Five Brothers and a War

1943—Food Supply Becoming Scarce

year he had set aside a small area to grow tobacco, in a nice warm spot behind the back fence. He had dried the leaves in the shed, just like the real thing. After he harvested the leaves, he carefully cut the leaves into ribbons with a razor blade. He rolled them up to resemble cigars. No one was ever quite sure if he enjoyed the smell or the looks of his creations,, but it was suspected that it was the pride of having stumbled upon another hobby. It could not possibly have been the smoke it produced. The kids were rather critical of having to be subjected to the rank smell as it reminded them of a burning mattress. The not-so-kind name they used to call this travesty was “Fleur-de-Mattress.” A short time later the area beside the newly-planted potatoes needed to be loosened up for seeds crops. That day, Leendert was tired as he had just returned home from a difficult meeting in Zaandam, Bruynzeel’s Head Office and factory. Leen, having become the main purchaser for another Bruynzeel factory that only produced plywood, had hitched a ride home with his dad. Less tired he was a logical choice to till the ground. “No problem, Dad!” was his response “I don’t mind the exercise.”

Leendert and Marie in the middle of their vegetable garden. The tobacco is seen on the right front. Apparently, business attire was the appropriate option for visiting the garden.

van Pelt

Leen changed into some work clothes and headed straight out to the “back forty”. An hour or so later he came back into the house and proudly announced the job was done. At dinner, he did, however, voice some complaints about the person who had done such a sloppy job harvesting the potatoes the previous fall. “Half of the potatoes were still in the ground, he said, with annoyance. His father’s initial reaction was consistent with his energy level an hour earlier. There was no reaction at all, until it began to dawn on him that Leen had mistakenly taken the right instead of the left side he was asked to dig. Leendert then had a great deal of energy, as he jumped up like a mountain goat, no doubt fighting off an acute case of depression, yelling something that had to do with Leen’s degree of intelligence. And quite understandably so. “Didn’t it enter your mind that all of those potatoes were so small?” Gone were any visions of a professional potato patch. For an entire summer Leen’s oversight had a positive influence on the rest of the family’s war impaired sense of humor. For Leen, not so much.

Five Brothers and a War

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