Charlotte van Beuningen-Fentener van Vlissingen
"A socially committed woman"
Date of Birth: 18–07–1880 | Date of Death: 29–01–1976
Charlotte Elisabeth, daughter of Frederik Hendrik Fentener van Vlissingen and Line Adriana Antonia Roosenburg, was born on 18 July 1880 in Amsterdam. On 17 May 1900 she married Willem van Beuningen (1873-1948). From this marriage a daughter and a son were born, named Lienfried and Willem. Charlotte van Beuningen died in Wassenaar on 29 January 1976.
On her father's side, Charlotte descended from the old Amsterdam merchant family Fentener van Vlissingen, coal merchants. The Roosenburg family on her mother's side came from 's-Hertogenbosch. Charlotte's grandfather was a doctor there and lived on the Parade. After his retirement, he moved to Huize Bergen, an estate located in Vught on the road to Boxtel, where Charlotte's parents later lived.
Charlotte spent her early childhood in Amsterdam. The family then moved to Baarn, where Charlotte lived in a villa named after her. In Baarn she attended primary school, after which she attended the girls' school of the Kramer ladies, a "young ladies' school" that did not prepare for exams, but paid a lot of attention to general education with subjects such as languages, literature, history, art history and music.
Philanthropist
At the end of the nineties, the coal trade of the Fentener van Vlissingens in Amsterdam merged with that of the Van Beuningens in Utrecht. This resulted in Charlotte moving to Utrecht. She was briefly taken care of by governesses, before leaving in 1897 for a boarding school in Brussels for the finishing touch to her education. She became engaged to Willem van Beuningen as early as 1899. She made her confession of faith in the Remonstrant church in Utrecht and married there on 17 May 1900. The young couple settled on the Catharijnesingel, later on the Maliebaan.
During his time in Utrecht, Willem van Beuningen, nephew of the Rotterdam shipowner and art collector DG van Beuningen, followed in his father's footsteps in all kinds of philanthropic work, in which Charlotte, a very active woman with a great talent for organization, soon began to play a role. He was honorary chairman of the Oranjevereniging of Wijk C and had a gymnasium and domestic science school built there, Charlotte set up a sewing association for married women, where she ordered that the men had to look after the children during lessons; she was a board member of Arbeid Adelt, an association of women who had to earn their own bread, provided with homework; she was a 'book lady' in the hospitals, did volunteer work in the 'Armhuis', the home for the elderly.
During the First World War, she was resourceful in helping Belgian refugees in the Military Accommodation in Utrecht, including by founding a lace school for women. They were able to earn a living by selling their work. Charlotte also managed to pick up malnourished children from Essen, Germany, for a holiday in the Netherlands.
"In January 1935, Charlotte van Beuningen-van Fentener from Vlissingen distributed the 12,000th hot meal in the cooking workshop in Vught."
Residents of the Huize Bergen Estate
After her mother's death, daughter Charlotte (1880) and her husband Willem van Beuningen (1873) moved into the house in 1927. They did not go unnoticed in the municipality of Vught because of their many good deeds. In the 1930s, for example, they had workers' houses built for the then impoverished Vught. These houses are now part of the 'Charlotte Elisabeth van Beuningen Foundation'. The renovation of the beautiful town hall in Vught was also largely a gift from the family to the municipality. During the Second World War, Charlotte organised the distribution of food parcels for prisoners of Camp Vught.
Willem van Beuningen died in 1948, after which Charlotte decided to sell the estate. She wanted it to have a social function in which less affluent people could also find a place. The buyer was the Diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch on 23 November 1949, who turned the estate into an educational centre.
The memory of BrabantLandgoed Huize Bergen is a piece of the collective memory of Brabant. More than 1 million people have met here. In 1950 different than today, but always with the intention of leaving richer.
In 1950, the Diocese of Den Bosch became the new owner of Landgoed Huize Bergen, which almost immediately sold it to the Maria Annunciatie institute. Because of the growing demand for education and courses, space was needed. Permanent tenants were the maternity training and the life school. The institute focused mainly on the education of girls and young women to prepare them for their future tasks as adults, but the youth camps of the Dutch Catholic Sports Association were also a household name at Landgoed Huize Bergen.
The objective not only expressed the promotion and enabling of educational work among young people, but also created space for the promotion of meetings and courses in religious, charitable, social and cultural fields.
In the 1960s, a partnership was established with the 'Joannes Bosco Stichting', which at that time already owned De Spreeuwel (now EIGENTIJDSERF) in Westelbeers. Slowly, more and more businesses found their way to the estate. In 1974, only 4 percent of the guests followed their own courses. The rest followed courses from third parties who only rented the space and otherwise took care of themselves.
In 1979, 'De oude Pauw' was sold for the realization of three new conference rooms and 25 double rooms, called 'de Goudfazant'. In 1994, this was expanded with sixteen double rooms in a new accommodation called 'de Nachtegaal'. In 1996, construction started on a large conference room with a foyer. This new building was given the name 'de Pauw'.
In 1999, another sixteen double rooms followed in a new accommodation called 'de Zwaluw'.
Vught
In 1928 - Willem's health was failing and he withdrew from the Coal Trading Association - the Van Beuningen couple moved to Huize Bergen, which had become vacant after the death of Charlotte's parents. They had often stayed there for long periods. In Vught, Willem immediately got back into socio-economic work and also into local politics. He bought the Bleyendijk estate, built new tenant farms there, helped the farmers through education and financial support, also bought the Leeuwenstein estate and had it converted into a beautiful town hall for Vught by unemployed but skilled craftsmen during the crisis.
