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| Matthew Philip (Matt) and Hansje Hyland, at their home in Washington, DC. It was early January 1995, the time of the AEA meetings. Photo by JT Marlin. |
Diane just sent me Hansje's letter.
Essentially, two van Lenneps married two Boissevain cousins. Hilda's mother (Olga Emily Boissevain) was their cousin.
So Hilda was related by marriage to the van Lenneps at least twice. Hansje van Lennep was related to the Boissevains through the marriages of her Uncle Herman van Lennep and her Aunt Mies van Lennep Boissevain.
Visiting Hilda van Stockum in 1946
Hansje writes:
My mother [Mrs. Cornelis van Lennep, 10 in the list below] was rather concerned that her daughter [10c] was going far away in 1946, to work in the Netherlands Embassy in Washington, DC, and she said this to Hilda's cousin Olga Boissevain van Lennep [1d]. Olga offered to write to Hilda van Stockum to ask her to put me up for a while. Hilda agreed.
I stayed several weeks at Hilda's house on Northampton Street near Chevy Chase Circle in Washington, D.C., until Hilda's husband (Spike Marlin) was transferred to Montreal by his employer, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency. During that time Hilda suggested that we would PLAY being real cousins, since both of our families were back in Holland.
Spike went ahead to try to rent a house in Montreal. Not able to find anything right away (it being summer), he had to settle for a house that was, literally, IN THE WOODS, outside Montreal [in a place called Ste. Marguerite].
So the family moved into this house, with no running water. The smallest of Hilda's six kids was 1 1-1/2 year old Elisabeth. There was no driveable road to the house, so the rented car dropped them off a small distance away. Hilda's widowed mother, Olga ("Aunt Olga" to me) later had to go buy a bathing suit, as did the rest of the family: the "bath" was a lake... As a result, a book was born - Canadian Summer.
Thanks to correspondence with Hilda and Aunt Olga, I knew beforehand of some of the adventures later printed in the book. Years later, I spent Christmas with them at Ste. Adele. They had a house near the church and on several occasions the priest (or minister) had to ask the Marlin family to tone down their noise during the church service! That told you a lot about Hilda and her family!!
Hilda will be 91 on Feb. 9, 1999. She is writing a book about her studies at the State Academy of Arts in Amsterdam and is doing two paintings, RIGHT NOW!"Details on Links between Boissevains and van Lenneps
Both the Boissevain and the van Lennep families have old names that are protected by Dutch law. One cannot just take one of these names. One must be
- born with the name, or
- be adopted by someone with the name or
- marry someone with it.
** Herman Jozua van Lennep 1830-1888 &1859 Henriette Wilhelmine Sillem 1836-1907. [Hansje Carla van Lennep's grandparents had ten children, numbered 1 through 10 on the list below; her father is 10 and she is 10c.]
*1 Ernst van Lennep 1860-1922 [son of Herman Jozua van Lennep] &1888 Johanna Louisa van Eeghen 1865-1957
1a Johanna Louise van Lennep 1890-1950
1b Henriette Wilhelmine van Lennep 1892-1961 &1917 Willem Pieter de Vries 1886-1945
1c Anna Caecilia van Lennep 1896-1980 &1919 Leonard van den Honert 1891-1957
1d Herman Josua van Lennep 1899-1979 &1927 Olga Emily Boissevain [first cousin of Hilda van Stockum] 1902-1993
1e Anne Willem van Lennep 1905-1977
*2 Alexander van Lennep 1862-1934 &1890 Maria Elisabeth Petronella Jorissen 1864-1952
o Anna Wilhelmina van Lennep 1892-1979 &1919 Johannes Jan Pieter Christiaan van Kuyk 1889-1971
o Herman Samuel van Lennep 1893-1974 &1921 Catharine Henriette de Vogel 1898-1979
o Louise van Lennep 1895-1980 &1918 Jan Daniel Mulder 1890-1932
*3 Robbert van Lennep 1863-1921 &1891 Adrienne Minette Lucassen 1867-1940
o Minette Adrienne van Lennep 1892-1975 &1914 Reginald Hendrik van Eeghen 1889-1936
o Minette Adrienne van Lennep 1892-1975 &1930 Alphert Schimmelpenninck 1880-1943
o Henriette van Lennep 1894-1972
o Suzette Antoinette van Lennep 1897 &1920 Charlis Francis Meyer 1893
o Daniel François Willem van Lennep 1900-1994
o Henriëtte Wilhelmina van Lennep 1906-1969 &1932 Jan Carel Lodewijk Godefroy 1883-1957
