From the Archives, a story from Amsterdam

History is not far away. It does not unfold as told in the books on the shelves. It happens all at once to everyone everywhere. Some stories are recorded and remembered, most are not. Some sit waiting in dusty pages - like that of Geertje and her younger sister Adriana the orphaned girls who waited to in the room above the silversmith's shop on the Angeliersgracht near Boomstraat to be taken to the orphanage - for their moment to be found.

Lives are pieced together by scraps of paper and fragments of stories that have somehow survived. Plague, flood and fire, commemorated by the three crosses on the Amsterdam coat of arms.

The Amsterdam my people were born into was a world of contrasts and contradictions. Of constant construction. It was also dark at night. People fell regularly into canals at night. And the water, if it could be called that, stank of all things terrible, especially in the summer. The forces of religion reigned with tight grasp while the forces of commerce, wealth, greed, sugar (there was a specific word for the pursuit of sugar and delicious things, and it did NOT have a favorable connotation.) The birth of a stock exchange fueled by shared risk and blood shed on distant islands filled ships bellies with peppercorns, nutmeg and sugar. In Amsterdam, the VOC (the United East India Company) was founded in 1602 and the first tea chests arrived in Holland in 1606. A commodity exchange opened in 1611 in a magnificent new brick structure that amazed all who entered. 

In this 1653 painting by Jacob van der Ulft, we see the bustling Dam square with the original Waag or weighing house, the Nieuwe Kerk and the Palais. 

Now let us orient ourselves in a city that is full of construction. Of trenching and dust and mud and bricks and stick. A medieval town stretched over the course of a century into a large metropolis. 

Amsterdam 1644 (before the canal ring expansion)

Amsterdam 1650
(first section of canal rings added)

Amsterdam 1657

Amsterdam 1688

Amsterdam in 1770

The Amsterdam where I first find my relatives was built by the 80 Years War, also known as the Dutch Revolt. It was a conflict that embroiled the lowlands from 1566 until 1648 as they attempted to throw off Catholic Spain and embrace Protestantism in the Netherlands. When the Spanish government failed to pay their soldiers on-time, they pillaged Antwerp and killed somewhere between 7 and 17 thousand people. Spain celebrated while tens of thousands left Antwerp for other places, many making their way to Amsterdam, Leiden and Haarlem. Antwerp lost half its population, the southern mostly Catholic province of Brabant lost its position of power and Amsterdam thrived. Along with the avalanche of immigration, the southerners brought skilled craft as well as cosmopolitan sophistication. The result was the Golden Age in the Netherlands. 

The Golden Age began in 1588. It was an era where Dutch were leaders in art, science, trade and military. It ended in 1672 a year known as the Rampjaar or "the Disaster Year."

 

The Dutch are great record keepers - a tendency born of a long history of fiscal and religious scrutiny. The oldest record I can find in Amsterdam is on my mom's (Mieke) dad's (Antonius Dankers) mom's (Cornelia Beek) side, dating to the late Spring of 1685. May 5th to be exact, a man named Teunis Draak, son of Teunis married Grietje Roos, daughter of Michiel, their last names, Dragon and Rose written above, as if added later, or as an afterthought. Teunis has signed his name Theunis Teunisz Drack. Grietje has marked her name with an X because she could not write, relatively uncommon for a woman of her time in the Netherlands. 

Grietje is 23, which puts her birth at about 1662. 

 

Three years after their marriage, on Christmas day in 1688, Teunis, son of Teunis and Grietje, daughter of Machiel baptized a son, Pieter, in the Lutheran Church. The event was recorded in "Evangelisch-Luthers Kerk" records. 320 years later I would my graduate degree in the Old Lutheran church on the Singel canal. The building is now used by the University of Amsterdam for conferences and academic occasions. When Pieter was Baptized, the Lutheran church was just over 50 years old, still a thing of pristine newness and crisp grandeur. Though most of the family's children are married and baptized in the reformed church, we will see the Lutherans reappear later.   

