Information About Nicolaas Roos

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.

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Grandpa was an office worker but I don’t know what he did exactly. In 1939-40 he was in the army, stationed in The Hague, in the Montessori school on the Laan van Poot, which would later be Eric’s primary school.

Later he also worked in the concert hall for a while, possibly as a doorman or something.

Grandpa and grandma always traveled a lot. Grandpa had a car and they went to all kinds of places in the Netherlands. I hated that they would come over for coffee in the morning, but they were always gone before we came home from school. Grandpa liked grandchildren, but only when they were a little older. He later took me to exhibitions and such. One time to the “vreemdelingen beurs” (a fair with displays and goods of different people’s heritage) in the RAI in Amsterdam, where they had all kinds of foreign delicacies, or to Panorama Mesdag in Scheveningen.

When grandpa was older he was in the city council of Duivendrecht, possibly even when he was already retired.

Grandpa was always the one who was religious and regularly went to church; I had the impression that grandma mainly went for the social aspect. Grandpa also loved organ music, just like my mother and myself.

Grandpa had a very light skin color, just like me, and always burned very easily in the summer. In Egmond during a vacation at the beach, he once had a terrible sunburn on his feet, so that he could no longer wear shoes.

Grandpa had a brother, Wierd, who looked a lot like him. When grandfather died and we all were in the funeral home, his brother came in and I was startled by an accident, I thought Grandpa came in.