Aunt Henriëtte Kappeler - de Ridder, 1848 - 1931

Aunt Henriëtte was a half-sister of Wilhelmina Aarsse-Fritz. She was married to Auguste KapelIer (1849-1919) who was director of a paint factory. Aunt Henriette and Oncle Auguste had two daughters, Victoire and Berthe.

Berthe (1877) married Bruno Hoffmann (1879), the owner of a fur business. Aunt Berthe and Oncle Bruno had three children, Ewald, Auguste and Alice. During World War I, the Hoffmann family went to live in Scheveningen, and since Ewald, Auguste and Alice were the same age as the Hahn children, they saw each other a lot. That is, during holidays, because the Hoffmann children went to expensive boarding schools.

Ewald (b 1905) had a PhD in Chemistry and was married to Rita Denys (b 1904), also a Doctor of Chemistry. They both served in the Congo at the Union Minière.

Auguste (1906) (called “Pitchou” in the family) worked with his father Bruno in the fur business and later took over.

Alice (1911) married Jean Pochez (called Johnny in the family). He worked for a time with his father-in-law and brother-in-law in the fur business, but later went back to his first profession and became director of the Volkswagen factory in Brussels.

Uncle Bruno Hoffmann

Uncle Bruno Hoffmann is the one who compiled the family tree, with the matriarch being Adriënne de Grauw. He maintained all contacts with the wide-ranging family. For instance, he once came to Harderwijk to ask about the newborn Louis there. Grandma Mooy was then just watching the Netherlands-Belgium football match and shouted happily at the top of the stairs that we were beating the Belgians. After Uncle Bruno’s death, the family tree was no longer maintained, at least in its entirety.