The Children of Adriaan Beukenkamp and Alida von Gorcum: Lourens Beukenkamp (Part 1)

This story is the last in a series about the children of Adriaan Beukenkamp and Alida von Gorcum. Adriaan was the eldest brother of my great-grandfather, Gerhardus Beukenkamp (later George Beck), so Adriaan's children were my great-grandfather's niece and nephews. 

Adriaan Beukenkamp married Alida Johanna van Gorcum in Amsterdam on August 22, 1907. They had four children together.

1. Marinus Gerhardus Beukenkamp, b. 1910 in Vienna, Austria; m. Anna Elisabeth Keur; d. 1971 in Leipzig, Germany
2. Janna Gerhardina Beukenkamp b. 1911 in Vienna, Austria; m. Hendrick Coenraad Nienhuys; d. 1993 in Suffield, Connecticut, USA
3. Radboud Lourens Beukenkamp, b. 1914 in Graz, Austria; m. Jantina Ette Mensinga; d. 1993 in Shalimar, Florida, USA
4. Lourens Jacobus Beukenkamp. b. 1920 in Zaandam, The Netherlands; m. Margaret Smit; d. 2007 in Dothan, Alabama, USA

In previous posts, I've shared what I have learned about Adriaan and Alida's children. We've now come to the youngest Beukenkamp child, Lourens.

Lourens is the Beukenkamp child we know the most about, thanks to his autobiography. I am thankful to his grandson Chris for sharing that wonderful document with me, as it contains so much personal information about the family, their lives in The Netherlands, and what they all experienced during World War II. Each of the four Beukenkamp children had very different and harrowing war experiences, and the tragedy that Lourens experienced during that time is particularly heartbreaking. I will be sharing multiple posts about Lourens' life, since there is so much material in his autobiography.

Lourens Jacobus Beukenkamp

Lourens was born on May 15, 1920 in Zaandam, just north of Amsterdam. His family had recently returned to The Netherlands from Austria, having struggled in Austria's damaged post-World War I economy. While Adriaan Beukenkamp got re-established in his banking business, Alida and the children stayed with Adriaan's cousin, Lourens Visser, in Zaandam. Perhaps this is the reason that their youngest child was named Lourens. By the time Lourens was two, the family was on solid footing, and they moved into a home in Haarlem. Lourens was a typical boy, running around the neighborhood with friends, playing pranks on neighbors, and attending the local grammar school. However, when Alida had a stroke, followed by deteriorating health, and ultimately a permanent move to a sanitarium, things changed drastically in the Beukenkamp home. 

As mentioned in previous posts, a former girlfriend of Adriaan's, known to the children as Tante Stein, moved into their home to help take care of them. Unfortunately, it appears she did not actually like the children very much. Also, during this time, a cousin joined the household. Adriaan's sister, Catharina "Trine" Beukenkamp was divorcing her husband, Hendrik Krom, and they sent their son Eddie Krom to live with the Beukenkamps temporarily. Lourens and Eddie were frequently up to no good, to the great dismay of Adriaan and Tante Stein. Here is one story from Lourens' autobiography.

Father bought a sailboat, a "boerier" which was named Beyaard. He felt that this was a healthy activity and kept his boys off the street. Father and Radbout did the sailing and at that time I had the use of a 12-foot sailing dingy and became an accomplished little sailor myself. During one vacation day Eddie and I bicycled to the club, rigged the sails of Beyaard and took off for a grand sail, with everything from top. Did we have a ball!!! We brought the boat safely back and put her securely at her dock and put everything in ship-shape order. The next Saturday we all went sailing, and while we went aboard the old harbormaster walked by and said to my father, "Amazing sir, how those two youngsters handled that big boat last Wednesday." Boy oh boy, if i think about it again I still have trouble sitting on a hard chair.

Lourens was part of a local swim team and practiced nearly every day with them. He often medaled at swim meets. However, his academic efforts did not proceed as well as his athletic pursuits.

Eventually Eddie went back to his mother and I finished grammar school. I passed the entrance exam for high school and after the summer vacation went to my new school. Radbout had also attended this school and flunked immediately. During my first class the teacher read off the list of names to acquaint himself with the new pupils and when he saw Beukenkamp he asked "are you a brother of Radbout?" He made some nasty remarks about him and this immediately ruffled my feathers. Radbout, after flunking, was sent to the Kennemer Lyceum where he had no problems at all and graduated with honors. Well, I felt so miserable in that school that I flunked every subject badly, except for phys. ed. and art. I thought I would now also go to the Kennemer Lyceum. 

