CanIndo's page!

We ended up moving a few times in Bandung. There was the house "on the hill" in Setia Budi located on a mountain slope heading towards Lembang. It was a big house, perhaps build during the colonial time. There was a large livingroom area with red and black tiles. My brother Ron took the responsibility to be in charge of cleaning that room. And boy did we ever get in trouble if we even dare to have thoughts of entering that livingroom. He went as far as measuring any footprints that was left there. It went like this.
In principle we would only use the section where the diningroom was, closest to the kitchen. a Good thing that when we had the telephone installed it was in the diningroom area. When Ron notice a footprint in the livingroom, he would have us all line-up, barefeet, and each one of us had to place our foot in the print on the tile. I don't remember anymore what happened to the guilty person.

Already in Bandung we all would look forward to Oom Boy's visits, and that continued in Holland but that is another story.

Here a picture with Oom Boy on the front veranda and of course we all had a plate in our hands with delicious indo food. (Seems that all we do is EAT, EAT, EAT!)

After my Dad's left the Police force we moved to a house uptown Bandung. We moved in with the family Pieters. She was a chinese-indo and he was part of the "3-Musketeers". This nickname was given to four members of the Police force who were responsible for then President Sukarno's bodyguard.
These 4 members were: Dad (Olenroot also nicknamed "the Tiger") - Pieters - Epke and Biervelder. These 4 men had a good physique, great bodyguard material and were all from Dutch descent. I guess Sukarno felt that it wouldn't hurt to place these men between him and any bullets aimed at him. What better way to cleanup any Dutch or Dutch descendants in Indonesia.

1959 to 1961 until we moved to Holland was a time of reflection. In '58, the school system changed from Dutch caricullum to the Indonesian. My 3 older sisters found themselves (overnight) having to switch from dutch to indonesian. My oldest brother desided to go into the workforce and landed a job with the American Ambassey in Djakarta. Thus began our period of learning about the americans and their habits. Ron and Yvonne met an american girl and boy (brother and sister) fell in love and we all were influenced by this relationship. Allan and Judy were children of an american working in the ambassey.

Ron drove a '57 or '58 Ford. He would come to Bandung and visit us on his days off. I remember an incident with this car. We were expecting him home and at the time of arrival we were standing outside in the frontyard and as the car made the turn to enter our street, the door flew open. Mind you Ron likes to drive fast and that moment gave us all a scare, I wonder what went through his mind!

The Police jeep. When dad was with the police he also had his driver. I can remember 2 or 3 different once. There was Atang and (pah ?? I forgot his name) but this older man witnessed our first climb in the mango-tree that was growing in the backyard of the house of the hill. Ron thought it would be a good idea to provide foot rests in the trunck of this tree so that even the youngest one in the family could get in the tree to enjoy the delicious mango fruit it was bearing. However this idea didn't come until my oldest sister Yvonne got stuck in the tree screaming "help, help", and pah ?? was sooo nice to help her down. That was in the late fifties skirts with layers of pattycoats underneath was in fashion then! Need I say more? Atang was a young police officer and taught me how to drive - a little bit.

These 2 pictures show my great grandparents.
To the left are the Gruners (my mother's side of the family) To the right are the Ohlenroths my dad's side of the family.

I am not too familiar with the Gruners and hope that my brother and sisters will inform me about their stories so that I can include them here.