Person:Lambertus van Eeuwijk (2)

Lambertus was the youngest of 14 siblings. Perhaps that is the reason that he left his native town of Driel, Gelderland, the Netherlands. Within my line of van Eeuwijk's, he is a brave man: after some 200 years, he is the first one to leave the town of Driel. And, as we shall see, it certainly wasn't easy to leave!

The first move is to Nijmegen, Gelderland, the Netherlands, where he settles on 2 March 1910. However, he returns to Driel on 14 January 1911. It is unclear what he did in Nijmegen and why he went there. After being back in Driel for more than 7 years, he leaves for Heerlen, Limburg, the Netherlands. He settles there on 8 April 1918, but returns after less than 2 months on 17 May 1918. Was this his first stint in coal mining, as my father has told me? We don't know. Once again, he returns to Driel. On 22 October 1918, he tries it again. This time he leaves for 's Hertogenbosch, Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands. But once again, he returns to Driel quickly on 12 January 1919.

Still, he must have had better luck that time around, because, on 5 February 1919 he marries Johanna Martina Huberdina Bonte, a girl from 's Hertogenbosch. The day after the wedding in Driel, they settle in 's Hertogenbosch, where their first two children, Hendrikus Antonius Cornelis van Eeuwijk and Otto Hendrikus Cornelis are born. Sometime between 1920 and 1923, however, they move to Mol, Belgium where they live on Tomaathoek 49 in Mol - Ginderbuiten. According to the Archive in Mol, Mol went through an economic boom in the 1920's and they may have been attracted to the new employment opportunities offered by the new glass or bottle factories. Or, perhaps, he found employment in the Vieille Montagne zinc factory or the P.F.B. dynamite factory. We don't know. What we do know is that their third son - my grandfather - is born there on 15 September 1923 and that a Hubertus Bonte was a witness. Was this a brother-in-law who perhaps moved to Mol before them and told them about the great opportunities in Mol?

By 1925, Lambertus has left Mol and had moved back to the Netherlands, this time settling in Hoensbroek, Limburg sometime between 1923 and 1925, where their fourth son, Cornelis Hendrikus Marie Johanna van Eeuwijk, was born. Hoensbroek had become one of the major coal mining centres in the Netherlands in the early part of the 20th century and it is quite possible (especially given the oral tradition handed down from my father), that Lambertus worked as a coal miner here.

Clearly, coal mining wasn't the thing for him or he wasn't the thing for coal mining. Like many other rural people, he finally went to look for better fortunes in big city Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, the Netherlands, where he settled with his family on 10 January 1927 on the Lineaus Dwarsstraat 3 I, where his 5th son, Johannes Maria Theresia van Eeuwijk, was born. On 11 January 1932, the family moved again, this time to the Overflakkeestraat 2hs in Amsterdam. There, finally - and I say finally because oral tradition has it that he promised to keep going until he finally had a daughter - he had his daughter, Theresia Maria Francisca, was born in 1934. The family was now complete. On the 2nd of March 1939 - just over a year before the start of the Second World War - the family moves one last time, this time to the Adriaan de Ruyterweg 351 II, but still in Amsterdam.

Surprisingly, I know less about the years since 1939 than the years before. We know that he lived out the rest of his life at the above-named address and that he passed away on 18 October 1963. According to my grandmother, Lambertus was a warm and friendly person and a solid Catholic.