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Koopman

| Introduction | Origins of Koopman | Opa GW Koopman |
| Early years in Surabaya | Surabaya connection to Scotland? |
| Oom Chris Koopman | Dutch Club in Singapore | Family time in Singapore |

Opa Koopman (Gustaaf Wilhelm) born Surabaya June 1880

The picture below is of Opa Koopman and his second wife, Oma Koopman (born 1901), whom he married in the late 1920's shortly after the passing away of Oma Eda, my maternal great grandmother. I am sitting on Opa's knee in 1966, just one year old, when he was himself 86 years old. In this picture you can see some of the reminders of the family trading history, including a Chinese wall tapestry of flying chickens which was no doubt obtained in Indonesia in the 1800's. Opa always used to do his morning exercises including push ups and sit ups, and studied the Romanian language until his death in 1966. I continue to do the same thing, doing morning exercises to restore the blood flow, and studying many languages, except for Romanian. I guess there is still time to do so, as my hobby is to study and become fluent in languages, which break down cultural barriers most effectively and are the basis on which one really learns other cultures and philosophies.

Opa Koopman was a very correct gentleman as Omi used to put it. After his birth in Surabaja in 1880, he spent a number of years in Indonesia with his father and mother until he and his older brothers, Oom Frits and Oom Chris Koopman, left Indonesia for Holland in the late 1880's.

I have in my possession a number of letters and documents, including letters from Opa Koopman's father written to him from Indonesia. In those days letters were sent by steamship. The telex had only just been installed in the early 1880's (the Krakatoa volcanic eruption of 1883 was one of the first world disasters to be reported via telex), and letters were the traditional way of keeping in contact. These letters would travel through the Suez Canal which had been operational since 1869, and which shortened the time for ships to travel to and from Indonesia appreciably as compared to the route around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Below is a picture taken by Grootvader Koopman (Gerrit Jan) on his way through Port Said which is at the Mediterranean side of the Suez Canal, in Egypt, around 1890.

Reading their letters and their sentiments, although somewhat more formally written then we would nowadays, indicate a great love and care my great great grandfather had for his family and sons, while operating his coffee and tea plantations in Indonesia. Below is a photo of the family Koopman, with from left to right: Tante Marie, Oom Lucas, Opa GJ Koopman, Oom Chris, Grootmoeder Koopman-Polack, Grootvader GW Koopman (My great grandfather), and Oom Frits. The photo is dated 1891, and most likely taken on one of the return trips of my great great grandfather to Holland, shortly before he passed away. Opa Koopman (Gustaaf) looks a lot like my nephew, Jesse Hewitt - Balfoort, who lives in New Zealand. Sometimes generations pass before certain features reoccur. My eldest son, Coenraad, looks remarkably like Opa Gerrit Jan Koopman, in spite of a 6 generations gap.

The photos in this family history came from Omi who had inherited them from Tante Sofie en Oom Lucas, her uncle. Oom Lucas had in turn inherited them from his mother Marie Koopman - Polack. Omi was named Sofia after her auntie. Oma Koopman-Polack was very conscientious when it came to keeping records and she would write on the back of photos and mark the passing away of her children diligently. As you can see in this photo crosses mark out those family members that passed away afterwards. On this photo I found the comments: "These good old times have unfortunately long passed and will never return again. How unfortunate! Sad memories." I was blessed to receive the boxes and albums of photos and documents in such good order in spite of all the generations that have passed since. I must thank my Uncle Paul and Tante Liesbeth in Holland for taking good care and making the effort to safeguard these precious documents for me and to forward them to me in Malaysia.

The family Ledeboer, Oma Eda's family, was also very good at maintaining records of family and passing these on. I have traced various books and photo albums which I have managed to find on the internet, some of which are written for special occasions and include family photos of the Ledeboer family in the mid 1800's. The Ledeboer family is a family of Dutch nobility with their own coat of arms and a registration in the equivalent of the Burke's Peerage annals in Holland. Omi received reinforcement for her interest in family history and genealogy from both her mother's and father's side. Below an early written family tree dated around 1920, written by Grootmoeder Koopman - Polack.

