Mrs. Meijer (94) liked to be in control, the liquor store kept her going

In the tasting room behind the specialty drinks store, Mrs. Meijer seems to still be there. Her exercise bike is in the corner and the Christmas windows have been made well in advance. The coffee is simmering in the kitchen while her daughter and two of her grandchildren sit around an oblong table. The loss is palpable.

It doesn’t take long before granddaughter Myrna Schwering from Amsterdam comes up with an anecdote about Mrs. Meijer, her grandmother. “She always says that she was one of the first to get her driver’s license as a woman in the village. Even earlier than grandpa. She was quite progressive, despite being very conservative. She was up to date. She could speak all languages. She cycled with ease to Gelderland to visit family after the war.”

Honest

The other two family members start laughing because Myrna is just throwing these examples out of her sleeve. “I used to sit here,” Myrna emphasizes, laughing. “You didn’t have to say much. You had to be a good listener.”

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This is something customers also recognize. “Some people no longer came to the store,” says grandson Derk Dukker. “Because she just has a very strong opinion. She literally said what she thought, which was not always very tactical.”

However, this did not scare away every villager. De Assendelver continues: “Some customers just kept coming back. Because yes: she was very honest and elderly. People also admired that. If you knew her, you could see through that and you actually thought it was beautiful.”

‘I already had a part-time job, didn’t I?’

Mrs. Meijer is a miller’s daughter and comes from Oostknollendam. Before she started the shop in Wormer with her husband at the age of thirty-nine, she was a sewing machine representative. And before she starts selling specialty drinks, she first sells a different kind of drink: milk.

The store is the joy and its life. Little has changed over time. Only the beer was removed from the range when supermarket chains started offering the product at rock bottom prices.

Derk and Myrna spent hours in their grandmother’s shop. “You could be called upon at any time, at any time,” says Mrs. Meijer’s granddaughter. “It wasn’t really a question. Suddenly you think: ‘I don’t know how it happened, but now I’m suddenly here. I already had a part-time job.'”

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Not only her grandchildren, but also friends were deployed. “She was truly a master at putting people to her advantage, even to the point of frustration in the family,” Derk explains. “She had two sides. If you came to visit and there were leaves on the grass, you were simply put to work.” Myrna: “Even if you were with a friend. Then he could just help.” The other side, according to Derk, is that she was one of the first to help when someone was in need.

Myrna: “Three weeks ago I took an afternoon off from work to come and make the display material at my grandmother’s house. Then I also thought: this is a world upside down.” With the loss now, Myrna is very happy that she did it. “It also makes you see how hard someone works. And I think we all got that. If you want something, you have to go for it and you will succeed.”

Always keep learning

Despite her respectable age, Mrs. Meijer always wanted to learn. “My mother still read French books,” says Alice. “She no longer read Dutch. Actually, no English either,” granddaughter Myrna adds. “That didn’t get her any further.”

Myrna: “If you had friends with you from Italy or Israel, she could always say something about it. In recent years I have brought my European history books. She read them with great pleasure. About the Soviet Union. It’s really bizarre how long it lasted eagerness to learn and brain remained a sponge.”

Mrs. Meijer will talk about her specialty store in 2020. Text continues below the report

According to her grandchildren, Mrs. Meijer was generous in her own way and, for example, gave trips to the grandchildren. She also sponsored the G-team of the local football club.

The two grandchildren separately went on holiday with grandma a few times. So Derk went to Rome with his grandmother. “But that does mean that the holiday went the way she wanted.” Derk sees every church inside and out and his suggestions are kindly put aside.

“I also went to Menton again, which is close to Nice, because I had to take a language course.” Mrs. Meijer thought that was good for their and her own development. She did that every year. Myrna: “She then went to university. Then she just worked with the young people who were twenty there. She was almost seventy and then she just took part in the summer program. The language course. That of course also keeps you young. And We had to believe that ourselves.”

Cycling with one lung

In addition to the French language, cycling is a recurring theme and has always been very important for the Oostknollendam native. “As the eldest grandchild, I was allowed to pick out a bicycle,” says Derk. Together with grandpa he goes to the bicycle shop opposite the specialty drinks store. A nice cross bike with gears catches his attention. “But grandma thought differently.” Derk gets a decent Gazelle. “I was very disappointed.”

“But I had to cycle around a bit with that bike. Because yes, on Sunday she said: we’re going to Heiloo with that bike.” Myrna laughs: “Yes, because she gave me that bicycle. And that bicycle had to be cycled.” Derk: “Yes, every weekend you rode your bike along the bulb fields. That was her passion and her life. She also did that on holiday.” Even when Grandpa had one lung less in his body, the two continued to pedal.

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So sitting behind the geraniums was not an option until the very end. “She was always active. She was on the exercise bike until the last minute,” says Myrna. “She exercised more than I did,” Derk says, laughing. She also goes out for dinner with the Zaanse liquor stores until the very end. Her network is important. She calls one representative on her deathbed. Whether he wants to help her family when she is no longer there.

‘Customer contact kept her going’

Being busy, arranging everything down to the last detail and being in the shop until the end, that is something that characterizes Mrs. Meijer. “That customer contact kept her going,” Derk explains. “That was her passion and her life.” “And also really have something of her own, which she had complete control over,” Myrna adds.

Thanks to Mrs. Meijer’s foresight, the store is already in a Christmas mood. It would be her last year. Alice: “Well, that’s great, all those years of beautiful shop windows, you don’t want to know that. Beautiful. Then you have to come up with something different every time, for 55 years.”

The shop window that Myrna made under the watchful eye of grandma is also ready. The family will therefore keep the specialty drinks store running until New Year’s Eve in any case. Still, it won’t be easy to follow in their mother and grandmother’s footsteps. The beautiful shop windows, the packing and the wise lessons are taken with the family members. “If you do it, you have to do it right,” grandson Derk concludes in the words of his grandmother.