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Author’s Note:
As one of Atze Krol’s
grandchildren, I have been
assembling various genealogical information about him, his ancestry,
his life
in the United States, and his family. I consider him to be noteworthy
in the
Kroll family tree, as he had both the boldness of spirit and an
adventurous
nature to uproot his young family from Friesland in the Netherlands to
immigrate to the United States. The Kroll descendants in the United
States owe
their citizenship to this interesting and courageous man who was
essentially
penniless and knew no English when he arrived.
This
narrative gives an account of Atze Krol’s participation in an unusual
speed-skating race that is a major event periodically in the
Netherlands. His
participation in this major race preceded his leaving the Friesland
province in
northwest Holland with his family. I confirmed the fact of Atze Krol’s
participation in this event by contacting the Koninklijke Vereniging De
Friesche Elf Steden (The Royal Association of the Eleven Frisian
Cities).
Arthur
M.
Kroll
Virginia, USA
The
Elfstedentocht
The Elfstedentocht
(“Eleven Cities Race”) is Friesland’s biggest periodic sports
spectacle,
a
grueling ice-skating marathon around Friesland. The
Elfstedentocht was already
part of Frisian tradition,
when in 1890, William
('Pim') Mulier, a local sports journalist, skated his way around the
eleven
official towns of the province, simply to see whether it was possible
to
complete such a route. It was, and in 1909 the first official
Elfstedentocht
was launched, with 22 competitors.
The Elfstedentocht is
an epic speed skating race of 200 kilometers
(that’s about 125
miles and a minimum
of 7 hours of skating!). The
race follows a route along frozen canals, rivers and lakes with natural
ice,
visiting eleven historic Frisian cities: Leeuwarden, Sneek, IJlst,
Sloten,
Stavoren, Hindeloopen, Workum, Bolsward, Harlingen, Franeker, Dokkum,
then
returning to Leeuwarden. After the 1909 race, the
Vereniging
De
Friesche Elf Steden (Association
of the Eleven Frisian Cities) was established to take care
of the
organization.
For
the race to take place, the ice needs to be 6 inches thick.
Only then
it is strong enough to carry the thousands of skaters that will join
the race.
Since a winter that cold only happens once or twice a decade in the
Netherlands, the race is quite a rare event. The Elfstedentocht is typically held
in
January or February and not more than once in a winter. The race has
occasionally been held in consecutive years, but at other times with
gaps that
may exceed 20 years. When the ice is suitable, the race is announced,
and it starts
within 48 hours. Weather and ice permitting, it has taken place just
fifteen times in the last hundred years, most recently in 1997.
The
Elfstedentocht is currently both a speed skating race (with 300 contestants)
and a leisure skating tour (with 16,000 skaters). All skaters must be members
of the Association of the Eleven Frisian Cities. A starting permit is
required.
Skaters must collect a stamp in each city, and at three secret
checkpoints, and
must finish the course before midnight. The race is organized by the
Eleven
Towns Association, of which you must be a member to take part; the high
level
of interest in the race means that membership is very difficult to
obtain.
The 200km race route starts at
Leeuwarden’s Expo Centre
where the racers sprint, skates in hand, 1500m to the point where they
get onto
the ice. The first stop after this is Sneek, after which the race takes
in
Hindeloopen and the other old Zuider Zee towns, plus Dokkum in the
north of the
province, before finishing back in Leeuwarden.
The
event is broadcast live on national TV, the route lined with
spectators. Of the
17,000 or so people who take part, usually no more than three hundred
are
professional skaters. Dropouts are inevitably numerous; the worst year
was
1963, when 10,000 skaters took part and only seventy finished, the rest
were
defeated by the fierce winds, extreme cold and snowdrifts along the
way.
Generally, however, something like three-quarters of the competitors
make it to
the finishing line.
Since
the Elfstedentocht is such a relatively rare event, an announcement
that it
will be run creates excitement all over the Netherlands. In
anticipation of a possible race in 2012,
Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister remarked "once every 15
years our
country is not governed
from The Hague but by 22 district heads in Friesland. And our country
is in
good hands". As soon as a few days pass with sub-zero temperatures, the
media start speculating about the chances for another Elfstedentocht.
The longer
the freezing temperatures stay, the more intense this "Elfstedenkoorts"
(eleven cities fever) gets, culminating in a national near-frenzy when
it is
announced that the tour will actually be held. The day before the tour
many
Dutch flock to Leeuwarden to enjoy the party atmosphere that surrounds
the
event; that evening, called the "Nacht van Leeuwarden" (Night of
Leeuwarden), becomes a giant city-wide street party. Frisians, who have
a
reputation of brusqueness or surliness, are said to thaw when it
freezes.
Since
artificial ice became common in the Netherlands in 1962, Dutch speed
skaters
have been among the top long track speed skaters and marathon skaters
in the
world.
1912
The Second Elfstedentocht
 In
1912,
Atze Berends Krol
(born May 26, 1886 in Lichtaard) lived with his family in Driesum,
a small
town in Friesland in the Netherlands. On
May 17, 1906 he
had married Wytske
Meinderts Talma from Rinsumageest, a nearby town. He was a farmer who
lived at
Walddyk 5 in
the house shown in the photograph at the left. This photograph was
supplied by
Jouke Dantuma, who currently serves as a town historian for Driesum and
in 2012
wrote a newspaper article about Atze Krol and the centennial
celebration of the
1912 Elfstedentocht. According to Mr. Dantuma, this
farmhouse was razed in the 1960s.
