The Story of my parents (Part 1) (7/29/2025)

My father was born in 1922 in Rotterdam; he was the youngest of three brothers. I would need to do some research one of these days to figure out if being the youngest had anything to do with how he turned out. It always seemed to me he was always running away from something; maybe not so by the end of his life; but that is even debatable. He committed suicide in 1984, which is a method of getting away from it all; but that is getting ahead of the story.

My grandfather owned a contracting business. I previously wrote about my family’s background in the construction trade in my blog, and the following is a quote from the post:

Uncle Willem (Wim), dad's brother owned a construction company, and when we moved back to the town of Capelle and den IJssel in 1996 he had developed and built almost ¾ of that town. As I mentioned before my opa (grandfather) owned a construction company, as well. However, my uncle Wim built his company on his own, from scratch. My great-grandfather (my grandfather’s father) was also into construction. He was a very skilled carpenter and his claim to fame was that he supposedly built the Bijenkorf (a large department store) in the center of The Hague (Den Haag). This must have been in the early 1900s.

The one thing he told me about his growing up was the meetings that were held at his home. I think they had maybe clandestine meetings of the Dutch communist party. I am not sure if these meetings were held before or after the second World War. He told me about his memory of the singing of the “International”, the communist anthem. He also mentioned often intently listening to Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concerto de Aranjuez; during or after discussions on the Spanish civil war of the 1930s; the same one Hemingway was in. This concert was published in 1939 and first recorded in 1947. My father played it a lot when I was young, telling me that it brought him back to those (post WWII) meetings; to the time, I guess, when he was 25 and about to marry my mother in 1948. The second movement of the piece may actually be a memorial to the bombing of Guernica in 1937.

My father had one best friend, Piet Doornbos and his parents lived in an upstairs apartment in the house owned by my grandfather. Piet’s father worked for my grandfather and stories abound that my grandfather would frequent the upstairs apartment, especially when Piet’s father was at work. My grandfather had a reputation of sleeping around; and my mother, Piet’s wife and my grandmother (oma) were always privately wondering if my father and Piet were half-brothers, since they were so alike in behavior. But on the other hand, they grew up together, so who knows? They confided their suspicion to me, but I do not think they ever told the two men. I am not even sure if Piet’s kids were ever told of the women’s suspicion.

My grandparents owned a vacation cabin and a daysailer on the Rottemeren, a lake on the river de Rotte, north-northeast of Rotterdam. I have photographs of the family outings to the lake, and my father and brothers (including Piet) as boy scouts sailing on the lake.

Germany invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940. My father was barely 18 years old. His brothers were in the Dutch military, and my understanding is that they took part in the Battle of the Grebbeberg. The Germans won that battle and slowly advanced. On May 14 they bombed Rotterdam and demanded unconditional surrender. Right after the bombing, probably on the 14th or 15th the city emptied; people fled the burning city. My father and his parents traveled up the Rotte to their cabin. It is my understanding that during that evacuation or maybe during previous outings, my mother who lived in Terbregge along the river noticed my father and vice versa and a love story developed. My mother was almost 13 years old at the time of the bombing, and she told me that her friends and her were fascinated by these older boisterous boys on the river.

My mother told me that she did not have a happy youth. Her mother was mean; and when I grew up, we all thought grandma looked like a witch. I realize that is not a nice way to think about your grandmother, but later I learned she had acted a little like that as well. When my mother grew up, she would tell her: “I don’t understand why I have three beautiful sons and you an ugly daughter. I am not sure where you came from; maybe the milkman left you here with one of his deliveries.” She also treated her husband like dirt, and he walked (was kicked) out of his home three times for six-month stints, and then he crawled back home. He (Simon van den Ende) was the proprietor of the local butcher shop and when he left home he moved into a boarding house near his store. My mother told us that he was somewhat of a pushover, a softy. Hence, my young mother’s interest in this happy family that had fun on the river.

Opa van den Ende died in 1956. I know that I met him (I have a photograph of me sitting on a potty in front of him); I was 3 at the time. I stayed with oma in Terbregge for 3 months in the summer and early fall of 1959. I briefly attended the first grade in the village and contracted mononucleosis; kissing disease at the ripe old age of 6. I remember the walk from school to the gate in oma’s back yard.

My grandparents on their sailboat on the Rottermeren

My parents.  I am not sure what the date is, if they were dating or married.

My eulogy/autobiography (7/4/2025)

I just turned 72 and am sitting here on pins and needles waiting for the word that my first grandson was born. This will be a thing of the past by the time this writing will be made public, either as part of a memoire and/or a blog post. Why now, can we blame turning 72, my grandson, or my daughter or her wife for this introspection? I don’t know; it is probably a combination of a lot of things.

I am in a men’s group, and we assigned ourselves the project of writing our own eulogy. If that wasn’t enough, during a birthday get together a good friend asked me all kinds of biographical questions, and unbeknown to me he taped the whole conversation. He showed me that he was recording it after my birthday dinner at a Mexican restaurant. This made me feel self-conscious, and together with the fact that I now will have someone to carry on the torch (a grandson), it made me want to record a little more of mine and my family’s history. I have done a bit of this already in some of my blog posts, and I may refer to them when appropriate. I expect that I will publish sections of this writing in my blog, again in the hope that those of my direct family that comes after me will read it and find it interesting, useful and informative.

Where to start? But below is a section of the eulogy that I wrote for myself or maybe for those celebrating my life on this blue marble once I kick the proverbial bucket.

“What the heck is Kalemi? Well actually it is a town in the far eastern part of Congo. During colonial times it was the Belgium Congo, and the town was named Albertville after one of Belgium’s monarchs. I (my name) was born in that town on June ??, 195?. We are gathered here to celebrate the premature passing of Jan-Willem or as many of his friends knew him “Jan the man.” As he often told us that when at a doctor’s office no one got up when a name was called, it meant it was his turn to see the doctor. Everybody seemed to have difficulties pronouncing his name, and then when “Jan” got up they seemed even more confused. Is Jan a guy?”

Did it frustrate me that folks had difficulties with my name, my first and last name? Not at all, I found it amusing. In its own way it showcased the lack of cosmopolitan experience that I have observed in this country. Living in Cincinnati in the late 1990s I was always tickled when during our first meeting folks would ask me which high school I had graduated from. Like the majority in the area, they had never spread their wings, and they could obviously not fathom that there was actual life outside Cincinnati. Even more fun was when they told you about the great vacation they had in Indiana, a state maybe less than 20 miles to the west. Here in the Hampton Roads, where I currently live, it is a little less narrow-minded, since there is a large concentration of military and ex-military that have spent time in foreign countries on military installations or at war.

During the clandestinely recorded interview our friend Mason wanted to know how the heck I ended up being born in a small town situated on Lake Tanganyika (or now Lake Tanzania). Well, my father had a job there as director of a furniture company. That raised even more questions, so here we need to pause and start with the story of my father, which then raised the question of how my father and mother met. As you can imagine, the questions never ended.

I'll stop here.  If there is a next post it will be about my father before 1948.

Me as a 10-month-old on Lake Tanganika in the Congo

My dad and I around the same time.

Mother and son