Long Wilem Schoonveld (1816-1891)
The following story is written by Eppo Roelfs Wigboldus, born in 1852 and died in 1929. He was a farmer’s son in Garmerwolde, and his father, Roelf Wigboldus, passed away in 1864 when the children were still young. Willem Schoonveld had been a long-time worker on the farm and became a farmer-laborer. In his story, Eppo describes the work on the farm and the living conditions of the laborer and his family. Later, Eppo founded the lime kilns in Garmerwolde, from which the later building materials trade Wigboldus in Groningen originated. Willem Willems Schoonveld (referred to as long Willem in this story) was born on July 29, 1816, in Garmerwolde, the son of Willem Schoonveld and Jantje Groenwold. He married Antje Hindriks Oosterhuis on January 7, 1838. When he got married, he could not write his name. Willem and Antje had nine children together: six daughters and three sons. The oldest daughter died when she was two months old; the other children all grew up to adulthood, got married, and had children of their own. The fourth child and the oldest son was Willem Schoonveld (1843-1926). He also appears in the story and was, according to tradition, later a worker at the lime kilns in Garmerwolde. This Willem was, in turn, the father of Willem Schoonveld (1886-1961). On December 6, 1891, Willem Willems passed away at the age of 75 in Garmerwolde.
Death of Father Wigboldus
When my father passed away and also even before that, we had a permanent laborer named Willem Schoonveld – known to us as Long Willem – because he was a large person. According to the family council, he was now to be a farmer on the land until we could take over later as we grew older. Harm Bolt, who was our supervising guardian, and Willem Mekkes, our mother’s brother, provided good advice. The latter bought and sold tea when necessary. The father is Roelf Klaassens Wigboldus, born on December 6, 1823, in Garmerwolde and passed away at the age of 40 on September 11, 1864, on the farm at Bovenrijgerweg in Ten Boer. So it went as well as could be expected, but it wasn’t going well. We were too young and furthermore not of the same mind. Mother farmed so poorly in the first years that followed: not that the laborer Long Willem didn’t take good care of her, but these were also bad years for farmers; moreover, our land wasn’t being plowed as it should have been.
The coffee grinder
We couldn’t plow yet, and the servant we had didn’t understand it well either. I don’t clearly remember what my tasks were when I stayed home from school, but I do know that I was often busy repairing mills. Mother had given me an old coffee mill, and every evening and sometimes even during the day, I would tinker with it. The worker Willem constantly called me away to help him with other tasks on the farm, but as soon as I was free again, I would be busy finishing the mill, which eventually got to the point where it ground flour. My other brothers were also interested in this and helped me get the thing going; it was quite a large apparatus, with sails four to five meters long and blades in front, and inside the mill were wheels with spindles, underneath which the coffee mill was placed. Uncle and our workers shook their heads, seemingly indicating: “not worth it.” For even if flour was produced from the barley, the mill would have to run for days to grind just one hectoliter.
Canola cutting
In the summer of 1865, by the time the rapeseed was ripening, I needed to have a sickle and whetstone ready, because I wanted to use them for cutting rapeseed. Typically, this was done at night or, at the very least, early in the morning, starting around three in the morning until about eight o’clock, with all the men participating, six to eight men, to be able to cut a patch of rapeseed in one or two mornings. It was customary for the farmer to continuously pour a glass of jenever, and even a 14-year-old boy found it enjoyable to participate in this tradition. So, I ordered a sickle and whetstone from the blacksmith and cooper in our village, with my initials and the year 1865 stamped on the sickle, as it was customary for each person to recognize their own tools. Long Willem, our regular laborer-farmer, shook his head again as if to say, “Nonsense, you can’t cut yet, you’re too young.”
A sickle is a piece of hand tool used for mowing (‘cutting’) grain, legumes, etc. A sickle consists of a lightly curved, pointed blade, about 70 cm long and 10-12 cm wide at its broadest point. The blade was attached at a right angle to a fairly short handle. At the end of this handle was a grip, often followed by a wide plate to support the wrist. The design varied depending on the region where it was used. In the northern provinces, there was often a small leather loop at the top of the handle, fitting the index finger. The sickle was used in combination with a hook rake to gather the cut grain together (the ‘raking’) and lay it aside so it could be tied into a sheaf. A hook rake typically consisted of a wooden handle with an attached slightly curved, pointed iron hook of 10-15 cm in length. Elsewhere, it was also referred to as a pick or hook rake.
