Helena Josefine Wilhelmina Reurop (1908-2000)

This is the story of Helena Josefina Wilhelmina Reurop (Lenie). She was the life-partner of my aunt Rie. The aunts lived in the South of France, in Gagnes sur Mer, in those days the artist village of the Cote Azur.
My aunt Rie died and after a hart attack, Lenie spent the last year of her life with me in Friesland, in the North of the Netherlands. That year we drank a lot of tea and smoked a lot of cigarettes together. I really got to know her and she told me her life story.

Helena J.W.Reurop was born in 1908 in Amsterdam. The days of gaslight and horse trams. Her mother was an opera singer, her father was 'unknown'.

In those days that meant a lonely existence, children in the neighbourhood were not allowed to play with her. Her mother was working day and night all day and there were no other relatives. When Lenie was six, the first world war broke out and Amsterdam went hungry. Lenie stopped growing and would remain small for the rest of her life.

Small of posture, bright of mind, but studying was out of the question. Her mother decided that she should learn a trade. That way, at least you could make a living. So she followed a typing course, and went to work for Philips. There her bright mind was recognised and she was promoted on a regular bases. But then the second world war broke out, Philips closed its doors and Lenie returned to Amsterdam.

In the late forties Lenie got an offer to become the secretary of the famous Dutch entertainer Wim Sonneveld. At times he even mentioned her in his one-man shows. So in a way, she was a little famous herself.

She was intelligent, sensitive, funny and very upright.