HvS BOOKS | Dec. 5 - St. Nicholas Eve, "Black Peter" and "Kersti" (Comment)

Kersti and St. Nicholas, by Hilda 

van Stockum.

St. Nicholas is the patron saint of millers, sailors, Holland and New York City. My mother Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006) loved St. Nicholas, as is clear from her book Kersti and St. Nicholas (1934). St. Nicholas appears each year on the evening of December 5, the day before his feast day.

This is a "Speculaas Moulin",
 a Dutch windmill cookie for 
St. Nicholas Day.

Around St. Nicholas Day, in Holland and Belgium they bake a lot of Speculaas (Speculoos in Belgium) cookies, a virtual sample of which is at right. The edible version includes almonds and ginger spices.

The cookie has a windmill on it because it's a specialty of Holland and other low countries threatened by floods. Windmills - besides grinding corn and wheat, and generating electricity - pump the water out of "polders", the areas inside the dikes that defend against water. We had reason to remember all this in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy in 2012 shut down much of New York City. If NYC had more of the Dutch skill at keeping water out of areas below sea level, and more of the famed foresight of its Dutch founders, Hurricane Sandy might not have done such damage to the areas of NYC near water.

The Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was founded in Manhattan largely to support trapping beavers and sending them to Europe for women to wear. The New York City coat of arms has two beavers on it as well as a four windmill wings in honor of the Dutch settlers.

First published in 1962, The Winged Watchman

has sold 50,000 copies in reprint since 1997 and 

is currently optioned for a television miniseries.

The Port of Rotterdam is a great example of Dutch engineering to keep water at bay. It is also where my mother, Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006), was born because her father was a naval captain and stayed near ports and naval bases. Hitler bombed Rotterdam in 1940 as a warning to the Dutch to let his troops march in and occupy the country.

Seal of the City of New York..

Note windmill wings and two

beavers.

Her book, The Winged Watchman (1962), republished in 1997 after 20 years being out of print, is about the Dutch Occupation. It has sold nearly 50,000 copies in the reprint version and is currently optioned for a television miniseries. The book's themes echo in light of Hurricane Sandy, which caused most damage from flooding and lost most of  economic activity because of the electricity outages The story is about a family that lives in a windmill during the Nazi Occupation. Two boys aged 10 and 14 join the Resistance. The book shows how the windmill did their work when the electric mills were starved for fuel during the Dutch famine.

The Dutch have been facing floods for many centuries. Their world preeminence in building windmills to pump out water also made them experts in making sails for the mill wings and this helped make them a global naval power for a time. After the English took over the Dutch colony in 1664, they renamed it New York. The city grew most rapidly when the Hudson River became the gateway not only to upstate New York but also, after the Erie Canal was built, to the Great Lakes.

The "Black Peter" Debate

Will the Netherlands give up "Black Peters"? Or will Pieterbaas 

just lose the blackface?

The "Black Peter" controversy was told in a New York Times story last year by John Tagliabue, reporting from Amsterdam.

In Holland, someone dressed in a St. Nicholas bishop's attire arrives in each town by tradition in November. Then at festivities on December 5, St. Nicholas Day Eve, St. Nicholas appears at each house.

Children go to sleep wondering whether in their shoes and stockings, left by the fireplace, there will be candies and toys. If they have been bad, they get a switch or a lump of coal.

Controversy has erupted over the person accompanying the saint, "Zwarte Piet" - "Black Peter" or a multiple of "Black Petes". They are dressed in the costumes of the Moors, who are Spanish Muslims descended from the ones who invaded and overran Spain in 711 A.D. The Black Petes are in blackface and feathered floppy hats, often with oversized earrings. They do stunts. They are comic figures. They are ordinarily played by athletic white Dutchmen. They are a kind of mascot for the saint and do practical things like take care of the presents.

Having played Santa Claus a few times, I like the idea of having a helper. But the tradition in Holland is now being challenged. Minorities and progressive reformers in the Netherlands are protesting the inferior status of Black Pete:

• One-third of Dutch respondents to a poll say that the tradition is a problem.
• Yet at the same time two million Dutch computer users signed onto a Facebook page defending the Black Pete tradition.  What do we make of this?

