Just got back! On Monday, we hitched a ride with Elisha to Semarang. We had a dentist appt at 2:00 pm - and Elisha was going to Semarang to do some shopping for the restuarant Kawan Kitchen. We sure appreciated that offer! He dropped us off at the Ibis Hotel close by the dentist office. Elisha went off and then a little bit later we joined him for lunch! 
Right outside the restaurant was a man cutting up fruit...and so Elisha ordered a few dishes for us to snack on! Nice...& refreshing! 
We met Elisha for lunch and then back to the hotel to brush our teeth and we walked over to the dentist office!
All went well at the dentist. Dr Andre finished his dental education and degree in Stockton CA! We were in good hands with Dr Andre! no fillings Yeah! He also did the cleaning - so we were done and out of there in no time at all! Great! That too is done before we leave and continue on our with our travels next month!
We had heard about this restaurant that was in the Dutch colonial
area of Semarang...called Toko
...and so we decided to have dinner there ...and it was well worth the effort! 
The atmosphere was especially old Dutch and they offered kroketjes & poffertjes 
too...and of course our favorite Gado-Gado! They even had a very old cash register with "guldens" written on it! (the Dutch currency at that time!) The plan was to travel to the town of Jepara and then Kudus & Dawe...about 2 hours east along the coast.
So the next morning we checked out - found a taxi driver to take us and off we went right after breakfast. We decided to go first to
Nick took a panoramic picture of this wall....
The Center of Jepara.
- just to check it out. 
The next morning we hired a taxi driver for the day.
He would take us to Kudus & Dawe and then bring us to back to Semarang again...so we could get another taxi to bring us home to Salatiga. 
So the story continues: The town where my father was born is called Dawe in the district of Tjendono. We first went to Kudus (Dutch colonial spelling was then Koedoes) to look if there was any buildings left over from the early 1900's where my grandfather worked at the sugar plantation. The information we have was that it was called "Tandjoeng Modjo" Our taxi driver that we had hired for the day - stopped at a sugar factory that was still in operation called "Rendeng" Gosh I was all excited...hoping they could lead us to the Tandjoeng Modjo....the guards seemed so sure when they gave our driver directions. They "seemed" to know what we asked for...just a little ways ahead they said.....but our driver either didn't understand the directions or.....
When we got closer to the area we came into a "desa" village which had a similar name to it...are we getting closer????
It was hard to communicate - our driver knew what we were looking for...but all the generation of people are of course all younger...you really need to find an very elderly person that might remember from the past. The taxi driver received a call from his office and I guess they had done a little research to help us too - the taxi driver handed us the phone and an English speaking person on the cell phone said that the sugar plantation "Tandjoeng Modji" was torn down and the property was sold and divided??!!!! Gosh so hard to accept...we had come so far???????
I guess I was glad to have a picture of these two old Dutch homes ~ and it was right in the middle of the sugar fields! We had to accept that this was it...there had been a "Tandjoeng Modji" but torn down some time ago.
Well we decided to go on and drive to Dawe, the town higher in elevation where Pappa had been born. So the driver again asked directions and off we went up the mountain...on this very small single lane road to Dawe...we think it was the back road to this town...because we did a whole lot of driving way up into the mountain side and then down again.
Down into a valley and then we connected with a larger road again towards a town.....
 |
| We drove through the smaller town of Dawe - I have no address of course of what house he was born in ~ But just seeing the signs of the town was already special for me! |
Dawe was a cute town...
On December 22, 1914 at 3:00 pm my father
Johannes Albertus Marinus Baidenmann came into the world in Dawe at home, in Java district Tjendono.
I found this on the internet and I wanted to share it with you all! It is in Dutch but really neat to see anyway!
Family "Baidenmann" Indonesia Registered archive
This Link is pretty neat to read....it names all my family on my father's side...neat to see all those "Baidenmann's" (my maiden name!) My Opa was from a family of 10 children! His father (my great grandfather) had come to Indonesia and married my my great-grandmother (who was also Indo) and had the 10 children.They seemed to all be in involved in the sugar plantation business.
My Opa & Oma :
Johannes Willem Jacobus and mother Alida van der Veer (also Indo!) registered the birth of my father in Kudus~
Ronnie & Maralin (siblings) "I truly wish I could have done more...but it was hard to get anymore information. Language especially made it harder. But I had the information written down and they could read it and believe me - everyone tried to be most helpful! It was just a very very long time ago...I guess you could say 100 years ago....gosh! But it felt good to do what we could - and seeing again the area where Pappa was born and how much he loved it here......it made it very special to have done what we could! Opa (grandfather) did move on to other factories in the town of Purkwokerto if you recall (blog & pictures!) where Nick & I have also gone and taken pictures. This town was close to the town Banyumas (where Nick's mother was born!) ...well Ron & Mar - this is our father's family history....and we can be proud of that huh?....you betcha!"
We told the driver to head onto Semarang again...and so we arrived back in Semarang around 2 pm. Stopped at the mall to have some lunch and then Nick went out to find Blue Bird taxi (they have meters) to drive us on to Salatiga!
It has been a nice 2 days tracking a last link to finding our Indo heritage....and it feels so good to do! I feel more connected with my father....and feel especially connected with my Dutch Indonesia heritage...and proud of it! YES!
No comments:
Post a Comment