BOISSEVAIN | Gens 0-6 (Updated July 1, 2016)

Gideon Jérémie Boissevain
Jr. (II), 1796-1875.

The following is structured as a genealogical Family Group starting with two men named Lucas who headed the Boissevain family in Holland. One stayed in France and the son left for Holland. 

The six generations of Boissevain descendants who lived in Holland are shown here (i.e., starting with Lucas Jr. as Gen1). The numbering system is the Henry Method employed by the late Matthijs Boissevain, showing both male and female descendants. The numbers were featured on the identification badges of the participants in the 1992 Boissevain Reunion in Boissevain, Manitoba, Canada.

The Henry Method has been modified in several ways, some of which are described here, to simplify the format.

References marked NP are to the page of the Nederland's Patriciaat, 1988; the Boissevain family starts on p. 40. In the NP, only male descendants are followed and the language is in Dutch. Both aspects pose barriers for many users, in addition to the scarcity of copies of the 1988 NP. Roman numerals are also used frequently in the NP and are in disfavor among Anglo-Saxon genealogists because they are not computer-sortable.

A genealogy through Gen8 and possibly Gen9 will be posted shortly and will then be published in some form.

Authorship of this genealogical table and related short bios–a work in progress during the summer of 2016–could be ascribed as follows: "Matthijs Boissevain, John Tepper Marlin and Noah Sisk, Boissevain Generations 1-6". Matthijs was the originator, Gen8. Marlin is Thijs's cousin once removed, Gen9. Sisk is Thijs's great-grandson, Gen11. Marlin and Sisk worked on the genealogy together in April-June 2016 and continue to do so.

Acknowledgments: Besides Tice Boissevain, on whose work the genealogical tables are based, I would like to express my appreciation for the continuing assistance of relatives dead and alive. For example, the Boissevain house tours in Amsterdam was made possible in large part by an article in Dutch by Ernst G. Boissevain for the 1993 Boissevain Bulletin that I machine-translated by Google Translate and then edited. Thanks to my late mother, Hilda van Stockum, for translating so much from Dutch and spending many hours trying to explain to me the intricacies of her Dutch relatives and their relationships. Thanks to Charles Leidschendam Boissevain and his daughter Aviva Boissevain for being so active in bringing the Boissevain relatives together, continuing Tice's making family members more aware of one another. Thanks to Noah Sisk's grandmother Pam Boissevain Wilkinson and her sisters Romelia (Rommy). Let me add before I forget the translation help of Francesca van Hamel, the invaluable translation and archival assistance of Engelien de Booy and the help of institutions in Amsterdam–the Archief, NIOD, the Versetzmuseum. Also Ben Boissevain's encouragement that I spend more time on this, although I never followed up on his suggestion that I have the work funded through a Crowdfunding exercise (this turns out to be a time-consuming project of its own). I will be adding to this list as I remember or am reminded!! Comments appreciated by email or as a posted comment below. –JTM

BOISSEVAINS – GEN0-GEN6

The following illustrates the generations through to Charles Handelsblad Boissevain. (This is being worked on.)

Gen0. The Ur-Boissevain, Lucas Bouyssavy Sr. (1640?-1685?) of Bergerac, Dordogne, France. He is said to have died in France soon after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes.

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Gen1. Lucas Boissavin Jr. 1660-1705, X 1700 Marthe Roux. In about 1895 he fled to Belgium and then Holland. Marthe also fled Bergerac. They were married in Rotterdam September 1, 1700. The marriage date seems to conflict with the story told in several places that Marthe Roux had two infants with her when she left France.

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Gen2. Jérémie Boissevain 1702-1779.

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Gen3. Gédéon Jérémie Boissevain 1741-1808.

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Gen4. Daniel Boissevain 1772-1834.

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Gen5. Gédéon Jérémie Boissevain 1796-1875. There were other children of Daniel.
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Gen6. Charles "Karel" Handelsblad Boissevain X Emily Héloise MacDonnell. There
other children of Gédéon Jérémie.

Source: Barthold Hubert Boissevain, Stamboek der Boissevains [Genealogy of the Boissevain Family], Amsterdam: Jacob van Campen, 1937.  Numbers in parentheses after the dates of birth and death are from the Stamboek. Generation numbering follows that of Matthijs (Tice) Boissevain.

GEN 0-1 | Lucas Sr. and Jr.

