Lost and Found

 

I am at an age where the future is a repeat of the present.  And the past is gaining in importance. So many perspectives, and so much that is distorted by memory.

For example, all my life I have been haunted by a car accident that killed a girl.  I see her face before me. I regret that I did not die in her place. I imagined her future life. How she one day, picks up her child from a stroller and, in full sunlight, showed it to the world.

The sadness is true ( I have felt that all my life, with every accidental death of a girl), but is the story true?  Time to investigate. It must have happened , during my  primary school days, when I was about ten years old.   So I did some research in newspapers, for reports of traffic accidents in my  hometown, in the 1960s.
 
On my first search I found this : 

[ The English translation reads :

Five year old child under car

KAATSHEUVEL, July 12 - Five-year-old Jeanette de Jong was hit by a car and died as a result of the injuries she sustained. The child was on her way to do some shopping and suddenly crossed the road.

De Tijd, July 12, 1968 ]

I thought I had found it, but began to doubt when her age dawned on me.  Did I know a 5-year-old child at that stage in my life? And  the article told me  nothing where had the accident taken place.  Her name meant nothing to me.  Further investigation was inconclusive.

Still, The brevity of the message did put me off my guard.

 I talked with my oldest brother about my findings. He couldn’t recall the accident or the girl’s name. He remembered a traumatic event in his youth.  This was about a girl, living in our street.  This accident had a tremendous impact on him.  It is possible that he told me about it, and shared his grief,  when I was older.  I was two  at the time, so could not have known about it. 

There’s a newspaper article on the accident : 

[ The English translation reads :

Girl (7) from Kaatsheuvel dies after collision

KAATSHEUVEL,  April 5 - Tuesday afternoon at about a quarter past five, the seven-year-old girl Groenendaal, living in the Leliestraat in Kaatsheuvel, suddenly ran across the road while playing and was hit by a BBA bus. She died that evening from the injuries she sustained. The girl was running after a ball that rolled onto the Dongenseweg and was caught by a passing BBA bus that was not carrying passengers. The child was dragged along for several metres and suffered serious internal bruising and bleeding. She was immediately taken to the Sint Nicolaas Hospital in Waalwijk, where she died in the course of the evening.

Nieuwsblad van het Zuiden, April 6, 1960 ]

I went to primary school with one of her younger brothers.

The report bears witness to the same fatal childish inattention as the accident of Jeanette de Jong.  

I see the face of the girl in front of me.  Did I know her before the accident?  Did I play with her? I don't remember. Did she live in my street, in my neighbourhood?

I think the accident took place on the Hilsestraat.  Search with the keyword Hilsestraat produces no results.  At the time this street was  at the border of my home village.  In my early youth  there were meadows beyond  this street.

In the 1970s, several new construction projects were started on that site. 

After some concentration, a second sensation came over me. I remembered  a feeling of anxiety when I passed a house in the Erasstraat. 

I searched for Erasstraat.  And found this newspaper article: 

[ The English translation reads like this :

 

Woman run over in Kaatsheuvel

In the night of Sunday to Monday, the National Police found the body of an initially unknown woman in Kaatsheuvel. The body was found in the Erasstraat near the former football field.  Further investigation led to the identification of the body; it was  Mrs. A. J. van Wanrooy- de Vries, living in Erasstraat 51. She had left the house to buy food in the nearby  chips shop. On her way back she was run over by a car,  coming from  behind her,  and  she was dragged along for some twenty metres. The driver of the car drove on. The police immediately started an investigation. Today an autopsy will be performed on the corpse in Tilburg. Mrs van Wanrooy was the mother of two children.

Nieuwe Tilburgsche Courant, February 3, 1964 ]

I have not been able to find any information about the continuation of the police investigation. For example, whether the driver of the car voluntarily reported to the police or whether he was arrested after  further investigation.

My girl was one of the children of Mrs van Wanrooy.  She was in the same nursery school  as me.

What did the girl look like? I happened to stumble on a newspaper article  about  a  recovered prayer card from 1964.  The card remembered the passing of Ria Doggen from Esch.  One week before her fifth birthday,  she died in a traffic accident.  The girl  is see before me looks a lot like Ria. 

In memory of all the deceased discussed in this post. 

And for the bereaved who are still mourning the tragic loss of their loved one.