The blacksmith in Garmerwolde
We had our craftsmen in Garmerwolde, the blacksmith was a sturdy old-fashioned man who understood his trade well, spoke with a German accent, coming from across the borders, but was well-integrated here, perhaps even born here to German parents. I often visited this Jan or Johan Eerkes Smidt (as he wrote his name), even before my sight, hairpin, and hair hammer were ready. The master would smile and reassure me; he knew when the coal fire would start and offered me his large tobacco box, which he took from his pocket to light up; naturally, a boy who wanted to smoke had to learn how to do it, and he pretended to regard me as an adult. The stem of the pipe, which had just been bought, stuck out of my jacket pocket, and although the master thought it better that I did not smoke, he still presented the tobacco box he offered to every customer who entered the blacksmith’s shop. As soon as the pipe was stuffed, he grabbed the handle behind the anvil and pulled the bellows a few times to make his fire glow, taking out a rod with a flattened tip from the fire that was glowing red, and handed it to his client, who would then light his pipe with it and seemingly enjoyed smoking from the master’s curly tobacco.
Canola cutting
Although I had been considered powerful for years, the sight of that coal at night was not pleasant, as it had to be learned first. I had already been working in a piece of barley when the sight finally came from the smith, but I had been out of line and had just chopped at it. Now, however, I had to fall in line, meaning each one must take their turn in watching the swath1 or field, and this was no easy task, trying to work directly alongside an experienced sightworker, yet I had to keep going. The result was that the work suffered, and they had me in a tough spot. If I had been the last one, I could have worked according to the circumstances and could have stayed back if necessary. I should have realized this right away, but my overconfidence led me to push ahead without considering whether I could keep up.
Lange Willem brings a solution
Long Willem, our overseer, had already suspected and noticed it, and sent me to fetch some beer; he was thirsty. I don’t believe his thirst was that great, but he helped me out of the situation in a decent manner, and I was somewhat glad to get the task of bringing beer, thus freeing me from this awkward position I had thoughtlessly stepped into. For I didn’t want to run away; that shame was, in my opinion, too great; although all the workers would have understood why Long Willem sent me for beer, I maintained the pride of holding my ground. So that night in the rapeseed field, I received a valuable lesson on not being too overconfident. Later in the autumn of 1865, things went better with the harvesting of oats, as this was easier than slogging through thick cabbage roots, while collecting oat straw is simpler to gather.
Canola threshing
We harvested the rapeseed at home while it was being brought into the barn with wagons that had gates on them, to which cloths were attached. Grandfather Eppo Mekkes and other family members helped us so much that the three fields had to be threshed in one day with the threshing block. These were busy days in the agricultural business, but the good relationship between employer and employee (as it is called today) was almost never lacking at that time. The farmer was generous in offering coffee, beer, and white bread, and unfortunately also in abundance with gin, while the workers and laborers presented their full work strength.
The tailor
Mother was always healthy and active, which was a great blessing for us nine children. With the birth of Trientje, she had been close to death’s door, but later she remained healthy and found much work to provide for the household and take care of clothing, etc. She sought support from the tailor P. Noorda in Garmerwolde, who, along with one or a few of his apprentices, sometimes spent days in our house adjusting clothing, as was customary at that time. I can still see them arriving in the morning, lined up one behind the other, with the master at the front, carrying a pressing iron and board under his arm. Interestingly, the master and his two apprentices were physically challenged with hunchbacks; the last one, the smallest, was a witty little man who, at the table (for the craftsmen working for farmers received their meals, as they called it), would tell such amusing stories during meals that some laughed so much they could hardly eat when that mischievous fellow was at the table. He embodied the saying of Father Cats, who wrote: it’s as if a hunchbacked person, a person with a lump, is sometimes only filled with spirit and wit.
What a family
What a family: a maid, two farmhands, and the worker, with three tailors and mother, say with four of her children at the table that is twelve people which was not so every day. But when the tailors were once again done with their work, there were sometimes days on end with a couple of carpenters or painters or other workers; a large pot with thick pieces of bacon had to be cooked to provide for the needs of these sometimes hungry stomachs. A farmer’s son has a lot to do to ensure everything is well taken care of in the household, because the tailors only came by a few times a year for a couple of days when there was a need.
The farmer's wife's tasks
Consider the care for the mother-farmer, for the dairy, skimming milk, and soured milk for churning (since there were no butter factories back then). Indeed, the woman had the responsibility for butter-making, and there was a competition among farmer’s wives over who ranked first, second, or third on the butter scale. But of course, this required effort: add to this that some also made cheese, both from sweet milk and from cream for domestic use, and then on top of that, the laundry, both from the dairy and to keep the house clean and tidy, as well as the household linen laundry; truly, a farmer’s wife of that time led a very busy life and yet remained cheerful. In the summer, rising between four and five in the morning, they accomplished more by eight o’clock (the first breakfast at eight) than many city-dwelling women do in an entire day.
