On the 3rd day the planned boattour through the canal started already at 8 o’clock and we stopped after an hour steaming at a large flour factory of which the inspection took nearly 2 hours; the factory was situated on both sides of that canal, the machines on the left banks and the storage sheds on the right banks, alongside of which the railway traffic ran. The transport of the bags with flour was run along a conveyer belt next to which was a footpath so one could keep an eye on the belt; we were invited along this path to follow the belt and were very surprised to be on the top story of the storage sheds, a remarkable realisation.The Belgian Society had looked after our lunch in a small village situated a quarter of an hour steaming North of the flour factory, and we were treated in a pub, served by nice Flemish girls, on a delicous midday meal with the finest young vegetables and an ecellent glass of wine.When we finished our lunch we steamed further North, inspected whilst passing by a formidable sluice in construction and so arrived at the end of our boattour in Vilvoorden.Here still a visit to a large endless paper factory stood on the program, where at least 1000 workers found employment, because the chief did not only manufacture drawing paper, but also the neccessary machines for it.We could see how on one side 75cm long and 15 to 20 cm thick pinetree trunks were thrown in a mulching machine and after treatment in several other machines, on the other side of the factory a 100m long roll of endless paper came out.After inspecting the factory we were treated to a good glass of champaign in the beautiful reception hall of the Director’s home, which was situated in a magnificent Park and left Vilvoorden very satisfied about our trip and all the interesting things we had seen.The return trip to Brussels happened by train via Mechlin, we only arrived late at our destination, dead tired, but not that much or we first had to enjoy a beer at the boulevard, at which my roommate was complaining that he had missed his daily bitter.The last day we spent visiting the several amusement attractions in the so called Lunapark, like the ghosthouse, the Russian mountain, the Water rush and such. The day was finalised by a magnificent dinner in the large restaurant of the beautiful pavillion of their country offered by the Belgian Engineers.Whilst we were sitting at the table, my new orderd glasses were delivered as arranged; it was an eye opener for me how well I could see with them and also could read clearly. However the Swiss had ripped me off, as some time after I was back in the Hague, it was clear that the frame was not made of gold, though only of gold plated, through which my nose got black and it was neccessary to buy a new frame; the lenses however were very good and I have been able to use them for 12 years without repairs nor changes.The next afternoon we returned to the Hague extremely satisfied about the excursion we made, which had costed me 100 guilders.As mentioned before Gerard arrived here on the 1st August; of course he wanted to visit the Exhibition in Brussels with his wife as well and they took Carey for this occasion as a guest with them; the ladies of course made several purchases, whilst they enjoyed the exhibition as much as possible, at which mainly Carey had clearly been very nervous in the Russian Mountains and in the so called waterrush lost her hat. For the rest I don’t know much about their experiences.Shortly after their return the children became sick and the eldest son evidently got scarlet fever and had to be admitted in the Roman Catholic hospital; he was put in a barack for contageous diseases where he was not allowed to be visited other than the doctor and could only amuse himself with the treating nurse; if we wanted to see him, he showed up in front of a closed window and we could in the event, place presents on the window frame.After he got better he was still very weak and a stay in the Sanatorium in Doorn was neccessary for him. With his younger brother Frits, who was also seriously ill young Gerard was taken in the car to Doorn by his mother, whilst his aunt Carey joined the three of them.On second thoughts I now remember, that the above illness story took place in the year 1911 and that was the reason why Gerard upon returning from his leave had to leave Jop and the 3 children behind; he left in July and was followed by the rest in October 1911.During the time that the van heels lived in the Theresiastreet we could talk through the phone every day, which especially for both sister was a great ease; the installation of it was paid for by Gerard, though after his departure papa van Heel had the phone taken away again from his home; however we kept the connection in the Laan van Meerdervoort, as we had experienced the great comfort associated with it; we did find the cost rather a objection, but in the Indies we were already used to it, and we could not miss the connection any more; besides the costs were only half of what they are now.On the 30th of December Tonia de Jongh married Henri Huygens; they had been engaged for about 10 years, and when he, after a longlasting study in Delft finally was promoted to mechanical engineer and got employed by the H.S.M. in Amersfoort, the marriage could eventuate.The solumnation took place in the Wilhelmina Church by Ds. Gerritsen, son of the headmaster on the Kloppenberg in Nijmegen, which was my first teacher and he still recongnised me.In the evening papa de Jongh gave a grand dinner at one of the topstory halls of the Cafe Riche at the Buitenhof; this dinner developed for several male guests in a less satisfactory event because they hadn’t taken in account the extremely large glasses in which the abundantly served wines were poured, which of course was good for the inn keeper and took a lot of money from Uncle de Jongh’s wallet.It went so far that Henk de Jongh had to be carried like a body, to great annoyance of his wife, whilst the old man Haak had drank more than was good for him.After dinner a great part of the group went to Scala ( not Uncle de Jongh of course ) and the old drunk man Haak caused us a lot of trouble, who finally with soothing words was