Digging into the depth of one’s ancestry one is likely to come across a good story or two.

Although the Heyning family has by now joined the ranks of the Dutch patriciate and according to every publication and website concerning Cape of Good Hope is counted as one of the old renowned Cape families, the social status of the descendants Continue reading Count of Heyning →

Occasionally a birthday post-card would arrive with pictures of windmills, tulips and people in wooden clogs from some mystery aunt in a far distant country, but really, we didn’t know any more than that. I am the daughter of John (Bart) Heyning (1921) and I, along with all of his children, grew up outside of Holland and quite isolated from the Heyning family because of divorces and distance. At home we ate things that the other kids didn’t have, like hagelslag, appelstroop and different Dutch cheeses, but that Continue reading Heyning Abroad →

A good old custom in these days – seventy years ago – was that freshmen were shaved bald, sat only on the floor and behaved humble to older students. And so I met one of them in September 1939, sitting on the ground and waiting to be spoken to. I was a student at Delfts Technical University and my fraternity was “Het Delfts Studenten Corps”.

Continue reading Bart meets Bart – 1 →