0. Lucas Bouissavy, Sr. 1620?-1685

      1. Lucas Bouissavy/Boissavin, Jr., 1660-1705 X (1700) Marthe Roux, 1664-1727

             11.  Isaac Bouissavy, 1701-? (may have died in infancy)

             12. Jeremie Bouissavy (Boissevain), 1702-1762

             13. Marthe Anne Boissevain, 1705-1767

0   Lucas Bouissavy (1631?-1685?) is the Ur-Boissevain, who starts the Boissevain Family Group. By most accounts he lived in the Dordogne, in Couze St. Capraise in Bergerac–the same Bergerac that long-nosed Cyrano made famous, suggesting that the prominent Boissevain nose has a regional origin. It's a lovely place. Sacha Boissevain once said to me: "We should never have left." They didn't have much choice after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes. Apparently the property was left to a younger son who stayed behind. An Irish source says the name Boiscevain was used and the family originally came from what was then called the Cévennes, a name given by the Romans to an area that would now mostly be in today's Ardèche. This information (?) I find nowhere else but in this Irish source, but much of it seems possible, some of it even likely:

The Boissevain family of Amsterdam is derived from that of "Boiscevin," originally settled in the region of the Cévennes. Having early embraced the Reformation, they must have shared and suffered in the religious wars in that district, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; even after the Edict of Toleration was signed at Nantes by Henry of Navarre, in 1598, the persecutions were frequently renewed, and many of the Huguenots fled to seek safety elsewhere. This was especially the case about 1629, when Louis XIII (surnamed the "Just") destroyed the town of Privas and other places, and laid waste much of the Cévennes. At all events the Boiscevins appear to have been transplanted to Bergerac (on the Dordogne, about 40 miles east of Bordeaux) a town which had been dismantled by Louis XIII in 1621, for its Calvinistic tendencies. There they appear to have occupied a good position until the momentous revocation of the Edict of Nantes, October 24th, 1685. This at once forced half a million of the most useful citizens of France to abandon their country, and seek a refuge elsewhere. Some of the Boiscevins also fled, endeavouring to escape to Holland. The father, with his wife and two little daughters, attempted to pass the frontier. He himself was captured and shot. His wife and the two girls were concealed in a wagon of hay. The soldiers of the guard thrust their lances through the hay; they pierced both children (who never recovered), and they wounded the mother in the thigh. The brave woman, who at the time was enceinte, allowed no sound to be wrung from her either by pain or terror. The wagon passed on with its wounded and dead. She arrived at the Hague, where she bore a son, who received the name of “Lucas.” 

This story makes sense only if we assume that Marthe Roux was married to someone else in France and they both tried to escape with their two children. This actually seems more probable than that a married couple would try to escape separately. But then Marthe Roux would have remarried in the Netherlands. Lucas was her husband.

Gidéon Louis Boissevain in
front of the Biltmore Hotel,
NYC, about 1922.

1   Lucas Bouyssavy/Boissavin, Jr. (1660-1705) is the original emigrant from France, the common ancestor of all the Boissevains in the world. Lucas was a Huguenot who lived happily in the Dordogne, France but had to leave behind his father Lucas Bouissavy Sr. (1671-1687) and brother because, as my mother told me often, the Huguenots were made unwelcome by the Sun King, Louis XIV. By revoking the religious-freedom principles of the Edict of Nantes, sunny Louis made being a Huguenot a treasonous act punishable by death. Lucas sold his property upon deciding to emigrate to Holland soon after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He escaped among the wine barrels on a boat from Bordeaux to Rotterdam. In one version of the story, this Lucas married Marthe Roux in Rotterdam. She had escaped separately, hiding in a hay wagon. When the wagon reached the border, a soldier checked the hay by plunging his bayonet into it. Despite the bayonet cutting into her thigh, Marthe Roux had the presence of mind to wipe the blood off the bayonet when it was removed; of such stuff were the Boissevain women made. Lucas and Marthe were the first generation to settle in Holland. The legends of Marthe Roux vary in detail. One source says two infants with her in the hay wagon were killed by the bayonet. Another says that one of the two infants died in Antwerp because of the onerous travel conditions. Some accounts of the family start with this Lucas rather than his father, perhaps because of the confusion about who the father of this Lucas was.

GENS 2-3 |  Jérémie and Gédéon (Gideon) Jérémie Sr.

