Europe 2012- Day 72: Zeeland

The four day work week flew by quickly, and it was time to decide how to fill our Saturday. Since I’m unable to extend my trip by 2-3 weeks like Nate did, I’m running out of weekends. One thing I’ve wanted/planned on doing on this trip was visiting the towns in Holland that my Dutch ancestors were from.

My unt Vicki got me into researching genealogy, and it can really be addicting. Prior to the end of 2010 I had never been interested, but with my grandma passing that year Vicki wanted me to help make a family photo genealogy book since we had lots of pictures covering many generations. When I learned that we had family from Holland I was interested, as I had just been there that summer. We really knew nothing about them, names or where they came from, only that we had roots there.

I made it a goal of mine to see what more I could find, and with the help of my Great Aunt Gerry, and different websites I was able to track down some information. Since I’ve been in Holland I’ve been able to confirm the information I found with Dutch records, which is really exciting.

In the province of Zeeland there are two towns I wanted to visit. ‘s Gravenpolder which is where they were from, and Kapelle which is only 6 miles away, the town where both sets of my 4^th great grandparents were married.

Doing some research on churches in Kapelle I found that there is one main church, and it’s been there since around 1200. Well not the whole church is that old: foundations from the 12^th century, the south choir from around 1320, and the south door and enclosed porch area from 1650.

Since this church is so old it would have been there when my ancestors lived here, and since it was probably the only church around when my ancestors were married, that was most likely the location.

About a half hour into our 1-1/2 hour drive the freeway was closed, but we took the exit and headed a different way around. That took us north several miles before we were able to cut over on a different freeway. This gave us an extra half hour of 'scenic route'.

I love the yellow, orange, and green fall colors still in Eindhoven.

I guess Calvin doesn't like these European brands either.

A sea of green houses.

The narrow streets of Kapelle.

Since Kapelle is the larger of the two towns, I decided we should go there for lunch, as they would have more choices. We found the church and some parking nearby, but decided to find lunch first. There were about 4 restaurants in the general area and we decided to try the larger looking one which must have been attached to a hotel as it was called “Hotel de Zwaan.” When we walked in it smelled like cigarettes and there were people smoking at the bar. We decided to try it as the other options didn’t look any better.

I had a sandwich and Nate had an omelet. The food wasn’t actually bad, but we ate quickly to get out of that smoke.

Anna Maria Geertruida Schmidt was born in Kapelle, NL. She became known as one of the best children book authors in the Netherlands

When we left we walked around the church before trying to go in. We couldn’t tell how to open the door, which was frustrating since we could tell there were people inside, because we could hear them. As we slowly walked away a lady road up on a bike, and we watched her to see how she got inside.

On the door was a metal circle handle. To open you had to pull it towards you and then turn the handle and push the door open. Since we now knew how to open the door we figured we would try venture inside, and they would kick us out if they didn’t want us there.

The door opened up into a foyer, probably the part that was added in the 1650’s. There was a really cool looking wooden spiral staircase in the corner and another door that opened into a little reception area. The lady who we saw enter was now leaving and we asked her if she thought it would be okay if we took a quick look around. She told us that there were some kids rehearsing a play inside, but she thought it would be okay.

As we went into the sanctuary another lady approached us, and so I asked her if it was okay to look around. She said it was okay if we were quick and quiet. So we hurried though and took some pictures. On our way out they gave us a handout on the church that was in English.

The north choir

The south choir.

An interesting thing about the bells in the church: three of the bells are from 1527. During WWII, when the Germans occupied the area, they took down the bells to be melted down and used in the war. The ship that was transporting the bells sank in Dutch waters and they never reached Germany. After the war in 1946 the ship was salvaged and the bells which were unharmed were returned to Kapelle.

Every Sunday 300-400 people attend church there.

Next we made the short 6 mile journey south to ‘s Gravenpolder. There was also a church here, but it was much smaller. It wasn't open so we didn’t get to see the inside of it.

The church in 's Gravenpolder, NL

We walked around and ventured over to a windmill. As it looked like someone’s home we didn’t go down the driveway though. Looking it up at home I see that it is open to the public. Built in 1876, it wouldn’t have been around until after my family had already left the area.

I think this is a mail drop box.

On our walk back to the car we saw a graveyard, and decided to take a quick stroll through it. I didn’t figure I would find the graves of any past relatives as I had read that in Holland, as well as other European countries, graves are rented for a period of time. After that time period the bodies are taken up and put in a mass grave, and the plot is rented to someone new. 

I've found lots of trees where the branches are trained to grow like this.

This guy must have been a farmer.

I've never seen a tractor pull out before.

After our stroll through the graveyard we headed home. I wanted to hit up the larger grocery store, and we needed to make our plans for our upcoming trip to Rome.

Maybe not our most exciting trip, but it was still really interesting, at least for me.