The diaries of Doeke Wijgers Hellema are being made available online by the Historisch Centrum Leeuwarden which holds the archives of Leeuwarden, the capital of the province of Friesland. In addition Jeroen van den Brink has transcribed some of the entries that relate to his ancestors.[1] Despite his busy life, Hellema was able to record his daily activities from age 55 to 90. It comprises 13 manuscript volumes totalling about 200 pages.
Doeke Wijgers Hellema was the father-in-law of Hette Pieters Hettema. He was born 3 April 1766 in Wanswerd. Trained as a teacher in Grouw, he became a public school teacher at the age of 16. Later he moved to Wirdum where he was appointed a tax collector, lived in the state house there (Barahuis), and became quite wealthy. At this time he gave up teaching and took up farming. He was also church warden of the Dutch Reformed congregation in Wirdum, became a member of the Friesian Society (Friesch Genootschap), and was one of the founders of the Mutual Fire Insurance Company (O.B.A.S.).
The diaries are a valuable record of life in the province of Friesland during much of the nineteenth century. They show ways of daily life in the agricultural community there, the modes of transportation in a place where water-borne traffic was at least as prevalent as land-borne, and cultural preoccupations of a devoutly Calvinist people.
Here are some rough paraphrased translations from them.
Compulsory vaccination[2]
December 1828
My daughter and son-in-law[3] in Deerzum refused to have their children given the required vaccination [against smallpox]. They simply did not comply with the regulations.[4] As lease holders of a farm they were finally forced to choose between vaccination and moving away.
My son-in-law complained to me that it was unjust to force him to comply. [Note: Doekes uses "brother" instead of "son"; since this is confusing "son" is used in this summary.] I was very surprised at his attitude. He was outraged. I told him he was bound by law and if he insisted on refusing vaccination he had God to fear as much as his fellow man. He decided to move from his leased farm to another property if he could. And we found one that suited him, a beautiful place available for 120 pounds [presumably these are British pounds sterling]. The lease was auctioned at Hallum and my son-in-law was assigned the place. The Lord reigns.
Death of Hettema's wife
During the last months of 1835, Hette Pieter Hettema's wife, Grietje Doekes Hellema, died after a long an painful illness. She was one of the daughters of the diary's author. Doeke Wijgers Hellema summed up his feelings in the first entry for the new year:
1836
January 2
The blessings of prosperity, health and welfare were mine during most of the year. And then in the last two months our hearts torn apart first by the death of the infant of one of my daughters and then, a much deeper wound, by the death of my other daughter, wife of Hette Pieters Hettema, living at Hallumermieden. Though my grief may lessen in time it will never be forgotten.
As the new year begins I wonder what will befall us. None can know whether I and my family will again be blessed with prosperity, health, and welfare or meet with misfortune, diseases, disasters, or the deaths of ones we love. We must keep in mind the importance of the teaching that we learn to die before we die.
A Trip to Amsterdam
1840
November 18
Past Monday my son, W. Hellema along with my son-in-law, H. Hettema and Dos. Posthumus and Dos. de Haan departed for Amsterdam as delegates of the secessionists of this province. Four delegates from each province are to meet there to nominate representatives who are to bring the secessionist requests before the government.
Hette Pieters Hettema gets smallpox
1841
November 13
Smallpox has ravaged the states of Netherlands for years. The disease has now come to the region around Hallum and my son-in-law, H. P. Hettema, who was formerly married to one of my daughters, has been infected. He suffered for 14 days, but recovered somewhat yesterday. Although still confined to bed, there is hope that he will fully recover. He remains in the same place he was in when married to my daughter. His current wife and all his children remain healthy.
Hettema moves to Beetgum
1843
January 14
Some years ago my son-in-law H. Hettema of Hallumermieden obtained a lease on a new place to farm after staying 14 years in the old one. The new rent amounted to 120 pounds per year and was the same size as the place he used to rent. Located in Beetgum, the quality of the farm was excellent. He was required to leave the old one because the owner decided to farm it himself.
I guaranteed the loan he used to obtain the lease and I suffered with him as he tried to earn a profit on the new place. During that time he lost his wife, my daughter, but with hard work overcame considerable adversity and has, in recent years, earned enough to pay off his debts. He also remarried and now has two more children in the family, adding to the six he had with his first wife, my daughter.[5]
August 31
Akke and Lykle rode to Beetgum with me yesterday along with my son-in-law Pieter Hiemstra to see the crop farmer Hettema and he made us very welcome.[6] He does much better now than he did formerly at Hallumermieden. He has lots of equipment, plows, harrows, sowing etc. and grows grain to supply the brewery. It took him a while to turn the place around since the previous tenant had let it run down. The location on the southern corner is a good one. He has borrowed 700 Gld. to improve the barn and improve the property.
