built these types of boats for hundreds of years, and they continue
to do so. Jan heats and wets the wood in order to bend it.
Giethoorm and Staphorst
Village Life Observed:
Photography and Stories by Annet Held
Holland, Circa 1950
In the 1950s I photographed these two villages situated in the north of Holland, only 20 miles apart (and 20 miles from the village in which I grew up), but they are two different worlds. “The Elders” and “Boatbuilder” are from Giethoorm, a very old settlement in the middle of lakes and wetlands, only accessible by boat or bike. The population is Protestant, but of a very open-minded variety. In the 1950s they chose as their minister a homosexual who lived with his Italian boyfriend in the rectory. The people never regretted their choice, and the minister stayed for years. Staphorst is less isolated, but people there live in a totally closed society, with strict rules for all matters of everyday life. They dress as they have for hundreds of years. They are excellent farmers.
Annet Held and her camera
Staphorst Interior
The village is a visual pleasure, the houses thatch-roofed with green doors, the interiors like 17th-century Dutch paintings. The walls are tiled, the floor is stone, and every Saturday white sand is scattered on the floors to protect them from people’s wooden shoes.
Giethoorm Elders
When I took this photo, the old lady asked me how much I was going to pay her. I told her I wouldn’t pay her, but I would send her a copy of the photo, which I did.
Love in Staphorst
In Staphorst in the 1950s, a teenage girl would carry a little embroidered bag to market. If she allowed a boy to have the bag, she would be waiting for him the following Thursday night. Their secret meetings continued until the girl was pregnant, then both families arranged a wedding.
Contributors
Many talented individuals are featured in the West Marin Review. Please click below for this volume’s contributors.
- Cover
- William B. Dewey Bay Patterns #2
- Prose
- Laurel Wroten The Birds and the Beef
- Elizabeth Leahy whitebird
- Steve Heilig Hiding Out with Joanne Kyger, Poet of West Marin
- Barbara Heenan Imagining Cherry Pie
- Karen Gray Letter from the Everglades
- Rosaleen Bertolino Silverton
- Francine Allen Things
- Elizabeth Whitney What Would Buddha Do?
- Sandra Nicholls Raising Rockettes
- Blair Fuller Tomales Bank Robbery, 1996
- Philip L. Fradkin Unpublished Manuscripts
- Poetry
- Terry Tempest Williams Finding Beauty in a Broken World
- Linda Pastan Late September Song
- Nell Sullivan Earthly Catalogue
- Jon Langdon Jenny Haiku
- Eugenia Loyster If We Should Die Tomorrow
- Joanne Kyger Night Palace and About Now
- Donald Bacon Oblique Tide
- Barbara Lovejoy Fog
- Gary Thorp Kehoe Beach Haiku
- William Keener Bolinas Lagoon
- Marilyn Longinotti Geary A Textured Felt
- Rick Lyttle A Dry Spring
- David Swain Witness
- Rebecca Foust The Last Bison Gone
- Murray Silverstein Song of the Field
- Agnes Wolohan Smuda von Burkleo Dear Friends in Minnesota
- Payne Jewett Shafter An Ode to Coffee
- Art + Artifact
- C.R. Snyder Election Sign on the Grandi Building
- Igor Sazevich Point Reyes Morning Spaces
- Tomales High School, Art One Students Happy Mistakes
- Amanda Tomlin Winter Night
- Rich Clarke Martinelli Bull, Highway One
- Nancy Stein Wave #44
- Elise Kroeber Marsh at Bodega
- Gale S. McKee On The Road and Leaving Home
- John Anderson SIME
- Annet Held Giethoorm and Staphorst
- Kathleen P. Goodwin South from Sculptured Beach
- Anne Vitale 57 Argyle: Vignettes of Home
- Fariba Bogzaran Invisible Dialogue
- Marin Literacy Photography Project La Vida
- Kurt Lai Reflection
- Ashley Howze Untitled
- Angelica Casey Untitled
- Evvy Eisen The Oysterman
- Louise Maloof Erika’s Apple
- Claudia Chapline Swimmer in the Sun
- Tomales High School Mural Project The Bounty of the Bioregion
- David Geisinger The Memory—II—Absence
- Carola DeRooy Belles Lettres
- H.D. Mott Shadowbox
- Kyle Govan Untitled
- Raul Macias Untitled
- Margarito Loza Untitled
- Molly Marcussen Untitled