o Henriëtte Wilhelmina van Lennep 1906-1969 &1937 Jacob Emmer 1901-1958
o Henriëtte Wilhelmina van Lennep 1906-1969 &1950 Rudolph Theodor Meurer 1898-1979
*4 Otto van Lennep 1865-1935 &1891 Charlotte Philippine Josèphe Penn 1868-1930
o Mathilde Marie Josèphe van Lennep 1892-1974
o Louis Reinier van Lennep 1893-1949
o Aernout van Lennep 1898-1974 &1925 Joanna Maria Loeff 1897-1962
o Anna Maria van Lennep 1901-1999
o Johanna Elisabeth van Lennep 1903-2004
*5 Karel van Lennep 1866-1923 [Son of Herman Jozua] &1892 Anna Elize Homans 1871-1943
5a Anna Petronella van Lennep 1894-1984 &1921 Henri Rijnier Boeree 1873-1949
5c Adrienne Minette van Lennep 1896-1965 [daughter of Karel] & 1919 Jan "Canada" Boissevain 1895-1945 [Jan was first cousin of Olga Boissevain; their fathers Jan and Charles were brothers]
o Sara van Lennep 1897-1970 &1920 Hylke Halbertsma 1895-1972
o Henriette Wilhelmina van Lennep 1900-1900
o Willem Lodewijk van Lennep 1900-1900
o Karel van Lennep 1901-1949
o Anna Elize van Lennep 1902-1969 &1926 Gerrit Adriaan Arnold August Kalff 1902-1969
o Ernst van Lennep 1908-1908
o Johanna Louise van Lennep 1909-1991 &1936 Johan Anne Willem August Kalff 1909-1994
o Hester Juliana Octavia van Lennep & Sándor Baracs 1900-2002
*6 Henriette van Lennep 1868-1942
*7 Herman van Lennep 1869-1903
*8 Louise van Lennep 1871-1950
*9 Sylvia van Lennep 1873-1945
 |
| Cornelis van Lennep (1875-1948), the 10th and youngest child of Herman Jozua van Lennep. He was the father of Hansje van Lennep Hyland (in Dutch, Hyland-van Lennep). |
10a Hyke van Lennep 1909-1983 &1946 Eliasz Wajnztein 1903-1985
10b Sylvia van Lennep 1909-2001
* Cornelis van Lennep 1875-1948 &1918 Jacoba Johanna van Hell 1898-1970
10c Hansje Carla van Lennep [daughter of Cornelis] & Matthew Philip Hyland
o Cornelius Sylvius van Lennep & Cordula Wilhelmina Coops
The Jan ("Canada") Boissevain Family in World War II
Hansje's letter continues:
During World War II, one of Hilda's brothers [Willem van Stockum] died overseas; he was shot down.
The Krauts, who had occupied Holland, first imprisoned the husband of Adrian Minette (Mies) van Lennep [5c above], Jan ["Canada"] Boissevain, then let him free (he was a banker and was accused of lending money to Jews, which was trumped up, as Holland never differentiated among its citizens), then arrested him again and sent him and Mies to two different concentration camps.
Also taken were their two oldest sons: Jan Karel [Janka] and Gideon [Gi], who were part of an underground resistance group, all in their early 20s. In 1943 they and others were killed by a firing squad in the dunes.
Their younger brother, Francois Boissevain and the kid's nanny, Jane, were sent to a concentration camp in Germany. They survived the war. Alas, Jan did not - he died one month before Holland's liberation, in April 1945 in a camp near Berlin.
Mies had been sent to Ravensbrueck in Southern Germany. She was part of a group liberated by Sweden's Count Bernadotte and was sent to Sweden. When she heard that her husband and her two eldest sons had died, she did not want to live any more. But then she looked out of the window of the plane that was bringing them all to Sweden. They broke through the clouds and the sun shone on a quilt of farms and towns below. She decided there was still a lot for her to do on earth.
When she eventually returned to Holland, she started a movement where people would make quilted skirts out of remnants of cloth left over from the war. Friends and family would donate the pieces of cloth. The called the skirt the "feast rok" (festival dress), to celebrate the liberation of Holland.
Because of her heroic behavior in the concentration camp, where she would save her fellow prisoners from despair with talk and deeds, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt invited her to come to America as she wanted to thai her and meet her personally.Diane Haddick Note
The letter makes Diane wonder if Mies van Lennep Boissevain ever did come to America at Mrs. Roosevelt's invitation, "and if she did, what happened after that?"
Postscript
I have evidence that. Mies did go on such a tour. I am looking for details.
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