THE KOORNSTRA LETTERS
ss "Schiedam"
| On September 25, 1889 ss "Schiedam"
departed from Amsterdam to Argentina. On board the ship were, amongst
many
others, Jan Cornelis Koornstra & Sijke Rintjes Bijlsma and their
children.
Jan and Sijke married on May 22, 1873 in the municipalty of Hemelumer
Oldeferd
and had seven children: Rintje, Rinze, Jetske, Pieke, Waltje, Hidde en
Auke. Also they had a stillborn son. Some day in 1889 Jan and Sijke decided to emigrate to Argentinië which was quite a big step, to say the least. Jan was very fond of his mother and kept her and his brothers and sisters posted of their adventures, both during the sea voyage and the first years in their new homeland. The letters that he wrote have been saved and typed out copies were made available to us by Remco Koornstra ("I have letters from 1889 written by my grandpa's grandpa"). Obviously we are most grateful to Remco -and his mother- for allowing us to publish the letters on our website.
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