Not far behind Huize Bergen there are still friendly low white houses with green roofs, built by the Van Beuningen couple in the 1930s. They also built in other districts of Vught. In each district a number of separate ground-floor retirement homes were built. The Charlotte Elisabeth van Beuningen Foundation, which housed the management of the homes, still initiates new projects to this day.
Mrs. Van Beuningen transformed the garden of Huize Bergen into a model garden with special flowers, orchid greenhouses and exotic succulents, a target for excursions from all over the country. The entrance fee she charged went to the Wit-Gele Kruis in Vught, of which she was the founder and vice-chairwoman, although she was Dutch Reformed. She was also involved in the food supply, the so-called spijskokerij, for the families of the unemployed. The construction of the beautiful park at the new town hall, which is still very popular for wedding photos, is a gift from her to the municipality.
Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group
It was in 1935 that Charlotte van Beuningen was introduced to the Oxford Group by a friend, a movement led by the American theologian Frank Buchman (1878-1961). He advocated living according to four principles: absolute honesty, purity, selflessness and love. Weekend conferences, so-called house parties, were organised everywhere. Charlotte was immediately impressed by Frank Buchman as well as by his ideas.
With the radical decisiveness that was her own, she committed herself to it from that moment on. Soon, dominant as she was, she became the organizer of the movement in the Netherlands. Buchman stayed at Huize Bergen several times. The large Whitsun conference of the Oxford group in Utrecht in 1937 was largely set up by Mrs. Van Beuningen. In 1938, this group was renamed "Moral Re-Armament", a worldwide movement, to which mainly people from the propertied classes felt attracted, especially large industrialists, but also people of nobility, leading political figures and scientists. The ideology of Moral Re-Armament had to form a counterweight to communism, as it were.
In the autobiography that Charlotte van Beuningen had written in her old age, A New World for Our Grandchildren (1969), the ideological side of Moral Re-Armament is only sporadically touched upon. She was not a theoretician, nor a reflective or ideologically minded woman. She was the active, practical type, who rolls up her sleeves, goes everywhere and helps where there is need, demanding as much of herself as of her co-workers.
The Second World War made international contacts within the Moral Re-Armament difficult and travel impossible. Charlotte then found the outlet for her social urge in making (or having made) food parcels for the prisoners in Camp Vught. Mrs. AL Cosquino de Bussy-van der Lely from Amsterdam had been given permission to bring medicine and food. Mrs. Van Beuningen managed to get that permission by talking to the camp commander herself.
Setting up a successful food supply organization that received cooperation from all over the country was a job that suited her perfectly. Every morning, a number of women and girls at Huize Bergen made sandwiches and put together packages, which were then taken to the camp by horse and cart.
Charlotte had immediately set up a committee for food aid, in which the then mayor of Vught, Mr. H. Loeff, was a member, as well as Mrs. Timminga-Hiemstra, Jan van de Mortel and Claudius Prinsen, the mayor of Breda in hiding, living in Vught under a pseudonym, and Sister Hulsman. Only later did official aid via the Red Cross, which originally only concerned itself with aid for soldiers, get underway in Vught. A few unpleasant questions of competence arose, but Mrs. Van Beuningen continued undaunted until the camp was closed.
In the last months of the war, Huize Bergen was requisitioned by the Germans to house General Student. The Van Beuningen couple could only enter their assigned room with a pass.
Post-War Moral Rearmament
Shortly after the Second World War, contacts between the people of Moral Re-Armament were resumed. On the initiative and at the expense of a few Swiss, the enormous, empty hotel Caux Palace was purchased in Caux, near Montreux, as a conference centre for Moral Re-Armament. In 1947, the first post-war conference was held there under the leadership of Frank Buchman. Mrs Van Beuningen repeatedly took her children, grandchildren, co-workers and many others to Caux. From that time on, she travelled all over the world with a large group of like-minded people, including a theatre company that promoted Moral Re-Armament. She was often away from home for months.
While traveling in the United States, Charlotte van Beuningen received news that her husband was seriously ill. He died in early July 1948. Shortly thereafter, Charlotte sold Huize Bergen to the diocese of Den Bosch, which turned it into a center for the youth movement. She went to live in Wassenaar at Berkenlaan 1, a house with 23 beds. With the knowledge of her children, she donated this house to the Moral Re-Armament. She herself rented two rooms there.
On the occasion of her 75th birthday, Mrs. Van Beuningen was appointed Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau. She had previously been awarded a medal from Queen Elisabeth for her work in the service of Belgian refugees in the First World War, the Cross of Merit of the Red Cross and an award from the Association of Ex-Political Prisoners for her social work. She continued to travel until a very old age and had herself driven to Caux.
Those who knew her well describe her as a great personality, literally and figuratively, a woman with a great sense of humor, who seized challenges, was generous and hyperactive. Aware of her position, she stepped forward where there was something important to be done and liked to take all the credit.
On 8 May 1972, in her presence, the portraits of Willem and Charlotte van Beuningen, painted by Arnoud Paashuis, were unveiled in the Vught town hall. Almost four years later, she died in Wassenaar.
Biography - Published on Sep 14, 2017 | Author: Nel Rogier
Sources
https://www.brabantserfgoed.nl/personen/b/beuningen-fentener-van-vlissingen-charlotte-van
Van Beuningen, C., A new world for our grandchildren, Amsterdam, 1969.
Brouwers, J., Much-needed aid. Material aid to the Vught camp, 1943-1944, Vught, 1996.
Van den Eijnde, J., Vught in the Second World War, Vught, 1994.
Conversations with: Mrs. D. Hintzen-Philips and Mrs. S. Homoet-Stuiveling. This article previously appeared in: J. van Oudheusden, ea (eds.), Brabantse biographies. Biographies of famous and unknown people from North Brabant. Part 4, Amsterdam/Meppel, 1996.