The Memoirs of J.G. Kerlen – Part 31

Now my son Johan had been appointed as his replacer, who since the end of 1911 had left his employment with Mr. v. Haften and had gone to the fertilizer factory Java; meanwhile he had become father of a son, named Johannes Godfried, who likewise became the 5th generation with the same christian name. He was nicknamed Hans.

Van Zanten Jut with his wife and daughter came to visit us already soon and my first aquaintance took place whilst I was lying in bed having a rest; the family for the time being stayed with my in law relation’s sister Mrs. Unger, who lived on the Laan van Meerdervoort 2 houses away from the small station of the H.S.M. just not too far from us, sothat I could visit her without a guide, which I of course often did. Jut of course was under medical treatment and didn’t go out much and amused himself at home, mainly with his interesting stamp collection.

After some time he rented a roomy and neat house at the v. Boetselaarlaan, which was for the largest part furnished with the furniture he had taken with him from the Indies; of course the lionshare of the shifting fell on the shoulders of Mrs. v.Z.J. who succeeded wonderfully, it was fine and cosy furnishing, which I also could admire because of my progressing recovery.

The family hasn’t enjoyed this for long, as Jut had to be operated on once again, though when they thought to have conquered the diseases he contracted erysipelas on his fistula and died shortly after.

Not long after Mrs v.Z.J. moved to the Koninginnelaan nr. 53 in Rijswijk with her daughter Suze and her son Frank and not to forget the dog Lord, whilst her daughter showed much more affection for cats.

footnote:

besan is a Malay word and stands for an inlaw relation.

Maria Frederika van Zanten Jut – Schot, mother in law of Johan.

At the end of 1912 Johan gave me a real surprise, after my news that I was getting better he sent me a cheque of 300 guilders indicating that I made a trip abroad; since I didn’t feel that much for it I took this first large present to my savings account at Kievits & Zn., whose deputy was the retired Ltnt. Col. Broeksma here and had an office at the Prins Hendrikplein, I only planned to take a subscription for the Kurhaus, which otherwise would have been too costly for me. The spontanuously sent present has apart from that been very useful during the course of the following years when I was short of money.

3 Weddings need to be mentioned in the year 1913 namely: a. that of Joh de Jongh with Ade Augustijn on the 22nd Januari, the youngsters left already on the 8th March to the Indies b. that of Mies Nikkels with Pim Oost Lievense in Amsterdam, who had a good job there with the Dutch steamboat company and from whom I received much kindness and friendship later on: ( 2nd August ). c. that of Barend de Jongh in Semarang on the 25th October with Giza Goltzmann who wasn’t known to us.
I was only present at the wedding sub a, however I cannot remember anything about it.

As usual it went up and down with Lotje at family Koot; during her stay she did have a crisis, though this was controlled by Mrs. Koot who was knowledgeable in these matters.
One fine day we read in the Haagsche newspaper, that miss K. who was a boarder with the named woman, had tried to kill herself by drowning at the bridge over the Vliet. You can imagine our fright and understandably I hurried with Carey to Voorburg and learnt from Mrs. Koot, that it wasn’t Lotje, but her co boarder Louise Streater and the editor of the Haagsche newspater had published a wrong initial, about which I lodged a complait with the head editor, who therefore offered his apologies.

Still, slowly Lotje became more difficult and unmanageable, which went so far, that Mrs. Koot, who now had moved into a larger and neater house in the Westeinde, came to tell us that regrettably she had to give up to house Lotje any longer. She often had a special kind of madnes attac. So it was therefore neccessary that I had to have her admitted back in the mental institution and since the one of Mr. Bolten didn’t exist anymore I landed for her in the insitution on the Parkweg in Scheveningen, belonging to my brother in law v. Rees, on the head of which stood the psychiatrist D. Stigter, who took her in for a reasonable price.

Lotje only stayed for about 3 weeks in his insitution and did all crazy and silly things whilst she was there, sothat the doctor let me know, that he couldn’t keep her in his instirution and advised me to send her to Gheel ( Belgium ). She would be completely on her place with the strictly carried through family maintenance; the neccessary steps were taken for her admission there and I soon received a confirmative decision.

Of course Lotje had to take the trip to Gheel under good guidance and since Carey due to the unmanageable situation of her sister didn’t dare to do it, I asked my sister Marie to offer a helpful hand during the trip.
One of the first days of May we left by train to Antwerp; in the train Lotje uttered all kinds of strange and unintelligable words and at the platform in Antwerp, whilst I was getting the tickets for the trip to Gheel, she escaped from the care of aunt Marie and we found her back dancing between the large travelling crowd. When we found her back she came passively with us and further we reached our destination.

