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Exploring the history behind the green door - Erna de Burger-Fex

It was such a tiny house, the house where I was born. It had a green front door with white trim and a transom window above it. The house had one double window in the living room and a dormer window trimmed with green paint in my parents’ bedroom.
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Whenever writer Erna de Burger-Fex visited Hulst in the Netherlands, she 'always walked by my birth-house and usually took a picture.' Supplied photo.
It was such a tiny house, the house where I was born. It had a green front door with white trim and a transom window above it. The house had one double window in the living room and a dormer window trimmed with green paint in my parents’ bedroom. The roof had the customary red tiles, as did all the homes in the walled City of Hulst in the Netherlands. There was a narrow hallway leading to a small kitchen at the back, with one window looking out into a tiny backyard with grass.

My parents turned the living room into a fruit and vegetable store, as selling produce was something my mother had learned at home before she was married. Our first house had a very long address – Langebellingstraat 6 – incongruous for such a humble abode. The front of the house was some kind of grey stucco, making the narrow house quite unattractive. It was wedged between two grand houses, much larger and more historically interesting.

The street ran along the west side of the busy town square in the centre of the city. Almost directly across the street from our small home was City Hall, called “Het Stadhuis,” in Dutch. It was a tall building, constructed between 1528 and 1547, and had two long flights of cement steps leading to the top storey. It also had a tower that was visible from great distances in this flat land. It still exists and is quite an imposing building. It is still in use today.

My mother often told the story of when I was two years old, I managed to escape from our house and climbed those stairs to the very top of the tower. Coming down was much faster, according to a lady who witnessed me rolling down those steps. Horrified, she ran and picked me up, grateful that my pride was more hurt than my physical body. She carried me to our little store in her arms and restored me to my surprised mother who had not yet missed me. Taking care of my baby brother Ronald, running the store and doing general household chores kept her very busy indeed. Dad was at work at his father’s farm, so she faced all these tasks alone. Her conclusion was that I must have slipped out the door with a customer. She expressed her gratitude to the woman and scolded me as I deserved.

How much of that I retained, I’m not sure. When I was about four years old, somehow I wandered away again and this time managed to find my way to the top of one of the massive gates which was an entrance to the inner city of Hulst.

This time someone spotted me sitting there quite unconcerned – no fear in this little girl but obviously a strong sense of curiosity that needed to be satisfied. The woman commented to my mother at the store that she had noticed a small child sitting on top of “De Bagijnenpoort.” My mother, who had no idea that it was her very own little daughter, agreed with the lady that people should really take better care of their young children. As the story was told, it was only when she came into the kitchen that she realized I was not there. By this time my brother Willy had been born, and with three little ones, a home and a store to look after, it is no wonder that she had difficulty keeping track of her small wandering daughter.

Whenever I visited Hulst in later years, I always walked by my birth-house and usually took a picture. However, as the years went by, I noticed that it had been empty for a long time. When my Dad and I returned to my hometown in September of 1997, six months after my mother had passed away, to our surprise, the little house with the green door was being torn down and was totally demolished during our stay.

The property had been purchased by a man named Tommy Stoorvogel, well-acquainted by my Uncle Guust. My uncle told him of my connection to that house, and subsequently he came by my aunt and uncle’s home with stones and bricks from the old house which he offered to me. This was very interesting as these stones told quite a story. He explained that the large flat stones were several hundred years old, and that the tiny house had once been part of a convent located there. That was startling information to us. Even my father had never known this.

Mr. Stoorvogel told me that these very old stones were quite valuable by this time. However, they were obviously much too heavy for me to even contemplate bringing back to Canada, although I did manage to bring back one small brick in my suitcase. I took a photo of him with the retrieved stones and bricks. And so we learned that our tiny house did have an interesting history after all as did the other houses on this street. The stones which had been dug out revealed some of our first home’s story. I have often wondered since then what other stories lay beneath the little house with the green door where I was born.

Erna de Burger-Fex is a retired teacher and writer.
 

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