Raking and Plowing
When the rapeseed was threshed and the white corn was gathered into the barns, I first had to harrow with the horses and later also plow. For that, I managed to get white linen stockings with rich knots on the side, tied over my trousers and shoes with a leather strap beneath my foot, which was supposed to keep the fine mud out of my shoes. It looked quite impressive, especially for a candidate agricultural student, to wear such pristine white stockings over the trousers up to the calf – quite dashing – and so I went harrowing. A boy must know how to handle the harrow before he comes behind the plow, that is with a pair of old trusty horses in front of this implement, to crumble the plowed land; I would walk behind, wearing the white stockings, with a tapper (or tap chain) in my right hand and the long reins in both hands to steer the horses and to tap on the chain when the teeth of the harrow were full of couch grass or stubble residues. When this work is done well, one sways along the plowed fields, now to the right, then to the left, sometimes leaning forward and sometimes backward, as if one is not three-quarters, but completely drunk; meanwhile, while steering the horses and tapping on the harrow, one manages to keep balance by swaying and does not fall over the thickest clods. However, I did not enjoy this work, but that did not help, it had to be done. I would much rather plow; I found plowing to be nice work! but I had to be patient. Our farmhand plowed, and soon, perhaps in a few weeks, I would learn this too, and so I went harrowing again with the prospect of soon doing this fun work.
Wintertime
On November 12th, all plowing, harrowing, and other work in the fields had to be completed, and the livestock needed to be placed in the barns. The farmer adhered to this, as the days shorten and the weather can sometimes be harsh, but many incompetent farmers, who always lag behind, can still be seen plowing in mid-November. In the wintertime, the corn had to be threshed. Steam threshing machines had not yet been invented, and only a few farmers attempted to use a machine of their own design or one conceived by some local tradesman, but these rarely worked well; everything was too primitive, so in 1865, a threshing block was still used to separate the grain from the chaff. The flail was also still used, but only for threshing wheat or rye stalks to be used for covering the barns. It was customary during the winter in the barn to have three men thresh from November 12 to March 12, which corresponded to about 15 to 20 hectares of rapeseed that was threshed in the summer. White corn with beans and peas, depending on the size of the harvest, amounted to about 5,000 to 6,000 bundles of 10 sheaves. This amount had to be not only threshed but also cleaned, rid of chaff and dust, market-ready made with the winnowing mill and sieve. The laborer, the hired hand, and the boy (the second hired hand) had to carry out this work. It was not contracted work, but they worked as if it were. The farmhands had a friendly competition to perform well in the threshing; there could come a winter with good ice for skating, and the farmer would be asked for time off, which was not refused as long as the threshing was on schedule, allowing for some afternoons off. Right away in mid-November, after plowing, harrowing, etc., were cleaned and stored, we started threshing with good courage. Since we had no second helper and Klaas, my brother, fed and cared for the livestock, I had to work inside at the threshing block, while tall Willem, our hired laborer, worked outside, and our farmhand Freerk Timmer was on the threshing section to continually shake off and carry away the straw that had gone under the threshing block.
Monotonous labor
This work was not hard, but very monotonous, just walking around the threshing floor as the horses that had been pulling the block approached again and then shook the straw four, five, or six times depending on how quickly the horses ran until the grain was threshed and shaken out of the straw. Then the laborer was ready to shake off the five or six bales of straw under the block, in order to lay a new layer and so on. We started at five in the morning and ended in the evening just before six, or, if possible, precisely at six to be at the table for dinner. This was somewhat oppressive and monotonous work for a boy just under fifteen. At five in the morning, tall Willem would ring the handle of the back door, so loudly to signal us to open it, while most of us were still sleeping. Once the laborer opened it and lit the lantern, untied the horse from the tethers, we would head into the barn, into the eerie half-darkness, since one lantern in such a large space provides very little light, enough to just distinguish things to avoid running into each other. Around six, the maid would bring us a kettle with coffee and three cups, then we would sit in the grain or on the straw near the lantern to enjoy the nice hot coffee. The winnower is a device used for removing impurities from threshed grain and other seeds. Previously, a winnowing fan was used for this purpose. Inside a wooden box lies a fan with 4-6 blades, which is operated by hand via a crank. The mixture to be cleaned falls through an adjustable slit down onto several sieves stacked on top of each other, through which the air current generated by the fan blows, carrying away chaff, (too) light seeds, short straw remains, and other impurities from the winnower. The heavier seeds fall down. The winnower became widespread in larger farms since the early 18th century and is noted by historians as a labor-saving innovation. With the advent of the threshing machine (which incorporated the winnowing function), the winnower disappeared from farm inventories. The grain constantly needed to be cleaned and purified from chaff by a winnower; that was quite different than always treading with a wooden fork around the king’s pin of the threshing floor, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant work either, especially not when I had to keep the winnower in motion. This was initially the laborer’s job, but since cleaning oats from chaff and straw remnants also required a sieve to be put in motion and this work was heavier, I also had to keep our old-fashioned fan moving, while tall Willem moved a forkful at a time, bringing the rough oats and chaff up to the top board, I stood behind the fan, holding the handle alternately in my right hand, and in my left hand guiding it back and forth, and in that position one had to sometimes stand for half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, or even more than a full hour. It was unbearable for a boy; it was certainly not hard work, but always the same, and the pace had to be maintained. The wind vanes had to turn neither too fast in the barn (as that space was called where the vanes turned) nor too slowly; tall Willem would continually shout, “faster!, faster!” or, “not so fast!” because it had to be done steadily, or the chaff would not be properly separated from the grain.
