Heinerika Hidderina Zeijlstra (1861-1893)
Heinerika Hidderina Zeijlstra (1861-1893) did not work in the maritime sector, but travelled for a year and a half with her husband who was a merchant navy captain. She herself also came from a maritime family, in which both father Hein Hidde Zeijlstra and grandfather Foeke Hiddes Zeijlstra were merchant navy captains.
Zeijlstra married Mattheus Johannes Kimmerer (1862-1923) in 1891, and five months after their wedding she went on board the clipper barque Nachtegaal from Amsterdam.
On 23 May 1893 the ship returned to its home port. But… without Heinerika Zeijlstra. She had died on board, to be precise on 2 April 1893 in the South Atlantic Ocean at 7⁰2’ S and 15⁰27’ W.
What had happened? The ship’s log only gives a glimpse of what had happened. On 1 April she had fallen ill, vomiting blood and rapidly weakening. The next day she was dead: she may have died of an acute stomach haemorrhage. Captain Kimmerer was devastated by the loss of his wife: “I have suffered the most crushing blow of my life, by the unexpected death of my dearly beloved wife, after a deeply happy but unfortunately so short-lived marriage of 21 months,” he wrote in the obituary. He would never remarry.
