Da on the land and catch birds and fish, we are never going to be rich. When I want to have some toy boat to try out the tides, or a butterfly net, either Da or my brothers make them. The only things we buy in town are pieces of cloth or pipe tobacco for Da during winter. Mam and Tecla milk our two cows and make butter.

We hold back some grain and they make the flour for our bread. We grow beets and spinach. I tend the herb and vegetable plot. Mother and Tecla pick watercress and wild herbs.

The best thing about the soil here, Da had once said, is that it grows the yew trees which give their bark and roots for woad. The monks love the blue dye you can boil up from them.

Well, they put it on cuts and injuries, said Tecla, who was learning about such things. It stops an open wound from putrefying.

Like it says, Mam recites,

"our ancestors used woad,

to ward off enemies and harm,

Isatis tinctoria was the mode,

to clothe or coat the warrior’s arm.

Thank goodness there’s not too much need for warriors these days, she adds, looking over at my brothers. Some of Da’s friends are gone forever."

Our house is of solid mud, I say. The enemy would have a job to come in here.

Our house is nothing like the big stones that built our Hall or the Abbey, says Tecla. You wouldn’t have to defend those much, just bar the gates. Our thatch would catch fire in no time.

The defenders live forever in our hearts, Da says. "We have the Wijckerbroeck¹ lands and the reeds that grow in the wetlands and can always build ourselves another refuge."

I had once longed for the stout, short swords and painted shields held by the village men but our teacher had given long speeches about the need for all our tribes to live in peace. I had wondered if other teachers give similar speeches to those boys with funny voices that sometimes visited during Fair days from all those Northern regions. Luckily I was considered too frail to either work the land or defend it.

And so the winter came and went without any other notable events. None that I remember anyway, until one dark, wet afternoon, while mother and Tecla were pulling cabbages apart to salt down for future meals, I suddenly heard my name.

Da and my brothers had been crafting some wood in one corner of the warm kitchen. My bedstead was warm and cosy too and the house smelled of sweet apples and cinnamon and newly cut wood. I was nearly asleep.

Elooij will have to do something, Mam said. My brothers gave a short kind of laugh but said nothing.

Of course he will, said Da, but I’m not sure what it is. He’s good at writing and story-telling but that’s not going to keep the wolf from the door, is it?

"There