Scenes from a wedding with Freek and Hella de Jonge.
It was love at first sight, but not everyone supported their relationship. Freek (79) and Hella de Jonge (74) have been a good couple for 54 years. The two also appear to be a special match at work, and they bring out the best in each other.
Scene 1
November 1969. Wassenaar
When Freek and Hella meet at an engagement party, it is love at first sight.
F: ‘At that time I formed the cabaret duo Neerlands Hoop in Bange Dagen with Bram Vermeulen. Bram was a pianist, co-creator and designer. He had a girlfriend since he was seventeen and got engaged. The funny thing was that we were a bit of an avant-garde, wild, brutal cabaret group, and then Bram got engaged to a Wassenaar girl in a Wassenaar house in neat Wassenaar. And that’s where I met Hella.’
H: ‘I had seen Freek perform before, after several people tipped me off to go to Neerlands Hoop: “Very nice, you should go there!” I was very interested in theater so I wanted to see it. After their show in Delft I saw Freek having a wonderful argument in the hall, which made me laugh terribly. I found the way he argued very comical.’
F: ‘If your partner can laugh at how you argue, then you’ve come a long way…’
H: ‘Not long afterwards, one of my friends asked me if I was going to Bram Vermeulen’s engagement. I thought: who knows, I might see that funny man again, who can argue so nicely. At that time I made all my own clothes, and for this occasion I wore a home-knitted jumpsuit. Quite sexy, although I didn’t really notice it. Once inside, Freek was not there. I stood there in that suit, among all those neat people in their neat clothes. I thought: what am I doing here? I want to go home. At that moment the door opened and Freek walked in. We looked at each other and yes, that’s what you call love at first sight. He took me to the basement, and there we had a lot to discuss… After the engagement everyone went out to the HOT theater in The Hague. I couldn’t participate, I was working as a dancer at the Snip & Snap Revue at the time and had to rehearse in Carré the next morning at nine o’clock.’
F: ‘To which I said: “You don’t go home alone, I will take you.” Afterwards I won Hella’s heart.’
H: ‘Then Freek took me home by train and at my door I asked: “Do you want to see my room?” Once upstairs, he admired the jewelry I made at the Rietveld Academy, including an insanely large ring. Freek took that ring, slipped it on his finger and it fit. A kind of fairytale. So it really is possible: as a woman you meet that man on a white horse, and the ring fits.’
F: ‘Although some women run away with the horse…’
Scene 2
February 1971. The City Hall in Amsterdam.
Partly due to the pressure from both families, Freek and Hella soon decide to get married.
H: ‘We were together for a year and a half when I was sitting on Freek’s lap at home and he asked me to marry him. Later it turned out to be partly a joke, but I immediately said ‘yes’ in a very serious way, and thought: wow, I want that! Also to get rid of the nagging from our families. They didn’t like the fact that Freek, as a pastor’s son, and I, as a Jewish girl, soon lived together. For example, I made our bedroom beautiful pink, a girl’s dream. But according to our mothers, I had made a whore’s nest of it. I thought: if we get married, we’ll get rid of all the whining. I made my outfit myself: a trouser suit with a belt and a white cape with a hood with all kinds of small loops attached to it. On our wedding day, we first went together at nine o’clock to pick up the bouquet of flowers that Freek had ordered: light blue grapes, very beautiful.’
F: ‘We took tram line 1 from our house on the Overtoom to the City Hall where we had to be at ten o’clock. Once there we had a lot of laughs because Hella lost her contact lens. I lay there on my knees in my bright white suit, searching. So we had a lot of fun ourselves and we knew what we were doing, but you felt the judgment and tension of the others. Although there is also a group photo in which you see the entire company laughing exuberantly. The officiant I gave one of those standard cliché speeches without any preparation, while I made one comment after another and everyone was shocked.’
H: ‘Later we went to Felix Meritis on the Keizersgracht where everyone could shake our hands. Then we had dinner, and once home Freek carried me over the threshold.’
Scene 3
January 1974. Texel.
After a complicated pregnancy and delivery, son Jork dies when he is three months old.
H: ‘Three months after our wedding I became pregnant and after an easy pregnancy our daughter Roos was born on February 22, 1972. A relaxed baby. I was 22, proud of our baby and completely carefree. Things were very different with our son Jork. By the seventh month of pregnancy I was already thinking: this is not going well at all. This was followed by a very complicated birth. He didn’t come, then he was cheerful, but he didn’t want that either. After birth he required a blood exchange transfusion. A very bad start. And just when there seemed to be some peace, Jork became ill at the age of three months. Just before we were to go on holiday, I worriedly took him to the doctor on Friday and told him he didn’t seem well. But the doctor said: “Oh, ma’am, are you going on holiday.” So we went to Texel that weekend. When we arrived there on Sunday, Jork died in the pram. My carefreeness as a mother then of course suffered an incredible blow.’
F: ‘In the first few years it was difficult to find a solution together, because grieving is very personal. When one person doesn’t feel like it, the other is in a bad way, and that causes problems. If you leave each other alone long enough, there will come a time when you can do it together. We have of course been lucky that we have traveled together a lot. Later also because of work. Then on the way back we had the opportunity to talk about what was on our minds, without any specific pressure. And that is also part of our success.’
H: ‘During that period there were a few couples in my area who experienced something similar. I was already one step further and tried to help by talking to them. All those relationships didn’t work out. Very moving. At some point we had to make the decision: do we want another child? I had to be really brave to dare to do it. Our son Jelle, a very popular child, was fortunately born in 1975 after an easy pregnancy and delivery. A good start. But just a few days before Jelle turned three months old, he got pneumonia and was admitted to hospital. Dramatic. Fortunately, things turned out well and we overcame that. And it may sound very strange, but without Jork I would never have become who I am. It really was a turning point in my life. He has opened my eyes that there is another, better path: thanks to Jork I have learned to see the path of happiness.’
F: ‘In general, people are very attached to their sadness, and you have to learn to let that go and you have succeeded.’
H: ‘Very different from, for example, my parents, who continued to play the role of victim. If it became at all difficult, it was like: “Yes, but we are those pathetic people who have been through so much, had to go into hiding for five years and were abused so much.” Because of all this, my parents were unable to be there for me after Jork’s death. Fortunately, years later I was able to help my daughter Roos when her daughter and our granddaughter Maggie were ill and died at the age of seven due to a heart defect. A blow to our family. It has made us stronger and we all got through it well, but it is of course a huge damage. Also for our grandson Otis, who was only six when his sister died.’
You can read the entire interview in the new Elegance that is now in stores. You will also find the new spring fashion, read an interview with Jane Goodall, we travel to Dubai and much more.
Text: Kim Buitenhuis | Photography: Stef Nagel | Styling: Brigitte Kramer | Make-up: Maaike Beijer
