Maternal Grandparents

On my mom's side, as noted previously, her parents never married. Initially raised by her dad's side of the family, here is a photo of the house where se grew up. Mom considered her grandmother as her mother for the longest time. Ruth's dad was Konrad Ihle, born in Germany on Sep 5th 1897. The next photo is of Konrad and his wife Helene Staudt (mom's step-mom, whom she really liked) and was taken in the 1980's. Konrad and Helene had 5 daughters, mom's half-sisters: Lieselotte, Margarete, Martha, Margot and Isolde. Margarete is the only one I've managed to sort of keep in contact with... at least, I send her Christmas cards each year and sometime (though infrequently) she writes back. Helene died in 1981 and Konrad died on Aug 21st 1984. Konrad's family coincidentally also owned a bicycle shop, the same as the Houben's. Auguste Tepper, my grandmother, didn't meet mom after she was born, until mom's 15th birthday. Mom remembered the day very well. She got out of a school assembly to listen to Hitler to go to meet her mom at the train station. Auguste was very nervous to meet her daughter, too, and while waiting for the train to arrive at the station she apparently shredded her train ticket! The conductor (or whoever it is who collects the tickets on the train), very kindly issued her a replacement when he heard why she was travelling on the train and why she had shredded the ticket. Auguste had a bad limp, a congenetal defect in the hip in her left leg... I inherited the same defective gene, but have it in my right hip. (Hence the limp if you've seen me walking.)

On Auguste's side of the family, her father, Wilhelm Tepper, came from Denmark originally. While Auguste did marry, Ruth was her only child.

Ship's final menu for June 21, 1952

This is the last one, the "farewell" dinner menu. There are 4 pictures, the front and back cover first, and then the inside two pages - it was too big to scan the outsides and insides as one shot each.

Ship's menu from June 20, 1952

Here is the breakfast menu for the 20th.

And the lunch menu for the same day.  No dinner menu though.

Ship's menu from June 19, 1952

Here's the breakfast menu for June 19, 1952... there aren't any saved from the 18th.

And the lunch menu.

And the dinner menu, both outside and inside.

Ship's menu for June 16 and 17, 1952

Here is the breakfast menu from June 16, 1952.  These are so cool... I wonder what "coffee hag" is - lol - it sounds interesting!

This is the lunch menu.

And here are the outside and inside of the dinner menu for June 17.

Ship's menu from June 15, 1952

This is the lunch menu from June 15, 1952.

And the next two are the outside cover and inside of the dinner menu for the same day.

Ship menu's from June 14, 1952

In 1952, my parents emigrated to Canada, leaving from Rotterdam on the Ryndam, bound for New York, where they took the train into Canada and to British Columbia on the west coast.  Mom, even back then, collected stuff - and here are the menu cards she saved from the ship.  I'll post each day's worth individually.

This one is from lunch on June 14, 1952.

and then there is me...

I was born on November 28th 1962. Mom told me once that when she was pregnant with me she had cravings for those cans of spagghetti and ravioli... I love pasta to this day and it is one of my favourite foods (next to chocolate, of course!).

I inheritted a hip ailment from mom's side of the family. Her mother had the defect (but in her left hip), I have it in my right.

Mom also had a variation of it, but to a much lesser degree, in that she didn't have to have a hip replacement till she fairly old.

I had to have mine when I was 6. I was in the hospital for approximately 6 months while the doctors did what they did.

This is a photo of me playing with some toys in the hospital bed. (Which incidentally was bed #7 - my favourite number!)

I graduated from Mission Secondary School in 1980... here I am in my grad dress with Antoon and dad.

I was easy to spot on the stage - I was the only one wearing a dark colour... but I picked out the material myself and mom made my dress. Later, Sylvia reworked the dress and made it into a long skirt and used the left over material (which had some lovely beadwork mom had done) into a matching purse.

I still have both.


Mom and dad got me interested in the Scouts - here I am with mom & dad at an awards dinner where dad got his Bar to the Medal of Merit.

This is just about my favourite picture of all time (so far at least).

And here is a recent photo of me and my favourite sister-in-law, Loretta. She is like a sister - I am SOOOOO glad Robert married her!

The middle sister

Sylvia is next, born Sibyl Houben on March 18 1956, at 3:16pm, weighing 8 lbs 3 oz.




Sylvia was into sewing at an early age - here she is busy at work with mom's sewing machine. (I'm in the background & have no idea why I'm clutching my forehead!).








She married young - on October 6th 1973, to Douglas George Monds. They had 4 children in all, starting with twins Leah May and Tammy Lynn, then Donna Lee and finally Jared Allen.

Here's a photo of Sylvia with the twins shortly after their birth, and also in the photo is the twins great-grandmother on their dad's side.


However, Doug and Sylvia had some issues and separated. They get along better now than when they were married.

