Klaas Woldring
Subtitle:
Klaas Woldring
Klaas was born in Groningen and his wife Aafke in Utrecht but she moved soon after birth to a farm in Munnekezijl near Groningen on the Friesian border. After meeting each other on his 19th birthday in 1954 they became high school sweethearts – not knowing at the time that their life together would take them to Amsterdam, The Hague, South Africa, Zambia and later Australia.
In 1959, Klaas gained a Diploma in Hotel Management in The Hague and Aafke trained as a registered nurse in Amsterdam later completing her midwifery qualifications in Scheveningen.
Stories : Community
Subtitle:
Richlands, Inala and Suburbs History Group Inc. (RIHG)
Richlands, Inala and neighbouring suburbs are located in the south-west of Brisbane, Queensland. The History Group was formed in 1996, incorporated in 2000, and has become a force in the local area. Our objective is to further the appreciation of our history and diverse cultural heritage amongst our local community and the general public. We focus on the areas of Richlands, Inala and the surrounding district – including Wacol, Darra, Durack, Doolandella, Forest Lake, Ellen Grove, Carole Park, Willawong and Pallara.
Stories : Community
Subtitle:
John (Jan) Giezen
John (Jan) Giezen would have to be one of the better known people within the Dutch-Australians veterans community living in Queensland. He has helped ex-veterans and their widows to access compensation and pensions; he established the Netherlands Ex-Servicemen and Women’s Association (NESWA) website, and has worked hard to archive the Dutch contribution to the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) and Australia.
Stories : Community
Subtitle:
The Elwood Dutch Playgroup
Hello and welcome! This is how every meeting of the Elwood Dutch playgroup based in Melbourne, Australia, commences: a warm welcome expressed to all in song. The main objective of the group is to teach the children (ages ranging from 0 – 4) the Dutch language through play, reading sessions, special activities (painting, making of costumes and birthday cards etc.) and a musical programme complete with a work booklet. The group also functions as a support network for bilingual families and recent arrivals from Holland.
Stories : DutchCare and MiCare
Subtitle:
MICARE LTD
MiCare Ltd is the new name of DutchCare Ltd. It stands for Migrant Care as well as “Your and My Care”. It merged with the New Hope Foundation late in 2016 adding migrant settlement services to its portfolio (Source: Linkedin). MiCare Ltd’s Directors’ & CEO:
Ignatius Oostermeyer – Chair of the Board of Directors since 2016.
Petra Neeleman – Executive Director since July 1991
See also: MiCare executive team
Cora Baldock
Subtitle:
Cora Baldock
Cora Baldock was born on 16 December 1935 in Rotterdam, as Corrie Vellekoop, the youngest of three children. Her father, Cornelis Vellekoop, also born in Rotterdam, worked his entire life for the Norwegian Consulate in that city. His job meant that Corrie as a young girl frequently met Norwegian people, who usually communicated in English –providing her with some early fluency in that language.
Stories : Art and Culture
Subtitle:
Marty Rhone
Popular Australian entertainer Marty Rhone began life as Karel van Rhoon in the former Netherlands East Indies. His father Eddy van Rhoon was of mixed Dutch and Chinese heritage and his mother Judith (nee Bagshaw) was fifth generation Australian. Together, they gave Marty a rich and wonderful heritage: he is one-quarter Dutch-Indonesian, one-quarter Chinese, and one-half Australian.
Stories : Art and Culture
Subtitle:
Petrus Spronk
In the beginning: My name is Petrus Spronk, a name which got me introduced once, when I was on tour with my portable ceramic workshop in Ireland, as a one-man Rock & Roll-band. As a result I had a lot to live up to, but being in Ireland I did. When was I born? As if that is important. I was born that is the point. Not delivered by an ooievaar [stork], as my mother once told me. The place I arrived in this world was Haarlem, North Holland, and the time was Ten Minutes to Midday, confirmed by my mother when she could still remember such things.
Stories : Art and Culture
Subtitle:
Mathilde Swift-Nolen
I was born into a colonial family, that has its roots back in the early 1900s. My mother was born in Medan and my grandfather (on my father’s side) was Chief Inspector of Police in Jakarta.
Several members of the family survived the Japanese camps during the Second World War. My parents and my maternal grandparents dodged the bombs successfully in Rotterdam. My father went back to Indonesia on one of the first military ships.
Stories : Art and Culture
Subtitle:
Lolo Houbein
Lolo Houbein, of Aldgate in the Adelaide Hills, came to Australia from The Netherlands with her husband and children in 1958 at the age of 24. She did not speak English, yet eleven years later she matriculated as an adult student and Lolo is now an accomplished and prolific writer in English, with an extensive portfolio and an impressive list of awards and commendations.
Stories : Art and Culture
Subtitle:
Thea Bourne
When I was 4 years old, my parents decided to leave Holland and go to the Dutch East Indies. That was in 1947. My father had a Doctorate in Eastern Linguistics and had better employment opportunities there than in the Netherlands so soon after the War. And so my parents and my sister and I travelled half-way around the world in the hold of the Johan van Oldenbarneveld to a new adventure.
Stories: Art and Culture
Subtitle:
Corrie Ancone
In 1953 my parents and my four siblings migrated to South Australia. We initially spent six very hard months in Glossop, Berri, where we lived in an old workman’s out shed while my father was seeking house and work in Adelaide, while staying with Australian friends he had met in the Second World War. One friend in particular was a former airforce man whose life my father had saved while working in the Dutch underground and this man was delighted to return a favour.
Stories : Business
Subtitle:
Rene De Kok
I was born 22/8/51 in Den Haag, Netherlands, where I studied horticulture being the fifth generation to do so.
After my studies I travelled the world for approx. 6 years. During this period I worked in the offshore oil industry. In 1975 I married Magda van Boheemen. After we were married travelling the world was no longer possible so I went back to horticulture in 1976. Our two children were born in 1978 (boy named Guy) and 1980 ( girl named Esmee)
Stories: Migration
Subtitle:
The Butlers of Wickepin
Records show Dutch were on the first fleet, that the Swan Colony had a Dutch consul as early as 1879 and that Dutch made a living on the land in Queensland in the early part of the 20th century. This tiny portal into the life of Dutch farmers who migrated to Western Australia in 1923 is based on the recollections of Ena and Frances, the two youngest children of Johannes Cornelis Butler, born 1895 at Kapelle, Biezelinge, and his wife Jacoba Mol, who settled on Avon Down farm, Wickepin, some 300 kilometres south-east of Perth, the capital city of Western Australia.
Stories: Migration from the East Indies
Subtitle:
Netherlands East Indies (1939 – 1946)
Internment, resilience and survival: The story of Dirk Drok who helped to uncover the Batavia and a key contributor to Voyage to Disaster, and his wife, well-known painter and ceramicist, Kitty Drok.