12      Jérémie Boissevain (1702-1762, NP III), accountant X Marie Charlotte du Chesne, 1733 (article).
          122  Gédéon Jérémie Boissevain Sr. (1741-1802) X Margaretha Quien, 1767. NP IV.

Children of Gédéon Jérémie Sr. and Margaretha
1221    Marie Charlotte Boissevain (1768-1808).
1222    François Jeremie Boissevain
1223    Daniël Boissevain, Sr. (1772-1834, NP Va 45) X Johanna Maria Retemeyer (1796).
1224    Jean Boissevain.
1225    Henri Jean (1777-1823 NP Vb 133).  Six more children.

GENS 4-5 | Daniël and Gideon Jérémie Boissevain Jr.

1223    Daniël Boissevain, Sr. (1772-1834, NP Va 45). Married Johanna Maria Retemeyer, 1796. He started the newspaper (Algemeen Handelsblad) that his son Gideon inherited and his grandson Charles Handelsblad made famous.  He had 11 children.

12231  Gideon Jérémie Boissevain Jr.  (1796-1875, NP VI 48), also Handelsblad publisher. By his first wife Antoinetta Elizabeth Klijn he had a son who died neonatally and she appears to have died during childbirth. By his third wife Maria van Heukelom (1801-1866) he had seven more children, who would be most of the sixth generation of Boissevains in Holland.

12232  Daniël Boissevain Jr. (1804-1878, NP VIb 83).

12233  Edouard Constantin 1810-1885 NP Vic 102.

GEN 6 | Children of Gideon Jérémie.

122311 Son, died neonatally.
122312 Daniël Boissevain, Jr. (1831-1849).
122313 Walrave Boissevain (1833-1854).
122314 Annette Boissevain (1835-1894).
122315 Jan Boissevain (1836-1904, NP VIIa 52). Shipowner. His descendants are the Jantjes.
122316 Charles Handelsblad Boissevain (1832-1927, NP VIIb 67).  Twin of Hester. He had 11 children by his Irish wife, Emily Heloïse MacDonnell. Charles becomes 0 in another Family Group, and his descendants are shown there. They are called the Kareltjes or Charletjes (article).
122317 Hester Boissevain (1842-1914). Twin of Charles. Married Nicolaas Jacob den Tex.
122318 Jacob Pieter Boissevain (1844-1927). Worked for Boissevain & Co. in Batavia.

GEN 6 | Children of Daniel

122321  Gideon Maria (1837-1925, NP VIIc 88).
122322  Jacques Elie (1839-1918, NP VIId 90).
122323  Athanase Adolphe Henri (1843-1921, NP VIIf  93).
122324  Mijnhard Johannes (1845-1917, NP VIIg 97).
122325  Louis Daniël (1848-1916, NP VIIh 100).

GEN 6 | Children of Edouard Constantin 

122331 Willem (1849-1925 NP VIIi 107) 
                   Daniel François (1856-1929 NP VIIj 118)
      Henri Jean Arnaud (1813-1891 NP Vie 122)
                        Hieronimus (1849-1918 NP VIIl 123). 
                Louis Daniël (1852-1921 NP VIIm 127)
                Ursul Philip (1855-1930 NP VIIn 130).
       Jean Henri Guillaume (1817-1870 NP Vif) 136 (photo)
                Willem Frederik Lamoraal (1852-1919 NP VII p 138) (article)
                Auguste Charles Hugo 1864-1929 NP VIIq 144

This blog is sponsored by Boissevain Books, which publishes books by Hilda van Stockum and others. To help sustain this work, buy a book at www.boissevainbooks.com.

HvS ART | Madonna and Child

HvS, "Madonna and Child", image
posted by permission of the artist's
estate (c/o Boissevain Books LLC).

I remember both the painting and the sculpture that it features, and the two candlesticks as well.

The wooden sculpture was a gift of John Dowling, who was a dentist in Dublin with a large family. Mom was close to both John and his wife Joan. She went with Joan to Lourdes because Joan was seriously ill.

We used to go to John Dowling for dental work when we were in Dublin during the years 1951 to 1954 (in 1954-55 we were in Sceaux, outside of Paris on the Ligne de Sceaux).

As a father himself, Dr. Dowling had a way of making sure that children paid attention to his instructions on keeping your head steady and so forth. In my case he painted a scary picture of what might happen if I failed to follow his instructions. I hasten to say that Dr. Dowling might well have been justified in taking this approach with me.

