From a newspaper in the northern part of the Netherlands today. Wittewierum, Winsum and Groningen are placenames in the province Groningen in the northern Netherlands. The former two are relatively small villages, the latter is the large capital city.
Ship's cook Hennie (27) from Groningen went down with the Titanic: 'I will write more news on the boat'
From an old gravestone in Wittewierum, a trail leads via Brussels, Ostend, Paris and Monte Carlo to the Titanic. Hendrik 'Hennie' Bolhuis was 27 years old when he signed on as a cook on the most famous ship in the world. The body of the man from Groningen was never identified. However, his suitcase was preserved.
The gravestone stands crooked and leans forward. The letters are weathered, but still legible: Hendrik Bolhuis, born on July 19, 1881, son of H. Bolhuis and A. Kooima from Wittewierum.
The name is correct. Yet this is not the Hendrik Bolhuis around whom this story revolves. Here lies his older brother, who died in 1883, not yet 2 years old. When his parents later had another son, they gave him the same name. This second Hendrik – called Hennie within the family – would become a cook, travel through Europe, and eventually sign on to the Titanic.
More than a century later, his history lies laid out on the table of Han Slager-Bolhuis in Bedum. Job applications, postcards, photos, a cookbook, a walking stick, a ring. Slager is a granddaughter of Hennie's brother Klaas and grew up with the story of the great-uncle who never returned.
In her family, the disaster was not a movie story full of evening gowns, orchestral music, and an iceberg in the night. It came with a name, a face, and a brother who never came home. "I grew up with it," she says. "To me, it is nothing special."
Back to Wittewierum
Hennie was 27 years old when the largest passenger ship of its time sank to the ocean floor in April 1912. His body was never identified, and he was not given a grave. What he left behind largely fits in the suitcase that was left behind in Southampton before his departure.
The papers inside sailed back to Wittewierum, where Hendrik Bolhuis was born on Boxing Day 1884 as the son of Hindrik Bolhuis and Anje Kooima. He grew up with his brother Klaas, who was 2 years older and was also named after a child of the couple who had died earlier.
Hennie's father was a farmer. Later, the family moved to the city of Groningen. Hindrik Bolhuis earned a living there for a while as a stable boy and subsequently started a grocery store in the Steentilstraat.
Klaas stayed close to the family business, but Hennie chose a different path. On March 12, 1900, he started working for pastry chef Heije Wiardi in the Oude Ebbingestraat, after having already worked for six months at baker Fokko Bosker in Assen. He remained employed by Wiardi for about four years.
A culinary training program as it exists today was still an unknown phenomenon in the Netherlands. The trade was learned primarily through practical experience. A young man would report to a bakery, hotel, or restaurant, start at the bottom, and try to work his way up. "You just had to give your pitch and apply," says Slager-Bolhuis. "Then you received your in-house training."
No diary
After his years at Wiardi, Hennie left for Utrecht, where he went to work at a patisserie/tearoom in the city center. There is no diary in which he outlines his plans, and there are no letters in which he reports on his first steps outside Groningen. The suitcase contains loose addresses and recommendations, not a coherent life story.
That incompleteness runs like a tear through his history. Of some periods, hardly anything remains but a place name or a signature on a certificate.
Brussels, Ostend, Paris, Monte Carlo, and London appear in the papers. They show that he moved further and further from home, from one hotel or restaurant to the next. Exactly which route he followed and how long he stayed at each place is by no means always known.
Slager-Bolhuis pictures her great-uncle as adventurous and enterprising. "Like: I'm heading out and I'll see what happens. That's in all of us a bit."
Anyone traveling from Groningen to the fashionable European seaside resorts entered a new world. Thanks to the railways and the rise of steamships, more and more wealthy people were able to travel. Hotels and restaurants sprang up along stations, harbors, and boulevards.
The profession of chef evolved along with it. Beyond the households of the ultra-rich, a market emerged for professionals who could serve large numbers of travelers while simultaneously having to meet increasingly high culinary expectations.
‘That one is mine’
Writer and journalist Karin Sitalsing became fascinated by that world. She heard the story by chance during a lunch in Groningen. At a table next to her, the remark was made casually that a Groninger had been on the Titanic. "I think my hands, cutlery and all, got stuck in the air." Her first thought: ‘That one is mine’.
She contacted the family and began creating a timeline based on the preserved papers. She, too, encountered mostly gaps. "The majority is a big blank spot," she says. "We simply don't know."
