End of an era of Dutch migration
Ibought a new suit the other day. The suit got its first outing this week at my Uncle Theo’s funeral. He died, aged 90, surrounded by his family last Friday.
The funeral was in many ways typical of his no-frills approach to life. A lifelong if not especially devout Catholic, his mass was a simple requiem affair with a few hymns, a few prayers and readings, and, on his strict instructions, no eulogies.
At the after-match function, speeches were allowed but they were restricted to two minutes each and definitely no open mike. He was also determined there would be no drawn-out goodbyes. He was not a man for releasing doves, sending up balloons or spreading rose petals.
Farewells were said outside the church with a simple touch of his fairly bare coffin and then the hearse departed alone, with hardly a break in the traffic, for the crematorium.
A somewhat Protestant funeral, it could be said, but the beautiful mass at Our Lady of Victories Church in Sockburn made up for the austerity.
Uncle Theo came to New Zealand in 1953 and was followed three months later by his bride-tobe, Afra. His sister (my mother, who is still alive) arrived two years later with my father, who died about 10 years ago.
A pastry cook by trade, Uncle Theo went on to own a number of bakeries in Christchurch including a wholesale pie business. He and Afra had five children. I heard a good story about his baking days from one of his colleagues at the funeral. He remembered Uncle Theo serving a customer in his Hornby shop who wanted a custard pie.
The customer asked for extra lashings of cream on top and Uncle Theo, about to hand over the cream-laden pie, asked what was with the extra dairy.
The patron explained that he was going to shove the pie into someone’s face. Uncle Theo withdrew the pie immediately saying he wasn’t going to sell it for it just to be wasted.
Some would say Uncle Theo (we called him Ome Dick) was a typical Dutchman. He was hardworking, routine-driven, stubborn, socially conservative, a natural contrarian and knew the value of a dollar. He would have seen my new suit as a waste of money.
He was also one of the last of his generation of about 11,000 Dutch immigrants who came to New Zealand between 1951 and 1954. Well over 100,000 New Zealanders now have some Dutch heritage.
Most of Uncle Theo’s cohort died well before him and, in his later years, he often found himself as the only male among widows. But even the widows are passing now and only a few made his funeral.
I wonder how we will regard the legacy of that wave of Dutch immigrants who came to New Zealand in the 50s and who are now fading away. Mostly blue collar workers and tradespeople (my dad was a mechanic), they made a major economic contribution, already often acknowledged, and brought a not always welcome brand of Europeanism to the racing, rugby, beer-orientated New Zealand society. Although their skin was the right colour, locals often found their accent strange, their manner brusque and their thrift ungracious.
Although some immigrants tried to preserve their Dutchness, most knuckled down and assimilated aggressively.
Perhaps they took to heart the attitude of senior immigration official Dr Reuel Lochore: ‘‘We must make new Britishers: by procreation, and by assimilation; by making suitable aliens into vectors of the British way of life.’’
But some things were hard to suppress. Uncle Theo worked as a storeman on arriving and was told off for working too fast.
It was clear the Dutch work ethic came as a shock to the strongly unionised New Zealand workforce where British work to rule was more the custom.
Maybe some of that Dutch work ethic did rub off and it was certainly instilled in their next generation.
As I was growing up I didn’t get the impression being Dutch was highly regarded and at high school it was definitely nothing you wanted to advertise.
After Uncle Theo’s funeral I was sitting with some of his grandsons having a beer and asked them what they thought about their Dutch heritage.
They seemed proud of it, to the extent they emphasised their Dutchness over the other backgrounds flowing through their veins. A very different attitude to my generation and one that Uncle Theo and Aunt Afra can take a lot of credit for.
You can talk a lot about material contributions but you know the Dutch have truly arrived when the legacy of people like Uncle Theo lives on in the pride his grandchildren have in their heritage.
Some would say Uncle Theo was a typical Dutchman.