Diena Vos (1746-1823)

Diena Vos (Dutch link) was baptized 4 Dec 1746 in Almelo, 271 years ago. Although this is a baptismal date, we will use it, as I don’t have her actual birthday. Diena is my fourth great-grandmother, and her granddaughter married into the ten Bruggencate  family.

Her husband was a weaver, prob. linen, and maybe later cotton. Undoubtedly Diena also helped, as the textile industry was a cottage industry in those days, the people living and working at home, the preparation of the linen fibers, the spinning and the weaving all done in one part of the small house, the living, cooking and sleeping in the other. In Almelo one such dwelling is now a small museum: The Weaver Cottage shows how small these houses were. The work was done in the rear, where the windows are shown. (Here another picture)

Later, when cotton became available, the weavers would get the cotton fibers from a merchant, for whom they then produced the woven goods; and from whom they received an extremely small salary, depending on their output.

Diena had only two children; she was 31 when she married. Willem probably did not survive; in 1795 the household of Barent Klumpers (in the 2nd quarter, Stad Almelo) consists of five people, Barent with prob. son Gerrit, Gerrit’s wife Diena, and either grandson Berend or son Jan (or possibly both, if children were not counted)

Diena’s life was hard, no doubt, no modern conveniences. But they were not destitute, like so many others. Diena died 10 May 1823 in her house at Schuttenpad 369 at age 76 yrs 6 months