Hennie's Story

Hennie's story

Hennie grew up on three continents, spoke multiple languages, and sailed halfway around the world three times before the age of 25. She was born in Indonesia, where her Dutch parents had moved to escape WWI. She was later left in an orphanage in Amsterdam when her parents divorced and her mother was unfit to care for her. Her father returned for her when she was eleven and she embarked on a two month steamship voyage to Shanghai, China. As a young woman in Shanghai she was imprisoned at the Chapei Japanese internment camp for two years during WWII, and after liberation she worked for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration as a typist. She met and married a young American Army Air Force pilot and immigrated to America in 1947. She passed away in Kansas on October 18, 2011 at the age of 89. She is remembered by five children, ten grandchildren, and six great grandchildren.

Although Hennie lived an incredible life, many never knew her full story, not even her closest friends and family. Like many others of the "Greatest Generation," she spoke rarely of her young life and early troubles. She avoided stories of war and conflict, and she focused on the present rather than the past. But hers is an incredible story, the story of an ordinary person swept up by extraordinary events in the great machine of history. It is a story to be remembered. This is her story.