Ode to Maria Elisabeth Tax | What all went on behind doors of the Maagdenhuis you have not been able to recount

Dear Maria Elisabeth,

Or may I say Mia? After all, that was the call sign of my mother (1928-2020), who was named after you and carried the same surname (Tax) until she got married. You never knew her, because you died in 1909 at the Sint Elisabeth's Gesticht on Mauritskade at the age of 21. A short life you may have had and you will say: 'I won't have much to share' but I disagree. However premature your end came, you still live in memory. Although, 115 years later, I will probably be the last person who still knows of your existence. This letter to you, as a kind of tribute to all orphan girls like you, growing up without their parents. To contribute something to the history of loneliness and social care and grief and segregation that was the fate of the Maagdenhuis occupants.

It will do you good to know that your youngest brother, Jan (Johannes Franciscus, 1890-1945), was fond of you. Much more than with his eldest sister Leen (Helena Wilhelmina Frederieka, 1876-1951). That's why he named his firstborn after you, so that you lived on a little. That sister of yours was a rigid one, perhaps because she didn't have it easy either. When your parents died (1895-1898), she was the only one of the children grown up and by then married to the diamond cutter Jo van Marle. Whether it was allowed, the family transmission did not tell, but the fact is that you were not taken in by her. Financially, this must not have been easy and this is not how she must have imagined her first years of marriage. That marriage eventually ended when Jo ran off with someone else. Leen later remarried Daan Christiani (1865-1939), a retired chief skipper in the Navy. Whether that was so great, one might wonder. Until his death, he remained loyal to his uniform and painted his surname on all pots, pans and other loose utensils. He was used to that at sea. So was commandeering and that continued just as much afterwards. From Leen I still have her death shirt. That sounds strange and it is. She wanted to be buried in that shirt, neatly trimmed with lace, but when the time came it turned out to be impracticable. Why certain objects are kept and others are not, deserves further study. 
 

It is not surprising that you and your little brother, essentially fellow sufferers, were so fond of each other. You were allowed to see each other briefly on Sundays but during the week you were glued to your own orphanage for a long time. You in the Roman Catholic Magdehuis on the Spui and Jan in the ditto Boys' Orphanage on the Lauriergracht. On 3 February 1898, you were separated and admitted to these 'benevolent institutions'. Your father, a widower since May 1895, had died shortly before on 24 January. Four of their seven children had preceded them by then and it is said that between 1880 and 1884 they all died less than a year old. Their parents were also said to succumb to TB but whether that cause of death was true? Strange it would not be. They all lived in the basement of the 'House with the tooth' on Haarlemmerstraat. Tradition has it that your father, Joghannes Petrus Antonius Tax (1851-1898), could touch the beamed ceiling with his hands while standing. It must not have been too healthy there, so cramped and close together. Around 1930, the house was demolished and just before the demolition, Jan, an 9amateur photographer with a homemade camera, still photographed the house and the stone. It must have been a wistful moment for him. Just about the last tangible memory of your childhood in front of the orphanage had been demolished, and he still retained something of it with the two pictures. That the facade stone has now been bricked in at the Amsterdam Museum will surely do you good. By the way, a beautiful cabinet photo of your father has been preserved. It shows him in full regalia. The chimney sweep together with a servant. All that soot must not have done his lungs any good either...

Your mother, Margaretha Jacoba Genot (pleasure) (1853-1895) also has a nice anecdote. That surname... it was a laughing matter in the family. Who has that name? With a kind of relief, when I looked into the family tree in my student days, it turned out that she was descended from Pierre Joseph Genôt, who ended up in Amsterdam as a sailor in the French era. Did you remember this?

About your and Jan's time in the orphanage, we know nothing more than a single mention in the archives and scraps of oral tradition. Lonely you were and subject to strict rules. You were not allowed to go to the toilet until fifteen minutes before the meal and not at all during it. Church attendance was compulsory and that must have been daily and maybe more than once a day. Were you actually very religious? Leen was very sorry that after the orphanage, Jan's religious beliefs were at a low ebb. He married a Protestant girl and the children followed her faith. Not without a struggle. When Mia was born in 1928, out of nowhere a priest appeared at the door demanding Roman Catholic baptism. In vain. Could Leen, who had remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church, have been behind this?

The compulsory orphanage uniform will not have contributed to the not too positive image of your orphanage years. In two carte-de-visite photos, you were captured side by side in uniform for the occasion, that is. You with a long dress, white apron, shawl and cap. The little head iron that was part of the costume is vaguely visible. How did you experience this stigma when you walked down the street with it? 
 

I read in the archives that you left the Maagdenhuis on 31 January 1908 to work as a servant in Hilversum. Finally in civilian life and on your own two feet. After barely six months, however, you were already back in Amsterdam. Not without reason... On 8 July of that year, you were admitted to the aforementioned Sint Elisabeth's Gesticht, where you died of TB over a year later on 25 September 1909. It was a huge blow to Jan and whether he was able to see and support you much during that last six months seems unlikely in retrospect. Since May 1907, he had been sent by the Orphanage to Venlo where he had to learn a trade, probably at a smithy. It was only in 1911, at 21, that he was officially discharged from the orphanage and then returned to Amsterdam. He was apprenticed to the bicycle factory of A. Bömers in Sittard from 1909, making bicycles. There he was introduced to emerging motorised transport. You would be amazed at how your little brother learned to drive a car in no time and started earning a living as a chauffeur back in Amsterdam. First as a private driver for the Van den Bergh family (of margarine) and later to distribute the Handelsblad from the print shop throughout the Netherlands. This had to be done at night, of course, to get the newspaper to subscribers on time.

Whether he visited your deathbed in his Limburg years and attended your funeral, we do not know. I am sure he still visited your grave regularly. After your death, he got your watch that hung around your neck and the locket with the tiny photos of your parents in it. He treasured these until his own death. Shortly after the Liberation, he died, weakened by the hunger winter and he too emaciated by the TB.  

Your life was short but long enough to be missed by the closest person in your life. A fellow sufferer with whom you were able to share the grief over the loss of your parents and actually your childhood in scarce moments. What all went on behind doors of the Maagdenhuis you have not been able to recount. You must have had fun with your friends there many times but the discipline and lack of privacy and who knows what else must have been very tough. For you and all those hundreds of other orphans, Roman Catholic and otherwise, who were so numerous in those years. Upon hearing the word ‘Virgin House’ everyone thinks of the student actions since 1969 but with this letter, maybe your life and that of those other ‘virgins’ will come back to life a bit too.

Heartfelt greetings from Jeroen, the son of that other Mia.

Ps All family photos are since last year in the City Archives where in the future all descendants of Jan and other interested people can see them.