It was a beautiful spectacle in December last year. Hundred-year-old Harm Huttinga and his 96-year-old wife Miny Huttinga-Holtjer sit on an armchair in the living room of their farmhouse in De Groeve and hold hands firmly, flanked by mayor Marcel Thijsen of Tynaarlo. Relatives of the couple are also proudly watching. After all, a seventy-year wedding anniversary is not given to everyone.
But the armchair in which Harm sat has been empty since April 12. He died in the place where he had lived and was born for a hundred years. It was meant to be. “On our 70th anniversary, Harm was still doing quite well, but from then on he slowly deteriorated,” says Miny. “Mentally it still wanted, but physically not anymore. Very sad”, it sounds. But she relies on it. “If you’re just lying in bed, you’re not really alive anymore. I think it’s better for Harm that way.”
She may be 96 years old, but Miny still remembers how she met her husband in the entertainment venue De Gouden Leeuw in Zuidlaren. They got married and with that Miny – “I may live in Drenthe, I still feel like a real Grunneger” – exchanged Noordbroek for Harm’s farm in De Groeve. She immediately felt at home, partly due to the social character of the neighbourhood. “There were always so many people coming here, I loved that.”
Yet Miny and Harm secretly sometimes looked at other places to live. “We once looked in Zuidlaren”, she remembers. “But then you come home to your trusted farm and realize what you have. The children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren always love coming here. Then we went to the Zuidlaardermeer, or the children built huts. Why should we do that?’ leaving a valuable place, we wondered.”
Harm and Miny ran a dairy farm until his retirement, because when Harm reached the age of 65, it was enough. “We stopped with the farm and that was just in time for us. Much larger farms were emerging in the area and we actually had to grow to be able to participate, but that had become too heavy. It fit just like that,” says Miny.
As for so many couples who have shared joys and sorrows for decades, the loss of her husband Miny is heavy. “It’s a bit disappointing, so alone,” she admits, adding immediately that she is very grateful that she has lived for 96 years. “And that’s also how I see how kids grow up today. Well, I can tell you one thing, I’m glad things used to be different. In my youth we might have less than the youth now, but I always enjoyed what I had. I really wouldn’t want to trade,” she laughs.
And so the farm in De Groeve grew even more over the past century into a real family farm where everyone was welcome. “And still is,” emphasizes Miny. “People from Icare, GPs, friends, family, neighbors, we’ve all had them over this month,” she sums up. “We really have such nice neighbors.” After Harm’s death, she was showered with cards – “Well, 130, if I counted correctly” – and she was also amazed at the turnout at the funeral. “It was more people than I ever imagined.”
Miny does not know exactly how long the farm has been family property. “He comes from eighteen hundred and so many, Harm knew better,” she says. She cannot say whether the widow will continue to live there on her own. “I still have to see what I’m going to do, or rather: what I can still do. Yes boy, when you’re 96 years old, you don’t walk so well anymore. I’m looking forward to the summer. I’m in a hurry I don’t, because this is a healthy place to live, we can say that now, right?”