There is no way to be sure so far, but it's possible that this little Pieter was named for his father's father. In 1664, the same year that plague ravaged nearly 10 percent of the population of the city, a man named Teunis Pieters Draak was buried on the 28th of September in the St. Anthonis Kerkhoff,

The Sint Anthonis Kerkhoff, which opened her arms in earthy welcome during the the summer of 1670, was built on what would later become the corner of Nieuwe Herengracht and the Muidergracht. At the edge of the city, it was a place without markers or headstones, an end point for common people and more often victims of plague or poverty. But it was the only cemetery in the city that could boast of having trees. Burials continued for more than two centuries until the municipality ordered them to cease in 1866. Like many other graveyards in many cities the world over, the spaces were repurposed over time. Sometimes sooner than later. In 1876 the Hortus Botanicus (Amsterdam's Botanical Garden) implemented expansion plans that were part of a land trade for an area of the garden given up for civic drainage plans. In exchange they got the graveyard. One Professor Hugo de Vries set up test plantings almost immediately, though the mortuary building remained for some time longer. No one knows when exactly it was torn down. There are no signs any more to signify these centuries of lives beneath the garden, though it is said that the gardeners occasionally turn up bones.  

It's easy to overlook the small details. Several days after Grietje died at the end of November in 1693, her burial in the St. Anthonis Kerkhof was recorded in the archive. As was the existence of her 2 children, now without a mother. 

 

We know Teunis and Grietje also had at a daughter, Gerritje who  survived because we find record of her betrothal in the civic records on the 14th of April in 1713. She married a man named Goosewijn Wartenaar, son of Annes. His names appear as Goose, Goosen, Gose, sometimes with a surname Wartena or Wartenaar, and sometimes just with a patronym. At the time of their marriage his parents are both dead and he lived with his Uncle Lambert de Vries and Gerritje lived on the Egelantierstraat. Gerritje lives on the Prinsengracht with someone named Grietje Pieters. 295 years later, I lived on the Prinsengracht as well, around the corner from the Molenpad in an upstairs backside "achterzijd" apartment between a bruin cafe - its genre of cozy neighborhood establishment named for the tobacco stained walls and known for cozy corners, cold beer and warm soup. The doorway on the other side was a lawyers office. The mosquitos were terrible in the summer. 

 

We find Goosen's parents Annes and Clara paying their marriage tax on May 4th of 1686. He was twenty two and she was twenty. Clara lives with her father, Pieter. We can entertain the assumption they came from Dusseldorp along with thousands of other German-speaking immigrants in ****** . Annes and Clara had Gosinus (15 December 1686); Pieter (30 November 1687); Doetje (Dorothea) Jan 7, 1689; Jan (june 25, 1690); our Goose on the first day of July 1691; Anthonij on 29 April 1696; and Gerrit. We can assume the first son Goose named for his Opa died and our Goose was the replacement. A relentlessly practical approach to family meaning in the face of rampant infant mortality. At once tragic and tender. 

 

 

Something interesting surfaces here. Two brothers marry two sisters. Lambert, recorded as both Lambert Goosens (son of Goosen) and Lambert Goosens de Vries and Lambert de Vries. At 22 he married a woman three years his senior named Leonora van Dusseldorp (Disseldorp) in mid April, 1692. It is safe to assume that this is Clara's sister. Each has carefully scratched only their first name into the page with the hands of a novice writer.

Leonora was named for her mother, Leonora van der Lip, who married Pieter van Dusseldorp on the 17th of November in 1657 in Amsterdam, just two years after the new city hall (Royal Palas) was opened on the Dam Square. She is alternatively listed as Leonora van der Liep or Lip, Stevens and van Dort. Another record reveals her father Steven was born in Lippstadt, thus the name "van der Lip." Here again is the story of the 80 years war and migrations from German regions to Amsterdam  Leonora's mother's first name Anna is legible on the marriage record, but I cannot read the last name Houck...

