MY PERSONAL PAGE

My mother:

JOHANNA AKERSHOEK, born in Ouddorp on 27 Oct 1909, died in 's-Gravenhage on 27 Apr 1984. (Picture taken in about 1936 holding me.)

Daughter of:

• KLAAS (NICHOLAS) KOMMERSZ AKERSHOEK, born in Ouddorp on October 31, 1873, died in Paterson (New Jersey, USA) on February 15, 1921 at 4 a.m., in the General Hospital, buried in Fairn Lawn Cemetery, Fair Lawn (N.J.) on February 18, 1921. He married in Ouddorp on October 4, 1906 to:
• WILLEMINA HANSON, born in Noordgouwe on December 14, 1886, living since about 1920 in Rotterdam, died in 's-Gravenhage on June 23, 1957, when visiting her daughter, Johanna, buried in Rotterdam.

In November 1911 Klaas disappeared in The Netherlands and then went to the USA, leaving his wife and their three very young children, Adriana (1907-1992), Kommer (1908-1996) and my mother, behind. So, my grandmother had a very hard life and had to work in order to be able to look after her three children. They never knew where their father was living or was buried. Officially she could not re-marry as a death certificate of Klaas could not be produced! Only in August 1999 an American friend, also having some ancestors on Goeree-Overflakkee, discovered his grave. I do thank her for her efforts.

My family and myself:

• I, Leo AKERSHOEK, born in 's-Gravenhage (= The Hague) in 1935. I am married to Gerry KOUMAN, secretary, born in Rilland (Zeeland) in 1941. She is the daughter of GOMMERT KOUMAN and MARIA DE NOOIJER. We have a son, Mark Jan, born in 1975 in Etterbeek (Belgium). From a previous marriage I have a daughter, Elisabeth, born in 1964 in Pijnacker. Her son, Kevin, born in 1995 in Zierikzee is my first (and up-to-now, my only) grandchild.

Working/Living:

After my business education and my first job, I became a Junior Auditor with the Dutch branch of a well-known international auditing firm (1957-1961). One of their clients, an US trans-national in office-equipment, having just opened their Dutch subsidiary, hired me as their Central Administration Officer (1961-1967). After 6 years, I needed a new challenge, and in 1967 I joined another US trans-national, now a pharmaceutical company, planning to open its Dutch branch, where they were (through a distributor) already market-leader for one of their main products. Two years later I accepted their offer for the position of Chief Financial/Administrative Officer, directly responsible to the US parent company for the accounting, purchasing, import/export, budgets, internal control & securities and salaries for their Benelux operations. As a result thereof, I made several business trips to New York, Chicago, Norwich (NY), London, Paris, Geneva and Pie tra Liegura (It). In October 1986 the US parent company was taken over by another US company, who fired all the office staff. So, after nearly 20 years, I had to look for a new position.

I found a new challenge in Libya (1987-1991) as Administrative Manager responsible for the set-up and maintaining of all Libyan administrative procedures with respect to the Dairy and Poultry Production Complex in Taworgha, one of the two projects of HVA.-Amsterdam/Cyprus/Libya. Each DPPC consisted of 800 ha. agriculture (3500 tons of hay), 1200 dairy cattle, a pasteurized milkfactory ( 5 tons/year), a feedmill (31,000 tons), and 20 poultry farms ( 10 mio hatching eggs en 5,5 mio chickens), a poultry processing plant (8,600 tons of frozen meat) and a water treatment plant (2,000 m3 water per hour). Unfortunately, in 1991 the project ended for HVA, and thus for me too.

In 1991 stopped my active "working life" and concentrated on:

My three hobbies:

• My garden, surrounding our house, total 500 square metres, in which, prior to my family, a minister/clergyman was living. (See photo>)

• Genealogy Since 1989 I have been researching my own ancestors and found, up-to now, approximately 3200 persons in 55 generations going back to Macomir, who died in 281. Also, Charlemagne is one of my ancestors (through Aleman) too. Later I also looked for the ancestors of my wife. As she has no dukes, counts, kings or emperors as ancestors, I only found 650 persons in 25 generations back to 1260. There is no link yet between my ancestors (from Goeree, up to Aleman) and those of my wife (Zeeland). At present, many hours a day are spent in the researching/collection of all family names on Goeree-Overflakkee, before about 1800. Please take a look at my AHNENTAFEL - KWARTIERSTAAT

• The Red Cross Volunteer Corps (see picture below) I am in uniform as Commander during a big exercise, in discussion with two of my staff members. I had already been a member of the Corps (in the Hague) from September 1953 until 1969, then I moved to Brussels. In March 1992 I joined again, now as Commander for the Red Cross Volunteer Corps, in Kapelle (Zld), until October 1996.

With the exception of The Hague, where I was born, I lived successively in Pynacker, Zaandam, Brussels (3 different villages) , Tervuren (Belgium), Culemborg, Taworgha (Libya) and now in Wemeldinge (Zeeland).

This picture was published together with an article on people over 65 years of age and computers, in the Dutch "Net-magazine". The text in the picture can be translated as follows: "Quit old days? No way." And that is certainly true for me, spending over 8 hours a day on genealogy and PC's.

I hope, you found my personal page interesting.

Thank you for stopping by!

Leo Akershoek
My hobby? Digging up dead relatives!

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