Tante Stein had other ideas. The other Beukenkamp children had graduated and left home by then, and Tante Stein wanted Lourens out, too. Adriaan arranged for Lourens to live with the Dijksterhuis family in Oisterwijk, a province bordering Belgium. Mr. Dijksterhuis was the science and math teacher at a school in nearby Tilburg, a city with about 50 textile factories and a textile college. 

Tilburg (photo by tilburgdailyphoto.blogspot.com) 

As mentioned in previous posts, Adriaan had a financial interest in a woolens factory, and Lourens' eldest brother, Marinus, was pursuing a career in the textiles field. Before sending Lourens to Oisterwijk, Marinus and Adriaan arranged for a summer internship with Theodor Froehner, who ran the woolens factory, and "Uncle Theo" also took Lourens on his family vacations during that time. After that happy summer, Lourens proceeded to Oisterwijk, where he joined the Dijksterhuis family, which included three young children.

I had a few very pleasant years with them. Mrs. Dijksterhuis played tennis with me. I was a good swimmer and was immediately picked up by the local swim club. I swam in many regattas and played in the water polo team all over the Southern part of Holland.

Mrs. Dijksterhuis helped Lourens create a field hockey league and practices were held on the Dijksterhuis family's large property. In his final year of high school, Lourens moved to live with his best friend, Jaap Nieveen, who lived closer to the high school, so that he wouldn't have to bicycle as far to school while balancing his cello, which he'd begun playing in the school orchestra. Then, with school completed, he began to make plans for a professional life.

I hoped to go to the merchant naval academy. However, when my eyes were checked I was told that they were borderline. If at the end of three years at the academy my eyes would be a bit less, I would not pass eligibility for naval service. So, that was the end of that dream. Now, I lived in a textile town, in the house of an executive of a textile factory. My father was financially tied to a textile mill in Cottbus, Germany, and you put all this together and stir it up a bit and what do you get? So, I went to the Tilburg Textile College.

Lourens moved into a boarding house at the college. He quickly made new friends and established a robust social life. He went to parties, played guitar in a band, began playing ice hockey, and ended up playing a thrilling game with members of the Dutch national team. However, world events were soon to disrupt Lourens' happy college years. In his autobiography, he recalled the events of May 10, 1940.

I was awakened at 3 or 4 in the morning by some fellows who were calling to each other from the open windows, rooftops and balconies of their houses.

The sun was not up yet, but the sky was already lightening. Then I was told to turn on my radio and to look at the sky. While my old tube set was warming up I became aware of a funny sound up in the air and looking up I saw swarms of planes flying by. Then the radio told me that paratroopers from Germany were being dropped near the Hague and Rotterdam and that German forces had crossed the Dutch border. In other words, Holland was in the war.

German paratroops dropping into The Netherlands on May 10, 1940 (source: Wikipedia)

The Netherlands had hoped to avoid entanglement in the war, but had mobilized its comparatively small military forces to hold back German incursion at its borders. After the invasion on May 10, 1940, the Germans and Dutch engaged in a series of battles, including a multi-day struggle for control of Rotterdam, The Netherlands' second-largest city. On May 14, 1940, the German forces decided to end the back-and-forth clashes and demonstrate the superiority of their military. They bombed the city of Rotterdam, completely flattening it. Lourens' brother Radboud was living in Rotterdam with his wife. Lourens was in Tilburg, about an hour's drive southeast. Lourens describes this time in his autobiography.

During those 5 days I was in Tilburg. When I heard the news and saw the planes flying over, I dressed in a hurry and took to the street. Under some of the larger buildings arrangements had been made for bomb shelters. Not too extensive as the Dutch did not believe they would get involved, but "just in case." I reported to one of the shelters and with a few other fellows we checked the first aid equipment, fire extinguishers, axes, etc. And then we went on the sidewalk to look up at the over flying planes and saw little white puffs around them. These resulted from the Dutch anti-aircraft guns. They were not very effective as we did not see one hit. Soon more people came out in the open and rumors started to fly.

All at a sudden a small military type vehicle showed up, and then another one followed by motorcycles with side cars. At the front of those carriages were machine guns. They stopped and some soldiers got out. They were not Dutch... they were French. We were standing in the open, but these soldiers immediately walked under trees and close along the buildings. One of them addressed me and advised me to tell everybody to take cover. The possibility existed that the Germans would send fighter planes over the city and machine gun anything that moved. In addition, it would be safer to stay indoors as debris from the anti-aircraft shells could fall all over the place.