Then there is one of those glorious moments where I find a document that unlocks the archive like a key. A Leonora, baptized in the Nieuw Kerk in early January of 1634 to Steven Martsz and Annetje Onkelboers. Mothers in the Dutch archives are nearly universally recorded with their maiden names. Strangely, in the early 1600s in the Amsterdam archives many of the births are listed without the maiden name and women are recorded with their husband's name. I find a Geertje babtized in 1603 in the Oude Kerk to Lenore Honckelboers and Jan Honckelboer. Leonore is also listed as Leonora Rocourt, Ricourt and another window is opened. 

 

The Honckelboer family (name is also written as Honkelboer or Onckelboer) is an Amsterdam family with roots in Antwerp who belonged to the well-to-do middle class in the 16th and 17th centuries . Originally they were cloth manufacturers , as well as coopers , but in Amsterdam they were mainly engaged in trade, initially with Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

The " pater familias " was Melchior Honckelboer, originally a cloth maker. He was born in Antwerp in 1538 as the son of Jan Honckelboer and Anna op den Hoff. He was married to Geertruij van der Putten and together they had eight children, five sons and three daughters. The family left for Amsterdam as early as 1585. A number of Melchior's brothers and sisters also followed the same path. Although Melchior made himself known in Amsterdam as a strict Calvinist , it is not known whether he left Antwerp for that reason, or whether the blockade of Antwerp had largely destroyed the trade connections. Melchior's sons all made their living in trade. Also old Melchior had made sure that his sons and daughters married with good parties, almost always ofBelgian (Antwerp) origin. Through these marriages, the family became directly or indirectly related to families such as Staes, Grill, Spranger, Huydecoper van Maarsseveen , Coymans , Trip , van der Muelen and de Geer , (mostly noble) family names that are best known for the portraits painted by Dutch masters. The privateer captain Joachim Gijsen also appears in the family tree of the Honckelboers.

The family name seems to have completely disappeared nowadays ^[1] , only the Onckelboerensteeg, a side street of the Kloveniersburgwal in Amsterdam, reminds us of the family. The house on the Kloveniersburgwal was built in the 17th century and lived in by a member of the Honckelboer family.

 

In 1601, Dirck Honckelboer, a cloth maker from Antwerp, bought a piece of land outside Sint Anthoniespoort.and built in 1605 on the Kloveniersburgwal on the corner of 'an' alley a capital double house with stables and a coach house in the backyard. With that he claimed about 40% of the length of the alley. In a deed of sale (1612) of another house in the alley it is called " a house and erve standing and laying in Honckelboerssteechjen, daer loins van sijn Dirck Honckelboer aende Noortwestsijde", which shows that the alley had meanwhile acquired its name. Honckelboer was married in Amsterdam in 1586 and is therefore probably one of the many refugees after the fall of Antwerp in 1584. Under the marriage certificate is his signature: Dierck Honckeboer. The 'l' was smuggled in at the beginning of the 17th century; that probably sounded better. The name of the alley faded from Honckelboers steechje to Onkelboerensteeg. The alley has also known other names, such as Pleytstraat and Kyfstraat. Honckelboer still appears in 1604 as on the other corner of the alley with the Zanddwarsstraat, both corner houses are sold and Honckelboer acts as guarantor for both buyers, Cornelis Baers and Jacob Jansz. Wijncoop. 

