HENDRIKA & WILLEM
When Hendrika, the second eldest of 11 children, emigrated to Canada from Holland in 1959 with her family, she didn’t know that Willem, a young Dutch engineer had also arrived in Toronto at almost the same time.
But it wasn’t long after, when they had all settled in, that her father, Ben, met Willem at a Dutch Roman Catholic Church gathering for limited English speakers. Realizing Willem was on his own in Canada, Ben invited him home to join his Sunday family dinner.
What Ben hadn’t mentioned, though, was that he had four sons and seven daughters around the table! At the time, Hendrika, the oldest girl, was 16 and Willem was 22. After two years of weekly dinners and numerous family occasions that gave them plenty of time to get to know each other, Willem and Hendrika began a courtship when she turned 18.
“He was someone that I felt I could trust,” Hendrika recalls, “so we dated for two years and then we married when I was 20.”
Willem, who had met and grown to know all seven sisters of the family, always knew it was Hendrika that he would wait for. She remembers him saying early in their relationship that he hoped they would have a few children and a long life together.
Fifty-six years later, the couple, with their grown sons, a daughter-in-law and two teenage granddaughters, now all call Victoria home, while the rest of Hendrika’s large family remain in Ontario.
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