The following two messages were written by Nel Beemsterboer (wife of the Eenigenburg Foundation’s chairman, Cor Beemsterboer) during fundraising efforts among the Eenigenburg family. They demonstrate the extreme dedication of the village that made the Eenigenburg Museum a reality.
"WHY?"
I KEEP ASKING MYSELF WHY.
WHY did we go to America to the reunion of 1999?
WHY did Klaas van Schoneveld die in America after he became a special member of the Eenigenburg family?
WHY did the chairwoman of The Eenigenburg Foundation
ask us to join her in this foundation?
WHY did we take a lot of work on our shoulders to renovate
the house? We already had a lot of work with our own business and our own family.
WHY did our chairwoman die, too, and leave us
with a lot of questions?
WHY are we taking so many potholes on this path to bring
all this work to a good end?
WHY have we found such a warm nest in your family?
I think we are driven by a spirit, and believe with the support of You ALL, we can work out the whole project to a good ending – and by this END – a new START will begin – where we will present you this museum and invite You ALL to come and visit us.
With love and many warm regards,
Cor and Nel Beemsterboer
Douwe and Rina van den Berg
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"Appeal from the Village"
Written by Nel Beemsterboer
11 December 2003"
Dear people of the Eenigenburg family,
We met a lot of you at the fantastic reunion in 1999 and think you are a very special family with an impressive background. Unfortunately, this party ended not so nicely for us because of the death of our Historian, Klaas van Schoneveld.
But with his death something else was born. That was the idea to do something with all he has written about the history of your family and preserve his unique little house. When we returned to Holland we started to work out these plans, but we had a lot of difficulties. We had to find volunteers and make people enthusiastic about this idea because there was no money. We believed in this project and, YES, we found a lot of citizens in our village who believed in this project, too. We’ve had a lot of support from many of your family members who supported us with money, and also around our village we found people who thought this was really something special and supported us with money, too.
After a year of hard work by many volunteers we succeeded, as you can see in the many pictures, to finish step one, the restoration of this unique little house. We decided to keep the opening small because there was more to come. A few of your family members joined us for the opening of the house and we were very happy to have them with us to celebrate this first step. Since then, we have started on step two – the history of the family Eenigenburg.
The barn beside the little house is completely old and is nearly falling into pieces. We need this barn to show all the documentation there is about the story of your family.
We have made a beautiful plan for a new barnhouse but again there is NO money. Cor started again finding financial support in our area and came up with 30 thousand EURO. With this amount we can start but it is NOT enough. We strongly believe in this so special project and think this unique story will interest a lot of people. For…WHO ON EARTH…has his own family museum in a place that bears their name – the village from which their family left and will return in written history?
After a lot of searching we found the original drawing from the ship “Massachusetts of Boston” in Liverpool, England and we have already made a replica of the ship of a length of 3 meters and a height of 2 meters. This ship will have a central place in the museum. At first – we will tell the history of why they left for America. Second – the voyage on this ship. Third – how they lived their life in America.
In our small museum house, step one, half of our project, we already have had about 8 groups of visitors from villages around. Also, a few visitors from the Eenigenburg family. Altogether, more than one hundred people and all were very enthusiastic. The radio and television channel of North-Holland contacted us just a few weeks ago and wanted again to interview us about the museum. We like that very much but we first want to have the second part of our project to have BODY. If the foundation is strong, I mean if we have enough money, we can start this project and go full ahead. We are very enthusiastic and believe it will be a great success.
Your family is for us number ONE and we think this story has to be kept alive. What Gerrit and Jannetje started spread out to a huge family, and with this new museum, they can come back to the village that bears their name and where it all started. We will bring alive this story to your family and to all who are interested in HISTORY.
Nel Beemsterboer, for the Eenigenburg Foundation