OOTES o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-07-17 published
OOTES,
Dina
Mother, wife, grandmother, scavenger, waitress, cabaret performer,
pioneer, domestic worker. Born April 6, 1914, in Schagen, North
Holland, The Netherlands. Died July 9 in Toronto of natural causes,
aged 93.
By Patti OOTES,
Page L6
Dina was the youngest of four daughters and, as she often said,
they were very poor - they didn't know just how poor. Her dad
was a horse trader who made deals for food.
At 14, Dina worked as a maid and saved her money so she could
travel alone to Paris at 16 for a vacation. In 1935, she married
Johan (Jo) Abraham
OOTES.
Because they didn't have much money,
they lived among the Roma (Gypsies) in a horse-drawn caravan.
Jo worked with his father constructing streets of bricks while
Dina worked as a waitress in cafés and acted in a cabaret theatre
group.
Despite many hardships during the Second World War, Jo and Dina
had two children, Kees (Case) and Jaap (Jake). While pregnant,
Dina would walk through the German-occupied streets of town wearing
a cape to cover her body.
The winters were cold and the lack of food and heating fuel was
felt every day by the Dutch. Dina walked miles to the countryside
to buy what she could from sympathetic farmers, and fooled the
Germans by smuggling contraband food past their noses under her
cape.
In 1952, Dina and Jo decided to come to Canada to provide a better
life for their boys. For a time, they lived in a one-room log
cabin with an oil drum made into a wood stove and a "two-seater"
outhouse toilet. Jo worked at the Dominion Magnesium mine and
the boys attended a one-room schoolhouse.
Dina was lonely living in the "bush" and decided to walk the
five kilometres to the townsite housing for mine managers and
knock on doors to obtain work cleaning houses.
The wives of the managers liked Dina, and sent her home after
work with comics and magazines. The boys learned much of their
English from those comic books and at school, while Dina and
Jo attended weekly English classes at the local high school.
Once they had learned English, they never spoke Dutch at home.
The family moved to Renfrew, Ontario, where Dina worked in sales
at the Stedmans store. She spent a summer in Southern Ontario
working on a tobacco farm, and was a volunteer at the hospital
store. Jo died in 1990 and Dina lived in Renfrew until 2002,
when she moved to Toronto.
Dina was very proud that Case and Jake did so well in Canada:
Case is a Toronto city councillor and Jake was an Member of Legislative
Assembly in the Northwest Territories. After all, she and Jo
had emigrated to Canada to provide a greater opportunity for
their sons.
Dina was a "hoot" to all who knew and loved her.
Patti OOTES is Dina's daughter-in-law.
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