Archive for August, 2010

My great grandmother…
Photograph © Translimits

When I got married my dear mother had arranged for a very special bridal gift: a large antique mirror that had been passed on from mother to daughter for generations. The mirror came with a family myth. It had once belonged to my great grandmother Anne–Co who received it as a bridal gift from her father who was a carpenter.

The marriage between Anne–Co and Frederic was said to be a bit unusual. It was a marriage “by proxy”, meaning that the groom was not present at the ceremony. This was common practice with soldiers and other government officials stationed in one of the Dutch colonies, as was the groom. After the marriage in 1909 she sailed for Atjeh, Indonesia, on her own taking the mirror with her.

The Family Myth

The story goes that her first child was not her own but that she was the result of an affair between Frederic and an Indonesian beauty before he married Anne–Co. Her second child –my grandmother– was born in Indonesia and her younger sister saw the light on board the ship when the family headed back for Holland in 1919. As did the mirror.

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