Five Brothers and a War

Marie Makes Clothes

While Hitler was busy taking power in Germany, Marie was busy stretching her money. She had a knack for knitting. In the evening, when most of the activities had quieted down, she would oftentimes pick up her knitting needles. Always looking for new things to knit during a very long and cold Dutch winter, Marie concluded that it was not a bad idea to knit some woolen underwear for her two youngest boys. As she must have anticipated some resistance from the three older boys, she played it safe and chose Kees and Bertus to become the guinea pigs. So, plans and preparations were made to set out on her latest model of underwear. Logically, no knitting patterns for underwear existed, but she was determined to succeed anyway. So she just “winged” it—and she did so comprehensively. She attempted to do something virtually defying the laws of nature in that she made square bottoms to cover round holes ones. There was just no way the squared crotch could conveniently fit where the torso and legs came together. That was bad enough to start with, but it got worse after every good washing. It took less than a month for the wool to turn into a rough felt. The boys either had to walk with their legs apart, or have the skin on their thighs bleed. The older boys would have none of it, and there was no way to salvage the project. Nonetheless, the notion of making clothes had not died. She would purchase a bolt of cotton to attempt her next project. She also had a “late model” Singer sewing machine, which she said was worth its weight in gold. The boys thought that was a little exaggerated, as it was quite heavy. In those days, they were still hand-powered by means of a crank handle sticking out of the side of a heavy wheel at the right side of the machine.

The hand-powered Singer sewing machine required the operator to use their right hand to turn the crank while the left hand had to guide the material under the oscillating needle.

van Pelt

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Five Brothers and a War

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