Pietersbierum around 1880 in photos

Thee road taken by Ynze and Klaas from the farm to school and back

Ynze and Klaas were the sons of Sjoerd Ynzes de Boer and Lieuwkje Heerkes Hibma. Of both parents the first partner had died. They remarried 1871, both were aged 40. Sjoerd then became farmer on the farm of his father in law, Heerke Attes Hibma, and two years later, after Heerkes death, Sjoerd and Lieuwkje took over completely. That farm was the first on the road from Pietersbierum to Wynaldum. Sjoerd and Lieuwkje got the sons Ynze (*1872) and Klaas (*1873).

There come the boys! They are almost 10 and walk to school.

The road to Pietersbierum had been firmed up not too long ago and was called Pûndyk (rubble road) after the material used. This was nice for Ynze and Klaas, their shoes were no longer muddied on their way to school. The village could be seen clearly, the trees on the mound and the tall church tower. The tower was new. The church made do without after the large fire of 1843. Last year they had often been looking at the rebuilding, now all was finished. The road had two sharp bends. There they walked past a broad ditch, the former moat of the "Hottinga Stins" (noble house Hottinga). That house, they knew, had been demolished long ago. Well, 35 years ago, around the time the church had burned down. But that was long in their minds.

They swayed a bit with their schoolbag. In it, they had a few notebooks, a pencil, and a box with a few sandwiches.

The road now bent to the right slightly, up the mound. At the house at right the village started. The second house at right was the pub, with sign. They knew that father Sjoerd had come there often, when he still was merchant in Midlum. And that he got to know mother Lieuwkje in the Pietersbierum village square, she was widow then and had a shop there.
The sign of the pub read "PAS VER EN RUST WAT" (step far and rest some). The boys thought that to be an odd sentence. They greeted the pub owners wife. Some children walked ahead of them, also going to school. Ynze and Klaas payed more attention to the smithy, up at the end of the street, on the village square. Wat was going on at the smithy?

When they were close, it turned out to be an old cart. Nothing special. Then Klaas says: "Ynze, we still have to bring Mems shoes to the cobbler". So they go back a little, into the street. The shoemaker is in the first house before the village square, next to the alley to the churchyard. They enter the cobblers shop. Ynze gets their mothers shoes from his bag and says: "Master cobbler knows what Mem likes to have repaired" and he passes the shoes on. Master cobbler nodds. "Can I pick them up after school?" Master cobbler nodds again. He is not terribly talkative.

Back on the village square they see the smith just opened the large doors of the smithy, the furnace is already glowing. In front of the smithy is the horse box in which the smith fixes the horse to give it a new horseshoe. It is right across the house of the Hibmas, the house with the small windows at the north side of the square, where mother Lieuwkje had lived for a while. And to the left of the Hibma house is the house of Master Faber. But he must be in school already. Master Faber, since 1855 in Pietersbierum, had married Reintje Lourensz, the daughter of the former schoolmaster, Folkert Ulrichs Lourensz, who retired in 1855 and who died two years later (his wife died in 1861). And mother Lieuwkje had married Pieter Cornelis (Folkerts) Lourensz, the son of the former schoolmaster. Master Faber therefore is an uncle of Ynze and Klaas. The Faber and Hibma families have owned those houses at the north side of the square for many years.

It has become silent in the square. The children are gone. Ynze and Klaas now hurry to the school, in the SW corner of the square. Some 10 years ago, the new school house was built, a rather large looking building with bow-windows. To its right is a little house. That is where Master Faber first lived. The old school building, from the time of Master Folkert Lourensz, was in an annexe behind the house with its entry from the path around the churchyard. Mams had gone to school there.

Master Faber waits patiently in front of the children. He raises his baton. No, not to beat, but to beat the rhythm of the first song. The children sing a lot. Master Faber finds music important. Perhaps so much so that the teaching gets short thrift.
Master Faber teaches, outside school time, also some musical instruments. Ynze learns to play the flute. Klaas will go to learn play the violin.

But let us now leave the children and the Master to what they normally have to do in school.

After some hours, the children can play outside a bit. Look, there comes Klaas, with a friend. They walk to the path to the south, to have a look outside the village. Nothing happens there except for a pair of herons lifting off from the side of a ditch. A few sea gulls fly over. So they turn around and see the village with the houses on the south side of the village square, and the new school building.
They also see, on the road from Pietersbierum to Sexbierum, the house "Walburga". That house was the residence of the second wife and widow of the mayor Collet d'Escury (1857-1866). Her full name was "Walburga A.C.E. barones van Asbeck zu Berge und Münsterhausen", and so everybody preferred to call the house just Walburga. That family (heirs to the earlier mayor Collet d'Escury, 1816-1827) owned in 1832 most of the land in and around Pietersbierum. There were no further houses on that road down to the Pietersbierumer canal.
They now go back to the square and the school with Master Faber.

When Master Faber has finished for the day, after some more singing, Ynze and Klaas go onto the square. They look at the smithy on the east side. The smith has closed the doors already.

Now they have to go to the shop, on the west side of the square, across from the smith. Ynze hands over a note from Mem with some orders.

Finally they pick up Mems shoes at the cobbler. And now down the street, to the bottom of the mound and in the direction of Wynaldum. They kick some loose stones. And they talk about what Master Faber taught. They have to learn multiplication tables, Ynze those of 14 and 15, Klaas of 8 and 9. Multiplication up to 20!

Then Ynze says: "I look forward to tomorrow!" Tomorrow they will go to Harlingen. With Uncle Gerrit and Aunt Aafke of the farm on the Âlddyk. They will come and pick up Ynze and Klaas with the carriage, with their stepdaughter Minke, the daughter of father from his first marriage. Perhaps also Folkert, mothers son from her first marriage, will come along. "I want to look at the ships and the lock", says Klaas. "But I want to go to the Southern Harbour, that is where the marvellous big sailing ships are!"

And now they walk up the entry to the farm while Ynze waves to Mem with the repaired shoes.

Klaas Sjoerds de Boer, 2016.04.28   Pietersbierum1880-e.html