Cheers on Thursday October 17, 1940 when Marie gave birth to Johanna Geertruida Elizabeth Maria (Joke) at home with the help of midwife Sister van Roekel, who lived a few streets up in the neighbourhood.
We were often boarded-out for a week or two with the family, sometimes just a day, to ease the burden on Mum during her pregnancy. After Joke, Mum had a mis carriage once and later on she was unfortunate again, when the baby died in her womb.
Mum had to stay in bed for a week or so, until the little girl was still born.
Apparently the baby was put in a cardboard box, lined with a towel. One end of the box was cut open, revealing little legs sticking out, because the box was a bit too small.
Jacqueline, barely 10, remembered the scene so well and tells us how depressed she felt that time, seeing her tiny sister lying in that box, slightly damp at the edges.
The dead baby was laid to rest in a cupboard underneath the shop window, awaiting the arrival of the undertaker. They duly arrived with a small white coffin.
We don’t know if the little one was baptised. What we knew from the Church’s teachings that time, if a baby died before it was baptised, it would not go to heaven but to ‘het voorgeborchte’, limbo.