Tag: jaarsma

If this photo seems a little familiar, there’s a somewhat similar photo posted back here from a few years ago.  This one was from a new box of photos that my in-laws came across and sent off with me to be scanned.  It’s hard to tell if it’s the same shop, but it appears roughly about the same time (mid 1930s-early 1940s), with a man similarly pointing at a piece of machinery.  Doede (2nd from left) was a blacksmith and metal worker, so this is probably something he created.  It looks to be some kind of industrial furnace with stove openings on the front and what looks like either a pressure or temperature gauge on the top.  This was definitely in the Netherlands, and you can see the man on the far left has traditional wooden shoes on.  On the back is written, “Douglas at work,” probably by his wife, though years later.  They all look rather serious and the two on the left have soot and dirt on their faces, probably from a hard day’s work.

The face on the left immediately jumped out to me as my husband’s grandfather, Doede (Douglas) Jaarsma.  Fortunately, someone labelled the back of this with all four names and the title, “Four Friends.”  I don’t know if the names are in order, but after Doede, they are Jake Westerdijk, Henk Kremer, and Dirk Werkman.  The back of the photo is stamped with the date 2 December 1939, and has the photographer’s information – Foto Steenmeijer, Heerestr. 421, Groningen.  The year was before Doede married my husband’s grandmother, so he may have been working in Groningen even though he was born in Friesland.  The year would put him at 28 years old, and it’s kind of neat that four friends paid to have a nice photo taken together – they must’ve been pretty great friends.

I can recognize one face in this one, that of my husband’s grandfather Doede (Douglas) Jaarsma.  He’s sitting inside the sluice, third of the boys from the left, just next to the older man standing on the left.  There’s a small handwritten X just below him.  I’m assuming this is either a group of employees or school boys, and I’m leaning towards the latter since there’s only one man in the group that looks older and is presumably a teacher.  Doede went to a technical high school and became a blacksmith.  These boys all look to be either in their late teens or early 20s, so since Doede was born in 1911, this was probably taken somewhere around 1930.  A couple of the young men do have wedding rings, so it’s possible this was taken as late as 1941, before Doede himself was married.  To me, the trough structure looks like some kind of mill sluice, meant to direct water to a water wheel or sawmill possibly – it’s a little odd since the Netherlands is SO flat, especially in Friesland where this was likely taken, I can’t imagine how/why water would be first carried up so high and then brought back down.  It’s a pretty interesting photo!

Tucked into an album of modern photos from roughly the 1960s-1970s was this photo that was clearly older than the rest.  On the back is handwritten, “Douglas Jaarsma,” presumably by my husband’s grandmother since it looks like the same handwriting I’ve seen on other photos.  Doede “Douglas” is the second in from the left with what I believe are his three older sisters.  From left to right, all four are, *I think*, in this order – Gettje (Grace), Doede (Douglas),  Klaaske, and Oepkjen (Audrey) being the oldest on the right.  The photographer’s name is at top, A de Jong, Sneek, referencing the town of Sneek in Friesland, Netherlands.  As far as a date, Doede was born in 1911, so if he’s maybe 4 or 5 here, it was probably taken around 1915-1917 or so which would make the oldest sister, Oepkjen, about 10.  Klaaske was the only sibling of the four in this photo to remain in the Netherlands.  Gettje came to the US and lived not too far from Doede, and Oepkjen went to Ontario, Canada.

I couldn’t find much about the photographer without doing A LOT more work, but he regularly had advertisements for his studios in Leeuwarden, Heerenveen, and Sneek (link to BIG ad in the Leeuwarder Courant from 1916).