Sepia Saturday - Soccer

This weeks' theme has to be picked from a picture made available by the Dutch National Archive. It shows some presumably Dutch boys on their way to the weekly soccer match, their soccer boots casually dangling from their  necks. The photo is dated 1915-1925. 
The thing that strikes me is that they carry just their boots and very little else. No towels, no club shirt, no nothing. If you compare that with todays situation, where boys in comparable situations carry big bags with a track suit, match clothing, a towel, clean underwear, shampoo etc, the conclusion can only be that the times they are a-changing (thank you Bob Dylan). The explanation is probably simple. In those days clubs did not have showers (or maybe cold water only) nor sophisticated dressing rooms. It is not unlikely that these boys wore their club shirt underneath their daily clothing. They probably had to "change" in a draughty dressing room, played their match and went home where the weekly tub with hot water was waiting. The other thing that draws my attention are the soccer boots. Today those are unthinkable without commercial striping. And they can be bought in all colors of the rainbow. The boots in the picture are black and black only, I can assure you.

Picture ex Dutch National Archives

Although our son played soccer, I have very little action pictures showing him. But in 1976 he participated in the penalty trophy of his club DVH. DVH means De Vliegende Hollanders or The Flying Dutchmen. The name of the club finds its origin in the circumstance that it was meant to be the club for families of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines staff.

DVH's 5 best penalty kickers in 1976.
Picture taken on the DVH grounds in Amstelveen.

For more action shots, have a look at the Sepia Saturday Site where my fellow bloggers show their trophies.

Great-grandparents' Bible

Last week I mentioned that, apart from the Bible of my maternal grandmother, I have another one. This one also originates in my maternal line. It belonged to Jan de Langen (1861-1942) and his wife Johanna Margaretha van den Bosch (1860-1934), my great-grandparents.  It was a hand out, be it a bit heavy, from the church where they married in The Hague on August 8, 1883. Their church was the Dutch Reformed Church (Nederduitsch Hervormde Gemeente). 

Presented to ... on the occasion of the consecration of their marriage on August 8, 1883 on behalf of the Church Board of the Dutch Reformed Church at The Hague 

As was the custom in those days Jan de Langen kept a register of the births, christenings, marriages and deaths in the family. All these events were noted on the first blank pages of the Bible, usually by the head of the family. Therefore, it is safe to presume that the handwriting in the register below is that of Jan. 

The family register

Although the first entries in the register have been made in 1883, Jan also carefully noted his own birth, the names of his parents (Bruno de Langen and Elsje Louwiza Koelinga) and, very important in those days, the fact that his parents were married. He also mentioned the date of birth of his wife and her parents Jan Cornelis van den Bosch and Gerarda Dorathea Lith. Subsequently he recorded his children. The last one on this page is my grandfather Gerardus Theodorus de Langen ('s Gravenhage November 24, 1888). He is baptized in the Kloosterkerk (Monastery Church) by the Rev. Knotnerus.

The owners of this Bible in approx 1920,
Jan de Langen and Johanna Margaretha van den Bosch

The Bible was published by the Dutch Bible Society in 1882. Normally, the Bible is a means to spread the Word. But this one also served another purpose. After leafing through the Bible I found two dried leaves and a dried violet. I suspect they have been put there by my grandmother Antje Doelman, the daughter-in-law of Jan and Johanna. She was a lady with what we call green fingers. She loved her gardens and I can very well imagine that she tried to preserve nature's beauty. I'm sure the Church Board would have had no objection to the way my grandmother used the Bible.

Sepia Saturday - Ex convict

Phileas Fogg

This week Alan is suggesting that we dig in our shoe boxes to make the invisible visible. For magicians that may be a piece of cake, for me it is next to impossible. I have been looking for missing limbs or heads but to no avail. However, I did find this picture of one of my favorites. He is shown here, going around the world on a misty day, almost invisible.  Fortunately there are more angles to approach this week's theme. If we look at the theme picture, the thing that strikes me is the title of the movie The Ex-Convict and the cashier behind bars. If ever there was a contradiction in a film poster...

Anna Nilsson

Guy Coombs

Other subjects that I could write about are the boy's worn shoes, the somewhat shabby looking suit the man is wearing, the difficult to decipher text on the floor or the movie stars performing in this 1914 film.  Although the plot of this movie is unknown to me, I believe the leading actors should be given a face, that is to say , their face. So may I introduce you to Anna Nilsson and Guy Coombs, stars of the silent movie but at one time also married to each other. Anna has been awarded a Wikipedia page, Guy hasn't risen to that level yet. But there is hope for him now that he performs as an SSS, a Sepia Saturday Star. 
Speaking of movie stars, my mother was a collector of movie star picture postcards. I selected one showing Amsterdam born actress Lien Deyers. To cut a long story short, she made her first movie under Fritz Lang and eventually went to the States via the U.K.  

Lien Deyers (1909 - 1982?)

The fact that miss Deyers is/was Dutch is not the reason to select this postcard. The reason is the backside. There my grandmother wrote to her eldest daughter, my mother, who was on a school trip to Germany. The card is dated August 28, 1933.

I have always admired my grandma's handwriting, I think it is beautiful, in particular the capitals. 
I will not tire you with a translation of the text but two things are worth mentioning. The first is that grandma writes that "it is terribly warm here, too warm to do anything." So we probably had a nice summer in '34. Usually weather conditions are not part of our family history. But sometimes they can be very significant when trying to explain certain circumstances. 
The other noteworthy thing is the text of the rubber stamp to the right. Translated it says "Use preferably Dutch manufacture". Economic circumstances in the 30's were generally less than optimal and governments tried to limit imports as much as possible. Hence the consumption of homemade products was stimulated. Today we would call this "protectionism". But the days of splendid isolation are over and protectionism is now almost a dirty word. 