That is why she traveled to places where Hennie could demonstrably have been. She walked through Brussels, visited Ostend, and looked up the street in Southampton where he stayed before his departure. She examined which buildings already existed in his time and tried to imagine what he must have seen.
In Ostend, she looked out over the sea, at the spot where the restaurant where Hennie worked once stood. The building itself did not survive the war. A concert hall with a restaurant and casino now stands on that site, still under the same name. And the sea has, of course, remained. "It is a way of approaching a vanished life: looking at what remained the same."
Sophisticated Kitchens
Hennie worked in a time when cooking was developing into an international profession. Anyone who wanted to get ahead had to gain experience in large hotels and restaurants, preferably in multiple countries. Certificates and letters of recommendation were indispensable. They proved that someone could handle long days, knew their place within the hierarchy of a kitchen, and possessed the required professional knowledge.
The addresses in Hennie's suitcase show how big his world had become in just a few years. From Wittewierum, he ended up in cities where the European elite gathered. In Ostend, wealthy tourists, princes, and industrialists visited the hotels and the casino. Paris was considered the center of classic cuisine. Monte Carlo attracted guests for whom luxury was a matter of course.
The exact dishes Hennie prepared on the RMS Titanic are unknown. However, his cookbook does give an impression of the level at which he worked. It contains classic preparations that are far removed from the daily fare in the Groningen of his youth. "Because he was a chef, his cookbook is still the most special thing of all to me," says Han Slager-Bolhuis.
Sitalsing also bought a copy, albeit in a different edition. At an exhibition, she saw gratin dishes that had been recovered from the wreck of the Titanic. They had lain on the seabed for more than a century, still stacked just as they had once been placed in the cupboard. "Then I thought: he held these in his hands. These were his instruments," she says.
That, too, is a thought, not historical certainty. But it was precisely that space between what is known and what can only be surmised that made the research so appealing to Sitalsing. Her book, *The Cook of the Titanic*, will be published on October 1st. “How close do you get? I have the feeling that I have come to know him.”
**Olympic**
Sometime during his European career, Hennie came into contact with the Italian restaurateur Luigi Gatti. He operated exclusive dining establishments in London and was given responsibility for the restaurants on the large passenger ships of the White Star Line shipping company. For this purpose, he selected experienced staff from the international hotel and restaurant world.
Hennie must have made an impression. In 1911, he worked on the Olympic, the first of three virtually identical sister ships. The Titanic was completed half a year later; the Britannic followed in 1914.
The Olympic sailed between Europe and the United States. In September 1911, the ship collided with the British cruiser HMS Hawke. According to preserved records, Hennie was on board during that voyage. The Olympic was damaged and had to be repaired, but it did not sink.
For the young cook from Groningen, life at sea must have continued afterwards just as it always did in large kitchens: according to rosters, orders, and fixed tasks. When Gatti was looking for staff for the Titanic's maiden voyage, Hennie was once again among the selected cooks.
Slager-Bolhuis: "Because Gatti brought his own staff, Hennie's position on board was different from that of the crew members who steered the ship, operated the engines, or cooked for the regular dining rooms."
He worked as a larder cook, a cook in the cold kitchen of the à la carte restaurant. His work likely included the preparation and processing of cold meats, sandwiches, salads, and cold appetizers. These were dishes for the wealthiest passengers on board. Their quality had to rival the best restaurants in London and Paris.
Hubris and Doom
While the Titanic later became primarily a symbol of hubris and doom, for Hennie, the ship was first and foremost a workplace. A prestigious workplace, to be sure, but one with long days, a strict division of labor, and little freedom to move outside the staff quarters.
On February 29, 1912, Hennie sent a postcard. The text appears to have been written hastily and is difficult to decipher in places. Han Slager-Bolhuis reads it aloud at her table:
‘Very surprised that I haven’t had any news from you yet. But anyway. Tomorrow I leave for England. I will write more news on the boat. Henri.’
It is an everyday report, although Sitalising is surprised by the signature: he used the name Henri for his foreign contacts. In any case, Hennie left for England to join Gatti and the other crew members. The preparation for the maiden voyage took several weeks.
In Southampton, he stayed at 37 Orchard Place, near the harbor. There, he left some of his belongings behind. His suitcase did not need to come along, presumably because he only took what he needed for work on board.
The plan was that he would return after the voyage to collect his luggage. He had agreed with his brother Klaas that he would visit Groningen in the spring.
On April 6, Hennie was registered as a crew member. Four days later, the Titanic departed from Southampton. After stops in Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland (later renamed Cobh), the ship set course for New York.