dragged home by Johan de Jongh.On the 7th March 1911 we received the telegraphic news from the wedding of Johan; I had sent him on time a dinnerset for his household; much more I couldn’t afford, although I certainly would have given him a more expensive present, taking in account that after his departure to the Indies, he hadn’t costed me a cent and he had worked his way up by taking charge of himself.In the same year I started to have continuously problems with boils, sothat in the end I consulted my neighbour Dr. van der Horst; he diagnosed diabetes and gave me a particular diet, whith which I started on the 13th August just on the birthday of Uncle de Jongh.A salve for the wound was that Jacques de Jongh phone me on the 30th of August that I was appointed titular General major which news was confirmed in the evening paper; for me it was a huge satisfaction, since through this the Queen and the government acknowledged that the treatment, which I had experienced by Governor General van Heutsz was biassed and undeserved.In the beginning of September the 12 year old Carey was admitted to the H.B.S. at the Stadhouderslaan; so she had profitted well from the primary school education by getting ready just in time.In those days Carey’s children had joined as juniors with the girl guides association, none of them clearly found any enjoyment in that in the long run, the girls stayed there the longest in which organisation Mrs. Manna de Wijs- Mouton was particularly interested. The organisation could quite soon hire their own clubhouse through her urging and our girls each remained a member for about 2 years. The boys were more interested in football and were already members of the H.V.V. club when very young, where especially Joop soon gained a good name. Both boys have reached the 1st class players and therefore have seen already a lot of the world at a youthful age.My diet which was prescribed by Dr. v.d. Horst didn’t stop me from going out in the evening to my weekly game of omber in the Trompstraat or in the Witte nor looking for salvation in the Z.H. Koffiehuis; on the 30th of September it began to storm and when I wanted to leave at 8 o’clock, stones and roofing tiles flew around my ears, sothat I was glad to get back home unharmed.We had a very restless night, the cuckoo above our attac room blew away, whcih created such a suction through the house that the door of the servant’s room could not stay closed and Anna and the nanny, who, due to the terrible weather couldn’t go home and in the night had to flee to the living room with their bedding; it was a funny sight and although I had heard a cannonade of small gravel stones in the night we didn’t get any other damage to our house than the above mentione cuckoo and some blown away roofing tiles and cracked small windows.Our neighbours didn’t fare as well, since they received the full brunt of the gravel stones of the flat roofs across the road, on the windows, even the largest windows had blown in.The next morning the tram traffic had been stopped and so I had to walk to the city, through which I had the opportunity to at ease take stock of the huge havoc. Along all roads I saw uprooted trees and stones and roofing tiles lying around, even whole chimneys; no tree was standing on the Plein and all wire connections of the H.T.M. were cut through.But the most damage you could see in the Haagsche Bosch, where the storm clearly had been ravaging the worst and, except for the trees without a pinroot, a 50m wide band had been as it were mown away.When I came home and told tante Joh, who was just at our place, everythiing I had seen, she also had to also see it and in the afternoon she went there with Carey; in the Haagsche Bosch, where the road was completely obstructed, the old woman climbed over the thickest treetrunks, with the result that she had a nasty fall, luckily without serious consequences; it could have ended far worse.Some months after his wedding Johan, who couldn’t agree with Mr. van Haften about the possible companionship of the fertilizer factory from which his father in law was the director; although in this he would financially go back, he quite soon still received the power of attorny and he could , at the leaving of Mr. Jut, who made a business trip to the Netherlands, replace him and togeteher with the 2nd director Mr. Kromer, ran the whole management of the factory.At his arrival here in the Hague I got to know Mr. v. Zanten Jut, though couldn’t through circumstances give him the politeness at my house; therefore I invited him to a dinner in a restaurant, after which we played a game of carambole together in the Koffiehuis. Howover he only stayed very shortly in the city and returned, after a trip to Germany to the Indies.I never thought I would see him back in Holland so soon and in a serious situation for both of us.On the 23th of December Barend de Jongh left for the Indies and had been accompanied by his father and me from Amsterdam to IJmuiden; for on the way I gave him a small case with Regalia cigars, which I already bought for 22 years from C.D. Muyderman in Zutphen and which in the Indies were always appreciated by my guests. These cigars costed f.3.50 for 100 in the past and would now come to f. 2; after my retirement I smoked besides these Regalias also another brand which costed f. 2.40 per 100 and also were made by C. & M. But in 1912 I stopped the delivering during my illness.The year 1912 for me was a concatenation of mysery; I kept the diet which Dr. v.d. Horst had prescribed and consequently my diabetes had ceased; this diet seems to have been too harsh for me, at least at a certain moment I was suffering from diarrhoea and losing weight. With bismuth and double carbonic acidic soda the diarrhoea was temporarily stopped but it kept coming back, sothat in the end I consulted the internist Dr. v.d. Scheer.He treated me in the beginning with blueberries and when the month of May commenced with strawberries and eggwhite of at least 10 eggs a day, with the only result that my diabetes came back and I started to feel more and more awful.To make matters worse van der Scheer went on holidays for a month and I was during that time completely without medical