Dirck Honckelboer lived here until his death in 1629. His widow did not continue to live there, but rented the house to Cornelis van Lockhorst. Other sources claim that Van Lockhorst bought the property, but the research of municipal archivist Isabella van Eeghen inspires more confidence. It is assumed that Jan Six lived there from 1655 to 1669. The building was then called 't Huys van Nassau. In 1669 Dirck Tulp, a brother-in-law of Six, became the owner of the house and lived there until his death in 1682. The house then came back into the possession of the Six family through inheritance. In 1770 it was sold to the widow of Jan Huydecoper, who had both houses renovated shortly afterwards under a continuous frame above a frieze with triglyphs, as we can still see today. In 1900 the building came into the possession of the Discount and Effectenbank, who commissioned the architect Jan Kuyt to rebuild the lower facade into what is visible today. The appearance of the new natural stone facade (travertine/peridotite) kept people busy at the time. It was considered completely out of place among the 17th-century buildings. Until 1905, a number of architects carried out even smaller and larger renovations to the building. In 1884, architect AC Bleijs (re)built a warehouse (facing brick with a five-pointed star) in the backyard. Architect EGHH Cuypers modified the entire side wall in 1898. Architect W. Hamers built a safe for the bank in 1903 in the long extension along the alley. It was considered completely out of place among the 17th-century buildings. Until 1905, a number of architects carried out even smaller and larger renovations to the building. In 1884, architect AC Bleijs (re)built a warehouse (facing brick with a five-pointed star) in the backyard. Architect EGHH Cuypers modified the entire side wall in 1898. Architect W. Hamers built a safe for the bank in 1903 in the long extension along the alley. It was considered completely out of place among the 17th-century buildings. Until 1905, a number of architects carried out even smaller and larger renovations to the building. In 1884, architect AC Bleijs (re)built a warehouse (facing brick with a five-pointed star) in the backyard. Architect EGHH Cuypers modified the entire side wall in 1898. Architect W. Hamers built a safe for the bank in 1903 in the long extension along the alley.
In 1978 art center JAM was opened at this address; it now offers space to, among others, the Federation of Artists' Associations and the Union of Composers. It has actually become a national monument (387862).

Lammert died in May of 1716 while living on the Egelantiersgracht near the Tweede Egelantierdwarstraat. Leonora died in 1732. Both were buried in the karthuizers kerkhoff, a cousin graveyard to the Sint Anthonis Kerkhof. Also a graveyard without markers, made to catch the overflow of the continuing flow of poor dead. And the many infants buried soon after their uncertain arrivals, sometimes along with their mothers.

But an interesting question arises. Why do Lambert and Annes, both sons of Goose have different names - one Wartenaar and one de Vries? 

A possible answer that my gut tells me is correct. Looking at the 1686 marriage registration of Annes and Clara, we find a possible clue. Note also that their first child was born a quick 7 1/2 months later.

The format of marriage registrations usually lists their name, from (city), occupation, sometimes with the street or canal they live on and who they live with. Often the names of parents are listed if they are living. Or the certificate may mention what both parents are dead "ouders dood"- as in Gerritje Teunisz Draak's 1713 certificate.

On Goosen's 1686 wedding registration - if you look closely - seems to say "van Warten." I did a quick map search for Warten and it is a village in Friesland. In this exact generation when some people began to use last names, it was often an occupation or hometown that inspired the name. Their wives Clara and Leonora had taken the name van Dusseldorp and the brothers seem to have adopted parallel placenames - one for the village and the other de Vries - from Friesland or the Frieslander. It's not outside the realm of possibility.

Back to Gerritje Teunisz Draak (daughter or our Dragon and Rose couple) and Goose(wijn) Annes Wartenaar who married in the brisk spring of 1713. The expected flow of children and tragedy follows. Anthonie in February of 1714. A son, Gerrit is baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk in the cold of November, 1715.

Something sticks out in the 1716 archive. On July 9th when Gerritje has several infants at home, there is a document titled: "Revocation of charges of theft." This of course means that charges of theft were made against her, which would have had tremendous consequences. 

Cleared of all charges, life continued for Gerritje and Goosen. On the last day of October in 1717, Goosen saw his son baptized in the Westerkerk and named him for his uncle, Lambertus and witnessed by both of their aunt, Leonora van Dusseldorp. A daughter, born in in the summer of 1719 is named Claara and baptized at the Westerkerk and witnessed by Goose's sister Doetje. She was buried in the Leidsche Kerkhoff at the end of August. Another Claara is Baptized - also in July - the following year, a replacement for her dead sister. Doetje is there again, along with their brother, Gerret. Then Doetje dies the next month and is buried in the same place as the first Claara. The babies keep coming. Teunis arrives in June of 1722 and is Baptized in the Noorderkerk.

For several generations, the stories of the Wartenaars, The Draacks and their close family unfolded in the Jordaan district, which was part of the early expansion of the city. From the records we can see that during the time they were building their family Goosen and Gerritje are living on the Lauriersgracht by the Baangraacht, which I think refers to the Lijnbaangracht.  

