Son of War and Peace

01-01   INTRODUCTION

“Do it!"  This nagging command from the depths of my being has tormented me since I became semi-retired. Our eight children, their spouses, and our numerous grandchildren are increasingly interested in their parents’ origins and birthplace. They want to know more about what we have seen and heard, thought and done beyond their experience growing up with Mom and Dad. 

All of our children were born in the United States and have visited Belgium, where Alice and I were born and raised. Like most parents’ lives, ours is for them an intriguing mystery. “Vader –Father, please write about the past for us and the grandchildren.”

What is so special about my life? From my point of view, not much. But, yes, I can see that it

must be a mystery to the curious, born much later. In contrast to the past, especially since WWII, people’s daily lives have been uprooted by dizzying changes. We move often, live great distances apart, and earn our daily bread in highly specialized lines of work. We do not know much of what the other does, and cannot communicate well about how the other makes a living and builds a life. All this makes it all the more difficult for the generations to meet on common ground and to connect with each other. Perhaps this book can bring us to a patch of common ground. It is my hope that my writings can contribute to a meeting of minds and sharing of feelings.

My wife Alice and I have been quite successful as a couple growing into the twilight years with a severely tested but never-lost sense of idealism founded in reality, and optimism for the children’s future. We are thankful to have been able to overcome painful adversities life visited on us. I will write on a fair sample of them, as well on a great number of happy occasions.

Please, see page two

01-01   INTRODUCTION    p 2 of 2

I believe our children are right in encouraging me to try to write about my life. Thirty, forty years ago I, too, felt a longing to know more about my parents and grandparents and those who went before them. Their lives and times that created me physically and culturally remain to me for the most part a mystery. They told me little of their lives and times and almost nothing of what troubled their souls. I believe I have come to understand why.  

In contrast to presently prevailing aspirations and social attitudes, such as striving for identity, uniqueness and leadership roles, were, in generations past, contrary to socially approved behavior. You see, people suffered terribly through the ravages of regularly recurring wars and tyrannical foreign dominance. Every generation lost many of its outstanding members. The best and brightest were always picked off first because they worked -or were suspected of working- against the prevailing political regime of the moment. 

Setting forth one’s beliefs and life experiences on paper would later almost certainly have lead to serious problems for oneself, family members and others. Out of a sense for survival, parents would not even confide in their grown children, for they could inadvertently tell others who in turn might not keep it a secret. That is why I know so little about their past.

Tyrants, aided and abetted by local traitors, have strong arms and long memories. People felt it in their bones that it was never safe to rebel, to be anything other than ordinary. It was much safer to not stand out, and to trust nobody. These fears shaped their culture. One could not have foreseen who would win the war, and perhaps end up on the wrong side to be killed, or imprisoned, or humiliated and shunned for the rest of his life. 

So let me pay tribute to my parents and their predecessors. They survived by their wits, and cleared the track for me. They lived and loved the best they could, raised their children and organized their society according to their circumstances and the insights they had.

Few, if any, in my hometown of Merkem could bring themselves to publicly share their life experiences. I think that I can, at least in some respects. Therefore, I feel that I must. It is my turn now to give a hand to help pass on the knowledge of what made us what we are. If at times I digress from the strictly historical, and drift into subjective interpretations, I hope to be indulged. 

I have copies of the birth (or baptism), marriage and death certificates of eleven Defever generations in a straight line back to the mid-sixteen hundreds. As I grow older and steep myself deeper into the history of the people of Flanders, and thus understand better their life circumstances, they fill me with awe.

The more I contemplate the times they lived through, the more I am inspired by their strength, their resourcefulness, their practical insights, their deep and abiding faith, their quiet patience.  They had a tremendous capacity to endure, and a never-failing resolve to prevail in the end.

These are the qualities and values whereby they brought forth my generation.