Atze
and Wytske had three children: Sytske born March 12, 1907; Berend born
May
10, 1909 in
Driesum; and Meindert born July 20, 1910 in Driesum.
The family had moved from
Raard to Driesum in 1908. Atze Krol was also an ice skater.
The
Second Elfstedentocht was
the first race organized by the newly established Association of the
Eleven Frisian
Cities. In the summer of 1909, after the first race had been completed,
the new
association was optimistic and began registering potential competitors
for a
second race. By the beginning of the following winter, there were
hundreds of
names on the registration list. The winter of 1909-1910 arrived with
insufficient freezing conditions, and the entry list was discarded. A
new list
of registrants was assembled for the 1910-1911 winter. Again, weather
conditions brought no satisfactory racing conditions because of
insufficient
ice.
The
new Association now
decided to wait until ice appeared on the canals before enrolling a new
list of
competitors. January 1912 brought a
succession of false starts. In early January, skaters began reporting
favorable
ice conditions, and a date of January 20 was
set for the Elfstedentocht. Registrations for
participation in the race streamed in. Atze Krol was
one of the registrants. By January 19, conditions had deteriorated, and
a new
date was set for January 23. Thawing continued, and the January 23rd
date had to be cancelled as well. In early February, winter freezing
returned,
and a new date was set for February 7th. This day arrived with ice
conditions of moderate quality. However,
temperatures were now above freezing, and a warm spring-like breeze was
blowing. Rain actually fell for several hours, and water was on the
ice. Of the
165 registered competitors, 100 did not show up for the race. A meeting
of the
65 remaining skaters was held at the Hotel Weidema. The ensuing
discussion of
the race conditions discussed the “madness” of what might prove to be a
combined skating and swimming competition. Eventually a vote was taken.
37
voted for the race, and 28 votes were against. The race was on, and
Atze Krol
remained among the 37 deciding to race.
Various
descriptions of the race conditions and the competition describe the
race
leaders, racers who fell and got soaked, and racers who actually fell
through
the ice. A listing of the 37 competitors shows Atze Krol and his times
from one
city to the next.
 In
1912 Atze wrote a letter to
the board of the Eleven Cities Association. He complained that the
guides did
not do their work well enough. On one lake he got lost. Because of
deteriorating ice conditions, the Association had forced Atze to stop
in the
city of Sneek,
only 20
kilometer
from the finish. He and others had to travel the final 20 km. leg of the
race via
train. In Leeuwarden
he got a brooch but not the Eleven City Cross.
Because
he complained, he may have received the official cross at a later date.
Marilyn
Lewis, my cousin and an Atze Krol granddaughter, received some of Atze
Krol’s
effects following his death, but neither of us have the official cross
he might
have received.
The photo at the left is a historic
photo of the 1912 Elfstedentocht skater contestants. The photo shows
the water on the ice.
The
group photo below shows all the competitors at the 1912 competition. I
have
struggled to determine which skater pictured is Atze Krol but I am not
sure. Many
of
the skaters are quite
young, and many wear mustaches, making them look somewhat alike. There
are also
more than 37 men in the photo, as it is likely that some Association
officials
are included as well. I also do not have a photo of Atze Krol when he
was at
that age.
.
The
best photo I have of Atze Krol and his family was taken from a passport
used in
1922 for a return trip to the Netherlands. The purpose of
this trip was to accompany Lieuwe Wiersma & Tjitske Wijga and their
7 children on their emigration from Dantumawoude to the USA. Tjitske
was a first cousin of Atze.
(Aside:
the
farms of both Atze and Lieuwe, both started as laborers in the USA,
were eventually the largest in Whitinsville, Massachusetts. Lieuwe had
more than hundred dairy cows and Atze about sixty.)
The Leeuwarder Courant, a local newspaper,
in its February 8, 1912
issue, contained an article about the race. It also printed a listing
of
competitors and some of their times. An excerpt appears below. Atze
Krol’s
listing of times in that report is incomplete, as he completed all but
the
final leg before he was forced to quit by Association officials. Atze
was
assigned number 20 as an identifier; that was not his final position in
the
race.
The
top ten finishers and
their times appear in the chart below that was taken from a Wikipedia
article:
Coen
de Koning was a famous racer of his day, and this victory added to his
fame.
Jan
Ferwerda, the second-place finisher also became famous. A 38-page
booklet
describing his experiences at the Second Elfstedentocht is available
(written
in Dutch) on the Internet at the following address:
http://www.elfstedenwiki.vpro.nl/page/1912%3A+Het+verhaal+van+Jan+Ferwerda?t=anon
Near
the end of the booklet is the listing of competitors and their times
from one
city to the next. I have inserted it below.
Atze
Krol is the sixth name listed, and the table shows his times for each
of the
legs of the race. All but four of the skaters completed the full race.
Of those
four, Atze was one of two who did not complete the race because race
officials
termed the ice unsafe. Several skaters had actually fallen through the
ice at
points along the way.
Marilyn
Lewis, one of Atze Krol’s granddaughters and my cousin, has in her
possession
the skates Atze used in this race and then brought to the United States when he emigrated from Friesland. Below is a
photo
of Atze Krol’s skates. These are the sole remaining memories of Atze
Krol’s
experience in this famous race.
When he came to the United States, Atze
Berends Krol changed his name to Arthur Burt Kroll. He added the second
“l” to
his surname, because family lore indicates that Atze thought Krol
looked German.
Elsewhere I have
written a great deal more
about Atze Krol and his ancestry. However, this tale of his experience
in
perhaps the most famous cultural and sporting event in Friesland
deserved a
separate account.
Arthur M. Kroll
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