Ongoing Conflict with Long William
Is it any wonder that a boy constantly found himself in conflict with Long Willem, whom I had to obey? I continually watched the pile of oats to see if it diminished, would then count the shovels full, how quickly Long Willem brought a hundred to the fan or counted to five hundred or a thousand himself; each time adding one as I slapped my right or left hand on the handle to push it forward or pull it back; then one would start singing out of boredom: with the monotonous clatter of the winnower, even so, that I heard the scolding; “be quiet, boy!” Finally, there came a resolution again, the maid came with coffee or it was mealtime or the work was done. But when I saw no resolution and was at my wit’s end, I would make up a fictitious message like boys do at school just to get a little break. A more pleasant task was keeping the winnowing basket empty, where the grain came in. This was also mostly my first task and wasn’t so binding; if one worked very quickly for a moment, one could rest for a while or sneak away, but one had to be careful here too. If I stayed away too long, the winnowing basket would overflow, and the beautiful grain would once again get mixed with the chaff and dirt. When the new winnowers arrived, the separation of the chaff from the grain went much faster, though not easier, because those so-called American winnowers with the sieve in the front section, which had to be turned, turned heavier on a gear wheel.
Nerve Disorders and the Death of Freek Timmer
In the winter or spring of 1866, our servant Freerk Timmer fell ill, suffering from the nervous fevers that were common at the time, and passed away with us, where he was cared for by family. The illness and death of this dutiful servant in our home prompted reflection in the young Freerk Timmer, who died on March 30, 1865, at the age of 22. The death certificate lists his occupation as: servant. At the time of Freerk Timmer’s death, Willem, the eldest son of Lange Willem, was already 22 years old. It appears that here Willem is confused with a younger brother or that young Willem had begun working on the farm as a servant at an earlier time. The mood; daily working and sometimes playing together, suddenly being taken away from life and under circumstances which accompanied this illness, the patient being very extraordinary, seemed strange, with those delirious dreams, those cries. We were then without a servant for quite some time and this was not feasible, which is why Lange Willem suggested taking his eldest son as a servant; he was still quite young but under his father’s care would…
The household of Long William
Long Willem had a large family to support and he already had two or three daughters in service, but still had two daughters and three sons at home; the worst was he was well off, but it was tight, as the weekly wage was so minimal at the time that it was impossible to make ends meet. In summer, it was 1.00 guilders wage per day plus meals, but this daily wage dropped in winter to 60 cents or sometimes even less. One might wonder how they didn’t starve, as it seems they must have, given they received no assistance from the civil or church community. How was this possible? Well, in these socialist times today, it is hard to believe that workers managed to survive then, and their children didn’t perish from worry. While this wage standard is not something to wish for again, the relationship between farmer and worker, between farmer and maid, between wife and servant, between employer and employee is something to be desired. Long Willem had been with us for years and I hardly ever heard him grumble. What he lacked in money to support his family, he received in kind. This was partly understood in the agreement, but much of it lay outside that; what was included in the agreement beyond the daily wage consisted of one acre of cleared land, which he worked with his family to plant potatoes, carrots, etc., and which allowed them to grow winter provisions. His family also had the right to glean, especially barley stubble. What was gathered was usually sufficient. To have porridge and barley flour in winter, besides horse beans which the wife and children would collect, as well as hay for the goat. What was outside the agreement, but which was still counted on, was that if a sheep drowned in a ditch or livestock died, of which the meat remained good, that meat was for Long Willem; the ears and snout, etc., of a slaughtered pig from the farmer were also included, so a regular worker sometimes had plenty of meat. Furthermore, it was customary that any leftover dinner was sent home with the regular worker for his family, along with the bacon scraps.
The weekly menu
Many farmers had the habit of using certain foods on specific days of the week, for example: on Tuesdays cabbage, on Thursdays turnips, on Saturdays mash, and on the intervening days except Sundays, peas and beans or flour dishes. Now, if cabbage was our meal on Tuesday with bacon, then on Wednesday evening it was cabbage again, namely the leftover cabbage from Tuesday afternoon, which was reheated in a pan and made tasty, and what remained was for Long Willem’s family. This was not a common practice among farmers and certainly not a rule, but when the relationship between the farmer and the permanent laborer was good and this laborer had a family or even a large family to support, then the farmer’s wife would take care to leave some for the laborer, especially in winter. Long Willem therefore lived with his wife and raised eight children on the small daily wage earned back then, with more satisfaction than today, when daily wages are much higher. However, the wage standard at that time was too low, and the laborer was at the mercy of supply and demand and more or less charity from the farmer. He lived under the liberal laissez-faire system of Manchester economics, “supply and demand will regulate everything,” in economic matters, without considering that a person is no longer a slave, but a laborer who is worth his wage.
