Introduction

At the age of 19 years I travelled to New Zealand (NZ); in 1964 I immigrated to New Zealand and have been a resident for 45 years. My love for my home village is expressed in my hobby of painting windmills from my mother-land.  Windmills have been in Holland for hundreds of years, at least since the 1600's. They are built on rivers and land where-ever there is wind. Where we lived in the Zaan (river) Streek (area) 'The River Area' before the age of electricity, there were approximately 900 windmills operating producing all sorts of products such as flour, cheese, timber, grain, mustard, water pumps and other products.  They were double story, the miller and his family often lived in the windmills. As soon as the wind arrived the call went out "All hands on deck!" and the workers arrived to work around the clock as long as the wind lasted.  My Belgium great grandfather Louis Poulain was a mason who made giant millstones that ground the grain. He was brought over during the hey-days of the windmills because of the shortage of qualified tradesman to make millstones. He died of lung poisoning because of the dust created by the grinding of the millstones.