John Dowling was one of the people that Mom knew from her days as an art student in Dublin and she still had a soft spot for him and he knew it.

She was bowled over by the statue. Being eight or nine years old, and remembering Dr. Dowling as a terrorizing dentist, I recollect saying something critical about the sculpture that made Mom furious (see previous paragraph for background). I have a sense that my criticism of the statue may have prompted the painting. What better way for her to telegraph her appreciation for the statue than to do a painting of it?

Anyway, stories about paintings raise their value, so this long epic about it might help the gallery sell the painting for a decent price. It is up for auction in Dublin at Adam's and is posted on Invaluable Auctions as well as AskArt.

My sister Brigid confirms that Mom was emotionally vested in the statue. She writes:

That statue is memorable to me because the day before my wedding [in Montreal, June 27, 1957] Daddy had cleared the house [419 Lansdowne Avenue, just above Sherbrooke St.] ready for the wedding party, and Mother couldn't find her statue and went shouting around the house in a fury, thinking Dad had destroyed it. I finally found it in the big Dutch press, but Mother took a long time to simmer down.

(I have that big Dutch press. The Dutch designed it so it could be brought upstairs in the narrow Amsterdam houses piece by piece, and assembled in the room.)

Lot 30: Hilda van Stockum HRHA (1908 - 2006) Madonna Oil on board, 43 x 28.5 cm. (17" x 11.25")

by Adam's

March 23, 2016, 6:00 PM BST

Dublin 2, Ireland 

Estimated Price: €500 - €700 

Description: Hilda van Stockum HRHA (1908 - 2006) Madonna Oil on board, 43 x 28.5cm (17" x 11¼")

Signed lower left corner with initials. Image © Estate of Hilda van Stockum.

This blog is sponsored by Boissevain Books, which publishes books by Hilda van Stockum. To buy a book and support keeping her work alive, go to www.boissevainbooks.com.

HvS | The Allure of the Oxford Group (Post #100, Updated Sep 27, 2016)

The Oxford Group – an "emergency camp".

The following was generously transcribed by Michael Fitzgerald in response to my appeal for help. It is the article by Hilda van Stockum in the May 1935 St. John's Church (Church of Ireland) bulletin, reprinted from the Episcopalian journal The American Church Monthly, which was published in New York City in 1857-58 and was continued in 1917-1937. 

HvS lived in New York in 1932 and then moved to Washington, D.C. when her husband started working for FDR.

HvS likens the Oxford Group to an "emergency camp" and makes it sound a lot more like its illustrious precursor, the Oxford Movement, than I was ever led to believe. One difference is that the Oxford Movement brought evangelical thinking mainly within the Anglican Church, and had a stronger Oxford connection. 

The essay below is a strong and clear-eyed statement of the appeal of evangelical movements and their helpfulness for people seeking religious identity or inspiration. In HvS's case, it led to her conversion to Anglo-Catholicism–which she compares with a "Gothic Cathedral"–and eventually in 1938 to her following Evie Hone into the Roman Catholic Church.

A gothic cathedral, which HvS likens to the Catholic Church. (Cologne.)

I am no scholar and no theologian. Much of what I am going to say will seem crude to more experienced people, yet I feel there may be some to whom the faithful account of a personal growth is acceptable and helpful.

In the first place, I would like to clear the “Oxford Group” from certain unjust aspersions which from time to time have been cast upon it; and state definitely where I have found it rich and nourishing, and where I felt I had to wean myself from it.

To me the Group has been like mother’s milk, sustaining my first efforts towards spiritual life, yet unable to meet the later demands of my hungry soul once it began to grow.

I am going to deal principally with the Ideal Group, or the Group as it means to be. I want to speak about essentials and not the accidental imperfections which always will creep into any man-made movement. Now I don’t think the Ideal Group could offend any Christian–its purpose is so simple, its message so clear, and it throws such a beautiful ringing challenge into a confused haphazard world.

It wishes to put aside all theological disputes, intellectual worries, or scientific scruples, and go straight towards the “experience of Christ.” For experience is not the same as knowledge. We may be expert gynecologists and yet never bear babies; whilst a simple savage accomplishes the miracle by following blind instinct. In the same way we may be perfect theologians and yet never really experience the Peace of God which passeth understanding; while the grocer at the corner store may be full of it without knowing what it is called.

