Ode to Mevrouw Smit | I will never forget her enthusiasm

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My tribute goes out to the wife of Pastor W.A. Smit of the Old Church in the 1960s. They were both divorced and remarried together which was exceptional in those days for a ministerial couple.

Thanks in part to her, my husband and I were married in the Oude Kerk, the oldest building in Amsterdam, on March 6, 1967. And legally united in marriage in the then City Hall on the Oudezijds-Voorburgwal.

My husband as a renegade Reformed and I as a renegade Catholic, were retrained by the vicar couple so that after 20 catechism lessons we could be married in their Reformed Oude Kerk on the Oudekerksplein.

The couple accompanied us until the wedding day.  Unforgettable... Her enthusiasm is something I will never forget.

The Old Church was a big patchwork inside due to the restoration of the Church that had begun. But the organ was there with Bach as a witness.

On July 7, 1968 our daughter was born and she was baptized by our pastor W.A. Smit on October 6, 1968.

This is my ode to the pastor's wife.