Cholera in Groningen
In the year 1866, a cholera epidemic raged in Groningen, both in the city and the region, resulting in many casualties. This infectious disease broke out in Rotterdam in April of that year and quickly spread across the Netherlands. Despite hygiene measures, cholera broke out in the city of Groningen at the end of June. Shortly thereafter, it also occurred in various places in the province. Particularly in Winsum, many victims fell ill during July and August 1866 due to this cholera epidemic. In just a few months, 1,753 people in the city of Groningen were affected by this disease, and 1,051 died. During those months, 53 residents in Winsum succumbed to this illness. Many were enlisted as caretakers in families where cholera had struck. In the summer of 1866, cholera heavily plagued the city of Groningen. We had straw delivery obligations to the deaf institute in Groningen. My father provided oat straw yearly while he was alive, and we adhered to this arrangement; by the end of May, the straw had to be transported there or during the cleaning season to fill the cradles of the deaf children. So many people were affected by this dreadful disease that farmers who did not have to go in and out did not enter the city gates, severely limiting Groningen’s access to essential supplies. I believe I took the straw to the deaf institute with my brother Klaas; our laborer and servant were reluctant; being much younger, we were not yet concerned about the danger. By autumn, the illness subsided after causing many deaths, especially, it was said, in the southern part of the city. Plowing
Plowing
In the late summer of 1866, I was still working in the fields; one day, Uncle Harm came walking by while we were busy plowing in pairs, something we had not yet learned but were daring to try. Perhaps Uncle Harm knew this and wanted to take a look at how the boys were doing, but he disapproved of us. The first part had gone well, but the third and fourth round of the six-round field was too shallow, and now we were struggling with the brake and the steering. Klaas didn’t know what to do, and Uncle Harm walked away, shaking his head in disapproval, which was painful for us because it wasn’t indifference that made us do it poorly, but ignorance. Long Willem had also not learned to plow properly to teach us, and his son (our servant) had not either, although he would have done it better, but we imagined we would manage somehow.
Decline
The consequences were felt by the crops, and for several years we mostly harvested poor produce, so mother was not improving financially, especially since the prices of agricultural products and livestock were also low. Our neighbors feared that it would go wrong with Seike and her boys, for they called mother Seike, which was her first name, and referred to us as Seike’s boys. Harm had already left school, and in 1868 Evert joined us, making four boys on the farm, none of whom were achieving much at that age. By 1867, our decline had reached its peak; I was then 16 years old and began to feel ashamed of our farm. We regularly went to church on Sunday mornings, but in the afternoons we didn’t go much to church and would be with our former schoolmates, or they would come to us, the sons of Nicolaas and Jakob Schutter; stories were shared about the farm, how much livestock one was grazing, and how many fine horses one had; everyone wanted to see and admire it; they shared how much canola had been harvested from this or that piece of land, etc. Since we weren’t part of these discussions, it pricked my pride, as there was much emphasis on harvesting the most canola, barley, or oats per acre. In these youthful gatherings, jealousy arose, fueled by our meetings, which was also good for us, as it drove us to work hard and try to compete, all to prevent mother from having to sell the farm out of poverty, forcing us as young men to serve other farmers. What mother lacked each year was likely supplemented by grandfather, so there was no immediate need to sell the farm; however, since we children had not achieved much so far and were busy bickering among ourselves (not wanting to do this or that), the work got disrupted, and it did not go well; mother often felt helpless against our mischief. We did respect mother, but we chose our own paths too often, ignoring her admonishments and not following them. If there was a market day or any festive occasion for boys, we all wanted to go, and no one would stay home; we had various adventures: fishing, searching for lapwing eggs, etc., and sometimes came home wet and dirty without thinking that mother had worries about making sure we had dry clothes again.
The shaving shop of Lucas van Bergen
On Saturday evenings, I went to the barbershop of Lukas van Bergen in Garmerwolde; my beard didn’t need to be shaved off every week, but my hair needed to be cut often, and the small hairs around my chin had to be shaved away. The barber lived in a back room by the ditch; his wife was busy with the children, and Loeks (that was the barber’s name) dashed in and out around his client, with a razor or scissors in his hand to serve quickly. The rest of the space was filled with customers and smoke, yet people sat there comfortably waiting for their turn with Loeks. There was a lively chatter about the news of the day, about the war, for Germany had triumphed over Austria (Prussia defeated Austria in 1866 under Bismarck’s leadership); about the new shipping canal that was to be built from Groningen to Delfzijl, about mowing, ditch digging, and so on. They also talked about how much this or that farmer had harvested from his three or four grassfields, something that would later be seen as remarkable; I was also intrigued by these great bountiful yields.