This early family tree confirms interestingly that eight generations before I was born, our ancestors intermarried with Chinese when an early ancestor, Mr Ruttelaar, married a Chinese wife. It will become obvious while reading this family history that there were many inter marriages with Chinese, Indonesian and other nationalities and races over time, culminating with my own marriage to my wife in Malaysia. This makes us a Eurasian family, of which there are many in Penang, Malacca and Indonesia to this day. After a careful analysis of both by father's and mother's ancestry, as well as my wife's, I discovered that our children are a mix of Arab, Filipino, Chinese, Malay, Dutch, French, Scottish, German, Danish and Indonesian, with surprisingly a predominant share being Chinese due to the influence from their mother's side.

After his early years, initially in Indonesia, and then in Holland, Opa Koopman (Gustaaf) went to Wageningen where he studied agricultural technology. Wageningen is not far from Ede where I spent my younger years from the age of 6 years old until we left to migrate to New Zealand, and the university still exists and is well known for a number of excellent faculties related to agriculture. Below is a photo of the student group that Opa was with at the time. Opa had quite a privileged life for the time when few could afford to attend higher institutions of education. He is seated second from the right wearing a boater.

In about 1906 or 1907 Opa went to Romania where he started to manage an agricultural estate. During his time there his mother, Oma Koopman-Polack, went to visit him and also his brothers Oom Chris, Oom Frits and Oom Lucas. He was very successful managing the estate. Each year he would ride his horse to Bucharest to attend the Queen's Birthday celebrations, as the Dutch are very fond of their royal family. We have often done the same, in far flung corners of the world, about the only time each year when we reconnect with our Dutch roots in a concerted way.

At home there are some old passports from that time. Passports were issued each time for a single trip, and signed by an official to let the holder pass (Laisser Passer in French). It is a very official document, almost A5 size, with several seals, issued by the Dutch Queen, Wilhelmina, who had at that time just ascended the throne after the death of her father, King Willem III, in 1899. In the following picture Opa Koopman is sitting on the porch of a house in Romania in around 1906/1907.

Below is a photo of Oom Lucas and Tante Fie, visiting Opa Koopman in Romania in 1906, when they toured Turkey, Romania and Hungary, amongst others.

Opa Koopman left Romania in about 1911, several years before the first world war and came home with a very large sum of money for that time. Omi believes Opa Koopman had at least 100,000 guilders (around 2,100,000 guilders in 2006 terms after adjusting for inflation). With these funds Opa wanted to purchase a farm in Holland. His first attempt was to negotiate on a location in Zeeland. Unfortunately, when he was at the table ready to sign the various contracts, the declaration of the first World War was announced by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. According to Omi, everyone immediately ceased discussions and negotiations, as no one was certain that the Germans would not invade Holland. Opa subsequently bought farm property in the East of the Netherlands, in a place called Voorthuizen, which is unfortunately not as fertile. In 1929 the New York Stock Exchange crashed and started the Depression years. These were very bad years for the family and a drastic anticlimax to developments so far.

I have in my possession the sales documents related to the sale of the ancestral house of Opa Koopman in Hilversum, sold in 1936, shortly after Oma Polack passed away. No doubt the whole family had to try and survive as best as possible during these years. The ancestral house of the Koopmans, built on the wealth of Indonesian trading by my great great grandfather, Gerrit Jan Koopman, was destroyed in 2000 to make way for an old age home. I was about half a year too late to visit from Latvia and found only a big hole in the ground at 12 Graaf Floris Laan, Hilversum.

Below is a picture of the house in the late 1800's. It looks like wintertime. Omi used to visit and stay in this house with her grandmother.

Click to go to "Early years in Surabaya"