A few things about my mother. She was an amazing lady and didn't look her years. She had stamina to burn and, forty years older, put me to shame with her endless energy. It was only in the last three years of her life that this waned. She died February 2006 two weeks after her 95th birthday at which she welcomed friends and family with vigour to her bedside. This story tells of a life that could have made her turn against the tide but instead Harmina forged ahead with energy and optimism. Why did we migrate? We had a fine, flourishing business before the war. Everything went well. Then came the five year war with Germany which brought ruin to the country and to the people. It was a very hard time to keep going. After the war our shop was as good as empty. We modernised the shop and it looked lovely. Everybody had to pay high taxes to help to build up the country again. We tried for ten years, then we had to give up, sell everything and find something else to do. That was not easy. My husband went to The Hague, working at his brother's business. We followed later on and after working there, we decided to go to Australia. Early Years I was born in Friesland in 1911. We, as a family, spoke the Frisian language. My father was born in another province and did not speak Frisian. When I was sixteen years old we went to live in another city. There I was trained at the conservatorium as a soprano. I enjoyed singing very much in concerts and for radio. Sometimes I went to sing for prisoners in a rehabilitation centre with a student from a theological college. I loved that, too, and they were thankful. I still sang after I was married til we left for Australia in 1957. When we were settled there I sang in choirs and churches and sang often at weddings in the Saint Mary Church in Brisbane. My husband was also born in Friesland. They did not speak much Frisian in his town and I found their dialect confusing so I spoke Frisian or Dutch. Our children spoke Dutch or the dialect. We were married in 1936 and we inherited the textile business from my husband's father. Life was beautiful, the business went very well. Our first daughter was born in 1937 and in 1938 our second daughter. Everything was wonderful: a flourishing business, a loving marriage, two beautiful children, good friends. Life could not be better. War Then rumblings of war were heard over Europe. Black clouds came over our small but lovely country. In the morning of a beautiful spring day in 1940, May 10th, it happened. Many, many fighter planes came over Holland, sending their bombs over cities and airports. German soldiers were dropped in the country everywhere. What a contrast with the beauty of our country with the lilacs - fragrance in the air. We could not believe it, but it was the raw truth. A few days later very young German soldiers were all of a sudden in our back garden taking water from the well and cleaning themselves, using our dining room window as a mirror. They all were very young looking boys and very neat but still our enemies. The children had breakfast with us and the smallest of them sat in the high chair waving at the soldiers with a big smile on her face; she did not know anything of war and enemies. So the war was there, it had started. The shock was great, we were numb with the tragedy. We lost our freedom for five years. We did not lose family or friends, nor went hungry, but we lost our beautiful and thriving business. We had, by now, born to us two other lovely daughters, the third in 1940 and the fourth one in 1942. In those five years of war we had very scary moments but nothing happened to us in comparison to other people who lost loved ones and went hungry and had to look for food elsewhere and were exposed to so many other terrible things. After the liberation of the whole country we gave a concert in the town where we lived. Different artists performed. It was given in the Reformed Church and all the different groups in politics and beliefs were gathered there. The burgemeester and his men and ministers from different churches were there. Everybody came to celebrate together as one... Hillie's imagEnation Homepage