Jenneke Bertine Klasina Stinis

You’ll get to know me better here and if you still have questions about our lives, feel free to e-mail us!

Q: Hi. It’s me again. I guess, you know me by now.

A: Of course. Do you have some questions for me as well?

Q: A lot. But let we start at the beginning. What’s your name and where have you been born?

A: My name is Jenneke Bertine Klasina Stinis. I’m named after my mother and my two grandmothers. I saw daylight on August 18, 1958 around 17:40 in the afternoon in the Bronovo hospital here in Den Haag.

Q: Do you remember something about that day?

A: Oh yeah, sure. I’m kidding. No of course not, I only "knew" that my parents were very happy with my arrival, because after almost 9 years of marriage, they didn’t expect me anymore.

Q: Your parents told me that. After you, were there any brothers or sisters born?

A: No. I’m the only child. My father was almost 51 years old at the time and my mother 41 when I arrived.

Q: Your father told me, that he was an amateur photographer. I bet he made a lot of photos of you when you were born and when you grow up.

A: Yes he did. The first photo of me is dated August 26, 1958. I was 8 days old then. When I came home from the hospital, he made a lot of photos and he also made some movies with his camera over the years of me. A couple of years ago my mother and I tried to watch these movies to save them on video, but unfortunately they were almost totally ruined by time.

Q: Funny, when I looked into your photoalbum, I hardly see a photo of you with your father?

A: That’s correct. He took a lot of photos of me, but as almost every photographer, he hardly made or let made someone else a photo of himself. It’s that my mother loved to take some photos herself and took a photo of me with my father from time to time, otherwise you even didn’t know he has been around! My parents even used some photos he made of me, for Christmascards they send to family and friends.

Q: Where did you sleep in the Obrechtstraat?

A: First in the frontroom of the house. My father and mother told you already about the fact that it was too cold to sleep in the "normal" bedrooms during the winter till we got central heath.

Q: What are the first "official" memories of your life?

A: I remember my fourth birthday with a lot of presents and a big birthdaycake just like on my second birthday.

A: I also remember something about St. Nicholaas. I guess, I was 4 years old then. It was around December 5th and my father keeps saying that he saw "Zwarte Piet’ behind the chimney on the roof on the next door. Of course, every time when I looked up to see him, he was gone. He said that for years and I felt so stupid when I found out the true years later. We also made some trips to the ducks to feed them. I couldn’t say the word "Eend" (Duck) at the time so I called them "Ka Ka’s". We made that trip so often that at the end the ducks got to know me.

Q: How did you celebrate St. Nicholaas at home and at school?

A: At home on December 5th. I was 2/3 years old when I received a doll. I called her "Lotje" and she was almost bigger then I was. She was my best friend and when she felt apart I got a new one. Named "Lotje 2". I still have both of them and they are sitting in my bedroom.

At school we celebrated St. Nicholaas with a big party. St. Nicholaas came to school and we got a present of him. I was first on another kindergarten where I celebrated St. Nicholaas in 1962 as you could see on these pictures.

My mother told you already, that almost the whole class became sick by the end of December 1962. It was a really cold winter during the Christmas holidays. There was a lot of snow and even the sea of Scheveningen was frozen, but I wasn’t permitted to go out or to play in the garden. I only "heard" about the frozen sea and saw the photos of it. My father made a movie of it, but unfortunately post lost that one and we have never seen it. The whole thing was very frustrated, because it was the last time (so far) that the sea was frozen. Maybe you can imagine how cold it was.

Anyway: after I was recovered, my parents decided that it would be better for me to go to another school. I don’t know or other kids from kindergarten followed me to the new school, but I guess so. The new school (called the NSV, "De Neutrale School Vereniging") just laid across the other one and when I played on the schoolyard of my new school, I saw the "old" classmates playing.

Q: Tell me something about the friends you had at school.

A: I had a special friend. He lived just a couple of houses away from me and after school we played together. On the street or he was by me or I was by him. He was one and a half months younger. Children born before October 1st, 1958 were permitted to go to the first class in 1964, but his birthday was after October 1st, so when I went to the first class in the same building, he staid behind and had to wait another whole year before he were permitted to go to the first class as well.

Q: That must have been very hard to be separated from your best friend when you were so little?

A: Yes it was,. but we always found a way to spend some time together.

Q: Did you have some other friends at school?

A: Basicly, I got along with everyone in my class. I had to, because we started together in the kindergarten and ended in class 6.

Q: I heard that every class had a kind of exhibition at the end of the year. Can you tell me something about that?

A: That exhibition mostly took place on one of the last days of the schoolyear. We showed pour parents and friends what we learned during that year and there was also a big party to celebrate the end of the schoolyear.

During one of these big parties (on April 27, 1967) we were there all together at school and every moment they got to spread the news that the Prince of Orange was born so someone had to sit down the whole evening at the radio or he heard something. Then indeed halfway the evening the headmaster, Mr. Lingeman" came in and told us the news that Willem Alexander was born. Everybody got excited and there was another party at school the next day to celebrate the born.

Q: Tell me something about that last party. I’m sure your father (or mother) took some photos.

A: Don’t ask me about it! We all went to school dressed in a special outfit and my mother took the photocamera with her to take some photos. She asked my father or there was a film in it and he said "yes" so my mother took one photo after another from me and my friends and all the games on the schoolyard. Later that evening, when we were home again, she opened the camera and then the big shock came: the camera was empty, there was no film in it! We still regret that, because it was a one-day stand. Later it never happens again that we took our photocamera with us without a film in it. We learned our (hard) lesson!

Q: What else do you remember about your schooltime?

A: That we played korfball together.

Q: Just like your father did?

A: Yeah, but I wasn’t so good in it as he was. To be honest, I’m not so sportive as he was. He went to see me when I played with the other boys and girls and loved it, but it was not really my passion. Once we played a competion against other schools. Unfortunately, we didn’t win, but it was a great day.