We see family sticking together - who knows whether our of fondness or necessity. At the time of his marriage in 1726 Goosen's brother, Gerrit is living with Goosen and Gerritje. And we see a lot of loss. Goosen and Gerritje bury another child on the 8th of August in 1728, this one in the Westerkerkhof, but Goosen has already been gone for a month on a ship and will never know.  

Here the family finds itself in the middle of the story of the Golden Age in some of its darkest aspects. A small tragic part played in a great orchestra of greed and sugar. It turns out, Goosen worked for the VOC. Sailing on the a ship called the Stad Leiden that was commissioned by the Chamber of Amsterdam and built on the VOC wharf- for the city itself. It had a load capacity of 1140 tons and could hold "220-300 heads."

Goosen boarded the ship precisely in the middle of its twenty year service, setting sail from the northern island of Texel in late June of 1728 under Wouter van Dijk. I went to Texel when I was 16 and visited a seal rehabilitation center. Goosen is listed as a house carpenter with a note that unlike the ship's carpenters, he will not working on board, but only after arriving in Asia.The Stad Leiden and her passengers were headed around the Cape of Good Hope, where they stayed - one imagines to refuel and replace any dead sailors - from the 21st of October until the 18th of November. They landed in Batavia on the 9th of February 1729. 

In less than a year, Goosen was dead. The VOC archives list him as leaving service on November 13th, 1729. Reason: death. Location: Asia.

 

Now I am speculating, but the record shows that he has "debt letters." From what I can decipher, money is paid to Goosen's widow, Gerrite Teunis. Payments are made to several people. I can see the word chambermaid "kamerbode" and the names Pieter Meijer and Isaak Welles. Monsignors Welles and Meijer are in th Amsteram archives appearing together in a 1732 litigation against the VOC. Perhaps they were lawyers or administrators who helped settle Goosen's accounts. Isaac appears on many legal documents relating to crews and shipping documents. In either case, Goosen was dead and Gerritje was left alone in Amsterdam with a lot of mouths to feed. 

But things must have not turned out too badly for Gerritje, because in February of 1749, Gerritje Theunisse, widow of Gosewijn Wartenaar, buys a house from Joannes van de Capelle. With land.I think the total listed in the margin would be the sale price, in this case 1,500 guilders.

 

The house Gerritje bought in 1749 would have been a few blocks to the east and slightly south of the Noorderkerk on the Boomstraat on the corner by the Karthuizers Kerkhoff, which still would have been an operational cemetery. It will be visible in this 1625 map of the Jordaan. Now it is a playground. 

Let us now follow Goosen and Geertje's son, Antonij (Anthony). Born on the 7th of February in 1714. He was two when his mother was cleared of accusation of theft and fifteen when his father died in far off lands. He would have been old enough to work and one imagines he did just that. In the Fall of 1738 Anthonij (Antoni Wartenar) married Johanna van Vlissinge(n). They both lived in the Jordaan, Antoni with his mother on the Lauriersgracht and she lived with her mother, Geertruij can Weijyke on the Angeliersgracht.

A quick detour for Johanna's story and what appears to be a marriage necessitated by pregnancy. When Johanna's mother, Geertruij married Jacobus van Vlissinge(n) on the 11th of December 1700, she lived on the Bloemgracht. Jacob lived on the now familiar Egelantierstraat with his father, Barent. 

A quick six and a half months later, on the first of June (which meant the baby arrived a couple days before that.) They baptized their son, Gijsbert and probably praised God for allowing such an "early" baby to survive. Jan came in 1705. In the summer of 1706, Jacobus and Geertruij baptize a son named Barent in the Niew Kerk. Another Barent in 1710. They buried a child in 1711 and again in 1713 and 1714. Another Barent in 1715. Twenty years after their marriage, Geertruij van Wieje gives birth a daughter, Adriana, Baptized in the Oude Kerk.

