Children Under Her Wings

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“Their mother died and so, when these children (Monica and Tonneke) were left motherless then someone fostered them, and they were sort of offered to my mother and my grandmother…So my grandmother said ‘well sure we’ll take them’ because that means that’d be two more mouths that we get…My mother was horrified that her mother even suggested that she would take food out of the mouths of these children. So, my mother stood up to her mother, said ‘I’m going to take the children and you just stay out of it’. Then my mother kept care of Tonneke and Monica the whole time, and even at the end of the war escorted them home on the ship. (Also Anna took care of) a young cousin (named Dickie). She pretended that was her little boy. Blonde hair, blue eys, adorable little boy. But he got sick…(from) diphtheria. It just devastated her when he died not too long after that.”