On the other hand there is no reason why experience and knowledge should not go together, and no one will deny that that is a more perfect condition. All the Group asks is that we shall not confuse the two, that we shall be able to put aside the intricate concoctions of our intellect and find the hidden flaw which is preventing us from following those instincts which through the ages have led man to God. And this is not begged of us as a favour, nor impressed upon us as a duty; but it is flung at us as a challenge, with a blast of trumpets, waving of flags, and beating of drums.

The Group does not ask us for a specific act or belief; it does not want us to fit into a special code; it takes us where we are and as we are and treats us in that irresistibly impudent fashion which is common amongst small schoolboys; it dares us to do something specially difficult, something almost impossible, by telling us that So and So, two houses farther down, performed the same feat successfully.

It asks us to “surrender” our wishes, our personality, our dreams, even our pet prejudices; to give our whole heart as a gift to God, and walk as did one of the first disciples of our Lord, doing His will.

There is something very fine about such a stupendous request. It is actually easier to comply with than a less exacting demand would be, because it fires the imagination, which is after all one of the chief moving forces of our human nature. Such a challenge takes one’s breath away. Daily trifles sink into nothingness and life seems astonishingly simple.

For a moment a cold fear grips our heart; the idea of giving oneself to the Great Unknown creates a panic–yet the appeal is irresistible, and we let go. The barrier which divides us from God is washed away by a flood of penitent and grateful tears, and He comes pouring in on us with a sweetness and light that momentarily transform the world. We get up from our knees and we feel that we are different and will never be quite the same again. However far we may stray, we never can forget this moment.

Perhaps only a little of all this is noticed by outsiders, yet our intimates may suddenly find us easier to deal with, less rebellious or self-assertive and with an obvious newborn happiness. That, at any rate, is what the Group did for me. After years of puttering about and searching in books and churches for “religion,” it came to me as simply as that–through a few sentences in a book written by a “Grouper.”

It was the challenge that pierced me and roused me to action; making me realize how I was drifting and indulging in self-pity and “sulking” against a God whom in my heart I worshipped. I was so utterly unaware that such experience of God is as general as it is beautiful, that Christian churches are full of men and women who have had it one time or another in their lives, that I made rather a fool of myself trying to convert perfectly genuine Christians to the Oxford Group, believing it was the only surviving branch of the old Apostolic tree. It was only later that I began to realize that the “tremendous revelation” was only the first initiation into real Christianity.

There is another dictum of the Group which seems to me very helpful and healthy, in a world that  undoubtedly has suffered through certain “Protestant Virtues,” especially the virtue of “reticence” or “reserve.” It is true that some natures find it difficult to communicate with others. There is the feeling of having a “Holiest of Holies” which must not be desecrated by profane eyes (“profane” meaning in this case anybody’s eyes but one’s own). This sentiment one finds often expressed in “novels written for young ladies,” where the heroine would rather be torn to pieces than to confess a perfectly harmless little belief or emotion.

I used to be jealous of such fortitude, for I myself could never hold my tongue nor seem ever to have anything worth concealing. This strong, silent businessman’s ideal, which is individualistic and easily leads to spiritual pride, besides being utterly unlike the New Testament Spirit, has been duly punctured by the Group, and pronounced by it to be purely selfish. We are to share our joys and sorrows and sins with our fellow creatures, and no man is too mean to be taken into our confidence (within the limits of good taste, of course).

To my mind such a conception is wholly in keeping with the Spirit which made Saint Francis embrace the leper, and it is a very healthy reaction against the sort of attitude which made my granny [Emily Hélöise MacDonnell] think it bad form to mention God, as though he were a poor relation. 

The Ideal Group, then, is not a sect and can never grow into one if it remains true to its ideals. It wishes to unite instead of separate. It stresses those points which different denominations have in common and encourages experience of God as the important thing which comes before mental affirmation. Thus Baptist, Quaker, or Roman Catholic are all alike to the Group as long as they are living a “surrendered” life. The Group wishes to serve the Holy Spirit which “bloweth where it listeth” and cannot therefore be judged according to the standards applied to a special sect. For it does not know whither it will be blown and is prepared to move wherever it pleases the Spirit.

Its object is not to replace the Church, but to fill it with spiritual power. Thus the Group is able to reach people who otherwise would have continued their existence thinking of Church and Christianity as extinct volcanoes; it challenges those who did not know there was any challenge in the message of Jesus; it awakens sleepers who had been passed by in the daily routine of professional Church-workers.