In May of 1708 our Johanna is born to Geertruij van Weijke (spelled an infuriating number of ways including Weijen, Weije, and Weyke) and Jacobus van Vlissingen. She is baptized in the Westerkerk on the 29th. Jacobus dies at the end of November in 1734 and is buried in the Karthuiser Kerkhof. His will is dated 14 December and discusses the house on the Egelantierstraat and butchers tools. 

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In his 1734 will, Geertruy van Wyen is named as his widow and two daughters are listed: Johanna and Adriana van Vlissingen. He has a huge list of items. Some debts are listed. In October of 1745, Geertrui dies in the house on the Egelantierstraat between the 2nd and last cross streets just a year before her daughter, Johanna.

 

But in our story it is still 1738 and Johanna van Vlissingen has just married Antonij Wartenaar.

The children came for Johanna van Vlissingen and Anthonij Wartenar, as they usually do. Gerritje on September 27th, 1739. Named for her grandmother Gerritje Teunise Draak, who witnessed the baptism in the Niewe Kerk. Antonie was baptized in the Noorderkerk mid december 1740. Adriana baptized February 1742 in the Westerkerk. Lambertus in November of 1743, baptized in the Westerkerk. Their cousin Antje arrives four months later. Gerritje's son Lambert marries a woman named Johanna Vlasblom and their daughter Antje is baptized in the Westerkerk at the end of June in 1742 with Gerritje in attendance. Johannes comes almost exactly two years later. In 1747 Lambert and Johanna welcome another Gerrit, the baptism in the Niewe Kerk witnessed by his mother Geeritje and uncle Gerrit.  

Uncle Gerrit himself has been busy. He had first married a woman named Jannetje Blij, who died in the cold February of 1728 about two years after their marriage and a year after the birth of their son, Pieter, who had died two months after his birth. He then married a woman named Geertruij van Straaten in 1730. There are records of children being born in 1738, 1743 and 1748. 

Back to Geertje Draak's son Anthonij Wartenaar. In 1746 on a Friday in early February, his wife Johanna van Vlissingen died, just a year after her mother died in the house on the Egelantierstraat. She was the only person to die in the city that day. She is listed as living on the Blindemansteeg, a cramped area with tight alleys that is now beneath the Theater near Rembrandtplein. She joined many of her relatives in the Karthuiser Kerkhof, buried without a marker. She left two living children: Adriana and Gerritje. The boys must have died.

Five years later, Antonij remarries a woman named Gertruuij Jansen on April 30, 1751. She is 24. There is a note in the margin - something about the orphanage on May 5, 1751. 

In the Summer of the following year, Antoni Wartenaar's much younger second wife - another Geertruij - gave birth to a daughter, Antonia who was baptized in the Noorderkerk in July of 1752. Her uncles Gerrit and Lambertus witnessed the event since her father was already dead.

Antonij had died earlier in the year on the 5th of May, 1752. He was buried in the Karthuizer Kerkhof without a marker. Both girls went into an orphanage. A few interesting things stick out here. One, the girls had lots of family, but it is possible that their paternal grandmother Geertje was too old, and their uncle Gerrit had two young children of his own. Johanna's mother was in her last year of life and unfit to care for two young children.

And what happened to all the goods left to Johanna's mother - that huge inventory from the house on the Egelantierstraat from Jacobus van Vlissingen's death in 1834? The next generation when Johanna van Vlissingen and Antonij Wartenaar died - one assumes having inherited some of those items, but Antonij's will states "geen goede" NO GOODS. It looks as if the home was bare and the grandaughters of Jacobus van Vlissingen were left with nothing at all. 

The records show that Adriana and Geertje Wartenaar went into the Diaconie Orphanage, which was run by the Evangellical Lutheran church. While we see dozens of baptisms in the family taking place at reformed churches all over the city, Gerritje and Adriantje end up at the Evangelical Lutheran house. The last and perhaps only overtly Lutheran event I could find in the family was the birth of grandmother Geertje Theunisz' Draak's brother Pieter in 1688.  

The orphanage was also remarkably close to the rest of the family at Lauriergracht 116 a block from the Lijnbaanstraat. It is a looming building boasting a nine window facade. The building still stands.

