At one time we were speaking of personal situations on my TriLite Email List and this is what I wrote at that time. It's more than three years later now, and I just read the story again with a lot of smiles. I had forgotten all about that story. To begin: one of the TriLite Members wrote as follows...

Wow! That sounds like fun to have grown up with a large and cheerful family. Was it? How many were you? You have mentioned the trying times you had with the Germans. To live through the war and maintain a sense of humour is true enlightenment...

Hello Mahroukie - Gerardus here:
I think that my whole family was enlightened. We laughed a lot - but not always. There were trying times and good times, inside and outside of the home. There were eight children but luckily they were not born all at the same time (Go ahead and chuckle). I had one older sister, who was a half sister, as we found out when we were about 12. People seemed to keep things secret then. I went to work full time when I was 14 and I was out of the house all day until six at night and I remember leaving the house at six in the morning. Nobody was up yet!  I was about 15 by then...

This lasted for a few years until my Mom did not have enough bread to give me for sandwiches for working away from home (It was war time then and people were starving). I went by bus or bike often to wherever the work was. Maybe 45 minutes peddling - morning and night. For a while my boss' wife gave me sandwiches, and they were a lot better than I had before! So, I was away from home most of the time after I had become 14. Before that, all my brothers were younger and still had to have their nose wiped once in a while...

The big boys, like Evert and I, did not bother with them much so to speak. I remember we used to tell them before they could join Evert and me - eat your beans and grow up!  I think we were 12 then, Evert was one year younger...

At about 16 or so, work became even more difficult because there was no food! My mother used to cry when she prepared the meals. What am I going to feed all these boys - she used to say. I think she learned how to multiply bread and fishes then. Somehow, we always had something to eat. We ate tons of potatoes of all kind. We were all home at night and peeled the gooey things. Most potatoes had been frozen or something! Most of this happened by candle light since the electricity was shut off. The Germans needed it all...

By that time, I was over six feet tall and fully grown. So, my parents thought that it would be better that I would go to my aunt in the country and live there in an underground status (Evert was a lot smaller then). The Germans would pick up big boys and young men and send them to Germany to work in their factories. This was not a matter of choice - the men were forced. Picked up and loaded so to speak. Some never came back. Anyway, I lived at my aunt's and uncle's place with three other "under-grounders". I did not go home for two years or so. Sometimes I worked for a Black Smith in that small village and fabricated small sheet-metal stoves for burning garbage and small pieces of wood. Coal was not available at that time. After a while, I became pretty good at it making hot stoves...

One of the "under-grounders" was a Medical Doctor, who with his family and friends had "stormed" the Germans, when they came to pick up his family and friends. They were all herded into the one room, and there was one German Soldier in front of them, to keep them there while the rest ram-sacked the house. The soldier had a riffle ready to shoot. The Doctor and his friends stormed the poor guy all at once and he apparently did not know where to shoot first. In about one second he forgot about it and was flat on the floor. The Doctor and his friends got away - but now they had to live underground/hidden...

After I was 18, the war was over and I began to work with someone who was in the same 'business' as I had worked in before. The Electrical Installation Business and we put "electricity installations" into many houses. Some houses still used candles or natural gas. I worked usually 48 hours per week and pretty soon Evert and I went to Evening Classes in Amsterdam to become educated in the Higher Sciences of the Electrical Trade as Electrical Supervisors. I went to night classes for about 5 years and classes were every week night from 7 until 10 including Saturday afternoons. My life was more than full...

At first we went by train to our evening classes in Amsterdam and walk to school. Amsterdam was about 34 Km away from where I lived. Later on I bought a Motor-Cycle and we used it to go to school in Amsterdam. This took less time, but still we were always away from home and all these brothers grew up while we were not there. The result was that I did not get to know my younger brothers very well, except Evert. He was a handful just by himself!  Besides all this, can one know someone when they are from 2 to 12 years old? Hardly. Most of my brothers therefore were strangers and they still are...

Later on, at about 20, I moved to Amsterdam and found a job there. I lived in boarding houses. I worked in the day time and went to school at night. Then there was the homework. At 24 I married and lived in Amsterdam, but it was too far to go to my parents' home where all the brothers were. At Christmas we would visit sometimes and pretty soon my wife and I had children and we were in the diaper business. They needed to be self-washed and dried. Pampers had not been invented then. It does not travel that easy by train or bus with two children. No one had cars then...

At twenty nine, my first wife and I, and our two girls, immigrated to Edmonton, Canada. I think I arrived in Edmonton with about 36 dollars. We stayed with another Dutch Family for a while. They formed a transfer-house for the Dutch-Newbies. I found work in about 10 days at the Edmonton Power Generation Station. At the "Edmonton Generation Department" the workers taught me how to speak English of a very strange kind. Half the words were the same word again and again. I thought that everybody stuttered a lot until I figured it out. They swore at every other word. They used a lot of four letter words...

When I was just fresh in Canada, I took a correspondence course to learn all kinds of names in the Electrical and Electronics Trade in order to speed up the process of making people believe I knew something. I guess it worked somehow...

One other short story here. All these brothers has one younger sister - yeah she was the youngest. I remember her the best I guess, because she used to be real cute. I remember that when Evert and I were about 16/17 - we used to stand on either side of the clothe drying line and throw our tiny sister over the clothe line. The guy on the other side would catch her. She would scream with delight!  Mother could not figure out what was going on until she saw what was happening. She came out like a shot! She did not like it one bit and she wagged her finger a lot. I guess we stopped doing it...

Thinking about all this now, I worked and went to classes more than anything else and there was not much time for fun and frolicking. I guess the pace was set for the rest of my life. Most often I worked two jobs to make ends meet. Life became much more fun when I retired and could finally do what I wanted to do. Which was thinking and writing. From there on in, things fell into place after a while and I began to truly enjoy my life and freedom. Meanwhile, this is about the end of this story for now...

My father was a traveling salesman but he was always home at night. He was away from home about ten hours per day on the average. At night he would count the money he had received for his Company. People paid cash - or next week - so to speak. After he had counted all the money, he used to fix our shoes or put soles on them. We played street-soccer a lot. My Dad could do anything with leather. There are many stories I could tell about him - so far I have not done so. As I mentioned once before somewhere - he was a saintly man - as I think of him now. He smoked cigars and made smoke-circles a lot. Especially in the afternoon on Sundays...

Life was so different then, I cannot remember for example that we ever discussed anything at length. We were a 'remarkable' family - meaning we made remarks - joked around and laughed a lot. There were no life or death discussions as far as I can remember. Life was lived the way it came. I think my mother did all the worrying, she had a concerned look on her face. I think that I inherited her state of mind...

From my third year until I was eight, we lived in a very dark house. I was often, if not always, depressed as I think of it now. At that time, I did not know what depressed was. Too small and dumb. I was very shy when I was young. This lasted well until I was around thirty five years or so. I must have had an inferiority complex as big as a mountain. We did not analyze ourselves much. We were what we were. I remember that Evert and I played Chess a lot. After I was just married, I used to analyze some of the games by the masters...

Life is different for everyone - Gerardus
(I think I could write forever about this)