During Hinne’s boyhood years on Terschelling, one of his duties was to deliver milk to the farm’s clients. Milk then (early 1900s) cost seven cents per litre. Once a week, Hinne had to make the rounds to collect the money. His mother would remind him: “Wash yourself, Hinne, and put a clean shirt on.” Washing was done with Sunlight Soap and Hinne’s face would then shine like an acorn afterwards. When he came to the home of “Ome Ane,” his wife - a sister of Hinne’s Mom - would say in the Terschellinger language: “Wat is ‘t lytse kerelsje weer skin, net?” (Isn’t the little fellow nice and clean?)

Later, he had to learn how to milk the cows. He quickly caught on, even though, at first, his wrists hurt badly. When the animals were outside, Hinne went along the “Dellewal” (the sandy beach lying just east of the village next to the Wadden Zee) each morning and evening, carrying yoke and pails. He’d meet the people from other farms and they chatted amicably as they walked towards the animals. They were friendly folk and Hinne loved these conversations.

Some of the de Jong land was located in the Strieper Polder, close to the village of Midsland, some distance from West-Terschelling. There was always plenty of grass on this clay land and the milk yield was higher. First, Hinne walked along the “Dellewal” to a meadow close to Halfweg, a hamlet “half-way” between West and Midsland. Their horse was grazing there. Once it was put in front of the wagon, they were off to the dike and then turned eastward to the Strieper Polder. The horse, handled by brother Herman, was called the “Amelander,” because it came from the neighbouring island of Ameland. The animal was lazy, but strong.

(Comment - At this point I’d like to jump forward to the year 1979, three years before the death of my father. Our son, Kevin, and I were visiting the Netherlands being part of the tour the St.Catharines Male Choir “Collegium Musicum” made that summer. We basically lived at Oma de Jong’s apartment in Groningen, making daily bicycle trips from Ambonstraat right through downtown to “Coendershof,” a nursing home where my Dad resided. I have a photograph of Dad sitting in a wheelchair in the garden outside. He’s reading the Harlinger Courant that was regularly sent to him. He had tears in his eyes and it became obvious that something terrible had happened on the island of Ameland. The paper carried a beautiful picture showing eight black horses - all Amelanders - pulling the Amelander lifeboat into the surf of the North Sea. It was a picture full of energy and excitement. That lifeboat was still being used when called upon to rescue people off ships that had come to grief during a storm. The story in the paper explained that tourists had been invited to watch a training exercise, so they could see the eight horses and the men involved
practice pulling the sloop into and through the surf. But something went terribly wrong! Without the men knowing this, they went precisely to a spot where the sea had carved a deep hole into the sandy bottom. All eight horses went down that hole. Pandemonium broke out and the people watched all this helplessly. The men worked desperately to cut the horses loose, risking life and limb. But they failed. It was too late. All black Amelanders died in that hole. Fortunately, none of the men were dragged under. When I read this, and explained it to Kevin, we looked at my Dad and we all cried. No doubt, he had memories of the team of horses and the crew of the Terschellinger lifeboat he had seen so often being driven into the wild sea to rescue people in need - Sense).

Hinne gets a dogcart

During 1909, work was started to improve and harden the main West-East road through Terschelling. Hinne was one of the first to own a little, four-wheeled, dogcart with a box big enough to hold milk cans. They then had a fairly large dog, called Jennie. This animal was quite capable of pulling the dogcart, even with Hinne sitting on it. Can you just see them now chasing down the newly- paved road? Jennie became wild when someone on a bicycle approached from behind. More often than not he would scare the wits out of any such cyclist with the roar of his bark. People complained to Hinne but he would simply say: “Ride a little faster or stay behind me!”

It didn’t take long for other farms to get dogcarts as well. They came from a factory in Franeker (Friesland). Soon Hinne had company on the road chasing each other on that paved stretch of road. The fun eventually died down and they settled into a regular routine.

