Grietje de Haan (1901-1957)

Grietje was born on 21 Dec 1901, 116 years ago. She is the youngest sister of my grandmother Afina, and the youngest child of Ulpen de Haan (dutch link) en Geertje Starke. The two children born right before had died young, one at 7 months, one at one year, so Grietje was 8 years younger than the next surviving child.

When her mother died in 1920, my grandmother was already married, so it fell to Grietje to care for her father’s household. She had been planning to start a job in my grandfather’s office, but that was no longer an option. Instead, at 19 she had to run the household. Her father was probably not the easiest person, he had done very well for himself, from a laborer, he had become the owner of a grocery store, but that determination takes a certain personality. In a letter to my grandmother in 1918, brother Hendrik writes teasingly that they were all very busy, except Dad, who does nothing; and that, when Dad writes the letter, everyone has to be quiet as to not disturb him. Definitively the head of the household.

In 1937 Grietje and Dad move from Pekela to Winschoten, close to the oldest son Hendrik. Hopefully the closeness to her sister-in-law made her life a bit easier, from what she writes in the above letter, she seems to have liked her. When Ulpen died in 1940, she probably continued working as a housekeeper; she moves a lot. But she suffered from depression (she was hospitalized several times), so life cannot have been easy.

In 1957 she moved to Doetinchem; it is unclear whether she actually lived with her brother Jan, or just close to him. Six month later she died of breast cancer.

Although I never consciously knew her, on her birthday, I remember her.