On the hunt for an Oma

Meet Johanna Pronk Overduin, grandma's  grandma 

Born in Scheveningen 1890 - 1947. 

Dad and I decided to go on a hunt for the house where she and her fisherman husband Henri lived in Scheveningen. Grandma visited her often and has such tales to tell because of how obsessed with cleanliness Johanna was. I always say that there is a good reason why there is an old dutch woman on the packaging of Old Dutch scouring powder because they have that reputation for being obsessively compulsively clean! (I think that trait only dribbled down to Nikki)

Every time she visited her grandmother she would lift up mom's skirt to check her underwear to be sure it was clean! The inside of her wood burning stove was as clean as the outside. (I'm assuming that was only in the summer but you never know)  I don't think I've poked my head in our fireplace once in ten years.  Well Grandma's sister, Tante Annie remembers going to visit her grandmother also but barely. She remembered the street name though and that's what started our hunt for the house, looking for Vuurbaakstraat by the big lighthouse. 

She told us that her grandparents had about 16 children!! "I'm not sure how many there were because I never saw them all.  When they turned 16 they had to leave home." Sheesh! Andy consider yourself lucky.

 Dad and I visited his cousin Cobi and probed her memories of her great grandmother. She told us that the Overduins lived in a one room house with a wood stove in the middle of the room and one bed built into an alcove where the parents slept. At night the kids would just pull out bedding and sleep all over the floor. Cobi remembers going to visit one time when her gr grandmother was sick in bed. She and her sisters had to sit very still and silent in a row of chairs that faced great grandma in her sick bed while the grownups talked. They were not allowed to use the toilet because they might get it dirty!?!

This photo of Johanna P. Overduin reading her Bible is part of a permanent photo archive at the museum. I'm sure you could eat off that brick area.  The photo was most likely taken in the back door area.

This is the street Tante Annie said the Overduins lived on. We were  getting closer.

...and here is the the lighthouse. 

At the museum, there is a street map of where families used to live. You push on a name and the houses with that name lights up.

This is how many Pronks and Overduins there were! And look , a house lights up that is at just the right spot.

Our search continues next blog.