Hinne related how on one moonlit night he woke up thinking it was time to go to the field to milk the cows. He got up, dressed, got Jennie ready and roared off with the dogcart. He didn’t see any of the other folk and after a while he met the postman coming from Midsland. who told Hinne it was only three a.m. Back in town, Hinne couldn’t get into the house, but his Dad heard him outside and opened up for him. Hinne wrote: “In those early years I was often bushed and went to bed early. Later, Tjebbe came along to milk. But, unlike me, Tjebbe went to bed late and slept in many a morning. Then a few harsh words were spoken.”

Transporting dune sand to the mainland

The de Jong family, residing on the Willem Barentszkade, had to find other sources of income to supplement the money made from the farm. Other farmers had the same predicament. They were contracted to haul sand from designated dunes to the harbour from where it would be transported by ships to Harlingen or Franeker on the mainland.

During Hinne’s teenage years there was a magnificent, large dune close to the “Dellewal.” It is still there today, but it is much smaller. During high tide, a “tjalk” came from the harbour and was positioned in a channel close to the dune. This vessel would settle on the bottom during low tide and then the wagons would come along side to unload the sand. Three such wagons, each pulled by two horses, would be loaded up by a team of men. When the three were fully loaded they went onto the sea bottom alongside the ship. The men on each wagon had to work like blazes to unload the sand by hand and, when done, pick up more. It had to be done so quickly because the boat had to float out of the channel during the next high tide.
Talk about back-breaking work!

While all this was going on, Hinne remembered how the foals would jump all over the place. They were running to and fro after their mothers wherever they went. It was fun to watch and the air was full of excitement. The work, however, was hard, and the pay was low: about three to four guilders per team! And for that the horses had to be driven furiously for hours on end.

What about Hinne? Well, he was too young to do this kind of work. His Dad and brother Herman earned the pay. One day, Herman came home after helping to load a ship. But where was the money? Greatly concerned, his parents asked Hinne to go back to the dune and check the wagon they had used. And, yes, there it was, much to everyone’s relief.

A tragedy remembered

The village of West-Terschelling was then nearly surrounded by a ring of high dunes reaching as far as the “Dellewal.” A section of these dunes were removed to create space for a series of houses. During this time - Hinne was then old enough to handle a horse and a wagon - the sand was loaded right into a ship lying alongside one of the docks built into the harbour.

As the digging continued there was a growing danger that a top-heavy dune would shift and collapse. Not much attention was paid to this, until.... One afternoon a little girl of the van Urk family was missing. She didn’t come home for dinner as usual, and the search was on. The loading of the wagons continued, but, suddenly, a man screamed when his shovel exposed part of a dress. And then the dead child appeared. Hinne wrote that everyone was stunned by this sad news. The parents were especially hit hard, but the workers felt the loss as well.

From then on, everyone became much more safety-conscious. And, thus, the appearance of the dunes changed. The village of West-Terschelling was growing.

Parcel and freight service

Another source of income for the de Jong family came from delivering freight to the islanders. The merchandise was transported from Amsterdam with the boat operated by the Midslanders Jan and Cees Roos. After Hinne came home from school each day, he’d have to deliver the smaller packages to various clients earning about two to three cents per parcel delivered.

Hinne recalled how, one day, his Dad had loaded the wagon full of merchandise. Leaving the harbour area, they came to the Molenstraat where Hinne noticed that one of the rear wheels was about to collapse. They stopped just in time. The goods were undamaged and Hinne’s Dad went home to pick up another wheel.

When Hinne was old enough to handle the horses by himself, he’d be asked to deliver heavier things. Bags of flower, weighing fifty kilograms, weren’t too bad. But sugar sacks weighing one hundred kilograms? He did it, though. Hinne carried these bags all the way, for example, into the attic of baker Ane Swart.

