My 4x greats, Izaak Boes and Adriana van de Walle, are the second of four Dutch couples that my grandmother, L. Edna Mulder Zuidweg, was descended from.
Ancestry’s bio for Izaak reads this way:
Izaak Boes was born in 1805 in IJzendijke, Zeeland, Netherlands, the son of Maria and Jannis. He married Adriana Vandewalle and they had 10 children together. He then married Cornelia van de Merrelaar and they had two children together. He died on March 13, 1891, in his hometown, having lived a long life of 86 years.
Keep in mind that as I get new information this will change.
Adriana Vandewalle was born in 1809 in Groede, Zeeland, Netherlands, the daughter of Maria and Januarius. She married Izaak Boes on March 24, 1830, in IJzendijke, Zeeland, Netherlands. They had 10 children in 12 years. She died as a young mother on December 15, 1842, in IJzendijke, Zeeland, Netherlands, at the age of 33.
Poor Adriana. She died at 33, whereas Izaak lived to be double that plus twenty!!! Adriana passed away 8 days after her son Izaak Jacobus Boes was born. Without his mother’s care perhaps, Izaak died in April of the following year.
I am going by their marriage record that Izaak was born in Ijzendijke and Adriana born in Groede. I do not have a birth or baptismal record for either.
This is the marriage record for the couple:
Here is the index:
Adriana’s death record:
And the index:
Here is Izaak’s second marriage to Cornelia van de Merrelaar:
Here is the index:
Izaak died:
Here is the index for his death record:
Cornelia passed away 8 days after Izaak.
Index:
Although Izaak and Cornelia were elderly and both without occupations when they passed away, at the time of Izaak’s first marriage, he was listed as a tailor*. Adriana was listed as a maid, but I am guessing that was just until she married. The same was true of both Izaak and Cornelia when he remarried.
*The translator had given me “dressmaker” instead of tailor, but I was corrected by readers that it meant that Izaak was a tailor.
The Family Kalamazoo 
This is such a great project you are working on. I am thinking I may just have to do the same in 2021 🙂
It means that the posts are more boring, but I feel that I am getting a good foundation. So many times I had lots on a “shirttail” relative, but nothing on a direct ancestor.
So true Luanne. I am feeling like this would be a great way to organize or actually reorganize 🙂
I hope I get to follow along if you do it in 2021!!!
Where did you get “dressmaker”? The record and the index say “kleedermaker,” which literally means “clothes maker,” or tailor in normal English.
Thanks, Yvette. I used Google translation for this. So many people say it is so good. I just checked. It still says “dressmaker.” At least it wasn’t me this time as journaliere must have been.
Wow – married at age 21, had ten children and gone at 33. Childbirth must have been so incredibly difficult – and to undergo 10 times makes me wonder how she survived as long as she did. Excellent work, Luanne. Fascinating.
Yes, it makes me sad to see how may of these women died from childbirth and often after being pregnant so many times. Just so you know: I had been working ahead and had these posts prepared ahead of time. No way could I prepare them right now haha.
I thought not, Luanne. I continue to worry about your health. I hope you are beginning to see a change for the better?
Thanks, Sheila. Not really, but at least I am not getting worse! Thank you!
I simply cannot fathom having that many children before age 33. Poor woman. It’s a good thing to do this systematic research. Kudos to you! Hope you are recovering from the fever. That was something we were warned about when I worked for Arizona Game and Fish. Fortunately never caught it.
I feel anger that nobody did anything years before they did about losing women in childbirth (or relatively quickly thereafter). I am seeing a corresponding number of men (sons and brothers, obviously not direct ancestors) dying young, which you might see in war.
Do you know many people inhale the fungal spoors and never get VF? I wrote this post before I got sick BTW. Hopeyou are doing well now, Eilene.
I’m not sure they had the medical technology at the time. Certainly midwives saved many women. And their husbands would not have wanted to see them die this way. It is a shame how many people died young for various reasons.
Yes, the discovery of antibiotics was a boon to all. But I do think that all technology grows in the areas where there is the most demand. For instance, there is no vaccine for Valley Fever because it’s considered a rare or orphan disease so that’s not where the money goes. The same thing is true of all resources necessary for discovery and invention including the time of individual scientists.
It’s great that you could find those Dutch records. And that poor woman—ten children at the rate of almost one a year.
I hope that the fact that you published a post means you’re feeling a little better?
Actually, I wrote this post before I got sick. I was a couple of weeks ahead at the time. I only have 2 4x greats left to write about. Then I will go back to regular posting, or that is my hope (go away, stupid Valley Fever).
Because of the accessibility of so many of the Dutch records, I keep getting more and more suggested parents on Ancestry–so farther and farther back.
I feel terrible for the women I am writing about. They were just raised to have children and die.
I have seen so many of those also—child after child after child, then death, and a dozen children left motherless.
And then a quick marriage to another young woman to mother the kids. 😕
Yep…. It sounds a little like The Handmaid’s Tale.
Yes!
Poor Adriana indeed. It sounds as if her body just gave out. The last few years must have been really tough on her.I also wonder what effect being pregnant or nursing for twelve years had on her emotional state.
I wonder that, too. I’ve been thinking a lot about these poor women and what their lives were really like. Very depressing.
I remember reading a short story years ago about a Roman Catholic woman and her willingness to commit the sin of taking the Pill rather than endure another pregnancy. It was her description of the dread of additional serial pregnancies that has stayed with me all these years.
Yes, that would be so memorable.
I’d imagine one might specialize their art to either men’s or women’s clothing at the same professional level of tailor or dressmaker. Seems like you may have kicked that Valley Fever some.
Apparently I was wrong about the occupation. He was a tailor, not a dressmaker. So that clears that up, but makes me made at Google translate haha. Re the VF, this will be a holding pattern for awhile here. I prepared these final 4x great posts before I got sick. No way in the world I could be doing this now! My brain fog is pretty thick ;)!
Luanne that is just wretched – the VF of course, not the tailor thing.
The profession ‘kledermaker’ is an old word for tailor. So it was not a dressmaker, but just tailor. ‘Kleder’ is an old word for ‘cloths’, now we write ‘kleermaker’.
Greetings, Yvon
Thank you so much, Yvon! You are a big help!