The cover of “Ole Tales, Sweet Memories – My father and his unique stories from St. Maarten” by Maria Plantz and Charles Irving Plantz.
THE HAGUE--When Maria Plantz heard from PhD researcher and former Radio Nederland Wereldomroep (Radio Netherlands) journalist Jos de Roo some seven years ago that he had found a set of stories that her father Charles Irving Plantz had written for Radio Netherlands, she decided that she wanted to do something with these unique historic documents that described St. Maarten in the old days.
Years later, Maria Plantz is proud to present the book Ole Tales, Sweet Memories – My father and his unique stories from St. Maarten, a publication that in fact she realised together with her deceased father, as it contains 18 remarkable stories that Charles Irving Plantz (1924-1987) wrote and recorded at Radio Netherlands during his law studies in the Netherlands.
The 200-page book, which went on sale in the Netherlands on Friday, August 6, and will come to St. Maarten soon, contains a unique collection of stories in the oral literature tradition of St. Maarten, the island where Charles Irving Plantz was born. The stories that he wrote were phonetically written in “Sin Matin” English and broadcast to the English-speaking islands of the Netherlands Antilles between 1949 and 1952.
Special discovery
Jos De Roo found the stories in the archives of Radio Netherlands during research for his PhD thesis and contacted Maria Plantz about this very special discovery of which she had no knowledge. “I didn’t know that my father had written and recorded these stories, and that they were broadcast on the islands. He never told me about it. I do remember a photo of him sitting behind a microphone, but I didn’t know the specifics,” she told The Daily Herald and Amigoe newspapers in an exclusive interview.
The first thing that Maria Plantz, who lives in the Netherlands and serves as the St. Maarten-nominated Member of the Kingdom Council of State, did was to scan and safeguard the 18 documents her father wrote. This was necessary because it was unclear whether these would be saved as part of the archives of Radio Netherlands which was dissolved in 2012.
Plantz decided to write a biography and further background for the book so the reader could learn more about the author of these wonderful old tales with titles like “The Three Lil Pigs”, “Ole Johannes and the Cotton Thieves”, “Capin Johnson and the Lil Red Snapper”, “Sharks in Lamejo”, “Rumrunners” Plight”, “Damfool and Sensible” and “Smugglin Trick”.
The biography includes the history of the Plantz and Beauperthuy families with a family tree, old documents and historic photos.
In the biography, Maria Plantz writes about her father’s roots from his father’s side, Maria’s great-grandmother Sarah Macbene Donckrin, great-grandfather William Adolphus Plantz and her grandfather William Rufus Plantz.
She also describes her father’s roots from his mother’s side: Maria’s great-grandmother Mélanie Constance Gumbs, great-grandfather Charles Daniel Esprit “Mister Dan” Beauperthuy and her grandmother Amélia Valentine Beauperthuy.
Boarding school
The book describes Charles Irving Plantz growing up in St. Maarten, Bonaire, Aruba and Curaçao from 1924 to 1938, the move to the secondary school in the Netherlands in 1938, the impact of the Rolduc boarding school in Kerkrade, the war years and the period after the war. By relating his ancestry and the long road he had to travel in life, the reader, through his daughter Maria, gets to know the writer of the remarkable stories in the book.
At the age of 14, Charles Irving Plantz was sent to boarding school in the Netherlands as World War II was about to erupt. After graduating in 1944, he went into hiding to avoid being sent to a German work camp.
In Beverwijk, he hid in a large haystack, together with Hyacinth Connor, who later became Lieutenant Governor of St. Maarten. Plantz and Connor assisted the resistance with English translations. It was in Beverwijk that Plantz met Maria’s mother Elly, because her father owned the haystack where Plantz and Connor were hiding. In 1952, they married and in 1955 Maria was born.
Whilst studying law at University of Amsterdam, Irving Plantz between 1948 and 1952 wrote the stories of Ole Tales, Sweet Memories, making use of his sweet memories and the love for his island St. Maarten.
He was in good company. According to Jos De Roo’s thesis “Praatjes voor de West” (Stories for the West) (2014), several other students from the Dutch Caribbean who later became famous, such as Boelie van Leeuwen, René Römer, Jules de Palm, Hubert Dennert and Frank Martinus Arion, contributed stories to the Radio Netherlands broadcast. The stories of these and other writers were broadcast until 1962.
Humble man
With Ole Tales, Sweet Memories – My father and his unique stories from St. Maarten, Maria Plantz took up the challenge to get the stories published to contribute to St. Maarten’s culture and history, to describe the grand St. Maarten roots, the French Quarter tribe and the life of her father, a humble man.
“I hope that this is a beautiful contribution for St. Maarten and St. Maarten Day 2021, by giving back a piece of oral history to St. Maarten,” said Maria Plantz, who plans to travel to St. Maarten and several other Dutch Caribbean islands in October this year to personally present the book. The official book launch in the Netherlands takes place at American Book Center early September.
Ole Tales, Sweet Memories, the background and extraordinary collection of short stories in “Sin Matin English”, is being published by Boekscout Publishers in the Netherlands per August 6
(www.boekscout.nl) and is available through its Web shop. Editors of the book are The Daily Herald Managing Director Mary Hellmund-Snow and American Book Center owner Lynn Kaplanian Buller.
As for Charles Irving Plantz: after his law studies, he went to Curaçao in 1952, but returned to the Netherlands in 1954 to study at the Tax Academy. He then went back to Curaçao where he worked at the central government Finance Department and later became head of the island government Finance Department until his retirement from public service. For several more years, he worked as tax advisor in Curaçao and St. Maarten and was chairman of the General Audit Chamber of the Netherlands Antilles.
Being a strong advocate of investing in “we, the community”, he used his knowledge of the law to assist the labour unions in Curaçao free of charge. He was involved in the Kiwanis service club and was the chairman of the Mgr. Verriet Institute for disabled persons for a long time. He passed away in 1987 in Curaçao where he was initially buried, and was re-buried in St. Maarten later to rest with his deceased son Erik Plantz.
