In 1935, Cornelis Swartsenburg and his young family live at Hoogedam 11, in the cramped, damp house on the southeast side of the lock. They came to live there on April 27, 1929.
Cornelis was born on July 12, 1889 in Durgerdam in a large family of Swartsburgers who have been fishing In the 'Zuiderzee' and building ships for generations. His father never left Durgerdam and his mother came from neighboring Holysloot. But Cornelis chooses to earn his living in industrial Zaandam.
It is not entirely clear when he arrived there, but in 1909 he was drafted for military service in Zaandam. A year later, in August 1910, the militia archive records that Cornelis does not have to go on active duty because of 'physical defects'. Somewhere in those years he meets his future wife: on August 14, 1913, Cornelis marries the 22-year-old Neeltje Muusse from Zaandam. In the marriage register, Cornelis reports 'warehouse servant' as his occupation.
On January 30, 1919, Grietje was born at 5 Bloemstraat in Zaandam, named after Cornelis' mother. Cornelis officially reports the birth the next day with his cousin Dirk Swartsenburg and one Simon de Boer, both casual workers. Cornelis has taken a turn in his career: he registered as a skipper.
In the photo from 1935, Grietje is smiling a bit shyly behind her stern-looking father. She prefers not to be in the picture or maybe she wants to stay close to the boy with the baker's basket. She is wearing her Sunday clothes, but it can't be a Sunday. Bakers' servants do not deliver on Sundays in 1935; the times of 24/7 speedy delivery started some 80 years later. Would it be Father Cornelis's birthday? Is it the wedding day of Cornelis and Neeltje ? Or is it to celebrate that on July 17, 1935, Grietje obtained the diploma 'home seamstress' from the Municipal Vocational School for Girls? It looks like a beautiful summer day….
We can see that it is a special day in Neeltje's leather pumps and in the Sunday outfit of the boy next to her, who looks with confidence into the lens. That boy must be Jan. I couldn't find him in the online registers of Zaandam, but that it is Jan can be deduced from a small advertisement that appears in the Zaanlander a year after this photo of the family was taken.
Mother Neeltje died unexpectedly on November 16, 1936.
Not much is known about what happened to the children after this tragic event. The digital archives show that Grietje has become a qualified dressmaker. In 1942 she leaves the parental home for 10 Hyacintstraat in Koog aan de Zaan. A year later she moves to Amsterdam, 50 Bilderdijkstraat. That trip was short-lived because on February 11, 1944 she returns to the Zaan region. She then lives at 7 Van Diemenstraat, first floor, in Wormerveer. After that, the digital trail ends. I can find nothing about the existence and fate of Jan.
Cornelis quickly finds a new partner after the death of Neeltje and marries Martina Luijendijk on June 1, 1937. He passes away on November 20, 1951, age 62. He is still the lock keeper of the Hondsbossche Lock.
Lock keeper
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