Koertdina Hendrika Geertruida Tempel - ship’s doctor
On this website, historical women from the maritime sector share their stories. This is the story of Koertdina Hendrika Geertruida Tempel.
About Koertdina Hendrika Geertruida Tempel
- Lived: 1910–2007
- Employer: Stoomvaart Maatschappij ‘Nederland’
- In which maritime sector did she work? Passenger shipping
What kind of work did she do?
She worked in 1948–1949 (possibly longer) as a ship’s doctor aboard the Oranje.
What else is there to say about her life?
She studied medicine at Utrecht University and passed her second-cycle exam in September 1934. She met her future husband at the university: Willem Gelbo Kooistra (1911–1985), who passed his second-cycle exam in March 1935. They married in September 1940 and, as far as is known, had no children. She made several voyages on the Oranje on the scheduled service between Amsterdam and Jakarta (Indonesia), which resumed in 1947. She later became a neurologist, with posts in Leiden and Leidschendam, among other places.
*In the exhibition
Female ship’s doctors were exceptional. This is evidenced by this photograph, taken in 1949 when the doctor’s uniform was worn for the first time by a female ship’s doctor at the Stoomvaart Maatschappij ‘Nederland’. That woman was Koertdina Tempel.