One day, Hinne guided the horses and the wagon backwards onto the dock to get close to the ship. But something went wrong! He couldn’t hold the wagon and it went down vertically into the sea water. Brother Herman came and reamed Hinne out. Herman jumped into the water and started to dismantle the wagon. Piece after piece came to the surface and the whole thing was reassembled on the quay. That was the last time Hinne did this manoeuvre alone!

Delivering peat and coal

The brothers Roos also transported peat from certain areas on the mainland. Peat was then an essential source of fuel for many islanders.

In order to better load the peat logs onto the wagons, one-metre high supports were installed on each side. It happened one day that one of these supports dropped off. Tjebbe, Hinne’s brother, was driving the horses but he couldn’t control them. They took off, upsetting the load. Soon, the whole Torenstraat was covered with “turf” (i.e. peat).

They also had to pick up and deliver coal to various clients or coal depots. After such a day delivering coal Hinne would be pitch black. Later in his life he’d visit the narrow streets of West-Terschelling and he just couldn’t understand how he handled the wagon with the two horses through them in those early days.

WW I - supplying the Dutch army

When World War I started (1914) - during which the Netherlands remained neutral - elements of the Dutch army began arriving on Terschelling. Various camps were built. In addition, bunkers were constructed into the dunes near “Paal 6,” which denotes the kilometer 6 marker (a heavy, wooden vertical beam) along the North Sea beach. Many a load of coal was delivered there and to the army sheds which were also located in the dunes. It was hard slugging to get to them. Near “Paal 18," twelve kilometers further, was another army establishment and Mr Kappetein, the Grade 4 teacher of Hinne’s school, was in charge there. When Hinne arrived there - far away from home - the soldiers always treated him well, giving him food and hot coffee.

Seaweed - another source of income

Hinne wrote: “We also had to work hard to harvest seaweed. As far as I was concerned, they could have closed off the ‘Zuiderzee’ (the central, inland sea) twenty years earlier. Then we wouldn’t have had to work so hard to collect all that seaweed. But my parents didn’t think like that. To them and other folk seaweed was a profitable business. Oh, how we worked!
Seaweed grew on the bottom of the ‘Zuiderzee,’ and during summer storms it got loose and started to drift north to all sorts of places, including Terschelling.”

(Comment: The “Afsluitdijk” (literally: closing-off dike) between the provinces of North Holland and Friesland - an enormous project lasting nearly 12 years - was completed in 1932. It tamed the “Zuiderzee” and part of it later became what is now called the “ IJsselmeer.” - Sense)

The de Jong house was adjacent to the harbour and when the family sat down to dinner they sometimes saw the seaweed drifting by towards the “Dellewal.” They knew then that seaweed was adrift and would be left behind in various places once the water receded from the high tide mark. For the farmers this was a sign to get to work!

The weed would be raked together into heaps and later collected with the horse-drawn wagons. It would then be spread out on the lower dunes. Before long, those dunes looked black from all the seaweed drying there. They would then be hoping for rain because, before the drying process, the salt had to be washed out of it.

Following such a rain, the seaweed had to be turned and turned until it was dry. It was then loaded onto the wagon and brought to the seaweed shed located on each farm. And so, eventually, the day came that the presses had to do their work. They would collect one hundred kilograms on a scale and then push the weed into the press. In order to make this work, Hinne would have to stand on top of the pile and stamp the stuff down with his feet. Then, to press it even more, Hinne would turn a heavy handle which would allow a steel wire to be wound around the pressed bale of seaweed. Heavy, dangerous work! Hinne always claimed that this work in his youth gave him a real good set of lungs.

There was much competition among the farmers. They raced each other to the places where they thought or knew seaweed had drifted to. Hinne and his brother Herman sometimes got a hold of a pram which they floated along the dike to some far-away spot. It would settle there and could be loaded during low tide. They did this even during moonlit nights. After loading the pram, they would steer it to the “Dellewal” area where it could be unloaded onto the wagon.

There was good money in seaweed, but the work was hard. Hinne ended this story, writing: “It was a hard life. But that’s how it was then. Today, people take their good life for granted!”