Tag: Dijkema

I showed up for the voyage on time this week for Sepia Saturday!  Yet again this week, when I saw the preview image a few weeks in advance, I had no idea what photo to use.  Thankfully that new acquisition of family photos from my husband’s family yielded this amazing find which fits in fairly well.  This appears to be a photo of Hilje (Dijkema) Jaarsma and a class of some sort.  The back is labelled, “Knapen en Meisjes ver:, 27,” which translates to, “Boys and girls far: 27.”  The 27 doesn’t seem to mean 1927, unless of course it’s a 21 and then it’s 1921 which fits better since Hilje was born in 1914 and would have been 7 in 1921 and better matches the ages of the children in the photo.  The little “X” on the photo marks where Hilje was sitting and is directly over her head.  Also included in the box was her report card book (Rapportenboekje) which shows that in 1922, she attended some sort of Christian School (probably around Groningen, though the exact school isn’t listed on the card).  It starts with the first grades on 24 January 1922 and goes through 24 December 1926.  Family history says that she only attended about 5 years of school so that lines up rather nicely!  I know that Hilje’s father, Hendrik Dijkema, was a turfschipper (so hard to translate to English – it’s something like “peat boatman” which is a person who sold peat fuel logs from a barge type boat).  I wonder if perhaps this was the school bus for children of other families in the shipping industry.  Northern Holland, around Groningen, is full of canals, and it’s entirely possible that this was her first-day-of-school photo as they were going off to the school house on their “school bus.”  The ages of the children vary – from some that look to be in their early teens to younger children who look to be about 5 or 6.  The only solid piece of data I have is that Radio Foto in Paterswolde took the photo!  It’s another treasure though for sure, and I’m glad to have it travel through the internet for you to view!

Just when I thought I’d have absolutely nothing for this week’s Sepia Saturday theme, I ended up with two photos to fit perfectly.  My husband’s parents recently moved and cleaned out the home they’d lived in for almost 40 years.  During the course of cleaning, they found boxes of old photos that were saved when my husband’s grandparents died.  I remember his father telling us that my husband’s grandmother had been sent away when she had tuberculosis which also ended her engagement to an unknown man.  At the end of her treatment, she met and married my husband’s grandfather and the rest is history!  Hilje Dijkema and Doede Jaarsma were married in 1941, and if I remember correctly, family history tells me that she was in the hospital somewhere around 5 years which would make her intake about 1936 at age 22.  The numbers line up pretty well if you consider she would’ve been newly engaged when she went into the Sanatorium.  Well, when the box of photos came home and I started going through them, I was excited to see there were photos of what looked like her time spent in the Sanatorium, however with no names or dates or anything on the backs.  A few featured the front of the building and after a little googling, I found that it must have been the Sanatorium Sonnevanck in Harderwijk, Netherlands.  The Sanatoriums were split up by religion, so it also clued me in that Hilje and her family were of the Reformed religion (Gereformeerde).  There are just two little photo booklets that show her life inside the Sanatorium, but they’re a precious glimpse into what was undoubtedly a difficult time.  However, even while recovering from TB, she clearly had made friends and they managed to have a little fun from time to time.  In the above photo, Hilje is on the far right with the “x” in the border of the photo.  They appear to be having a meal together and paused for a group photo.

In another photo, the group of ladies appear to be having tea together.  Hilje is fourth from the right in the front row, seated.  Here you can see some of the ladies are in robes while others are dressed or in coats, presumably having come in from being out in the sun and open air.  Hilje apparently lived in Pavilion III which was demolished sometime in the 1970s.  Parts of Sonnevanck are still standing though and are used as a nursing home.  It’s really neat to see these snippets of her daily life while so far away from home and family and I’m SO glad someone saw fit to hang on to them for so many years.  My apologies for showing up late to dinner this week, but I’m catching up this week, I swear!

Of course, I couldn’t resist posting just one more since this photo is really lovely even if there’s no label or identification to tell me who or when.  I’d assume this was taken in Holland like the rest somewhere in the mid 1930s, but with no label on the back, I have no idea who these folks are!  It’s possible that this is the same child as above  – the heights and faces seem to match, but without an identification on the back, it’s hard to be absolutey sure.  It’s possible this is another of the sisters or even a family friend or cousin.  The photo is still really great between the couple standing together in their coats and hats and the child hanging on to the side of the stroller, probably just learning to walk.  And that’s that for this week’s Sepia Saturday.

This was a pretty easy prompt for Sepia Saturday this week!  It took a few seconds of thinking to remember this photo, another from the collection of my husband’s Dutch family.  In the photo are Hilje “Hilda” Dijkema (1914-1997) and her sister, Ellechien Dijkema (1912-1974) on the horse.  The back of the photo is labelled, “Ellie en Hillie,” but has no date.  The majority of the photos in this album are from the mid to late 1930s, so I’d estimate the date around 1930 or even a hair earlier, maybe even taken around the same time as a photo from another Sepia Saturday post.  The girls look to be in their late teens and the photo was most likely taken in northern Holland around Groningen.  The girls are riding with no saddles, stirrups or anything, and in heels!  As usual, I’m curious as to who took the photo – another sister perhaps?  There are only two horses though, so maybe it was taken as they were returning home from a ride.  As far as I know the family didn’t own a farm or horses, so they were likely visiting family or friends at the time.  Whatever the circumstances, it’s a really lovely photo showing the closeness between these two sisters.  They show up in a bunch  of photos toether, likely since they were only two years apart in age.  And now I’ll let this Sepia Saturday ride off into the sunset, until next week!

This was as close as I could come to the prompt image for this week’s Sepia Saturday.  A man helps a woman steady herself next to a waterfall!  It doesn’t look like they were crossing the falls, maybe just standing near it for the photo, but it’s still a great image.  We don’t know who this is for sure, but I have to assume it’s someone related via my husband’s paternal grandmother Hilje “Hilda” (Dijkema) Jaarsma.  I have a hunch, based on another photo that’s labelled, that  the woman may be one of her aunts (either Ellechien VanEerden or Gertrudia Dijkema Visser).  It’s really hard to tell, and of course none of hte photos are labelled.  No clues on the man though.  I don’t think Ellechien was married, so it points to this more likely being Gertrudia, but then again I could be completely wrong on all accounts!  It was likely taken in Holland, sometime around 1935.  A quick search, and it looks a lot like the Sonsbeek Waterfall in Arnhem!

This appears to be the same man and woman as above.  If you look closely, you can see the man is holding a walking stick behind his back, possibly the same one he had in the photo at the top.  Again, I can’t verify anything about the photo, but hey, it’s a crossing, even if assisted by a bridge.  I thought the bridge may have been unique enough to turn up in a google search,  but I’d searched for it for a while and came up empty.  Then, after stumbling across the image for the photo above, I found it’s  a bridge in the same park (Park Sonsbeek) in Arnhem!  So, now I’ve got the where, but still no who!  Maybe if one of Wessel Visser’s relatives happens to stumble across this blog, they be able to confirm or disprove my theory.  Wouldn’t that be great!  So, yet another Sepia Saturday that brings me a new snippet of information through careful examination of old, unlabeled photos.