She lived common-law for several years with James Arthur (Art) Boyd and legally changed her name to Sylvia Boyd during this time. Art passed away due to illness on March 28th, 2000.

A little while later she met Gary Derksen (through the internet!) and currently lives common-law with Gary in Merritt.





Here is a recent photo taken at her son Jared's wedding.
From L to R: Leah, Jared, Tammy, Donna and Sylvia.

Sisters

And now to the sisters. The eldest is Merina, so I will start with her.

Merina was actually born Dora Houben, on January 14th 1955. Due to a messy divorce, she changed her name to Merina Theadora Matthew.

Here she is with her paternal grandpa.

She has lived all over the place: back east, in Saskatchewan, and multiple places in BC - it seems she is forever moving!

She really loves hand crafts - especially fine needle work like tatting and embroidery (something I don't have the patience to do!) and can make very beautiful things.

Here is a neat picture take a while back, taken at one of those places that specialize in period costumes.

Merina married Frederick Batsa Azu on May 19th 1981. This marriage did not work out well and they ended up divorced.

However, they did produce a very lovely daughter - Ruth Elisabeth Akefa Azu - she will get her own write up later.

This is a fairly recent photo of Merina with her dauther and ex-husband, taken at Ruth's graduation party.

And here is another recent photo of Merina - having fun blowing bubbles!

The 3rd Brother

Robert Houben, the last of the brothers, is the 2nd youngest of the family.

Born on April 4th, 1959, while mom & dad lived at 3# Rd/Steveston, Richmond, BC.

He and I used to fight like cat and dog, but now he is a great brother and we get along quite well.

Here he is with one of his favourite tools.....






Mom & dad used to take whichever of us kids happened to be home for lovely drives around BC. We'd pack a picnic lunch and pick a direction and just drive - often ending up on logging roads back in the hills.

It was a lot of fun and we got to see some lovely scenery.

Driving could be a little nervewracking, though, especially for mom.... Dad would be saying "look at that" and mom would be saying "look at the road!". It would be straight down on one side of the car and straight up on the other!

In this photo are mom, Wim, Robert, and me.



Robert eventually met and married Loretta - a great sister-in-law! (I will talk more about her and their son Matthew in another posting.)

This is what Robert was looking like when he met Loretta.




And this is a recent photo of him with his son, Matthew.

Another Brother

The next eldest is Wim Houben, born on July 25th 1953 while mom & dad were living on 7th and Arbutus in Vancouver. Shortly thereafter they moved to Kitimat.

In Kitimat the winters were extremely cold & that is when he got the habbit of playing with his ears - initially it was because they hurt from the cold.

He had epilepsy when he was young, but luckily outgrew it. His only other issue is hayfever (which means I have to be the one to mow the lawn - sigh).








Here is a photo of Wim and the youngest of the brothers - Robert. This was taken at my sister Sylvia's wedding. It should have been a happy time, but was rather marred by the fact that dad had gotten into a bad accident just a few days before, when he was coming back from Vancouver picking up the bride's maid.

The bride's maid was very luck, especially seeing that she hadn't been wearing a seat belt. She had just turned sideways to talk to dad when the accident occurred & she slid under the dashboard instead of going through the window.

It was a very bad accident, with the driver of the other car dying. Luckily, an off duty policeman had been travelling behind dad & saw the whole thing (the other vehicle had cut in front of dad) and was able to testify that dad was not at fault.





Wim has never moved out. He's always lived with mom & dad, which has been a blessing - what with first mom's health issues (dad would not have been able to cope by himself) and now with dad and his amputation.

Here's a recent photo taken at Jared's wedding, with dad and Sylvia's daughter Donna.

Brothers....

Mom & Dad had 6 kids in all - 3 boys, 3 girls. As the eldest is a boy, I will start with the boys.




Antoon Mathjis Houben is the eldest; while we called him Tony when we were little, he now likes to be called Antoon. He is the only one of us kids not born in Canada.
He was born in Heerlen, Limberg, the Netherlands, on March 26th 1952, weighing 7lbs 8oz, (3.4kg), 51cm.

Here is a photo of mom & dad & Antoon just after they had emmigrated to Canada.










Taking after his dad, he was active in scouting, and attended several Jamborees and has many a tale to tell if one thinks to ask.

Knowing how to cook and his enjoyment in cooking probably stems back to his days as a scout... when on camping trips the boys (from about scout age and up) were expected to cook for themselves.







Here is a pic of Antoon and the next eldest, Wim, playing with their chemistry set. In the photo you can just see the red ceiling - it is red for a reason!
(Too many explosions!)

He is very bright - he skipped 2 years in high school and attended the University of BC from 1968 to 1971... he was 16 when he started at the University!

And just imagine, when he was in university, computers filled rooms and used punch cards!!!!








We were all very proud of him!

It wasn't easy for him either when he was in university, because in Nov of 1971 we moved from Burnaby to Mission. This meant he had to stay behind - move out on his own.

