HvS KIN | Heentie Kooiman-de Jong, daughter of Mary Boissevain

Maria Cornelia (Mary) Boissevain
de Jong (1899-1995).

I received a nice note from my second-cousin Heentie responding to something I sent out about the family. As plans mature for another reunion of the Boissevain clan, I would like to provide a place where some memories can be collected.

Heentie would be called Heentie de Jong Kooiman (with her husband's name last) in the United States. She is the daughter of Mary Boissevain de Jong, daughter of Charles E.H. Boissevain, eldest son of Charles Boissevain the newspaper editor. Mary was the mother of Heentie de Jong

Kooiman.

Maria Cornelia Boissevain was the daughter of Charles Ernest Henri Boissevain (son of Charles Boissevain, the newspaper publisher) and Maria Barbera Pijnappel. She was born in Amsterdam May 7, 1899, assistant Röntgen-d. Binnengasthuis in Amsterdam, died Haarlem December 12, 1995. She married in Blaricum November 11, 1924 Dr. Jan Hendrik de Jong, son of Jan Evert de Jong and Margaretha van Ysendoorn, born Batavia September 28, 1895, surgeon, who died in Hilversum May 6, 1946.

Here is what she says:

I remember that somewhere in the 1950's the Marlin family came to Holland. My uncle Menso Boissevain had a very important birthday (60th?), celebrated in some small  hotel in Amsterdam. There were a lot of taartjes (little cakes) and I remember they were popular with all the children, nephews and nieces.   

I think some of the Marlin family were also at a celebration of a wedding anniversary of my aunt Heentie and uncle Dick Mesman in Amstelveen (in the 1960’s?). I think it was there that I admired a book with wonderful illustrations of Hilda van Stockum. My mother Mary de Jong-Boissevain [in the USA we would say Mary Boissevain de Jong] was a sister of aunt Heentie.   

When my husband Bas and I were in Dublin on a trip (in the 1990's), we went to a museum, and saw a self-portrait hanging there [probably the National Gallery of Art] of Hilda van Stockum. A wonderful surprise!!   

Nice that you are also interested in the Boissevain family. Thys Boissevain (in Connecticut) was busy writing a book, but he passed away before finishing it. I had heard his daughter was going to try to do it. 

My cousin Bob (Robert Lucas) Boissevain in Heemstede (Holland) is also always very busy with all the Boissevain news. 

We have the same great-grandfather Charles Boissevain, who started the newspaper Algemeen Handelsblad. Your grandmother was Olga van Stockum-Boissevain [Olga Boissevain van Stockum, mother of Hilda van Stockum], a sister of my grandfather Charles, and your mother Hilda was a first cousin of my mother Mary de Jong-Boissevain.