A Favourite Photo


Week 4, 52 Ancestors a Week Challenge


This elegant lady walking her little dog in cold and wintry The Hague was Anna Hendrika Peelen. "Tante Annie" as my mother called her godmother. She was the eldest sister of my grandfather Reinier Peelen.

What struck me about this photo is how much Tante Annie looked like her grandmother and namesake Anna Hendrika Knoops.

This photo is actually a postcard, so it must have been a favourite photo of herself that Tante Annie had printed up to have on hand to send out to friends, family.  It was sent to a cousin as far as I can make out from the difficult handwriting and it was dated 18 April 1939; she would have been fifty years old.

Anna remarked that her little dog Patrickje, looked so cute in this photo.

Her daughter Eduarda Anna, or Eddy as she was known in the family corresponded with my mother and sent her the photos and documents about the family history I now have.

Tante Annie's life unfolded in many ways like a romantic novel. She married well, travelled around Europe and other exotic places, and mingled with "high society"of the 1920's and 1930's. But she was not spared the tragic loss of her daughter Julie, followed nine months later by the death of her husband.

Anna married Eduard Theodoor Oetgens van Waveren Pancras Clifford, scion of a Dutch and English patrician family which traced its roots to the Middle Ages. They had two daughters; Julia Marie, born in 1908 and Eduarda Anna, "Eddy" in 1910.

The lifestyle of the young couple as Eddy tells it in her memoir was one of parties, vacations, travel, hunting, sports. 

"We had a few years of happy childhood before tragedy struck" 

Little Julia was diagnosed with osteomyelitis and was rushed to hospital for surgery. Her father was out at a hunt and when he got the message from his wife, peddled home on his bike as fast as he could without a jacket and caught pneumonia and a severe form of tuberculosis. His doctors advised him to move to Switzerland; the mountain air was his only hope. 

They settled in Montreux and led a comfortable life. Eduard's condition improved but he was advised never to go back to Holland for his health's sake. 

Early in 1925, both Julia and Eddy got the measles. Eddy recovered, but Julia got a complication, a spot on her lungs. She was sent to the hospital in Davos with her mother for treatment. Her condition deteriorated and she died from meningitis. 

Her father never got over his grief and nine months later, on 15th March 1926 he also died from meningitis. 

Anna was now widowed with an under-age daughter. She moved back to Holland, to the Hague. As Eddy remembers, she started corresponding with Mr Ramaer, a family friend from Montreux, who had also recently lost his wife. They fell in love and on 7th October 1926 they married in London.

Johannes Wilhelmus Ramaer was very much older, but he was tall, handsome and wealthy. They had some very happy years together, until he too passed away in 1932. 

Anna was visiting her brother in Salatiga, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) when World War II broke out. She noted this in the back of the bible she had inherited from her grandmother and namesake: 

"Days one will never forget - Salatiga, 10 May 1940. Invasion by Germany of our Netherlands! God help our poor Fatherland. 14 May 1940 - the Netherlands surrenders."

Eddy, who had been living in France had only just managed to escape to the USA, arriving on 9 May 1940. She had found a job at the Dutch consulate in Washington and they warned her that her mother should get out of Java because they feared that Japanese occupation was imminent.  She managed to obtain a visa and on 6th November 1940 Anna arrived in New York.

She became a US citizen in due course and lived with her daughter Eddy in New York until she passed away in 1958.

References:

Records accessed from Ancestry, My Heritage, Open Archieven.

Correspondence and memoir: Eddy Clifford

A family history publication: De Familie Scherius by VP Loeliger-Salomonson







Comments

  1. What a fascinating life Tante Annie lived! Cute photo, too. Thanks for sharing.

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