We went directly to the Colonial Hospice, where we could speak to the 2nd doctor, who had been informed about us by the director; he was on a business trip and had met us quickly at the station and referred us to the 2nd doctor.

After he had examined the patient he put her straight away under the care of one of a nun-nurses, who immediately took her to the cel which was ordered for her, where for a few days she was locked up by herself; we were not allowed to see her anymore and hadn’t even said goodbye to her; besides she wouldn’t have realised it anyway.

We still had to make a choice from the several foster families for Lotje’s stay and hereby were helped by the secretary of the colony, who showed us about 4 different boarding houses, varying from 900 to 1200 francs per year, at which he recommended the stay with the secretary of the municipality K. Liekens, who was a friend of his and he garanteed the good care of the family; the costs were 1000 frs.
The only objection was that there was a mad old Miss living there, a sister of the wellknown statesman van Houten in Groningen, who was suffering a superiority complex, though for her surroundings wasn’t difficult and only spoke all day about her royal friends Napolen III and Victoria; she looked pathetic in her clothes and slippers she had made herself and was nicknamed Queen of Gheel, whilst there were such portaits of her for sale.

After we had visited 3 other boarding houses the one of Mr. Liekens seemed the best and we believed we had to put the objection aside, especially guided by the good impression, which Mrs. Liekens gave, a Dutch woman by birth, like us. The Liekenses had many children, of whom the eldest girl Anna assisted the mother in the household and played the piano quite nicely.

After I had paid the receiver of the colony ( one had to pay 3 months as well as a bond in advance ), I left with aunt Marie to Antwerp, where we had dinner in hotel Terminus and after that we went back to the Hague with the train from Paris.

When we had just crossed the boarder I discovered I had lost my wallet with f. 190 and suspected that it was stolen in hotel Terminus; I thought that I had put the wallet by mistake in the inside pocket of my demi, which one I had hung on the row of pegs behind me during dinner; when leaving the hotel the pageboy was particularly keen to hand me the demi and I suspect him of stealing the wallet from my pocket.
Thank goodness I still had some money in my purse and therefore was able to telegraph the boss of the hotel and the head commissionar of police in Antwerp; however some days later I received a message from both, that their search had been fruitless and so I lost my wallet with the money.

At the same time I had news from Mr. Liekens that Lotje had calmed down after 4 days isolation and was now taken up in his family and she obviously felt completely at ease; it gave us all a peaceful feeling.

On the 3rd of October Piet arrived in the Hague, who had left for his 2nd leave from the Indies with the Prines Juliana, staying with Milly and the two children at our place; it was hard to give all a decent accommodation, though many tame sheep can go in one stable and the family had stayed with us until their return.

In the meantime my health wasn’t too good, the disinfecting poweders from Dr. Bens didn’t work anymore in the long run and I started to loose weight again and suffered sleepless nights.
Like I already mentioned I had a subscription for the Kurhause and that summer I went there every day; the music however was affecting my nerves and I felt very tired after each concert.

It so happened that one certain day Carey was visiting the pharmacist Spillenaar Bilgen, who himself had been a enteritis sufferer and mentioned his idea, that the cause of my illness probably was a not properly working pancreas, which has to secrete insulin in order to digest food; I told Dr. Bense about this conversation and he replied that he wanted to do a test for this by giving pancreon tablets from the Rheania factory in Aachen, which he then prescribed for me.

The result was surprising: almost immediately my diarrhoea stopped and after one month also the sugar secretion in the urine, which since my admission in the hospital was still there, had completely disappeared; whilst I could tolerate all kinds of food.
From several medical doctors I learnt that I would have to take the supplement of pancreas for the rest of my life, which was proven too, although it wasn’t always easy to obtain the tablets.

At first I usually bought them with my brother in law van Rees, director of the Eenhoorn pharmacies in Amsterdam, but soon after the outbreak of war they were not available any longer in Holland and Dr. Bense prescribed me a new pancreas preparation, called Alimentase, which was manufactured in the chemical factory Prana in Amersfoort; our cat Minka loved them and so I had to keep the medication outof the cat’s reach and only gave it when damp and was useless for me; this happened all too often and was clear to the pharmacist Nanning, who told me at a certain moment that the preparation due to it’s quick deterioration was not manufactured anymore.
From that moment on I have supplied my need for tablets by smuggling over the boarder and these smuggleparties will be mentioned at times.

Before the return from leave by Piet and family we decided to make an excursion to Dusseldof, where we were invited by Piem and Mies Oost-Lievese; we made our trip via Antwerp and Gheel, to be able to also see how Lotje was going.

