Peter Okegem

On July 1 1961 my beloved grandfather Franciscus Joannes Neukermans passed into eternal life in the OLV clinic in Aalst after weeks of excruciating pain and deep suffering. One day he made a bad fall in his house and a neighbour found him : we then found out that he had a very bad - until then undiagnosed - brain condition.

We had no car at that time so my father and mother and my brother (grandfather's godson) drove to the clinic in the car of a family friend. There was no place for me in the VW. When they arrived grandfather asked where I was (I was his oldest grandson and I spent most of my holidays with him). I arrived by train but couldn't see him until the next day. He did not recognize me any more - he never again recognized me. Even now, 46 years later, that is a very sad memory.

Grandfather was a carpenter with the Belgian railroads for most of his life (many men in his family worked for the railroads, including two of his sons) and was also a very active member of the christian labor union. Like most working people at that time he had a big vegetable and fruit garden and a couple of fields for wheat, potatoes and other staple food, as wel as some livestock (chickens, goat, pig ...).

He was widowed a couple of years before his retirement and survived grandmother by almost 12 years. He had one of the first TV sets in the village and so every night the neighbours gathered around his set to watch that technological miracle.

After he retired, he made a point of visiting us regularly in Ghent, always for a day, and almost every time he made a point of visiting the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in Oostakker.

Bloed kruipt waar het niet gaan kan zeker ?