GENERATIONS

My great-grandfather was born 200 years ago… two hundred, that's correct! What a year that was! Napoleon met his Waterloo and Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies—now Indonesia—blew its top in the biggest explosive eruption in recorder history. Louis XVIII was brought back as King of France, and in Prussia Otto von Bismarck was born on April 1^st. And Saartjie Baartman died on 29 December. She was famous for her very large buttocks[1] and was displayed in freak shows in Europe under the name of Hottentot Venus.[2] The modern version of a freak show is reality TV such as Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and incidentally, Kim K's buttocks, although not of Saartjie's size, are quite ample, too.

Quite a colourful list of happenings. And maybe this did contribute to my great-grandfather's extra­ordinary life. But just imagine, two hundred years. A statistically-normal age gap of four generations is around 90 years. In my case the four-generation gap is 125 years, a whole "generation" was thus added without any visible bodies to show for it.

Saartjie Baartman, the Hottentot Venus

Great-grandfather, as recounted by my grandmother, was an excellent swimmer and an outstanding horseman. His third marriage, of which I'm a descendant, was to the artistic daughter of the then famous author, Karl Gutzkow. She, a penniless painter and 35 years his junior, instantly earned the contempt of her family. You have sold your soul, they scornfully told her. But the real reason, according to my grandmother, their only child, was that the family had hoped to be included in the will of the rich uncle—his sister's son had married the older Gutzkow daughter Clara.

Anyway, it hadn't gotten as far as a will yet. Great-grandfather, Jean Doré Wunderly, but called Père by his wife and daughter, was far from dead and produced a daughter, my grandmother Dora. A very lively and strong-willed lady who likely took after her father. He had made a name for himself by diving off the Rhine bridge in Mainz; later when managing the tropical products import firm in Amsterdam he became the talk of the town when he rode his horse up the stairs of the Gentlemen's Club. He had inherited the firm in Amsterdam from an uncle and it became the source of his great wealth. Born a German, he was a pre-European as he acquired the Dutch nationality for tax and administrative reasons, and when he foresaw a decline in the tropical oils and fats prospects, he sold out and left for Paris where he became a French national.

During the French-Prussian war of 1870 he did, however, discover that he could not stand the French aggressively patriotic view of themselves and their fellow Europeans, and built himself a house in Bühlen, Switzerland. It is there that he met his to-be third wife, and where eventually my grandmother was born.

My grandmother who is the source of this information said that he was rather difficult and very strict in enforcing his wishes on those around him, but also interesting, and intellectually and physically alert. A nice epitaph, I think. 

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[1] Called steatopygiam a large accumulation of fat in and around the buttocks.

[2] Hottentot was then the name of the Khoikhoi people of southern Africa; now it is considered an offensive name.