12 October 1924 - 4 December 2002
This page is a place on which I want to show some of the work of my beloved mother who died much to early. In this way I can keep her memory alive and show the world what she made. I can just hope I inherited some of her creativity. I think I've inherited her perfectionism, but not her capability to teach others.
I alway will remember my mother as a lovely woman, who defenitly put her mark on my life and that of my father.
She was the one who ruled the house. Before her marriage she worked as a nurse. She never liked complaining and
always tried to be strong, in which she mostly succeeded. She was very creative and made a lot of clothing herself.
When I was 22 or so, most clothes I had were made by my her. And they where beautifull. One day the owner of an
expensive clothes-shop complimented me over a dress she had made, which made me feel very proud of her. Later she
only knitted jerseys for me. There was a time I got one each year and I must say some of them I still remember.
Alas they wear out and get thrown away.
When I was 13 years of age, she started working as a volunteer for the Red Cross. She worked with elderly people
who did all sorts of needlework, like knitting, embroiding and all sort of other things. When she died, she would be
30 years active for the Red Cross and one would have nominated her as volunteer of the year of the community of
Rijswijk (the place where we live). We heard this after her dead.
Besides working as a volunteer for the Red Cross, she also took care of other peoples cats, when they were on vacation.
The year before her dead, she was awarded, because she did this for the 25th year. Furthermore she was active as a volunteer in the
community-center, in the part of town where we live. She teached people all sorts of creative things, like making
necklaces, origami and making cards with different techniques. On this site I'll show some examples of what she made
and I'll change pictures every now and than, to make it worthwhile to keep visiting this page.
She has fallen with her bicycle 2 times in one year. The first time she broke her elbow and her jaw and the second
time she broke her shoulder. People asked often if she would stop cycling, but she didn't, though she didn't ride
her bike as much as she used to do. She had become more carefull. But if people ask me wether it was wise to go on
cycling, I only can answer that she fell more often when she was walking. Mostly the consequences were limited to a
blue face and sometimes a bleeding nose. Only the last time, it went terrible wrong. Some vein in her had was damaged
and finally caused the brain-hemorage that killed her.