The tide of war

By Paul Pickering
A FAMILY drawn to the hills by the weight of a wartime promise has recounted the extraordinary life of its brave matriarch.
After the passing earlier this year of their mother José Timmermans (nee Van Oest), Rim Mayer and Lucia Chester recalled the tide of history that swept their family from war-ravaged Indonesia to the peaceful foothills of Ferntree Gully.
José was born in 1917 to a Dutch colonial family in the Indonesian town of Bandgong (now Bandung) on the island of Java.
Her first daughter, Rim, was four months old when World War II broke out.
José and Rim were captured immediately by the Japanese and incarcerated in a women’s prison for four years.
While Rim’s memories from that time are understandably faint, her mother’s resilience and bravery are not forgotten.
One of her earliest memories is of a special routine she often shared with her exhausted mother after she finished working in the camp.
“I remember mum used to come home after working 12-hour days, her back aching, and I would stand on her back and trample up and down – that was her massage,” Rim said.
Meanwhile, José’s husband Willem, who had been with the Netherlands East Indies Air Force, had been captured and sent as a prisoner of war to work on the notorious Burma Railway and later in the coal mines in Japan.
Rim said that while José was repeatedly told that her husband had died, she refused to give up hope of a reunion.
Meanwhile in Japan, Willem formed a close friendship with an Australian prisoner-of-war named Bill Britain.
“They made a promise that whoever survived the war would visit the other’s family,” Lucia explained.
Mr Britain died shortly before the war ended, and in 1950 Willem honoured his promise by flying his family – now with second daughter Lucia – to Melbourne.
“The bond between the two families was instant, and we ended up staying with them in a small house in North Fitzroy for two years,” Rim recalled.
“They were such beautiful people, they opened their hearts and their doors to us.”
But after José and Willem’s third daughter Wilma arrived, they decided that it was time to move into their own home.
Fittingly, they chose to settle in Upper Ferntree Gully because it evoked memories of their hillside home town in Indonesia.
After the birth of fourth daughter Beatrix in 1956, José’s enduring love for children prompted her to take up a position at Belgrave Pre-School in 1960.
Having studied to be a teacher in Indonesia, José was soon appointed kindergarten directress.
In her 17 years of service at the pre-school, José developed a reputation as both a firm disciplinarian and a compassionate carer.
“She loved her ‘kinder kids’, as she called them, they were very special to her,” Rim said.
In February this year, José, 90, died in her sleep at the Dutch Aged Care Facility in Kilsyth, having battled Alzheimer’s disease throughout her latter years.
She is survived by her husband, four daughters, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Given the traumatic circumstances of José’s life, it is no surprise that Rim identifies her late mother’s inner strength as a defining quality.
“She never gave up,” Rim said.
“And I think she’s passed that on to the rest of us.”
The Timmermans family still calls the foothills home, and Rim says their intrinsic bond with the Britains has never been stronger.