Comment

Kersti and St. Nicholas 
with snowflakes.

Changing a tradition is difficult, but it may be necessary to keep up with social changes. In this case, the problem could be taken care of with two changes:
1. Drop the "black" part of Black Peter and use the other name for him, Pieterbaas (Peter Boss), instead.
2. Stop the blackface. A Moor can be all shades of skin color and doesn't have to have blackface.

Will it happen? Will it suffice?

 St. Nicholas was a central figure in our family's childhood, thanks to the fact that it was a central figure in the childhood of my mother Hilda van Stockum.

When we her children were growing up, and even long into our adulthood, she delighted in dressing up as St. Nicholas. She always made it clear that St. Nicholas' gifts were rewards for good behavior, and that there were less inviting presentations for naughty children, notably a lump of coal in the shoe on the morning of December 6.

The threatening side of St. Nicholas' visit was removed in the American version of the saint. "Sinterklaas" in Dutch became Santa Claus in two phases. First, the jolly saint appeared when "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (beginning "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"), first published in 1823 in Troy, NY; this poem portrayed the saint as a jolly old elf bringing gifts with the help of twelve reindeer. Clement Clark Moore claimed authorship and as in previous years the poem will be read out on December 15 at 6 pm at St. Peter's Church in Chelsea where Moore lived. Thomas Nast finished the picture with a jolly Santa Claus popularized by Coca Cola.

Hilda van Stockum wrote Kersti and St. Nicholas in the late 1930s, during the time she was converting to Catholicism, changing her citizenship from Dutch to American (1936), and having children (1934, 1936, 1938). By the time Kersti appeared in 1940, she had four children, Hitler had bombed her native Rotterdam flat, and Hitler's troops and S.S. police had occupied her country.

Mother's natural instincts were to support the dual role of St. Nicholas as a dispenser of both rewards and punishments. Light is defined by darkness, good by evil, and vice versa.

But with clouds darkening over Holland, and HvS's new conversion to a religion built around unending forgiveness, Kersti becomes a proto-American - a Dutch girl who wants presents for the naughty children as well as the good ones, on the principle that getting a present might be just the encouragement that a naughty child might need to become good. Kersti wants a Santa Claus and so, I think, does every parent. When children are small, it's hard to leave them a piece of coal.

When Kersti came out, the book was widely praised for its illustrations, although they were drawn for a book's spine to be the short end of a rectangle (like A Day on Skates) and they were printed one-fourth the size when the book was published with the spine on the long side. The war in Europe may have created shortages for publishers and restricted their options.

The reviews were enthusiastic about the art, but children's librarians - who were big and loyal fans of HvS - were upset by Kersti's challenge to conventional views about right and wrong. In the original version of the book, good children didn't get presents because St. Nicholas ran out of them. The librarians agreed with Pieterbaas, the voice of convention, who objects to St. Nicholas's listening to Kersti's advocacy of naughty children.

In the second edition of the book, on sale since 2010, the ending was changed by the author's six children, who are all blessedly still living (Olga has just turned 80). Elisabeth did the primary rewrite. St. Nicholas now tells his servant to bring out presents from the "reserves", so everyone gets their presents. The second edition also removes a picture of Pieterbaas looking devastated as he puzzles over St. Nicholas's instructions. It also changes the language to remove the dialect that was given to Pieterbaas. The second edition has been selling well - thank you for buying it. We only get the sales figures from Amazon, not the names of the buyers, so we don't know who you are or we would thank you by name.

But maybe we now need a third edition depending on which way the wind blows in Holland. Will St. Nicholas carry his own bags? Will Pieterbaas be used more commonly than "Black Peter" and will he lose his color? Traditions can be changed, but they need something to change to. We are paying attention. Send me an email if you have a point of view - john (at) cityeconomist.com.

December 6 - Happy St. Nicholas Day (Updated Nov 18, 2016)

Kersti and St. Nicholas, 

available on Amazon.

St. Nicholas is the patron saint of millers and sailors, Holland and New York City. My mother Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006) loved St. Nicholas, as is clear from her book Kersti and St. Nicholas (1934).