treatment.I had stone cold feet and suffered sleeplessness in such a way that I could not stand it in bed anymore and sometimes paced up and down the room in the upper living room and despite the summer weather had to warm my cold feet at the gasheater.Finally v.d. Sheer came back and started to treat me with binding means which also didn’t do anything and which caused me serious pains under the stomach region. In the end he declaired he could not see any chance in curing me and advised me to go to the best doctor for internal medicine in the Netherlands Professor Talma in Utrecht; he most likely would resolve in an operation.To Carey, who after hearing about one and the other and went to Dr. v.d. Scheer for peronal information, he told that I had cancer on the large intestines. I didn’t feel like a trip to the Professor much, because if I had to be operated on, that could just as well be done in the Hague, where there were also quite a number of good surgeons.My friend Dr. v. Diermen adviced me to let them take an xray of my intestines by Dr. Wolff, who had an Insittute for that kind of admission.According to him the photo showed a spot, which pointed at an abcess; I couldn’t see that spot myself, but since Dr. v. Diermen and also my friend Pennington, who himself had had an xray institute were of the same opinion as Dr. Wolff, I had to accept it and decided to let them operate on me.Until the admission in the hospital I hung around and went every day to the Witte, depite the fact that I had gone back from 90 to 72kg; I was even able to be present at a festive dinner on the 26th June in the Concordia building at the Alexanderveld in honour of the marriage of Tjebbe de Jongh with Jetje Hartog.On the 22nd September Carey took me to the municipal hospital, where Dr. Schoenmaker examined me immediately and according to the photo he diagnosed that I had an abcess in the large intestine, he thought he even could see the lump under the skin; after fasting and purging for two days I was guided into the operating theatre, where Dr. Sch. wanted to treat me without anaesthetic and made the incision insensitive with cocaine. So of the incision I didn’t feel a thing, but when the surgeon started to wriggle in my intestines I would have made such a dreadful roar, that they then immediately put on the anaesthesia cap; after I had counted from 1 to 12 I was out and only came to a few hours later in my roooom, though felt very dopy.They gave me only some milk, though I didn’t seem to stand that as soon enough I got diarrhoea and I wasn’t allowed to have anything except for a bit of boullion. Although the night was fairly quiet thanks to a morphine injection; the next morning I got a high fever and started to vomit a lot of pus and I regularly had to inhale steam whilst for the time being I was not allowed to have any visitors.The nursing was excellent, my nurse was sister Monsees, who later on has left for the Indies and married in Bandoeng; when she had a day off another nurse did her service amongst them Daisy Green, the later wife of Eddy de Neve, now again separated.Soon enough I started to improve and I was allowed to receive visitors. Dr. Schoenmaker told me, that at the operation they hadn’t found any abcess ( a ) though only a small adhesion which he had loosened and then closed me up again; already after 8 days I had to get out of bed every day and sit up for a few minutes.Now I also got visitors every day, not only from family members but from numerous aquaintances from the Witte; mainly Pennington and my former schoolfriend Willem le Rutte came nearly every day, a pity that my other school and billiard friend Soek with whom I so often played billiards in the Z.H.K. Koffiehuis couldn’t see me anymore: he had fallen ill on the day that I was admitted to hospital and a few days later he had died.A few days before my discharge from the hospital ward Pennington had come to visit again and he knew how to get me in an extremely cheerful mood with his cheerfulness and to encourage me to smoke a cigar again, although this was prohibited in the hospital; he knew however to get a permit for that from the doctor on duty, who only made the condition that the outside window was opened and the door to the passage had to be left closed; the little cigar tasted excellently.( a ) This statement has been contradicted by Dr. Wolff: “Where else would so much pus come from then?” he asked, “The photo points that out and so the abcess would have discharged itself via the lungs”.On the first of September I left the hospital declared cured by Dr. Schoenmaker; I had told him that I didn’t want to have Dr. v.d. Horst as my GP any longer and he adviced me to use Dr. Bense as a replacer, who as healthcare doctor treated Carey and the children and whom I have since then consulted all the time.Carey picked me up from the hospital with a four wheeler, I was namely too weak to walk and had lost weight to 65 kg. When arriving home I found lots of welcoming flowers, amongst which was a beautiful bouquet from the Schuller family whose children played a lot with Carey’s. The father had quite a large art business on the Plein, made a trip to South America for his business, fell siriously ill over there and died of T.B.C. not long after his return.I wasn’t even home for 3 days or I started to be bothered by diarrhoea again, even so badly that Carey rang Dr. Sch. in the middle of the night, who gave the advice to swallow a few dermatol powders; the next day Dr. Bense came who gave me a particular diet and prescribed the regular use of disinfecting powders, from which I very slowly recovered.Every day I had to take a short walk on the arm of Carey, which in the beginning didn’t last any longer than 10 minutes, after which I had to go to bed to rest again.When the walks could be a bit longer my friend le Rutte offered to pick me up every day and to accompany me, which he faithfully kept doing for a long time; slowly we went a little further each day and if I became too tired he brought me to the tram and then went on to his permanent club in the Witte; it was a real friendship service of him.
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The Memoirs of J.G. Kerlen – Part 30
