Jenneke Maria Stinis-van Straten
The years 1917 – 1927
Edam, November 1917
Introduction:
After my husband, G.W. Stinis, has been interviewed first for this familywebsite they came to me . Sit down to read more about my life. Hope you enjoy it!
Q: Hello. Please to meet you. I have a lot of questions for you so let we start immediately with the first one: What’s your name and where have you been born?
A: Hi. My name is Jenneke Maria Stinis-van Straten. Born in Edam on June 17, 1917. I’m the only child of Jacob Hendrik van Straten and Gijsberta Catharina Anna Quast who married on August 31, 1916.
Utrecht August 31, 1916
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Around 1920 |
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Q: What was your father doing for living?
A: He has a stationer’s shop in the beginning where he sold the usual things like stamps and so on. There also was a printshop owned by Miss. Sipkes, but my father wasn’t very happy with the stationer’s shop. Mostly people just walked in for a stamp of 1 cent just when he had his lunch and Miss. Sipkes found it very hard to run the printshop so they switched. My father got the printshop and she the stationer’s shop.
Q: Where was the printshop located?
A: We lived in the Spuistraat in Edam and I spent there the first years of my life.
1924
There was a new building built besides it now for the printshop. It was a very strange house because the front was higher as the back. When I was little, my mother put me in the babycarriage and then I rolled, by myself, to the kitchen. My grandmother (from my father’s side) and his sister lived at the other side of the street and when my grandmother died we moved to their house so the whole building was now available for the printshop.
With Grandmother van Straten
Q: What where the things your father printed there?
A: The usual things. For most of the printings someone drove to Amsterdam on a daily basis to get some orders and then went to my father to discuss them. We also printed a special newspaper "t Edammertje" twice a week. People in Edam called it "t Vaatdoekje" (the dishcloth). After the elections we also printed the results of it and I was very proud when I had the honor to bring these papers around in Edam.
Q: He also printed some special things, didn’t he?
A: Yes, he did. He printed around 20 books under the name "
De Klyne Librye". The painter, André van der Vossen, was connected to the printshop Enschede & Zn in Haarlem. In 1928, he made 10 woodcuts of Edam, Volendam and Monnickendam. Uncle André and his wife lived in Edam for a month and when he finished everything, my father put all the wood cuts together in a book, but they were also available in a separated form. The book was called "Edam – Monnikendam – Volendam – Marken: Tien houtsneden door André van der Vossen" Mostly Uncle André designed for banknotes or stamps. I watched him doing these designs once. Wow, it’s a real hard job!Q: I guess, these people were what they called "artistic"?
A: No. They were just like you and me and we laughed a lot with them during the time they lived with us.
Q: Where there a lot of people working in the printshop?
A: Well, let me think. We had 8 people at the printshop, 2 man in the bookbinding, and there were 3 people, except my father, in the office.
Q: And when you became 6 years old, you got to school. In Edam?
A: Yes. The funniest thing is, that when I could read more then one word, I helped with correcting ‘t Edammertje.
Q: At that age? Wow.
A: Well, I read the words and someone else corrected everything. It was great and I also sat down behind the typewriter then to write some things myself.
Q: How was your time at school?
A: Great. I had no problems with it. There was a classmate and her father had a job over sea and once in a couple of years they came over to Holland and went to school with us then. At the end of one of these stays they made a photo of the whole class. I stood on it with a damaged knee because I felt down again after I jumped over one of the piles when I brought my father to the train on Friday.
Jenneke on the left (1927)
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