Antoon Bosmans 1892-1938 Did she ring her immediate family that night? The closest was Antoon’s brother Jacques. At daybreak relations arrived to help mum to cope with the situation.
We were all told to be very quiet as father was very sick and I was sent packing off to school, not knowing really what had happened.
Jacqueline however was allowed to stay home from school and she remembered how she was ushered away when the ambulance came late afternoon taking Dad to the hospital. (15 hours after the collapse).
Still able to peek through the door left ajar, she witnessed how difficult it was to steer the stretcher down the narrow and winding staircase.
Tears flowed as she saw her unconscious father tied to the stretcher; being manoeuvred half upside down the stairs. Five-year-old brother Kees, also observing the sad struggle, turned to his big sister (6½) and, in all his innocence said, ‘you are crying’. ‘No, I am NOT’ was Jacqueline’s adamant reply. To this day, I wonder why it took so long, more than 15 hours, for a doctor to decide to hospitalise such serious ill man. That afternoon at 4pm when the school bell rang, to my great surprise my favourite uncle Dirk greeted me at the door.
He took me home, down the forbidden road Onderlangs, where we stopped at the back of the Wolven Alley where Broekhuysen sold delicious ice cream.
Uncle Dirk was not in a hurry as we both enjoyed our tasty lick, while we watched the Rhine barges with its barking dogs, passing us on the fast flowing river.
The long walk home was a delaying tactic, so I wouldn’t be confronted seeing my father carried out the door.