Mom felt bad having to do this, but they were being evicted by the owner of the house they were renting, and the only places they could afford to buy were out in the valley.








Things worked out well in the long run - he is a very successful computer programmer; he has travelled around the world (Russia, Australia, Germany... to name a few places); and he is a great brother!

Here he is in a recent photo with my sister Sylvia and her grandson Jack.

more stories

Mom & Dad immigrated to Canada in July of 1952, when Antoon was just a few months old. They came over by ship and then by train across Canada to Vancouver. When they were going to board the train they had Antoon in a basket with a top (that closed over him) . A young black man was the porter and was stowing their luggage on the baggage car and wanted to take the basket too!
Poor mom & dad could barely speak English! Mom had to open the basket to show what was in it before he understood why they didn't want the basket in the baggage car. And the poor porter was so apologetic (and embarrassed, I'm sure).
Wouldn't that have been a hoot to have seen his face when he saw the baby in the basket, though!

*******

When they moved into their first house in Vancouver, they had to wait a week or two for all their furniture and things to arrive from the Netherlands. So for the first little while mom had to hang up bedsheets for curtains.
None of the nearby neighbours would have anything to do with them, thinking they were hippies.
Then finally the big crates with all their belongs arrive & mom put up the lovely lace curtains she had... then she started getting visits from the neighbours.
How sad that the neighbours were so stuck up! And I hope, if new neighbours ever move in around me, that I will go to say hi right away without passing judgement before I've even met the people!

stories

Mom & dad had (and still have) many stories about their lives in Europe.

Mom had one about why her pinkie fingernail on her left hand wasn't a regular fingernail but a gimpy one. When she was just a baby, there had been an explosion near their house (the one pictured in the previous post). As she was just a baby, she's not sure if it was from WW1 or if something else was going on, but anyways, it blew out the window in the room where she lay in the crib. She was very lucky... the only bit of glass that touched her was a tiny sliver that cut the base of the fingernail on the 1 finger!

Both had many stories about WW2.

Mom fled from Germany and briefly even went as far as Belgium to escape the Nazi's (as per previous note - she had Jewish blood in her background). She remembered when she was in the basement of a building with some other people, while bombs were falling. They were all getting hungry, but they were too afraid to go upstairs. Finally mom went up and found a few potatoes and baked them in the oven - one of the few things that still worked in what was left of the kitchen. At least one of the falling bombs had hit the house!

Dad, meanwhile, was busy dodging the Nazi's, too. He would make his rounds on his bike with a big basket. Many of our relatives in the Netherlands had farms, so he would go from farm to farm, picking up flour that he would take to the bakers in return for coupons for bread, picking up eggs and milk and cheese and whatever veggies where available, until the large basket on his bike was loaded, and then heading home with the goods.
One time on his route, he came across a Nazi checkpoint. There was no way around it. He could see an older fellow on a bike ahead of him that they had stopped. They beat the man and chased him away after confiscating his bike and anything else he had.
Dad was just a teenager and was frightened, but what could he do? There was no way to go around them without making them suspicious. So he peddled up to them as nonchalantly as possible. They stopped him and asked what was in his basket. He decided to tell them the truth - hoping to at the very least avoid a beating. "Several dozen eggs, loaves of bread...." they didn't believe him and told him to beat it!
"And the truth shall set you free" - indeed!!!!

And further back yet...

On my dad's side, the Houben's have lived in Sevenum, Limberg since the 1400's, and of course in the surrounding area's as well.

Above are some of the houses Houben's have lived in over the years.

On my mom's side, Konrad's family is German, while Auguste Tepper's family is half German, half Danish. I believe her father Wilhelm Tepper owned a factory in Denmark... but I'm rather vague on the details. If I can get dad to remember any of the bits I will add them in a later posting.

Of the Great Grandparents I only have 1 photo to share at this time and that is of Auguste Teelen, mom's grandma on her mom's side.

Family Tree - Grandparents

On my dad's side my grandparents are Hubert Houben and Theodora (nee Vestjens). Grandpa Hubert was born July 2nd 1885. He married Theodora on January 10th 1910 and they had 12 kids:

Johannes (Jan), Gerardus (Sjra), Josephus (Sef), Maria (Mia),

Arnoldine (Dientje), Leonard (Leo), Piet, Hendrik (Harry), who was hit by a truck & died when he was 5, Elisabeth (Lieske), Petronella (Nelly), Antoon (my dad), and Josephine (Jo).

Grandma Theodora was born on January 28 1888 and died young, on September 21 1945.

Here are a few pictures of both of them.

Grandpa Houben did come over to Canada to visit mom & dad when they were living in Kitimat.

He stayed quite a while and tried to fish - but never caught anything.

Here is a picture of him with my eldest sister Merina.

He died on June 23rd 1959.