St. Nicholas appears the evening before his feastday, i.e., the evening of December 5.

Kersti was republished in a new edition by Boissevain Books in 2010. It is available currently on Amazon for $13.99 after being out of print for 50 years and was available only through rare-book dealers at $200 for a good copy.

This is a "Speculaas Moulin" - a 
Dutch windmill cookie, with almond
and ginger spices. In Belgium they
are "Speculoos" cookies. They 

are specialty of St. Nicholas Day.

At right is a photo of a cookie my wife Alice purchased in Belgium. It is a St. Nicholas Day specialty. It has a windmill on it because it's a specialty of Holland and other low countries threatened by floods.

Hurricane Sandy a year ago shut down much of New York City and reminded us of the Dutch skill at keeping out water. Much of Holland is at or below sea level and the windmills pump out the "polders", the areas surrounded by dikes (Dutch embankments).

The Port of Rotterdam is a great example of Dutch engineering to keep water at bay.

It is also where my mother, Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006), was born. Her father was a naval captain and she grew up near ports and naval bases. Her book, The Winged Watchman (1962), was republished in 1997 after 20 years being out of print. It has sold nearly 50,000 copies in the reprint version and has been optioned for a movie. The book by my mother has special relevance in light of Hurricane Sandy, which caused most of its damage because of flooding and caused most of the lost economic activity because of the electricity outages.

First published in 1962, The Winged 

Watchman has sold 50,000 copies in

 reprint since 1997. It is now being

considered for a mini-series.

The story is about a family that lives in an old windmill during the Nazi Occupation. Two boys aged 10 and 14 join the Resistance. The book shows how the windmill did their work when the electric mills were starved for fuel during the Dutch famine.

New York City has lost the skills of its Dutch colonists and Hurricane Sandy did major damage to the areas of NYC near water. If the Dutch were still in charge this might not have happened. Bring 'em back!

The Dutch first came to New York when the Dutch East India Company in 1609 sent English navigator Henry Hudson to explore the river now named after him. He went far north into what is now Canada and wrote back to his sponsors that beavers lived on the river in abundance. A Dutch settlement, New Amsterdam, was founded in Manhattan largely to support trapping beavers and sending them to Europe for women to wear. The New York City coat of arms has two beavers on it as well as a four windmill wings in honor of the Dutch settlers.

The Dutch have been facing these flooding problems for many centuries. Their world preeminence in building windmills to pump out water also made them experts in making sails for the mill wings and this helped make them a global naval power for a time.

Seal of the City of New York..

Note windmill wings and two

beavers.

After the English took over the Dutch colony in 1664, they renamed it New York. The city grew most rapidly when the Hudson River became the gateway not only to upstate New York but also, after the Erie Canal was built, to the Great Lakes.

The Dutch have developed many kinds of technology to deal with today's challenges to their flood-threatened system of polders. New York needs to get their advice. And The Winged Watchman provides both a history of the importance of windmills in Dutch history and an education in the ways to deal with flooding.

ST. NICHOLAS | German?

Hilda van Stockum's  Kersti

December 6, 2012–I love to listen to Garrison Keillor's radio program, "The Prairie Home Companion", on NPR. He serves up a piece of it as a daily email, under the name "The Writer's Almanac".

It includes his reading of a poem and highlights of the lives of writers or other historical figures whose birthdays are celebrated that day. It is usually well researched and for me it is the Fifth (and funniest) Gospel.

But today it takes note of St. Nicholas Day by describing it as a holiday "celebrated in Germany and other European countries, as well as many American cities with German roots."

No, sir. I cannot let that pass. My late mother, Hilda van Stockum, would not want me to less this slide by. She was a huge fan of the saint and wrote a whole book about St. Nicholas, Kersti and St. Nicholas. I grew up revering this saintly Greek bishop who came from what is now part of Turkey.

The implication that St. Nicholas was primarily a German-venerated saint is untrue. St. Nicholas did not come to the United States from Germany, even though there are today more German-Americans than Dutch-Americans in the USA.