Perhaps one reason why the Group strikes such a refreshing note in a rather compromising and weary world is that it has a strong and startling definition of sin: “anything which comes between you and God, or between you and your fellow-creatures.” What a light such a definition throws on many petty “virtues” which we indulged in for our own self-gratification even when they but irritated the members of our household through the smug righteousness of our manner. How many “weaknesses” are thus exposed as ugly growths?

To me, at any rate, there was a lot of revelation in the way the Group saw the world and its temptations. Many prejudices of mine found themselves suddenly without foundation, and it became necessary to reconsider entirely my philosophy of life. I began to read voraciously. First of all the books published by the Group. “Sam” Shoemaker’s sermons, Harold Begbie’s “Life Changers,” “For Sinners Only,” etc. Then I started on those written by other Christians outside the Group, such as Leslie Weatherhead, Maude Royden, Studdert-Kennedy, and Stanley Jones. My eyes grew round with amazement when I saw how much there was to know about the old Christian message; how many ways there were of applying it to our modern conditions; and how many great minds and noble natures had tried to live a life of which I had only recently learned the existence.

But even so, those books did not satisfy me, nor did the services in the “low” Episcopalian Church which I attended appeal to me as the fullest expression of what I felt lying inarticulate and unformed at the bottom of my heart. The Group, which I at first visited regularly, soon wearied me. For, through its own nature, it had only its challenge to offer me. Once I had accepted that I wished to learn more about the “how” and “wherefore”, it was then that I began to learn the limits of the Group.

Being continually, in a manner of speaking, punched in the same spot, had a rather hardening effect on me. I began to get accustomed to certain expressions so that they failed to rouse me, and I could listen to the most passionate pleading with an even pulse. For like the drugs we use for bodily ailments, the medicine of the soul must be taken sparingly, so as not to weaken the system.

Of course the Group realizes this and encourages “action” as an outlet for the energy which has been called forth during the meetings. This action consists of handing on the “medicine” to others. “Living religion is like a germ” according to the Group, “and if you’ve got it others will get it. If you haven’t, they won’t.”

There is a lot of truth in this, as in all sayings of the Group, yet it is a dangerous doctrine to take too literally and it certainly encourages “scalp-collecting” and “man-hunting,” while it gives rise to misunderstandings and blunders. The very thought that “winning people” is the proof of the reality of one’s faith takes away that quality of self-forgetfulness which is essential to helping others, and makes the victims of our efforts feel that it is not their interests that we have at heart but our own conquest. It also encourages a lot of amateurish tinkering where perhaps the services of a trained psychologist would be more appropriate; and it fosters a kind of religious fanaticism in very young converts, which tends to become narrow and critical and cut-and-dried as soon as the first soft radiance of its “surrender” has faded away.

Very soon I had to face the fact that notwithstanding my gratitude to the Group and my enthusiasm for their work, they could no longer supply me with those “vitamins” which cause spiritual growth. So I turned to other sources. It chanced that for the first time I was introduced to an Anglo-Catholic church, the only one in our town. To me it was a revelation. My whole life long I had hankered after the Roman Catholic Church, but being brought up a Protestant I had never been able quite to overcome the barriers which divided me from it. Now, with my new experiences slowly fading in the “light of common day,” I felt a desperate need for some “form” which would preserve what was left of it, and help me to grow in the life I had decided to follow.

In the Church I found exactly what I was looking for. The symbols and faith were the same as in the Roman Church, yet there was not that rigid barrier which the Roman Church sets up, and I had a chance to “experience” Catholicism and thus to learn to understand it. From that day on a new life unfolded itself for me. I found many an explanation to questions that heretofore had baffled me. The more I penetrated the Catholic Faith, the more my admiration for it grew. It seemed so full and many- sided and it offered so much that there I could always find the answer for some special need.

The ritual opened up the channels of my emotions, and in acts of devotion I found an outlet for my religious enthusiasm. Very soon I began to notice the effects of a practiced Catholicism. Instead of wavering between extremes of pentitence and gigantic resolutions, my devotional life became more stabilized, more human, more humorous. I learned to take things with a little salt, to mistrust sweeping statements, and to be content with growing slowly and steadily. Where “confession” in the Group had often been embarrassing, I found that confessing to a priest gave the necessary peace to my rather scrupulous conscience without incurring the dangers of exhibitionism, or running the chance of shocking or corrupting others.

