Pietertje van Wezel

In 1881, a thirteen-year-old girl stitched a sampler. Her name was Pietertje van Wezel, born on 28 August 1868 in Middelharnis, on the island of Goeree-Overflakkee. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Pietertje Krijgsman - a name that had been passed down through generations in this region.
 

Pietertje grew up in a world of fishermen and sailors. Her father Hendrik van Wezel came from Sommelsdijk, her mother Cornelia Schoonejongen from a well-known Middelharnis family with roots as butchers, traders and innkeepers. The island lived by the water.
 

At 24, in 1892, Pietertje married Jacob de Korte - also a fisherman, and later a skipper. Jacob sailed on the large beam trawlers of the Kolff and Sons company: the wooden MD9 Middelharnis, the steel MD10 Johanna Hendrika, and the MD13 Voorlichter. He became one of the last skippers in the long fishing history of Middelharnis. They lived in the Vissersstraat.
 

Together they had five children: Beschier, Hendrik, Dirk, Cornelis and Suzanna Cornelia. The sons followed their father to sea, as deep-sea fishermen. In 1920 the family moved to Rotterdam, as so many families from Flakkee did in those years.
 

Pietertje van Wezel died on 31 October 1942 in Rotterdam, aged 74. Jacob died ten years later, in 1952, aged 84.
 

The sampler she stitched at the age of thirteen outlived them both.