Harvests from the land
Now, the task was sometimes considered too lenient and exaggerated by also including the light grain, but it could be noticed in the crops as well, especially in the lowland, where much and heavy clay was present, the fruits were much better than ours. Long Willem once told me that in ‘t Heidenschap near Garmerwolde, before the land there was re-clayed, he had seen pieces of oats or rye that were hardly worth the effort; one short yield with almost all weeds, and now the farmers’ sons from there reported at Loeks that they had threshed 45 or 50 HL of oats per mat or 20 HL of rapeseed, while we living in Bovenrijge, with heavier land, threshed only 25 to 30 HL of oats per mat; we didn’t even dare to mention it; it was something to cry about. The wife of Lucas van Bergen was Aaltje Schoonveld, born on September 1, 1828, in Garmerwolde, and died there on November 9, 1877. Her father, Jan Arends Schoonveld, was an uncle of Long Willem. 23 When father was still alive, he saved a piggy bank for us and also gave us interest on it; later, mother saved our funds. Brother Harm was wealthy because our neighbor, Harm-Oom, after whom he was named, gave him a currant bun with a rixdaalder half-pressed into it until he turned eight, which we missed. We also received scarce pocket money, which is why I tried to earn some extra by working evenings, namely clearing a piece of grassland of thistles, scraping up a piece of land when it was visible, etc., to collect a small capital to grow carrots the following year. Long Willem had also grown carrots on our land and sold those he didn’t need for his own consumption. I had started calculating what amount could be made if I once sowed one or a few acres of my mother’s land with yellow carrots. Surely, I could easily make twenty-five guilders from it, but this plan remained on hold and was to be executed the following spring; meanwhile, I had carelessly sprained my right leg in the autumn from a fall off the barn beams.
Accident
One morning, I was ordered to throw off the sheaves from the thresher and went up near the rafters in the roof of the barn and started to work. Barely focused on my task, I slipped down with a large amount of grain sheaves and landed right in front of the horse, which was standing in front of the thresher, and luckily it stood still, because otherwise, I could have had the thresher come down on top of me. The workers who were busy threshing at the time helped me up, but I was injured and my right foot was hurt from the fall. The doctor put some leeches on it, and otherwise, I spent weeks dealing with the pain, and finally learned to walk again with crutches. After three months, I was well enough to return to work. Those three months were not bad for me, as I remained healthy and just had to be patient until my foot returned to normal and could function again; there was no damage to the foot. During that time, I read a lot, did some calculations, and recorded names of our people in the church books, made a painting for one of our workers, which included his name and birthdate along with that of his wife, sometimes peeled potatoes for my mother, and finally brought coffee to the workers or ran other errands. But I did all this on a crutch; that is to say, my mother wrapped me a cloth around a worn-out baby carriage handle that I had sawed off so it fit well to walk on my left foot and under my right arm moved me forward. When I started walking again without the crutch, but still not working, I sometimes had to go with my aunt Hilje Wigboldus (Harm Bolt’s wife) to Groningen with butter and eggs. We walked house to house, going in one street and out another, carrying the large butter basket in one arm and a basket of eggs in the other hand, moving in that crooked position, just as you might still see a Drenthe farmer walking in Gruno’s streets with that old-fashioned large butter basket.
In 1870, I had become a root farmer and flax grower. Together with our laborer Willem and his brother Gerrit (who worked for another farmer), we rented a large piece of land, where we earned money as it produced a good crop. We largely did the work ourselves in the evenings or sometimes worked a full day if we requested time off and it wouldn’t disturb the farm. Once we had finished processing the flax to the point it was large and dried, we took it in the autumn to Poffert and Faan in the Westerkwartier to be scutched and spun into bundles, as the workers in the Ten Boer municipality didn’t know how to clean flax since it had hardly ever been cultivated there before, and they hadn’t learned this skill. This small-scale flax cultivation practically developed us, not only because we learned to pull, rot, and break the flax but also because we got involved in trade; for we sold the finished bundles of flax cleaned by our workers at the market in Groningen, where various flax tables were set up at that time, displaying samples of 25 bundles for sale. In later years, this trade at the Groningen market disappeared because the Belgians began buying flax unrotted. Naturally, we borrowed horses and wagons from mother to transport the flax to the Westerkwartier, and I once also went along to Faan, where the infamous Mepsche had lived, and we were shown the spot where the fort had once stood. I had never been to the municipality of Oldekerk, which includes the hamlet of Faan, and I was amazed at the primitive life being lived there. After we had unloaded the wagons, we were invited to have coffee by the laborer who would clean our flax. His wife was absent, as she was busy cleaning the entrails, we were informed. Cleaning entrails? We didn’t understand and asked what this work entailed, but it turned out that a neighboring farmer had slaughtered a pig, and now his wife had to clean the intestines and make sausage, etc. That’s what they called cleaning entrails there.
Flax growing
The home of the flax worker The interior of this house was small and low, yet still quite tidy, with an earthen floor and a pot over the hearth, in which flax husks were burned. An iron pot, half a meter tall, was stuffed full of short sticks that fall out of the flax stem from the inside after a ten-centimeter diameter pole was placed in the middle of it. Once this pot is well filled, they pull the pole out, leaving an opening in the center where a match is thrown in, and soon a lively flame plays out, cooking their food, etc., and providing warmth. Meanwhile, the daughter of the house, after using the kettle of water for making coffee, used the warm kettle to warm her feet; that is frugal living.
