Ode to Anna Grimmon | Dear A.G.

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Every night at table setting, I make a choice. Do I take the fork that is worn down like a moon, the middle two teeth still the same length as when they were made but the outer two a lot smaller, or do I choose the other one, where the wear from right to left draws a descending line? On the first one, a tooth was once broken off. You can see the dot of metal that stuck it back to the fork. The second has a funny little squiggle.

They are the forks my parents ate with. “The silver cutlery,” as we called it, two forks and two spoons. The knives they used simply came from the Hema. On the back of the fork with the chipped tooth it says J.M.J., - Johannes Martinus Jansen. On the other, the one with the twist, it says A.G. 

I know that you, A.G., are my grandmother. I don't know anything else about you, I was born too late for that. Were you there when the tooth broke off the fork I eat with now and did you make sure it was fixed? I don't even know your first name. If you ever came up you were called “Grandma Jansen. It's pretty crazy that I can't imagine you, especially since you were also indispensable to our city.

This is what I found about you.

Facts : You, dear A.G., were born in 1887 in Korte Korsjespoortsteeg (amazing to pronounce). Your parents gave you a sound name and that is what I am going to call you from now on:  

Anna Adriana Maria Antonia Grimmon 

When you first raised your eyes, your parents saw one big pair of binoculars that looked at the world with a bright bik. Your left eye didn't want to open all the way. Your mother had “no occupation,” meaning she did a tremendous amount of work around the house and no doubt outside for a living. Your father worked at a tobacco company as a warehouse boy, which would now be something like “inventory and quality control clerk. Apparently, you didn't have to work at a young age as a girl-for-day-and-night, because according to the population register, you didn't leave home until you were 25. You moved in with a family on Nassaukade as a housekeeper. There was not much other work for women. From now on you belonged to the parish of the Catholic Church De Liefde. I hope that your closed eye, which opened less and less, did not bother you too much. 

Memories

From here I am going to add stories I have heard from your son, my father, and from your grandchildren. There aren't many, and I find that strange. Just because you couldn't see everything at a glance doesn't mean others couldn't see you, does it?

The treasurer of De Liefde, Mr. Jansen, was seen. During the week he was master servant (manager) at a cooperage on Bloemgracht. A charming man with authority. At mass, a place was always kept for him in the front row. As well as for Maria Theresia Ammerlaan who was married to him. But in 1916 she died suddenly of tuberculosis. It seems that the eldest daughter Plonie took over the household for father and the two younger brothers. Until six months later she too was seized by the tuberculosis.

The family was decapitated. Father and the boys were left lost.  

This is where, according to the stories, the pastor comes in. A family could not go a day without a woman. So how did you get food? Who took care of clean, mended clothes? You, Anna Adriana Maria Antonia Grimmon, were a woman. Moreover, you were a housekeeper. I think you first came to help in the house during the day for a few months. Until the pastor suggested you and Mr. Jansen get married. Why not? You were already thirty, and with that squinted eye, your chances on the marriage market were slim. You needed each other.

Did you hesitate or were you honored? Marrying your employer seemed like quite a step. That you had to call Mr. Jan from now on. That you would lie in bed next to him, and all the unknown that had to take place there then. He was also approaching fifty. But the boys of 16 and almost 12 needed a mother. Besides: a home of your own, a place where you were not a guest but built your own life and, who knows, had children of your own, that was also attractive. Sir promised you help from a seamstress, with that one eye such fiddling was complicated. There was really no reason to say no. And so in 1917 you became Mrs. Jansen-Grimmon and henceforth walked beside him into the church, to that place in the front row. 

Barely two years later, you gave birth to a baby boy. Still in the hormonal rush of happiness, the doctor had an unpleasant message. Bearing and giving birth had been so difficult that you should not be allowed to become pregnant again. A Catholic doctor did not say such a thing lightly. Who knew that the purpose of holy marriage was to produce Catholic souls. And that a man was not allowed to satisfy the needs he had in any other way than with his wife.

I don't know who made the decision to ignore this advice. Was it you yourself, or could Jan not restrain himself? In any case, year after year you gave birth to yet another child. Six in all, including one girl. I'm glad you survived it all. In between, your father died, you took care of your mother and your very elderly mother-in-law moved in until she breathed her last - three days before you gave birth to my father. Just, the life of a woman.

I think you considered the house seamstress who did the sewing and mending with you a friend. 

You lived as befitted a good Catholic woman. You gave up three boys to the church. When they were 12, they left for a boarding school to become clergymen. Although one eventually dropped out, you lost them. When your only daughter came of age, she also decided to devote herself to the faith. As proud as you may have felt, this was an even harder loss. A convent nun never returned home, she was only allowed family visits when her parents were dying.

I think there are few stories about you because you didn't do things that demanded attention. You did not perform heroic deeds, like your husband receiving two silver forks and spoons with initials when he worked at the cooperage for 25 years, and a ribbon in his 50th year as parish treasurer. You did the work that really mattered. That was so necessary and obvious that it went unnoticed - like no one talks about oxygen, when we can't live without it. 

The people who knew you called you, first of all, gentle and loving. Not strict at all. You provided sociability. On Friday evenings you sat with your children fanatically playing pando (that card game is barely played now). You had a special tea table in your cramped house with a beautiful service of wafer-thin porcelain. When your granddaughter visited as a toddler, you would take her to the bakery across the street to pick out a petit fourtje. Then you made tea and gave her your prettiest cup. You didn't keep her away from your precious things, no, you wanted to enjoy them together.

But I also hear about you a trait that worries me. You were “docile. Your children noticed that your husband looked down on you because you were “just” a housekeeper. He got along better with the seamstress, actually a little too well. You saw it, and tolerated it. What else could you do? Once, when your grief about that became too great, you confided in your adult son. It stopped there. 

Photos

I'm glad you posed on special occasions and that I found those images, because dear Anna Adriana Maria Antonia Grimmon, now I can look at you. It's about time. I see a beautiful woman who usually turns away from the camera with her left eye. Was that your choice or did the photographers think it was something to hide? In one portrait your eye is even retouched. What else strikes me: you are always beautifully dressed. Stylish dresses and blouses with beautiful jewelry. You wear them with flair, no matter how modest you look. You knew how to dress, you had taste.

As you get older, I see your self-confidence growing. When there is something to celebrate with your children, you stand beside Jan beaming, like a happy woman. I also see the loving look with which you support your older husband, despite everything. 

But the most beautiful picture is not posed. You are at home. You are wearing a dress with a matching jacket held together with brooch. Your hair put up, as really always. Was it your birthday? What matters to me is that you are smiling exuberantly in an armchair. Not just any chair, but Jan's chair. No child dared to sit in it. But I see you sitting there like a queen on a throne, at home in your own house, enjoying yourself. I think: you did take up space. Thank God.

Dear Anna Adriana Maria Antonia Grimmon, you brought forth six Amsterdammers, gave at least ten of them a loving home (and food and clothing and hygiene), you took care of a few when they died. In fact, you ran the city - with all those other women. And that was not at all invisible. The streets filled with women lugging groceries, children and the elderly, with cleaning cloths, mat beaters and coal. Everyone saw it, only no one bothered to remember.  

That's why I'm looking at you now. Because without you, Amsterdam wasn't Amsterdam.  

And from now on I'll choose that fork with the twist more often.

Your youngest granddaughter

Suzanna Jansen is a writer and storyteller. She wrote among others Het pauperparadijs, De omwenteling of de eeuw van de vrouw and Ondanks de zwaartekracht, books in which Amsterdam women play a prominent role. www.suzannajansen.nl