The story behind

by: J.M. Stinis-van Straten

Early in the morning on October 25, 1969 (one day after my husband’s 62th birthday) I got a phonecall of the "Griffie" where my husband worked with the request to come to the building of the "Raad van State" at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. There my husband would be honored as "Ridder in de Orde van Oranje Nassau" by the Commissionar of the Queen Mr. Klaassesz.

I wasn’t permitted to tell it to him, it must be a secret. One hour later, another phonecall. A colleague of my husband would pick me up to bring me to the "Binnenhof". Unfortunately, this colleague showed up too late and drove around and around before he entered the Binnenhof. It was so frustrated. Mr. Klaassesz was a man to the point and what I expected, happened: when I entered the room: Mr. Klaassesz just tried to open the buttonhole of my husband’s jacket to put the decoration in. I missed the speech and everything that happened before. Can you imagine how angry and disappointed I was? It was one of the biggest highlights of my husband’s life. It’s a great honor to receive such a decoration, because you have to do more then just your job.

My husband was treasurer of the "Contactcommision", board member of the RSV (De Spartaan) in Rotterdam, made a lot of speeches for colleagues of the Griffie and later, after his retirement in 1973, he also became treasurer of the Parentcommission of the Hugo de Groot Scholengemeenschap, Jenneke JR’s school.

Unfortunately, nobody came up with the idea to take some photos of this special day, so it’s not possible to show them here on our familywebsite.

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