Death certificates of Rijk Houthuijzen and Aaltje Bollebakker
This is a scan of the death register of Hilversum. It contains four death certificates from January 1891. Number 31, on the bottom left, is the death certificate of my 2nd great-grandmother, Aaltje Bollebakker. She passed away on 26 January 1891, at 9 am, at address “Eerste Oosterstraat #40”, at the age of 39. She was the wife of Rijk Houthuijzen, resident of Hilversum and without occupation, and daughter of Jan Bollebakker and Gijsberta Kloppenburg. Two people came to the registrar to register the death of Aaltje: Jan Houthuis, a weaver, 28, not related to Aaltje, and Jan Bollebakker, also a weaver, 29, brother of Aaltje. Both could not write and did therefore not sign the death certificate.
Now look at death certificate 33, at the bottom right. This death certificate, on the same page and registered on the same date, is the death certificate of Rijk Houthuijzen, Aaltje’s husband and my 2nd great grandfather. He died at 6:30 pm, on the same date, in the same house, at the age of 61. His occupation here is listed as weaver. He was widower [indeed, since almost ten hours] of Aaltje Bollebakker, and before of Cornelia Theebe, and son of Willem Houthuijzen and Marretje Peet, both deceased. The death was registered by his son [from his first marriage] Jan Houthuijzen, a 28 year old weaver, and his brother Philippus, a 54 year old merchant. Philippus signed the death certificate, Jan could not write.
Why did both spouses die on the same day? Unfortunately, I do not know the answer. Maybe their deaths are related, maybe not. The most likely explanation is an epidemic, maybe cholera, but I could not find any proof for that. As Dutch death certificates do not list the cause of death I might never know.
A few other things are worth noting about these death certificates. Note that most men are weavers. Hilversum had a large weaving industry at the time, and many people were employed in the weaving mills. Weaver families were often large and poor, and children started working at an early age. That also explains why Aaltje’s brother and Rijk’s son could not write their name: They had to work as children and hardly, if ever, went to school.
Rijk was without occupation in Aaltje’s death certificate, and weaver in his own. That probably means he recently retired as a weaver, most likely because of health reasons. Life in the weaving mills was hard, I guess his health was failing and he passed too soon, as so many of his colleagues at the time. That also suggests his wife’s death might be unrelated.
Open questions:
- Why did both spouses die at the same day? Coincidence or not?
- Did they live in the house where they died, at the Eerste Oosterstraat? Probably, and this one should not be too hard to find out (just check the population register of Hilversum).
- Are Jan Houthuis and Jan Houthuijzen the same person? I.o.w., was Aaltje’s death registered by her stepson? Quite likely, actually. Rijk Houthuijzen spelled his own name hout huis, and both names (and several variations) were in use in this family. Not too strange, considering hardly any family member could write (I suspect Rijk could write his name, but probably nothing else), IDs did not exist, and official documents were scarce and rarely checked. So I would not be surprised if a name was sometimes written as Jan Houthuis, and sometimes as Jan Houthuijzen – even by the same registrar and on the same day.