November 8 1939

I remember my mother telling me how she was called away from her work with "Felen Aues" because her grandmother had passed away quite unexpectedly. Clementina (Manse) Broeckaert was born in Okegem on November 11 1858 and died in her house on November 8 1939. She was buried two days later. She had been a widow for seven years and my grandparents - my mother's parents - and their two remaining sons lived with her on the Rattenberg (Leopoldstraat) in Okegem. My parents married some months before on July 22 1939.

Manse came out of a family with 12 children - she was the eldest - and had ten children herself with her husband Hermilianus Neukermans (Okegem 1855 - 1932).

I do not know when my grandparents went to live with my grandfather's mother or when they bought the house - it must have been sometime in the mid thirties, but I do know that my mother lived there before her marriage. And I always had the impression that Manse was quite strict with her resident grandchildren, certainly with my mother. But then the poor lady had more than 30 grandchildren ...

See also : "My great-grandparents".