Being of service

From fighting with the Dutch resistance to helping immigrants in Toronto, Hans Deeg unleashed the power of a positive thinker

(Hans) never let the memories of those perilous times negatively affect his life.

FRANK DEEG, SON

Hans Deeg joined the Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands soon after the country was invaded in 1940. “Their activities included helping Jews hide and otherwise avoid arrest and deportation to prison and death camps, helping downed Allied airmen escape capture and return to their bases in Britain, and generally making life as difficult as possible for the Nazis,” says his son Frank Deeg. “This was dangerous work, and Hans, as did many others, had to go underground not only to avoid arrest himself, but also to protect his family from arrest and likely execution.”

Born Johan Frans Deeg in Deventer in the province of Overijssel, Netherlands, Hans was the second child of Johann Deeg, a sales representative for the Royal Dutch Carpet Factory, one of the Netherlands’ oldest and largest carpet manufacturers, and his wife Jacoba Neidig, a volunteer with numerous charities. From an early age, Hans enjoyed music and played the violin.

Hans attended elementary and high school in Deventer and had just entered the Delft University of Technology to study chemical engineering when the war began.

Along with older sister Betty and her husband, Hans worked for the resistance until the war ended in 1945. Although he never said that he was afraid, “after the war, that part of Hans’ life was placed ‘in storage’ and was effectively kept hidden,” says Frank. “He was reluctant to talk about those lost years, but never let the memories of those perilous times negatively affect his life.”

Following the war, Hans resumed his studies at Delft, graduating with honours in 1948. Along with his wife Elly van Zonneveld and infant son Frank, Hans emigrated to Indonesia, Elly’s birthplace. There, he landed his first job as a chemical engineer and he and Elly had a second son, Bart. “However, the Second World War resulted in Indonesia becoming an independent country, making life problematic for Dutch citizens living and working there,” says Frank. “Canada, with an emerging and rapidly growing oil industry, beckoned brightly.”

Joining thousands of Dutch immigrants coming to Canada, in 1952 the family settled in Sarnia, where Hans worked for the Canadian Oil Company. Next came a job at the Los Angeles-based Fluor Corporation, which designed and built chemical and processing plants and refineries. The family’s time in the U.S. was short lived, as Hans and Elly preferred the Canadian education system for their sons. The family returned to Sarnia in 1959, and Hans resumed working for Canadian Oil.

In 1963, when Shell Canada bought Canadian Oil, Hans was transferred to Shell’s head office in Toronto, where the family lived for the next 51 years.

A devoted family man, Hans was married to Elly for 73 years. “Elly, born and raised in Indonesia, had arrived in the Netherlands with her parents after the war, having spent almost four years in Japanese prison camps during the Japanese occupation of what was then still the Dutch East Indies,” says Frank. “Both Hans and Elly had experienced the horrors, pain, and loss of war, and this may have contributed to sparking their lifelong love.” In the 1980s they became grandparents to Christina and Philip, and more recently great-grandparents to “Little” Elly and Daisy.

“Dad was always a dedicated father in introducing us to many activities such as scouting and skiing,” says Bart.

After their sons had left home, Hans and Elly began to sponsor children living in developing countries in Africa, South America and Asia. “Much time was spent not just in keeping in touch with these children and their families,” Frank says, “but also in making clothes and toys for them and sending frequent care packages.” In 1979, when Canada accepted tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees following the end of the Vietnam War, Hans was involved in the campaign to assist the immigrants arriving in Toronto, helping them to find housing and employment and to enroll their children in schools. “Hans and Elly found their efforts deeply rewarding and formed 40-plus-year friendships with several of the Vietnamese families that settled in Islington,” says Frank.

Hans retired from Shell as a senior process engineer in 1987, but briefly returned to work as a consultant, before wrapping up his 40-year career.

In retirement, Hans enjoyed music (a lifelong fan of jazz, he was a member of the Toronto chapter of the Duke Ellington Society) and travelling the world with Elly: to Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, Switzerland, Portugal, the Canary Islands, and Ecuador, among many other destinations. Although the couple returned to the Netherlands every few years to visit family and sightsee, as the country changed since they first left in 1948, Hans and Elly (who became Canadian citizens in the early ’70s) “considered Canada their home,” says Frank.

While living in California, Hans heard about a self-awareness learning technique called Science of Mind, Bart says. He later became a practitioner, hosting group discussions related to the teachings of the spiritual and philosophical religious movement.

But the most important lessons he passed on to his sons, Frank says, were “his ever-evident thoughtfulness and helpful nature. He was very self-reliant and always approached life with a positive, can-do attitude.”