The biography

Recently our oldest son had to write a biography of a person born before 1945,

preferably from his own family. He chose, who else could he better choose

to find out as much as possible about almost a century of history,

my grandmother, now almost 97 years old. Although she has been

struggling a bit with swollen legs and feet lately, she is otherwise

in remarkable good shape for her age and still lives by herself in her house.

She was a child during the First World War and only married for three months

when the Second World War started. Her two oldest children were born

during the Second World War. She still remembers very well how English

planes were flying over the house as she was giving birth to her son.

On that day, all of Kortrijk, a nearby city, was bombed.

She also remembers how they often had to flee into a bomb shelter

and how her father refused to do so, not wanting to be buried alive.

During the First World War, she and her family had to flee to Balen

near Brussels because the village they lived in was in the middle

of the battlefield. It is amazing to see how the village was ruined

when they returned after being refugees in Balen for several years.

We've found images from the village before 1914 and from after it, it is

unbelievable. The pictures of a destroyed Ypres are well known, but

it was much more than just Ypres that was destroyed, everything

in the wide area to the East of Ypres had just as much to suffer

I now realize. When families returned to their homes, they found

nothing as it once was, only the church was more or less still standing

and recognizable but severely damaged as well, everything else had to be

rebuilt from scratch. They had nothing left, and still, they had a lot, a lot to

start building a shelter, from what they found just lying around everywhere,

and what a shelter they built, a gem really, with their own hands,

everyone helping eachother, o yes, that they did have as well, they had eachother.

Beautiful little houses emerged in the middle of the destruction.

The houses were called 'barakken' but the people named them

'Villa's' instead and gave them all their unique name.

The Villa where my grandmother and her family lived got her name.

Her mother, my greatgrandmother, had lost four babies in a row

before they were one month old before my grandmother was born.

Somehow, she couldn't imagine that my grandmother would survive

the harsh circumstances they had to live in but she did and it has

always felt like a miracle to her mom that she survived. Her mother

did not have more children after my grandmother, she was the youngest

and quite a bit younger than her brothers and sisters.

I went with my son every time he went to interview my grandmother

because she speaks a dialect he doesn't always understand, which I do,

having grown up in that same village.

It was such a revelation for me as well as for my son to hear her tell us

all about her long life. She even remembered some games they played

in school during playtime, and where her fear of horses originated from

for instance. It's those little things that make this biography

so interesting and worth to read and reread, to me at least.

It's become a extended work and I'm sure

his teacher will have his work reading it all.

I am so happy my son got this assignment and today we're visiting my grandmother

to give her a copy of her own biography. I'm so anxious to see how she'll react. I think she'll be thrilled with it. She certainly loved telling us all about her life and was constantly telling my son to ask away so she would remember more and to call her if he'd have more questions, which he did.
He's so glad he's gotten to know his greatgrandmother so very well now
and feels much closer to her now all because of that assignment.
The biography is illustrated with pictures, mostly from my grandmother's

 own collection of photo albums but also the ones found on the internet about

the destroyed village they came back to after the First World War. There was even

a picture of one of the villa's that were built then and my grandmother is right,

such a beautiful and cosy looking little house it is, right in the middle of all that destruction.

One of the villa's.


Sometimes it was possible to make a comparison between
'before' and 'after'.

The two pictures on top show the building before 1914,
the picture beneath after 1918.
I don't know if that building has ever been rebuilt
after 1918 but I've always known there was a parking lot
next to the church right on that spot.
 

 
Castle and church before and after.

Most of the pictures from right after the war have the church in them,
maybe because that was the only recognizable thing
still more or less standing then, there wasn't much
of the houses left.

The inside of the church before and after.

 

All original pictures found here.

PS From the comments on my last post, compared to the amount of pageviews,
I can only come to the conclusion that cemeteries are not easy to talk about
or to express an opinion about. I do understand that and
want to express my gratitude to everyone who did give an opinion
or who expressed their feelings about cemeteries. I appreciate that so much
and want to thank you all for doing so. Thank you!
I've also come to peace with the fact that my blog will probably never
become a blog that gets tons of comments, so I want to thank everyone
 who does leave a comment on my posts. It's very much appreciated
and I really love it!
 Very often your comments put a smile on my face.
Through those comments I get the feeling I somehow get to know you all
a little bit. Thank you so much for taking the time to write an honest comment.

And a very happy mother's day to all the mothers today!

Marian