I haven’t written much about my grandfather’s paternal grandparents. I wrote about his aunt’s family, the Van Lieres, but we know very little about the parents of Grandpa’s father and his aunt.
His paternal grandmother was Jennegien (Jennie) Bomhoff. She was born 5 March, 1838 in Zwolle, Overjissel, the Netherlands. She passed away on 16 December 1924 in Kalamazoo.
She married Grandpa’s grandfather, Johannes (John) Zuidweg, in Goes, the Netherlands on 4 November 1869, when she was 31 years old and working as a maid.
Grandpa told me that she wore many layers of skirts and they all had pockets in them. Can you tell below that she was wearing layers of clothing? What do you think she carried in those pockets? He did tell me that he saw her pull an apple out from an under skirt.
The following photos were identified to me as Jennie. How old do you think she is in each one?
What style bonnet is she wearing? And how many decades did she wear that same bonnet?!
In the next photograph, she is the woman on the side, in the dark dress.
Here is some research Yvette Hoitink provided about this family:
In 1869, Jennegien married Johannes Zuijdweg in Goes, Zeeland, about 150 miles away. That is an uncommonly large distance for somebody to travel in the 19th century, especially for an unmarried woman from the working class. Further investigation showed that her brother Albert Bomhoff was married in Goes in 1867. It must be through this connection that Jennegien moved to Goes, where she worked as a maid prior to her marriage. A rich and easy to retrieve source of information for ancestors in the 19th century are the marriage supplements: the documents a bride and groom had to submit when they got married. Unfortunately, the Goes marriage supplements for the period 1811-1877 got lost in 1877. Since several marriages on the Zuidweg side took place in Goes, these records could not be obtained. Digital images of the marriage supplements of Lucas Bomhof and Jeuntien Dansser, the parents of Jennegien Bomhof, were retrieved from Familysearch.org. Lucas Bomhof was born as Nijentap, but his family took the name Bomhof around 1812. In the province of Overijssel, it was common to be named after the farm you lived on. It was only with the French occupation that people were obliged to take a hereditary surname. Nijentap may be the name of the farm that the family lived at.
The Family Kalamazoo 
That surname switching and subjective spelling thing drives me bonkers! Add to it the ceaseless border creeping–a few miles East this year, then a new little treaty or agreement and we gain a little back to the West…ahhhh!!!! I have three brothers I’m researching from this area. On the same census they each listed a different nativity–“Dutch,” “France,” and “Prussia.”
On another note~ I love her hat…if I had one like that I would have worn it for years too! I’m going to guess 30, then 40ish and the last one maybe 55. People had a few more miles on their faces then
The borders in northern Europe are just the pits. It makes it so hard, but you are lucky that you have help from your family in researching!
Do you know what you call that kind of bonnet? It looks like Civil War era to me, but maybe a Dutch version?
If you think that first photo is around 30 years of age, maybe it’s an engagement photo or a wedding photo–where they had their photo taken together and separately–and maybe the one together is missing. She was 31 when she got married.
In an earlier post about Jennie’s daughter Joanna VanLiere, it was astonishing how much Joanna aged in the first few years of her marriage and childbearing.
I also think that it’s fun how she wore the same bonnet in two photos that were taken many years apart. It’s amazing how having both photos provides more clues to Jennie’s personality than either photo alone could possibly provide.
Sheryl, that is an excellent comment. Yes, you’re so right. What a frugal woman. And she must not have gotten dressed up very often for that hat to still be in good enough shape!
I don’t think it’s the same bonnet. The top picture I would say was taken in the 1880s, maybe earlier, maybe a little later. The sleeve caps and the bodice say more 1880s.
She does seem to have aged quite a bit in the second photo but the sleeve style hasn’t changed much. I almost think that they aren’t the same woman based on the aging and the style of dress having little change.
The last picture is probably the 1910s.
Interesting . . . . The last picture is one of Joseph DeKorn’s photographs, and I believe that dating would be correct. Maybe not even, maybe just before 1910. I’m very interested in you saying that maybe the middle one isn’t the same woman. I wonder if we can tell by the faces, to be sure. My grandfather identified all 3 as his grandmother, but he could have made a mistake. Do all these photos appear to be the same woman? I think it’s very likely that the first photograph was taken as Mom above says around the age of 30 as that was when she got married.
Do you think that maybe the one in the middle is Jennie’s mother? There is enough of a resemblance that she may be an older relation of Jennie’s. Her face just looks so wrinkled compared to the first one.
What wonderful photographs. When did she come to the US? Were these taken here or in the Netherlands?
Thanks, Amy. We believe Jennie and Johannes arrived in the US in 1901. That first photo was definitely taken in the Netherlands (we only have a copy that was made in Kalamazoo of the original photo). The photograph of her with the two women was taken in the United States. I believe it would have been before 1910. She would have been somewhere around 70 in that photograph. But I admit that Deborah has got me wondering about that middle photograph. She almost looks older in that photo than in the last one and yet she’s dressed in that old-fashioned bonnet and dress. Hmm.
She does look older in that one to me also. Maybe she had no sense of style. I would still be wearing the same clothes I wore 30 years ago (and in some cases I am) if they had held up better AND if my daughters allowed to do so!
Hahaha, I bet that’s not true!
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