Java 1915-1924

[Official tourism map of Java, 1923.]

Aartje Bruins and her 18-year-old daughter Geertruida Bruins arrived in Java c. 1913. It is not known why they relocated to Java at this time. Around 1914 or 1915, unmarried Geertruida became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter Mientje (possibly Hermine). Later, she again became pregnant and gave birth to another daughter Antje (or Aartje or Aaltje, nicknames for Adelheid). The identity of the father(s) is unknown.

[Photograph of Hennie's mother Geertruida c. 1911, age 16]

Later, Geertruida met Jan Louis Cornelis II van Senden. He had likely arrived in Java with his family c. 1914/1915. A photograph depicting the van Senden siblings sitting on the front stoop of their house in Java was taken on May 23, 1915. Hennie's aunt, Hermine, is pregnant in the photo, and she gave birth two months later in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) to her eldest daughter, Hermine Theodora (Hennie’s cousin Mientje). The back of the photograph is captioned “Weltevreden" which was the name of a European suburb located 10km south of Batavia, Java.

[Photograph of van Senden siblings, 1915. Photograph of Hennie's father Jan Louis Cornelis II taken in 1917 in Batavia, age 25]

Life in Java was very different from what the siblings had known in Holland. Travel guides from the time describe Java in exotic, otherworldly tones, although the island and its major cities were also bustling centers of European trade and commerce. The captial Batavia was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1619 to coordinate its spice trade. Following the collapse and liquidation of the Dutch East India Company c. 1800, Batavia underwent a period of decline followed by a resurgence in the the early 20th century. Rare vintage footage from the 1910s (below) captures daily life on the streets of Batavia and shows the new world to which Hennie's parents had come.

It is not certain why the van Senden family left Holland in the mid-1910s, but it was likely motivated by a desire to escape WWI. They may have gone to Java because a second cousin named Christiaan II van Senden had already established himself there as the director of a cultivation company near Batavia.

[Maps of Batavia and Weltevreden, Buitenzorg, and Soerabaja, all cities in Java where Hennie's family lived.]

Christiaan II was the grandson of Gerhard van Senden, Herman Christoffel’s older brother. Gerhard had had an unhappy marriage to a woman named Geetruida Cornelia van Klaven and they divorced after two children (Christiaan I and Corenlia Elisabeth) and only four years of marriage. Gerhard, a shopkeeper turned sailor, died at Leghorn, Italy later that year in 1856. His son, Christiaan I, grew up to be a successful bookkeeper and stockbroker in Amsterdam. It may have been through these connections that his son, Christiaan II (born October 28, 1881) obtained his post in Java. On April 26, 1912, Christiaan II married Irene Gerardine Stephanie van Kappen of Semarang (East Java) in Djombang, near Batavia in West Java. Their two oldest daughters, Johanna Adriana Susanna and Camille Christiane, were also born in Djombang in 1913 and 1914, respectively.

That WWI was a major motivating factor for the family’s move to Java is also evidenced by the fact that Hermine Agatha and Theodorus Appels returned to the Netherlands immediately after the war, and Hermine gave birth to her second child, Theodor Lodewyk Jan (Hennie’s cousin Theo) in 1919 in the Hague. She later gave birth to Hennie's cousins Maurius and Johanna ("Hannie") in 1920 and 1929, respectively. Their second cousin, Christiaan II and his wife also returned to the Netherlands, and their third daughter, Elize Johanna Adriana, was born in Hilversum on September 15, 1920. Hennie's paternal grandparents, Jan Louis Cornelis I and Hendrina Johanna, also likely returned to the Netherlands at this time, but their sons, Jan Cornelis II (Hennie's father) and Herminus Johann ("Uncle Jo"), remained behind in Java.

On February 2, 1920, Hennie's parents, Jan Louis Cornelis II and Geertruida Johanna Bruijns, married in Buitenzorg, a town in western Java renowned for its botanical gardens. On December 4, 1920, Jan Louis Cornelis III ("Uncle Johnny") was born in Buitenzorg.

[Copy of Uncle Johnny's birth certificate that was reissued in 1940, perhaps in association with joining military service; translation.]

In 1921, the family moved to the town of Soerabaja in eastern Java. On May 9, 1922, Hendrina Geertruida Johanna (Hennie) was born in Soerabaja.

[Interview clip of Hennie recalling where and when she was born (with a little help from her husband, Bob).]

A picture taken in Batavia dated August 1923 is the earliest photo of Hennie and Jan. Hennie is 15 months old and Jan is 2½. A second photo of Hennie standing against a chair and holding a bear was probably taken a few months later.

[Photograph of Hennie and Jan taken in Batavia, Java, August 1923. Photograph of Hennie in Batavia, Java, in the fall of 1923.]

[Vintage footage of life in Java c. 1929. In the film, you can see the ocean steamships that transported Dutch citizens to and from Java.]

In April 1923, when Hennie was less than a year old, Geertruida became pregnant with Johanna Paulina ("Jopie"). Although on official records Jan is listed as the father, Jopie was said to be the product of an affair between Hennie's mother Geertruida and Herminus Johan ("Uncle Jo") van Senden.

In late 1923, Hennie, her brother, and her pregnant mother, her father, and Uncle Jo left Java and traveled together to Shanghai, a distance of 2,825 nautical miles. Mientje may have accompanied them on this voyage, but no photographs document her presence. Aantje was adopted by a spinster in Java and remained behind. While in Shanghai, Hennie and Jan visited Jessfield Park (today called Zhongshan Park, 中山公园), located in the Shanghai’s Changning district. Jessfield Park was established as a public park in 1914 and was the largest foreign-owned (British) park. They also visited the “Lung Wha” [Longhua] Temple, Shanghai’s oldest and most complete Buddhist temple complex. In one photograph, they are accompanied by an Amah, or Chinese nanny. The dates on the photographs (which have been rewritten) state that Henny is 2 years old, suggesting that it is May 1924, but the photograph more likely dates to late 1923, probably during Shanghai's mild weather months of October or November. Unable to reconcile over the new pregnancy, Geertruida and Jan II separated at this time. It is not known how long Geertruida and her children stayed in Shanghai, but it was likely no more than a few days.

[Photographs of the family's trip to Shanghai, China in 1924 on the way to the Netherlands. Pictured in the photographs are Jan (age 3), Hennie (almost age 2), their father (age 32), their mother (age 29), and a Chinese amah (nanny). Note that Geetruida is pregnant with Jopie in the photographs. The photographs were taken at Shanghai's Jessfield Park (Zhongshan Park, 中山公园) and Longhua Temple, Shanghai's oldest and most complete Buddhist temple complex. A photograph of the Longhua Temple as it appears today is provided for comparison.]

[Interview clip in which Hennie recalls the breakup of her family and her subsequent journey from Java to Holland via Shanghai.]

After the separation, Hennie's father moved to Tientsin (today Tianjin 天津), a European-controlled trading port near Beijing. Geetruida and Uncle Jo took the children back to the Netherlands. If they traveled on a commercial passenger steamship line, the journey likely lasted 5-6 weeks. They likely traveled on the Java-China-Japan Lijn, which provided direct service between Batavia and Shanghai via Manila, followed by connection services on Dutch mail-carrying ships to the Netherlands. The distance between Shanghai and Rotterdam was 10,746 nautical miles.

[Postcard of the Tientsin German Concession, where Hennie's father moved after his separation from Geetruida. Tjileboet, a Dutch merchant ship in the Java-China-Japan Lijn that transported passengers from Batavia to China to the Netherlands from 1918 until its sinking during WWII.]

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