Oe ’wis’t met jou? ~ How Are You?

The #1 boys name is Liam, and the #1 girls name is Olivia according to the CBS News articles, The 50 Most Poplular Baby Boy Names & The 50 Most Poplular Baby Girl Names.

Interesting that our Bramble Bush has only 5 Liams & 4 Olivias. Our Liams are all currently living. Our Olivias are all from the mid to late 1800s. 

Does this mean that our Bramble Bush is full of folks who don't follow popular culture?  Does it mean we aren't a family of trendy folk?  

I would like to believe we are a family that likes to give our children unique names. We have two boys who can never buy anything pre-populated with their name. Their names are unique, and then we made them more unique with the spelling we chose. 

When I go to the second most popular boys name, Noah, we have 15 in our Bramble Bush. The majority born in the 1600s and 1700s, but 2 died in 1976. The second most popular girls name, Emma, we have almost 600 in our Bramble Bush ranging from as far back as our roots go. 

Emma was one of the names we chose for our oldest if he would have been a girl. Interesting that we chose very unique boys names, but for girls we had chosen more traditional names. When looking at the names we had considered only Emma appears on these lists. 

One of the Emmas in our tree is my step-grandmother, Emma (nee Van Loo) Boogemans. She became my grandma, by choice, when I was 8 years old. I remember the first time I met her. 

We traveled from British Columbia to Ontario. On that long journey our new dad taught us to say 'How are you?' in Flemish "Oe ’wis’t met jou?". We practiced for the entire journey wanting to say it exactly right. He corrected our pronunciation showing us how to hold our mouths just right.

When we met our new grandparents for the first time I smiled and said "Oe ’wis’t met jou?".  My grandma got super excited with the biggest smile and said to my dad " you found a nice Flemish girl". I was so proud that my pronunciation was perfect enough to make her believe we were Flemish. I'm not sure if she was disappointed that we weren't Flemish, but she never led us to believe we disappointed her. 

I wrote about this before, and you can read it & see photos at this link 
As If Born To ~ Grown Under Their Hearts

My Boogemans grandparents, and my favourite EMMA!

Emma Louisa Florentina Van Loo
BIRTH 18 MAR 1910 • Heist-op-den-Berg, Antwerpen, Belgium
DEATH 18 DEC 1988 • Dashwood, Ontario, Canada
and
Frans Boogemans
BIRTH 30 OCT 1910 • Belgium
DEATH 15 MAR 2000 • Exeter, Huron, Ontario, Canada

Oe ’wis’t met jou? 
How Are You?

Finding your memories in the list of the most popular names!!!

This is why I search - 

Cause ... 

You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!

***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***

Sources:

Cartelli, Lance. The 50 Most Poplular Baby Boy Names. CBS News. Originally published October 29th 2019, updated February 25th 2022/  Retrieved May 26th 2022 from 
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-50-most-popular-baby-boy-names/19/

Ryan, Joel. The 50 Most Poplular Baby Girls Names. CBS News. Originally published October 9th 2019, updated February 9th 2022. Retrieved May 26th 2022 from 
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/baby-girl-names-50-most-popular/50/

Links:

Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks/

If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please

include a link to the specific blog and

credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/

My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.

All rights reserved.

Please & Thank you!

______________________________________________________________

As If Born To ~ Grown Under Their Hearts

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2020 Week 34 (CHOSEN FAMILY)

By the time I was 8 years old I had 2 dads.
The 1970s were well known for the high divorce rates so we weren't unique.
What was unique is that my brother and I were accepted into our new extended family 'as if born to' without a formal process. We were never adopted. 
A by-product of the high divorce rates of the 70s was that many children grew up without a father to love and care for them. 
We were blessed.
We had two fathers who loved us.

How did we become part of the Boogemans family? 
You can read all about it here 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 19 (Nurture)

This part of the tale all started during our journey across Canada. We moved from British Columbia to Ontario during the spring I was about 8 and a half years old. My brother was soon going to be 6. That trip happened in an orange Volkswagon Camper Van that started on fire somewhere in the prairies. Our new dad was a heavy duty mechanic and welder, and somehow fixed all that was damaged in such a short time our trip wasn't delayed too much. 

On that long journey our new dad taught us to say 'How are you?' in Flemish 

"Oe ’wis’t met jou?". 

We practiced for the entire journey wanting to say it exactly right.
He corrected our pronunciation showing us how to hold our mouths just right.

When we met our new grandparents for the first time I smiled and said 
"Oe ’wis’t met jou?".  My grandma got super excited with the biggest smile and said to my dad " you found a nice Flemish girl". I was so proud that my pronunciation was perfect enough to make her believe we were Flemish. 

I immediately loved my new grandparents. They both had the warmest smiles. 

They always looked like they were ready to get into mischief, and let us join in.

Grandpa used to feed us cookie sandwiches.
They were made with windmill spice cookies served between two slices of buttered white bread sprinkled with brown sugar.
Grandma would complain that we shouldn't be eating such things.
We knew she didn't mind when she continued to smile.
We loved visiting grandma and grandpa on the farm. 

The roots of this chosen family began in Belgium when two people who probably weren't really supposed to get married did. 
One was a Walloon (Grandpa) and one a Flem (Grandma).
You can read more about this in the article 
An Introduction To The Flemish-Walloon Divide in the sources below.

As a small girl I was enamored by the story or how love conquered.
Against these odds my grandparents were:

Frans Boogemans

BIRTH 30 OCT 1910 • Belgium

DEATH 15 MAR 2000 • Exeter, Huron, Ontario, Canada

and

Emma Louisa Florentina Van Loo

BIRTH 18 MAR 1910 • Heist Op Den Berg, Antwerpen, Belgium

DEATH 18 DEC 1988 • Dashwood, Ontario, Canada

They were married on October 23rd 1937 in Heist Op Den Berg, Belgium.

They had 5 sons.
My dad was their youngest, and the prettiest.
The only one with brown hair in a family of redheads.
That's him in his mom's arms. 

They lived in this beautiful house in Heist Op Den Berg, Belgium.

In June 1955 the Boogemans family immigrated to Ontario, Canada
leaving all of their extended family members behind. 
This photo was taken shortly before they departed to Canada.
It includes Frans' parents and siblings.

The family of 7 settled onto farmland in Dashwood, Ontario.
They built their new house (pictured below) to look very much like
the home they left behind in Belgium.

This photo was taken on one of their trips to B.C. to see us.
Grandma, Grandpa, my dad, my brother, and myself.

When Grandpa died I wrote a poem, and asked a cousin to read it at the funeral.
The only line I remember is 'As if born to - we grew under your hearts'.
I wish I had kept a copy of that poem. 
I have written quite a few poems over the years.
I never kept a copy of any of them.

Frans & Emma together at rest. 
___________________________________________________________

The dad who chose me when I was 8 years old is a part of who I am today. 



Blood is only one part of the family equation!







This is why I search - 



Cause ... 





You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!
















***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***






Sources:

An Introduction To The Flemish-Walloon Divide. Van De Poel, Nana. Culture Trip. Published November 24th 2016. Retrieved August 23rd 2020 from

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/belgium/articles/an-introduction-to-the-flemish-walloon-divide/

Links:

Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/

If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please

include a link to the specific blog and

credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/

My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.

All rights reserved.

Please & Thank you!

___________________________________________________________