Accident on the Sneekermeer
1846
September 26
The day before yesterday, the 24th at ll, a strong wind caused an unfortunate accident on the Sneekermeer. The schoolmaster at Terzool, an aged man, married to a sister of my son-in-law H. Hettema, was turned over in a double boat while going to the Jousting Fair.[7] He fell into the depths of the meer and drowned. The skipper of a boat passing nearby was able to seize the old man and bring him aboard but could not revive him. I was especially struck by this story since Oosterhoff is a friend whom I had often seen at my son-in-law's house. I had in fact been with him quite recently in Leeuwarden. He was a modest, fanciful and pleasant man. His son and son-in-law, who were traveling with him, also drowned. This terrible news was a severe blow to the wife of Master Oosterhoof (as he was known), his daughter and his daughter-in-law., all three of whom were plunged into deep mourning. And it was a blow likewise to the small children of these men along with all the family's relatives and relations.
October 3
There was one survivor of yesterday's sailing tragedy on the meer. He is a married son of Master Oosterhoof. The survivor, Pieter Oosterhoff, was holding to part of the wrecked boat while tossed about on the waves often being thrown under and then emerging again. He did not lose consciousness throughout the night-long ordeal and finally was brought close to shore by the wind and was able to wade onto the bank. As the dawn approached he saw that he was on a spit of land and was then able to wade through reeds and rushes to dry land at Groene Dijk. There he found a familiar house which was home to a poor family. They warmed him and gave him dry clothes. We eventually learned of his miraculous salvation and he was eventually able to return home to Terzool. Everyone who hears the story and sees him safe and sound is delighted and astonished at his salvation and all believe the good hand of God has preserved him. While happy to be home, Pieter Oosterhoff was also greatly saddened at the loss of his father and brother-in-law. The family had thought Pieter dead but although they rejoiced in his safe return, they continued to mourn, particularly the two widows, the younger one of whom is pregnant.
We all thought that Pieter Oosterhoff was dead. I continually prayed that he would be saved. I prayed as well for his father but to no avail. He was a man blessed with a wonderful peace of mind. The school is shut with its master dead.
October 10
Yesterday I was over there [presumably Rauwerd] to receive my money [presumably as tax collector]. H. Oosterhoff, agent to Rauwerd, son of the recently drowned master Oosterhoff 64 years old, lives in that place.[9] While I was there, his brother, P. Oosterhoff, arrived to smoke a pipe and chat with us. He was fresh and healthy. I saw in him the tragedy of his ordeal on the meer — 5 hours on the stormy lake, tumbled continually by wind and waves, and then washed ashore to lay in an open field until the morning light arrived!
I was too overcome by emotion to join in the conversation and talk with him about his miraculous salvation. But on leaving I gave him my hand and wished him blessings and prosperity.
0, how is the hand of the Lord made visible in his work! 0, lucky me and mine, thrice happy, if we in the hand of the Almighty may be held! Although the old schoolmaster, called Wabe, was drowned, he came close to being saved by a skipper of a vessel who attempted to rescue him. The skipper battled fiercely with the waves and broken boat to which old Wabe clung and gave up only after there was no longer any hope.
The son, H. Oosterhoff, told me that his mother and his sister, both recently made widows by the storm, were bearing their grief well and thank God for the blessings they enjoy in the family that survives.
Some sources: Local history and genealogy of Ferwerderadeel De dagboeken van Doeke Wijgers Hellema (1766-1856) on Archives of Leeuwarden, capital of the province of friesland Family Quarrels in the Dutch Reformed Immigrant Churches in the Nineteenth Century -----------
Notes:
[1] The diaries have been published as Kroniek van een Friese Boer (T. Weaver, Franeker, NL, 1980) and that was Jeroen van den Brink's source for the extracts he presented. These can be found at: Doeke Hellema: Kroniek van een Friese Boer. His genealogical web page can be found at: http://members.home.nl/jeroen.vd.brink/.
[2] Compulsory vaccinations for school children had begun under a Napoleonic law of 1807. Children had to be vaccinated or they would not be admitted to any public school. There was no requirement for adult vaccination. This is Jeroen van den Brink's note: "This piece is about Hette Hettema's religious objections to mandatory vaccination. Hette Hettema was quite conservative in doctrine. You can read his own book 'Remembrance and life experiences,' posthumously published in 1883. The book is quite short - what a bigot :-)." [The book is Nagedachtenis en levenservaringen, beschreven door wijlen Hettema, H. P. (118p, Leeuwarden: A. Jongbloed, 1883) — Memoir and Life Story of the Late H.P. Hettema]
[3] Hellema used the term zwager, which suggests that he thought of his Hettema as more of a brother than a son-in-law.
[4] Van den Brink explains that the owner of the land pressured Hettema to comply with regulations regarding smallpox innoculation, but Hettema refused. The landlord was Tjalling Aedo Johan Eysinga - from 1816 to 1830 grietman of Rauwerdehem.
[5] The second wife of Hette Pieters Hettema was Taetske Anskes Fortuin, with whom he was married in 1839, 4 years after the death of Grietje Doekes Hellema.
[6] Akke and Lykle were two of Hellema's children. Pieter Hiemstra had married Hellema's daughter, Dieuwke Doekes Hellema.
[7] H. P. Hettema's sister, Pietje Pieters, was married to Johannes Hendricks Oosterhoof, Headmaster of Terzool.
[8] This is probably Pieter Johannes Oosterhoff (1812-1878), married Lysbert Sijtses Dotinga (born 1822).
[9] H. Oosteroff is Hendrik Johannes Oosteroof, born 1809.