 

Life in the Orphanage:

Civic orphanages began operating in the 1520s and over time Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Mennonite and Walloon formed their own institutions. Orphans were given recognizable uniforms - marked so they could be monitored both inside and outside the orphanages. The costumes were not abolished until the end of World War One. 

From left to right: Lutheran, Catholic and civilian (Dutch Reformed).

 

Girls were trained for domestic servitude and boys were trained for manual labor. 

Here is a description:

In the east wing were the house for the innkeeper, the speaking and paying room of the regents and the Regent's Room, from here one entered the large dining room. Below the dining room was the bread house and above the washing and drying attics. Furthermore, here were the residences of the schoolmaster and the apothecary.
The north wing had spaces for the Regent's room, the dining room for the guards, the kitchen and the pharmacy. Upstairs were the sleeping quarters for the boys and a room for the sewing girls.
The west wing housed the bakery, the knitting shop, the linen sewing room, and the boys' infirmary.
The southern wing (on the canal) housed the school and on the first floor the woolen sewing shop and the little girls' bedroom. 

It has a main building and two separate wings in the courtyard. In this way, the boys and girls in the orphanage could be separated. Education was given in the orphanage. Orphan boys are apprenticed to craftsmen as labor boys. Girls have to work in the household. There is a bakery in the orphanage that also bakes bread for distribution to the poor. From 1783 there is a pharmacy and a shoemaker's shop attached to the orphanage.

This engraving is from a century later but shows the internal courtyard with the bleaching field inside the octagonal courtyard.

Meanwhile, Gerritje Draak lived on the Boomstraat and we see her son Gerrit purchase a "house and yard" on the Egelantierstraat between the last cross street of the lijnbahnsgracht in March of 1768. The house is named "De Rouaanse Boeier."  

But all was not lost. It seems both orphaned girls both found a way through. Perhaps there are things we cannot understand. A grandmother and aunts and uncles and a young stepmother - none who could or did step in to take care of the two girls. They were turned over to the state. Housed, fed and trained for domestic service. Adriana and Gerritje were raised in the orphanage on civic porridge but they stayed connected with their family.

Now we leave Amsterdam for a while and head southwest to Leiden. In April of 1766, Gerritje Wartenaar got married. At some point she had left Amsterdam, living in Warmond on the outskirts of Leiden at the time of her marriage to Krijn van den Berg. Her husband was Krijn van den Berg, who had been born in a village south of Leiden called Zouterwoude and now lived north of the city in Oestgeest, which neighbored Warmond.  

Adriana, stayed in Amsterdam, Geertje and Krijn seem to have stayed in Oestgeest but their lives would remain connected.

In April of 1779 when Adriana got married at age 37 to an older gentleman of 55 named Johannes. At the time she was living with her uncle Gerrit Wartenaar. A child was named for her in 1794, whose baptism she witnessed with her husband. It does not seem that Adriana had children but she did own property. 

Speaking of property, in 1782, our Grandmother Gerritje Draak, (daughter of Teunis and Grietje Roos) sold the house on Boomstraat by the Karthuiser Kerkhof to her son Gerrit.

After Adriana's husband died, she registers for marriage again in mid August of 1803 to a man named Dirk van Tongeren. On October 10th of the same year we see something interesting. Teunis Wartenaar, Adriaantje Wartenaar and Grietje Wartenaar, all purchase a "4/5 pieces of land, on the Egelantiersgracht between Derde Egelantiersdwarsstraat (Madelievenstraat) and Lijnbaansgracht, located behind a house." The purchase price in the margin appears to be 500 guilders. This is about a 6 minute walk to the house on Boomstraat where their Uncle Gerret lived. 

In May of 1804, Adriana buys 1/4 piece of land on the Egelantiersgraacht property from her brother in law Krijn van den Berg for 100 guilders. Geertje died in Oestgeest at the end of January in 1814. She was 77.

In June of 1809, Adriana's second husband Dirk van Tongeren purchased "the house and yard with space behind it;" on the Egelantierstraat from Gerrit Lambertus Wartenaar.