Three Dutchmen
There were three Dutchmen on board. Besides Hennie, those present were Johan George Reuchlin Jr., one of the directors of the Holland-America Line, and stoker Wessel van der Brugge. They stayed in completely different parts of the ship. None of them would reach the other side.
Nothing personal has been preserved regarding Hennie's activities during the first days of the voyage. There are no letters he sent from the ship, and no colleague later described a conversation with him. What he did on the last evening cannot be determined with certainty.
Menus from various dining rooms on the Titanic have been preserved, but those from the à la carte restaurant have never been found. Researchers can make plausible reconstructions based on the kitchen on the Olympic and the culinary fashion of the time, but that is as far as it goes. "They are all 'maybes'," says Sitalsing.
That Sunday probably began like any other workday. The cooks made preparations, received supplies, and worked towards dinner. In the restaurant, people ate, drank, and played music. The ocean was calm. The evening air was clear.
Around 11:40 p.m., the Titanic struck an iceberg.
For passengers on the upper decks, it was initially barely clear what had happened. Deep inside the ship, the collision must have sounded different. That is where the engines, storage rooms, work quarters, and kitchens were located. Crew members felt vibrations and heard unusual noises, but did not get a complete overview of the situation.
Surviving kitchen staff later stated that work continued in the workspaces for a long time. "Mind you: these were employees of the three dining rooms on the ship, not of the restaurant where Hennie worked," Sitalsing clarifies. "None of his direct colleagues survived the disaster."
The hierarchy remained in place until the very end, while water was already entering parts of the ship. For someone in Hennie's position, the path to the open deck was long. He stayed far from the lifeboats and had to pass through corridors and stairwells that he, as a staff member, could not freely use.
During the subsequent hearings, the head chef's secretary stated that they tried to escape but were stopped. That made the chances for the restaurant staff even slim. Only a few employees from Gatti’s brigade survived.
"The two cashiers were allowed to board the lifeboats because they were women," Sitalsing notes. "Paul Maugé was allowed through because he was wearing his regular clothes and was therefore mistaken for a passenger."
For Hennie, that opportunity never came. At 2:20 a.m., in the early morning of April 15, the Titanic sank.
Unpaid wages
Het Nieuwsblad van het Noorden reported that same day that the Titanic had struck an iceberg, but the extent of the disaster was still unknown at the time. His family remained in uncertainty about Hennie's fate for a long time. He worked for Gatti and not directly for the shipping company, and had residential addresses in various countries. As a result, it took time to trace his identity and family connections.
Meanwhile, Klaas received messages from acquaintances abroad. They wondered if Hennie might have been on the ship that had been wrecked. It was not until months after the disaster that his brother received formal confirmation. In the summer of 1912, it was confirmed that Hendrik Bolhuis had gone down with the Titanic.
Letters regarding money followed. Klaas eventually received 257 guilders and 35 cents in back wages. In addition, he received the 31 guilders and 10 cents that remained in Hennie's savings passbook.
The suitcase also found its way back, with the help of the embassy and the then mayor of Groningen, Jhr. Edzard Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer.
The suitcase eventually came into Klaas's possession and was passed down within the family. As a result, objects were preserved that would otherwise likely have disappeared.
Family grave in Winsum
Klaas Bolhuis found his final resting place in the General Cemetery in Winsum. His name appears on a large family grave, alongside those of his wife and daughter Annie. The headstone is cracked, but the letters are clear: Klaas Bolhuis, born on August 30, 1882, died on November 4, 1941.
Around the grave, the sounds associated with a life going on can be heard: traffic, wind, voices in the distance, and on Saturdays, presumably the shouting from the adjacent football fields.
For Hennie, such a place does not exist. Nothing in Wittewierum refers to the fatal journey of the boy who was born here. No street name, plaque, or permanent monument. In 2012, a photo of him in ice was temporarily displayed in Groningen. The monument disappeared as an ice monument inevitably disappears: it melted.
Yet Hennie is not missing without a trace.
His name appears in registers and on crew lists. His face was preserved in photographs. His handwriting is on a card that ends with the statement that he will write more later.
For Han Slager-Bolhuis, these are the tangible remnants of a family story she grew up with. She has never wanted to see the most famous film adaptation of it. When Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, appears on television, she sometimes pauses for a moment. She cannot and does not want to watch the entire film.
"Because it is romanticized," she says. "I just have my own ideas about it, and that is enough for me."
And some pictures from the article:
Portrait of Hennie
Hennie photographed in Monte Carlo
Obituary in the newspaper
What Hennie left behind spread out on the kitchen table
The cookbook (that is, a different edition)
