Sepia Saturday 345-d

For our final week of the, “War and Peace,” Sepia Saturday theme, I thought I’d add in this great photo of Bouwe Jaarsma, my husband’s  great-uncle (brother of his grandfather).  I don’t know much about his military service since the record privacy blackout extends into his career, but I know he was described in a newspaper article as, “gepensioneerde militair,” or retired military, so he clearly made a lifelong career out of his military service, presumably in the army.  Bouwe was born 7 Sep 1918 in Sint Nicolaasga in Friesland, Netherlands to parents Douwe Jaarsma and Pietertje de Boer, the 5th of six children.  He married Baukje Zijlstra in 1946.  We have photos taken more recently of a trip he and his wife made to the USA to visit his siblings that had left the Netherlands for the USA as well as a number of letters he wrote to his brother, so they clearly kept in touch dispite the distance.  Bouwe passed away on 14 Oct 1992.  I don’t know too much about his life, but I do love this rather nicely posed photo of him as a young man, his cover resting on a fringed stand and his uniform pressed and perfect.  The back of the photo postcard has the photographer’s stamp for, “Fotografie H. Jager,” who had a studio in Ede on Stationsstraat near the Roman Catholic Church.  It looks like the street was renamed Stationsweg (small change from “street” to “way”), but the church is still there.  If I had to guess on a date for the photo, I’d say late 1930s, probably between 1938-1942 or so.