In short, I began to see that all those ideas that the Group believes in can be found in the Catholic Faith, only they are not unduly stressed, and “contrary” truths are not overlooked. When I read the lives of Saints who lived ages and ages ago, I realized how crude the philosophy of the Group is, how it is a mere preliminary sketch which has yet to be worked out.

The difference between the Catholic Faith and the evangelism of the Group is the difference between a Gothic Cathedral and an emergency camp. And yet I owe it to the Group that I found the Catholic Faith. That is why I cannot hear the Group slighted without wishing to speak up for it; for perhaps they are right, and once they have awakened you, God shows you the rest. I know that it happened so with me.

KIN | Charles Boissevain, Aviva and Her Famly

Three generations of Boissevains. To the left of Charles
 is his daughter Aviva. To his right is granddaughter
Florence.

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, September - I am staying at the Rho Hotel, on Nes off the Dam at the center of old Amsterdam.

The hotel used to be a theater–Nes was once a row of theaters.

Yesterday morning I met in the lobby of the hotel for the first time with two second cousins twice removed–Héloïse and Florence.

Florence is at the head of the table in the photo at left. Across the table from me is Charles Boissevain, my second cousin. Our grandparents include two siblings, i.e., Charles's grandfather Charles E. H.  Boissevain and my grandmother Olga Boissevain van Stockum.

Both my sister and Héloïse are named after the same person – Emily Heéloïse MacDonnell, who married my great-grandfather Charles Boissevain.

Charles was born in 1934 and therefore turned 80 last year - the same age as my sister Olga Emily Marlin, whom I plan to see this weekend in Pamplona.

WW2 BOOKS | HvS Classic Jumps to #6 from #11 on Goodreads (Study Guides at End)

December 23, 2015–I have been asleep at the switch. I have not been following the Goodreads "Best Books for Kids on WW2" list closely since 2013.

If I had been, I would have heralded the jump in the ranking of Hilda van Stockum's The Winged Watchman's before now.

• It used to be #11 out of 88 books. 
• Now it is #6 out of 193 books.

Meanwhile, The Borrowed House has held its own at #8, which is good given the fact that the number of books on the list has more than doubled.

If you, dear reader, are one of the people who voted for either of these books, thank you.

You may not know the history of The Winged Watchman. It was published in 1962 by Farrar Straus (which once wanted one of my books; I regret not having signed with them). It went through many editions and eventually went out of print. It was picked up by Bethlehem Books, which has sold about 51,000 copies in reprint.

My mother's estate, of which I am the executor, has retained movie and television rights. The Winged Watchman has been optioned twice for a movie and is currently being reviewed for a possible television miniseries.

The Winged Watchman I think is now the top-ranked book on Goodreads that has not yet been made into a feature-length or television movie.

A number of study guides seem to have sprouted up. I have discovered these for the first time. Here are four of them and a review with many comments.

Love2Learn
Study Questions for The Winged Watchman by Hilda Van ...

www.love2learn.net/literature/studyquestions/watchman.htm
Discussion/ Essay Questions: We are unable to supply an answer key to these study ... 

Teachers Pay Teachers Mini-Guide
Mini-Guide for Middlers: The Winged Watchman... by ...

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/.../Mini-Guid...

 Rating: 4/4 - ‎2 votes - ‎$4.00

This is a mini-guide (a two-week literature study) for the book titled The Winged Watchman, by Hilda van Stockum.

Seton Home Study School 

[PDF] SECOND QUARTER - Seton Home Study School

www.setonhome.org/pdf/g6_reading6lp_s.pdf

Apr 9, 2002 - Seton Home Study School ... BOOK REPORT: The Winged Watchman ... give you the topic sentences for the five paragraphs to guide you.

Two Kid Schoolhouse

Two Kid Schoolhouse: Learning from, and learning to love ...

2kidschoolhouse.blogspot.com/.../learning-from-and-learning-to-love.ht...

Feb 1, 2009 - Using a study guide can add to your child's enjoyment of the book and ... Recently my boy read The Winged Watchman, a story about the Nazi ...

Classic Children's Literature Event (Review of the Book and Many Comments)
2015 Classic Children's Literature Event: The Winged ...
journey-and-destination.blogspot.com/.../2015-classic-childrens-literatur...
Jan 20, 2015 - The Winged Watchman by Hilda van Stockum and Bambi by Felix Salten .... to be very helpful in choosing the appropriate books for our study.