St. Nicholas came via Holland. When Englishman Henry Hudson sailed over in 1609 to what is now New York City on the "Half Moon" he was in the employ of the the Dutch East Indies Company.  He went back to Holland with news of the fertile river valley going north from the port that he called New Amsterdam. Within five years Dutch settlers had made a small city on the southern end of the island we call today Manhattan.

Thomas Nast Drew This Iconic Picture of
Sinterklaas Based on Moore's Poem.

The Dutch settlers brought with them their St. Nicholas, venerated by both the Protestants and Catholics in Holland. He was the patron saint of Amsterdam and sailors and children and became also the patron saint of New York City. Clement Clark Moore, an Englishman who owned a farm in what is now the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City, is credited with the poem "'Twas the Night before Christmas" about a visit from St. Nicholas, "Sinterclaas" in Dutch, who was transformed from an angular bishop to a jolly elf driven by reindeer and a sleigh. Cartoonist Thomas Nast finished the picture of what we have come to know as Santa Claus.

The Dutch tradition includes two key elements:

• On St. Nicholas Eve (December 5), children sing songs about the arrival of the saint and partake of special St. Nicholas treats, including the Speculaas almond-ginger cookies. At St. Nicholas parties the saint arrives with his bishop's miter and crozier, and presents are distributed. 
• Whether or not there is a party on St. Nicholas Eve, children leave out a shoe in front of the fireplace and put carrots in them for St. Nick's white horse. On the morning of December 6, St. Nicholas is supposed to have arrived during the night on the rooftop with presents for good children. The carrots are gone and the good children get sweets and toys, whereas the bad children get just a lump of coal from the fireplace as the saint goes back up the chimney..

Most Germans emigrated to the United States much later than the Dutch. The German immigrants were mostly farmers and less likely to move than the Dutch, who were traders. The new Germans settled inland, in Ohio and Wisconsin and Minnesota. They have big populations in cities like Cincinnati and Milwaukee. Keillor's Lake Wobegon celebrates the Lutheran émigrés from Scandinavia and Germany. These farmers brought with them the Christmas tree (Tennenbaum), and the feast day that is celebrated is Christmas.

Children leave out a shoe in the German tradition, but the appearance of St. Nicholas is rare and the December 6 feast day is nothing like as important as in Holland, where traditionally has been more important than Christmas.

Happy St. Nicholas Day to van Stockum Fans - Dec. 6

St. Nicholas Day has great significance in Holland, Belgium and much of Germany - at least the equal of Christmas as a day of gift-giving. With New York still recovering from Hurricane Sandy, it is notable that St. Nicholas is the patron saint of millers and sailors, Holland and New York City. Hilda van Stockum's book Kersti and St. Nicholas (1934) which was just republished (2010) for $13.99 after being out of print for 50 years and available only through rare-book dealers at $200 for a good copy..

This is what the Dutch call a 

"Speculaas Moulin" - a windmill 

cookie, with almond and ginger 

spices. In Belgium they are called

"Speculoos" cookies. In both 

countries they are a specialty of St. 

Nicholas Eve (Dec. 5) and Day.

St. Nicholas is the patron saint of many countries, cities and groups, including millers, sailors, children, incarcerated people, Holland and New York City.

At left is a cookie my wife Alice purchased yesterday in Belgium. It is a St. Nicholas Day specialty. It has a windmill on it because Holland it's specialty of Holland and other low countries threatened by floods.

Hurricane Sandy recently shut down much of New York City and reminded us of the Dutch skill at keeping out water. Much of Holland is at or below sea level and the windmills were used to pump out the "polders", the areas surrounded by dikes (Dutch word for embankments).

The Port of Rotterdam is a great example of Dutch engineering to keep water at bay. It is also where my mother, Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006), was born. (Her father was a naval captain and she grew up near naval bases.) Her book, The Winged Watchman (1962), was republished in 1997 after 20 years being out of print. It has sold 45,000 copies in the reprint version and has been optioned for a movie and is in process of being the subject of a comic book. It is about  This book by my mother has special relevance in light of Hurricane Sandy, which caused most of its damage because of flooding and caused most of the lost economic activity because of the electricity outages.

