THE SOMSENS IN HOENDERLOO

modern houses replaced the house a few years ago.

By pony-cart into the countryside

My grandfather had quite a reputation in Hoenderloo. He was strict but he had his heart in the right place. In those days there was bitter poverty. Sometimes families simply did not have any food at all. Then successfully poaching a rabbit brought some relief. When grandfather heard about this he went out to support these starving families. With his pony-cart he went to the yards of well-to-do farmers and he held out a bag. If this bag was not sufficiently filled he held it out once more. And successfully. Fortunately this was no longer necessary in later years.

My grandparents, Derk Jan and Marie had four children: Johan Adriaan (Jo) [654], Willem Frederik (Frits, my father) [656], Helena J.M. (Lena) [658] and Johanna M.M (Anna), [660].

Jo became a teacher in Apeldoorn and has always remained that. He married Hendrika Pluim (Riek) [655]. In 1914 they had a twin: Mary [713] and Willy [715]. And after that they had another son Willy [716] in 1924. The two Willy’s died at a very young age; they only lived to be seven and five. Riek, on the other hand, reached the respectable age of 104! Daughter Marie married Foppe Eling Kramer [714]. They had three children: Marie [1478], Gerben [1514] and Johan [1515].

Geurt is dressing fashionably

In 1921 Lena married Geurt van Beek [659]. A nice story is connected with this. As headmaster my grandfather belonged to the notables of the village. His only competitor was the minister for in Hoenderloo there was no mayor, no doctor, and no notary, not even a policeman. Geurt came from a very simple family. In those days that was a problem. Geurt was a labourer at the institution, a school for difficult boys. On his daily walk to the institution he came past the house of Lena. To impress her he always wore his best suit. When he arrived at his work he changed it for his daily things. And at the end of the working day this whole ceremony was repeated in the reverse order. And he sure had a lot of success! They got married and lived in the parental home all the time. When Lena’s parents grew older they looked after them. Geurt became a meter reader at PGEM, which later became NUON. Lena was very industrious and had an extra income by having boarders, especially in summer. In those years hardly anybody went abroad and Hoenderloo was an ideal holiday resort.

In 1922 Anna married O.H.Wilhelm Zobel (Willy) [661], a German who worked as a forester in the Kröller-Müller park. In 1923 they had a son Willy [1471]. My uncle Willy, a veteran of the Great War, was a calm and pleasant man, but in spite of that he got into a quarrel with Mrs Möller. Then he was dismissed. Via Klarenbeek the family moved to Apeldoorn where they started a kind of boarding house. Later they moved to Hoog-Soeren. By the end of the Second World War the elder Willy was called to arms for the German Army but he simply put this call aside without negative consequences. Well-done uncle Willy!

The younger Willy was in the army for some years, also at the Russian front. Still before the war was over he managed to simply cross the Dutch

The house of Derk Jan and Marianne Somsen

in Hoenderlo, park 'De Hoge Veluwe'

German border near Oldenzaal with a glass eye he had got in the war. Then he went into hiding in Apeldoorn. His parents Anna and the elder Willy lived to be 89 and 91.

Frits, my father, became a teacher and married Geertrui de Liefde [657] (Truus), a teacher from Buurmalsen, in 1916. They settled in Apeldoorn. In 1917 Jeanette Marianne (Netty) [917] was born. In the last few years of the Great War they had Fini from Vienna in their home. Fini was a refuge because of the famine in Austria. She was not the only one for in those days many Austrian children were adopted by Dutch foster families. After the war the Austrian government gave preferential treatment to Dutch truck-drivers on their way through Austria to Italy for many years.

The family moved to the hamlet of Woeste Hoeve between Arnheim and Apeldoorn. Woeste Hoeve became well known in such a tragic way in March 1945, just before the end of World War Two, when there was an assassination attempt on the high SS officer Rauter. The reprisals the Germans made were terrible: they shot 400 Dutch hostages. 117 of them were executed at the Woeste Hoeve.

My father became headmaster of the local school of Woeste Hoeve and that is where I, Jan Willem Frederik, was born in 1922. Some years later he was transferred to Klarenbeek where my brother Derk Jan (Dick) [721] was born in 1925 and in 1932 my sister Aleida Wilhelmina (Ineke) [723]. In February 1934 our family was struck by a disaster when our dear mother died of carbon monoxide poisoning. My sister and her husband from Hoenderloo moved in with us for some years. After that several maids helped us to keep the household going. After father’s retirement we moved to Apeldoorn where he remarried Geertje Bolhuis [945] from Vroomshoop in 1939. Of this marriage my half-brother Arthur H.E. [946] was born in 1941.

Across the ocean

My sister Netty married Jaap Jager Gerlings [718] in 1940. They moved to Bennekom and had three children there: Marieke [725], Anneke [726] and the younger Jaap [727]. In 1947 the young family emigrated to State Washington, USA. Many know Marieke because she played a co-ordinating part for the American Somsens at the time of the reunion in 1997. (see page 2). She married Mike Edwards [3159] and they have three children: Duane, Derek and Tye. Anneke has also got three children: Eric, Cullen and Marieke.

Anneke went one step further and has become the proud grandmother of Killian, Chance and Carissa. The younger Jaap has always remained a bachelor. The majority of the family live in the Capital Olympia. Netty died in 1994. The urn with her ashes was buried at the cemetery in Hoenderloo.

I myself, Jan Willem Frederik, first worked at Philips in Eindhoven just after the war. And next at the college of advanced technology in Bandung, Indonesia, from 1949 to 1953. Then again at Philips but this time in Nijmegen. In 1959 I married Liesbeth Willems [720] and shortly after our wedding we left for Australia where I worked at the Philips plant in Adelaide for seven years. There we got three children: Ellen [728], Moniek [729] and Tania [730]. Three real Aussie girls!

In 1966 we returned to Nijmegen. Ellen was married to Peter van Eerde and they got two children: Maaike and Rosa.

Dick and Ineke, my brother and sister, also emigrated to State Washington in 1953, just like my sister Netty. There Dick married Delia Shaver in 1959 but they divorced in 1965. In 1967 he remarried Antoinetta van Maren. They live in Tacoma. Ineke married John Triplett in 1956. They adopted two children, Susan and Mark. The marriage dissolved in 1975. Ineke now lives in the small town of Buckley, very close to the beautiful nature reserve of Mount Rainier.

Arthur, my half brother, married Aly Zaagman [947] from Groningen in 1967. Nowadays they live in Borger. Arthur is a frequent visitor of our relatives in State Washington.

He even passed the test for his pilot’s licence there. The Hoenderloo Somsens form the Hoenderloo branch. Today, however, there is only a single Somsen who lives there but he is from the Zelhem branch. It is the Gijsbertus H. (Bert) [161] Somsen family.

Still the Somsen name can be found on seven different tombstones on the churchyard of the Heldringchurch, which is so beautifully situated.

Furthermore there is the wood between the café-restaurant Rust een Weinig (Rest a little) and the national park, which is still called the Somsenwood in popular speech.

The writer of this article Jan W. F. Somsen and

his wife Liesbeth Somsen-van Dijk