Information About Johannes Smits

Memories

Memories are based on documents, family lore or personal experiences. They give more information about a person, but are not necessarilly complete or correct.

For photos: click on the photo for a larger format; email family@grivel.net for more information about the photo.

Grandpa Smits has been a worker all his life. I heard that he once had an opportunity to sing in the Amsterdam concert choir, but that never happened. He smoked like a chimney, but he loved singing.

We did go there on Boxing Day or on New Year’s Day. I never found it very pleasant there, there were never many cousins ​​to play with. I don’t know if it really was like that, but as a child I had the idea that the adults were always arguing with each other.

Grandpa and grandma Smits had a caravan on the Lage Vuursche, where we sometimes visited, although we never camped there. My parents did camp in Amerongen when I was a baby, and I think that is possible to be close to Lage Vuursche.

I do remember that we went to Lage Vuursche, and that we wanted to eat at the Gooise Boer pancake house. But Grandpa thought that was far too expensive, and we went to bake pancakes on the campsite itself. I offered to do the baking, and of course I did it the way my mother always did. My mother had to hear from grandfather for years how I used too much butter.

The black vase that I have comes from grandpa and grandma Smits, and of course the folding table. Grandpa Smits was proud of his table because it could be folded on both sides; that was then a very modern table. I got that table after they both died and I lived in the Transvaal street.

Left to right: Adriana Bierma, Joop Smits, Henk Smits, Johannes Smits and Margreet Smits. Photo courtesy of Ben Kamphuis.

Grandpa and Grandma lived, as long as I can remember, in Louis Bothastraat (the street was later renamed because of its contaminated past). They lived with a number of other families in a walk-up apartment building.

I can remember whole days, lying in front of the gas stove, with a whole box of graphic novels, strips and the like from the upstairs neighbors. Grandpa always thought that I would ruin my eyes, without good light.

Eating at the grandparents was a bit of a hassle. Grandpa thought that food should not be wasted. So if there was a bit of gravy on your plate, you would get a potato tossed through it. Eat! ;) And a dessert with a skin on it (yuck!) that you had to eat.

I also have many memories of the camp. Grandpa and grandma had a caravan on the campsite of the Ford factory (where grandpa used to work). That campsite was at Lage Vuursche. And that was near Drakestein where the royal family then lived. I often went for a walk with grandma and along the “sandals,” as the soldiers (Drakestein guards) have long been called.

I have my most warm memories of “the camp.” Grandpa was happy there, grandma had room to do her own thing. And yes ... as Nicoline already wrote, she was always knitting. But she also liked to read. I know Grandpa more from singing exercises, and he was quite busy with the newspaper. He liked playing cards at the camp.

I was named after both grandparents with my christening names (Johanna Adriana). Fortunately they shortened it into Anja (instead of Jo or Sjaan). Disadvantage: I was in class with 6 Anjas. It was a fashionable name. To make some distinction, I later made it into Anya.