The tyrant of the Western Quarter
And now that worker began to talk about that Mepsche tyrant once we had stopped smoking our pipes, telling tales of how the castle lord had terrorized the area for centuries; farmers living under his rule had been shackled in chains if they didn’t dance to his whims, and he spun all sorts of horrifying stories, to the point that we grew weary of them and perhaps even dreamed of it. Rudolf de Mepsche (baptized March 15, 1695 – Wedderborg, December 1754) (also known as: De Mepsche van Faan) was a noble from Groningen. He was lord of Faan, later also the drost of Westerwolde. He became especially known due to the accusations of sodomy against a large group of men in his jurisdiction. Now, it’s true that this lord of Faan is historically recognized for acting very despotically, but it seemed to me that many of the popular tales, especially told during winter evenings, were likely to have been somewhat exaggerated.
Success tastes like more
Our success with the first flax cultivation encouraged us, and the following year we cultivated 2.5 hectares, and the year after that over 3 hectares. Although we were not as prosperous as the first year, it was still good enough that our efforts were richly rewarded. In the third year, we had stored the retted and dried flax in an old barn in Garmerwolde, and it was not insured against fire damage. It was only intended to be a temporary storage for a few weeks before it would again be sent to the flax processor at De Faan. On a beautiful September day, I was plowing for seed, as it was called; this was my favorite task, and I worked hard to lay out the six furrows, which needed to be over eleven feet wide so that a seed drill could cover this width in two passes. A gentle wind blew the little clouds past the sun, casting shadows over the fields as if tiny ships were sailing across the land. September, with its sometimes half-clear, soft skies, can give a landscape enchanting beauty. I placed the plow back in front and let the horses rest after they had pulled the plow deep across the field, and I positioned myself comfortably with my back against the beam between the horses’ tails, crossing my legs with white stockings, watching the approaching shadows and the play of clouds with the sun over the earth. My gaze wandered far over the land to the long row of sturdy trees that lined the Damsterdiep, to the pelican and grain mill of Garmerwolde, half an hour’s walk away. But what was that smoke rising beside the mill above the trees into the dark clouds? The smoke stood out against the lighter sky, and yet it was light compared to the smoke from a steamboat navigating the Damsterdiep. This smoke was not unfamiliar, but it did not change position, and it grew thicker, so the thought arose: could there be a fire in a house? Suddenly, as I clearly became convinced that it could not be smoke from a boat but that a fire had broken out, I thought it could be our barn where our flax was stored. My crossed arms and legs shifted into a different position, wondering if it could be another farm? No, no, it is indeed in the direction of our flax barn; there the flames of the dry, flammable flax and straw barn were already rising above the trees. I walked around the plow, not knowing what to do, mechanically loosening the knots of the straps from the traces, as if I wanted to unhitch the horses to head over. But what good would that do me? The flax would surely be burned by the time I got there, and lamenting that we would now lose everything and be as poor as Job would give me no comfort. Again, I took up the straps of the harness and reloaded the horses, who already thought they were free. Turning my back to the fire, I walked gently toward the new field, straining to keep the plow straight, for I felt disappointment in my solitude in the field. Arriving home at noon, at the table with my mother, brothers, and other family members, I didn’t know what expression to wear; mother and brothers showed little sympathy for my flax cultivation and were not very empathetic in my loss, for now, this venture seemed finished. I constantly had to borrow from my mother; money, horses, carts, etc., and I was absent from the farm, which they missed, for if all five brothers were to cultivate flax, how would my mother manage the farm? They had a point, and I had to bear the loss resignedly, leaving a small debt with my mother which I could not repay; as a root farmer and flax cultivator, it came to an end.
Failed investment
For my fellow sufferers Willem and Gerrit, things were less favorable; these laborers had saved money from their farmers, which they used as working capital and now had partially lost, along with their profits from previous years, due to this fire. The public sympathized more with their loss than with mine, even though my damage was just as great, each of us losing more than four hundred guilders.
