LL-L "History" 2008.07.20 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 20 July 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L Lowland Connections

I registered for a conference at the end of October in Honolulu and I will
use the opportunity to visit Kalaupapa, a site on Molokai where a person
famous in both the US and Belgium lived and died.

Father Damien was born as Jozef de Veuster in *Ninde* a hamlet of
*Tremelo,*about 30 miles East of Brussels in Flemish Brabant.

His grandfathers name was "*van der Vorst*", but this was pronounced as "*de
Veuster*" in Brabantish dialect for the registrar during the French time,
and continued to be recorded that way afterwards.
*Vorst *is a romanism and refers to the latin *forestum*, forest

I didn't find an etymology for *Ninde*
For *Tremelo *Carnoy givers "*ter Emelo"*
    with "*emme*": emith*, emme being old-Dutch for grassland
    and "*loo":* louko*, lauha*: cleared land.

http://www.tremelo.be

The house where Damien was born was the first bricq house in *Ninde*. It is
turned into a little museum nowadays, with both old style furniture, pieces
of rememberance, and a collection of items from Molokai.

I visited the house on Saturday (It is difficult to find within the triangle
Keerbergen, Tremelo and Werchter).

They sell books on Damien, I bought (25 euro):
Hilde Eynikel,* Damiaan: de definitieve biografie*, Davidsfonds Leuven,
derde druk, 1999, 400 pp, ISBN 91-5826-004-6
It is a well illustrated, a quite objective detailled easy reader.
Hilde Eynikel got her PhD at Leuven University on the subject of Damien.
I saw they also have a French version. I don't know whether it is translated
into Englis.

A picture of the house is at:
http://www.tremelo.be/442_nl.html
The big building behind is an old folk's home. There are some road
indications to this building, and this is helpfull for finding Damien's
house.

Damien toke care of the isolated leprous people of Molokai, but he died of
leprosy himself.
English: *leprosy, Hansens's desease*
Dutch: *melaatsheid*
German: *Aussatz, Lepra*
French: *lèpre*

The body of Damien was buried in Kalaupapa in 1889. The Belgian king Leopold
III got an authorisation from president Rooselvelt  for transfering the body
to Belgium in 1936. The body is now burried in a church in Leuven Belgium.
The coffin was reopened after the beatification in 1995 and the bones of one
hand were returned to Hawaii and reburried in Kalaupapa on July 22, 1995.

So I'm quite interested to visit Kalaupapa while in the area anyhow.

Some url's:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Damien
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalaupapa

Regards,
Roger
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