<< I Introduction
Herman Van Kerckhoven (1853-1936) – the grandfather of Godfried
Josephina Van Kerckhoven Vermaelen (1857-1918) – the grandmother of Godfried
Cave, 2021 Michel Armitage Oil on Lubugo (bark cloth) – Pinault Collection A man and a woman blow into what seem to be the reeds of an unknown, organic instrument. Their mingled breath seems to give birth to life inside a shell.
Josephina Vermaelen gives Herman thirteen children, of whom nine reach adulthood: Sylvie (1878-1949), Clara (1884-1951), Maria (1882-1960), Margaretha (1890-1960), Richard (1880-1947), Arthur (1892-1958), Bertha (1894-1963), Josephine (1899-1983), Elvire (1900-….)
A Christmas scene from Josephina’s collection of fold-out 3D cards
Herman has something impressive about it after all (1853-1936)
Herman with daughters Margaretha and Bertha
Note the mosaic floor and the hand-split marble blocks bearing the inscription “Gezusters Van Kerckhoven”.
DE MOTTE, oil on canvas, 80×90 cm – The Aarschot painter Jacques Vanden Seylbergh (1884-1960) captures the beauty of the Demer Valley in Frie’s favourite colour. The colour that stands for wisdom, protection and self-confidence.
Herman sets up a shoe and boot making business. He employs twelve people. Work is also done for him at home. «maître chaussurier & bottier» is engraved on a brass nameplate on the front of Leuvensestraat 5. Not only can you have shoes repaired there, they are also made there. Officers ask Herman for military footwear. “His policy transformed the Van Kerckhoven family. He was a man of progress. The directions he gave the family still guide our steps today.” – Pieter
Aarschot, ruins of the Orleanstoren. Remnant of the town wall built in 1288, demolished in 1782. Now a lookout tower with orientation table
Great-grandson Pieter (15) reveals years later an “important detail” that he was not allowed to investigate: Herman’s leadership, which “transforms” the family, is overshadowed by a scandal after the vale of tears over the death of Josephina at the age of 60 in 1918. The Van Kerckhoven family seizes up after the patriarchal head of the family has an affair with Maria Nijs, with whom he has another daughter. In the face of death he marries her in church. “The one from the Buinnewaak” (Bonewijk) is regarded as an illegitimate daughter. The children from Herman’s first marriage feel they have more rights than their half-sister, and Maria is disinherited in good time. It is an open secret. Frie and his brothers act as if she never existed. “We know nothing. It may be that something happened… .” Every time one of Frie’s aunts dies, there is fear that the half-sister will come to claim her share of the inheritance. “But she won’t see anything anyway. The one from Naas gets nothing!” The matter leads to a street fight between Guy, Frie’s cousin, and a descendant of Maria Nijs, whom he knocks out.
To conceal the truth is to bury gold. – Pythagoras
NEXT CONTRIBUTION BY JESSE VAN KERCKHOVEN (Tilburg, 2025)
Dear Pieter,
About the Van Kerckhoven family, I can try to sketch for you what the family situation was at various points in time. I can give you an idea of the brothers and the sister of your patriarch Herman. The information I have was collected mainly from official documents such as population registers, deeds and the like. Some tidbits in turn come from a weekly such as De Arend, which I combed through at the time in the hope of learning as much as possible about a Van Kerckhoven.
In my own branch I have unfortunately found no diaries or the like anywhere. I do not have much photographic material either, although I have collected what I could.
I will begin with Carolus Josephus Van Kerckhoven, who was born in Morkhoven on 19/03/1817. He is our last common ancestor. Born in Morkhoven, then, both his parents were farmers. I have information on two brothers of his father from their military careers. Adrien Van Kerckhoven served (63e régiment d’infanterie de ligne, 14 octobre 1806-30 mars 1809 (matricules 3 601 à 6 588). – Visionneuse – Mémoire des Hommes). Petrus Josephus Van Kerckhoven was rejected because of too short a stature (<1.55 m) and a limping leg covered in sores (Search results – AGATHA; no longer accessible since the switch to Agatha). Adrien too was only 1.55 m. Those Van Kerckhovens were thus not very tall.
On 28/08/1838 Carolus Josephus deregistered in Morkhoven (see population register) and moved to Aarschot.
In a population register in the church archive (from 1846), of which I unfortunately have no copy or photo, his address is recorded as Neerstraat 9, where he lived with his sister Henrica.
He married in Werchter on 01/08/1850 Anna Rosa Coremans from Baal. He was then a rope maker, she a farmer.
Their offspring:
- Maria Theresia Van Kerckhoven; 03/03/1851 – 12/06/1939 – she remained unmarried and childless. She had a little shop.
- Alfons Josephus Van Kerckhoven; 18/03/1852 – 25/04/1917. My ancestor. He was a postman.
- Herman Franciscus Josephus Van Kerckhoven; 21/11/1853 – 24/04/1936. Well known to you.
- Carolus Van Kerckhoven; 24/08/1855 – 01/02/1857
- Carolus Van Kerckhoven; 08/08/1857 – 17/02/1928. He became a rope maker.
