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Elizabeth Rebecca Schuurhof

P0247 1920-

Elizabeth Rebecca Schuurhof was born on 29 September 1920 in the State Hospital in Leiden, daughter of the workman Dirk Johannes Schuurhof and Johanna Wilhelmina Hoogerdijk. Her father died young, and Elizabeth grew up in The Hague in the new household of her mother and Gijsbert Batenburg, together with her brother Dirk Johan and her sisters Annigje and Margaretha.

At the age of nineteen, on 29 November 1939, she married the Hague baker Marinus Damsteeg. That marriage did not last: it was dissolved by the court in June 1944, exactly the same month in which Henk Persoon divorced his first wife. That the two became free at the same moment suggests that they had already found each other by then.

After the war Henk and Elizabeth made the great leap to Australia together. Still unmarried, they left Rotterdam aboard the Sibajak, an emigrant ship of the Rotterdamsche Lloyd, around late April 1951 and, after six or seven weeks, arrived in Melbourne on 13 June 1951; on 30 December 1953 they married in Brisbane. They built a life in Queensland and from 1959 in Dee Why near Sydney, and became Australian citizens together on 18 April 1963. Henk died a few months later.

Life events

1920 Born 29 september 1920 in Leiden

1939 Married the baker Marinus Damsteeg 29 november 1939 in 's-Gravenhage

1944 Marriage to Marinus Damsteeg dissolved by the court juni 1944 in 's-Gravenhage

1951 Arrived in Australia aboard the ship Sibajak 13 juni 1951 in Melbourne

1953 Married with Henk Persoon

1963 Became an Australian citizen (oath at Brookvale) 18 april 1963 in Sydney (Australië)

Generation: 10
Name variants: Elizabeth Rebecca Damsteeg, Elisabeth Rebecca Peerson, Elisabeth Rebecca Schuurhof

Notes

Known in Australia under the spelling 'Elisabeth' (the Dutch certificates give 'Elizabeth'). Her parents were Dirk Johannes Schuurhof (workman) and Johanna Wilhelmina Hoogerdijk (born 29 December 1893 in The Hague); her brother and sisters were Dirk Johan (1917), Annigje (1918) and Margaretha (1924). Her first husband was the baker Marinus Damsteeg (married in The Hague on 29 November 1939, dissolved by divorce by ruling of 30 June 1944). Her sister Margaretha, married to Jan Klompenhouwer, also emigrated to Australia and died in 1973 at Point Clare (New South Wales). The arrival of Henk and Elizabeth cannot be found in any Australian migrant index, which suggests that they travelled at their own expense, outside the Netherlands-Australian Migration Agreement (NAMA); plausible, but not yet proven. Her naturalization was announced in the Commonwealth Gazette of 4 July 1963. Her Australian naturalization form gives her date of birth as 24 September 1920; the Leiden birth certificate gives 29 September 1920. As his widow she was the informant for Henk's death registration (NSW certificate 27295/1963, registered 6 August 1963); she was then living at 40 Kingsway, Dee Why.