We, Gijs and I, met
the Stevens family in spring 1977, when Gijs started working on the University
of Nijmegen in the Mösssbauer Spectroscopy group of Jan Trooster, where he met
John Stevens. John was in The Netherlands for 1 year and lived with his family
in Wychen. Gijs invited John and family to visit us in our house in Molenhoek to
eat pancakes. For me that was the first contact with John, Ginnie,
Shelly, Rob and John G.
In the summer holiday
of 1978 Ginnie asked me to accompany her and the kids to the Openluchtmuseum in
Arnhem. I took two 12 year old girls with me. She were our guests. Four kids had a lot of fun in the garden and Ginnie, Shelly
and I enjoyed the sculptures in the garden and the paintings of Vincent van
Gogh in the museum.
In 1979 we went to a
Mössbauer conference in Portoroz (former Yugoslavia), where we met John and
Ginnie again. It was amazing to see how many people Ginnie reconized by
name and what she knew about them concerning their publcations in the Mössbauer
field. That all had to do with her work for the Mössbauer Effect Data Center. And how quick she
could understand things that people tried to tell her in their different
languages. She had a very good linguistic feeling and was a
great networker.
The Edinburgh
Mössbauer conference in 1980 brought us again together. We climbed
Arthur's Seat where on top of the hill we were eating filled potatoes and
listened to Ginnie's story about her visit with the kids to the London Dungeons.
She was interested in history, history of her own country and of the
countries she visited.
After Jan Trooster
died in 1981 John Stevens became Gijs' supervisor for his Ph. D. : "A Mössbauer study on
dynamic electron spin behaviour".
John invited Gijs and me to come to Asheville (NC) to
make progress in finishing the thesis. We were guests in the Stevens house on
Woodbury Road. Ginnie showed us around on the Blue Ridge Parkway, to Cherokee
Indian Reservation and to Biltmore House and Gardens. A good alternation of work and leisure-time.
The Ph.D. ceremony was on June 24 and John came, together
with Shelly, to attend the graduation. They stayed with us and that was a lot
of fun. Shelly playing the flute in the middle of the night
(thanks to the time difference) an John trying to pronounce the Dutch
"Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappen". Ginnie would have loved it to be
with us to attend the Ph.D. ceremony.
From Oktober 1981
until the end of January 1982 we lived in Asheville, NC where Ginnie had found
two rooms for us in an old colonial house on Pearson Drive. Gijs worked,
together with Li Zhe, a physicist from Beijing (PRC), on the Mössbauer
Department of the UNCA, to build a Mössbauer measurement apparatus. The Stevens
family, Li Zhe, Gijs and I did a lot of things together. We went for the autumn-walk of the university, picking
apples in an orchard, Gijs gave a performance as Sinterklaas with Rob and John
G. as Black Peters, we attended church ceremonies and Li Zhe, Gijs and I went
to Disney (Fl) as Ginnie advised us. And on New Yearsday we were swimming in
the Gulf of Mexico. Thanks to Ginnie we had a great time that four months.
The years after we saw
each other now and then. We went to the USA, or John and Ginnie came to
The Netherlands to see their friends and for biking. On a city trip to Maastricht (15 km from our house in
Hulsberg) we attended a very special puppet-theater, without puppets. Children
of the audience had to play the story the director told them. It was amazing to
see how it all worked and it gave us all a lot of pleasure, laughing and
hilarity.
In 1992 we met the
Stevens family on the San Juan Islands in the Pudget Sound. Ginnie told me
about her study Theology and the preaching she did in the mountainous area around
Asheville. She made a very enthusiastic impression on me. It seemed she did
not miss her job for the Mössbauer Effect Data Center, although she had done
that for a very long time.
2004 was our last
time in the USA, seeing each other there.
In 2010 Gijs was
diagnosted for Alzheimer. Ginnie, who was afraid Gijs would not recognize her
when she waited too long to come, came in 2011. Happily Gijs recognized her immediately on the railway
platform and was very glad to see Ginnie as was Ginnie. We enjoyed her
stay with us and travelled with her to Marguerite and Paul in Mook, from were
she went to Gudrun in Doesburg and Harry and Jannie in Leusden. It was Ginnie's
last trip to the Netherlands. She has sent us the pictures of her visit.
Two other trips she planned for 2017 and 2018 had to be
canceled and that was a great pity for her.
The latest years, we
contacted each other by mail and some telephone calls. Ginnie wrote about her
moving to the surroundings of Atlanta , about physical problems and all what
had to do with that. Her passing away was not unexpected for me. I will miss
her.
I (Gijs died in May
2017) will remember Ginnie as an active friend, interested in people,
sympathizing her Dutch friends, enjoying travelling, get to know new people,
new things, loving nature and
culture, her hospitality. And the mother she was and the love she had for
her children and her grandchildren and her love for us, her Dutch friends Gijs
and I.
That is the friend I will keep in mind.
-Ineke Calis-van Ginkel