Order a copy of the new (October 2016) edition of The Borrowed House.

ROMA | Sympathy for "Travelers" in Ireland (Updated July 22, 2016)

The Irish have a reputation for in-fighting over the centuries between the Catholics and the Protestants, but famously have elected a Jewish Mayor of Dublin.

However, Ireland has recently been in the spotlight for having "contempt" for Roma, whom they call "tinkers" or, more politely, "travelers".

My family lived for three years in Dalkey, not far from Carrickmines where a fire last month took the lives of ten people, including a pregnant woman. Sympathy for the travelers in the camp was apparently "short-lived" because they are so unpopular.

This is exactly the kind of cause you would have expected my mother to champion, and indeed she took up the cudgels on behalf of travelers in Ireland through her book Penengro, which means story-teller in the Romani language that she did some research on for her book.

My mother used to say – "If Hitler hated the gypsies so much, there must be something very good about them."

I can't vouch for her research (I don't know enough about traveler culture in Ireland), but the story she tells held my attention. It is about a boy named Rory who runs away from his adoptive family and goes to live among the Roma. It has elements of Mowgli and Romulus and Remus, but is much more credible and up to date

The book has six raters in Goodreads and three (none of whose names I recognize, and one of whom started out as a skeptic about the topic) on Amazon. Both ratings are 5 star (100%).

To find out more about the book, check it out here.

CONVERT | HvS on the Oxford Group (Updated Mar 31, 2017)

Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006)
at the time of her marriage.

I have been working on pieces of a biography of Hilda van Stockum (HvS). Of particular interest to me and others is her conversion to Roman Catholicism after a being brought up by two atheistic parents from a staunch Dutch Protestant family.

Since the death of HvS I have been organizing and reading her papers. Toward the end of her life when her mind was failing, she would shuffle pages and turn them upside down. She seemed to believe she was putting them in the right order, when in fact she was mixing them up. It's been a job putting them back in order based on clues like numbering, type of paper and typewriter.

Today I just across for the first time a parish bulletin dated May 1935 with a two-page essay by "Hilda Marlin", her married name. I am providing the essay from the St. John's Church Magazine.

The Vicar of the Church of St John the Evangelist in Sandymount, Dublin was Rev. S. R. S. Colquhoun. A portrait by HvS shows him in bishop-like-looking regalia and I always thought that he was a bishop of the Church of Ireland, but he never advanced that far in the church hierarchy because he was too High Church (too close to Rome) for his congregation, and he was suspended (from his job, not at least the gallows) in 1937 for his heretical views. His suspension may have precipitated the conversions to Roman Catholicism of both Evie Hone and HvS in 1938. Fr Colquhoun's portrait used to hang prominently in our parents' house in Montreal and then in England.

HvS was throughout her life seeking solace in the church. When she met my father in Dublin, they would go to the Oxford Group. The members were not as intellectual as the Oxford Movement had been, but they operated with some of the same evangelical themes, namely the need to infuse church practices with more of the New Testament spirit. The Oxford Group is described in the article below.

My father, Spike Marlin, was the first to hear Fr. Colquhoun. They went to his church in Sandymount, just outside of Dublin City center in Ireland during the year before and after they were married in 1932, and before Spike went to New York City to look for work. At that time a vocal minority of Anglo-Catholics within the  Church of Ireland was caught up in the idea of reuniting with the Roman Catholic church. Their models were three Oxford dons – Ronald Knox and Cardinal Newman, who did become Roman Catholics, and C.S. Lewis, who thought similarly but did not.

My Mom became an Anglo-Catholic by 1935 and then a Roman Catholic in 1938. If the text below is too hard to read, maybe someone who can read it will transcribe it. [Postscript: Thank you, Michael Fitzgerald, for doing this. I have posted it.]

Here is what she wrote in 1935:

March 31, 2017 I have made two corrections:
(1) Fr Colquhoun never made it to the rank of Bishop. His regalia must have been that of Monsignor.
(2) The Anglo-Catholics within the Church of Ireland were a minority, even at the Sandymount Church. For the corrections, thank you James Robinson.

Related Posts
Evie Hone and What Precipitated HvS's Conversion

May 19, 2019 (Washington, DC) Much interest in this post judging from online "pageviews". I don't know who is visiting. If someone wants to reach me, my email address is teppermarlin@aol.com.