October 30th, 2007 - Nijmegen & Arnhem

Nijmegen (Lindenhout Orphanage) & Arnhem

Today was one of those days that years ago was just a vision and today a reality. Nijmegen is the matrilineal ancestral home for the Dutch side of the family. My great, great, grandfather lived at least the last twenty years of his life in Nijmegen, working as a carpentry instructor for an orphanage.

So, I boarded a local train from Arnhem and took the quick twenty-minute ride to Nijmegen. The Rhine River forks, so we crossed the larger leg (complete with barge traffic) into the city.





The train station is a modern building in the final stages of construction.



It is amazing. Armed only with an address and a desire to get there, people were amazingly helpful in getting me to the proper bus. Dutch friends of the family, Nico and Marion, had e-mailed me with the foresight that the orphanage, where great, great, grandpa David Fooy had worked (starting in 1875), now lies in an industrial park.



The bus driver was helpful in pointing out the sign, marking the road entrance, as we passed by.



The contrast between industrial park and pastoral setting was almost instantaneous, after turning off the main road and walking down the side street. The way came complete with “guard donkey”. Actually he was quite nice and just walked over to see me out of curiosity or maybe seeking a snack.



The historical orphanage has been closed for quite some time. What remains on the property is a school for children with learning disabilities.



Over the trees, the steeple of the church my great, great, grandfather built with the help of the children peeks over the thinning foliage.



It was nice to learn that this church and the remaining orphanage buildings are now an official Dutch National Historical Site.



Part of what makes this church so amazing is that it was constructed in less than a single year. In October of 1881, the plans were submitted to the city of Nijmegen and the church was completed in 1882. Walking through the main door and into the hall it is fun to imagine the children learning from David Fooy, while constructing the edifice.
(The steeple was added later, in 1891, as a gift from grateful previous residents who had learned the carpentry trade.)


An interesting point in the church design was that the pews faced to the side of the church instead of length wise. This provided for a closer proximity and no one getting "lost in the back".



I was extremely lucky today, to have a docent willing to open the church (which is now a museum of the orphanage) just for me. I had sent an e-mail to the original care taker, who unfortunately recently had a stroke. Fortunately, Mr. Egbert Woltjes is a very diligent replacement and had checked the e-mail system.



With no reply, to my e-mail sent only a day before, I wasn’t expecting to actually be able to go inside the church. Something told me to try the door anyway and it opened.

Mr. Woltjes was in his office waiting for me. He had sent an e-mail that morning, but I was already underway. Mr. Woltjes asked me for the name of the relative who had lived at the orphanage and when I told him the relation his eyes lit up with excitement. He said, “Oh, David Fooy is very important. He was one of the pioneers!” Immediately, he took me to his picture in the museum.



This really was a special moment for me. There has been so much familial emphasis placed on the Laubscher side of the family, but in this moment I felt grounded and linked to the Fooys. David even had the same crooked eye. I had always wondered from where that genetic trait came.

It felt like my great, great, grand father’s importance had a halo affect down the generations because Egbert took me all around the museum and went to the archives to retrieve information and pictures.



As a museum, the church holds a history of the founding of the orphanage and the generations of children who called Van’t Lindenhout home.



Each child was taught a trade and when they turned 18 years old were given a wooden trunk with the vital articles needed to start an independent life. This is a carpenter’s apprentice trunk.



At one point the orphanage had a beautiful campus.



The view of the green is still nice from the church steeple.



But, sometime in the 1970’s the board of directors thought it better to tear down the old buildings and replace them with these pods.



The few remaining structures are listed as Dutch heritage sites and are protected for preservation.



There wasn’t much else to see, but there was a happy tugging at my heart while walking away, across the lawn.



Nijmegen has some surprising local manufacturing. I tried to capture this semi-conductor plant from the bus.



Crossing the river towards Arnhem, the new high-rise buildings of the rail station towered above the low-rise city.



Before exploring Arnhem for the rest of the afternoon I needed fuel. The Kebap has taken over Europe as the fast food of choice and it provides a steady stream of calories for keeping me somewhat on budget. The dollar is falling like a rock and it definitely hurts to travel in the EU right now.



The afternoon was spent wandering Arnhem again, but this time under dappled sunny skies.



These vending machines crack me up. Behind each is a restaurant that fries up countless items. When complete each is placed in the slot, where customers can purchase them via the relative anonymity of the vending machine.



Given the beautiful afternoon, I decided to return to the tallest church in town for a visit to the main tower.



In return for three Euro, I received a private guided tour of the tour via elevator. (Nothing special really, I just happened to be the only tourist.) I really need to take my ball cap off in confined spaces, as the lack of peripheral vision led to me ringing my bell and this one with my noggin.



Germany is surprisingly close to Nijmegen and Arnhem. From the tower, one can see the suspension bridge spanning the Rhine River, which marks the international border.



Ok, time to return to the “Bridge Too Far” story, now that I have gained a little more local and historical knowledge on the subject. (Warning, this may offend the Brits in the crowd.) Basically, this site is celebrated for the heroic slaughter of British and Polish soldiers who were attempting to secure key points along the Rhine in “Operation Market Garden”. British General Montgomery made another one of his immense logistical blunders, resulting in the death of nearly 48,000 soldiers. Somehow, he thought it strategically beneficial to drop in the airborne some ten kilometers away from Arnhem and march them into town to face off against the German Panzers. Let’s see here, tired troops with rifles and small arms against a group of famously efficient German tanks… anyone want to take odds on this one.



What keeps this slaughter in the “plus column” of British history was the fact that a small group of soldiers, led by a gentlemen by the name of Frost, held one end of the bridge against all odds until they ran out of supplies. Net, net only about 2,000 total troops made it back to England and the panzers leveled the city of Arnhem and two neighboring towns. Hey, however you want to read history… find the silver lining, pip-pip, stiff upper lip and all that, but thank God Monty was kept significantly out of key planning, strategic development, and execution for D-Day.



Back to the church, which is now an empty concert hall for local events. Services are held here a few times a year.



The lobby of the building has an interesting artistic display of British and Polish paratroopers raining down from the sky.



All in all, this was a great day to enjoy two neighboring community churches, one small and the other colossal.