This went on for two days. The second day trucks with wounded Dutch soldiers came down from the East and we could hear the rumble of the war coming nearer. The small French contingent took up a defensive position along the canal on the East side of the city. 

A Dutch anti-aircraft team (source: Wikipedia)

The Dutch and French efforts were to no avail. The Germans quickly took Tilburg, and those five days concluded with the destruction of Rotterdam and the Dutch surrender. The Netherlands was in German hands. As mentioned in my previous post, Lourens bicycled from Tilburg to Rotterdam to check on his brother, Radboud, and finding him safe, they went together to visit their father. The eldest Beukenkamp, Marinus, was with the Dutch army but had sent a telegram to his father indicating that he was safe. 

Lourens went back to school and graduated in July 1940. With a war having just begun, it was difficult to find work, so Lourens enjoyed a great summer vacation, borrowing a sailboat and sailing with friends around local lakes. He and his friends brought along their musical instruments, and they had a summer of music and fun. The shadow of the war was always present, though. The Germans had instituted a curfew, and they had to be careful to be anchored with lights off after sundown. That summer, Lourens met a young woman named Margaret "Greetje" Smit in Warmond, and they spent happy days dancing and flirting on the sailboat. The summer eventually came to an end, and it was time for Lourens to find work.

Marinus had a position with Raymakers in Helmond, a large factory producing all kinds of textile products. Due to the economic situation they were not hiring personnel, but I was engaged as a volunteer. No salary, but an opportunity to put into practice what I had learned. So, I moved to Helmond and became part of the Beukenkamp family there. Again I was something like an older brother to their children, Adriaan, Hanneke and Paul. I also traveled to Rotterdam (Hillegersberg) from time to time to visit with Radbout. I also had found out that Greetje Smit lived in Hillegersberg and tried to call her.

Lourens spent the next year living with his brother, volunteering at Raymakers, and spending time with Greetje. The war ground on, with the biggest impact on Lourens being the curfew, blackouts, and food and gasoline rationing. In July 1941, he was able to get a paying job, at a textile factory called Regenboog. The pay was so poor that Lourens' father, Adriaan, had to help him financially. Lourens continued to look for better work, but the war had made good employment difficult to find.

At one of my visits to my father he showed me an advertisement in the paper of a company wanting to acquire larger buildings for expansion. He had the idea that such an expansion also meant additional opportunity for work. Thus I went to The Hague and applied for an interview. I was hired! It was a hand weaving factory. I do not recall what the salary was and whether that was enough to live on, but it was an improvement. They produced table covers, sofa covers, and other decorative textiles.

As Hillegersberg is not too far from the Hague and a local train passed close to Margaret's house, I was invited by her parents to stay with them. This was around October of 1941 and thus did I move to the Schiebroekse Singel 41. It was very nice to be with Margaret. She went to school and I traveled back and forth to the Hague. Being so close with her, we started to dream up plans. Father Smit insisted that Margaret finish her studies and my salary was definitely not sufficient to think about marriage. But, we made plans to get engaged and during the next few months set the date for January 18, 1942.

The Germans tightened their grip on the Netherlands, severely rationing food and creating shortages and hunger among the Dutch. Lourens started smuggling food to help Greetje and her family. Radios and bicycles were confiscated by German troops and the Dutch were miserable in their oppression. A Dutch resistance sprung up, bombing German train transports, and generally making life for difficult for the occupiers. 

Greetje's family wanted the young couple to wait until after the war ended to get married, when it might be easier for them to start a life together, but Lourens and Greetje were eager to marry and did not want to delay. Greetje passed her final exams on May 15, 1943, and then married Lourens on May 18. They had struggled, with all the rationing, to get supplies to host a wedding, but ultimately managed to pull together a small celebration.

Margaret again prepared most of the food and a beautiful wedding cake.

I stayed the night at Radbout's house and early the next day dressed up in my formal tails. With silk hat and the bridal bouquet with Lilies of the Valley in hand, I entered the horse and buggy and was driven to her house. There I entered the house filled with relatives and close friends and kissed the bride who was gorgeous in her white wedding gown with a veil cluttered with Lilies of the Valley.

After a honeymoon in Holten, in the eastern countryside, Lourens and Greetje rented a room in a home in Veenendaal and began their lives together.

(To be continued)