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boek Oh Meine Papa: René Corneille Deboeck 1913-1985
www.blurb.com
Firstnames: René Corneille. Profession: Industrialist, Entrepreneur, Knight of the Order of Leopold II, 10 May 1954
Producer of mechanical lace. Deboeck Gebroeders, PVBA Vilvoorde 1941-1972
My father was born on August 25, 1913; he was the fourth child of Guillaume and Joanna. Their first child, Josephine, was born on May 20, 1897 (five months after the wedding). My father's elder brother Joseph was born a year later on December 6, 1898; his younger brother Pieter (called Pierre) was born two years later on October 5, 1900. Thus, my father was 16 years younger than his sister, Josephine; 15 years younger than his elder brother, Joseph; and 13 years younger than his brother Pierre.
Some time after the birth of their third child, Guillaume and Joanna left the factory, where they had met each other. Joanne probably left right before the birth of Josephine. In four years time she delivered three children! Maybe Guillaume stayed working for the factory until he had the money and opportunity to set up his own small family business at home.
When my father was born my father's grandfather, Everard, had already passed away; he died in 1881 (seven years after Guillaume was born). My father's grandmother, Gertrude Verhaegen, died in 1917, only four years after my father was born. So my father grew up without paternal grandparents (and he lost his father when he was barely 12 years old). The impact of growing up without grandparents and loosing your father early in life) will be discussed later in this book.
In 1913, the year my father was born, Belgium was soon to be occupied by the Germans. The German invasion of Belgium was a military campaign. The Belgian government announced it would uphold its historic neutrality in case of war. On August 2, 1914 the German government sent an ultimatum to Belgium demanding its armies could obtain passage through the country to invade France. The Belgian government refused and in consequence on August 4, 1914 Germany declared war and troops crossed into Belgium. Fighting in World War I went on until water of the IJzer River flooded the low lands; the war ended on November 11, 1918 . This was a year or two before my father entered primary school. The childhood years of my father will be discussed in Section 2.
When my father had barely finished the first half of secondary school, his father died of a severe illness in Ukkel, a suburb of Brussels. Guillaume died a month before reaching his 51th birthday. This was in 1925, seven years after the end of World War I and six years before my father performed his military service. Since military service was mandatory my father probably started his military service in 1932. More on the military service of my father and the period of the Second World War will follow later in this book.
Around the turn of the century, Guillaume had started a small business for winding thread onto bobbins ("afwinding van draad op spoelen"). After Guillaume's death in 1925, his widow Joanna together with her four children continued the family business under the name of "De Boeck Widow" (from 1936 onwards under the name "De Boeck Widow and Children").
This small family business evolved into an embroidery workplace. In a letter written in 1906 Guillaume asked the authorities in Vilvoorde for permission to setup an embroidery workplace. Many years later in 1941 this small family business was transformed into a company for the production of mechanical lace.
In January 1941 the Deboeck Gebroeders PVBA ("Personen Vennootshap met Beperkte Aansprakelijkheid" or company with limited responsibilities) was established. This company was setup with an original capital of 440,000 Belgian francs (about the equivalent of $15,000 US$ in 2016). Joanna, who was not a founding partner, contributed days after she became 65 in February 1941, an additional 240,000 Belgian francs (or $8,000 US$) to the capital of this company. One year later Johanna died on May 4, 1942
My father, who was in his late twenties at that time, met Marie Louise Girardin on a dance evening in Pajotteland. He fell in love with her, he proposed to her, she accepted, and they married on August 25, 1943.
From 1941 till 1972 my father managed the Deboeck Gebroeders PVBA making mechanical lace for Belgium and several countries in Europe. For more read
Source: Oh Meine Papa: René Corneille Deboeck 1913-1985, by Guido Deboeck, 2016, www.blurb.com
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