Published Wednesday 17 February 2021 at 14:08
A family in Belgium has reached out to residents of BwD to help with a family history project.
Staff at the Museum recently received an unusual story and a request for help from a family in Belgium. More than 10 years ago, a student working at the Museum researched and wrote an article for the Library’s ‘Cotton Town’ local history website. The article, about the arrival of refugees from Belgium in 1914 Blackburn, explained how the families were fleeing from German soldiers who had invaded their country.
Blackburn Museum education officer Stephen Irwin said:
“Dr Bernard De Hauwere recently found the article online and has written an introduction to his late grandfather, Willy Holsters, who arrived in our town as a toddler in 1914 with his family. The family stayed in the town throughout the war, returning home in 1919.”
In addition, Bernard has made an appeal for help to find local families his great-grandparents would have known. Pieter and Marie Emma Holsters arrived in Blackburn in late 1914 with baby Willy, and his older sister Marie.
Willy Holsters and his older sister Marie photographed in a Belgian consulate in France, on their way to England in 1914
Willy photographed with a toy gun and toy animal
Upon arriving in England, the family chose Blackburn, possibly because Pieter’s brother, the Reverend Petrus Holsters had worked as a Catholic priest in the area, in the decade before the war began.
Reverend Petrus Holsters
During the family’s stay in Blackburn, a third child was born to Pieter and Marie, Agnes Holsters, who was born in 1916.
Willy, Marie and Agnes
Tragically, Willy’s elder sister, Marie, died in 1918, possibly of Polio, and is buried in Blackburn. Library staff are checking the records to locate her grave for the family.
When he grew up Willy Holsters became a doctor; in WW2 he escaped from Prisoner of War camp and joined the Resistance, looking after the crew of a shot down Lancaster bomber.
Bernard explained that his grandfather Willy spoke fluent English, with a Lancashire accent. He went on to say:
“In 1993, when Willy was reunited with an American pilot, Lieutenant Hank Rudow, who he had rescued from his crashed bomber in October 1944, Hank confessed he had always assumed an English doctor had rescued him!”
Willy as an adult serving as a doctor in the Belgian Army
In the 1950s Pieter and Marie Emma Holsters celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary, and a childhood friend of their late daughter Marie, May Holden travelled from Blackburn to Belgium to be with them; along with her husband Jim and daughter Janey.
May Holden is second row from the top, extreme right
In closing, Bernard writes that he remembers fondly that his grandfather would recite ‘Humpty Dumpty’ to him, and that at Christmas time, the family always had Christmas pudding, flamed with brandy and served with custard.
Blackburn with Darwen’s Executive Member for Wellbeing, Cllr Damian Talbot said:
“It’s wonderful to hear stories of local families supporting each other during WWI. Great fun to hear how Willy’s Lancashire accent befuddled the US pilot he saved during WWII. I will follow this appeal for information with interest.”
If anyone has any family stories of Belgian families living in Blackburn during WWI, or if descendants of the Holden family have any memories of that trip to Belgium in the 1950s, staff at the Museum would love to hear them. Email the team: museum@blackburn.gov.uk