As a final point I like to come back to miss Lien Deyers. Things did not go too well for her in the States. She was arrested several times for being drunk in public. It is unknown when she died. One of her signs of life was a written cry for help when she was an inmate in the Clark County jail in Las Vegas. But ever since she was discharged from prison, she was an ex-convict... Maybe someday there will be a film made of ​​her .

For more interpretations by the Sepia Saturday crowd,
please see here

Grandma's Bible

Certainly in the spirit my maternal grandmother Antje Doelman (1892-1984) was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, the prevailing religion in the areas of her roots. The Doelman family originates in the Maasland area which is situated west of Rotterdam. Her mother, Huibertje Aartje Barendregt (1867-1901) came from the island of Rozenburg where the family owned a farm called Brielzicht. Rozenburg is long since swallowed by the Port of Rotterdam's greedy need for more and more land. Only connoisseurs of local history may recognize certain remains of the island.

The Doelman-Barendregt family with my grandmother at the right.
Based on the activities of the photographer in Rotterdam, the date of death of Huibertje and the estimated age of Antje, the picture must have been made around 1899

My great-grandmother died on April 10, 1901 just 34 years old. Needless to say this made an everlasting impression on her husband but certainly also on her kids. Her eldest, my grandma, was nearly 9 years old...
One of the things that was very dear to her, was a Bible printed in 1870.

I believe it belonged to her mother Huibertje Aartje Barendregt. On one of the cover pages my grandmother wrote a few words in remembrance of her mother.

In remembrance of my beloved Mother Huibertje Aardje Barendregt Doelman. Departed 10 April 1901 in Rotterdam

Front page 

The Bible was published by the Dutch Bible Company (Nederlandsche Bijbel-Compagnie) both in Amsterdam and in Haarlem in 1870. The publisher stipulates that it has been printed in accordance with the current language and spelling. The original texts date from 1618 and 1619 when church leaders had a national meeting (synode nationaal) in Dordrecht. Including all Psalms, Hymns and the Catechism, there are 1733 pages in this Bible.
My grandma had yet another Bible with many remarks about her family written in it. But that is something for a future post.

Comment moderation

Ever since I switched off word verification (captcha's) a few weeks ago, my blog seems to be flooded with undesired comments. I have indications that they are of Russian origin.  In the picture below I consider all comments for Peter's blog as being spam (and that's not canned meat :))
If you follow the link, it doesn't show up in my blog so it really is all rubbish.

However, word verification prevents people from commenting and I agree with them, that method may be effective but it irritates like you know what. So instead I have now enabled comment moderation.
Unfortunately that will result in the display of your comments being delayed, but so be it. I'll handle them as quickly as I can. I hope you can live with this.

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.

Saved from the dustbin (12)

Up until approx 50 years ago air transport was for the privileged few. Fares were high and the necessity to travel was only felt by very few (business) people. Holiday travel hardly existed. And besides, air travel before WWII was not without risk. 
This atmosphere of exclusivity was certainly strengthened by the many celebrities descending from aircraft stairs, waving and smiling towards  their fans and the ever present (photographic) press.
However, celebrity was preceded by royalty. And KLM had its fair share of royal interest.  Below two examples.

King Albert I of Belgium pays a visit to ?

 The above picture was taken at an unknown location on an unknown date. Judging by the aircraft type it is probably some time after WWI. If the location was the airport of Waalhaven/Rotterdam, then it must have been after July 26, 1920 when the airport was opened.

Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands accompanied by KLM Managing Director Albert Plesman

It is likely that this picture is taken at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport shortly after WWII. The lady to the right looks like Princes Juliana, the Queen to be.

I believe that also representatives of the movie industry were willing eye catchers. In those days going to the movies was about the only entertainment for many people. So shooting pictures of eye blinding actresses combined with the adventurous air transport industry always created a certain degree of attention for many. Below two of  these "names".

Movie star Ava Gardner meets her technicians

American actress Ava Gardner (1922-1990) on her way to Barcelona via Schiphol Airport. The picture was probably taken in the 50s. 

Gina Lollobrigida (1927) with KLM stewardess Hoogestegers

Gina Lollobrigida, Italian actress and iconic sex symbol of the 1950s. In 1955 she played the leading part in a movie called The World's Most Beautiful Woman. The title of this movie became her nickname.

Winston and Lady Churchill arriving at Schiphol from Croydon on May 8, 1946. The aircraft is either the PH-TBD (DC3) or the PH-TBR (C47A)

Only young readers may not recognize the man with the cane in this picture. It is legendary British PM Winston Churchill, the man who forged the North Atlantic alliance that would be decisive for the outcome of WWII. His visit to The Netherlands lasted a week.  During his stay he was cheered by large crowds because they recognized his role during the war.

Dutch soccer team Feyenoord travelling to NY
with Douglas DC4 PH-TAT "Twenthe"

With an increasing number of international contacts, also soccer teams started travelling by air. Above the well known team from Rotterdam and below the also in those days famous Spanish Real Madrid.

Spanish soccer team Real Madrid on its way to Odense on Oct. 16, 1960. The aircraft is the Convair 340 PH CGC "Jacob Maris".

Frequent readers of this blog know these pictures appear here thanks to Bert Besseling† and Aris Zwart. The site of Herman Dekker is the source of all aircraft data shown in this post.