Ode to Antje Schreuder | Dear Antje Schreuder

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I discovered your existence by chance when I visited De Nieuwe Ooster cemetery with friends. There I saw your grave with a sign next to it saying who you were: a passionate and dedicated scientist specializing in paleontology. You were regarded in Europe as an authority on quaternary bone material. In the picture on that sign, I see a cheerfully smiling woman wearing a funny hat. I immediately became curious, who were you?

Back home I search in vain on Wikipedia and I see that you do not appear in the female history books of Els Kloek (1001 Women) either.

So you are a totally forgotten woman. And apparently on that sign, someone who had great significance in the study of fossil remains.

This made me even more curious about you and I started snooping in archives.

Your were born on November 15, 1887 on Nassaukade number 5 in Amsterdam. Your father was Jan Casper Schreuder, wood merchant and your mother Antje IJserinkhuijsen. You were their second child. Fortunately, I find a biography. Fifty years after your death on February 2, 1952, Minke E. van Det and Lars van den Hoek Ostende wrote about you.

As a result, I know that you attended the girls' high school and started studying when you were 23 years old. For this you probably had to take exams at grammar school level.

You study at the University of Amsterdam and you chose biology ( Plant and Zoology). You´re being taught by Hugo de Vries ( Botany), Max Weber (Zoology) and Eugene Dubois (Geology, Paleontology Mineralism and Crystallogy), among others.

When Professor Dubois is looking for a student to do tedious chores for him, Hugo de Vries mentions your name. And you take on this annoyingly long-winded task. Dubois was so pleased that he immediately asks you to become his assistant, which of course you immediately accepted. You take over many tedious tasks from him. Praise is written about you. You are agile, competent, you work with great pleasure, accurate and you have a good observation ability. Moreover, you are also highly appreciated by the students.

You obtain your doctorate in 1923 and on June 19, 1928, you defend your dissertation “Knowledge of conondontes and trogontherium. It is about similarities between giant beavers.

You looked at many fossils, measured, noted and drew conclusions.

You are the first to discover that felines lived in Tegelen, Belgium. After your death, a paleontologist named it after you: Panthera-Schreuderi. But unfortunately a later paleontologist discovers that it is synonymous with Panthera-Gomboszougennis. The earlier naming after you is therefore withdrawn.

Antje Schreuder, you were a scientist in a predominantly male world. You were honored by many European colleagues. You were a pioneer upon which others built. I don't want you to be a forgotten woman.

And you won't be!

Maria Dubbeldam