Johanna van de Kamp celebrated her 104th birthday with friends and family at The Salty Dog Hotel on Sunday, August 17.
Daughter Gerda was surprised at the Kingborough Chronicle editor’s excitement at the news, saying the family were quite ‘nonchalant’ about her mother’s age.
Johanna was born in Zuidwolde, a small village in the north-east of the Netherlands, on August 18, 1921.
“When she was born there was no electricity in her village, just oil lamps,” Gerda said.
“No cars, apart from the vet and local mayor.
“The farmers had a horse and cart.
“She remembers the power coming on in her village when she was about six or seven.
“It was so amazing, people couldn’t believe how bright it was.”
Johanna left Zuidwolde when she was 20 and met her soon-to-be husband John in 1941, during the Second World War.
John was deported to Germany to work in labour camps but luckily survived.
The pair kept up a correspondence throughout the war and after John returned in about May 1945 they married that same year in October.
Johanna, John and their three children, Gerda, Gerie and Peter, left the Netherlands for Tasmania in 1957, after Johanna had a painful attack of sciatica and her doctor recommended she move to a warmer climate.
The family embarked on a six-week boat trip to a new country.
Gerda, the eldest, was aged nine at the time of this voyage, her sister Gerie aged eight and Peter was five.
“We ended up in a little shack in Wells Parade, Blackmans Bay,” Gerda shared.
“We’ve come full circle because now my mother lives in Hawthorn Village, also on Wells Parade.”
It was tough going to begin with, as the family had very little money, their shack had no bathroom, the toilet was outside and they only had one cold water tap.
“It was very basic,” Gerda recalled.
“Wind would whistle through the vertical boards.”
After two years the family moved to a house in Kingston Heights, where Johanna has remained until very recently.
In early February this year Johanna moved into Hawthorn Village where she has thrived under the company of staff and other residents.
She enjoys the variety of activities provided at Hawthorn Village, including crafts, cooking, exercise, music and especially the upcoming gardening sessions as the weather warms, as she always loved working in her own garden.
Gerda attributes Johanna’s longevity to her active lifestyle.
“Mother worked very hard all her life,” Gerda said.
Johanna left school at around 13 or 14 to go into domestic service.
Girls at the time were not expected to continue at school, and Johanna was quite happy to start working.
She attended a domestic science school for two years in the neighbouring town that was 10 kilometres away.
Johanna and the other girls would cycle there twice a week at night after work.
“She said in winter when it rained it was sometimes quite tough,” Gerda shared.
“There were no street lights on the stretch of road between the village and the town, and the rain would extinguish the carbide headlamps on their bikes.
“It could be unbelievably dark and very difficult to see, but luckily no accidents ever happened.”
Johanna relied on her own two legs for transportation most of her life, only learning to drive at the age of 55 when her husband was having health problems.
“Up until that time she was walking everywhere, catching buses to do people’s housework,” Gerda said.
“It hard work and I think it’s made her really healthy and strong.
“It’s just incredible what she’s moved through in her life, going from a village with no electricity to taking a 30-hour flight to see family in 1971 to being brave enough to get her licence at the age of 55.
“The international flight wasn’t even thought of in her younger years!”
Gerda said family has always been Johanna’s priority, and she looks forward to and loves the family visits of her now quite large family of three children, seven grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