The lime kilns
With the dismantling of Gruno’s fort and the excavation of the Eemskanaal, which was then in full swing; with the construction of locks in Delfzijl and Farmsum, there was a lot of activity in this Province. Also, particularly in the Veenkloniën, much was built. A lot of stone and lime had to be used. I shared my plans with Notary de Stürler in Ten Boer, who advised me not to proceed on land because he knew it would be profitable, but later I learned that he was at odds with anything Reddingius in Ten Boer, including the mayor and doctor and the secretary. Many members of the Reddingius family lived and worked in Ten Boer during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rev. Wibrandus Gerardus Reddingius (1776-1852) served as a Dutch Reformed pastor in Woltersum from 1828 until his retirement in 1852. His son, Rutger Adolf Benthem Reddingius (1801-1863), was a physician and served as mayor/city secretary from 1834 to 1852. A younger son, Rev. Gerardus Benthem Reddingius (1812-1881), served as a Dutch Reformed pastor in Garmerwolde from 1847 until his death. Two sons of Mayor Rutger Adolf Benthem also worked in Ten Boer: the first, Tiddo Folmer Reddingius (1829-1905), as a physician; the other, Wibrandus Gerardus Benthem Reddingius (1842-1900), served as mayor from 1873 to 1900. Two sons of doctor Tiddo Folmer also practiced medicine in Ten Boer: later professor Rutger Adolf Reddingius (1857-1923) and Willem Reddingius (1864-19..). Finally, there was another cousin (nephew) of Mayor Rutger Adolf Benthem who worked as a municipal secretary/receiver, Wibrandus Gerardus Reddingius (1822-1902). The current doctor’s house at Gaykingastraat 19, the “Reddinckhof,” was built in 1906 by Dr. Willem Reddingius on the site of an earlier practice. Source: www.vrouger.nl The mayor, the doctor, and the secretary all called themselves Reddingius, and to meet the secretary who owned the lime factory (which the lime factory in Ten Boer had founded), Stürler helped Trinisberg to realize my plans. By discussing and defending this plan with my mother and brothers, arguing that the project must be good; as there was also a lime factory being built in Hoogebrug near Groningen and two factories that were already doing well; that the shell lime was even going to Holland and Utrecht, etc. and we six boys were getting in each other’s way at mother’s farm, as Roelf, the youngest son who was still going to school but would soon join the farm in this year 1876, turning 12. All of this convinced me to her and I gained permission to start anyway, although the objections were not entirely removed. At that time, I was optimistic and was soon in full action to implement it. Notary de Stürler arranged the applications for us in accordance with the law on such establishments, and Architect Huizinga of Ten Post prepared specifications and drawings for us of a lime factory to be built, consisting of two kilns, a drying shed, and two houses for workers; this work was awarded to the Brothers Wessel and Willem Groeneveld from Ten Boer as the lowest bidders after public tender, who built the kilns, and to P. Post and B. van Eerden from Ten Post, who accepted the drying sheds, etc. to be completed in the late summer and autumn of the year 1876. I was hardly working on the farm anymore, just stacking and harvesting grain, meanwhile I still did the driving, but my thoughts were always on the new venture. If I arrived too early with the cart in the fields, before the feed grains were loaded, I sometimes had a pencil ready to work out my thoughts on the cart seat where I was sitting, with figures, for example, how much a HL of lime would cost, when we produced it from shells and turf, something I still couldn’t calculate accurately because I was missing the correct data. Shellfish fishermen from Zoutkamp were already coming on the rumor that a lime kiln was being built in Garmerwolde to offer their shells and tried to see if I would pay more than other semi-manufacturers. I appreciated this very much and didn’t let them go, but bought shells, probably paying a higher price than others, but as soon as the factory was ready, it had to become operational. Freerk Kwant, formerly a peasant miller from Ten Boer, but now a workman had previously worked at a lime factory and told me what he knew, so that with this skilled worker, who was helpful during the construction, I became quite knowledgeable about the trade. In early 1877, when the factory and houses were ready, we got a brother of the aforementioned Kwant, namely Hendrik Kwant, who had also worked at a lime factory; he became our foreman along with Roelf Grasmeyer, a polder worker at the now completed Eemskanaal. Both families moved into the newly built homes, while now I write this, nearly 38 years later, the former still serves as foreman at the lime factory in Garmerwolde, while Roelf Grasmeyer is similarly still busy in Meppel at the lime factory of the firm Mulders Wigboldus, with their wives, both of whom raised many children during this period of more than 40 years of marriage. I had my office in mother’s attic room and my desk was an old pulpit (a writing table) in which I kept the books and documents for the bookkeeping, which also had to be learned. On Tuesdays, I would regularly go to Groningen to the café of Jan Huizinga at the Groote Markt; at that time, contractors, timber merchants, and turf diggers from Stadskanaal and surrounding areas came by, with whom I made connections. In Stadskanaal, there were timber merchants who were also turf diggers from whom lime was exchanged for turf; this was not the desired way of trading, but to get started it was not unwelcome to me. However, I had no knowledge of turf, and to become somewhat acquainted, I made an agreement with Harm Klein, a turf shipper from Garmerwolde, who at that time provided many farmers and citizens of our village with dug turf for the fireplace, to fetch a load of gray turf from Stadskanaal, and with the opportunity, I would be taken aboard as a passenger. I boarded and was thus away for about ten days, loading the ship myself with gray turf, cutting and stacking as it was called, and well in the Noorderdiep at no. 68 in Nieuw Buinen, where I saw the workers busy making and eating pancakes in the home of a peat worker on the morning of the day the turf was to be loaded. During the journey, I visited various merchants in building materials and contractors along the way to get to know them and offer lime, which sometimes succeeded in selling so that I not only had a pleasant journey but also saw how turf should be shipped and where the best turf for a lime factory could be found.