Sepia Saturday - United grocers

Back in 1901, when my grandfather Gerardus Theodorus de Langen was 13 years old, he started his working life. His first job probably was something like a junior clerk in the offices of Eigen Hulp in The Hague. Eigen Hulp, which can be best translated as "Help Yourself", was a central procurement organization involved in the exploitation of shops established in 's-Gravenhage. (The Hague is the colloquial name of 's-Gravenhage, the city where the Dutch government resides.) The shops sold a wide range of things such as groceries, wine and office supplies. 
Legally the organization was owned by its Members, the majority of which were day to day customers.

Company logo of "Eigen Hulp"

Quite coincidentally this weeks Sepia Saturday theme is visualized by the   grocery section of Bell and Macauley's Store in Drouin VIC, Australia. So I can safely continue the grocer's career of my grandad.

Unfortunately I don't know very much about that career. In fact all I know is that some 25 years later he was managing the organization's accounting department. And I only know that because I found the website of Theo van Ewijk whose father was also employed by Eigen Hulp. That website displayed a lot of information about my grandad's employer. The website also shows the picture below.

Eigen Hulp staff on Aug. 29, 1928 during the 50 year jubilee of the 
company. My grandad is seated in the front row, #4 from the right.

Two years earlier he celebrated his own 25 year jubilee. A slightly damaged photograph of that event survived the past 86 years. It shows my grandparents amidst what I presume is grandfather's staff. They are flanked by his managing director and his wife.

The 25 year jubilee of my grandfather in 1926.

When my mother got married in November 1942 and WWII was 2,5 years underway, she apparently felt the need to inform her father's employer. In return the happy couple received a congratulatory letter from the Board of Directors.

Congratulatory letter from the Eigen Hulp Board of Directors
on the occasion of my parents' marriage in 1942.

Some time after this event, probably after the war, my grandfather retired from the company. It is very well possible that a measure of disagreement about certain financial matters, was sufficient reason for him to resign. After that he started several companies in the field of staff training and fiscal consultancy. Gramps stayed with us until a few months after the birth of his first great-grandson Robert in 1967. He missed his 79th birthday by just a month. Contrary to what you might think, I don't believe money was important to him. My grandmother managed the "cash flow" in their household. This is evidenced by the meticulous recording of the household expenses in  a booklet which I still have. Obviously the booklet and the method come from my grandfather but the handwriting is hers.

Household expenses in December 1917. A.o. groente (vegetables), brood (bread), kaas (cheese), kruidenier (grocer) and also huur (rental, 14 guilders/month). There is also the expense for a bottle and teat (flesch en speen) obviously for my mother who was 30 days old at the time.

 She did this so well that some time prior to WWII she was able to tell my surprised grandad that "we have now saved enough to buy a house!" And so they did. That is the very same house that I remember so well from my earliest youth. And that, dear readers, may serve as evidence that if your grandfather works for a grocer, it creates very fond memories for his grandchildren.

For more grocer's stor(i)es, and I can recommend those,
please see here.