‘In May 1945 my parents, Tiny Wijnbeek and Barend Richters, were still engaged. They lived in Zwolle with my grandparents, Johannes and Dina Wijnbeek.
The reason for this photo is the soldier on the right. He is Canadian and his name is Lionel Haslam, but because of his height he is called Shorty. Barend and Tiny found him sitting on a post in the Sassenstraat and invited him for a cup of (surrogate) coffee. It became a friendship forever.
The day Shorty’s boat sailed back to Canada, November 14, 1945, my parents got married. A year later their first child was born. They called him Barend Lionel – a tribute to Shorty, who, like my parents, faithfully maintained correspondence. In the meantime, my father had become a personnel officer at the Dutch Petroleum Company, he helped foreign colleagues with housing. My mother provided homely furnishings from her own stock.
In 1974 Shorty came to visit Assen. He received a warm welcome and a ten-day tour. Six years later my parents were invited for a return visit. My father was now a heart patient, but the doctor allowed him to make the trip. After ten days he unexpectedly suffered a fatal attack. He is buried in the Shorty family cemetery. My mother died two years later.
I got married that same year. Our honeymoon was to Canada, where Shorty bought a baptismal cap in St. Catherine. Our eldest daughter, Catherine Maria, named after my mother, wore this at her baptism. In Wiarton at BayView Cemetery, my father and Lionel lie five hundred meters apart, forever linked.”
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