First published in 1962, The Winged 

Watchman has sold 45,000 copies

in reprint since 1997 and was 

optioned  for a movie.

The story is about a family that lives in an old windmill during the Nazi Occupation. Two boys aged 10 and 14 join the Resistance. The book shows how the windmill did their work when the electric mills were starved for fuel during the Dutch famine.

New York City has lost the skills of its Dutch colonists and Hurricane Sandy did major target="_blank">damage to the areas of NYC near water. If the Dutch were still in charge this wouldn't have happened. NY State Governor Andrew Cuomo has assessed the damage statewide as $33 billion and has called for $30 billion in Federal aid. Speaker Christine Quinn has put the New York City damage (which would fit within the statewide number) at $26 billion and has called for $20 million and a surge-control system to prevent 15-foot waves from cascading through New York City streets.

Bring back the Dutch! They first came to New York when the Dutch East India Company in 1609 sent English navigator Henry Hudson to explore the river now named after him. He went far upriver into what is now Canada and wrote back to his sponsors that beavers lived on the river in abundance. A Dutch settlement, New Amsterdam, was founded in Manhattan largely to support trapping beavers and sending them to Europe for women to wear. The New York City coat of arms has two beavers on it as well as a four windmill wings in honor of the Dutch settlers.

Seal of the City of New York..

Note windmill wings and two

beavers.

The Dutch have been facing these flooding problems for many centuries. Their world preeminence in building windmills to pump out water also made them experts in making sails for the mill wings and this helped make them a global naval power for a time.

After the English took over the Dutch colony in 1664, they renamed it New York. The city grew most rapidly when the Hudson River became the gateway not only to upstate New York but also, after the Erie Canal was built, to the Great Lakes.

The Dutch have developed many kinds of technology to deal with today's challenges to their flood-threatened system of polders. New York needs to get their advice. And The Winged Watchman provides both a history of the importance of windmills in Dutch history and an education in the ways to deal with flooding.

Meet Kersti of "Kersti and St. Nicholas"

Kersti goes sailing in a washtub.

Kersti is one of Hilda van Stockum's controversial characters. She is the last child in the van Disselen family, which was - after six daughters -  perhaps understandably hoping for a boy. Kersti is naughty. But as Elisabeth Marlin says in the Preface, "her naughtiness [is] balanced by courage and generosity." She is also a convincing advocate for her causes, and this is the heart of the story. After a number of Kersti adventures that make clear that St. Nicholas would be well within his rights to leave a lump of coal in her clog come the night of December 5 (the eve of the saint's birthday, when he visits children), Kersti comes face to face with St. Nicholas and gets him to agree to give presents to undeserving children. Hilda van Stockum was criticized for this by some reviewers and her published response was: "I claim no responsibility for [Kersti's] actions. I had a lovely, sweet, good little story for nice little children and Kersti just came and played havoc with it. She ruined the moral, shocked Pieterbaas, had a very bad influence on St. Nicholas and did not deserve a present at the end. I wash my hands of her." But we  know that Hilda van Stockum had a huge love for all her characters, especially including Kersti.  The story is based in Zeeland, in the southwest corner of Holland, bordering on Belgium. Hilda van Stockum was thereby staking a claim in a different part of Holland from her first book about Holland, A Day on Skates, which was based in Friesland to the north.

Cover of Kersti on Amazon.

Kersti was first published by Viking Press in 1940 and was highlighted in the roundup of new children's books in the New York Times on December 1 that year. The book probes the mythology of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas), who visits homes with his Moorish assistant Piet on the eve of his day, December 6 to mete out rewards for those children who have been good during the year. St. Nicholas Day is the year's most important celebration in Holland. It also provides a realistic picture of Holland in the days before cars and electricity.

How to Order "Kersti and St. Nicholas" for Yourself or as a Gift for Someone Else.  The latest version of the book issued in late 2011 has  each of the major, glorious illustrations spread over two pages. Kersti is available from Amazon for $13.99 (free shipping for total orders above $25 to a single U.S. address).  A preview of the book (“LOOK INSIDE!”) is available - go to the Amazon site.