- Andreas Van Kerckhoven; 22/12/1858 – 30/01/1925. Shopkeeper. Sometimes also André or Henri in certain deeds.
- Philippus Josephus Van Kerckhoven; 04/07/1861 – 06/08/1865
- Juliana Julietta Van Kerckhoven; 27/08/1864 – 28/08/1866
That left: 1 daughter and 4 sons. Mother Anna Rosa Coremans died on 13/09/1871, only 49 years old. Address given: Mechelschestraat 21. The Van Kerckhovens had settled definitively at that address. The house was their property. Father Carolus was a rope maker, but there may also have been a little shop.
On 17/10/1887 Carolus died, aged 70. Still living with him at that time were daughter Maria and son Carolus. The rest had already left home and were married. An advertisement soon appeared in De Arend for the sale of the household contents (A-C-K-ARE-14.pdf, p. 69), but I have information that on 09/12/1887 daughter Maria bought out her brothers. She thus stayed on in the parental home, where she continued to run her little shop. On 28/05/1925 she sold her property (by then number 29). If I may interpret the Gasthuis (where she died in 1939) as a care home, she will have lived there for her remaining years. Otherwise I do not know where she spent her old age.
Alfons married Maria Theresia Smeyers from Schaffen. They first lived in the Diestsestraat (in a rented house?), but around 1900 along the Schaluin at number 17 (this time their own property). He was a postman, she a housewife. Alfons also did rope making as a sideline.
A photo of Alfons from 1898, in a group with the Aarschot postmen. Alfons Van Kerckhoven sits at the far right of the photo. Alfons was an active member of the Vlaamsche Broederbond. I have no idea how strong Flemish-minded sentiments were in his family, or among the Van Kerckhovens in general.
Alfons’s house was burned down by the Germans during their dismal passage in August 1914. Alfons and his family fled to Tilburg. With them his sister Maria (no idea whether her little shop had also burned down). They were registered in Tilburg on 8/10/1914. His son Jules married a Dutch woman there and founded a shoe shop, which only closed its books in 2021 after 4 generations. Alfons died in 1917 in Tilburg of liver failure.
His widow never returned to Aarschot (according to the safe-conduct she did, see appendix, but in reality not). She continued to live near Ghent (youngest son Jef held a senior position at the Post Office there) and finally died in 1942 in Essen (see memorial card). Their descendants spread across the whole of Belgium. Only two sons founded families in Aarschot: Karel (my great-great-grandfather), at the Braekepoort, and Edmond, also a postman, who lived in the Rumoldus Wetzstraat.
Carolus was also a rope maker. Lived in 1890 at Neerstraat 28 (advertisement De Arend). The 1919 electoral rolls (available via Archiefbank Hageland) give Diestsestraat 6 as his address. I do not know much about him. He had a son, Jan, who was a teacher, and three daughters. His descendants did not stay in Aarschot. With a grandson of his, Henri Hommelen, I had telephone contact once about 7 years ago, but not much came of it. He was already well into his 90s then and has since died as well. I know no more about him or his descendants.
Andreas (so sometimes also André, or Henri) was a cabinet maker, with wife and son in front of his shop. From his first marriage he had a son, Lucien. From his second too; Ernest. He lived at Theofiel de Beckerstraat 48 (the shop was there too). His son Lucien married in 1917. The marriage certificate states that Andreas fled Aarschot in 1914 but that since then every trace is missing. This turn is recent information for me; I had not discovered it before. I have no idea what happened in that period. In the registers of arrival in Aarschot (mainly Aarschot people who had fled returning), there is no mention of Andreas anywhere. He died in Leuven. His son Lucien was one of the declarants.
A few more loose tidbits or things that struck me:
- With Alfons, his sons Edmond and Jef, with Richard (son of Herman) and with Lucien (son of Andreas), the Van Kerckhoven family had 5 members who were either postmen or worked at the Post Office in a higher position. Those who did not work for the post office often had shops (Maria, Herman, Andreas, ..).
- All the children of Carolus Jos. and Anna Rosa Coremans had neat handwriting (at least when I look at their signatures on various deeds). I therefore suspect that they all had a full school career.
- Sister Maria, who remained childless, was godmother no fewer than 8 times to nephews and nieces.
- The rope makers among the Van Kerckhovens (coincidentally 3 times a Carolus/Karel/Charles) made bell ropes for the church in Aarschot. Numerous invoices (the oldest from 1898) can be found in the archive of the church council. My great-great-grandfather was the last Aarschot man to make ropes. Somewhere from the 1930s the trade was definitively overtaken by industrialisation. The statuette at the Braekepoort is a memento of the craft and was placed there because my great-great-grandfather practised the trade there all his life as the last rope maker. His equipment was donated to the museum after his death and is, I believe, on permanent display there. The equipment, so I have been told, dates back to his grandfather, thus Carolus Josephus from Morkhoven. No idea whether this is a sentimental invention or whether the equipment really dates from, say, 150 years ago.
So. I hope I have been able to share a few interesting tidbits. Who knows, it may help you to make an addition here and there to your website. For a coherent life story I have, at least by my own feeling, just too little concrete and/or personal information.
Best regards,
Jesse (February, 2025)
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