We hired a car in Antwerp, in which the four of us, Milly, Piet, Carey and I made a long trip to see as many remarkabilities of the city; the trip ended with quite a good lunch in a 2nd class hotel which the driver had recommanded; in the afternoon we reached Gheel.

There was just a fair going on in Gheel and in front of Mr. Liekens house, where Lotje received us very excitingly, the marketplace was full of merry-go-rounds and stalls en there was an amazing crowd.
We stayed at the hotel “Het Lam” which we can say doesn’t belong to the 1st class hotels and after we refreshed ourselves we went to family Liekens, who received us in the most brilliant way.
Although we hadn’t long before eaten quite well in Antwerpen, we were still obliged to accept the by the hostess served up dinner which had been put an hour later than usually for our sake.

This dinner was a real lucullus meal, sprinkled with good Bordeaux, Bourgogne and Champaign and we were definitely shy with the overdone meal, which would have costed Mr. Liekens certainly a lot and not in accordance with the low price for Lotje’s board.
After dinner we still stayed a while to listen to the piano and singing of Anneke and Lotje and we also amused ourselves with the silly stories of the Queen van Gheel.

The night, which we spent in the hotel, taught us about the dirty manners of the Flemish people: at the bedlinen we could see that they were used before, but the worst were the toilets; one of them was nothing else that a seat above a drain in the garden behind the hotel, though this was still a paragon in comparason to the toilet next to the guestrooms on the storey which I had to use in the night. It was however a modern sanitaire, but it missed the neccessary waterflow, the cystern however didn’t seem to have been filled for ages and the piled up feaces dispersed a dreadful stink.

After we had visited the Director Meuws in the hospice the next morning we left by train to Germany and arrived by the afternoon in Dusseldorf; I didn’t feel too well, I clearly had gone past my book ( or rahter my belly ) with the meals of the previous day and I personally didn’t take much notice of my stay in Dusseldorf.
Piet and I stayed in hotel Bristol, the ladies with Mies and Piem, where we had our meals and who received us real heartly.
They had organised several excursions at which Mies, who was expecting her first baby, didn’t take part and I didn’t either regarding my gut.
On the other hand Gerrit Nikkels did join them; he was just about to get engaged with a German girl in the neighbourhood and came often around.

Personally I joined Mies with whom I mainly looked at the peculiarities of the city by tram and visited the cimema a few times; however it became too much for me in the end not to be able to join in everything and I decided to return to the Hague by myself; the three others followed a few days later.
I note herewith that the changeover to the medication with pancreon only started after my return from Dusseldorf.

Piet’s leave meanwhile was coming to an end and he returned at the end of May for the Indies with mother and daughter Milly; the eldest daughter Renny was left behind under the care of her aunt Carey.
Upon her arrival in Holland Renny was placed iimmediately in the 3rd class of the H.B.S. on the Stadhouderslaan and so came in the same class as her cousin Carey with whom she also further studied together.

At the end of their holidays both cousins weere going to stay in Arnhem with Renny’s aunt Renate and v. Gend & Loos had already been phoned to collect the luggage, when the war broke out and the Queen gave decree of war danger and  ordered mobilisation.
Of course all railway network was confiscated by the general staff and so they had to renounce their trip to Arnhem and cancel v.Gend & Loos.

It was surprising how soon you couldn’t get any more silver or gold money and that’s why I bought about 10 cigars in several shops, paid with a banknote and  in that way still received quite a large amount of silver coins, sothat we could manage for the time being.

On the first days all shops were bought out and each household mother tried to collect as much as possible of the neccessary daily articles; they called this hoarding.
Carey joined this movement firmly and especially the large supply of soap, which she hoarded has been very useful in our first years; through a mediator from a billiardfriend, Mr. Fraiture I have shoarded a large bag of salt.

Lucky our land remained out of the war and this should be, besides the sympathy of the German Emperor for the House of Orange, largely accredited to the speed with which the Army had been decently mobilised and which the belligerents definitely had to take into account. The speedy mobilisation was the fruit of Mr. H. Colijn, who as minister of War and had designed the neccessary plans for it and had things totally prepared.

Just before the war we saw a strike of the personnel of the H.T.M. here in the Hague, which caused a lot of trouble for the civilians in the beginning; the direction tried first to continue the firm with the help of volunteers and the blinding of the wagons, soon this was clearly not possibly anymore and only a few lines cold still be run with Police guards and members of the constabulary.

Line 3 didn’t run at all any more and to pay my daily visit to the Witte I had to use the steamtrain of the H.S.M. and line 8 via Scheveningen; students from the highest class H.B.S. and Gymnasium served as drivers or conductors on this line 8 and later on were rewarded a free subscription for a whole year.