"What Shall I Be?"

Jacob Poulain 15 yrs 

At 14 yrs of age you had to pick a trade for instance either carpenter, baker, electrician or engineering I picked painting.  You had to do a 3 year course.  I was 15 years when I attended Ambacht Trade School where I achieved my diploma for Painting and Interior Decorating.  I lived in Wormerveer an industrial town with a population of approximately 6,000 people.  I would bike half an hour to the college in all kinds of weather sunshine, rain, hail or snow.  I had an uncle Wiebe Dykstera who had his own painting business, Wiebe married my fathers sister Jansje Poulain.  I did work for him after school and received a few dollars pocket money.  At one stage a school friend of mine, and I bought a tandem which is a  double bike, my mate fixed a little motor onto it, so we both went to school on the tandem which was much better than biking, it only lasted 6 months.  It was classed as a scooter and all our school mates were jealous as we brrrrrrrrrrrrrd past them on our tandem.  My brother Felicien attended the same school he learnt to be a baker but only lasted one year, he went onto to working in a timber mill, while he was at the bakery he would come home with some goodies, a packet of broken cookies and crumbs, we looked forward to these treats.  Our other brother Louis went to learn about working with steel he also lasted only a year and went onto a flour mill. Our younger brother Martin went to work for a gardener learning about gardening and landscaping, our young sister Hilda learnt about how to be a family care giver.